by Dara Horn
After that, for years, every day and every night was luminous. They lived in tiny rooms and large villas, plush caravans and filthy hovels, above or behind one shop or another, poverty and wealth and ambition and sloth as irrelevant to them as they had been for centuries—but now every space they shared was full of light. For the first time ever they made love without hiding, stripping each other with a weird and intoxicating freedom. They walked through their rooms or alcoves naked, grabbing each other any time, lounging together for hours, for days. They laughed out loud about the children they would have together, the first since Yochanan, bracing themselves ecstatically for their liberty to crash down on their heads with the very first pregnancy and birth.
But then the babies did not come.
It made no sense. Her body worked as always; his did too. She went to the monthly women’s baths in whatever town or city they chose to live in—for because of Yochanan, there were elaborate edifices of religious rituals and institutions and customs and laws that were nearly identical in every town or city they chose to live in, including women’s baths and children’s schools and prayer-houses and study-houses where people asked questions about the words her father copied, and homes full of people who said the same blessings and knew the same stories, each town or city an astonishing miniature portable Jerusalem, all thanks to Yochanan. She immersed herself naked each month on the appointed night in each town or city, each month hoping not to return, and each month returning again. After half a year the women who managed the baths would ambush her with advice, amulets, potions, portents. The other women in the town would follow, pulling her aside from her loom or her market stall to hand her magic herbs and whisper spells and prayers in her ears. A year or two of this was the limit of what she could endure. Then she and Elazar would move on, find another town or city or country, begin once more, try again. Elazar kept telling her to wait, and she kept waiting. Who minded waiting, he insisted, when they were so happy? Except that now she cried, and did not eat.
“Why are you crying? Why don’t you eat?” he asked as he held her, stripped her bare, ran his lips along her shoulders, cocooned her in his arms. “Aren’t I worth more to you than ten sons? You’ve already had ten sons!”
She kissed him back, fighting tears. She ate, though there seemed no reason to bother—unless this were some kind of test. Perhaps she needed to try harder, to live more, to eat and dance and run and sing, or simply to love him more fully. And so she tried. Because wasn’t there always a chance that things would change?
After seventy years they could deny it no longer. They had discovered the final price of the vow.
By then they were living in Pumbedita in Babylonia, and Elazar was teaching at the academy, despite Rachel’s protests that they ought never to take on tasks where people might remember them. It had happened almost by accident. When they first arrived, selling dry goods and treats in the marketplace, a group of scholars stopped by their stall for a snack, debating the day’s texts as they munched on roasted nuts.
“When you ask why the Temple was destroyed, you have to admit that it was because the people neglected to observe the Sabbath,” said one of the scholars to the others, bits of nuts lodged in his beard.
“No, the Temple was destroyed because the people neglected to teach their children Torah,” countered another.
“No, the Temple was destroyed because of causeless hatred, infighting among the people,” said a third.
Elazar cleared his throat. “Actually, the Temple was destroyed because of the enemy’s superior weaponry.”
Rachel kicked him under the counter. The three scholars stared at him, derision in their eyes.
“What would you know?” the first scholar sneered. “You’re selling dry goods.”
“Yes, dry goods,” Elazar said. He looked around the stall and removed a single twig from a bundle of dry-leafed herbs. “When most fragrant plants burn, the incense clouds dissipate low in the air, which is good if you only want people to smell it,” he said. The scholars exchanged glances, silently agreeing to indulge a fool. “But what if it isn’t for people? What if you need the fragrance to ascend straight up, to offer its beauty on high?” Elazar touched the tip of the plant to the fire under the stall’s cooking pot, and then held it upright before them. Their eyes followed the thin dark plume of smoke as it ascended higher than they could see, inscribing the sky like ink on parchment. “This is ma’aleh ashan, the only plant that can produce this effect for an incense offering,” Elazar told the gaping men. “I’d sell it to you, but what’s the point? It’s been four hundred years since anyone needed any.” He snuffed out the flame, dropped the plant in the dust, and returned to adding up receipts.
