During the next two years following Ben-hadad’s defeat at Aphek, all Naboth’s sons and their families, except for Zach and Nurit, moved away. Though the terraces and vine rows had been restored and required less work, each relocation became a bittersweet event and the vineyard became a quieter, if not less happy place.
Naboth grieved after each son left but Sara always quickly coaxed him back to cheerfulness, working beside him hard as ever and weighing each departure with faith, love and a little philosophy. “It’s the natural, godly course of events,” she would reassure Naboth, “for each to make his own way.”
Juttah chased rabbits and lounged in the sun, Zach and Nurit included Yashar in every thought and conversation and Yashar loved life in the vineyard though it lacked an important thing; he had still not learned how to raise grapes or make wine.
One evening around the fire, Zach announced that Nurit was expecting a child, “In the month of Tishrei,” he said, “or possibly Cheshvan.”
“So,” Naboth said, and only that, but Sara squealed with delight.
“A strong son,” Sara said, “a worker, a righteous child and a comfort in old age.”
“I cannot celebrate,” Naboth said, “now that all my sons have abandoned me.”
“Count your blessings, old man,” Sara said. “Seven healthy, godly, safe and happy men…” She stopped suddenly, having misspoken; none of them knew what had become of Avi. “Six sons, then…” she said, her voice trailing away.
“Nurit, sweet daughter,” Naboth said, “surely the child will come no sooner than Cheshvan. You have not begun to show at all.”
“Whenever he may come,” Zach said, “there is no reason to be sad, father. We will live close by in the valley at Shunem on Nurit’s family land.”
“Farming,” Naboth said, making a face, “lentils, peas and vetch.”
“Count it all for joy, husband,” Sara laughed. “Though the drought tore us apart we were blessed to be reunited for a season. Now, properly, the natural order is restored; our sons leading families and making babies, none, praise God, has moved too far away.
Suddenly there was nothing to say. The fire popped. Smoke drifted leisurely toward the terraces. How Yashar had loved those days, sitting and laughing with Naboth’s family every evening after a hard day’s work. Now they were gone forever.
“Yashar,” Naboth said so suddenly that Juttah snapped awake, “the harvest begins in less than two months. Promise me, boy, now that all my sons have left the fold to putter with leafy things, you’ll stay here, with me, to learn secrets and help me make wine.”
“Naboth…” Sara began to scold, but Yashar silenced her with a resounding yes!
“God has filled me with a passion for this place,” he said. “Naboth, I’ll stay here as long as you need me. I’ll work as long as you wish.”
The old man sprang up and danced around, shouting praises above Sara’s laughter as he skipped awkwardly about; “My own sons could not have pleased me more than this boy!” he said. “Boy, did I say? Look at him, Zach! Look at him, Sara, Nurit! He has grown like a sturdy cedar before our eyes?”
Everyone agreed.
“He has labored beside us all these years,” Naboth said, “never asking more than a place to sleep and steady meals.”
Yashar was stunned by Naboth’s praise. It had been Sara and her sons who had always made him feel welcomed, not Naboth, who had always seemed too busy.
“Oh, he has loved you, Yashar,” Sara leaned and whispered.
How had she read his mind?
“I will teach you, Yashar,” Naboth said. “You honor my father, his father and his father before him, each a winemaker, son…” Naboth’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I have noticed your regard for our craft, your affection for this land…”
“All who love grapes are loved by my dad,” Zach joked.
They embraced Yashar then, even little Nurit, who had always been so shy (and when that sweet girl laid her head briefly upon his chest, Yashar felt shame for how his heart fluttered). Juttah dashed between and around them leaping like a crazy thing. Yashar’s dream suddenly seemed within reach; at last he would learn the workings of a vineyard.
*
All during the years following the family’s return there had been too few grapes of too low quality for a substantial harvest. Naboth and sons had used those usually frantic seasons to build a cottage for Sara upon a shaded, level spot beside the stream where the patriarchal tent once stood. The cottage had a thatched roof, dirt floor, two rooms with shuttered windows, a fireplace that drafted well and a small stone hearth. One early morning while fog lay upon the creek bed, Sara hugged Zach and Nurit goodbye while standing at her cottage door.
But Naboth was much too sad to face them. He nodded as he passed, wishing them well but hustled off to work. At the edge of camp he nudged Yashar awake and led him to the lower terrace.
“What will we do today?” he asked, grinning because he seemed to know the answer.
Yashar had no clue. The drainage was set. Every fence-section up top from the citadel road to the gate had been braced and mended. Every terrace had been graded, shored and planted. The vine rows were clear of rocks and picked weed free. Those jobs Yashar understood. The rest remained a mystery.
“Last season,” Naboth said, “we produced more wine than the year before and it was well-enough received in Jezreel and Ibleam. But it was much too timid for my tastes. So this season let’s try to encourage some changes.”
