Esther (46 page)

The next day Hathach admitted Hegai and my handmaids to my chambers. The girl who stuttered did not even wait for me to dismiss Hathach and invite her and my other handmaidens to recline upon my cushions and partake of some refreshment. “The palace ac-c-c-ccountant is crying out in the c-courtyard, in the city square in front of the palace gate. Hegai said you would wish to know.”

“And there is a certain air about the concubines,” Opi said. “Halannah looks as though she might burst with happy news of some kind.”

Hegai quickly assured me she was not with child. “The harem wine makes certain of it. But your handmaiden speaks true of Mordecai. He has torn his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes.”

My stomach tightened. My cousin had always feared drawing attention to himself, and he would not have abandoned his watch over the treasury for any but the gravest news.

Opi spoke again: “I heard that the accountant would not bow to Haman, and now he cries and has rent his clothes because of some revenge Haman wishes to enact.” From the look upon her face I knew she believed what she had heard. Hathach too looked saddened to hear of the palace accountant's distress.
Perhaps I can trust him.

When it was clear my handmaidens had no more information, I told them to watch Halannah closely and find out all they could in the harem, then I dismissed them.

“Your Majesty, we must get clothes to Mordecai,” Hathach said, “before the king decides that he is a troublemaker.”

The sense of time pressing down upon me caused me to be direct. “Can I trust you? The king said you were his trusted servant, and that you are unwaveringly loyal to only one master.”

“The king is correct. I do serve only one master: Ahura Mazda. He is my king and he is against the killing and plundering of innocent people, even people who do not worship him. Haman has no god but greed. He must be stopped, and I will help however I can.”

I looked to Hegai. He nodded slightly. He believed Hathach, and so did I. “Have a servant bring clothes to Mordecai,” I told Hathach. Then I put a finger under his chin and raised it so I could look into his eyes. I was surprised by their lightness. “Mordecai, my cousin.”

“You honor me with your trust, my queen,” Hathach said, and rushed away to carry out my orders.

There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king's laws.

—Haman, Book of Esther 3:8

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Hathach reported that evening, “but Mordecai refuses the clothes I sent him. What do you wish me to do?”

“Hathach, you yourself must go to him.”

I could do nothing but pace while I awaited his return. When I beckoned to the servant who bore the wine, Ruti quickly said, “Your Majesty, remember that God has not yet put anything before you over which you could not triumph.”

Nothing except pennyroyal.
I fought back the dark thoughts about my womb, but I could not summon any confidence that the king valued me more than Haman. In fact I could not even be sure that he valued me half as much.

Hathach's eyes were heavy when he returned. Ruti stood close to me as he explained that Haman had offered the king a large payment into the royal treasury.

With a great, knowing dread, I asked, “What does he wish to buy?”

Ruti moved closer, as though she might have to catch me.

“For ten thousand talents of silver he has bought from the king an edict whose words I cannot bear to speak aloud,” Hathach said.

Somehow I held out hope against what was already clear. “Why has my flesh and blood put on sackcloth and ashes? Has Haman bought someone's death?”

“Yes.”

I took a deep breath. “Whose?”

“All Jews, Your Majesty, young and old. Even women and children.”

“No.” It was not me who had spoken but Ruti. Though she had known this day would come she refused to believe it had arrived. My legs felt weak beneath me.

“The edict for the destruction of your people was issued in the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the king's signet ring,” Hathach said quietly.

Anger joined my fear. Haman had not even needed the treasury scrolls to secure whatever support he needed. My people's lives had been sold cheaply.

“No,
” Ruti said again.

I pulled her against my chest and wrapped my arms around her. I had forgotten how small she was. Her body was rigid, and for a moment she did not return my embrace.

“Jews in every province are fasting, weeping, and wailing,” Hathach said. “They too are in sackcloth and ashes.”

Ruti began to weep.

“Your Majesty,” Hathach continued, “Mordecai says you must go to the king and appeal to him. You must plead with him for your people.”

The king had not called for me since the morning I had walked out of his chambers to find Erez gone. Going to him without being called was a crime punishable by death. Perhaps he would seize upon the opportunity to rid himself of me. I had the terrible thought that if the king knew I was Jewish it might strengthen his support of the edict.

I could not tell him I was Jewish. I had to find another way.

“Tell Mordecai that if anyone enters the king's inner court without having been summoned by him they risk death, and I have not been summoned to the king for the last thirty days.”

When Hathach went to deliver my message to Mordecai, Ruti stepped away from me. “Your Majesty,” she said, yanking off the purple head scarf I had given her, “I did not risk my life for a coward.”

Her lips were not split only lower from upper, they were split diagonally across, so that they were in four parts of different sizes. Bulbous, grotesque. The outer part of her left nostril was gone. It seemed I was not looking at one surface, but many—a face made up of different pieces pressed together. Because she had believed I was worth defending, the pieces would never fit neatly back together again.

