by Dara Horn
One warm evening after Rachel had completed her rounds of the city, along with a visit to the tunnel, she went up to the roof of the house to collect the laundry that had been put out to dry. She noticed Zakkai seated on the ledge of the stone roof, his head bent toward a scroll in his lap. He had become a fixture in the house, like an awkward piece of furniture for which there was never enough room. He didn’t look up. She ignored him and began taking down the laundry as she thought of Elazar, blood humming through her veins. She imagined the rush of joy as he came around the curve of the tunnel, trying to relive it as dry linens flapped in her face. Was there any reason that it couldn’t last forever?
“Urim and tumim,” Zakkai chanted, “urim and tumim.” At first she thought he was just reading aloud, an annoying scribal habit. But then she heard him mutter, “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Rachel sighed, and finally put down the blanket she was folding. “It’s a curse,” she said.
Zakkai glanced up, startled. “What?”
“The oracle, the signs in the high priest’s breastplate. You were right, it’s not light. It’s a curse. It doesn’t make sense the other way.”
Zakkai looked bewildered. It occurred to her that he had never heard her speak before. His mouth hung slightly open.
“ ‘Light’ and ‘truth’ aren’t opposites,” she continued. “What would it tell anyone, if the high priest were just throwing dice for ‘light’ and ‘truth’? How would that show anyone anything about God’s judgment?”
Zakkai was staring at her now, brushing his thick hair away from his eyes. There was something sweet about him, she noticed, an innocence in his face. “Your father said there was no point in asking about things like that,” he said.
“My father can be wrong,” Rachel smiled. “And I thought it was a good question.”
“Girls in Tekoa don’t ask questions,” Zakkai murmured.
The words seemed rude, but Zakkai was watching her, marveling.
“This isn’t Tekoa,” Rachel answered. “In any case, it was your question, not mine. And it was worth asking.” She placed a folded cloth into her basket.
He looked at the laundry, then at her. His clothes were old and dirty, she noticed, or perhaps she was spoiled by Elazar’s rich white robes. Zakkai’s eyes were hungry, starved for affection. She felt a sudden desire to reach for him, to do something kind.
“Your robe needs to be washed,” she told him gently. “I can clean it for you if you like.”
Zakkai clutched his scroll. Affection was so rare that it confused him. “Now?” he asked.
She smiled. This boy was so honest, so innocent. Elazar could eat him alive, she thought. An urge rose within her to be more like Elazar, to prove something to him, even if he was only present in her mind. “Yes, now,” she said to Zakkai with a grin, and put out a hand. “I’ll clean your clothes for you right now. Just take them off and give them to me.”
Zakkai stumbled to his feet, and glanced anxiously at his sleeves. “But—”
Rachel laughed out loud. “I was joking,” she said.
Zakkai’s tan skin turned a dark red as he stared at the roof’s floor. Rachel felt as though she had just dropped a jug of water in the summertime, life spilled on dry earth.
“I guess girls in Tekoa don’t joke either,” she tried.
She tried to smile at him, but the boy had lowered his eyes. “I was the butt of every joke in Tekoa,” he said.
Rachel looked down at her feet, shame seeping through her hands as she folded another cloth. She watched him as he lowered himself back down to sit on the ledge, twisting his scroll in his hands. “In Tekoa, if you can’t pull a plow or tell exactly when an olive is ripe, you’re nothing,” he said. “After my grandfather died, I was the only person within a three days’ walk who could read.” He looked at the scroll in his lap. “I wish I had been born a priest. Then maybe there would be some purpose to knowing what I know. But my only purpose now is to pay off my brother’s debts.”
A wave of heat passed through Rachel, burning her cheeks. Sometimes I can’t stand being at the Temple, she heard Elazar repeat in her mind. Why wasn’t anyone born as who they should be? She looked at the sad young man before her. Suddenly the strange thought crossed her mind that perhaps he wasn’t just a man, but something more than human, a messenger of some kind, whether from another world or from the future, placed here on this roof as some kind of test. The evening had turned still, the laundry hanging motionless as though time had ebbed to a stop.