Rachel kicked him again, to no avail. He began teaching at the academy the following day. Soon she too was teaching—hosting students in their home, debating with them over meals, reminded daily of her father, and of Zakkai. But then more years passed, many students came and went, and nothing changed.
One hot summer night with a fat full moon, the two of them lay outside, escaping the heat on a raised stone path above the muddy bank of the Euphrates. The little oil lamp at her side was hardly necessary in the brilliant light of paired moons, one suspended in the sky and one reflected in the ink-dark river. She had told him, during the fast day earlier that week and during the days that followed, that she was going to leave. Without him.
“Please don’t,” he said to the sky. He turned to her, their faces silvered, inhuman. “I know you want children. All women want children. But the world is full of children who need parents. The students adore you. You want younger ones? Take in orphans. Or open a school for girls. Some people might disapprove, but—”
“It isn’t because of the children,” she said. Or lack of children, she thought, though each child they didn’t have stood perfectly vivid in her mind, alive and breathing, as clear and imaginary as a reflected moon. But then she looked at Elazar and knew, more profoundly and painfully than she had ever known anything, that that wasn’t the reason.
“Of course it is,” he muttered. She could hear the edge in his voice. The evening breeze had ceased. The night air hung immobile, stagnant and oppressive even by the water; the Babylonian river smelled of urine and sweat. She untied the linen scarf on her head, letting her long braid fall like a rope on her shoulder.
“No, Elazar,” she said simply. She meant it. “The problem isn’t the children. The children we don’t have are a just a sign of something else. The problem is us.”
Elazar’s eyes grew wide. He spoke quickly, hoping to hide his fear. “You won’t be happy with someone else, at least not for long. You know that, Rachel. With anyone else your life is just a lie. But with me—”
“With you nothing grows.”
“We grow. Our—our love grows.”
Already she could feel the fire within her, spreading. “No, we don’t, Elazar. That’s the problem. We don’t grow. We’re like an old book, full of stories and also full of errors, and no one can completely understand us, even though many people try. But the problem is that we don’t change. Only the people around us change.”
He turned toward her, sitting up on the stone slab. As she sat up to face him, she suddenly saw his mouth shift, contorted, anger flaming through his eyes. “But Rachel, can’t you see it? This is a blessing!”
She stared at him. “A blessing?”
“Yes, a blessing! The only blessing you and I have ever had!” His face blazed. “Think of everything you’ve suffered, Rachel. Think of the worst, the absolute worst moments of the past four hundred years. You know what each and every one of them is: when one of your children dies.”
Rachel felt her skin tingling, the first pricks of pain before the fullness of the burn. She twisted the end of her braid in her hand.
“Just think of the most recent ones. That beautiful brilliant girl in Antioch, the one who had just been betrothed—what was her name? Hannah, named after your mother, right? And th
e oldest boy, Azaria, named after your father—the one with the baby twins? Think of every day you spent with them, every laugh, every kiss, every meal you made them, every time they were ill and you stayed up with them through the night, every time they recited back your father’s verses—and for what?”
“Stop it, Elazar.”
“Those recent ones were worse than usual, because they died young. But were they really worse? Maybe the ones before them were worse! Maybe the Hannah before that one, the one who lived to be older than your mother, the one you taught to read, the one who didn’t want to learn? Or the Azaria before that, the one you barely had to teach because he was so obsessive about every last letter on his own, the one who became the head of the academy, with three generations of students! Oh, your father would have loved him. How proud the old master scribe would have been of Azaria number four! And how proud you were yourself! But you buried him too, even if he didn’t know it.”
“Elazar, stop.”
“I don’t even care how old the child is when it happens. He could be a day-old baby, he could be a hundred and twenty years old, but no matter what, that child is going to die, and you’re going to endure it. And it happens every time, Rachel. Every time.”
