Hadassah

by Tommy Tenney

  Am I a prisoner? came the lingering question. I didn’t exactly feel like one; the room certainly did not seem like a cell. And yet I definitely was here against my will. Maybe the next hour or two would tell.

  I turned back to the room, aware that sleep was over for now. Walking to the entrance, I tried the handle of the door and pushed it open silently. The hallway was spacious and cool with that airiness unique to stone spaces. I tiptoed out to an open-air courtyard filled with small trees and an enclosed smaller pool. The place’s stillness and elegant beauty at this hour took my breath away. The golden light was kissing the walls’ pale olive and the water’s cool blue depths with all the richness of a painting. I had never seen such a serene and beautiful sight. Circling the pool, I came to a large open room filled with couches and tables. Empty, overturned wine goblets and rhytons were strewn across the furniture and floor. I turned away and returned to my room.

  And then I remembered Mordecai’s final words. Meet me at the East Gate! And I knew what I had to do next.

  22

  It was no great feat to escape the house itself. I had only to grasp the lip of the bedroom window, pull myself up, scoot over the sill, then jump down to the other side. Once there I stood perfectly still for a long moment, trying to acclimate myself to the new acoustics and listen for any disturbance I might have aroused. I heard only soft breeze through the leaves before me and a slight lapping from the nearby pool. I peered out through the foliage, trying to gauge where my greatest risk of detection would be. Would this compound have its own guards? Or were they all at the outer gates?

  I saw nothing, so I tiptoed ahead, keeping to the shade nearest the wall. My next task was to determine in fact where east was. I noted the location of the sun, then glanced outward to the mountainous Palace halls I had visited so recently and tried to make out the King’s Gate, which I knew to be the southernmost part of the Palace. Of the three highest rooftops, I chose the closest, as it was from the King’s Gate that I had first glimpsed the harem compound.

  Since that shape was southernmost, and the other rooftops lay on a north-south axis, and the sun was in front of me, I realized that east lay behind me, beyond the harem buildings. I continued to follow the wall until I knew I had come to the back side, then plunged forward into the garden foliage. After fighting my way through a thicket of lush bougainvillea, I reached an old gate that opened onto yet another structure. Its low roofline blended almost completely into the rich garden canopy. I avoided coming too close by staying on my side of the gate and darting from one palm trunk to another. I could not keep from peeking around, though, and what I saw brought me to a sudden and complete halt. A dozen young men stood under a loud stream of running water that cascaded from a corner of the roof. They were naked and tied together at the ankles by a thick wet rope. I thought I saw red rivulets in the stream trickling away from their crude bath.

  I looked away, my virginal curiosity overcome by the gruesomeness of what my mind was telling me. These were the new eunuchs, I realized. Jesse would probably be one of them—if not one of the bathers, then one of their companions inside. I shuddered and, feeling faint, slowly moved away on my quest to reach Mordecai.

  I slipped as silently as I could toward my calculations of east. A row of bright golden flowers flanked me for a while, nearly as tall as my waist. I passed through the shelter of a small apple orchard, then squeezed through a hedge on its far side. I finally shook my head, amazed. How large was this Palace? Besides the largest buildings in the world, how many forests, how many gardens and enclosed buildings could it possibly encompass?

  Suddenly I found myself standing face first against the Palace wall itself. Finally, the end of it. I turned left, then right. Which way was the East Gate? I gambled on right and began to hurry. The sun was now setting, and the protecting shadow a small comfort. But I could picture an alarm being given for the escaped Jewish girl, packs of heavily armed soldiers stalking the gardens for my tracks. I had to get to the gate.

  Up ahead, the wall was broken by a thick column and a wide gap. I sighed in relief. The East Gate. I tiptoed up to the column and peered around. From my narrow view through the iron bars I saw a flash of white tunic and burlap bag. Merchants and shoppers going about their final business of the day. No soldiers; but I could see only the farthest end of the gate’s aperture.

