Hadassah Covenant, The (7 page)

I have no words to convey my feelings. These have been the darkest days of my life. To have given away what is most precious to a woman, and then be spurned. Had I simply fooled myself? All I could think was that I finally had come to resemble my biblical namesake, Leah, the wife of Jacob, who was rejected by her husband after her long-ago wedding night.

I had left the King’s bedchamber that morning feeling as though I was riding on the wind. So to have the dream-come-true dashed only three nights later, when Mordecai came in to tell me the King wished no further contact with me—no, not even as a concubine, much less as queen—well, again words fail me. Mordecai himself appeared shocked.

Self-doubt took up residence at my door.
Had I been wrong? Was I that deceived? Was I that unprepared? Had all my lessons from Jesse, the lessons of Mordecai, and your own intimate tutoring all gone to waste? Was I that poor a student
?

And then came the ultimate self-condemnation. . . .
Was I that unattractive
?

I struggle to fully describe to you my feelings, for fear of appearing selfish or naïve. But I will try, for I have always found you to be a wise and loving listener. And I am confident that, in time, you will understand my heart.

You see, I am of two minds. On one hand, I am quite content to offer my life—my hopes and aspirations, my love, even my innocence—in the service of our people. If the loss of my love will help relieve some of the tensions within the palace, and help in any way to ensure the rebuilding of Jerusalem, then please believe me, I am glad to endure it.

Esther, I have never forgotten your heroic undertakings when the entire palace had been turned against us, swayed into ordering the extermination of every Jew in the empire. Nor do I overlook the fact that even though I was only a child at the time, I and my family especially would have been numbered among the victims. You risked instant beheading to go before the King, reveal your sworn secret, and plead our cause. I have never heard of a braver thing in my life—except for maybe what Mordecai did, refusing to bow before the vile Haman even if it cost him his life.

Yes, you were willing to risk certain death, and I think I am no different. If I can play a part in ensuring the ongoing safety of our people and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, I am honored to do so. Even if the cost is a lifetime of boredom, humiliation, and loneliness, I will pay it. But what did this rejection have to do with that “price”? It seems without purpose, senseless.

However, now that the price is paid, I look ahead to the long, long years stretching before me, and can hardly believe I am now a relic of more worthwhile times, awaiting death and some hope of happiness in paradise. Is this lingering twilight all I can possibly hope for? Is it right to pray for something more? Is it selfish to wish for some sort of betterment of my lot in this long period of aftermath, of solitude?

Because, my friend, the harshest truth is this: When I see my reflection in those polished bronze serving dishes of ours, I see a young woman of twenty, and it nearly rips my breath away to think that at my age, life is already over, that I will never love again, never bear children, never even leave the palace grounds. The sheer outrageousness, the seeming unfairness, of the thought leaves me gasping
for hope, for relief. I am a prisoner in a luxurious cell serving a life sentence, for I know that having shared the bed of the King and been rejected, I will never be released from the harem.

I understand the realities of life. I also concede the advantages of my rather pampered surroundings here in the harem. Surely many women harried by the demands of family and children at least occasionally would long for a life of luxury and leisure within a royal palace. But for me, it is torture.

If all I have left is to wait, to count the weary moments until my earthly existence is over, then why not invite death? Why not take my life, as several of my sisters-in-bondage have done since I was moved to the harem?

Please forgive the selfishness and petulance, even the wickedness, of my words, dear Esther. I do not mean to turn the focus onto myself. In fact, I am equally concerned about the future of our people. In my foolish moments of premature triumph, I had pictured myself as queen, granting royal patronage to my parents in their old age, working to enshrine Mordecai’s new position of Exilarch as some kind of permanent royal post in the empire, perhaps even in time adding the influence of my own royal Jewish blood to bolster the proposition. Knowing that the Exilarchy is not universally accepted among all the segments of Jewish society, especially the priesthood in Jerusalem, I imagined myself working alongside Mordecai to champion its cause, and that of our people, at a time when they are being hated as never before.

How glad I am that I never shared these presumptuous thoughts with Mordecai or Jesse before they were forced to come to me and deliver the terrible news!

As I count you such a trusted friend, I know you are the only one with whom I can share my tormenting and mortifying experiences. But here is the question I must ask you, and to which I desperately hope you can identify.

Esther, do you ever feel that your life is over
? That you already have played the significant role you were born to play, and you have spent your life’s purpose? Or possibly that you mismanaged life’s cues and missed further opportunities for your life to have meaning? That since things did not turn out the way you had believed they
would, others have taken the stage and now you’re simply waiting in the wings for your turn to die?

That, my dear confidante Esther, is exactly how I feel.

I desperately need to know if you have ever felt the same. And if so, how you have managed to endure it. My only hope to retain the last shred of my sanity is that you indeed have endured some of this pain and have some secret that will help me survive.

Would to G-d I had never let my fantasies deceive me that night!

I await your reply, my cherished friend, with every breath left in me.

