37. While my master works wonders

Thought it felt wrong to know such joy with so much sadness everywhere, Yashar awoke a new man the next day, unable to feel any other way; how wonderful to be alive on the plain of Shunem as the sun rose over Israel. After loving someone so hopelessly for so long, how grand to learn that she loved him too. His thoughts turned north. He had two women, two small boys and a dog to lead to Zarephath. The move would require a plan.

Though the boys had always followed their grandmother into the fields each day, they chose to stay close to Yashar upon the morning after he had confessed his love for their mother. They hugged his legs from time to time, at others, they pulled weeds, threw mud and, when they thought Yashar wasn’t looking, played forbidden games with his sickle.

All that morning Yashar had been unable to keep his eyes off his bride-to-be. Nurit seemed to have the same problem. Sara wagged a finger every time they sighed, complaining about their youth, but she seemed thrilled to have brokered their new, respectable arrangement.

*

During all the time Yashar and the captain had been friends, Yashar had never visited Bidkar in the garrison. On the day he chose to do so, the watch at first refused to allow Juttah to pass inside the gate but, after Yashar pleaded the animal’s age, a guard led them to the captain’s quarters, a long barracks with apartments, offices, meeting rooms and storage.

The dreary space in which Bidkar lived was a poorly lit chamber with bare stone walls, a small table, two wood chairs, a narrow cot and writing desk. Polished boots, armor and an array of honed and oiled weapons lay arranged along one wall.

“I sold everything when my last son died,” Bidkar told him, “then moved here.”

Sitting with him at the table, Yashar asked the captain what he had heard further of Elisha, then of war and last, whether he still had feelings for Sara.

“Elijah anointed Elisha seven years ago at Aval-mechola,” the captain said. “Only recently, Elisha came to Jezreel and prophesied Jehu’s future role as king. That’s why, I learned, that Jehu met with me the day after Ahaziah died. ”

“Elisha has been anointed all this time?” Yashar asked. “And Jehu sits and waits to be king? Why is this taking so long?”

“Who fathoms God’s timing? Not I,” Bidkar said. “As for Sara and for war, I understand war far better, yet I have no clue to what might happen in either case.”

“She loves you,” Yashar said.

Bidkar laughed bitterly. “Do you remember when I told you what sets soldiers apart?”

“The night Elijah came to the gates,” Yashar said, “you said you had, as you threatened me, a disregard for death.”

“Leading men in battle is a perverse vocation,” Bidkar said. “Angry men and maniacs do it best. When I had a family I was good at it; after they died, I excelled. Now, I have discovered a level of indifference beyond even that.”

“Wanting to die,” Yashar said.

The captain seemed surprised.

“I was close to that same state, Captain,” Yashar said, “the night you challenged me on the plaza while we waited for Elijah. I was empty. I had no fear that you might kill me—I may have welcomed it—but my faith now tells me that I should have never felt that way.”

“I am not so sure,” Bidkar said. “A good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“King Solomon said it himself,” Bidkar said. “Micaiah the prophet taught me.”

“But you are twisting it,” Yashar said. “In faith, we expect that the day of our passing will be a delight; that must have been what Solomon meant. We are not to run toward our deaths, testing God’s patience by opposing him.”

Bidkar did not answer. He could be a very stubborn man.

“Sara will not spurn you forever,” Yashar said. “She has already given Nurit and me permission to marry.”

“You do not need her permission,” Bidkar said.

That was true, Yashar realized suddenly; why had he not considered it?

“My first wife was uncomplicated,” Bidkar sighed, “we got along quite well.”

“Sara fears loving you, Captain, because she believes you’re a man of war.”

“That’s the point you keep missing,” Bidkar said. He rose from his seat and looked out through the small slit in his wall that served for a window. “She is correct to fear an arrangement with me. It is not a minor hurdle. I am a soldier.”

“You only say this now to feel better about your loss.”

“No,” the captain said. “I know no other way to think and I have no plans to change.”

“Sara, Nurit, the boys and I will soon leave for the north, Captain, to live in peace and grow grapes,” Yashar said. “Please visit us again in Shunem again before we go. Reconcile with Sara, then come with us to Zarephath.”

“Can you write, son?” Bidkar asked.

“A bit,” Yashar answered, thankful for the little he had learned from Nurit.

“I was once a signalman,” Bidkar said. “It’s forty miles from here to the garrison at Akko, common road. It’s another forty, Akko to Zarephath, up the coast. The general’s couriers run to and from Akko every day.” He handed Yashar the same black bolt he had once given him to commandeer a horse. “Keep this,” he said. “I’ll send you news at times. Go to Akko when it pleases you. Present this token and demand your mail.”

“Will I be able to answer you?” Yashar asked.

“Of course,” Bidkar said, “only never be polite. Never ask a young soldier for anything, demand it. Show the token, order this and that. They are trained to obey.”

So it seemed over. As it had been with Yashar’s father, Elijah and Naboth, so it would also be with the captain. “This was not our plan,” Yashar said sadly.