  I decided to take the chance. I slipped around, looked through the bars and, instead of a soldier’s, the face that greeted me was Mordecai’s, looking worn and tired. It was clear that he had been standing there since I had been taken, on the chance that I would come. He cried out at the sight of me and rushed to the gate.

  “Hadassah! Are you all right?” He was weeping.

  I could not form a response; indeed, from my very sight of him I was undone. A loud sob ripped forth from the bottom of my lungs as I leaned forward to take hold of his outstretched hands through the bars. It was more than crying—what overwhelmed me was a mixture of weeping and shouting for joy. I grasped his fingers and covered them with kisses and tears. I felt as though I had not seen him in years. Just being close to him, drinking in his person, his nearness, seemed like the most refreshing spring water to a desert wanderer. I had a flash backward in time to that conversation with old Jacob, when he described the young child so overjoyed at the sight of his father.

  “I’m fine, Poppa,” I finally managed. “Hegai the chamberlain is a very nice man and the quarters are quite comfortable. I have no complaints.”

  A semblance of reassurance seemed to come over him when he heard those words. Then he thought of another concern. “Have you met any of the other girls, Hadassah? What are they like?”

  “None of them yet, Poppa. I have been here only a short time.” And hearing myself say those words brought rushing back the fact that I was to stay here for the rest of my life. My composure collapsed in an instant. “Can you get me out?” I pleaded. “What can you do, Poppa Mordecai? You’re a Palace worker.”

  He shook his head and tears began again to stain his cheeks. “This is a royal edict, Hadassah. I have made inquiries. I think I can walk past the front of the harem every morning and we can talk, but that is all. Other than that, nothing is to be done. Nothing, that is, except to bear this fate like a worthy child of Israel.”

  “You mean I’ll never go home? I’ll never sit down to dinner with you again?” My weeping seemed to twist the sound of my speech into the parody of a whining toddler, but I did not care. I reached forward to touch Mordecai’s hair as I said it; he did nothing to resist, for he was in tears as thoroughly as I was.

  “I’m afraid so, my love,” he said, the last words nearly unintelligible over his sobs. At length he gained control of himself and cuffed me lightly behind the neck.

  “Do you remember the things I told you?” he asked, looking directly into my eyes.

  “Of course. Of course I do.”

  “Please. Swear to me you’ll follow them as though your life depended on it. Because you know it does.”

  “All right. Yes, I will,” I said with penitence in my voice. Suddenly the things I had once rebelled against at home had become precious icons of all I stood to lose. “I swear, Mordecai. I swear it to you. In fact, I have already done one thing.” I lowered my voice and looked quickly around. “When they asked for my name, I realized that Hadassah is Jewish, and so I gave another one. For some reason all I could think of was my medallion necklace. I told them my name is Star. If you need to find me for some reason, that is how I am known. Star of Susa.”

  He nodded wistfully. “A wise decision, my dear. I should have thought of that myself.” Then he, too, looked about him anxiously. “Go, my precious one. And when you can, meet me in the courtyard across from your building. Early morning is the best, and I can go from there to my work. If I am kept from the actual Palace grounds for some reason, look for me here in the evening.”

  I nodded through a fresh flow of tears and leaned through the bars to kiss him on the che
ek. As he walked out of sight, weeping, I pushed my arm through the bars and called after him like the wife of a condemned man. I shouted his name through sobs until finally, just at the edge of my vision, he turned around, his face as shiny as a rain-slick stone, and lifted his hand in blessing.

  My return trip, undertaken through a cascade of tears, seemed to take but a fraction as long as the earlier trek. This time I circled as far as possible around the male compound and kept to the thickest bushes. In but a few minutes I was walking back to the courtyard pool as though I had just stepped away for a moment of solitude. A familiar male voice sounded behind me.

  “Star, right? From what I hear, an ill-timed walk is what landed you here in the first place.”

  I turned to the sight of Hegai, resplendent in a white silk tunic that seemed to magnify the setting sun. “I am told I ought to be grateful to have landed here, as you say,” I answered.

