Startled, she wordlessly hands him the tapestry.

He looks down at it, stares for a few minutes. As she watches, something deep inside the man passes through his eyes: a sadness, a tenderness, a sudden joy perhaps. It is all there, but then, when he looks up at her, there is anger.

“What business do you have with my wife’s tapestry?”

She blinks and takes a small step backward.

So this is it. This is he.

But this is not how she imagined him: he is thin, painfully thin, so that his dark eyes take up almost all of his face. His long beard is stroked with gray. His clothing is… well, it is hard to tell. Perhaps once it was gray, but it is long stained with green and brown and although it is clean, it is threadbare. And not only that, he… he has the appearance of something wild.

She is not afraid of anything. She’s not afraid of rulers and tax men and even groups of bandits. They each have their own rules, and it’s easy enough to find the place where they will give in. Money, usually, but also reputation, for reputation is power.

But this man… She has the sudden feeling that he is no stranger to pain, but that he will stand and endure it, aware yet unmoving. And she knows a sudden, surprising jolt of fear.

“I… I beg your forgiveness.”

He looks around. “I see that… something has happened to my home.”

“You were not here. Everyone told us that this place was abandoned. For more than two years. And we asked a she’eilat rav. We were told—”

“But you are not using this as a home.” He walks up and down the large table that dominates the entire room. He walks up to the three little boys who sit at the end, spinning pebbles, and looks back at Leonora.

“Are these your chil— grandchildren?”

She shakes her head. “We made this place, your home, into a soup kitchen.  The poor children of this town come here in the middle of the day, they eat good, nourishing food and also take some home to their families. You will see, tomorrow.”

He looks up at her, incredulous.

Her heart sinks. Is this worse or better than having simply taken over the place as a private home? She wonders where Amram filed the teshuvah that they received from the rav, giving them permission to be here.

“I will pay you,” she says quickly. “I will pay you the rent that I owe you. We began this soup kitchen two, no, three months ago. I will investigate a fair rate and bring the money tomorrow.”

“Money?” He shakes his head, and repeats the word as if it is dirty. “And what need do I have for money?”

He sits down heavily and shakes his head. “You misunderstand me, honorable lady. When I set out on my journey from Tzfat, I said that I would like to see my house not covered in a blanket of dust and stillness, but with the smell of cooking and the voices of children.”

He gestures at the room with his arms and slowly begins to laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. “And so, it has come to be.”

***

The call comes through the palace: the muezzin’s half-song, half whine.

Bilhah throws down her pen and stands, along with the rest of the workers in the hall of words. She walks out of the room, stretching her arms in front of her.

“Not always bad, these prayer times,” whispers a girl.

“It is true. Especially when I am in the middle of a difficult passage.”

The tune of the prayers is irritating, rather like a fly buzzing in your ear — but she has become accustomed to it.

They join up with other odalisques, flooding through the hallway to reach the prayer hall. There, they unfurl their prayer mats and sit down. They have not yet been through the conversion ceremony, so the imam walks up and down, giving them instruction before they begin.

His nasal voice fills the room and bounces off the tall, domed ceiling. As humans physically require food and supplement to stay healthy and alive, the soul requires prayer and closeness to G-d to stay sustained and healthy.

Her mind returns to the missive she is translating. The imam speaks. “Next week, we will seek an individual confirmation of faith from each and every one of you,” he says. “This way, we will have established all of you as true believers in the One G-d and his prophet.”

Next to her, Katerina takes a sharp breath. Her fingers flutter against Bilhah’s sleeve and Bilhah turns.

“You heard?”

Bilhah nods.

“What will you do?” Katerina whispers.

Bilhah rubs her forehead. The prayers always put her in a strange half-sleeping state. She tries to concentrate on Katerina. The girl’s distress. Slowly, she puts the picture together. The girl is a Christian. She has been given some Muslim name or another, but all know her as Katerina, and from her bedtime chatter it is clear that she is from a pious family — her brother is destined for the church, and if her sisters do not find matches with pious men, her parents will place them in a convent, for them to dedicate their lives to the service of the L-rd and His creatures.

Bilhah looks at her friend. Katerina’s eyes are bright with tears. A declaration of faith is required of them and for Katerina, this is a calamity.

The imam burbles on. When you prostrate yourself, you nullify yourself in front of the Creator of all. Thereby you earn His aid and succor.

Aid and succor. The poor girl needs a gesture.

