Hadassah

by Tommy Tenney

  “I suppose you could call it that.”

  I suddenly found myself actually struggling to breathe. The twisted cross was no longer a distant memory, a fleeting symbol.

  It is growing closer. The panic felt like a rope about my neck.

  “So what do you want me to do?” I finally asked, my voice now leveled by a grim sense of resolve.

  “Win. That’s the best thing you can do. Win the King’s favor and become his queen. That is our only hope—for you, for your family and mine, for the Jews of Persia.”

  The stakes had now risen, I realized as I made my way back to my suite.

  29

  Finally the year-long preparation was coming to a close. I suppose it would sound jaded and ungrateful to say that I had grown weary of hour-long baths, massages, herbal treatments and cosmetics sessions. But I can say that if she must experience it every day, day in and day out for a year, a girl can grow weary of almost anything.

  By the end of that first year I was a different girl than the simple, wide-eyed commoner who had been brought into the Palace twelve months before. I walked differently. Talked differently. I looked different. I knew the special diet had given my body a leanness and maturity that radiated forth with every movement. I certainly smelled different. I had even begun to notice that Mordecai, who doused himself daily and whom I had always considered the height of refinement, now smelled earthy to my transformed nostrils. The truth is, it had taken me a whole year to reach Palace standards of readiness for the King. And the efforts had borne fruit.

  The candidates’ harem nearly throbbed with nervousness and anticipation of what came next. No one knew who would be called first; no one wanted to be that first girl, either. Rumors abounded, most of which only added to the fears and uncertainties.

  Those last months were filled with frantic scrambling for goals yet unmet—losing extra weight, choosing proper facial paint and hairstyle—and also selecting the wardrobe and accessories. Since every girl would be allowed to keep the accessories she wore that night, and since we had free rein of the royal treasury from which to make this selection, this last item ranked among the most hotly contested of the year.

  I did not attend the girls’ next field trip to the bounty room, but Jesse described for me the mad dash into the piles and racks of hanging necklaces, diamond earrings and rings captured from nations across the world. He chuckled as he told me of the clawing, the screaming, even a near stampede for one particularly long and thick strand of pure gold that hung from the neck of a marble mannequin.

  I stayed away because, as I’ve already indicated, I had a different plan. It consisted of wearing a simple gown and only one adornment. Having heard Hegai’s repeated descriptions of the King’s interests, I came up with the idea myself, then shared it with Hegai. His eyes lit up, and he laughed out loud. “His Majesty will be most pleased, I’m thinking.”

  Then he patted me on the back and strode off. I took his response as his vote of approval.

  I planned to enter wearing a simple silk gown of pale blue and a single piece of jewelry. And that I intended to leave behind as a gift—the means by which to remember my name.

  ROYAL BEDROOM—INNER COURT—SUSA

  King Xerxes of Persia threw back his third wine goblet, gulped down the remaining liquid and swore loudly. He had forsworn carnal relations for longer than he ever had since puberty, all in the hopes of being ready for tonight and the nights to follow with this new crop of candidates. Now he’d been forced to wait so long on the girl that in the meantime he’d surely drunk away his potency. She’d better be wonderful, he thought.

  “Is she coming?” His slurred shout echoed across the vast marble floor and seemed to rise into the towering ceiling.

  The twenty-cubit-tall door to his room opened and threw torchlight into the draped silk curtains of his bed’s canopy. Memucan entered. Neither the aide’s stride nor the rest of his body betrayed anything of his news. He reached the bed and glanced down at his hands, which clutched together seemingly of their own accord.

  “Your Majesty, the girl has become . . . ill.”

  “What?”

  Memucan suddenly adopted a paternal, indulgent expression. “She is very beautiful, I will attest, but she is sixteen and, I fear . . . a bit . . . delicate.”

  “So what is it—is she expelling her dinner at this very moment?”

  “No, your Majesty. That occurred a short while ago. It could just be her nerves getting the better of her.”

