Hadassah Covenant, The (34 page)

I looked over at Artaxerxes again. He was weeping quietly but openly. And when I think of it now—how overwhelming this must have been for him, to have a mother he had believed dead suddenly appear at the most pivotal and sublime moment of his life, then make a dramatic show of conciliation toward the woman who had played such a maternal role in his childhood.

I rose on shaky knees, and Vashti, unaware of how to further acknowledge my gesture, simply clasped my hands in hers.

Only when I stood did I become aware of how the crowds around us had reacted. Had I been asleep I would have been dreaming of summer storms, for the people’s acclaim echoed throughout the building like thunder!

And then she spoke directly to me for the first time.

“Thank you,” and I knew that she meant it deeply. “And I mean
to be called Queen Mother Amestris from this day on. Queen Vashti died on the day my King sent me from his sight. And Amestris is the name of my birth.”

I hope no one heard the sigh I unleashed at that moment. Inwardly, I thanked G-d for His favor. It would become clear to me over time that I had without doubt saved my own life with the impulsive course I had taken.

Then Queen Mother Amestris turned back to the crowd, and the acclaim, and the upheld arms of her son, the new King of the World.

And Hadassah of Susa, royal member of the harem, untitled citizen of Persia, stepped back to take her place behind them.

Chapter Thirty-eight

“Mordecai, what comes next for us?”

I asked this as we were returning from Pâthragâda the next day in a vast royal procession, of which I recall very little except this meaningful conversation with Mordecai.

“I don’t know,” he said with a warm smile. “I truly do not. But I know that G-d is faithful, and He has never ceased giving me tasks of great consequence to carry out.”

“Are you speaking of raising me?” I asked with a small laugh. Now, writing this, I recognize how self-centered it was for me to assume that his “task of great consequence” necessarily involved me. For some reason, I seemed to continually forget that Mordecai had become an even more famous and greater figure in the Persian Empire than I ever was as Queen. As Xerxes’ Master of the Audiences, he was the sovereign’s closest advisor and most trusted set of eyes, even though during those first few days of Artaxerxes’ reign, his own continued role at the palace lay very much in doubt.

Perhaps it is because I still think of him as my Poppa, my adoptive father, in fact my cousin who cared for me after the sudden murders of both our families. It is difficult for me to picture him as a national
figure, a beloved grandfatherly type whose name and face are known to nearly every child in all of Persia.

“Hadassah, raising you has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done,” he continued. “But yes, it is a task which consumed a great part of my adult years.”

“Hah! There are easier ways of getting a child out of the house than sending her off to the royal harem. . . . ” I regretted my thoughtless quip as soon as the words were out of my mouth and I saw his expression.

“I hardly sent you off, my dear,” he chided gently. “If you knew the grief Jesse’s grandmother Rachel and I endured after you were taken. I wept for days, thinking the light had gone out of my life. I begged G-d to make some sense of it for me.”

“And He did, didn’t He? Sometimes I need to be reminded of that.”

“Sometimes we all do. Especially at times like this.”

“Yes,” I said, suddenly brought back to the situation at hand. “Especially today.”

“I made an agreement with G-d back then—did you know that? I made a solemn vow that if He would redeem the cruel abduction of you and Jesse to the palace, I would devote my days to His service, and to yours.”

I peered curiously at him, for I had never heard of this agreement before.

“Is that why you never married and had children of your own?”

“Yes, I suppose,” he answered, fixing me with the strangest look of exasperation and disgruntlement I have ever received from him. “But the important part is, He has been completely faithful to that vow. And I do not expect Him to start failing me now. Or
you
.”

“But surely my own fate and Jesse’s has been resolved. Could you not now find some comfort and companionship in your old age? Why not find someone now whom you could love for your very own?”

He chuckled at this and looked around him, as though a suitable mate was hiding out amidst the rocks and crags of the Persian desert. “Have you looked at me lately, my dear? I am an old man. My face is more contorted by wrinkles than this desert has rocks and mountains! Who knows how many years the Lord has left for me? And
besides—I spend my days among preening politicians, courtiers, and concubines. How will I find a suitable woman in those surroundings?”

“I don’t know, Poppa,” I said. Then a stroke of wisdom. “Are you starting to suddenly underestimate G-d’s creativity?”

He laughed again, so fiercely it sent him into a spasm of coughs that nearly doubled him over in the saddle. “Excellent point, my dear. I suppose I believed this sort of matter was beyond His interest, that’s all.”

“No more than the fate of three palace discards like you, me and Jesse,” I said.

“I suppose we had both better remember that. No matter what
does
come next.”

It was his astute way of changing the subject. And it succeeded; we would not bring up this question again until the banks of the Ahava, years later, in the conversation I have already told you about.

On that day, we both fell silent and spoke of it no more, for the faint, bristling shadow of Susa’s citadel had just come into sight upon the horizon, and something inside of me sank with a great foreboding. . . .

Chapter Thirty-nine

P
RIME
M
INISTER’S
R
ESIDENCE—THE NEXT MORNING

H
adassah ben Yuda awoke
with the motion of a strong hand shaking her about one shoulder. She opened her eyes and started at Jacob’s face looming large, leaning forward in concern as he crouched down.

“Honey, what are you doing here?”

She looked about her.
Carpet and wall
. An angle of the room she had never seen before. She had fallen asleep sitting with Esther’s memoir in her lap, leaning against her makeup table.

“I don’t know, Jacob. I woke up last night with the most restless feeling, and the best distraction I could think of was a few pages from this. . . . ”

She saw his eyes dart down to the cover page in her lap, register the title, and look back again without a reaction.

“Queen Esther.” He said the name flatly. “She doesn’t seem to leave us alone, does she?”

“Whether the document helps your crisis or not—her account is just fascinating. There’s something about her troubles that seems to . . .” She didn’t want to seem cloying or simplistic, so she did not finish her sentence. And then she realized what she’d said . . .
Whether the document helps you or not
. . . .

“Honey, I don’t mean that I don’t
care
,” she hurried to explain. “I just mean that even beyond its usefulness to the crisis at hand, the memoir has a lot to say. A lot to offer.”

He nodded slowly, and she knew he was assessing her words in light of the difficult times she was living through. The thought galled her somehow. She wanted her observations weighed on their own merit, not the demeaning standard of someone “not quite herself.”

“Listen, sweetheart,” he said with a brush of her cheek, “I have to go. I’d be glad to stay this morning, but it’s another meeting with the Gaza folks.”
Gaza folks
was his usual, wry pseudonym for the revolving door of diplomats he saw from the Palestinian Authority. As much as he confessed to her his disdain for the petulant and self-important suits who filed through his door, he was obliged to give them his utmost attention. Especially now.

“I’m sorry,” she found herself saying to him as he rose. Her hand clawed helplessly around the back of his neck in a vain attempt at affection.

“Sorry for what, sweetheart?”

“For . . . for bringing all this down on you. For being such a distraction just when you’re about to win the prize.”

The prize
, of course, meant the same thing to every Israeli politician or politician’s wife since the early days of 1948. It meant
peace
. A solution to the quagmire that had agitated their nation’s life from day one. More than any of his predecessors, Jacob had reached the brink of this seemingly impossible goal. Then she and her Byzantine family secrets had ruined everything.

“Don’t be silly, sweetheart,” he said, interrupting her gloom. “
You
are the prize. You’re more important to me than any of this.”

She closed her eyes against the tears, for she could not bring herself to believe his kind words just then.

When she felt bold enough to open them again, he was gone. And once more, the only thing that held any life for her was the document lying in her lap.

Thank you, Esther
, she whispered silently.
Thank you for a few hours’ sleep
.