“You’re here now,” Rachel said, “and you’re asking good questions.”
Zakkai smiled a small sad smile, his face illuminated by the setting sun. “So maybe it’s a blessing that I wasn’t born a priest,” he said, “because priests don’t ask questions. That’s something they have in common with girls in Tekoa.”
Rachel’s skin crawled as she folded more cloth. Zakkai shook his head quickly, as if emptying out an impossible thought, and opened the scroll in his lap. “So it should be arurim, not urim,” he said, “with an extra letter reysh. I’ll fix it.”
Rachel put her basket down on the ledge beside him. “Don’t fix it,” she said.
He looked at her again. “Why not? You told me you thought that was right.”
“That doesn’t mean you should change it. Why not change the next word too, and the next and the next, and explain it all?”
“Well, why not?”
“Because then you’re taking away the questions,” Rachel said.
Zakkai was still watching her, but Rachel suddenly felt the floor burning beneath her feet. She pulled down the last of the laundry and hurried down into the house. As she left Zakkai behind, she was surprised to find herself filled with a deep and strange foreboding—as though she had sensed something behind a curtain, something large and still and eternal.
ZAKKAI WAS CURIOUS; questions kept him up at night. When Rachel would return in the evenings after her deliveries were done, her body still singing and her feet still damp from the cold water in the mountain, he somehow managed to be wherever she was, following her around the house as she carded wool or mended clothes, asking more and more questions.
“Do you think God really needs sacrifices? Why does the creator of the world need so many dead goats?”
“I don’t know, Zakkai.”
“When the text says ‘Don’t cook a kid in its mother’s milk,’ wouldn’t it make more sense to say ‘Don’t cook a kid in its mother’s fat’? ‘Fat’ and ‘milk’ are spelled exactly the same. You know how to cook. Isn’t meat usually cooked in fat?”
“Maybe, Zakkai.”
“The prophets I’m copying now keep saying we’re supposed to destroy idols. So why aren’t we destroying the Roman ones?”
“Because we’d be crucified, Zakkai.”
“When God tests Abraham by telling him to sacrifice his son, but then God stops him, does that mean Abraham passed the test, or failed?”
“Ask my father, Zakkai.”
“Did you ever notice that when you read the same book again and again, the book doesn’t change, but you do?”
“Not until now, Zakkai.”
“Why do you always come home so late, Rachel?”
“You’re annoying me, Zakkai.”
Zakkai slept in the wine cellar with the house slaves, but when Rachel’s last sister married and Rachel’s bed was suddenly hers alone, he began to peek into her alcove at night, watching her sleep. She wasn’t sleeping, of course, only pretending, sweating on sheepskin as she thought of Elazar. Zakkai would draw back the curtain, watching her. With Elazar she felt alive in every limb of her body, molten silver flowing through her veins. But in this darkened room under Zakkai’s silent gaze, she felt strangely removed from her body—as though Zakkai were not looking at her, but reading her, like one of her father’s scrolls. She rolled toward the wall and continued not sleeping, her skin inscribed with imaginary words.
Zakkai was honest; he never touched
her, though her parents slept deeply; no one would have stopped him. The house slaves gossiped. He surely knew what people in the city thought of the wild Daughter of Azaria, knew why she was still unmarried, knew why her parents had failed to find a man for her, knew, standing at that curtain, that he could have done as he pleased. Zakkai was holy; he would never touch a woman without a contract. Zakkai was indispensable; it was Rachel’s father who thought of the ingenious way to keep Zakkai in his household even after his debts were repaid. Zakkai was respectful; he made sure that Rachel herself said yes, though he failed to see that there was no realistic possibility of her saying no. When the marriage contract was signed and the dowry handed over, her father was overjoyed, her mother relieved. Rachel put on her bridal veil as though it were a shroud. Zakkai was wise; when she failed to bleed in the bridal chamber, Zakkai said nothing. And when she failed to bleed in the weeks after that, Rachel said nothing. Except to Elazar.