  “Well, unless she is in the middle of a seizure, I want her brought in here.” He hurled the goblet down to the floor, where it rattled loudly in the empty chamber. “Have guards carry her in if need be. My word, all she has to do—”

  “It shall be,” answered Memucan quickly; he then turned on his heel and left the room.

  Xerxes threw back his head onto the pillow and sent another long groan up into the heights of the room. He lay there until the light emerged again and two silhouetted figures tiptoed his way. His curiosity forced him to grudgingly raise his torso and swing his legs over the bed for a better view.

  The first thing he saw was reflections of light bouncing off gold. Was it some sort of golden scabbard advancing toward him? Xerxes furrowed his brow for a better look. Yes, a head did emerge from the cuirass of precious metal—a petite set of features framed by a large mass of brown hair. Memucan was right, he admitted almost reluctantly. She was beautiful.

  The girl reached the edge of the canopy ledge and looked up, her gleaming hazel eyes stretched wide in terror. The girl was clad from head to foot in golden necklaces, baubles and clasps.

  She bowed her head. “Your Majesty” came a small, breathy voice.

  “Memucan,” called Xerxes to the retreating sage. “From the look of things, I must be allowing the candidates to keep all the jewelry we put on them.”

  “Yes, your Majesty, although I would call it rather the jewelry they put on themselves.”

  Xerxes laughed noisily, enjoying the slight of treating the girl like she was not even present. “Yes, Memucan. I think you’re right.” He waved his advisor off and stood above the girl. He did not wish to be cruel to her, but the gall of piling on a fortune’s worth of jewelry and then adopting the whine of a wounded lamb thoroughly irritated him. “Approach me. What is your name?”

  “Olandra of Parthia, your Majesty,” she gasped out.

  “Well, Olandra, if you find me frightening now—”

  But as Memucan reached the door, the unmistakable sounds of the poor young thing being sick once more brought him up short, and in the end Xerxes watched in disgust as Memucan ushered her out the door.

  Because every candidate went to live at the permanent concubines’ house rather than the candidates’ harem after her first night, I did not see Olandra again. As a result it took several days for the news to filter back to us at her old home.

  How long she remained with Xerxes was a matter of some dispute, but the fact that she had been unceremoniously escorted on her way after retching on the bedchamber floor was a fact. (We also heard that he had ordered all her jewelry stripped from her and returned to the display room.)

  The news of this humiliating episode struck the candidates’ harem like a thunderbolt. Most of the girls had intended to employ a strategy quite similar to Olandra’s—to pile on the jewelry, slather on the cosmetics, lacquer their hair into an ornate sculpture and let Xerxes gape in awe at what a wondrous creation had found her way to him. He must not have been impressed, or would she not be given a second chance when she was over her illness?

  Olandra’s sorry experience confirmed to me that my plan was the correct one. So while the other girls gathered in huddles to reconceive their approach, I retired to my suite in order to work on the last part of my preparations, the one everyone seemed to be overlooking. The mind.

  As little as I knew about such matters, it might require more than just abject submission to ignite Xerxes’ passion, I reasoned. What about setti
ng his mind ablaze? Everyone was aware that he had enjoyed the services of the one-hundred-strong concubines’ corps for years; he must be accustomed to willing and compliant partners. Therefore, I gathered, sexual cooperation meant nothing. It would take all my youth, all my beauty and all my thinking processes and knowledge to give me a chance at being his queen. Toward that end I worked on my state of mind and my soul.

  I not only prayed for composure before the King but asked G-d to give me, when the time came, a freedom from fear and revulsion, or even an unquenchable desire for the man.

  At first the prayer had seemed misguided, even a little sacrilegious. First of all, enamoring a man who treated women as objects would be difficult at best. But it soon came to me that women like Olandra—by their attire and approach to the King—confirmed that they should be viewed only as objects. I found the avarice of it all a blatant abuse of the King’s generosity. Clearly, Xerxes was a difficult man, but just as surely, the unfortunate girl had done her part to antagonize him.

