Hadassah Covenant, The (37 page)

The next stage began with anger. Or rage, to be more honest, directed straight at G-d. I remember snarling into the emptiness, calling to Him out loud, “You—you did this! You spared your people through me—wonderful. You were my companion, a long time ago. Well, what about now? Is this my fate? Is this how your great figures wind up when you’re done with them? Tossed away like old rags? Well, let me tell the people now about your vaunted faithfulness. Let me warn anyone who would listen—beware, watch out, do anything . . . except follow G-d’s purposes. . . . ”

Later, with a slowness that seemed to mimic the passing of seasons and the wearing down of mountains, I felt my anger wane and gradually melt into self-pity. For days, I wallowed in the frailty of my diminished station and my sagging limbs. Lamented my once-considerable personhood. My growing loneliness.

Then, on a bright morning only a few days after learning that Artaxerxes was going to imitate his father and scour the empire for a suitable queen candidate, I heard a knock on my door and opened it to Jesse and Mordecai, both wearing faint smiles.

“Come here; we want to show you something,” Jesse said, for I remember it perfectly. Mordecai bent his index finger and waved the tip to beckon me forward.

The two of them escorted me out to the veranda, planted fists on hips, and smiled. I followed their gazes, squinted against the sunlight, and felt myself suddenly whisked back in time.

Chapter Forty-one

For there on the terrace, milling about with uncertain and even a few traumatized expressions, stood several dozen shockingly beautiful young girls in the attire of Persian satrapies near and far. I don’t know if it was the effect of stepping outside so suddenly, but I felt the scene spin and became physically disoriented by how powerfully and vividly the sight plunged me into my past.

Observing the girls’ utterly smooth skin, their unwrinkled eyes, the casual flawlessness of their figures, I remembered the few hours I had once spent in this strange waiting state. I recalled what it felt like to be so young, so naïve—only vaguely aware of how the flare of my bosom or the line of my thigh could inflame a man’s desires beyond common sense. I felt once more the vague, unsettling awareness of people’s eyes traveling up and down my body, appraising, comparing, coveting.

Yes, I had forgotten the image of girls like these—partly because when I had stood there as they did, I did not remain unaware or naïve or disoriented for very long. Nor would they, if my experience had any bearing. Likely, they would find themselves clothed in traditional concubine attire within the hour. Then they would quickly learn the
ways of the harem and begin to parade about with the petulant swagger of some of the girls I had known long ago. Soon, most would transform into the petty, backbiting, unspeakably vain creatures who traditionally populated this place. Truly, the picture before me captured a most transitory and fleeting moment in their lives.

I felt a bitter rise of bile within me and turned away. The display of precarious innocence and unearned beauty suddenly felt like a wound in my soul.

“Are you all right, Hadassah?” Mordecai asked me, leaning toward me with concern.

I remember turning back to the group, of which you were a part, Leah, with the muscles of my face pulled tight from anger.

“Tell me, why did you show me this? Did you relish the prospect of torturing me?”

“No, my dear,” Jesse stammered. “I merely thought the sight would bring back happier times.”

“It has not done that.”

“I am sorry,” Mordecai interjected. “But what could this possibly provoke? Tell us, please.”

I remember turning on him with utter incredulity. I could hardly believe a man would willingly request a rebuke, but then I had momentarily forgotten what longsuffering friends the two of them were.

“I don’t want to say it.”

“Please tell us.”

I took such a deep breath that I recall craning my neck backward and catching sight of a piercing blue sky. I kept my gaze averted to deny them the sight of my tears and replied. “Seeing these girls, I want to say to myself,
Esther—or Hadassah, it matters little—you are no longer a queen. No longer a wife. No longer a lover. Long past a beauty. Mother to no one. Without family, but for one. Friend to few. A footnote of history. Forgotten. Discarded. A dweller in shadows. Counting down the dregs of my days with no other purpose than to endure them
.”

I wish you had seen how Mordecai spoke to me in that moment. How powerfully he turned to me, as he once did so often in his younger and more forceful days, grabbed my hands and spoke to me
with tears in his own eyes and with the intensity of a prophet!

“Not in G-d’s eyes,” he said fiercely, “you are not. You
do
have a father, who loves you beyond all imagining. You
are
loved and desired and beautiful beyond measure. You
are
mother to countless generations saved by your courage. Your family may only now number the two of us, but it will one day number among the nations. Your story will be recounted among children a thousand years hence, a story which has far from ended. . . . Even now, your name is invoked every year on the Feast of Purim.”

I could not help myself. The balm of his words unleashed a watery torrent down my face. I threw my arms around Poppa, buried my head in his shoulder, and wept with bittersweet relief.

After a few minutes, I pulled back, felt Jesse’s hand search for mine, and grasped it warmly while the three of us stood together, regarding the arriving concubines like a trio of adoring parents.

