On This Foundation (4 page)

“Chana, darling,” Abba said, interrupting her thoughts. “I don't ask much of you, but please erase that unattractive frown and put on a welcoming smile before my friend arrives.”

“I'm sorry, Abba.” She tried to smile for him, but she knew it looked forced, like a grimace.

“You're under no obligation to marry the man or even to like him. But he is a colleague of mine, and I've invited him to our home.”

Her father had followed her to the hearth, and she pulled him into an embrace. “Of course, Abba. I'll be charming and welcoming. The perfect hostess. I'll even make some date cakes to enjoy with his wine.”

“That's my girl!”

“You haven't told us his name,” Yudit said. She and Sarah had taken their places around the table and she patted the cushion on her father's chair, inviting him to sit down.

“His name is Malkijah ben Recab.”

“That's a mouthful,” Chana blurted. “What do his friends call him?”

Abba smiled. “They call him Malkijah ben Recab.”

Chana's first glimpse of Malkijah ben Recab that evening revealed that they had all been wrong about his looks. He was neither a toad, nor a sack of straw, nor a palm tree. He was as tall as the doorframe, neither fat nor thin, but sturdily built. He arrived with the promised wine, wearing a pleasant smile and a robe that had been woven from the very finest wool. He proved to be quite charming, too. He listened attentively as Abba introduced his three daughters, then said, “I know when I'm defeated, Shallum. Your three daughters are much lovelier than my finest wines. I admit defeat. Here is your prize.” He handed Abba the wineskins.

“Well, now!” Abba crowed. “Didn't I tell you? But come in, Malkijah, come in. I have been waiting with great anticipation to taste your wine.”

His appearance was pleasant—no one would call him handsome—but Chana would never be swayed by such shallow considerations as good looks. He wore his dark hair and beard trimmed short, and his broad face and nose looked slightly flattened, as if he had run into a wall as a child. But his ebony eyes looked kind, and his manner as they enjoyed the wine and the conversation was calm and peaceful, as if nothing ever rattled him. She thought of several outrageous things she could say to test his unflappability but kept them to herself for her father's sake.

As the evening progressed, Malkijah praised the date cakes Chana had made, complimented Abba on his beautiful home, and managed to find something charming and graceful to say to Chana and each of her sisters. By the time he thanked everyone for a lovely evening and prepared to leave, she couldn't find a single fault with him. Was he an excellent actor, or was he always this nice?

Chana stood near the door as Malkijah said good-bye, and he paused to look into her eyes for a long, unnerving moment. “I hope we'll have the opportunity to meet again, Chana,” he said. Then he smiled, showing his perfect teeth, and left.

“There, that wasn't so bad, was it?” Abba asked.

“Of course not. He was very pleasant and charming. . . . But I'm just not ready to court anyone yet. Please understand, Abba.”

He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Don't let grief become a way of life, my little Chana. Don't let it define your days and quench your spirit. From the time you were a little girl, you were always so happy, wearing flowers in your hair or a bright scarf or pretty sash. And you used to carry joy around with you like a basket of diamonds sparkling in the sunlight. Now you carry
ashes. You were my happy little bird, singing so sweetly, but now you've allowed your grief to lock you up in a cage. I only wish I knew how to open the door and set my little bird free again.”

Tears filled Chana's eyes as her father pulled her into his arms. “I wish I did, too, Abba,” she mumbled into his wide chest. “I wish I did, too.”

T
HE
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ISTRICT
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AKKEREM
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N
ava set her sloshing water jug in the dusty path and sank down to rest alongside it, the weeds scratchy against her bare legs. Was this her tenth trip from the well to her father's vineyard or the eleventh? She had lost count. Either way, her arms and back muscles ached, her blistered feet felt tired and sore. She needed to rest and tie her raggedy sandals back on. She needed a new pair—these were her brother's outgrown ones—but her family couldn't afford new shoes.

Everywhere Nava looked, toward the distant hillsides, the pastures, or the grain fields, the vegetation was dry and brittle. Lifeless. The color of dust. The leaves on the pomegranate and fig trees outside her house looked faded and brown. Neither the early rains nor the later rains had come, and the dry season would begin next month.

With her sandal refastened, Nava stood and lifted her water jug, balancing it on her head. She saw Mama walking toward her with an empty jug, on her way back to the well. “Are we nearly done?” Nava asked as they passed each other. Mama shook her head and kept walking. Abba had asked them to haul water,
pouring it on each vine in hopes of coaxing a crop of grapes from his vineyard. With luck, they would harvest enough for her family to use and have extra to sell. Nava was already tired of hauling water. But when she finished watering the vineyard, she and Mama still needed to water the kitchen garden and the meager crop of vegetables they'd planted—onions, garlic, beans, lentils—enough to sustain her family in the coming year. After that, Nava would draw water for the little flock of goats that provided her family with milk and cheese.

