by Wolf, Joan
The small oil lamp that she had told Luara to keep lit was still burning. Esther blinked her tears away and stared at it. The minutes went by and the lamp began to flicker. Was this how their love was going to end? Was it going to flicker out, like the lamp? She shut her eyes so she wouldn’t see it happen.
There was the murmur of voices in the corridor outside her room and Esther’s eyes flew open. She stared at the door, almost forgetting to breathe, she was willing so hard for it to open. Finally it did, and Ahasuerus came quietly in. He closed the door behind him, glanced at the flickering lamp and then at the bed. He said softly, “Esther? Are you awake?”
“Yes.” She pushed some pillows behind her back and sat up. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Nor could I.” He did not come over to the bed, however, but went to sit upon the stool in front of her dressing table, putting the whole width of the room between them.
“He is dead,” he said in a curiously flat voice. “I killed him.”
“I know, Ahasuerus,” she said softly.
“I didn’t even give him a trial.”
“It wasn’t necessary. He admitted his guilt.”
“I liked him so much.” He was still speaking in that same flat voice. He clasped his hands between his knees and stared down at them. “When I was newly appointed king in Babylon—I was so young, Esther, only eighteen!—Haman made himself my friend. He helped me, guided me through the intrigues the satrap set to catch me out. It was largely because of him that I was able to be successful there.”
“He revered you,” Esther said.
“I thought he did.” The note in his voice wrenched her heart. “Obviously I was wrong.”
“You weren’t wrong, Ahasuerus,” she said gently. “I remember the expression on his face when you drank the medicine that Xerxes told you Haman had poisoned. Love shone out of his eyes when he looked at you that day, my lord.”
“It wasn’t love.” His voice hardened slightly. “How can you say he loved me when he did such a terrible thing to me?”
She was quiet for a moment, thinking of how she should frame her reply. Finally she said slowly, “I think he was jealous, Ahasuerus. And jealousy can make a person do terrible things, things they would not normally dream of doing.”
“He had no possible cause for jealousy.” Ahasuerus raised his face so that the lamplight flickered off his hair and skin. “I made him my Grand Vizier, Esther! I gave him the highest post in the empire. Whom could he have been jealous of?”
“I have been thinking about this ever since I learned of his plan, my lord.” She rested her arms on her up-drawn knees and leaned toward him. “He was jealous of me, for one. I never understood why he disliked me, but now I think it was because he saw that you cared for me, and he was jealous. I think he came to be so jealous of Uncle Mordecai that he was pushed into doing this dreadful thing.”
She could see his puzzlement from all the way across the room. “Why would he be jealous of Mordecai? Because I made him my Head Treasurer? But Haman was still his superior, Esther.”
“I don’t think Haman was interested in political power, my lord. It was Ahasuerus the man he cared about. He saw that you liked Uncle Mordecai, whom he considered his enemy, and he was jealous.”
“By all the devils in the underworld, was I to like no one but Haman?”
She sighed. “I think that is exactly what he wanted, my lord. He wanted to be the sun in your life, the only one you trusted. And Uncle Mordecai’s being a Jew made it that much worse. There is no trust between the Jews and the Edomites.”
“But to send out such a decree! He must have been mad.”
“I think he probably was, my lord,” she said somberly.
For a long moment he said nothing. Then, abruptly, he put his face in his hands. His aching voice came from behind his cramped fingers. “He was the last person I would have ever thought would betray me.”
The pain in his voice broke her heart. She got out of bed and crossed the distance between them to stand close before him as he sat there on her dressing table stool. She didn’t touch him but searched for words that might bring him some measure of comfort. “He wouldn’t have seen it as a betrayal, my lord. He would have thought he was protecting you. I think right and wrong were all twisted up in his mind.” She looked down at his bowed, burnished head and said quietly, “Ahasuerus, none of this was your fault.”
He reached for her blindly, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his face into the hollow of her neck. “I killed him, Esther,” he groaned. “I killed him.”
He was shivering. She held him close and rested her cheek against his smooth hair. She felt his anguish and his sorrow resonate in her own being, but all the while a part of her rejoiced. He had not turned away from her in his hour of need, and that knowledge was ineffably sweet.
She felt something hot and wet soak into her nightgown and gathered him even closer. “There was nothing else you could have done. He had committed an unpardonable crime.”
“That doesn’t make it feel any better.”
“I know, my love. I know.”
The baby kicked. He felt it and lifted his head, heedless of the tears streaming down his face. “What was that?”
There were tears in her own eyes, but she smiled through them. “Your son. Or daughter, as the case may be.”
He reached up a hand and laid it gently on her stomach. The baby kicked again, and Ahasuerus smiled. “Life,” he said.