  My second misgiving concerned whether or not it was right to ask G-d for help in such matters. I had no idea. I carefully asked Mordecai on one morning’s walk, and he repeated that I was to perform in every part of my life with all the effort and excellence I had to offer. Anything less was an affront to YHWH and to His purposes for me. He reminded me again of the Sacred Texts of Solomon, especially the part where King Solomon with a thousand wives fell in love with the simplicity of a shepherd girl, and he advised me to follow its instructions concerning the marriage bed.

  So I continued with my plan. I held my image of King Xerxes from the banquet in the forefront of my mind at all times. Though the actual details of our physical contact remained hazy, as though someone had smudged the image with a moistened finger, I imagined being tenderly embraced by the King, returning his kisses.

  I found that soon I began to desire the King in a wide variety of ways: to crave his presence, his words, his trust—as well as that moment of our physical union. I could now spend hours thinking about bringing a smile to his face, melting his royal reserve, causing him to laugh. At just the time when most of my competitors found themselves dreading their night with him, I came to crave all of this with a longing I never knew I possessed. I had once felt the faintest stirrings of these emotions toward Jesse. Now I consciously steered them toward the man I hoped would fulfill my destiny to serve YHWH.

  One day Hegai stopped me in the hallway to give me the date of my night with the King. It was less than a week away. And as those final days passed, I began to count the hours like an impatient bride awaiting the return of a husband from war. I could feel the day waiting in front of me like a physical presence looming just beyond the horizon. The fervency of my prayers matched the fervency of my passion. Mordecai’s oft-repeated words circled through my mind with growing intensity. Who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

  30

  On the afternoon of my second-to-last day in the candidates’ house, I had my final hidden meeting with Jesse. I remember that although it was the middle of winter, it was one of the warmest days in months, with one of those piercing desert blue skies sprawling overhead. We sat on a pile of hay in the back of the garden. Jesse turned to me with one of the most tender expressions he had ever given me, laid a hand on my shoulder and asked how I felt about what was going to happen. After all, his ordeal was now a year behind him, but mine was just ahead. And so for the first time, I proceeded to tell him. I informed him that I had resolved to face my first night with as much competence as I possessed, that I did not understand what had brought me to this place, but that I believed G-d was going before me and had prepared me in every way for this night. And then, slowly, haltingly, I informed Jesse how well that resolve was working, how I was even looking forward—

  Jesse stood with a loud groan and stomped away toward the East Wall. I had naïvely imagined that he would respond as he had before when I’d delivered good news—unqualified support and encouragement.

  “Jesse! Where are you going?” I called toward his retreating back. But I received only a raised hand in reply as he broke into a run.

  I jumped to my feet and ran after him. It could not end this way. I wouldn’t let it. After all, should I fail to win the King’s favor, I might never see Jesse again. We could conceivably roam the vast spaces of the Palace for years without ever catching a glimpse of each other.

  I ran like I hadn’t run since that fateful morning when I had learned of his capture and become prey myself. I found him leaning against the wall, his head pressed into the stone.

  “What is the matter, Jesse? Did I say something to hurt you?” I gasped out, reaching my hand toward him. I met with the hardest part of his shoulder as my reception.

  He finally turned and stared at me as if I had uttered the most foolish question in the history of humanity. “If you don’t understand, then I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “And so we leave it at this?” I had to restrain myself from shouting. “After all these years, I go to face my greatest challenge without even a good-bye? Or an explanation?”

  He blinked and glanced down at his feet. “You know, Hadassah, you are so intelligent, but sometimes you can be so . . .”

  “Then enlighten me,” I encouraged when he couldn’t finish.

  He continued to speak toward his feet. “How do you think I feel, hearing you talk about feeling desire for this man? Knowing your innocence is about to be taken by the same man who stole my life, stole my chance at ever enjoying something I had dreamed of one day sharing with you?”

