Once, when there was a pale moon, I went to the pool where Sia and I had bathed. During my time of monthly bleeding, I had sequestered myself away as was our custom. Now it had ended and I needed to cleanse myself. In Jerusalem, we had gone to the mikvah to bathe. Here there was only the pool in the nachal, the ravine where birds came to drink in the evenings, flocks of ravens, larks, and huge griffon vultures, the strong, fearless creatures we called nesher that nested in the cliffs. I found that the water was fast disappearing with the rising heat of Av. Still, I took off my tunic and splashed myself and felt some relief. I heard a rustling in the tamarisk trees, a variety that can be found growing in the harshest of places. Quickly, I drew on my cloak, fearful that one of the leopards whose territory we had entered might be stalking me, hungry enough to consider me his prey.
There was an echo of footfalls, and I froze until they vanished. I returned to our camp, cleansed but on edge. Everyone was sleeping inside our small goatskin tent, which was fastened to the ground with bolts made of horn. Only Ben Simon was awake. He seemed restless. I flushed to think perhaps he had seen me at the pool. He called me to him, and I went, my eyes lowered.
“It’s dangerous,” he warned.
He had never spoken to me before. I didn’t know if he meant there was danger in walking in the wilderness alone or in raising my eyes to meet his. I felt outraged that he might think he could tell me what to do, treating me as he would a child, or worse, his slave, and yet I felt a flicker of pleasure when I noticed the spiky green leaves in his hair. They were from the tamarisk that grew by the pool, a tree that lifted its boughs toward heaven in a place where nothing else could survive.
TWENTY-ONE CUTS and then the night when it happened. Afterward I wondered if I had been marking off the time until it did. Was that what I was waiting for? Was that where my desire had led me? Perhaps I had peered into the Book of Life, which metes out fate, and while in the depth of my slumbers I had seen his name written there. Or perhaps it was only that I was an envious girl who had nothing, and was therefore willing to take what belonged to another woman, one who was my only friend.
I was building a fire to cook our meal of lentil cakes on the griddle I’d brought with me from Jerusalem. He crouched down next to me. The sky paled with heat. The larks were flying in the dim light, and great colonies of bee-eaters were calling, their brilliant blue feathers slicing through the hazy air. Jachim ben Simon was more commanding than most men and I could feel the heat of his presence beside me. He didn’t look at me this time. Instead he reached down and ran his hand along my leg, lingering over the cuts I had made until my skin seemed on fire.
“You’re not afraid of the things other women fear,” he said.
I realized this was true. He still wasn’t looking at me, but he seemed to know me, even though I was hidden inside my veils. Most women feared for the lives of their children and husbands. Their concerns were starvation, illness, demons, enslavement. I feared the lions in my dreams, half-believing I would be devoured by one of the creatures that stalked through my sleep. I was afraid an angel would be waiting for me in the desert, sent there to tell me that my life was a ladder of mistakes, that I was born a murderer, responsible for the death of my own mother before I took my first breath, that my crime was worse than that of any assassin, for I was guilty not only in the eyes of my father but in the eyes of God.
Ben Simon took his hand away, but I could still feel the heat of his touch. I felt it for days. Did that mean he was an angel, hidden among us, there to judge me? Or was he only a man who wanted to satisfy himself?
*
WE WERE nearly going blind in the white light that pierced through our tent during the most brutal hours. Travel was impossible in the heat of the day, for the winds were merciless and could cut a man to pieces. We were city people who had strayed in the wilderness, wanderers with no direction, stranded in the territory of robbers, and thieves, and holy men. Emptiness was the name of the desolate land we crossed. We saw no one. When the pool of pale water disappeared into the sand, when even the mud left behind became hard-baked and dry, there was no reason for us to stay in our camp.
We packed up our few belongings—the goatskin tent, the handheld spindles we used to spin wool, our knives and the griddle, a jar in which there was still some oil, the lamp that we burned to mark the Sabbath, though there was little enough oil to do so. We moved on, searching for water. We ventured onward beneath the inky sky in the early mornings, during hours that were less brutal, before the sun emerged from the dark. Our route led us to a well, but it was dry. It led to an orchard, but it was barren. Olive trees had withered here, their silvery bark turned to empty shells. It was said that the nomads who crossed this wilderness were often forced to kill their camels and drink hot blood when their thirst could not be contained. There was no grass, and even the herds of ibex, wild goats who were unafraid to race across the rockiest cliffs, didn’t often venture into this harsh land. Only the leopards came here. Though they were mysterious and rare, we occasionally spied paw prints. These were the fastest animals in all creation, unearthly in their beauty, but they journeyed alone. Only those who lived cut off from all others of their kind would come here.