Bilhah nods. Parchment. Ink quality. Phrasing. These are things they discuss in the room of words, with everyone craning to hear Yasemin’s opinion, yet also unafraid to express their own. But Hurrem Sultan? She had always imagined that she was interested only in mixing the perfect shade of pink to apply to her cheeks, or reeling in people of note so that they are taken by her.

She is a clever woman, this Hurrem Sultan. She notices things. That a letter was written on goatskin and what that says about her honor. The pressure of pen on parchment. Bilhah feels herself stiffen, the fear gradually growing inside her. What does she notice in Bilhah?

Hurrem, suddenly bored, puts the parchment to the side without reading it and looks up at Bilhah. Without her veil, Bilhah sees, the woman looks ordinary. Her features are plain, not beautiful. But her eyes are filled with a lively intelligence.

“So. The new word girl from Salonika.” She must notice Bilhah’s surprise, for she raises her eyebrows. “Do you think I am not informed of the new talent that enters the palace? I follow your progress with interest. Are you ready for the great ceremony?” That smile once again plays on her lips. “It is an important moment for all of you odalisques.”

Last night, in the sleeping hall, all the girls were talking about their upcoming conversion to Islam. Usually, any such discussion provokes tears in Katerina, but for once she did not cry.

“What has come over you?” Bilhah asked. It took a while to charm the answer out of her.

“I have a plan.” Katerina pressed her lips together as if to show that she would never tell.

What is she going to do? Faint? Hide? Pretend that she has already been called up?

What should she herself do if she wanted to avoid making this statement?

It did not take much to coax Katerina’s lips open.

“You have made an agreement with someone,” Bilhah began.

Katerina’s blue eyes widened and she clutched onto Bilhah’s arm. “How do you know? Who have you been talking to?”

Bilhah hesitated. She could play on Katerina’s worry, pretend that she knew more than she did. But Katerina is a friend. She does not have to intimidate her with feigned powers. She spoke the truth and savored the feeling.

“I have not spoken to anyone. I was just imagining what I would do if I were in your place. Tell me about it.”

Katerina leaned closer and dropped her voice. “Zefira feels happy to accept Islam on herself. I think that her parents may have been Muslim, but then lapsed. So when they call up my name, Zefira will go up instead of me.”

“And for her own name?”

“She will go up again. We are about the same height. We will all be veiled. No one will suspect a thing.”

“And you can continue being a good Christian.”

“Of course.” She fixed her bright blue eyes on Bilhah. “And what shall you do?”

Bilhah squeezed her eyes closed to think. She could, perhaps, try to find someone her height and build and ask them to take her place, as Katerina and Zefira shall do. She even has payment: some coins or that little cat charm. But is it worth it? She shrugged.

“This declaration — it is just words, Katerina. It does not mean a single thing to me.”

When she lay down to sleep, though, she wrapped her arms around her and felt a wave of deep darkness wash over her, a black undertow heaving her, against her will, into despair. Why? Why should she scheme and plan and work so hard to be loyal to a G-d who doesn’t seem to show her much loyalty?

She blinks, draws breath. Hurrem Sultan is waiting.

“I am ready for the conversion ceremony,” she says quietly.

Hurrem Sultan breaks out into a smile. “Excellent. For when you are a good Muslim girl, instead of a downtrodden Jew, I can find you a husband.”

Dizziness washes over her and she must stop herself from staggering backwards. “My great privilege is to serve Hurrem Sultan and the great Sultan Suleiman.”

“Oh, but do not tell me that you want to be in the palace forever?” Hurrem Sultan’s voice has become sibilant. “Come now. There are many good things about life in the palace, but it is also a prison, is it not? A most beautiful, sumptuous prison from which there is no escape.”

Her voice changes as she says it; though it is soft, it is insidious, a hiss that first caresses but then punctures.

“My wish is to serve you.” Bilhah’s anger raises up inside her and she feels alive like she did in Salonika.

Hurrem Sultan leans forward. “Oh, but you would. You could continue. You are a letter girl, are you not? A word girl. You would arrive every morning. You must have seen the other women who come in through the gates. They bring silks and jewels, they live near the palace among the other Jews.”

The room is large, filled with blue marble that should give a sense of space, but everything closes in. Hurrem Sultan leans back on the great armchair and cocks her head to one side. “Oh, I understand your hesitation.  You would not want to marry a Christian or a Muslim, would you, even though you will have pledged allegiance to the Prophet Muhammad.” She stands and begins to pace, her purple robe flowing around her like water. “There are Jews in the men’s palace, too, and it will entertain me to pick one out for you.”