She put her hand over his. “Yes.”
“Esther . . .” He looked up into her face.
“I am so sorry, my lord. I did not want to continue to deceive you about my identity, but I was afraid to tell you. I was afraid you would be so hurt, so angry that I had lied, that you would turn away from me.”
They looked at each other, their hands still clasped on her stomach. “I could never turn away from you,” he said. “I could not bear the loneliness if I did that.”
“I feel the same way,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes and rested his head against her once more. “Hold me, Esther,” he said.
As she wrapped her arms around him and buried her lips in his hair, she closed her own eyes and thought, Thank You, Father in Heaven. Thank You for giving me back my husband.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
It is always a challenge when an author takes a familiar story, whether it be myth, legend, or well-known biblical material, and decides to turn it into a novel. Most of the time, in order to produce an effective novel, it is necessary to rearrange some of the original material. I have long thought that the Book of Esther would make a wonderful love story. The elements are all there: the exotic setting of the Persian Empire; the Cinderella story of this little Jewish girl becoming the queen of the Great King of Persia; the amazing conclusion where she intervenes with her husband to save her entire people from annihilation. What could be more romantic?
But novelists have rules that do not govern other kinds of writing. A novel must create believable, reasoning characters who drive the action. As E. M. Forster famously put it: “The king died and then the queen died is a story. . . . The king died and then the queen died of grief is a plot.” To turn the Book of Esther into a novel, I had to give the characters humanly understandable reasons for acting as they did. Haman had to have a reason for hating Mordecai so much; Mordecai had to have a reason for sending his niece to the King of Persia’s harem; Esther had to have reasons for doubting her uncle’s dream; Ahasuerus had to have reasons for picking such a socially unsuitable girl to be his queen. For all of the above reasons, I felt it necessary to tinker a bit with the Esther story as it is presented in the Bible.
Another thing a novelist must be cognizant of is pace. A plot needs to keep moving, so in some places you will find that I have telescoped time in order to achieve a more dramatic and suspenseful effect.
Then there is the issue of the historical background of the novel. Historically, there is no king called Ahasuer
us. The king who followed Darius was his son by Atossa, Xerxes. The years of the beginning of Xerxes’ reign, which lasted from 486 BC–465 BC, is the time setting for Esther, when the vast Persian Empire stretched from India to Turkey. Xerxes took the throne four years after the Persian defeat at Marathon in Greece, and I used this historical background to give motivation to some of Ahasuerus’ actions. Ahasuerus, you will have noticed, is a far more admirable character in the novel than the king in the Bible. Since I was writing this story as a love story, clearly the hero had to have some good qualities that would make Esther fall in love with him.
Where the Bible story and the novel come together is in the underlying premise. God has a plan for the world, and He works His plan through the actions of humans. The big question is, will we allow God to work through us? God wants us to be His partners, but we have the free will to accept or refuse His challenge. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, all of God’s people must listen to His voice and open their hearts for Him to use us for His purposes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am tremendously indebted to my wonderful agent, Natasha Kern. Her faith in this book was so strong that it empowered me to keep working on it. I must also give thanks to my editor at Thomas Nelson, Ami McConnell, whose suggestions helped shape the character of Esther. Finally, thanks are due to my wonderful husband, Joe, who has always been the wind beneath my wings.
READING GROUP GUIDE
1. The king’s banishment of Vashti is the catalyst for the contest that brings Esther to his attention. How does the shadow of Vashti hang over Esther for the remainder of the book?
2. Do you think Mordecai can really love his niece and at the same time ask her to do something that is so opposed to everything she believes in?
3. It takes a long time for Esther to accept the role that has been thrust on her. What are the steps she must take before she arrives at her decision to stand up for her people?
4. Esther finds herself caught between her love for her husband and her responsibility to her God. Can such a struggle happen in today’s secular world?
5. In the Bible, Haman stands for pure evil. His only motivation is his hatred of the Jews, which is never quite explained. It is a given. How does the novel try to expand Haman’s motivations to greater complexity? Do you think Haman’s actions are believable, given the context of the novel?
6. Does Haman in any way pre-figure Judas?
7. At the beginning of the Book of Esther, the Jews have become in danger of assimilating into the Persian culture and forgetting their special mission from God. Is that happening to Christians today?
8. For Jews the celebration of Purim reminds them that with the gift of survival comes responsibility. Wherever injustice and hatred exist in the world, Jews are called to speak up and lead the call for justice. Does the same call apply to Christians?
9. Does Haman’s plan to destroy the Jews remind you of the Holocaust? Why do you think the Jews have been the target of such hatred over the centuries?