The Secret Chord (25 page)

Then he turned to me and the words came out in a rush. “I don't think Amnon will be a good king. He hates the ordinary people. He doesn't care about them at all. He's half asleep at the public audiences and he barely ever bothers to go to Father's councils. But Avshalom is always there, when he's allowed to be. I think my father wishes Avshalom were the eldest. Amnon scares you into doing what he wants. Avshalom's smarter. He makes you think he likes you, even if he
doesn't, not really . . .” He stopped abruptly. He must have noticed the pained expression on my face, and misconstrued it. “Of course, I wouldn't say these things to anyone else. Just to you. I can say anything to you, can't I? Like I do with my mother.”

I needed to tread carefully. “Has she spoken to you, of who will be king after . . . after . . .” I found I couldn't bring myself to say the words.

“Just one time. She said that not every king passes his throne to the eldest son.”

“That's true,” I said. “We don't have a long tradition of kingship, as some other nations do. If your father lives long enough, the time will come when he will decide who will succeed him, and it will need to be someone the people will accept. But that decision could be years off. He's still a vigorous man.”

He tilted his head and looked at me, his eyes widening. I didn't have to spell it out. Even as a child, he could catch an inference. I could see him turning the thought over in his mind.

“It's early to speak of this. Put it out of your mind, for now,” I said. “For now, you are doing the best thing, soaking up learning and wisdom. If you like, I will speak to the king about letting you go to the minor councils. You never know, he may allow it, young as you are. For now, it's time to practice your reading.” I tapped a finger on the papyrus I'd brought from the palace library. “Although it isn't the power it was in Ramses' time, Mitzrayim is still an important nation for us. Your father was wise to make peace there. Whoever is king after him will need to keep that peace. Did you know the Mitzrayimites call their writing ‘god signs'? They understand that words have power . . .” We turned our attention to deciphering the glyphs, and he, delighted and puzzled, threw himself fully into this new challenge.

“D
id you hear that Amnon is ill? My father is worried. He even went to his house, and he hardly ever goes there.” Shlomo, pushing his stylus into the wax tablet, hadn't looked up as he tossed out the information.

I was standing behind him, watching to see that he formed his letters correctly. As he spoke, the clay goblet I'd been holding slipped from my hand and shattered on the flagstones.

Shlomo turned and looked at me, puzzled. “It's probably just a flux. A lot of people get them this time of year . . .”

“Yes, of course,” I said, trying to suppress the sickness rising in my throat. Muwat heard the goblet fall and came in with a broom, ready to sweep up the shards. He checked in the doorway. He had been with me long enough to know the signs. I made a small reassuring motion with my hand. I did not wish him to speak of it in front of Shlomo. I knew what was coming.

With difficulty, I managed to choke out a few words. “That's enough for today. You've worked well. Let's take it up again tomorrow.”

“But I haven't finished . . .”

Muwat set down his broom and moved to the table, taking the stylus from Shlomo's hand and gathering up the tablet and the scrolls. “The master needs to rest now.”

Shlomo looked as if he were about to protest his eviction, but then he saw my face, gray and beaded with sweat. “I'm sorry, I see you're unwell. I hope you don't have what Amnon has. It's not about him, is
it? That upset you? I didn't think you'd care. Anyway, I'm sure he'll be fine. My sister Tamar is going to his house today, to make some of her sweetcakes. They're very good, you know. She always makes them for us as special treats when we're sick. Amnon said it's all he feels like eating . . .”

•   •   •

As soon as Shlomo was out the door, Muwat helped me to the couch. He closed the shutters and fetched cold cloths for my burning forehead and a bowl for the contents of my stomach.

The stabbing pain and nausea came, as they must. But with them, unfamiliar, was the swelling of my tongue, the closing of my throat. This was the first of the visions I was not to speak aloud. I could not warn. All I could do was bear mute witness, whether I would or no.

I lay supine, sucking for breath, as the afternoon waned and dusk gathered. I was on the couch in my own house, but I could see Amnon, naked on his bed, his dark-lashed eyes half closed in sleepy sensuality, his hand rhythmically stroking the column of his blue-veined cock. Amnon, accustomed to having his every carnal urge satisfied, no matter how base or bizarre. In Amnon's world, where everything was available, the unattainable had a wild allure. For months, he had been obsessed with the one young female body in the kingdom that was denied to him.

It had been impossible for him to get near her. In the palace, she was shut up in the women's quarters with her mother, Maacah, who guarded her like a bitch with a whelp. At feasts and ceremonies, or even at intimate family gatherings, Avshalom watched over her every move. Tamar, just turned sixteen, was David's only daughter. It was understood that she would be used, and very soon, in some important piece of statecraft. That she would be a queen was unquestioned; the interesting question was which of our allies David would honor with the match.

