Bathsheba (5 page)

I
HAD
BEEN
MARRIED
ONLY
NINE
MONTHS
when an unexpected disaster upended my life. On a warm afternoon in which I had planned to bake bread, a messenger from my grandfather stood outside our courtyard and shouted that I should run to my father’s house at once. I dropped a damp cloth on my kneading bowl and hurried away, jogging over the cobbled street until I reached my father’s home.

I found Amaris and Elisheba huddled together in the courtyard.

“Elisheba?” I darted through the gate and dropped to her side. “What’s happened?”

“Your father is ill.” She dabbed at her watery eyes. “He has been sick for two days and he didn’t want to alarm you. But today he took a turn for the worse, and the physician says he will not survive.”

My mind reeled in confusion. My father and grandfather were
rarely sick and never weak. They worked when other men took to their beds, and they never complained about anything.

“Not survive
what
?” I searched her eyes. “Did he fall? Did he cut himself? Has he an injury?”

“Nothing like that.” She swiped at her nose with a cloth. “Three days ago he came home and said he wasn’t hungry. Then he vomited up his food. Later he said his gut hurt, and when he took to his bed I knew something was terribly wrong. The physician gave him a tonic to purge his system, but it didn’t help.”

I turned at the sound of crunching gravel. Grandfather trudged through the gate, his eyes as red and watery as Elisheba’s.

“Bathsheba.”

He held out his arms, so I stood and embraced him, comforted by the solidity of his strong frame. But when I lifted my gaze, I saw tears on his cheeks.

I had never seen a man—
any
man—cry.

“Grandfather, I am so sorry.”

Amaris began to sob. I stood in the center of the courtyard, unable to comfort my sister or my grandfather while grief constricted my own heart so tightly that I could barely breathe.

Fortunately, I did not have to flounder for long. Uriah came into the courtyard, red-cheeked and breathless from haste. With one glance he took in the scene before him, then strode into the house to ascertain my father’s condition for himself. Grandfather followed him.

I sank to the bench beside Amaris and slipped my arm around my little sister’s shoulders. She was weeping silently, a quiet shadow beside Elisheba’s hunched form.

After a long while, Uriah came back outside and shook his head. I rose and went to him. He wrapped me in the circle of his strong arms, then released me so he could address the other members of my family. “Elisheba, Amaris,” he said, his voice raw and rough,
“from this day forward your home will be with us. Eliam has joined his fathers.”

My knees turned to water. My father had always been a highly visible figure, a man with a dauntless air, yet he had died before Grandfather and in the prime of his life. I sat beside Amaris, too stunned to speak or cry.

The physician and his assistant filed out of the house. Grandfather appeared in the doorway then, grief emphasizing the dark pockets beneath his eyes. “Elisheba,” he said, not lifting his bowed head, “fetch other women to prepare the body. I will gather the mourners. We must bury him before sunset.”

Like a man in a trance, Grandfather crossed the courtyard and entered the street, walking with stiff dignity toward the well where men often gathered in the cool of the day. Uriah gave my shoulder a final squeeze and followed him.

When the men had gone, Elisheba rose and caught me in a fierce hug, and then she helped Amaris to stand. As I slipped an arm beneath my sister’s shoulder, Elisheba caught my gaze. “Go inside and prepare the body for washing. I will bring spices when I return with the other women. We must work quickly, for the hour is late.”

I nodded, then took Amaris’s full weight as Elisheba hurried out of the gate.

The hired mourners sat outside, their keening wails an eerie accompaniment to our work. Because she was too young to help, Amaris sat on a stool in the corner while Elisheba and I sponged my father’s body. I had never bathed a corpse before, and the comparison between Uriah’s healthy glow and my father’s diseased form struck like a blow. Though only a few years separated the two men, Uriah’s body was golden, warm, and supple, while death had transformed
my father’s into something mottled, cold, and stiff. Three days earlier my father had been a handsome man, but nothing about his appearance now appealed to the eye.

Death, I realized, left no beauty unspoiled.

Elisheba had been washing the body with strong, horizontal strokes, but she paused to point at a dark shadow on my father’s groin. “Here.” She pressed a finger to the lower right side of his abdomen. “The flesh here is like granite. The illness came from this spot.”

I was no physician, but neither was I prone to doubt Elisheba’s truth. In all the years I’d known her, she had never led me astray.

Two other women joined us, quietly entering the house with baskets of rags and spices. After murmuring condolences to me and Elisheba, they set about helping us prepare my father for the grave.

After cleaning the corpse, two of us managed to lift the body high enough for one of the women to slide a linen cloth beneath it. When the corpse lay on the smooth fabric, Elisheba dropped a fabric square over the face while another placed sprigs of fragrant plants beneath his arms, on his chest, and along his legs. When they had finished, we wrapped one side of the fabric over the other, then tied his shroud with strips of cloth.