“Elazar, stop.”
“Why should I stop, Rachel? Why should I stop when our lives don’t? You think it hasn’t happened to me too? You think I don’t care about each and every one of those children and wives?”
Rachel winced, a physical revulsion. “I didn’t think you did,” she said.
“I try to protect myself by caring less. But I’ve held every baby. I’ve kissed every girl’s hair. I’ve taught the alphabet to every boy. I’ve lain with all their mothers—and not just lain with them, but lived with them, Rachel. I watched them cry and laugh and age and wither. I saw every child grow up; I saw the lucky ones grow old. And I watched every single one of them die.”
To her astonishment his eyes were glassed with tears. He paused, ashamed.
“It will never stop happening, Rachel. Every single child you ever have, whether it’s next spring or ten thousand years from now—with every single child, you are going to watch that child die. And your husbands and lovers too. All of them. Think of all the unbearable pain still ahead of you! The burnings don’t even compare.” He paused again, regaining his breath. “But look how we’ve been blessed! Now we have a way out! God has blessed us, Rachel! Stay with me, Rachel, and never suffer through that! Never again! It’s a blessing, Rachel! Can’t you see that? Choose life, Rachel, and stay with me!”
He reached for her, his lips parted. In the reflection of his eyes she saw a dark and bottomless void.
She rose to her feet, holding the oil lamp aloft in one hand. In her other hand she held her long dark braid.
“I will miss you, Elazar,” she said. Then she dipped the end of her braid into the flame.
“RACHEL!”
Before he could scramble to his feet she had already taken flight.
The flames spread as she ran with the river at her back, her hair and clothes and skin igniting until she became a pillar of fire flying through the night. She usually screamed, usually heard herself scream, but this time she used the breath she still had to keep running—running and running without stopping, because there was no stopping, nothing ever stopped, nothing ever ended but that meant that she could believe with perfect faith that there was always something more to come, something waiting for her, some reason for living. She was a pillar of fire rising up to the sky. She heard screams and thought they were her own, but her throat was scorched and the screams were Elazar’s, Elazar screaming behind her as he gained on her, reaching for her, pulling her down from the sky and throwing himself on top of her, plunging her back down onto the dark soft earth. By then she was already gone.
When she awoke, the moon was still full. But she was in a forest full of trees of a kind she had never seen before—tall thick trees with leaves that changed colors and shed like children’s teeth, sloughed off like old fingernails or callused skin, in a place she later learned was Europe.
Two more centuries passed before he found her again. But he came back to her, and she to him. Because she always did.
CHAPTER
8
ABUNDANCE
. . .
@highpriest
#EternalLife =extremely overrated. You do realize that for all that time, you have to live with yourself. Is this something you really want?
@DrTitus
Yes, #EternalLife is devastating. FOR IDIOTS. But what about scientists who would have more time to improve the world? Big picture, please!
@highpriest
.@DrTitus Improve the world? For whom? Our infinite children? Here’s your big picture: they do NOT want us around for #EternalLife
@DrTitus
.@highpriest Maybe yours don’t. But I hear time heals all wounds...Have you tried therapy? I know it’s time-consuming, but hey: #EternalLife
@highpriest
.@DrTitus After 2000 years she still doesn’t love me like I love her. In a normal lifespan I might not have noticed. #EternalLife’s a bitch
@DrTitus
.@highpriest Give her time to come around. She will...eventually!
@poncedeleon
.@highpriest Um, maybe it’s time to move on? 2000 yrs seems like long enough to get over your ex. We’re talking about the human future here
@highpriest
.@poncedeleon I waited for her for 300 years once. It worked out then. But with #EternalLife, there’s no happily ever after. You can’t win.
