Angels at the Gate (46 page)

Shem looks unsure.

“Teach him everything you know about camels.”

Only then does he smile. The first one I have seen on his face in this dark city. It transforms him into the boy I had known, so proud to show off his prize white camel, so quick to offer me, a stranger, his friendship. I draw a deep breath, preparing myself to do the most difficult thing I have ever done. Without allowing myself to think about it, I draw the sleepy pup from my robe and hold it out to him. “Name him Zakiti,” I say. “You and Ishmael will need him to hunt for you.”

Tears fill his eyes. I imagine this pup was the only comfort he had as a slave to Katar.

When they are gone, I return to Nami's side, despite the crackle of flames above us. Mika kneels, sliding his arms beneath her. Her body will not be a great burden; she is so thin.

He stops.

“I will find a piece of carpet to cover her,” I say, thinking he is considering the journey back to my house.

“This dog—” Mika's voice is tight. “Nami is not dead.”

My heart flutters. “What?”

“She is still warm. The body should have cooled by now, even in this heat.” He runs a hand over her prominent ribs, leans down to press his ear to her.

I am suspended over a chasm, hanging onto a rock. A rope dangles just beyond my reach, but I must let go to reach it, and if it is not truly there or is pulled away at the last moment, I will fall forever. Once again, I cannot breathe.

“Her heart is strong, Adira!”

“I know that,” I hear my own voice say and force my lungs to inhale. “But is she … dying?” I cannot bear to have her back and then have her go away. Nor can I have her suffer if there is no hope.

Mika is only a healer now, his fingers probing. He peels back her eyelid, exposing it to light. “She is breathing very shallowly. I think her ribs are broken. The question is whether she bleeds inside. She is very weak. Is there water?”

I move quicker than I thought possible, aware of the sharp pain in my own ribs. There has not been time to tell Mika of the blows I received. I return with water from an urn in the shop area and a small bowl.

Mika holds the water at Nami's nose, but she does not stir. He takes a piece of cloth from his ever-present leather bag and dips it in the bowl, then lifts the edge of her muzzle and squeezes it into her mouth. Her tongue moves, and she swallows. He gives her a little more. “Only a little just yet,” he says to her.

Above, the roof burns fiercer.

From the doorway to the front shop, Raph calls over his shoulder. “People are coming in, taking whatever they want. The streets will not be safe!”

“We just have to get out,” I call, coughing from the thickening smoke, and pull an end piece free from my head covering to shield my mouth and nose. I look at Mika. “The back alley that runs along the seashore. It is more passable.”

I wish for a window, but there is only one doorway out of this house.
As if to seal our difficulties, a thick, blazing log falls with a loud crash into the courtyard, blocking our path.

We can hear Raph engaging the looters, trying to keep a way for us to the outside. I consider the burning log. I could not jump over it. Mika could, but not with a burden in his arms. I want to tell him to go on, to leave Nami and me, but the words will not come out. I do not want to die. Not if Nami has a single breath in her, and not if we can save those innocent babies sleeping in my stepdaughters' wombs.

I can still smell the stale urine on my hands. It is a wonder Danel and Lila could bear my embrace, but it gives me an idea, and I hobble to the soiled, wet blankets that Nami was forced to lie on. I slap them across the log where the fire is lowest. Mika quickly sees what I am doing and joins me. There is a sizzle and steam, and the flame begins to eat the blanket but I throw another one and another until we have a narrow bridge we can cross.

Mika is standing now, Nami draped in his arms, and he steps across, waiting close on the other side, so I can use his shoulder as a brace.

When we reach the front of the shop, we find Raph has cleared the place. His sword is bloody, but there are no bodies. I grab sections of carpet to drape over Nami and Mika to protect them.

Then the Lord rained down fire and burning sulfur from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. He utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and every bit of vegetation. But Lot's wife looked back as she was following behind him, and she turned into a pillar of salt.

