Esther (2 page)

The dagger was no match for his flesh. It slipped from my hand as if he had knocked it away. I tried again with the most ready weapon I had, one I did not have to grip. I sunk my teeth into his upper left arm. He grunted and threw me to the ground. He was only flesh after all, flesh I could run from. Though first I hastily searched the ground for the dagger. I had grasped it only briefly, yet without it my hands felt unbearably empty. Perhaps, knowing I was about to lose all I had, I could not bear to lose anything more. And for this I will never forgive myself.

What good did I think it would do me? What excuse can I offer?

I was only fourteen. I had made one mistake after another: I should not have put on my head scarf, I should simply have grabbed—not fastened and tied—my sandals. And most of all, I should not have been near Shushan.

The only thing I may have done right, though I did it too late, was run. I ran in the opposite direction of the road and the terrible sound of girls crying.

But I did not go far before learning the terrible strength of men. He yanked me by my tunic and I flew into him so hard the wind was knocked from my lungs. His weight fixed him to the earth as mine did not; the impact did not move him even a hair's width. I knew suddenly that there had never been any use in stealing his dagger and stabbing him, nor in biting him. It was as though I had flown backward into a giant rock face.

As he dragged me toward the road and the pleas of the girls gathered there, I fought to gather enough air to speak. I wanted to tell him my cousin would reward him with gold darics if he would let me go, but my body would give up only enough breath to say, “
Please
.”

He did not respond with words. He tightened his arms—one around my ribs and elbows, the other around my neck. If I had not been choking from the soldier's arm I would have choked on the musky earthen smell of men and horses. Sweat old and new, dust, dirt, the frothing around the horses' saddles and bits. As the soldier brought me to stand in the road I could smell all of this but see little—the light of the torches was blinding. Yet for a moment I tried not to close my eyes. I wanted to see the soldiers' faces, hoping to find kindness in one of them.

The arms released me and I stumbled backward, as if the light itself pushed me away. A new shadow came to stand before me. I quickly practiced my lie, practiced not allowing the voice in my head to falter.
Sir, I must humbly tell you that I am already betrothed. My wedding is in two days.

“Sir,” I said. He tied a rope around my wrists so tightly I knew we had passed the point at which we could have pretended I did not want to run away. “I must humbly tell you—”

“You must humbly keep your mouth shut or I will close it for you.”

“I am already promised to—”

“Gag her,” the soldier ordered. Though he had already tied the rope around my wrists, he did not let go of it.

My eyes were adjusting to the light. The soldier had eyes whose centers were like perfect round drops of honey that have just begun to melt in the sun. Huge, beautiful eyes. He possessed no other remarkable features. Perhaps his eyes had used up all the beauty that one face is allowed. He had a long nose from which the rest of his features receded, as though he had thrust his face too often against the wind. Not even his beard of tight curls could disguise that he had little in the way of a chin.

“My cousin will give you gold coins if you will let me stay here.”

He leaned close. I tried to step back, but he yanked me forward by the rope around my wrists. “We will take you,” he said, his stale breath hitting my face like something solid, “
and
your cousin's coins.”

From behind me a soldier said, “Enough, Parsha.” I was relieved to hear someone speaking on my behalf, but I did not like knowing that the soldier who had tied my wrists had a name. It made it harder to hold on to my last hope—that I was having a nightmare, the contents of which would empty back into the night when I awoke. Where would I have come up with the name Parsha? The soldier was not my invention. I leaned away from him.

“You
follow
orders, Erez,” Parsha replied. “My brother's orders.” Yet he let go of the rope and turned away as I stumbled backward.

The soldier called Erez caught me. My back fell against his chest and his hands steadied me. Perhaps meaning to reassure me, he said, “We only want a hundred of you. When we put you in lines and walk through with torches it will be decided who is plain enough to stay here and who we will bring to the king.” He moved on and I had to bear my own weight again, a terrible burden I could not set down.

