Written in the Ashes (26 page)

“Abba?” Hannah asked, blinking her eyes at the impossible apparition of her father sitting cross-legged beside the fountain, talking to Alizar.

Kaleb stood weakly with the help of a cane and held out his arms. “Hannah.”

For a moment Hannah could not move, so deep and sudden was this new shock, but then she went to him, and father and daughter fell into a long embrace that was followed by a greeting that had no words; Kaleb placed his hands on either side of Hannah’s cheeks, kissed them several times, and professed how she was more beautiful than he remembered, while Hannah touched her father’s heart, kissed his hands, and wept.

They each noted what had changed with the other, eyes moving up and down. Hannah touched the cane her father carried in concern, and then swept her hand up to his beard, his pale gaunt cheeks. She met his sunken eyes and her breath stopped short.

He was not well.

Alizar, seated on the divan with his legs crossed at the knee, nodded in satisfaction at their reunion. Although he had not thrown his usual banquet party, still guests had come, many unexpected, such as the humble shepherd who knocked at the little green door, pleading in Aramaic to see his daughter, “Hannah. Hannah. Have you seen my daughter?” Alizar had shown him in, and they had waited all night for her return.

“Abba, how did you find me here? I thought you were dead, but then I knew, something in me knew you were alive.” Hannah hugged him, kissed him again and again, this new joy melting through her.

Kaleb smiled, thinking of Alizar’s house that had been swarming with guests when he arrived in the night, some standing, reclining on divans with glasses of wine, and arguing loudly about the city’s politics and the emperor’s bedwetting. Yes. He had known where to find her, but only because of this. He reached out and handed her the hairpin that Tarek had thrown into the street. He had found it there, and known where she lived.

So.

Hannah took the hairpin from his hands, washed it of Tarek’s blood in the fountain, and proudly nestled the swan back into her hair. Alizar and Gideon nodded to one another and left father and daughter alone to speak. Hannah, supporting her father’s weight, helped him to a comfortable chair. “Abba, have you not slept?”

Kaleb shook his head. “No, I did not sleep as the party only ended the hour before you came. Arguing is a favorite sport of the Greeks, you know. I am surprised they have not put it in their Olympics. But Hannah, I do not need anything except to look in your eyes and know you are alive. I am so grateful to
Yahweh
who guided me here.”

Even still, Hannah got up and fetched him a cup of water. He looked fatigued or ill, she could not tell which, and it worried her.

“The slave traders were clumsy,” Kaleb explained. “They were clumsy with their knives and clumsy with their trail. I knew I would find you. I sold most of our herd for the money, not knowing how long I would need to travel the road. I had it sewn into the hem of my shawl, but the shawl was stolen from beneath my head while I slept. I am so sorry. I know now it would have meant your freedom.” Kaleb sighed, eyeing her bronze collar, the heavy loss embedded in his eyes. Hannah took his hands, kissing his knuckles, telling him it did not matter. He went on. “One of the merchants in the market remembered you. ‘Hard to forget a pretty girl like that,’ he said. The barley merchant, I believe he was.” Kaleb turned to face her with a wince and a grunt, his hand moving to his ribs.

Hannah hugged him. “Abba, you are hurt. Where? We can get a doctor. What is it?”

He shooed her away with his outstretched hand and took some breaths in and out of his mouth, the pain spreading, and then receding. “I am all right. I have come this far. I have found you. I am all right.” He looked up and cupped her cheek. “How I love you. You the little thing that cried out to me, and to think I did not want you. How I love you. How lucky I have been.”

Hannah held her father close, smelling him, hearing him, stroking the dark fur on his arms. He patted her hand, and then turned to face her, his expression deeply serious. “Hannah, there are things I must tell you now. Things that since I have found you, you must know.”

“No, Abba. Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow or the next day. You are tired, and Alizar can send for the doctor. We must make you well. And you need sleep.”

“No,” said Kaleb, his happy eyes creased with pain. “I must tell you now. I have walked a century, and I only made it this far with my heart set on finding you. You must be quiet and listen to me.”

Hannah promptly knelt on the smooth flagstone cobbles of the courtyard before her father, resting her head on his knees the way she had since she was a girl.

Kaleb tugged at a worn canvas bag over his shoulder, set it on his lap, and uncinched the leather straps. Then he reached in and pulled out a smooth white alabaster jar, and thrust it toward her. “For you,” he said.

Hannah reached out and caressed the cool glossy surface of the jar. Then she turned the lid. Inside was crumbled sand, bits of bone. Suddenly Hannah recoiled her fingers. “These are ashes.”

“Yes. Your mother’s ashes. Your father’s. And your grandmother’s. Maybe sisters and brothers, I do not know. I have kept it all this time. I must tell you the truth now.”

“Abba, I do not understand.”

Kaleb rested his forehead in his hands. “You were just a baby. I was traveling with the herd when I found a camp that was still smoldering from a fire. Robbers. Clearly the people were wealthy, as they were traveling with Roman soldiers among them. I found helmets and several swords. Hannah, even the ashes of this camp were made of gold. Everyone was killed. The robbers had tied the family to their carts and lit them on fire. I was picking through the rubble, looking for anything useful that was left, and then I heard a cry.”

A tear swept down Kaleb’s cheek. He brushed it away. Hannah said nothing, her eyes like two huge holes, disbelieving, her hands feeling the weight of the smooth alabaster jar on her lap, cold as death itself.