—Genesis 19:24–26

Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.

—Ray Bradbury,
Brown Daily Herald

I
SIT IN THE LITTLE GATE
of my house, Nami at my feet, her head resting on my foot. I have stayed with her all night, getting her to drink and even eat a little, although she will only do so from my hand.

While I struggled with Katar, the men—Mika, Raph, Danel, and Lot—cleared the logs from the roof, and the women removed all the dried reeds from the floor. The bits of flaming pitch from the Tongues of Mot seem to come and go in waves, but they now fall through the opening, burning out in the barren dirt. It is sweltering hot with no relief—even the wind from the sea is hot—and I cannot imagine Mot's own caverns stinking worse, but we are safe for the moment. The ground has shaken twice since our return, not as hard as the first time, but I feel they are but precursors to something worse. Perhaps the gods are fighting over this city, though why they should want it is beyond my understanding.

Mika played the part of El's angel, and told Lot he must leave with his family. Lot has gone to convince his third daughter, whom I have still not met, to come with her husband and children. Raph has gone with him for his protection. The streets are clearer now, with people huddled in their houses, but those who do come out know no law or restraint.

Pheiné and Thamma are, for once, being useful, gathering food and supplies. They must take only what they can bear themselves, because Philot will be carrying my belongings and Nami. I have made a place where she can rest if she will tolerate being carried.

Mika sits beside me on the plaster-covered bench, stretching his long legs before him, and frowns. “I do not know why Lot insists on my status as his messenger or angel.”

“Mika, do you not think the blue fire was El's mark?”

He looks very serious. “I do not know what that was, or which god sent it, or why. In my mind, men often make what they do not understand into signs from the gods.”

“Are you then not a messenger, an angel?”

He scowls, always discomforted with this. “Not that I am aware.”

“Perhaps angels do not always know who they are.”

Something changes in his look, and he touches the knot on my nose with his fingertip. I remember when he kissed it, and tears suddenly fill my eyes.

Mika says, “I commanded Lot to lead the way out of Sodom and not look back.”

I nod. “That is best. He will not want to go at my pace.” And I have no wish to even speak to him. I do not know how to deal with my anger toward him for the lives he has mangled, both mine in taking Nami from me and those of his daughters. If it were not for my oath, I would do as the nomad women do and “turn the entrance of my tent” from him.

To my surprise, Mika takes my hand with one of his. I have large hands, but his swallow them. With the other, he turns my chin, so I am looking at him. “Adira, I do not want you to go with Lot.”

This takes me off balance, but does not surprise me. He said as much on the hillside.

“I want you to come with me.”

“Where are you going, Mika?”

He sighs. “First to my people, to teach them the words of Enoch, and then I wish to find the land of my ancestors. The land of green hills and
sparkling rivers where my people built the time-temples. I wish to see one, to look through its portals at the rising stars. And I want you to be there with me.”

I stare at him. Leave Lot? I feel nothing at the thought, except a strange lightness. And I am no mother to Pheiné or Thamma. But I see my dying father. “I swore to my father by our god I would obey Sarai, and she gave me to be Lot's wife.”

Mika's free hand joins the one that holds mine. “Is the oath to your god or your father?”

I think about this for a moment. “To my father. I have told you all my life he tried to mold me into obedience, to be like the stars who know their path across the sky. I have never been able to do that, to honor him as I should. I cannot dishonor him now.”

“Adira,” Mika says softly. “You are right, most of the stars have fixed courses, but there are a few that do not. The morning star, for one, is a wanderer and makes her own path. You are such a star. You must make your own way, or your heart will shrivel.”

My heart seems to hear him and beats faster with his words, but my mind can only find one thought: “I swore to my father.”

We both hear Lot's bellow on the street outside.

Mika squeezes my hand to capture my attention again and says, “I once ignorantly declared that ‘Truth is truth.'”