As the huts were ransacked, the girls on either side of me pressed closer. Whatever stood between the soldiers and the things they wanted was thrown upon the ground. It seemed that the lives we had lived up to that moment were trash to be gotten rid of. Yet the soldiers did us this one kindness. A shower of sandals rained over us like a gift from a Greek god—one who does not halt the terror but sends something to help you through it.

Beside me two girls struggled for the same sandal. The strap broke when neither would let go. Everyone knew that without sandals you could not walk upon the Royal Road once the sun has risen to the top of the sky. Not for long.

When the struggling was over, many girls were left with sandals of different sizes, straps stretched taut over one foot, the other swallowed by leather.

The soldiers had been watching, laughing, but now a few began to argue amongst themselves. I was glad for this, because their shouts drowned out the moans of the men who had been brave enough to fight for their sisters and daughters.

“This is not Athens,” Erez said. “You are stealing from the king's own subjects.”

A soldier who looked like Parsha replied: “A few of these men tried to stand against us, and for this, they all will pay.” His voice was crueler than Parsha's and it overflowed with confidence. He was in charge.

As we were pushed and prodded into lines, I kept my chin down to hide the necklace my mother had given me, a flower of gold foil petals hanging from a plaited gold wire. Crying girls fell against me on either side. When the soldiers began slowly moving through us, girls shrank from the light of their torches. At least,
some
of them shrank away—those without obvious imperfections. A girl beside me stepped boldly toward an approaching torch. Her cheek was deeply gouged, so deeply that with just a little more force behind the knife her tongue might have been visible. Had she pressed the knife to her face herself?

She began to sway upon her feet as though the ground undulated beneath her. I feared she would fall. The torches continued to move through us—illuminating and blinding and then receding to leave us in darkness until the next one came. I saw that the girl with the gash in her cheek was not the only one who was disfigured. Would these girls go free, or would they be punished with a fate worse than living out the rest of their days in a harem?

The soldier who looked like Parsha spoke quietly to some of his men while gesturing at us. Then the soldiers untied the girls with gashes in their cheeks, burns on their necks, missing fingers, and any other obvious injury. The soldiers pushed them away, back toward their huts. Though their wounds hurt my eyes, and surely some would return home to discover a father or brother wounded worse than they were, I wished I were one of them. Why had I not thought to use the soldier's dagger to cut myself? I would have to use my teeth again.
I will bite the side of my lower lip so hard I am too marred to bring to the king's harem,
I decided and brought my teeth down with all my strength.

My cry was so strange it did not seem that it could have come from me. It was loud enough to bring a torch so close that I felt as though the flame licked my cheek. I closed my eyes and watched the spots of blue that floated before me, wondering why the soldier holding the torch was silent. Was he considering whether to keep me for the king or let me go? I had nothing left to offer but what little pride remained to me. “Please let me go.”

He hesitated, then so quietly I almost did not hear, said, “I cannot. If any soldier who has seen the beauty of your face catches you going back to your home he will do far worse than bring you to the king's harem.”

The voice belonged to Erez. If
he
would not help me, who would? As the torchlight moved on, all hope drained out of me.

Spots of blue continued to float before my eyes. I watched them as I was pulled forward by the rope around my wrists, away from the sounds of the villagers' wailing. Soldiers were yelling at people to stay back. A man ran up beside us, calling to one of the girls, “I will not leave you. I will be beside y—” I heard the crack of a whip and looked back. In the torchlight, I could see the man bent over upon the ground. Farther back I could see the villagers gathered behind us, and soldiers taking water from the village well. Farther still, I could see the outlines of the huts in which we had been sleeping not long before.

Tears began to form in my eyes. I quickly turned back to the march. None of what was happening seemed like it could possibly be real.

When the sun finally came up though, I could clearly see the rope around my wrists. I started to cry. I hated myself for it but I could not stop. I was one of a hundred girls being driven like oxen east across the scorching desert plain by Xerxes' soldiers, straight into the rising sun.