Finally, my father was ready for burial.

Elisheba went to fetch Grandfather while I sank to the floor next to Amaris. She looked at me, her chin quivering. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know you probably don’t want me living with you. You’ve only just married Uriah—”

“Hush.” I squeezed her bony little knee. “Of course we want you to live with us—you are family. You will love Uriah, and you will keep me company when he has to leave with the army.”

Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. “But I may never leave your home. I know, Bathsheba, that I may never marry. What man would want a wife who cannot walk or take care of his house?”

“We will not worry about that.” I strengthened my voice. “Whether or not you marry is Adonai’s decision, not mine or even yours. When the time comes, Uriah or Grandfather will negotiate the bride price for you, and if that time does not come, Uriah will be the brother you’ve never had. Don’t worry about tomorrow, little bird. This day has brought us more than enough grief; we don’t need to borrow from the future.”

We fell silent as six men entered the house. Without speaking they surrounded my father’s body, and together they lifted Eliam, son of Ahithophel, and carried him from the house.

If we had been burying Grandfather, my father would have followed the procession with Amaris on his back. I saw that realization flit across my sister’s face, but before it could elicit more tears, Uriah strode through the doorway, knelt beside her, and lifted her as if she weighed no more than a bag of feathers.

Weeping in silent gratitude and grief, I walked behind my husband and followed the procession that wended its way out of Jerusalem and down to the valley where we buried our dead. As we walked, I studied my husband’s broad shoulders and remembered how Grandfather had once hated all the pagan nations, including the Hittites. In Moses’s day, Adonai had marked the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites for destruction. “Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy,” Moses told my ancestors. “You must not intermarry with them. Do not let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters, for they will lead your children away from me to worship other gods.”

But though Joshua and his army did claim much of the Promised Land, they never completely eradicated the territory’s inhabitants—and we never reckoned that some of them might assimilate
our
ways. Such had been the case with Ahimelech the Hittite, who aided David during his struggles against Saul, and such was the case with
my husband. Abraham had transacted business with Ephron the Hittite, who sold him land for Sarah’s tomb. “So how,” my father had one day asked Grandfather, “could any man refuse to betroth his eldest daughter to a worthy man like Uriah?”

At first, Grandfather had been adamant in his refusal to bless my betrothal to a Hittite. I suspected the real reason had nothing to do with Uriah’s race and everything to do with his work. In light of Samuel’s prophecy, a soldier did not seem likely to produce a son who would affect the destiny of Israel, but who could predict how Adonai would work? After all, He had chosen a shepherd boy to be a giant-killer and a king.

And the City of David was far from homogeneous. Jerusalem was home to all kinds of foreigners, including many of the conquered Jebusites, so a Hittite who followed Adonai had to be vastly preferable to a Jebusite who still filled his home with carved idols.

As for me, I would forever be grateful that Father had found a way to soften my grandfather’s granite opinions. And as we placed my only remaining parent’s body into a narrow tomb, my chief sorrow lay in the realization that he would never see the fulfillment of Samuel’s prophecy in a grandson from my beloved husband.

M
Y
NEWLYWED
HAPPINESS
FADED
IMMEDIATELY
after my father’s death. Grief draped a shroud over our small house, every bit as tangible as the cloth Elisheba had dropped over my father’s face. I went about my daily routine, but I felt as though I moved through thickened air on feet as heavy as iron. I wanted time alone to weep and cry, but Amaris and Elisheba had joined us in the house, and I did not want to weep in front of them.

I had no idea that solitude was a luxury I would never know again.

I could not blame Uriah for the black grief that welled in me at odd moments, nor could I blame my father. I could only blame Adonai, though I knew I had no right to do so. Who was I, a mere woman, to question the Creator of the Universe? But if HaShem held the fates of kings and nations in His hands, if He controlled the winds and the rain, why couldn’t He give my father enough time to see the grandson he’d dreamed of for years?

The sense of immortality I’d always taken for granted evaporated like the morning dew. The grave had taken my mother and father; now it waited for the next family member in line. Since Grandfather had proven himself invincible, the grave yawned for me.

Faced with the inevitability of death, my desire for the promised son intensified to desperate longing. I fixated on stories of soldiers who perished from their wounds and strong men who came home, lay down, and died from some unknown disease. Uriah was both a strong man and a soldier, but he was mortal, so I wanted a child in my belly before he left to join the king’s military campaign.

Because my husband’s newlywed furlough was nearly over, I begged him to tell me all the details of the king’s current war. I yearned to understand the conflict, as though knowledge could help me keep my husband safe. Within a few minutes of Uriah’s explanation, I realized the king’s current military action had begun because of an insult.