The vision shifted. I saw David, in the women's garden, admiring
a piece of Tamar's needlework as a ruby-throated bird thrummed and flitted between them. He handed the piece back to Tamar, who smiled shyly up at him. She was a beautiful girl, pale like her mother, with rose-gold hair and skin so fine it was almost translucent. She flushed, pleased by her father's attention. She was happy to be singled out, asked to bring comfort to her important half-brother. For a girl so closely kept, it was an occasion anytime she was permitted to leave the women's quarters. She was excited to be allowed to go out into the city. I saw her with her maidservant, choosing a gown. The one she picked was silk, dyed in bright verticals of color, with the high neckline and long sleeves that preserve a virgin's modesty.

I smelled wood smoke, and the delicious aroma of baking. The vision shifted again: Tamar at Amnon's house, her delicate hands kneading viscous date honey into a supple, pine-nut-studded dough. The cakes sizzled as she slipped them onto the hot metal pan. Amnon groaned. He is, he says, too ill to sit up any longer in the reception hall. He must retire to his bedchamber. He needs quiet. He must have some peace. His young sister's gentle presence is all his ravaged nerves can bear.

He rose from his couch with difficulty and made his way unsteadily to his inner room, as Tamar followed with her cakes. It was quite a performance. Amnon's cousin Yonadav, propped against the door, smirked in appreciation. Amnon was playing the role Yonadav had scripted for him. This entire evening's sham was his idea. The eldest son of David's brother Shammah, Yonadav was as dissolute as his father. Raised in privilege as a nephew of the king, he learned early to cloak his nature with a courtier's ingratiating manner. As a boy, he attached himself, leechlike, to Amnon, putting up with casual slights and open cruelties until he had become an indispensable henchman, abettor, pander. He made a close study of every family tie in the king's complex household. He knew that David loved his sons with a blinding and unconditional fervor. Therefore, he deduced that if Amnon feigned illness, David would do whatever he could to see to his son's
comfort. And on no lesser authority than the king's command could Tamar be extracted from the women's precinct. Now, as the dismissed servants withdraw, he is the last to take his leave. But as he goes, he smiles at Amnon and makes a swift, indecent gesture. Amnon's eyes crease with amusement. Tamar, arranging the golden cakes, does not see.

She offers the cakes—hot, fragrant—to her brother. Amnon sweeps them to the floor and pulls her down upon the bed. At first, she's merely indignant. Sheltered, protected from knowledge of her family's darker acts, she is as innocent of evil as a child of her times can be. Of Amnon's depravity, she knows nothing. Even Avshalom, who hates Amnon and would delight in smearing his name, has felt it necessary to shield her. So she thinks her older half-brother is playing some strange, rough, unwelcome game.

Only when he throws her on her back and pushes her robe up does she panic and thrash, trying to get free. But he's astride her now, and so much bigger, so much stronger. She's a quick-witted girl. Knowing she can't fight him off, she tries to reason with him. As his hands push between her thighs she pleads. How can he do this thing to her? How can he do it to himself? He'll be shamed and ruined, just as surely as she will.

He is not hearing her. His jaw is slack with desire. He forces her legs apart. Panicking, she tries a desperate gambit: Ask David, she cries. Ask him for dispensation so that they can marry. “He'll change the law if he knows how you feel; he will not refuse you. When has he ever refused you?” But her voice is thin and shrill. He silences her with his mouth, the bristles of his beard grazing her face. There's an aching pressure between her legs. She squirms and flails, trying to resist. It's no good. A searing pain, the tear of flesh. A few hard thrusts and it's over: a spasm, a shudder and he falls off her, panting. She rolls away from him, curling in on herself like a dying insect. Her mind is a blur of hurt and shame. She's keening, retching. But he's not done. After a few minutes, he reaches out and wraps her hair in his fist,
dragging her head back. He pushes her knees down, flips her onto her face and rubs himself against her, trying to get hard. His fingers probe inside her—slippery now with her blood and his seed. He rubs this on himself, but it's no good. Angry, he pulls her onto her back, glares into her sobbing face. He hits her, open-handed first, then with a closed fist. There is a noise inside her head, a grinding of cartilage against bone. Blood pours from her crushed nose. She spits out a tooth. He takes hold of her head and grinds her face into his groin. She's a limp sac of pain. She can't fight him anymore. She has nothing left to fight for. She takes his cock into her bloody mouth and gags as it fills her throat.

By morning, there is nothing he has not done to her. His final act is to push her onto the floor. A hard stream of hot liquid showers her head. She opens her stinging eyes. He is standing over her, shaking the last drips of urine from the tip of his cock.

“Get out.”

She looks up, shakes her head, clasps at the bedpost. “Don't. Please. I'm begging you. Don't send me out into the street.” Her voice is distorted by the blood congesting her shattered nose. “If you shame me like that, it will be worse than what you've already done.” Amnon steps over her, walks to the door and calls his servant. A single, brutal command: “Get
that
out of here.”