Kaleb lifted his head. “There was a baby hidden in the deep roots of the olive tree. Its mother must have hid her child there and covered it completely in a brown woolen blanket. The raiders had not seen it.”

“And it was me?” Hannah could hardly believe his words.

“Yes, it was you. I thought I would carry the child to a woman I knew in the meadows on the eastern flank of Sinai who was childless. She and her husband had been wanting a baby. And so I carried you, and you never slept but only cried, and I never slept even a wink. When I reached the woman’s house, I stood for a long time in the field, holding you. I could not let you go. I tried. I told myself to call out to her, that she would be a good mother to you, but instead I turned away and I took you with me. I found a wet nurse near my father’s fields.”

“And the tree. The old olive tree.”

Kaleb assented with a nod. “I kept the herd nearby, always thinking perhaps someone would come looking for you, but to tell you honestly, I hoped they never would. I wanted you for myself. A daughter from God.”

Hannah rested her head on her father’s knees. She looked up, the realization in her eyes. “I am not a Jew.”

Kaleb sighed. “I raised you as one of my people, and I think for that you are as much a Jew as any born by blood.”

“Abba, all these months I wanted only to be with you.” Hannah wiped her eyes, flowing with tears. “I have always wanted only to be with you. I do not care what story you tell me or who I am. You are my Abba. We must never be separated again.”

Kaleb stroked his daughter’s head. “I am sorry I lied to you. But I did have a wife once, and she died giving birth to our son, leaving me alone in the world. Somehow I thought it would be better if you had a different story, a story that made me your Abba. But I thought all this time on the road praying to find you that if I found you, you must know the truth. You cannot be in this world and not know who you are.”

Hannah shook her head. “I am part of you. That is all I want to know.”

Kaleb smiled and patted her arm, then winced against a wave of pain.

Hannah sat up ,saying, “Abba, you look unwell,” her words tinged with concern. “I will call Alizar. We must get the doctor at once. Philemon is a good doctor. He saved my life when I was ill.”

And though Kaleb tried to protest, Hannah ran into the house. But she found that Alizar had already called for Philemon, thinking himself what Hannah had thought, that her father did not look well.

Jemir and Leitah followed Hannah outside to the courtyard, and they helped her father into the house to lie down on the pillows in the kitchen, which was the nearest room. The other slaves in Alizar’s house bustled to and fro bringing meals, bringing cool rags. Hannah never left his side.

Kaleb lived fifteen days, and then he shut his eyes, content that he had found his daughter. In that time, Hannah never left him, even for a moment. She told him everything that had happened since they were separated, and he listened. She lifted water to his lips, cradled him. She wept and cursed. But Kaleb seemed remarkably happy. He had found her. He had brought her the ashes of her family. He had told her who she was. With open arms, he embraced his own death, and consoled her about it.

“I want to go now. It is time for me. I can feel it. I regret I lost the money that would have freed you. This is the only pain I take with me. But Alizar has promised me you will be free one day, and that you have a home here. You must know I am so proud of you for your work in the library. And to think of you singing for these people with your heavenly voice, I can see it is God’s work. You have made your Abba so happy.”

But Hannah just cried and held his head in her arms and pleaded with him to stay.

“You must let me go,” he said. “I will watch over you, I promise.” It was as if he thought he was just walking into the next room.

That morning, Kaleb called to Alizar to thank him. Then he asked Hannah to bring the Rabi.

When she returned with the Rabi, Kaleb was gone. Hannah fell upon her father’s body. “Abba,” she wailed, trying to rouse him, but he would not move.

Her gentle nudging turned to frantic tears. She threaded her fingers into her father’s hand and pleaded softly, her cheek pressed to his heart, praying to hear the rhythm return.

The Rabi stepped forward to say his prayers over them, as the time had come.

Hannah knelt at her father’s bedside, weeping in sorrow and confusion, taking in the new story of her life, realizing she had been orphaned by the world not once, but twice.

Outside in the courtyard there was only the sound of the fountain and Hannah wailing, and the birds rustling and twittering in the branches of the fig tree.

Jemir clucked his tongue, shaking his head. “Her father comes all this way to die. Just to die. So sad.”

Alizar took a seat on the large wooden table beneath the fig tree, resting his boots on the bench, his elbows on his knees. “Naomi and now Hannah’s father. Two deaths,” he said. Then he looked up into the branches of the tree. “Make no mistake. There will be another.”

Leitah lifted her eyes like a doe in the forest. Jemir set his gaze intently on Alizar. Tarek was not there to hear the prophesy, as Alizar had sent him away from the house to a punishment of hard labor in the winery after learning what he had done to Hannah.

Gideon spoke to Alizar about Hannah’s safety. They should send her away. As long as Peter and the Parabolani hunted her, she would be in danger. Alizar agreed, though he saw in Gideon’s eyes another unspoken reason for such a discussion. Gideon was in love with the girl, and not about to admit it. So why did he want her sent away? There could be only one reason: this was a man making a desperate grasp at his own freedom. And so Alizar consented to the arrangement that would carry Hannah off to another world, knowing Gideon would come to regret his decision. Though how deeply that regret would pain him, Gideon would not know until it was too late.

So.

 
Part ii.
The Emerald Tablet

17