How like men to go to war over wounded pride!

Several months before our wedding, King Hahash of the Ammonites had died. To express his condolences, King David sent ambassadors to Hahash’s capital. But Hahash’s heir, Hanun, did not trust David’s emissaries, imagining that they were spies intent on surveying the Ammonites’ weaknesses. So instead of welcoming the men of Israel, Hanun treated them disgracefully, holding them captive until he had shaved off the right half of each man’s beard and cut off the back of each man’s tunic. Deeply humiliated, the bare-bottomed and half-bearded ambassadors retreated to Jericho, where a messenger carried the awful news to Jerusalem.

Mercifully, King David allowed his ambassadors to remain at Jericho until their beards grew out, but Hanun’s brazen affront galvanized the king for war. At David’s command, Joab deployed Israel’s troops to fight, and Hanun hastily assembled a coalition of his Ammonite warriors and Arameans. Under Joab’s capable
command, Israel’s army killed seven hundred charioteers and forty thousand foot soldiers, including the Ammonite army commander. Hanun’s men fled into the fortified capital city, Rabbah, and the Arameans sued for peace, agreeing to become vassals of the Israelites.

Winter came and the Israelite army returned home. But the chilly winds that whistled around Jerusalem did nothing to cool the king’s battle fever. As soon as the weather warmed, David again dispatched Joab and his warriors to Rabbah, but Hanun and his army remained out of reach behind the fortified city walls. The Ammonites no longer possessed a functional army, but since the king had not capitulated, Joab laid siege to Rabbah, preparing to maintain his position until Hanun surrendered.

Soon Uriah would have to return to his duties in the king’s fighting force. He would not return home until Israel’s army had either conquered Rabbah or suffered defeat in battle.

Knowing that Uriah would soon leave me, I watched the days float away like leaves from a dying tree. Each month I had held my breath and prayed I would not see the flowing of my monthly courses, and each month my prayers went unanswered. From my retreat to a cushion in the corner of the house and the forlorn expression on my face, Uriah knew when I had entered the time of my
niddah
. He bore the disappointment better than I did, always assuring me that Adonai would bless us at the proper time.

But he was not a woman, so how could he understand? Adonai had
created
me to bear children. If I could not bear children, why didn’t Adonai make me a man? If I was not meant to bear children or do manly things, why did He create me at all?

When the time of my uncleanness was done, I would go to the Tabernacle, make my offering and pray, reminding Adonai that He had chosen Israel out of all the nations, the Levites out of all the tribes, David out of all the sons of Jesse, and me, his humble servant. As my parents had often reminded me, I reminded HaShem
that I had been assured of my role by the word of Samuel, a true prophet, and a true prophet could not lie. Then I would return home . . . to wait.

I think Elisheba wanted a conception almost as desperately as I did. She always greeted the signs of my monthly
niddah
with an audible sigh, and though she took pains not to mention babies or children during the week of my uncleanness, when the seven days were finished, she drew water for my bath with an almost tangible optimism. After sunset on the seventh day, she would take me by the hand and lead me into the courtyard at the back of our house, helping me disrobe by lamplight and then pouring fresh, clean water into the
mikvah
.

My little goat would stand off to the side and nicker as I soaked in his water trough.

One night as Elisheba massaged oils into the skin at my back, I protested that she worked too hard. “I am a grown woman,” I reminded her. “I can bathe myself.”

“Nonsense.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “I have been bathing you for years, child, and I’ll draw your bath as long as you have need. Besides, no woman can properly reach her back, so lean forward, think happy thoughts, and let me do my work.”

Truth to tell, I was always eager to surrender to her strong, ministering hands. And as weeks passed and the anniversary of my marriage approached, my despair at remaining childless and thoughts of Uriah’s departure evoked the old feelings of abandonment that had haunted me when my mother died. Anguish plunged me into a deep well of depressing childhood memories.

Uriah did not know what to make of my tears, my variable moods, and my deep silences. How could I explain such womanly things to a man who meant what he said and said what he meant without undergirding each word with some emotion?

More than once I snapped at him; more than once I apologized.
I tried to explain that he had done nothing to cause my distress, but my own words—
you’ve done nothing
—accused him yet again. Was I barren because of something he hadn’t done?

I wanted to be patient. I wanted to believe that Adonai would bless us in due time, but how was I supposed to conceive a son who would influence Israel if my husband went away to war?

During the month before Uriah’s departure, I went into his arms every night, urging him to love me with all his might, tempting him with mandrakes and perfumed garments and his favorite foods in case the failure for conception lay in a lack of effort or desire on Uriah’s part.