I did not allow myself to look away, even though I could not truthfully tell her anything she wished to hear. “You know my favor with the king runs low.”

She spat upon the floor. “And what of your favor with all of the people who have helped you to your throne?” She turned and walked away without even bothering to secure her scarf.

It was not long before Hathach returned with another message from Mordecai: “Do not imagine that silence will save you. Surely you have not risen so high for yourself alone, but for all of our people throughout the empire who will be wiped from the face of the earth if you do not save them.”

Mordecai is done hiding, and he wants me to follow in his footsteps. But he has not disappointed the king as I have.

I did not send back a message right away. I dismissed all my servants, even Ruti, and lay upon my bed in darkness.

As disappointing and full of heartbreak as life had sometimes been, I wanted to keep living. I thought through every possible way I might save my people, attempting to find one that would also preserve my life. I could come up with nothing. I knew of only one way to turn the king against Haman, and it would almost certainly result in my death.

Sobs overtook my body. They strained my lungs and the inside of my head. They shook the bed as though I suffered a terrible fever. For the first time, I saw the childishness of all I had expected from life: a mother and father who would live until I myself was old, a husband who loved me and only me, children, grandchildren that I would live long enough to hold in my arms.

Now that it was coming to an end, I longed for every bit of the life I'd had, even the troubles. I wished for what I already had as though it were a treasure, which I finally saw that it was. It was a treasure I had not realized I would have to return.

I needed time to think of exactly what I would do, so I sent Hathach to Mordecai with a message to assemble all the Jews in Shushan to fast on my behalf for three days, after which, though it is a crime punishable by death, I would go to my husband uninvited. “If I perish,” I said, “I perish.”

Hathach bowed low and did not immediately rise up.

“At once,” I told him.

The night before I went to the king I dreamed of the woman who appeared whenever I wondered
What if I had guarded my womb more carefully?
The woman I could no longer be, walking beside me holding my dead children's hands.

She had always been unaware of me, but in the dream she turned her head and stared into my eyes. She looked like me, only larger and her face more creased from smiling. She knelt and spoke quietly to the children, then she let go of their hands and pushed them toward me. I held out my arms. They looked at me. My arms grew heavier as they stared but did not come closer. Finally the woman smiled sadly at me, took their hands, and turned back in the direction she was going, hurrying the children along beside her.

I watched the woman I could have been walk away, hips shifting side to side, children bounding along beside her, all of them getting smaller, smaller, until even when added together they were still smaller than I was.

Goodbye,
I said, and let them go.

I thought of telling Ruti of this dream, but pretending that when I let the woman and children walk away I could see more people in the distance—
our
people, celebrating. I told myself it was not a sin to lie if it put her mind at ease. Selfishly, I did not want her to be anxious during what remained of our time together. I was still holding on, trying to wring life from my last days.

I knew I had to let go, even of the days ahead. My hands had to be free to perform the task before me: saving my people.

By the next morning I had devised a plan.

As Ruti bathed me, she observed, “I have never seen you look so sad or so strong.”

I did not know if the dead missed the living, but if so I would miss Ruti terribly.

“Do not be gentle. My skin must glow from across the room.”

If God could forgive me for eating meat that was not slaughtered according to His laws, for wearing a likeness of another god against my chest, and for lying with a gentile king, He could also forgive me for what I was going to do in order to win back the king's love long enough to turn him against Haman.

The servants, and even the guards—who were not supposed to move at all unless commanded to—turned their heads toward me as I approached the throne room in my royal apparel. A weight had been thrown from my chest and my heart lifted. I would leave my body soon and so it did not confine me. I no longer had to try to save myself, I was free to think only of my people, and for them I could do things I could not do for myself.

I walked ahead of my escort and stopped where the king could see me. Something lay before the throne and I saw that it was a map of the empire. The king gazed at it while Haman spoke quietly into his ear.

“
My king,
” I cried. “Behold your queen.” He looked up and I parted my royal robe; only my flesh and the star of Ishtar the king had given me lay beneath it. Even my scar lay bare. I hoped seeing it would remind the king of our first night together, when he had traced it so gently my heart ached, and said,
The best soldiers bear scars.

The king extended his golden scepter toward me so suddenly it nearly flew from his hand.

I walked through the path the servants and petitioners made, letting my robe billow out to either side. I was finally doing for my people what I had promised to do: whatever it took.

The king waved dismissively at the map in front of him without taking his gaze from my body. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Haman glare at the servants who rushed to move the scroll from my path. I touched the tip of the king's scepter and then fell to my knees. I'd had Ruti pin my crown to the back of my head so I could press my forehead to the floor. When I did so, my robe blanketed me. The king bade me to rise. I remained kneeling but I raised my head from the floor and threw back my shoulders. The robe fell down around my legs, leaving me in only my veil and crown.