When the general chased us out of his chamber, I was afraid that Lady Doronit and I had failed. He was making dreadful choked noises as we escaped down the corridor. But her ladyship halted, let out a long breath, and hugged me. I could feel her whole body shaking. “He will make the journey to Samaria,” she said. “He will ask the king’s permission to go, this very day.”
Sure enough, General Naaman visited the palace that afternoon and returned with a scroll sealed with the great seal of Aram. King Ben-Hadad had given the journey his blessing. The scroll was an official letter from Ben-Hadad to King Jehoram of Israel, explaining why the king of Aram was sending the commander of his armies to Samaria.
For the next two days the whole household worked early and late, gathering supplies and equipment and packing them. The following morning, General Naaman’s chariot led his caravan out the north gate of Damascus. He did not ride his war chariot, of course, for he went to Israel in peace. When we reached the foothills, all the chariots would have to be taken apart and loaded onto camels, since they could not be driven over the rough mountain trails. They would be put together again outside Samaria, so that the general could enter the city in the manner befitting his rank.
Besides General Naaman’s chariots and the chariots of his officers and of Lady Doronit, the caravan included a string of camels and donkeys. Some of the pack animals were laden with gifts for the holy man: ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten costly kilts and robes to wear on feast days. Then there were the necessary soldiers to protect the caravan from bandits, and the necessary attendants.
To my surprise, I was one of the attendants traveling to Samaria. “Why, it must all come about as the fortune-teller predicted,” said Lady Doronit. In a merry mood these days, she liked the joke that she would make the fortune-teller’s prediction come true.
Lady Doronit did not explain her real reason for taking me, but Raiza thought it was clear. “You, Adara, are the one who understands the Israelite magician. The general may need your help when he reaches Samaria.”
“Elisha is a holy man, not a magician,” I said, but I knew Raiza did not see any difference.
Sima gave a knowing sniff. “The general is taking Lady Doronit so that he can blame her, if the holy man does not cure him. And Lady Doronit is taking Adara so that she can blame her, if this cure fails.” I thought perhaps Sima was right, but I also thought she wished she were traveling to Samaria. There was a wistful look in her eyes as I waved good-bye, following her ladyship’s chariot out the courtyard gate.
We traveled the King’s Way from Damascus to Ramoth-Gilead, the reverse of the journey I had made two years ago. It was again the dry season, but every scene we passed through looked different to me. Of course I was much more comfortable, for I rode a donkey, and I was not thinking about the blisters on my feet. But the main difference was that now I was not trying to push the wheel of time back. I was trying to roll it forward to Samaria, to the moment when General Naaman stood before Elisha and was healed.
The general was pushing forward, too. He still kept himself covered with his cloak, but I caught glimpses of his face now and then, and he was almost smiling. He seemed impatient each time the caravan stopped to rest, but he urged us on with a cheerful voice.
Every once in a while I realized that all the hopes of this journey depended on my word alone. Then I would go cold with fear. Who was I to send an entire caravan — the commander of the armies of Aram, his wife and attendants and companions, and a train of costly gifts — all the way from Damascus to Samaria?
But then I would think of how I felt the presence of holy Elisha, how he cared for me, a miserable slave girl in a faraway city. It was on Elisha, not on me, that General Naaman’s hopes depended. Surely the holy man would have pity on a mighty general, traveling so far over mountains and plains and rivers to seek his help.
Late in the afternoon of the fourth day, we passed Ramoth-Gilead without pausing. The town seemed smaller than I had remembered. I wondered if my family was in the vineyards, picking grapes. I could not see Father’s vineyard from the road, but I thought I glimpsed the top of his watchtower.
I imagined B’rinna in the rows of vines, keeping an eye on Lila as she piled bunches of grapes in a two-handled basket. I wished I could stop and let her know that I was well, and tell her where I was going with General Naaman. “And all because of you, because you told me about holy Elisha, B’rinna!” I smiled at the thought of her eyes opening in amazement, her hands pressed over her mouth.
Then it crossed my mind that all this was happening also because I had sneaked off to the underground well on the day of the battle. If I had not been captured and taken to Damascus and enslaved, I would not have been able to tell Lady Doronit about Elisha. Was it then a good thing that I had been so disobedient and foolish? Or could the Lord God Yahweh turn a mistake into a miracle?
The next day we left the King’s Way at the town of Mahanaim, on the Jabbok River. The general’s train followed the river west, down from the high plain of Gilead through the clay bluffs to the Jordan River. On the river bottom the road wound through a tangle of tamarisk and poplar. The air was hot and thick, and the caravan had to stop more often to let the pack animals rest.
As we crossed the Jordan River at a ford, Lady Doronit leaned down from her horse and sniffed. “So this is the Jordan — such an ugly little river compared to our beautiful pure Barada, is it not? Nothing but a muddy trickle.”
On the west side of the Jordan the caravan found the mouth of the Farah River. We journeyed up the Farah to the town of Tirzah, in highlands that reminded me of Gilead. The following day, we came upon the royal city of Samaria.
Set on a hill in the middle of rich farmland, Samaria was four times as large as Ramoth-Gilead and ten times as grand. Its stone walls loomed like the bluffs of the Jordan River. If Ramoth-Gilead looked like a headdress, Samaria was like a king’s crown.
General Naaman pitched his tents outside the gates and sent a messenger to the palace, requesting an audience with the king of Israel. I waited on Lady Doronit, laying out the robe and jewelry she would wear in the procession the next day. I watched the general’s attendants unpack the pieces of his chariot and ready it for his entrance into the city.
The next morning, General Naaman rode under the massive watchtowers and into Samaria. Between the outer wall and the inner wall was a marketplace, where people crowded to see the commander of the armies of Aram. I noticed they stayed back a certain distance, though. I heard a father say to the little son on his shoulder, “There, see how Yahweh has cursed the enemy of Israel. God has turned his flesh white and unclean.”
From the market we passed through a second gate into the city itself. All along our route, Samaritans watched the procession from their rooftops. I quickly got tired of craning my neck to look up at them, and besides, the sun above the housetops was blinding. But something made me glance up once more as we passed a certain house. It was an ordinary mud-brick house in a humble section of the city.
On that rooftop, leaning on a staff, stood a man with long, untrimmed hair and beard. I could not make out the features of his face, for the sun blazed directly behind him. But I knew who he was.