And in case the problem lay with Adonai, I did my best to earn His favor, too. Recalling the story of how Hannah prayed fervently in order to win the Lord’s favor and conceive a son, every morning I climbed the steep path to the Tabernacle and sat outside the tent of meeting, praying that Adonai would hear and grant my petition. I prayed in the blazing sun, determined to show HaShem that my desire was sincere and my intention pure. I prayed aloud whenever a priest appeared, hoping he would remark upon my prayers and assure me that God would grant me a son in the coming year.

I poured myself out in every way I knew and still my courses flowed, even on the day of Uriah’s departure.

Elisheba and Amaris remained in the house while I walked my husband to the courtyard gate. I tipped my head back to look into his eyes. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“But you know I must.”

“Be careful.” I locked my arms around his waist. “I have just lost my father. I can’t lose you, too.”

Uriah gave me a warrior’s confident smile. “I am skilled, Bathsheba. I can handle myself.”

“I know, but . . . well, sometimes unexpected things happen.”

“Do not fret yourself.” He ran his broad hand over my head,
smoothing my hair. “Joab is a wise commander, and Adonai is with him. This battle, when it finally comes, will be ours. Right now the army is only laying siege, and that means many hours of sitting and waiting. So don’t worry. Be well.”

I studied his eyes, searching for any sign of regret that he was leaving or sorrow that we hadn’t yet conceived, but all I saw was love, confidence, and conviction. So I pressed my cheek to his chest and prayed that Adonai would keep him safe from harm. Then, finally, I released him.

I don’t know what Uriah thought of my tears. He might have thought them an extravagant display of how much I would miss him, but we had become so entwined that I’m sure he read the truth in my eyes. I would miss him certainly, but my barren belly had become my overarching concern. If something happened to him, I might never bear a child, unless some other man took pity on me and married me. If I never had another husband, I would become a woman like Elisheba, a nurse to other women’s children, a servant with no family of her own.

Worst of all, if something happened to Uriah, the prophet’s words would be proven false and HaShem a liar. And that I could not bear.

Five months passed, long weeks of waiting and praying and fretting over my husband’s safety amid the stupidity of war. At the end of yet another womanly cycle, Elisheba extended her hand and helped me from the cushion where I had spent the past week complaining. The time of
niddah
always frustrated me, because my courses normally flowed for only three days, yet the Law constricted my movements for a full week.

“Time to relax,” Elisheba told me, placing her arm on my shoulders.

“I can’t relax.” I chafed under her gentle touch. “Uriah remains
away from me, and another month has gone by. How am I supposed to bear a son when my husband is never here?”

“Do not fret, child. HaShem knows the desires of your heart, and He knows what is best. So come with me—we will let Amaris play her harp while I draw your bath. And while you soak in the
mikvah
, you will resign yourself to the will of Adonai. You will pray for your husband’s safety and smile in the sure knowledge that you will have a son when the time is right.”

I exhaled a heavy sigh and pretended acquiescence, though my heart groaned within me. I was not yet twenty and I yearned for my dreams with the frantic impatience of youth. Though something in me knew Elisheba was right, my strong will was not ready to surrender.

The house felt empty without Uriah, and so did my bed. I missed his company and his warmth, and every four weeks I felt nothing but frustration and sorrow during the time of my uncleanness.

“Why couldn’t Uriah have stayed home a few more months?” I asked, my voice tinged with whining. “No one would have blamed him if he tarried until I conceived. Grandfather is an important man in the king’s court, and he could have asked permission for Uriah to remain in Jerusalem. I should have gone to Grandfather in tears. I should have begged him to make sure Uriah remained at home another month—no, six months more.”

“And what would your husband have thought of all this tearful begging?” With an effort, Elisheba lifted the large pitcher we used to haul water from the well. “He would have resented your interference, and in time he would have resented
you
. A man like Uriah does not want special favors; he takes pleasure in doing his duty. He would not want to remain at home, living at ease and in luxury while his comrades slept on the battlefield.”

I thrust my lower lip forward in a pout. “But if he loved me, he would have asked. No man wants to leave an unhappy woman at home—”

“That’s where you’re wrong, child.
Any
man would choose to leave an unhappy woman at home, because no man wants the sound of a whining wife in his ears.” She braced her free hand on her hip. “So tell me—why has the happiest young wife in Israel become the most miserable?”

The question hammered me. Why? Because I wanted the son I’d been promised. And I wanted my husband. I was tired of waiting for them.

My blood ran thick with guilt as those thoughts took shape in my mind. My husband was attending to duties that both fulfilled and defined him. I had fallen in love with a warrior, a man just like my father. I knew what being a soldier’s wife entailed.

So why had I become more concerned about my own happiness than my husband’s? I had been telling myself that Uriah wanted a child as much as I did, but the desire to hold a son clearly tormented me more than it did him, and something in me resented the inequity.