“If we were to listen to the soul, not of you or me, but of this time, these months and days, what would we hear?” he asks

From the safety of her bed, Bilhah listens. In the distance, there’s the sound of jackals howling. She throws off her cover and stands, barefoot on the stone floor. She walks over to the window and throws open the shutters.

“Do you think that the work tent will become more bearable as the autumn nears?”

Elvira gives a long sigh. Bilhah studies her. She can never tell if Elvira is being genuine or not. “It will get cold. Then colder. There was talk of using an abandoned building. But it’s a walk, near where the building is taking place.”

“The building of the wall?”

“Mmmm.” Elvira pulls her blanket closer.

“You mean, you have seen it?”

“Of course. It was the first place I went to explore.”

The first place Bilhah went to was the Western Wall. She had tried to pray, but felt strangely cold.

Bilhah steps away from the window and sits down on her narrow bed, facing Elvira. She folds her arms. “So what was it like?”

Elvira raises her eyebrows. “What do you think it looked like? Do you think that each of the workers shone with a heavenly radiance?”

“No-o.”

“Well?”

“I do not know.”

“Then why do you not go and see it yourself? All these letters that you read and sort, all the inventories that I make, all the jobs we do — it is all in aid of this wall. The least you can do is go and see what it is all about.”

Bilhah bites her lip. “I will do so. I will do so at the first chance I get.”