They met in the tunnel less often now, even though Elazar had still managed to evade his father’s proposals of the daughters of other priests; he was young, and a boy, and could avoid choosing a bride for at least another year. But Rachel was a married woman with her hair bound beneath a veil. One late afternoon when Zakkai went to read his scrolls before the High Court, Rachel hurried to the priests’ quarters, left a blank scroll for Elazar, and hid inside the mountain. After dark cold hours, Elazar waded toward her in the dark and held her as she sobbed.
“Rachel, you were just married. Everyone will think it’s Zakkai’s baby. And will they be wrong? Maybe it is Zakkai’s baby after all.” He tapped her flat belly, and her flesh tingled. “Hello, Son-of-Zakkai! O great Son-of-Zakkai, nine months hence your father shall welcome you into the covenant!”
He wanted her to laugh. She couldn’t. “I know it’s not Zakkai’s baby,” she said. “Even Zakkai will know it’s not Zakkai’s baby. I’m terrified.”
“Rachel, no one will know. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“What will happen if the baby has green eyes?”
Elazar sighed, scooping up a handful of water and letting it dribble idly between his fingers. “Let me tell you exactly what will happen if the baby has green eyes,” he said. He took her lamp from her, putting it down on an indentation below the carved stone. “Imagine that by some miracle, Zakkai actually notices the baby’s eye color. He won’t, of course, because no man has ever noticed anyone’s eyes except for those of the woman he loves. But let’s imagine against all reason that he notices. He will accuse you of adultery. And then he will bring you to the Temple, to my father, to find out if he is right.”
“He’ll be right,” Rachel whispered.
Elazar touched her hand. “My father will write the curses about adultery on parchment and dissolve the ink from them in water, and then Zakkai will bring you before my father and the other priests. They’ll uncover your hair”—he fingered the edges of the scarf tied around her head, coaxing it along her neck until his wet fingertips slid into her hair beneath it— “and then they will make you drink the water and ink. And if you really are an adulteress, then you will immediately fall ill, your belly will instantly distend, your body will sag, your children will fall from your womb, and you will die.” He withdrew his hand and laughed out loud. The sound echoed in the tunnel, slapping wet stone.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because I’ve seen that ceremony at the Temple a hundred times. I’ve even dissolved the ink myself. And I will tell you right now that not a single one of those women ever dropped dead on the Temple steps. No one’s belly stretched, no one’s body drooped, no one’s womb bled on the floor. Not once.”
Rachel gaped at him, then felt like a fool. “Maybe you just never saw—”
“I never saw it because it never happened. And trust me, that wasn’t because all those women were innocent.”
Cold water flowed around her ankles. “You’re a heretic,” she breathed. “A hypocrite priest, just like the sages say. You’re all corrupt.”
Elazar laughed again. “Obviously I’m corrupt.”
“But—but—how can you not believe? Your father—”
“It’s not a matter of believing. It’s simply that the ceremony’s power doesn’t require anyone to sicken or die.”
Rachel was baffled. “Why not?”
“Because those sages your father loves are right. When someone drains the blood from a person’s face by making that person turn pale with shame, it’s as if they spilled that person’s blood. The humiliation for the woman and her husband, and the mistrust between them, is far worse than her death. That is the Temple’s divine power. To make people die without dying.” She listened as Elazar breathed. “But if it were to happen to you, it wouldn’t matter. You wouldn’t care what others thought of you.”
“Zakkai would care. And he would be right to care. He—he’s a righteous person.” She stumbled over the word.
Elazar frowned. “Zakkai is a person who lives in his head. He’s above the world of mortals. And we’re a hundred cubits below it.”
He seemed relieved to see her smile, pausing before speaking again. The pause made Rachel uneasy. “You should know that things are changing among the priests,” he said at last. “Just yesterday I heard of a priest who’s going to marry a girl without a single priest in her family. If the girl’s family is well connected, it’s worth it now. The Romans are at everyone’s throats.”
“Elazar, I’m married. Stop talking like this.”
He took her hands in his. “I wouldn’t talk like this if you weren’t the most important thing in the world, Rachel. But you are, and this is your only life. It’s true, Zakkai is a righteous person. But does Zakkai think you’re the most important thing in the world?”