She reached the terraced vineyard at last, and her father paused from tending one of the spindly plants to point out the next vine that needed water. “Is this the last row?” she asked him.

“The upper terrace still needs watering.”

Nava lowered the jug and carefully poured out the contents, making sure every precious drop went into the thirsty ground and down to the roots of the plant. It would be six more months before the grape harvest, six more months of watering. She straightened again, stretching her back.

In the enclosure below, one of her goats began bleating, setting off a chorus of hoarse cries. “They're thirsty, too,” she told her father. “I'd better take care of them before I water the vegetables.” Her father simply nodded as if too weary to reply. Discouragement had withered him along with his plants. She'd heard him telling Mama last night that the barley plants were all stunted and shriveled from the drought and the harvest would be small.

“I needed that crop in order to pay back what I owe,” he'd said. “Now I don't know what I'm going to do.” It had been impossible to water an entire barley field. Nava hated to add to his worries, but her goats were almost out of grain, their bins all but empty. And the field where they usually grazed had dried up long ago. Parched and brittle, the grass had been chewed down to the roots.

“There's barely any grain left for the goats, Abba,” she said, wincing as she told him. “Should I take them up into the hills tomorrow to graze?”

“There's no grass up there, either. I already asked the others. The grazing lands are as dead and dry as the rest of the countryside.”

“We can't let the goats starve.”

“No. That would be cruel.”

She waited before asking, “Well, what are we going to do, then?” Nava held her breath, hoping he wouldn't decide to slaughter them before what little flesh still clinging to their ribs was gone, too. Farming families like hers couldn't afford to be sentimental about their animals, but Nava had raised her little herd of milking goats since they were kids.

“We may have to sell them,” Abba finally replied.

She swallowed her tears. It was better than slaughtering them, she supposed. “But then we won't have any milk or yogurt or cheese.”

“I know. And if I had any other choice . . . But I had to mortgage our land and borrow money to pay the king's taxes and feed our family, and there's no other way to pay back what I owe.” He gestured to the barley field a stone's throw away where Nava's two brothers worked. “There's not even enough barley growing out there for our family to eat, let alone to sell and pay my debts. And Malkijah ben Recab is coming today to collect what I owe him.”

“What does it mean to mortgage your land? It still belongs to us, doesn't it?”

“Not if I don't pay my debt. It will belong to Malkijah.”

Nava walked the few steps to where Abba stood and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly before letting go. She loved his familiar scent of earth and sweat and fresh air. Neither of them spoke as he hugged her in return. Then she lifted her jug again and set off for the well.

From the sloping rise of the terraced vineyard, Abba's fields of wheat and barley stretched out below Nava. She saw Mama in the distance, returning from the well, balancing a full jug on her head. A small grove of ancient olive trees stood behind their fieldstone house and animal pens. Most of the trees had been planted by Abba's ancestors before the exile. Nava loved this beautiful, pitiful patch of farmland and knew Abba loved it even more. He had moved here to the Promised Land from Babylon to fulfill his dream of working his ancestral land, harvesting olives and grapes to make oil and wine from his own trees and vines. He had left everything behind to make the journey with Rebbe Ezra's caravan thirteen years ago when Nava was only three years old, arriving to find a pile of rubble where their ancestors' home once stood. Weeds and thistles overran all the fields. The vines and olive trees had needed pruning so badly that they no longer bore fruit. Nava's parents and two older brothers had worked hard to restore their land—and now? Now her father's dream had dried up and blown away like dust when, for the second year in a row, the winter rains had failed to come.

Nava made several more trips to the well and was pouring water on the last of the grapevines when she heard a distant shout. She looked up and even from far away, she recognized the tall, lanky figure striding up the footpath that led from his family's fields to hers. Her heart beat faster at the sight of their neighbor's son, Dan, as if she had just run all the way up the hill to meet him. She dribbled a little of the precious water on her hands and used it to splash the dust and sweat from her face.

Dan was two years older than Nava and had been her best friend for as long as she could remember. Their families had traveled in the caravan together from Babylon, sharing all the joys and sorrows of the journey and their new life in the Promised Land. But Nava had never been concerned about her appearance until a year ago when her friendship with Dan had
warmed into something much more. On a trip to Jerusalem with their families for Passover, Nava and Dan had talked as they walked all the way there and back together—and everything had changed. They would be married one day, Dan promised. He would ask Abba for her hand as soon as he could afford to support her. But for now, neither family could afford the dowry or the bride price. Dan's father, Yonah, was as poor as Abba and couldn't afford another mouth to feed if his only son married.

