aside to make room for a sleeping mat, a small table, and a bench for me. Each day Chuza brought me food and allowed me out to empty my chamber pot, but the only thing he would say to me was that I would be released “as soon as it was safe.”
Naomi stationed herself outside the storeroom door the first day of my imprisonment. She slid her fingers under the door, and I held onto them. Together we quietly mourned for all we had lost. I longed for her to chatter as she always had, but all Naomi could muster was sighing, muffled weeping, and a whispered dream. “When you get out of this room, Danya, we will find a way to sneak back to Nazareth.”
But my grief so exhausted me that I couldn’t imagine formulating such a plan. “We’re stuck here for a long time, Naomi. We must learn how survive in Jerusalem.”
The afternoon of the second day, Joanna pounded on the door. “Danya, are you all right in there? Answer me! Danya, wake up!”
“I’m awake. Now.”
“You mustn’t sleep so much. Here is something to keep you occupied.” Joanna slid a tablet and stylus under the door.
“Wait. Stay and talk to me. Why am I here? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. This is all a mystery to me, too. Chuza has forbidden me to visit with you. I am sorry, dear one. I must leave now.”
“Then send Naomi.”
“I can’t even do that for you. Chuza has moved her to the servant’s quarters. She’ll be very busy and probably unable to visit you.”
As Joanna predicted, Naomi didn’t come. Not that day or the next. Near the end of the third day I turned to the writing materials Joanna had smuggled into my cage. At least the storeroom had a window, so I had some light. I touched my forefinger to the wedged point of the stylus and smoothed the palm of my hand across the wax. I used to love practicing my letters and words. Last year my writing had become so proficient that I had done some of Lev’s schoolwork for him. I wondered now if Father had known.
I punctured the soft wax in firm, deliberate strokes and soon a letter took shape.
Danya to my dearest Father, greetings
I know you will never read this, but it will comfort me to talk to you on these tablets. When you allowed me to learn to write, did you ever think I would use my skill in this way? I miss you so much, Papa. And Lev and Nazareth and the happy life we shared there. Papa, one good thing about being locked up by myself is that I have figured something out. Your death was not my fault. At first I thought Chuza might be right, that my interest in Judah ben Hezekiah and his movement somehow caused the soldier to kill you. I hated myself. And I hated Judah, worse than I hate scorpions. But I no longer blame myself or Judah. I blame the soldier. And The Holy One. You always told me He has a plan for us, so this must have been His will for you. He sent the soldier to you. How else could he have been on that plaza just at the time you were crossing it? This makes me very angry. I don’t understand The Holy One. Now when I think about His plans, dust swirls around inside my mind. I can’t see anything because the dust obscures all. It fills my lungs as well, so it becomes hard for me to breathe. Breathing is making me tired now. I have to stop and lie down.
Farewell.
I awoke to find Chuza standing under the oil lamp in its niche in the storeroom wall. He frowned as he read my letter to Father. The embers of my anger flared into rage.
“Give me those,” I screamed as I snatched the tablets.
He folded one on top of the other and held them behind his back. “Who taught you to write?” he asked.
“Father. And Lev,” I answered, standing and putting my hands on my hips. I was not going to let him criticize me for my literacy. Chuza might be one of those people who insisted that the Torah did not permit women to read and write, but Father told me those people were wrong. And Father, I now knew from Tobiah, was a true doctor of the law. He handed the tablets back to me. “Don’t tell anyone that we have a brother named Lev.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t anyone in Jerusalem that you have another brother.”
“I’ll decide what I say to people in Jerusalem!” I was tired of Chuza’s orders. Tired of being pushed around by someone who was, after all, just my half-brother, not the ruler of all Judea. I pulled at the door latch. “And I won’t be penned up like a goat anymore.”
“I came to release you. I’m hungry. Get me some food, and I’ll talk to you.”
It was late, and the servants had retired. Joanna joined us, and we sat in the kitchen by the cook stove. I heated loaves of bread over still-warm embers. Joanna poured wine for Chuza and cut up chunks of cheese to melt on the bread.
“So why are you releasing me, O merciful one?” I said, not caring about the consequences of my fresh remark.
Joanna dropped the cheese knife and covered her mouth, but Chuza ignored my insult and swilled his wine. He belched and settled himself more comfortably on the bench. He seemed very pleased with himself. “This week I demanded a hearing before the Great Sanhedrin to address the accusation that Father was a revolutionary,” he said.
“Everyone knows your father being a rebel is nonsense,” said Joanna, soothingly.
“That doesn’t keep people from saying so, wife,” he snapped. “And in Jerusalem, it can be convenient to accept rumors as truth. This had to be dealt with. Swiftly.”
Joanna folded her hands in her lap. “Then you were wise to do so, husband.”
“Do you want your father-in-law to be remembered as a revolutionary conspirator? My enemies would leap at the opportunity to brand me along with him! Is that what you want?”
Joanna’s color deepened. “No, husband.”
Dodi backed into a corner, out of the range of Chuza’s foot.
“What is this Great Sanhedrin?” I asked, trying to divert Chuza’s attention away from Joanna. Managing his temper, and mine when I was with him, was a skill that I, too, would have to practice.
“Our highest court, which is seventy members when all are assembled. But this matter required only twenty-three. Pour me more wine, wife.”
Chuza recounted his frantic efforts to obtain a hearing before the Sanhedrin on short notice. “I had to promise, pressure, bribe, call in favors. You can’t imagine the work it took.” Then he explained how he had evaluated the possible accusations against Father, gathered witnesses, and formulated shrewd arguments.
As he washed down several rounds of bread and cheese with more wine, he rendered an account of the enquiry itself. Only one credible piece of evidence had surfaced. Some pilgrims from Cana testified that they had witnessed Father speaking to Judah ben Hezekiah near the Sea of Galilee. But, when pressed for details at the hearing, they admitted Father did so only to prevent Judah from harming them and me.
An enemy of Chuza’s had brought to light the fact that Father and Judah’s father had been students together at the Temple’s beth ha-midrash. But Chuza’s enemy was ridiculed by the court when three witnesses, high priests themselves, swore that Hezekiah and Father had always been enemies, each holding sharply contrasting views on how to re-establish