Bilhah slowly lifts her hand. Should she? She could place her hand on her friend’s, give her comfort. But what if it is not wanted? What if the girl throws it off?

She looks furtively at Katerina. The tears that had gathered in her eyes are running, unchecked, down her cheeks.

Katerina whispers. “What will you do?”

Bilhah shrugs. She feels bad for her friend, but for herself, feels nothing at all, only uncertainty. Should she do something to help her friend? Inside, she is like a dead bough, hollow, brittle, devoid of life.

She takes a deep breath. Katerina is taking all this far too seriously. She herself has never been one for prayer. Why ask for help when you can help yourself?

Katerina hangs her head. Her shoulders shake.

Other girls have an easy camaraderie. She has seen them pushing each other, or putting an arm around the shoulder of a girl who is homesick.

When she was small, Nurse held her, rocked her. But now… it feels foreign.

“Come, Katerina,” she whispers. Her fingers touch the girl’s arm. “Do not tell me that prayer ever helped you.”

Katerina’s eyes widen. She stares, then turns, her body tipped away from Bilhah, as if she is repelled by her words. Bilhah wraps her arms around herself and pulls her shoulders away from the pain.

“Prayer helped me,” Katrina says finally. “And G-d’s messengers helped me, too.” She pauses. “Is this true for you, that you only helped yourself? No one in your life helped you?”

Bilhah thinks.

Has anyone helped her? There was Nurse, of course, but each week she pocketed a handful of silver coins for her efforts.

She closes her eyes, returning to the streets of Salonika, filled with chachamim and dayanim, silversmiths and garment makers. Once, she had hidden outside the Talmud Torah Hagadol, where all the greatest sages studied and argued and taught, until one of the chachamim emerged from the place, and turned left down the alley that would lead to his home. It had taken only a second’s hesitation for her to follow.

This chacham was her grandfather, or maybe her uncle, or maybe even her father. She was his beloved youngest child, and every day before he left to study Torah, he would place a honey-crusted almond in her palm. On Shabbat, he would turn his face to her and she would feel the glow of his smile.

And then, as she was embroidering the scene in her mind, he disappeared into his home. The door closed.

She had sunk down to the ground, under the shade of a pine tree.

For a second, all had been so sweet.

And then, the door had opened again and an elderly woman called out, “Whoever is there, please come in and break bread with us.”

She had slipped out from behind a tree trunk, and the woman had gently pushed her into the cool house. If the chacham had been surprised at seeing a tiny girl at their meal, he had not shown it, only thanked her for the zechut of having a guest.

“You are the printer’s daughter, are you not?” the woman had asked, bringing a basin of water.

Holding Bilhah’s hands in her own, she had plunged them inside, then rubbed circles on her skin with soap until her skin had lost not only the patches of dirt, but even their color had changed. When she was done, she had dried them with a fluffy towel and bid Bilhah to hold her hands up to her face.

“Is it not a pleasant smell?” she had asked.

Bilhah had nodded. She was a princess. A princess in a castle, and her servant was washing her hands. That day, she had eaten the midday meal with a prince among her people, and from then on, each time he saw her he stopped and leaned down to her height and asked how she fared.

How many times did she want to stop him and ask him to sit down and listen while she told him? But what would she tell him? There was a vague feeling that something was amiss, but Papa was a special man, a chosen man, and if he got angry, well, wasn’t that because he had important work to do? Wasn’t he  doing the Almighty’s work in this world? Otherwise, there would be no Talmud, no holy writings, and it would be her fault, her fault, that all of those centuries of wisdom and holiness would disappear.

So, she had said nothing at all, but he and his wife had invited her back, anytime she was hungry and anytime she was not.

She turns to Katerina and whispers. “I was helped. There were times when I was helped. But not by prayer. By good people.”

Katerina raises her hands as if she will give up on Bilhah’s stubbornness. “But did those good people pray?”

Her words are the lash of a whip. “Yes,” she whispers. “The good people prayed.”

The imam bids them all to stand and repeat after him.  Katerina’s mouth remains closed, though around them the air is filled with the hum of voices.

Still hesitating, with the slightest tremor, Bilhah reaches out her hand and gently places it on Katerina’s.

Katerina’s fingers curl around Bilhah’s, gently at first, and then clutching tightly.

Bilhah dips her head.

The imam prays on.

In her own hand, Katerina’s fingers are warm, and the relief she wanted to give is returned to her.

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 805)