They followed Sara’s stream and sat together where the water began to run faster, toward the valley, along the path Ben-hadad’s horsemen had followed years earlier during their raid. “Last harvest’s lack of color, and therefore its tame taste, I credit to the fragile health of our clippings and rootstock,” Naboth said, pausing until Yashar nodded. “Also keep in mind, boy, other challenging factors, our smallish press, inferior filtering cloth, old wineskins and the uncommonly warm weather we sometimes endured. Some of these we can improve and control, others we cannot. We rely upon rain, time, a good palate, a better nose…”
“And prayer?” Yashar asked.
“Of course,” Naboth said. He touched his temple with a forefinger. “Thousands of questions reside up here, son, but I must admit that after a lifetime of careful attention I’ve come upon only a few hundred answers. Just the same, I’ll share them with you as I tried to share with my sons. Only Zach caught on well but he’s a gardener at heart.”
Naboth stood and stretched. “Enough talk,” he said. “It’s the hard work between discussions that makes grapes grow. You and I will work hard and we’ll bring in a harvest this season as good as any before.”
“God willing,” Yashar said.
Again, Naboth answered, “Of course.”
*
Naboth’s understanding of soil was overwhelming. Some mornings he would march Yashar from place to place to do nothing but sniff dirt. “Smell this, boy,” he would say, opening a hand filled with mystery earth. “No peeking at its color; say which level it is from.”
When Yashar answered rightly, he got praise; when in error, information. Naboth taught the importance of the sun’s daily adjustment as it crossed the sky; how roots needed to be coddled yet at the same time challenged; how vines flourished or withered according to experience and exposure.
“They are like children,” he said one day, “ever doing as they please unless we train them.”
“Why?” Yashar asked.
“It’s a mystery,” Naboth said, one of his many pat answers.
He taught Yashar about drainage, pruning, thinning, pinching and training, the relative merits of different tools, storage strategies, his personal philosophy of fermentation and on and on, all of it tied to the old man’s reverence for grapes, rainfall, seasons and soil.
They began every day with prayer. Each ended beside the campfire, just Naboth, Sara, Yashar and his dog. Yashar absorbed everything and remained anxious to learn more. Naboth seemed pleased by his efforts.
Just before the harvest, Naboth surprised him. “Yashar,” he said one morning, “the time has arrived, as it does all too briefly each season, when there is little more to do now than wait on willful grapes. What work there is, Sara and I will handle easily.”
“I do not understand.”
“Go home to Zarephath to see your mother, boy,” Naboth said. “Zach’s new son has already begun to walk in Shunem! Sara and I will visit, she’s been pestering, our first time down the hill since Nurit gave birth. Come back rested at Tamuz and I promise to work you day and night.”
Sara kissed his cheek. Naboth slapped his back. Juttah ran in circles. While Sara and Naboth packed for their stay in the flatlands, Yashar grabbed his gear and began west. He had not seen Adella in nearly four years.
*
By then, of course, Yashar knew how to travel. He had learned from Naboth’s family not only how to start and maintain a good fire but how to select the proper ground on which to camp, how to keep dry and the knack of finding water. He knew which plants and grains were edible. He knew plants to avoid. Sara had given him strips of cured beef and, secretly, several coins. Without as much as calling Naboth cheap, she had assured Yashar he need never pay it back. “It is shameful,” she had said, “how much you have worked here for so little in return.”
Yashar began his hike back north with confidence. He knew the way. Those rare times when Juttah failed to orbit, he pranced close beside Yashar on the road, glowing with health and gorgeous except for the ugly raised fin of hair a nameless horseman had left on his back. Perhaps because of Juttah’s size and wicked look, everyone they came upon while traveling allowed them ample room to pass.
They camped near Yokneam after the first day and crossed the Kishon early the morning of the second. The brook had become famous since Elijah’s visit to Carmel and still rippled with water within the mountain’s shadow. Yashar stopped to pray for Elijah—the Lord’s greatest prophet had not reappeared in Israel since the drought broke—while kneeling at its banks.
On their third day out from Jezreel, Yashar and Juttah passed Akko, then Tyre along the coast, stopping to camp north of there at the foot of familiar hills, entering Zarephath the next morning after travelling nearly seventy miles.
What memories grabbed Yashar’s mind of those early days of miracles! The city gates where he and Adella first met Elijah had grown small. The cottage of his boyhood seemed but half the size he recalled. Zarephath, however, had been renewed. The grass, gardens and vegetation all about the city had revived magnificently.
Elijah’s once struggling sapling had grown into a mighty tree.
Yashar learned from former neighbors that his mother had married a man from the village and moved away. Batnoam was the fellow’s name. “He returned to Zarephath with the rain,” Adella told Yashar after they were reunited, “and he turned from his pagan ways when I testified to him of the power of Israel’s God.”
“Only then would she agree to marry me,” Batnoam said.
Adella looked more beautiful than ever. “How big and handsome and strong you’ve grown,” she said, wrapping him in her arms and refusing to let go. “Where on earth did you find this ferocious looking animal,” she added, pointing at Juttah.
Yashar told her the story. They reminisced for three days.
During dinner one evening, Adella and Yashar told Batnoam of their plans, long ago, to eat a final meal then die, and of the outrageous prophet who God had sent to save them. Batnoam proved to be a patient man, having heard it all before. But he and Adella both perked up when Yashar described the priestly confrontation on Carmel then spoke of Naboth, Sara and their sons and all he had learned about Ahab, Jezebel and Israel’s wars with Aram.