  “And well you should. This is the beginning of a wonderful life for you, or it can be if you let it. Women all over Persia dream of living in the royal harem. No annoying husbands, no burdensome children or families to feed and clothe and clean up after every hour of the day. Instead, a life of leisure and luxury unimagined. Every once in a while, a night of passion with the most powerful man in the world. Who would not be grateful?”

  I looked at him and tried to give him the best answer I could without surrendering my dignity. “You are indeed persuasive, noble Hegai. I shudder to think what this harem would consist of without your convincing oratory.”

  He smiled knowingly. “You have a point, young Star. I do my best to lighten morale. As I always say—puffy eyes and tear tracks never did anything to enhance a woman’s beauty. But somehow—“ and at that he paused and gave me a deeply piercing look—“I don’t think that will be a problem for you. You are a very beautiful and poised young woman, my dear—oh, and now, what is your real name?”

  His question seemed to quiver between us in the morning air like some sort of raindrop suspended in mid-flight. I made a decision—probably not the wisest of my life, but in the long run, one of the most fortuitous.

  “I would rather not say, sir.”

  “It will remain a secret between us. I promise. And my dear, if you have not guessed yet, no one in the world knows more about keeping secrets than a royal eunuch.”

  “All right. It is Hadassah. It means ‘myrtle.’”

  “Hadassah.” He said the word and looked up into the sky, searching his memory. Then he nodded and fixed me with a satisfied grin. “Jewish. You are a child of Israel.”

  “Please tell no one, sir. I simply cannot allow my origins to become a matter of common knowledge.”

  “Why? Jews are well respected, even revered, throughout the kingdom.”

  “By His Majesty’s government, yes. But we have enemies everywhere, sir. My own family was murdered by a group of marauders. I have lived in fear and seclusion most of my life. Please, sir. I would like to present myself as a modern Persian woman. Nothing more.”

  He pursed his lips in thought and nodded toward the ground. “All right, Star. Your real name and race are forgotten.”

  “Oh, except for one thing, I’m sorry to ask.”

  “What is that?”

  “My diet. My adoptive father has begged me to remain true to our dietary laws. I wonder if you might speak to the kitchen staff about making one or two small additions to your menu that I may obey his wishes. Nothing radical, sir. Just a few dishes that will actually improve the health of anyone who shares them.”

  “Your request is granted, my dear. My dear young ‘Persian’ woman,” he agreed with a slight emphasis on my assumed nationality.

  23

  And this, my dear Queen candidate, brings me to one of my strongest instructions for you. If my story has struck the least chord of sympathy within you, then I urge you to heed this advice.

  If you want to gain the King’s favor, listen to the Chamberlain.

  You will be given a gatekeeper, a person who knows intimately the King and whose favor will do much toward gaining that of His Majesty. Listen to this person, for he speaks in the King’s stead. He knows every one of the King’s preferences and tastes. Heed his admonitions as well as you heed mine—or better. Seek his counsel, then follow it as if your life depended on it—for it may indeed be so.

  It was in my case.

  You may say that’s fairly elementary advice. But of hundreds of girls who came to Xerxes’ harem when I did, I was the only one who lived by this axiom. Nearly every other candidate allowed the luxury and stature of living at the King’s Palace to go to her head. For many of them, the intoxication of incredible luxury eventually overcame the fear and anger at being taken. For others, having defeated high odds and already been recognized as the most beautiful in their districts made them think of themselves as having arrived exalted and exempt from the normal rules and dynamics of human courtesy. Among other things, many began to treat Hegai as some sort of personal footservant. Some of them were daughters of nobility, whose sense of superiority and privilege now raged unchecked. Their families’ hopes of royal accession rested on their shoulders, so these girls knew no bounds of ambition and treachery in the pursuit of their goals. What all these young women from various backgrounds and levels of social standing had in common was inexperience—we all were virgins.