Nava smiled as she watched Dan approach, walking with a spring in his step and carrying a sack slung over his shoulder. His beaming face seemed brighter than the sun. “What did you bring?” she called out to him.

“You'll see!” he shouted back. His grin broadened.

Nava quickly emptied her water jug and hurried down the stepped slope to meet him, jumping over the low stone walls of the supporting terraces. Her tattered, broken sandals slowed her down, so she slipped them off and carried them the rest of the way, even though the dry, stony soil bit into her feet. They were both laughing and out of breath when they finally met up. Dan held up the bulging sack. “I brought a present for my beautiful little Nava.”

“For me? What is it?” It could have been filled with stones and Nava still would have loved him for bringing it. But he opened the sack with a flourish, and she looked inside to see a limp mound of brown and tan feathers. “Are those quails?” she asked in surprise and delight.

“Three of them. For you and your family.”

“What about your family? We could all share them.”

“Don't worry, I caught enough for my family, too. I chased a whole flock of them right into my net.”

She wanted to hug him but modesty forbade it until they were married. “These are wonderful, Dan. I can't believe it! It must have taken so much time and hard work to catch them.”

“And patience. But I'm learning to be a patient man. I'm
going to marry you someday, Nava, and in the meantime, I can't have you starving to death, can I?”

“You're wonderful!”

He slung the bag over his shoulder again, and they walked along the footpath together toward Nava's house. “Mama and I will pluck the feathers and gut the birds and cook them for dinner tonight.” Quails didn't have much meat on their tiny frames, but added to soup or stew they would stretch to make a satisfying meal for her family. And the broth would be delicious. They were almost to the house when they saw a man approaching from the opposite direction, riding sidesaddle on a donkey. Only a wealthy man could afford to ride such a fine, well-fed beast. Abba had seen him, too, and he left his work to walk down the hill from the vineyard to meet him. It pained Nava to see her father walk with his head bowed and his shoulders slumped, as if carrying a heavy load on his back. The stranger must be the man who was coming to collect Abba's debt—a debt he couldn't repay. The joy Nava had felt a moment ago when Dan had shown her his present vanished.

“Oh no,” she moaned.

“The vulture is circling,” Dan said under his breath. “And I'm sure he'll visit my father next.”

“Do you know him?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Malkijah ben Recab holds the mortgage on my father's farm.” They headed down the hill, reaching the stranger the same time Nava's father did.

“Good afternoon, my lord,” Abba said in greeting.

Malkijah ben Recab slid from the donkey's back before replying. “Good afternoon. It's very warm for springtime, isn't it?” He wore a robe of fine, white linen with a scarlet band around the hem and neck and sleeves. The turban on his dark head of hair was also of the finest linen.

“Yes, my lord. Yes, it's very warm.” Abba barely looked up, staring down at his dust-covered feet. He cleared his throat.
“I'm sorry, my lord, but I can't pay back what I owe you today. It looks as though my barley crop will fail from lack of rain. I'll give you everything I do harvest when the time comes, but I already know it won't be enough to cover the debt.”

Nava ached for him. She was sorry now for complaining about hauling water. Malkijah stepped closer, his dark brows knit in a frown, and for a horrible moment Nava feared he would confront her father, demand what was due him. But he shook his head sadly as he rested his hand on Abba's shoulder. “I understand, my friend. Everyone in this district is suffering. We've prayed and prayed for rain, haven't we? But the Holy One must have His reasons for not answering us.”

Abba finally dared to meet his gaze. “Perhaps when I harvest my grapes I can repay you.”

“Yes . . . perhaps.” Malkijah appraised the terraced hillside as if assessing the vines with the eyes of an expert. “Because of the extreme circumstances, I normally would be willing to wait until the grape harvest—but I have to pay the king's tribute, as well as my provincial taxes. And my crops have also suffered from the drought.”

Abba scratched his beard. “I have a small flock of goats. Would you take them to help repay my debt?” he asked.

Nava covered her mouth as tears sprang to her eyes. Dan moved closer and rested his hand on the small of her back. He knew how much she loved her little flock. If she looked at him, she would burst into tears.

“Don't you need your goats for milk?” Malkijah asked. “I don't want your family to starve.”

“I have nothing else to give you, my lord. Besides, we have no grain left to feed them. The goats will die if you don't take them.”

“In that case, of course I'll take them. I'll send one of my sons or my manager over for them tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Abba said. “I'm very grateful to you.”

There was nothing more any of them could say. Malkijah looked around for a way to boost himself onto his donkey again and led his animal over to a large stone. He bid them all good day after he'd mounted, then rode up the footpath to Dan's farm.

“My father can't pay him back, either,” Dan said. “Our land is mortgaged to him, too.”

Abba heaved a tired sigh. “At least Malkijah ben Recab is being kind and understanding about it.”