The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman Read Free Book Online Page B

our meals because of the goat’s milk, the more Sia seemed to suffer and burn with envy. One day I saw her lean down to speak to the goat, trying her best to convince this wild creature to change its allegiance, but the goat merely scampered to my side. Afterward I wondered if this was the moment when Sia knew. Although she masked her eyes, I could later hear her sobbing. Somehow in this desert where there was not enough moisture for tears, she still could cry.
BY THEN I had too many cuts to count, they crossed each other, moths floating along the surface of my skin. We now saw a few stray travelers on our journey, and we traded whenever we could. Whatever we had that might be considered precious—my father’s fine leather water flask, Sia’s marriage bracelets—was exchanged for salt and cumin. Once we procured several scrawny chickens and we feasted like kings, but when we were done we were left with only the feet and the bones. Such a meager dish would have to serve us for a long time. We went hungry, and in our hunger, we grew careless, as people who are lost often do. We had so little we seemed to have no tie to this world, had we not been tied to one another.
When my time came and I bled, I used the torn hem of my tunic as a rag between my legs. There was nothing else. We were becoming savages, much like the barbarian tribes who lived in the desert and obeyed its brutal laws. Live if you can, or be left behind with the old and infirm, an offering to the creatures that prowl at night. I wound the blue scarf my brother had given me around my head, even though blue had been the color worn by the sister-brides wehad found buried in the wilderness. All that we had was carried on our backs. All that we were was illuminated by the bright light of the Almighty. We lived because He allowed us to do so. Every breath belonged to our Lord, who had given us another day on earth.
NOW whenever I went to walk beside Sia she quickened her pace. The intimacy between us had been pierced to the bone. When we cooked together she didn’t speak. Sometimes she faltered when I was beside her. Once she became flustered and she burned her hand on the griddle set atop the fire. When we found a shallow pool at our next camp, I asked her to bathe with me. She declined, insisting she would bathe alone, but she never did. Instead she watched me reproachfully from behind the rocks, my young body an affront to her. I could hear her crying. I might have wept myself if I hadn’t lost the ability to do so, but I had decided long ago, in my father’s house in Jerusalem, I would never cry again. The goat soon became my only company. I found myself talking to her, until I recalled that was what witches were said to do. Then I only whispered, so no one would overhear.
WHEN AT LAST we found a place where we might stay for a while, with clutches of mint and a few yellow onions managing to grow in a gorge nearby, I searched out a cave that was higher on the cliff in order to seclude myself when my time came with the moon. A woman who bled was unclean, what was called niddah, and must remove herself from others for seven days. Even a single drop of blood that fell forced a woman to retreat from the world of men, until she had cleansed herself in a mikvah, water that was pure, running directly from God.
I went off by myself because it was our law, but there wasanother reason as well. I could no longer sleep in the same space as Sia. I had begun to imagine that she lay awake in the dark when her husband came to me, insistent now, as though claiming something he was owed. I wondered if she covered her ears, or worse, if she listened to us. I set myself apart to escape her prying eyes. In truth, I preferred my aloneness. I streaked my skin with mud to keep cool. I unplaited my hair. The stars were brighter on the ridge where I camped, they flecked the darkness to fill the night. I had seen women following the nomads, second and third wives who were banished to