The next morning I was awakened by someone tripping over my pallet. “You need not lie right in the doorway, Adara,” said a female voice.
My eyes not yet open, I struggled to make sense of this — the voice of someone who called me by name, someone who felt free to criticize me, yet it did not sound like Galya or Hannah.
“Hurry!” Now a woman’s voice, a raspy one. All at once I knew that Raiza, the housekeeper, was outside the girls’ chamber. I was in Damascus, and it was Sima who had tripped over me. “Her ladyship wants us in her courtyard,” Raiza went on. “The general is in the hills above the city. He will enter the North Gate with a grand procession to the temple of Hadad.”
I just had time to splash water on my face and stumble after the other slaves. Half asleep still, I thought with one part of my mind how unfair Sima was, first telling me to lie near the door and then complaining that I was there. With another part of my mind, I wondered what the procession had to do with the slaves.
In the garden courtyard the men and boy slaves were already assembled, blinking and yawning. Lady Doronit walked back and forth along the stream, almost skipping with excitement. Beneath the tasseled fringe of her skirt, her anklets chimed and her toe-rings gleamed. I could see that this was not the time for me to step forward and explain who I really was.
“Aharon,” Lady Doronit told the steward, “hand out the timbrels to the women. Let them dance forward in a line — no, four abreast. Let them keep time with the timbrel as they shout, ‘Hail, Naaman, the mighty leader of hosts!’”
After some fumbling and false starts, we managed to dance, beat our timbrels, and shout as Lady Doronit wished. Then she had the steward line the men up behind us, also four abreast. They were to answer us by shouting, “Hail, General Naaman, beloved of Hadad!”
Raiza looked worried at this, and I heard her say under her breath, “The god should not be tempted.” But Lady Doronit did not notice. The men practiced their part, and then we all practiced together.
“Next after the men will come the soldiers,” Lady Doronit went on. “They have already left for the hills. Then the officers, and the general in his chariot. And finally …” she paused, looking disappointed, “last should come the captives in chains. But it was not that kind of a battle, was it, Aharon?”
“No, my lady,” said the steward. He waved a hand at me. “Only the one captive from Ramoth-Gilead.”
Lady Doronit had to admit it would not be an impressive sight if only one girl in chains followed the conquering hero’s chariot. So I would play the timbrel and dance and shout with the other slaves.
After more practice, Lady Doronit had Raiza pick oleander blossoms, which the women tucked into their hair. Then we returned to the kitchen courtyard for a quick breakfast. Lady Doronit appeared in her litter with two young boys, her sons. In the procession, they were to ride on the shoulders of two of the men. The younger boy, about five years old, kept shouting, “Hail, Father, beloved of Hadad!”
“Not yet, young master,” Aharon told him.
We all followed her ladyship’s litter through the streets. At the North Gate a crowd had gathered, and more people were pushing into it all the time. Aharon had to shout and shove with his staff to make way for the general’s household.
Outside the city gate, we joined a throng of more women and girls, also decked with flowers and carrying timbrels. Aharon reminded General Naaman’s slaves what they were supposed to do. “We dance up the road toward the army. When we meet them, we turn and process before them back into the city. Is that clear?”
I gazed at the hill above the city. The first ranks of spear throwers came into view, marching down the winding road. After them, rank upon rank of archers. And then —
“See, the general’s golden chariot!” Sima pointed to the very top of the hill, where bright metal flashed in the morning sun.
Trumpets blared from the tower above the gates. A great shout, “Hail, Naaman!” went up all along the wall. I shouted with Sima and the women, “Hail, Naaman, mighty leader of hosts!” Behind us the men shouted back, “Hail, General Naaman, beloved of Hadad!”
We danced up the road, thumping our timbrels. Last year at the harvest festival I had danced and sung in the procession to the shrine in the western hills. But I had never been part of such a huge celebration as this one. Although I was there only because of a misunderstanding, I too was swept up in the festive mood.
When we met the army on the road, there was some confusion, because we had not practiced turning around. As we were milling about, with Aharon barking directions, Lady Doronit caught up with us. The litter curtains and canopy were pushed back, and she stood on the seat, holding onto the curtain frame. “I shall lead the procession into the city. Follow me!”
Her gauzy headscarf rippling in the wind, Lady Doronit chanted verses at the top of her lungs:
fierce as the wind-steeds that pull
Hadad’s cloud-chariot.