  My face suddenly felt like someone had poured hot water over it. How stupid, how self-centered could I be? I had grown so consumed with my quest for knowledge and victory that I had overlooked that early bond between Jesse and me. Yes, we had since become close friends—but now I saw that emasculation had not quenched his love for me. And I know now that I felt it, too; I had simply pushed those feelings from my mind out of sheer willpower.

  I softly took his hand and squeezed it hard.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I was so thoughtless.”

  He shook his head without ever facing me, his gaze still pointed down. “It’s all right, Hadassah. You know it is. Just don’t tell me any more details, all right?”

  It was my turn to nod soundlessly and fight back tears.

  “I’m doing this for us, Jesse, don’t you know?” I said with a voice rising beyond my control. “Not only Mordecai, your family or our people. You and I are the ones behind closed walls, just one mistake away from death. I’m doing this to win, and then I can have you placed on my personal bodyguard detail. We then can be together in some way, at least.”

  “Yes, but you would do it as his wife.”

  “Oh, Jesse,” I said and my eyes filled with tears. His wife, in Jesse’s sorrowful tone echoed over and over in my mind. Finally I was able to say, “You know the King and Queen do not spend all day together. I hear she joins him for an occasional dinner. The rest of the Queen’s time is spent in the company of personal staff.”

  He turned to me with a swiftness that frightened me. “Do you still believe in G-d?” he asked with a bitter twist of his features.

  “I didn’t a year ago. Not truly. But today I can tell you I couldn’t live a moment without Him. I feel His presence as strongly as I feel you right here and now.”

  “I wish I could say that. I wish—”

  “I know, Jesse. I don’t understand it, either. But I’m praying He does answer you. Both of us, for that matter. I don’t understand why I’m here. I only know that while I am in this place, He’s made himself more real than I’d ever dreamed He could. And that’s why I have the strength to do my best. I think He’s given you that same strength to do your best.”

  Jesse suddenly smiled as though he knew that would be my answer, then moved to my side and took the risk of openly draping his arm around my shoulder. Had anyone seen it, the obvious
affection between us would have caused an uproar—maybe costing me my candidacy and him his life. Yet we walked like that for several long minutes, not speaking, savoring the bittersweet tinge of each other’s company—sweethearts separated by less than a parasang of Palace grounds yet kept apart by the highest, most hopeless barriers our world could possibly erect between two human beings.

  I saw Mordecai on the day before my appointment with the King. I had never seen him so adrift—his eyes unfocused in their sockets, his hair jutting in every direction, his skin the pallor of Pentateuch parchment. I knew he was only nearing middle age, but today he looked like a very old man. He stared off toward the Palace and spoke rapidly in a halting and uncertain voice.

  “Hadassah? Are you—? I have done all I can. All I can for you. There is no more to be done but pray, no? Have you been praying, my dear? Have you steeped yourself in the presence of the Lord? Is the Shekinah with you, my little one?” He sounded more like a prophet than Poppa.

  I could not speak to him for fear of collapsing in tears. I nodded fiercely, then breathed in and out several times. Finally I could respond.

  “I have, Poppa. YHWH has drawn me especially close of late. I feel Him all around me. All the time.”

  “That is good. That is all the good I can hope for now.”

  “Come back for me, Poppa. I’ll find you here, even from the concubines’ house.”

  “You never know, dearest. You never know what old trick he’ll conjure up to keep you right next to him.”

  He looked away, squinting toward the Inner Court like he was its chief inspector. All to mask his tears.

  We prayed for strength and guidance, and then he clasped me again. I could tell over his shoulder, from the silent heaving of his chest and torso, that he was weeping as hard as I was. So I kissed him on the cheek, whispered the most confident good-bye I could and began to walk swiftly back to the harem.

  What I did not understand, my dear young maiden, is that even while I endured these poignant leave-takings, history-making events were taking shape in the halls only cubits away—developments centered on the man I would soon meet in his bedchamber.