Bilhah feels cold all over. Panic rises in her throat and threatens to choke her.

Hurrem Sultan turns and suddenly, she stands directly in front of Bilhah. She places her palm on Bilhah’s forehead and tips Bilhah’s head back. “Now… you are a pretty thing, are you not? Large eyes. Dark, but we would expect that of a Jew of Spanish origin. Only the Russians are light and bright, and the English too, though most of them are barbarians.”

She tilts her head to the side once more, and if Bilhah had thought of her as a song bird, she has now become a hawk. The anger rises again, pushing away the fear.

“Am I your plaything, that you can marry me off as you see fit?”

Even as the words take shape and leave her lips, she regrets them.

Hurrem Sultan is startled into silence, but then she starts to laugh, tipping her head back. But the sound that emerges is brittle and bitter, a laughter that forms in her throat, or maybe this is all that a lacerated heart can allow itself. As she hears it, Bilhah realizes that she is no longer angry nor is she afraid, but is standing before a woman whose safety lies in hollowing herself out.

“In my position, everyone underneath you is a plaything and those who surround you are your adversaries. One or the other. There is nothing else.”

The smile is gone. The eyes are hard.

“Now you may go.”

***

A hillside filled with sheep. Leonora looks at the sea of wool, unsheared, and laughs. The early morning sunshine is already warm, but it is good to be outside.

At the hill’s summit stands that strange man, Eliyahu — she cannot help but in her mind call him the soup kitchen man, and it is a wonder that he does not mind the takeover of his home. He is bent over a sheep and she can only wonder at the Heavenly intervention of it all. This odd man, who had stopped her on her daily ride and whom she had thought was just an inconvenience, seems to know all about sheep. Finally, after obstacle after obstacle, her plans are coming to fruition.

She hikes up the hill toward him. When she reaches the top, he does not greet her, merely says, “The first thing I look for is clear eyes. Bright eyes. That is the sign of a healthy creature.”

He crouches down next to a sheep and examines its eyes. “Cloudy. You see. These sheep were transported in cramped conditions. When there is not enough room at the trough, this is what you see.”

She leans over to look. “Do you know what I paid for these? They are the most expensive sheep in all the world.”

“For the captain of a ship, a sheep is a sheep.” Eliyahu shrugs and tells a servant to lead the sheep away from the rest of the flock. “If it is contagious, we do not want it to spread,” he explains.

He straightens up and faces her. “I check the teeth. The hindlegs, to see that no limb has dislocated en route. There are some ewes who are heavy with life and have not yet lambed. All of these must be attended to.”

She nods, feeling suddenly small in the presence of this knowledge. What does she know about sheep, after all? She knows what it costs to ship them. She knows how much wool each sheep will produce, and how many blanket that wool will make and how many workers she needs to change fleece to wool to blanket in how long.

But the creatures themselves, the flock with its pawing and bleating, the sudden springing through the grass, the way they group and then disband again — they take her by surprise in how alive they are.

“And the wool?”

“The sheep should have been sheared a month ago. Their great coats of wool in the heat can cause skin maladies. For now, we will treat them with an extract of aloe vera and nettle. But they must be sheared as soon as we can.”

She nods.

Eliyahu speaks once more, as he leans over to feel another sheep’s legs. “And a night watchman? You have appointed one?”

She shakes her head. “Not yet. Yishai was meant to see to that. My son.”

Eliyahu nods and turns back to the flock. She turns to hear her name being called from afar.

“Honorable Mama!”

She squints, and puts her hand over her eyes, the better to see. Down below, she hears the voice of her son as he scrambles over the rocks and hillocks.

“Honorable Mama.”

She slowly makes her way down toward him. As he comes nearer, she sees that it is not Amram, as she had expected — the younger, more playful son who would seek her in the hilltops. It is Yishai.

She thinks of Bellida’s request and the chevrat teshuvah, with its regret and sorrow. Move on, she wanted to tell them all. Rebuild. Bring the final redemption.

Her son comes panting toward her, and she is filled with satisfaction. He holds himself erect, his beard is still mostly black and his swift movements show that he values his time.

She will not shy from this conversation anymore.

“Yishai,” she calls out to him. “I have been wanting to talk with you.”

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 808)