  And Hegai, ever the wise one, did not bridle or openly protest this uncalled-for treatment—although in the Palace hierarchy he was far more influential than any of us. He merely dropped the girl who acted this way from his list of favorites. And just as quickly, her chance of becoming queen effectively ended. The girls had no idea, of course. They were too wrapped up in their own elation to even notice they had fallen from any sort of standing. They simply went about their indulgences and chased after the esteem of the other girls—the last group from whom a prudent person would ever seek approval.

  Even though Hegai was not a follower of YHWH, I found him over the months to be a wise and principled man. Every morning for weeks, a group of girls newly arrived from some far-flung province would meet their first dawn as Queen candidates in the harem. He would gather them by the pool and give them the same speech I had heard on my first morning.

  He would stand by the water, adopt a nurturing, grandfatherly expression and say, “Young women, if I do not stray badly from the truth, I would say that each of you is experiencing a wide, even conflicting set of feelings right now. Exhilaration. Fear. Alienation. Homesickness. Anticipation. Loneliness. Joy. And probably a dozen other possibilities I have not named. If I can, let me heighten the joyful emotions among those. You have just become part of a highly select group, the most beautiful virginal young women in the entire Persian Empire. And if the Greek women I have seen are any indication, you are the most beautiful young women in the entire world.”

  Invariably, a modest patriotic cheer would go up at those words. Nothing, in those days of war, could stoke the fires of a dutiful young Persian like some slighting reference to the Greeks.

  Soon, his comforting, reasonable tone and his words would quietly begin to dry teary eyes and settle anxious hearts. “And because of your youth and beauty, and maybe some other qualities that we will discover in the weeks and months ahead, you have a chance to be selected as the new queen of this whole empire.” He would smile and say, “You may think I’ve been nice to you because it’s my duty—actually, I’m being nice because one of you will be my queen someday, and I’d like to keep my head right here on my shoulders.”

  This time laughter, albeit somewhat nervous.

  “Remember that you are not concubines, at least yet, and no one is allowed to treat you as such. You are Queen candidates, every one of you. Now, here is what your next twelve months will consist of. You will be immersed in the most complete regimen of luxury and indulgence any woman has enjoyed in the history of the human race. You will be fed the finest, richest foods Persia can offer. In a few moments you will be given a lar
ge supply of rare cosmetics from India, Lebanon and Egypt. For six moon cycles, you will be pampered with treatments of myrrh, the King’s favorite essence. When you have been so thoroughly soaked in myrrh that you secrete its fragrance through your very pores, then will come six additional months of treatment with a wide assortment of spices from around the world. How does that sound?”

  And then, invariably, would come the loudest, most sincere cheer of the day.

  “At the end of that year, we will begin the process of selecting each of you for a night spent in the King’s bed. That night, you can choose any garment, any amount of jewelry you wish to wear in with you. The decisions will be entirely your own. At the end of the night, whatever the King’s ultimate choice may be, the jewelry and the clothes you wear are yours to keep. And should you not be chosen, you will take them with you to the concubines’ harem, across the Palace courtyards. There I will help you adapt to the life of a Palace concubine—one of the most envied and luxurious lifestyles in Persia today. Should you be chosen as Queen, the royal bride—and I presume one of you will—then, well . . . there is no limit to the power you will wield—except the King’s.”

  More clapping and cheering, after which the group would break up for a breakfast of rich baked goods and roasted sweetbreads. I routinely stayed away from such breakfasts, opting instead for a small pitcher of water and a few oranges from the orchards.

  It turned out to be no difficult task keeping the dietary laws; I simply followed the habits Rachel had instilled in me most of my life. With the noon meal and dinner, the girls were served a sweet wine made from honey. The concoction obviously earned their rapid allegiance, but since I knew such a drink would never find its place in Mordecai’s household, I avoided it. At first I had anticipated facing some scorn from my fellow candidates, but as it turned out no one ever noticed what color liquid was in my goblet or the fact that I had not approached the wine table.