Leah

Osborn started his vehicle quickly and sped into the Baghdad night—not due to any appointment or deadline, but his knowledge that merely sitting alone in a vehicle for so long could turn him into a target of random terrorism. Not to mention the explosive information the ratty little truck now harbored.

His mind sped just as quickly over the passage he had just translated. Even the abbreviated symbols referring to “G-d” confirmed the authenticity of the document. His heart pounded with jubilation—and fear.

Chapter Six

T
HE
J
ERUSALEM
C
ENTER FOR THE
P
ERFORMING
A
RTS—THREE DAYS LATER

I
n the minutes before
it happened, Jerusalem had seemed to be in a celebratory mood, as hope for a long-awaited peace settlement hovered in the air. The night-shrouded capital fairly throbbed with the prospect of a just-negotiated land-for-security agreement between its leader and the new Palestinian prime minister—unaware that a few hundred kilometers away, unfolding events would hurl fresh challenges at the long-harbored dream.

In Jerusalem’s cultural district, triumphant Prime Minister Jacob ben Yuda was oblivious to the threat—even in the mood for a night out. His bride of several years, the one-time Hadassah Kesselman, had even chosen the occasion to invite her dearly loved Poppa to share it with them.

After that evening, Israel’s First Lady would remember only a few of the evening’s preliminaries. What she would somehow remember best and most vividly was the moment the dogs began to bark.

She would recall an odd collection of other jumbled moments leading up to the barking. She would recollect key lines of dialogue from the premiere performance of the play she, her husband, and her father had just attended—a taut thriller about a deeply conflicted housewife
and her homicidal lover. She would recall the words her father had just muttered in her ear about the lead actor’s mediocre performance. And the sly grin of agreement she had flashed him, just out of reporters’ sight—grateful that Poppa had, for once, remembered to keep his voice down. She could feel again her hunger, not having eaten since a meager breakfast that morning. And, complacently accustomed to standing just one crosshair away from the Prime Minister’s spotlight, she would recall precisely where her husband had stood—or to whom he had been waving—at the critical moment.

Yet the memory that somehow stuck in her mind was the instant the bomb-sniffing dogs flew into full alarm.

She would forever recall the suddenness and savagery of the noise. How viciously the growls engulfed the marble lobby and drowned out the
glitterati’s
murmur, the reporters’ shouts. She would remember its odd quality—more fierce and rapid than any barking she had ever heard from any large dog, and at such an anguished, unnaturally high pitch. As though the German shepherds were being choked by the brightly colored climbing-rope leashes along which her husband’s bodyguards held them fast.

She would remember turning away from her father and frowning toward the chaos, seeing the animals lunge across the crowded vestibule in exaggerated frenzy. She had recoiled at the sight of the dogs at full alarm, their bodies straining so hard against their straps that their heads stood as high as their handlers’. And the sight of fangs snapping in the light of the chandeliers, saliva slinging away from open jaws onto nearby ball gowns.

All this from animals usually so gentle she had gone months without even noting their presence.

Somehow she would remember these details far more clearly than the attacker’s face. Of that, she would only recall the slightest details, yet those details were enough. A split second of fear pouring from dark eyes. Neck tendons strained and flexing. A lean visage twisted with hate so powerful that as brief as it was, the sight sent a shiver freezing down her whole body.

Then the bellow of a
Galil
sniper rifle, fired at short range.

And the running man jerking back, recoiling against the blow.

Then seeing him recover. Regain his footing. Refocus that vicious
expression onto them—onto
her
? Oddly thinking,
It’s only because I’m standing next to my husband. The Prime Minister
. Hearing shouts reach her ears, or perhaps her awareness, about a vest.
The man was wearing a bulletproof vest
!

Then came another strange sound—the clatter of several thousand dress shoes and high heels racing in unison across polished marble. Out of the corner of an eye she saw the scuffed bottoms of her husband’s loafers and realized he was being dragged away to safety as well.

Without her
.

More shots rang out. The room filled with echoes of ratcheted thunder—she recognized machine-gun fire. This time the man running toward them was knocked off his feet. The noise stopped and she glimpsed him being buried under the hurtling bodies of more bodyguards.

Someone pushed her back, and she realized that her father was shoving her down with all the strength left in an old man’s limbs. Her own high heels slipped and she felt herself fall to the floor. Land
hard
. A dark shape filled her vision—her father . . . on top of her. And as feeble as he was, she knew he had not tripped out of weakness or instability.

Poppa had thrown himself. Two other large, dark shapes leaped on top of him, crushing her.
Bodyguards
.

A male voice screamed—

And a new explosion shredded her world apart
!

Its shock wave slammed into her body.

White light seared her retinas.

Roaring flooded her ears.

Flame scorched her exposed skin.

Her body and those of the men on top of her, joined for a moment by gravity, jerked apart with unimaginable savagery. She saw an arm fly away, and a hand, in a strange slow motion. She curled like a child against the burning and clutched her abdomen. Her ears felt attacked by an awful
something
, a rumble that was more vibration than sound.