@poncedeleon
.@highpriest Your problem is your attitude. Life isn’t about winning. It’s about the adventure. I say bring it on! #EternalLife
@highpriest
.@poncedeleon Yes, it’s about the adventure! 17 expulsions, 5 beheadings, 12 of my kids gassed to death. Bring it on...and on... #EternalLife
@poncedeleon
.@highpriest Plenty of time to find the silver lining, though, right? #EternalLife
@highpriest
.@poncedeleon Silver lining...silver lining...OK, here’s one. Once a Grand Inquisitor tried to flay me to death. Epic fail!
@DrTitus
.@highpriest Everything happens for a reason. What doesn’t kill u makes u stronger. Build character! God has a plan for you! #EternalLife
@highpriest
.@DrTitus God definitely has a plan for me. That’s exactly my problem. #EternalLife
“IS ROCKY HOME?”
The voice startled Rachel. She had sat down on the staircase in her house’s front hall with her head dipped toward her phone, engrossed in what appeared to be an endless loop of uncomfortable truths in 140 characters or less. She was so immersed that just looking up felt like being yanked into another life. A woman she had never seen before was standing in front of her, pulling her front door closed. Rachel wondered if she might be dreaming.
“I rang the bell a few times, but no one answered. I was going to leave, but I saw you through the window, sitting right here, and I thought, maybe I can try the door. It was open.” The woman spoke with an accent that Rachel could not immediately place.
Rachel stood up quickly and stuffed her phone into her pocket, still bewildered. She felt as though she were the one who had just entered a strange house. She noticed that the woman did not apologize. Rachel did.
“I’m sorry, I suppose I’m so old that I’m going deaf,” she said.
She was relieved when the stranger laughed. The old-lady card always worked with young people. But this woman, Rachel now noticed, was hardly young. She wore a leather jacket and a colorful scarf, and as she unwound the scarf Rachel saw that her face looked slightly worn around the mouth and eyes, as though she were in her late forties or so, Rachel guessed. The woman was short, almost as short as Rachel, with thick black wavy hair that showed the slightest shadows of gray roots. Her skin was a dusky color, similar to Rachel’s. My general racism regarding tan people
, Rachel heard Rocky say in her head. But what was most remarkable about the woman was her smile. Her teeth were far from perfect, but they were large and white, and she smiled with a sincerity that Rachel couldn’t remember seeing in anyone over thirty, at least not since her most recent husband’s death. The house’s cold front hall seemed warmed by the woman’s presence. In the space of seconds, Rachel forgot that this stranger had just barged into her home.
“I’m looking for Rocky. I mean Rachmiel,” the woman corrected herself, pronouncing the guttural exactly. The accent was Israeli, Rachel realized. But what was this about Rachmiel? She hadn’t heard a stranger say his real name aloud in years, not since that last bail hearing. Catastrophic scenarios ran through her mind, as they always did when Rocky was involved. Was this woman with the IRS? “Is he home?” the woman asked again.
“No, he’s in court,” Rachel said.
Immediately she knew that this was a mistake, a typical mother mistake. Why did thousands of years of being a mother do absolutely nothing to help her avoid these mistakes? She thought of adding to Elazar’s online feed: #EternalLife: the more you live, the less you learn. “I mean, I’m not sure where he is,” she said.
The woman laughed again. “I know he’s in court. He should be back soon. May I come in?”
Rachel was still bewildered. IRS agents probably don’t laugh much, she reassured herself. But how did the woman know about the court date? And hadn’t she initially called him Rocky? Rachel wondered how to answer, but she soon saw that her answer was irrelevant. The woman took off her coat and hung it in the closet herself.
“I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?” Rachel asked.
With her coat off, the woman was thinner than Rachel had previously noticed. The woman laughed for the third time. She was like a living laugh, with a body attached to it. “I never said my name. Meirav. Very nice to meet you.” She stuck out a hand, a gesture that seemed theatrical, as though she felt such gestures were absurd, or as if she were playing a part. Rachel took the hand, which was warm and strong in hers.