But Mordecai was not through with me. He had more in mind than simply showing me the group’s arrival.

“Look,” he said, pointing discretely, keeping his finger close to his side.

Mordecai had indicated a particular girl standing off by herself. At first all I noticed was the dress, for she was clad in a striking robe of blue silk, which, besides its flattering form and elegant shade, reminded me greatly of the robe I had worn in to the King on my First Night. Then I noticed her face. She was a most composed young woman with dark hair, porcelain skin, and eyes that glimmered with a deep and mature-seeming beauty. Something stirred inside of me as I caught sight of them, and I found myself looking closer, staring harder.

It was
you
, of course—as if I need to tell you that.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Mordecai asked, with such a twinge of longing in his voice that I turned to him with a bemused curiosity. I had never heard him use that tone before.

“Yes, she is,” I answered. “Obviously, you appear to think so.”

“I believe she’s Jewish,” Mordecai said without shifting his gaze, his voice now husky with emotion.

As soon as he said it, I knew it was true.

“
Believe
? Wouldn’t such a thing be known for certain?”

And I remember the odd, bemused look Jesse gave me. “You have a short memory, my Hadassah. Like another girl who came here not so long ago, she is likely under what is now called an Esther Edict.”

“Esther Edict?”

“Strict orders to keep her Jewishness to herself.”

“Why would her family have given such an order now, of all times?”

“Today more than ever, my dear. Precisely
because
Jews are so powerful in today’s palace. You are still very much known and spoken of. Mordecai is the Master of Audiences, the man closest to the King. I am the King’s chamberlain, Master of the Harem, and have been ever since the day of Hegai’s death. And there’s the whole host of other Jewish friends and allies we’ve nurtured through the ranks of royal service through the years. My friend Nehemiah, the cupbearer, Chaim the royal procurer—”

“Yes, I know them all,” I interrupted. “But why does Jewish power translate into a need for secrecy?”

“Because, as you should know better than anyone,” Mordecai answered, “power breeds resentment. There lingers a great unspoken dislike of the Jews in the palace, and the empire as well—provoked probably by fear of our influence over the King. A candidate like her would be most wise to withhold the fact that she is of the Jewish race.”

“Do you mean for us to do anything about this? Seek her out? Help her in some way?”

“Perhaps. But it must be done in the most covert manner possible. She cannot become publicly known as your favorite. But surely you would have deep counsel to give her about her upcoming training in preparation for her night with the king.”

“I suppose . . .” I said absently, lost in my thoughts. And then it struck me.
This is it. This is how it starts
.

I returned to my apartment and quickly fell into the deepest and most restful sleep I had experienced in recent memory.

When I opened my eyes again, the edge of sunlight was creeping toward me along the ceiling. And something remarkable happened, something I find difficult to describe. For the briefest flash of time, the glow transported me to a different place. I began to see myself from
above, through different eyes. I saw my own body curled up and realized that it resembled the same heartrending pose in which baby Artaxerxes had lain in that basket, the very first time I had laid eyes on him. As a result, I viewed my body through the gaze of a parent watching his or her newborn offspring. For just a moment, truly seeing myself, I loved this baby Hadassah with the strength of an actual mother or father. Infinite worth and beauty radiated from the figure below like waves of heat. I found I loved that person with an almost frightening power, for it was so unrelenting I would gladly have given my life to save this precious creature who was Hadassah.

And then I heard the very words Mordecai had spoken just two days earlier. Words concerning an agreement with G-d. A solemn vow with the Almighty, the Ancient of Days.

A fresh notion struck me with the brilliance and suddenness of sunlight. Could there actually be a meaningful life ahead for me? Crisis? Peril? Ultimate victory? A need for
me
? I had refused to consider it, but now I thought:
Why not
? Could something that great happen twice in a lifetime? Or if not as great, something close to it?

Strange: I had asked myself the same question that night on the hour of Xerxes’ death, when I awoke beneath a sword. Twice in a lifetime—it’s not likely, but it happens. With G-d, anything can happen.

An agreement. A solemn vow.

I thought back to my education at Mordecai’s knee. The history of my people.

A covenant
.

Was it arrogant of me to think that I could make my very own covenant with G-d? It did not feel like it when the thought had first come my way. It felt natural. Inevitable, even. It felt like a first step back to that dependence I had experienced on the day of going to the palace to meet my future husband. A dependence so childlike and complete that it reminded me of my need for my next breath, and was just as faithfully rewarded.

And then I remembered—at that moment, the covenant He had made with my people lay in shambles. Here I was, living thousands of miles from the Land of Milk and Honey, having never seen Jerusalem, to say nothing of the Temple harboring His presence. What
knowledge I had of G-d’s Word was merely history, taught to me as a child.