When Yashar began to speak lovingly of grapes, a twinkle sparked in Adella’s eye. “Now that the world is at peace,” she sighed, “perhaps you will marry soon?”
Yashar doubted it.
“No, you must marry, Yashar,” Adella said, “and you must return to Zarephath someday, as you promised. I am comforted in my spirit with the knowledge that you will. The hills near here farther inland are perfect for olives and grapes.”
Only because he was curious, Yashar agreed to walk with Adella and Batnoam the next day, across the coast road and up gentle slopes to a plot with a view of the sea. A breeze tossed Adella’s hair as Yashar kneeled and sniffed the earth after rubbing it between his palms. “The smell and crumble of soil,” he told them, “are more important than its color. From the looks of that neglected fence line there, this parcel extends to there…” He pointed. “…and that berm could be terraced for olives on the windward side. Vines would thrive on the lee.”
“Olives trees for sure,” Batnoam said. “There are already many here, and fig trees. This land has been my family’s forever but we left it during the drought.”
“Batnoam and I have discussed it,” Adella said. “Come live here upon it as our gift.”
“I am sorry,” Yashar said, “your offer is too generous. I plan to live with Naboth and Sara in their vineyard until I die. I feel certain my commitment comes from the Lord.”
“We will see,” Adella said with an odd twinkle in her eye. “The Lord does not only speak with you, you know.”
*
The time for Yashar to leave arrived too soon. “My one regret,” Adella said as she kissed him goodbye, “is to have heard no news of Elijah. I pray for him often, son, with deep thanks in my heart.”
“Even as God extends mercy to his people,” Yashar said, “Israel falls deeper into sin.” He told Adella and Batnoam how, when God’s prophets, not the Baal priests, led Ahab to victory over Ben-hadad, most in Jezreel and Samaria romped naked in the groves instead of falling on their knees with thanks to God.
“Elijah will return and pronounce a judgment,” Batnoam said.
“And I will live in Jezreel,” Yashar said, “and see it all fulfilled.”
Adella nodded pleasantly, convinced that he was wrong.
*
Once back in Jezreel, Yashar hurried down the vineyard path and found Sara sitting beside her cottage. Before Yashar could speak, Sara glanced to her left. Not far from them lay Avi on a cot.
“Where is Girin?” Yashar asked him after a nod, hello.
Avi turned away without answering.
Sara led Yashar to the lower terrace. “He does not speak with me either,” she told him, “but only to his father. He sleeps all day while Naboth works alone.”
Nothing more was said until that evening. Out of nowhere, Avi said to Yashar, “No matter how hard you scheme, boy, you will not steal my inheritance. This land will pass to me and my brothers.”
“I look forward to nothing,” Yashar said, “other than your father’s long life.”
“Has he not proved himself to you by now, Avi?” Naboth said. “Yashar is as one of my sons. You should embrace him as a brother.”
“Yashar isn’t even his name,” Avi said. “He told me so himself the day we scouted Ibleam. That name was only given to him…”
“By the holy prophet, Elijah, you little heathen,” Sara snapped. “Instead of contending with him you should stand in awe.”
Avi cursed. Naboth covered his ears. Sara stood and kicked sand. “He mocks you, husband,” she said. “He only stirs from sleep to eat. God only knows what has happened to his wife.”
“And daughter,” Avi added with an ugly smile.
Everyone froze. Juttah growled.
“Shut him up,” Avi told Yashar, “unless you wish to see him carved again.” He turned to Sara. “That’s right, Mother, my Girin had a pink baby girl. Would you like to hear how, last spring, she and I honored Baal with the chubby little thing?”
Yashar sat stunned. Naboth began to murmur.
“Animal!” Sara shouted. “Husband, save us,” she pleaded. “This smirking creature is not my Avi. I beg you to send him away.”
“Tell us, then,” Naboth said after Sara ran from them crying, “what has become of Girin?”
“Now it begins,” Avi sighed. “I wondered when you would begin to meddle in my life.”
“You come and go as you please here,” Naboth said. “When you brought your pagan girl into this vineyard with her marked skin and nose rings, we said nothing. How is it meddling to ask after her health?”
“Please send him away,” Sara called from the cottage.
“In the end he remains my son,” Naboth sighed.
“Say nothing, I warn you,” Avi told Yashar, rising to leave. “You are not part of this family and never will be. This old man has failed me, favoring my brothers, but he understands his obligations though my mother would poison his mind.”
“He’ll be back,” Naboth said when Avi disappeared up the gate trail. “I am cursed.”
Yashar prayed for the Lord to break that curse upon Naboth. Elijah had taught Yashar, men make choices even when they do nothing. “And so often suffer for their lack of faith,” he had said.
Avi returned late the next morning after a night in Jezreel and he continued to sleep by day and celebrate by night, leaving the vineyard for the hills every evening after his meal. Sara remained miserable. Naboth seemed paralyzed by indecision. Avi and Yashar avoided each other methodically but the arrangement could not last.