She's on her knees in the narrow lane outside Amnon's house as the door bar slams into place behind her. She tugs at her crushed robe. The silk gives easily. She rips away the virgin's sleeves. On the pale flesh of her upper arm, bruises are already purpling. She grabs handfuls of dirt, rubbing them into her bloody, urine-soaked hair.

The city is waking. In the gray light, a boy comes out to empty a night jar; a girl sets off to fetch water. Their early morning faces crease at the sight of the injured girl, but no one moves to help her. They know very well whose house this is. They have seen such outrages before. Then a woman notices the purple silk of the torn and bloodstained robe. Her eyes widen. Tamar speaks to her, asking the way to
the house of her brother, Avshalom. As Tamar struggles to her feet and limps away, the whispers run before her: the king's daughter. Her own half-brother. By the time she reaches Avshalom's house, her bright future is a smear of despair.

•   •   •

I lay impotent, drool stringing from my mouth. As Tamar's sobs faded, my ears rang until, after a time, I could hear the ordinary, early morning sounds of my own house seeping through the noise of vision—the grind of the well chain on stone as Muwat fetched water, the songbirds and the cockerels greeting the sun. I sat up, dizzy and ill, and spoke aloud, to test my voice, and see if the hours of enforced silence were over for me. A strangled cry issued forth. Muwat, coming in with the water, rushed to my side to see if I was well.

I managed to say the word “broth,” and as Muwat went to see to it, a few lingering filaments of vision flickered. Avshalom, scanning his sister's broken face, her bruised arms. I could feel the rage licking up inside him. As her full brother, her violated honor stained his own. I felt his mind, reaching toward the hot satisfaction of swift revenge. But then I sensed struggle, and a hard-won self-mastery. He realized that Amnon, who judged others by the measure of his own ungirt passions, would be armored against some act of blind anger, some ill-considered violent outburst. Indeed, such a thing might even be what he hoped for. In such a circumstance, in self-defense, Amnon could kill Avshalom, his chief rival for the throne, and if the knife he grabbed were poison-tipped, who would think to inquire? I felt Avshalom's resolve: the only answer he would give Amnon was silence. He commanded Tamar: Say nothing of this. Then Muwat arrived with my broth, and the threads of vision frayed to wisps and dispersed. I took the cup and struggled to take a sip.

Avshalom expected his father to act. It was natural enough that he
should have looked to David for justice, both as father and as king. As a father, David doted on his only daughter. As king, he had every right to be incensed. The state marriage for Tamar, so long anticipated, was now out of the question, and heavy laws had been trampled upon—this, by the crown prince, who was meant to uphold the laws.

Yet David did nothing. If he raged at Amnon, it happened in private. As days passed, it became clear that there would be no public consequences. No punishment. Avshalom, resolute, reacted to this with a steely silence. Only Maacah spoke up.

The daughter of one king, the favored wife of another, she was used to being heard. The day after the rape, she begged to see her husband. As she had her own fine house outside the palace, it was usual for him to come to her. But he did not appear that day, or the one following, sending to say that he was sorry, but grave matters consumed his every moment, and that he would attend on her as soon as he had liberty. I suppose he wanted to wait until her first spate of emotion had ebbed. If so, he misjudged her.

Muwat, who was friendly with Maacah's principal maidservant, gave me an account of their confrontation. The king arrived at her house on the third day after the rape to find Maacah still prostrate and devastated. He drew a chair, the maidservant reported, and sat down by her couch, taking her hand, offering comfort. When she composed herself enough to speak, she asked what arrangements he had made for the execution of Amnon.

The king recoiled. “Are you mad?” he said. “Execute my firstborn son?”

“Then what punishment do you propose?” asked Maacah, her voice strained.

The king stood and turned away from her, pacing. When at last he spoke, it was in a low tone, as if interrogating himself. “Will punishment of Amnon restore Tamar's honor? No, it will not do that. Will it fix her disfigured face? No, it will not do that, either. If I punish my son, will it remake my daughter into the fit bride of a king,
or indeed the bride of any person of state significance? No, those plans must be set aside now. What good, then, to tear my family apart over this miserable business? Enough that my daughter is ruined. Why also ruin my son and heir? It's not too late. He can change. He's only in his twenties. I was still making mistakes—grave mistakes—at a much greater age than that.”

Maacah struggled to her feet, her mouth open. “How can you?” She moved unsteadily toward him. “You cannot propose to leave this rape, this act of incest, unanswered? This crime, for which the punishment is death . . .”

David raised a hand. “Not so. This . . . thing . . . took place within the walls of the city. The law says the woman in such a case must cry out. Yet no witness has come forth to say Tamar cried out . . .”