him safe and given him her spoils. In the end he had killed the woman. Her body had carried him to excitement and ecstasy, had made his blood boil within him. But when it was over, he had not felt fulfillment, only emptiness. Ishtar had bestowed her gifts and yet they were hollow. He had walked back to the camp feeling weak and strangely sad. He tried to rekindle the excitement by recalling the shape of her body. He thought back to his experiences in the temple of Nineveh. But it did not work: there was no excitement, only a desperate restlessness.
Itur-Ea turned onto his other side, touching the soldier to his left. The festivities of the day had overshadowed his desperation, but now in the night it returned. A great loneliness overcame him. How had it come to this? Had Ishtar played him a cruel trick? She had given him his wish and it had turned out to be false comfort.
* * *
A green shimmer covered the land after the rain. The dust had been washed off the plants and the moisture allowed fresh shoots to appear. Among the dry, brown grass, new blades pushed out of the ground and slender leaves sprouted on the bushes. The parched earth had her fill and, ever so gently, bore fruit again. It wasn’t the strong exuberant growth of spring, but the hesitant signs of life after the long dry of summer.
“That rain was heaven-sent,” Ayalah remarked to Rivkah as they slowly walked down the hill. “We may not be able to plow fields and sow seeds, but at least the plants grow again. We should find some fresh herbs today.”
Ayalah had asked Rivkah to accompany her. The old woman was not comfortable venturing far from the cave on her own. Rivkah didn’t mind. She always enjoyed the time with Ayalah.
“You really don’t know anything about gathering greens?”
“No, sorry. We didn’t eat a lot of green plants from the field. Only now and then did we buy some on the market. And I didn’t always like them.”
“Ah, another of those spoiled townspeople,” Ayalah laughed, “but greens are good for you, they really are good for you. Besides, if you want to eat you have to find something. We don’t exactly have barns full of wheat.”
“No, not really. We are lucky we still have bread. Where did you get the grain from, mother Ayalah?”
“We were able to get the barley harvest in before the Assyrians entered the country. I insisted we take some jars when we fled from the village across to the cave here. Amnon wasn’t so sure. There was so much else he wanted to take. ‘First we have to eat,’ I said, ‘and then you can worry about your clothes and tools!’”
Ayalah stopped and leaned closer to Rivkah whispering, “You know, I got him to bury his plow. What would he do with that on our flight? It’s still there. He has checked on it after the Assyrians came and destroyed the village.”
She started walking again and continued in a louder voice, “And I believe we will return to our village and build houses again. These armies flood the lands, but they will pass on. Thousands will be swept away by this war. The land remains. Bare and forlorn it may be, fallow and devastated, but it will bear fruit again. It needs people to till the soil, sow the crop, plant the trees and gather the harvest. I pray that my family will return to their heritage, to work the land once more. The LORD may have deserted his people for a while, but he will not root them out completely. Rulers may change and kingdoms may falter, but his faithfulness endures.”
“And my family?” Rivkah asked.
“They suffered with their people. I cannot comprehend it. I do not know why some share the fate of their nation and others remain. But were you not plucked like a brand from a burning fire? Rivkah, I believe there’s hope for you. Maybe your family, your city will continue through you.”
The two walked on in silence. Suddenly Ayalah stopped and bent over, looking at the ground.
“Do you see these shoots of wild cress, Rivkah? Just what we are looking for. Nice and tender. They should make an excellent salad. Come, dear can you pick them for me?”
“Which ones?” Rivkah wasn’t quite sure what she meant.
“These ones here.” Ayalah pointed to some crinkly leaves barely sprouting out of the hard ground. “It’s hard for an old woman to bend down and pick them. I’m no longer that fit. That’s where you come in. Prick them off just below the leaves. That’s it . . . Now put them in the cloth bag we brought along.”
Rivkah plucked the shoots, gathering them in a bundle.
“Give me one of those leaves, Rivkah.”
When she chewed it Ayalah smiled satisfied. “Very nice. I didn’t know it grew so well around here.”
They found more plants at other spots as they moved over the hill. Wild, prickly lettuce and shoots of shrubs and pines were added to the bundle.
After they had walked through a small grove of trees they came out into the open again.
“Take a few leaves of that,” Ayalah pointed at some sorrel that had sprouted a few green leaves again.
“Can you eat that?” Rivkah had often seen it outside the city walls and along some of the roads.
“Yes, you can eat it. It may be a bit bitter, especially as the leaves grow bigger, but we can’t be picky, can we? You know, in these times you eat food you would otherwise just walk by or leave to the animals.”
Rivkah took the leaves.
“I think we should have enough now. These greens don’t keep long. So you’ll have to get more in a day or two. But come, we’ll go back home now and prepare lunch.”
As they walked up the hill Rivkah remembered the earlier conversation on their way down from their home.
“So you have only barley now. No wheat? Is that why the bread tastes a bit . . . umh . . . funny, mother Ayalah?
Ayalah tapped the ground with her stick.
“Oh, we do have some wheat. When we found this place and the others joined us, we realized that the barley wouldn’t last us through the winter. Amnon was able to get some wheat from the fields near Mareshah. It was not easy with the Assyrians snooping around. He couldn’t exactly harvest the fields, just picked a few ears and brought them back. It wasn’t easy threshing the wheat as we don’t dare to be out in the open much. So we often grind it husks and all. Of course the bread is sometimes a bit hard to get down, but if it fills you, it’s good. In late summer we gathered wild emmer and darnel, whatever wild grain we could find. That’s even harder to thresh and you don’t get much out of it. It’s not easy baking bread with that sort of flour. I tell you, Naarah normally bakes delicious bread, but she has her work cut out for her. As you know, we don’t have a good millstone either. That makes it even harder to grind fine flour. It’s the only one we were able to pull out from the rubble of the destroyed village. But you know, we should be grateful for what we have, even if the bread is sometimes a bit crumbly and hard to chew on.”
By now they had come to the saddle on the ridge above the cave. It was not far from here and only downhill. They reached the cave and crawled through the entrance. Inside Naarah had finished cleaning the bowls and jars. A jar of thickened milk stood beside her. She must have just carried it in, out of the morning sun. Rivkah was still not used to the sour taste of the thickened milk the fugitives seemed to like for lunch.
“We’ve brought
