28. A different opinion at Shunem

Shunem lay less than a mile southwest of Mount Moreh. Bidkar knew the place well from past campaigns. The village was hot in the summer, cold in the winter and overrun with weeds, tall grass and vegetables when it rained. On the day of their visit, Bidkar led Yashar and Juttah down Sara’s stream, past Naboth’s burial site and into the valley, the same route (though opposite direction) that Ben-hadad’s horsemen had used when they raided Jezreel. The way was steep but more interesting and saved a mile over the ascent road. Once down from the plateau, Bidkar led them onto a cart road and into the village where they soon found Zach’s property.

Nurit, cried for joy when Yashar appeared at their gate and walked a charming little circle around him with her new, pink child in her arms. “Zach, Sara,” she called back to the house, “Yashar has come to see us!”

Sara ran out holding the hand of Zach’s first boy. While Bidkar stewed to the side, the women chatted with Yashar for what seemed like an hour. When Sara finally became aware of him, she spoke politely to Bidkar but it was obvious she had held onto bad memories.

Bidkar grew bored before the visit started. It had been a mistake for him to come.

That evening their discussions grew more serious. It seemed that Zach had taken a fever at springtime and had remained almost constantly bedridden. Even then, Yashar sat beside the poor fellow in the cottage asking questions—roots, drainage, pruning, sunlight, clippings, on and on—until the ladies moved him away so poor Zach could rest.

The visit lasted two days. After dining on a decent vegetable dish the first evening—tasty food but lacking meat—Yashar and Bidkar slept on the floor of a mud hut behind the cottage that Nurit’s father had built years earlier.

It was hotter than blazes. Nurit’s baby cried all night.

*

Because Zach was so ill, Bidkar and Yashar helped the ladies tend their patches. Yashar had worked with Nurit. Bidkar helped Sara, whom he remembered very well from the night of her arrest. Of course, Sara remembered him. “I thought you were arrogant,” she told Bidkar plainly when the night of Naboth’s stoning somehow came up, “but in the end your honesty before the elders served us well.”

Bidkar was too polite to say what he had initially thought of Sara. His first impression had come by torchlight. She had been a specter then, biting, kicking and scratching. Her hair flew everywhere as did her boney fists. Later, when she sat weeping in the elders’ chambers, angry, smelly, her arms ringed by bruises and marks covering her face, Sara seemed ugly.

But that was not Bidkar’s opinion after spending time at Shunem. He found it impossible not to gaze into her dark eyes whenever she spoke to him. He caught himself sighing like a child whenever she, so tanned, strong and lean, stopped her work from time to time to raise her arms above her neck and coil her hair. Bidkar studied her for hours as she carried water, pulled weeds, broke clumps and sweated like a man beside him, her deep-set eyes mesmerizing, her cheeks, once marred by bruises, so smooth and brown and…

Bidkar stopped. He was stricken. What then?

On the morning of goodbyes, Bidkar lingered at the gate like a schoolboy then nervously asked Sara’s permission to return, sometime, to visit her upon his horse. Sara looked at him boldly (a look Bidkar revisited every time he closed his eyes) and answered in two perfect syllables, You may.