“Leave Israel as fast as you are able, son,” Bidkar said, hugging his friend goodbye. “If war comes, and it always does, I will serve Jehu.”

*

Yashar and Nurit married in Shunem the following spring. Five of Sara’s six living sons came with their families to the wedding. No one mentioned Avi. On the last evening of the celebration, when talk turned to the chaos that had again gripped Israel since Ahaziah died, everyone kneeled, even the children, and asked God to redeem and restore the land.

“Jehu will someday be king,” one of Sara’s sons said, “and he will lead a revival.”

“Elijah warned us differently as we stood in the plaza at Jezreel,” Yashar said. “Israel as we know it is doomed. Nothing can change what has been decreed by God. Nurit, Sara, the boys and I will leave here soon. We’ll go north to the coast of the Western Sea and grow grapes, far from the eventual reckoning.”

Sara’s sons were good and faithful men but they laughed at Yashar’s reasoning. Each begged Sara to stay, offering her a place in his home instead.

“I believe the prophets,” Sara said. “I will follow these two and these grandsons. We’ll make a refuge far away, where your children’s children may run to and be safe long after we are all gone. I will share something more with you as well; the Lord, in dreams and visions, has shown me that misery and eventual scattering await those who remain in the land.”

Though the argument continued, none of Sara’s sons could change her mind.

*

Nurit sold her father’s property. Part of the payoff included a wagon loaded with provisions, a sturdy though aging horse and a superior team of oxen. The day before they were set to leave, Yashar and Juttah took the wagon up to Jezreel. Yashar left Juttah to guard the wagon after the dog, again, so oddly chose to sit, for a while, at the spot where Naboth had fallen. Yashar went down to inspect the old property. As he had feared, it was hard to see where their camp had once been. Everything had succumbed to weather, briars, thorns and thatch except, on the lowest, mildewing terrace, where Yashar found a short line of surviving roots.

He dug up the least damaged, bound each in a fabric sack and lugged them up to the wagon, working without stopping, thrilled to have found something to save. Before leaving the vineyard he stopped to pray where the old gate had been, asking God to bless the rootstock he had salvaged. Even as Yashar loaded the wagon, chariots rushed out of the gates and troops drilled in the square as Israel readied for yet another war.

*

On their way out of Shunem, Yashar’s family crossed paths with Elisha’s servant, Gehazi, the man whom Juttah had embarrassed in the Jezreel market. Gehazi looked the other way at first pretending not to notice but, when Juttah barked, he swore, “Keep this beast clear of me, sir, or you will regret it.”

“I regret it now, sir,” Yashar said. “Forgive us. My Juttah is a gentle dog by nature. If you do nothing threatening today he will not harm you.”

Gehazi looked down the road toward Shunem. “Do you know that town?” he asked.

“We lived there many years,” Nurit said.

“You then must know a barren woman in a large house married to an extremely old man.”

“Of course we do,” Nurit smiled, “the place is not that big.”

“Tell me details, then,” Gehazi said. “My master, Elisha, a man of God, has sent me to find her and to lead her to Carmel.”

“Elisha now lives in Carmel?” Yashar asked.

“No, he lives in Dothan, but Elijah…” Suddenly Gehazi stopped. “Now I see it,” he said. “It was you whom Elijah embraced at Jezreel the morning Ahab sat the gates.”

“You were there?”

“Elisha knew in advance,” Gehazi said, “but answer me about yourself.”

“Why would I deny knowing the finest man in Israel?”

“Well,” Gehazi said, “that fine man, as you call him, runs my master ragged. Much is afoot in the land, you know, important matters involving Elisha and me. Why do you, Elijah’s admitted friend, stand to the side now and go about your…” He stepped to the wagon and sniffed. “Farming, is it?”

Sniffing had set off their first encounter but Yashar chose not to remind Gehazi. “Yes,” he said, intent to be humble, “we’ll grow grapes.”

“Grapes,” Gehazi sighed, “while my master works wonders.”

“You have a gift, sir,” Yashar said, “for saying irritating things. We’ll be going now. When you happen to see Elijah, please pass on to him my personal blessings and thanks.”

“Oh, I will see him,” Gehazi said. “I run from the Jordan to Carmel and even to Judah on his and Elisha’s behalf as they serve God and chasten kings.”

“An odd fellow,” Sara said after Nurit gave Gehazi the information he had requested and they parted ways, “without a thank you in his heart.”

“Yet this meeting was surely a gift from God,” Yashar said.

“Much is afoot in the land,” Nurit quoted Gehazi. “His words, delivered to us on this day, confirm that we are correct to go.”

The road would first take them past Megiddo. Sara rode the pony. Yashar drove the team. Nurit sat with the boys in the back beside Naboth’s roots and every other thing they owned. Yashar clicked the oxen forward and Juttah ran the flats, seeming every bit as powerful and strong as in his days as a pup. They were off to Zarephath, Yashar’s home as a boy, to move out of danger, grow a family and make wine.