We were being marched single file along the Royal Road, a length of stones laid upon hard-packed earth that stretched from Shushan to the Aegean Sea. My lip throbbed where I had bitten it and my feet soon grew raw in my sandals, but I was careful to keep up my pace. The ropes around our wrists had all been tied to one long rope; if anyone slowed, the rope would yank upon her wrists, burning her skin.

The soldiers were scattered beside us upon horses all the way up the line. The nearest one was at least fifteen cubits in front of me. From the clomping I heard a short distance behind me, I knew they were also at the back of the line.

I wanted to know which one had stolen me from my bed.

I looked for the wound I had inflicted, but the soldiers' tunics covered their arms. There was no way of discovering which one had taken me unless he raised up his hand so I could see where I had bitten him. Still, I could not keep from looking. Though I hated all of the soldiers, I hated him most. The hatred helped me endure the heat and the throbbing of my lip.

Hoofbeats suddenly sounded from the rear. A soldier rode up so close that I could hear the flies buzzing on his horse's flanks and the swishing of the animal's tail.

“You in the red head scarf. Take it off,” he ordered me in a voice hoarse from giving commands. It was the soldier who looked like Parsha, but whose tone was crueler and more confident. He had been yelling at the girls to walk faster and following each order with threats of the lash. He had made it known that if a lash fell upon a girl she would no longer be fit for the king's harem, and would instead be given to the soldiers.

“
Girl,
” he said. The girl ahead of me panicked, stumbling in her attempt to move away. The soldier laughed and drew his horse back.

Before she regained her balance and began to slowly plod forward again, I saw the high cheek and proud nose of her profile. She was Yvrit, the butcher's daughter. I had lived in Babylon until my parents were killed, and Yvrit and I had been friends. We looked so similar that people sometimes confused us. Yvrit had admired me and always asked for my advice. She had even wanted to know how to walk and what to say. Though we both worshipped the One God, Yvrit had seemed to worship me most of all. She was moving so slowly that the rope was tugging at her wrists, jerking her forward. I kicked her heel.

“Ow!” Yvrit said, raising her heel up as if it were the road that had kicked her.

“I am sorry, but you must not slow down. There will be time to tend your wounds when we get to the palace.”

“Hadassah, is that you?” Yvrit twisted her body to look back at me.

“Hush
.
Turn around.”

The soldier had shifted his attention to the girl behind me. He was yelling, “A drunken old man could walk a straighter line than you.” But still he could have heard my true name, and guessed my secret: I was Jewish. My mother had named me Hadassah, as if she had foreseen her own violent death or the march I would one day be forced to make.
Hadassah
meant “myrtle,” a plant that only gave off its sweet fragrance when crushed.

“Now I am
Esther,
and you . . .
Cyra.
”
Cyra
was the word for “moon.” I was certain that Yvrit wished for the moon to replace the sun as soon as possible. Everyone knew that even scorpions died if they attempted to cross the road during the noonday heat. Though the sun had only risen halfway to the top of the sky, sweat poured down my neck, and my tunic stuck to my body.

“Speak no more—only walk,” I said, “no matter if your feet blister or you wish to lie down in the road.”

The soldier stopped yelling at the girl behind me. I felt his eyes upon me. “You wish to lie down in the road?”

“No, sir.” I was careful to keep all feeling from my voice.

“Then
take off your head scarf
.”

His horse stepped so close that I felt the short, sharp hair of the animal's large flank against my arm. But I would not show this soldier or any other that I was hot and tired and full of fear.

“You can pretend not to hear my words but you will have a harder time pretending not to feel my whip,” he said. I glanced up to see if he was reaching for it. It sat untouched upon his hip. He leaned down to look at me. “The people of your village may have thought you beautiful,” he said, his eyes moving over me, “but you are no longer in your village.”