I remember those words from a night two springs ago. Mika, Raph, and I looked down at the people of Sodom celebrating Spring Rites. Raph had said,
“You cannot expect them to honor our truths. They have their own.”

And Mika had replied,
“Truth is truth.”

“Adira,” Mika says, bringing my attention back, “do what you must, but think
why
your father made you swear that oath. Be true to what made him ask it.”

I cannot think. Too much has happened.

“I will wait for you,” he says gently, “in the cave at the overhang in the cliff.”

W
E ARE AN
odd sight in the dawn light, climbing the trail that leads out of the eastern gate, the trail I strove to master each night before Mika and Raph came. We all wear thick clothing that leaves only enough space
to see and breathe. Even Philot is covered with carpets. He bears this without complaint, as he has always done. At first, Nami was not happy with her position atop him, but I stroked her and calmed her, and I keep one hand on her to reassure her. She seems now to understand, or perhaps she just trusts me. We have traveled many roads together.

Ahead, Lot leads the way, having instructed us all not to look back, on pain of El's wrath. Even though I know every rock and turn of this path, he has quickly put distance between us. On either side of him, Pheiné and Thamma struggle with the climb and their burdens. It was difficult for them to leave so much behind and to face bearing their children in a strange place. I wonder what story Lot will give for them, and whether he will admit to being the father of his own grandchildren. His third daughter refused to go with him.

Behind us there are screams and the sound of rushing, gurgling water. I do not look.

As we readied to leave, people rushed by us, carrying hastily gathered goods and supplies. Only one stopped to tell us that black water bubbled up from the sandy ground at the Gate, as though Mot now vomited into Sodom. I remembered what we had seen on our return from burying Jemia, and could imagine it. I wondered if Mika could see it from his position on the cliff, but most likely he and Raph had sought the shelter of the shallow cave. Another person running by us yelled that the black water had grown and was consuming the city. The streets were almost as crowded as they had been during the Spring Rites.

I hesitate, thinking of Jemia's body. Would the black water take her? But what could be done? If it spread that far, it would flood all the grave chambers. I look up, hoping her spirit has gone to the sky.

As we join the throng pushing through the eastern gate, I wonder how all these people will manage to climb the narrow path up the cliff, but every one of them turns south toward the river, hoping, I imagine, to find safety in one of the other cities or the fields beyond. Mika had told Lot to seek the mountains, not the plains, and he has obeyed.

Now, only we climb the cliff. There has not been much time to think on Mika's words to me. My mind seems determined to scatter my thoughts, like seeds in the wind, rather than help me to a decision. I can see ahead the bend in the path that leads to the ledge where Mika waits. I have only a few steps before I must make my choice.

Choice—is it truly ours, or are we waves carried by the wind, our destiny set in a final heave upon the shore?

In the cave along the river, I chose death. Yet it did not come at my call. I was not able to speak the words to bring it. Raph's choice to return for me gave me life and allowed me to honor my oath to my father and my commitment to family.

The tangle of choice goes back further. At my birth, my mother chose for me, laying the persona of male upon me. My father chose not to contradict it, perhaps at first only to pacify my mother. But when she died, he chose to keep that secret and make it ours. Then he made me swear to return to family, to Sarai. Why?

Mika has urged me to answer this question.

I stop where the path splits, and Philot stops with me.

I am no wife to Lot. I do not need to “turn the entrance of my tent” as the nomads do.
If a man takes a woman to wife, but has no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him
. This is the wisdom and law of Babylonia. It is not my vow to Lot that causes me distress, but my vow to my father.

I hear his voice:
Understanding comes when the right question has been asked
. It is suddenly clear to me—as was the answer to the riddle of what the man who bought salt really wanted. The right question is not, would I dishonor my father by disobeying him; the right question is—why did he have me swear to obey Sarai?

And with the right question comes the answer: not because he wished to make me like the stars with fixed paths, but out of love for me, to keep me safe, and to give me a chance at happiness.