Rachel was silent. The tunnel air chilled her skin.
“You need to think about the future. This marriage of yours, it isn’t a death sentence.”
“Of course it is,” she said. “I’m dedicated to him forever, according to the law. Unless he wants to offer me a divorce—which he would never do, not with a thousand bastard children. And in any case, a priest can’t marry a divorced woman, only a virgin or a widow.”
Elazar ran his fingers through her hair. She could tell he was thinking, deciding what to tell her. “Sometimes I think you read too much,” he finally said. “You and Zakkai and your father, you all care far too much about the law. The law of the land is Roman law, whether we like it or not. And there are plenty of ways for Zakkai to run afoul of Roman law.”
Rachel watched as Elazar smiled, a frightening smile. She stared at him. “Zakkai is the last person in this city who would break any law,” she said.
“I’ve heard him reading documents with your father at the High Court, and talking with the judges. Zakkai is no lover of the Romans.”
“Who is?”
“Most of us keep our mouths shut. Even your father’s sages say we should keep our mouths shut. But Zakkai speaks out against them. Everyone knows it. He wants people to destroy the statues of the emperor.”
“He would never say that in public. Maybe in meetings with other scribes—”
“Meetings with informants in attendance. I’m simply saying, he’s the sort of man who gets in trouble. It wouldn’t take much. Not much at all.” Elazar let the water flow against their feet, pausing as he did before a bound animal, holding the knife still at its neck. “Rachel, there’s hope. I know you feel trapped right now, but there could be a very long future ahead of us. In fact, I’m sure there will be.”
He leaned his face toward hers as his lamp flickered. But she turned away, looking down into the tunnel shaft. The future was suddenly clear.
“Elazar, I can’t come here anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to drink ink and die, for one thing.”
He laughed again.
“Truth, Elazar. This child is our punishment. Just like it was for King David a thousand years ago.”
“Rachel, don’t say that.”
“I will say it, because it is true. I will never see you again. I hardly could if I wanted to. Our life is over, Elazar.”
She knew that if she stayed, listened to him argue, let him kiss away her horror, she would stay forever. So she turned away and hurried down through the tunnel. She was relieved beyond imagining when he did not follow her. As she passed into the tunnel’s curve, she heard his voice behind her. “Our life isn’t over, Rachel. Our life has just begun.”
She ignored him and continued down into the pool.
THE BABY WAS BORN A BOY—tiny and, to Rachel’s joy, dark-eyed. Relief engulfed her, disguised as happiness. She brought him to her breast and poured pure light into the child, into the world. Zakkai rose like a pillar, an accomplished man, drinking wine and accepting blessings. On the baby’s eighth day Zakkai circumcised him and named him Yochanan.
Yochanan grew wildly, and before he was weaned he could already speak. Rachel often placed him on her father’s knees, and her father sang verses at him. The boy sang them back in his baby voice until he got stuck and repeated a word or a phrase, unable to continue: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was FORMLESS AND VOID! FORMLESS AND VOID! FORMLESS AND VOID! FORMLESS AND VOID!” He kept repeating the words until Rachel bound him to her back and returned to her chores. Even then the baby would continue singing at her—“FORMLESS AND VOID! FORMLESS AND VOID! FORMLESS AND VOID!”—until his heavy sturdy body clawed its way out of her swaddled robes and he was free, running madly away from her and out into the street so that she was chasing him as he continued singing: “FORMLESS AND VOID! FORMLESS AND VOID! FORMLESS AND VOID!” She had to remind herself that he didn’t know what the words meant, and then she had to remind herself, as she heard the words rendered into pure nonsense, that she didn’t quite know either. But meaning did not matter when it came to Yochanan. He stumbled through the streets with his mother behind him, barreling naked and barefoot, singing over and over again, “FORMLESS AND VOID! FORMLESS AND VOID!” Until one morning he would not sing. Then the next morning he would not run, and then the next morning he would not walk. And the next morning he would not sit on anyone’s knees. He curled on a sheepskin mat, one finger lodged in his mouth, and withered.