See, Naaman comes,
fierce as the Storm-god himself …
Raiza moaned as she made the sign to turn aside bad luck. “No offense meant to Lord Hadad the Storm-god,” she muttered.
The rest of us chanted the chorus: “Hail, Naaman, mighty leader of hosts!”
The procession took half the morning to parade through the streets of Damascus. I was hoarse from shouting, and the palm of my hand was sore from beating the timbrel by the time we reached the temple of Hadad.
I had never seen a temple before, although I had heard of the temple King Solomon had built in Jerusalem. Broad stone steps led up to an open porch, where an old man in purple robes stood between two bronze pillars. I knew by his tall crown and his staff topped with the golden calf that he must be King Ben-hadad. Before we turned aside at the bottom of the steps, I caught a glimpse of carved gold-covered doors behind him. Those were the doors to the holy place.
I was curious to see the inside of the temple. Was it furnished with golden lamp stands and incense burners, like the temple of Solomon? But I knew that only priests and the most important worshipers were allowed in the sanctuary. Sacrifices were made out here, though, for we stopped near a great altar laid with firewood.
Like a forking stream of water, the procession parted to one side of the temple steps or the other. Last of all, General Naaman’s golden chariot stopped before the temple. The general held up his arms to the cheering crowd, then climbed the steps and knelt before the king.
King Ben-hadad reached out his hand, raising the general to his feet, and embraced him. Then he beckoned for General Naaman to accompany him. At a stately pace they disappeared through the tall golden doors.
“His Majesty takes my husband into the inner temple, into the very presence of the god!” exclaimed Lady Doronit. Tears of joy ran down her face.
“Ah,” murmured Aharon. “Surely the god loves our master.” But Raiza put a hand over her eyes and shivered.
Then we returned to the general’s villa, because the public part of the celebration was over. General Naaman would not come home until much later, I heard Lady Doronit tell the steward. The general would spend the afternoon and evening at the royal palace, at a banquet in honor of his great victory. “I am exhausted!” Lady Doronit went on. “How I have spent myself, rejoicing! I must rest. Raiza, have a light supper brought to my chamber.”
Back at the general’s house, we could hardly squeeze into the outer courtyard. It was filled with a train of pack animals.
“Tribute to General Naaman from the landowners of Ramoth-Gilead,” the head camel driver explained to Aharon.
“Have a man take that camel — the King’s portion — to the palace storehouses,” said the steward. He motioned toward a camel laden with rolled fleeces and wine jars. “As for the rest, unpack the tribute and leave it in the courtyard. The general and my lady will inspect the goods in the morning.”
I hardly heard Aharon’s last words, because I was squinting at the landowner’s marks on the bundles. As a driver grasped the camel’s halter, I lunged at the leather strap around one of the fleeces. “The mark! It is Father’s mark!” Burned into the leather was the letter gamel — for “Calev.”
Sima grabbed my arm, trying to pull me back. “What has gotten into you, Adara?”
“My father’s mark!” I shook her off. Pushing aside the fleece, I stood on tiptoe to peer at the top of a wine jar. The mark on the clay stopper — again, gamel. This was wine from grapes I had helped to pick. “My father has sent my ransom, in wool and wine! Sima, I am ransomed! Aharon — Sir — my father must have sent these goods.”
The steward gave me a disgusted look, but he spoke to Sima. “Is she mad? Has she talked this way before?”
I turned to the head camel driver with clasped hands. “Did not Calev ben Oved give you this wool and wine to ransom his daughter, Adara?”
Sima clapped her hand over my mouth. “Be careful! I warned you …”
The camel driver squinted at me. “Ransom? No such thing. Councilor Calev sent the goods to the general as a gift, in gratitude that Ramoth-Gilead was saved from King Ahab, the Israelite.” He added, “I heard that he did lose a daughter, now that you mention it, but not to the Arameans. She was a headstrong thing — she sneaked off to the hidden well under Ramoth-Gilead. Drowned down there.”
“No! She did not! I did not!” I burst into tears.
Aharon shook me, and Sima brought a dipper of cold water to pour over my head. But it was some time before I could stop crying. It was as if my father stood here in the courtyard and yet did not see me. His wealth was here, but it had nothing to do with me. He thought I was dead.