Sunday, October 16, 2016

I find myself faced with the greatest surprise of my life



Tonight, the night of my wedding, I find myself faced with the greatest surprise of my life. It makes me ashamed for what I have said about my bride, because in her chamber she prepared the loveliest, most thoughtful offering for me.
I am speechless, standing here before this beauty. With trembling hands I brush along the sweeping curve of the neck, which soars over my head. I stroke it gently, feeling my way down to the knee. Taking the bend I glide along the slope of the body, which is hollow, because this is where sound resonates, where it is projected inward and outward when a string is plucked. 
It is a large, floor standing harp. Its frame is constructed of some fine, solid timber, with fine grain, the likes of which I have never seen before. The column supporting the neck is delicately carved with decorations.
I am awe struck. Such grace! Such a magical instrument! 
Inspired, I think, by the archer’s bow, it transforms the shriek of arrows, the clash of armies, the cries of war... It softens them, turns them into notes, into harmony.
I pluck a pair of silk strings, and music—oh, heavenly music!—fills the chamber. More startling than anything I could produce on my old lyre, this sound is divine. It creates a new universe in my mind, suffused with glory... For a brief moment, all that has been happening lately in my life fades away, melding into the background, into darkness. 
And in that brief moment I wonder... Where am I? Where are my enemies? I listen for the screams of the victims as I wield my sword over their heads. I take note of the hush, the deathly silence sprawling behind me as I charge forward, stepping over the corpses to do God’s work. 
I am overcome. I am in tears.
“You like?” asks Michal.
I nod my head, Yes.
She stands in the midst of her maids, waiting for them to remove the jeweled coronet from her hair, which is arranged in a towering bun, fancier than any hair style I have ever seen on her before. How would she lie down in bed with it? How would she manage to fall asleep? I may understand the sacrifice women make for their looks, but not for this tightly knit bun. 
A long, frizzy wisp of hair flies out of it, which she quickly tucks back. The maids plait it into place again. Again, she is proper.
My bride glances at me. “Want to play?”
I shake my head, No.
In a blink, blush rises up her chin, her ears. To hide it from me, she turns her head away. Hanging from her earlobe is a large, ornamented chandelier earring, which the maids are struggling to remove. 
Then she passes quickly by me, with a tinkling of her gold anklet marking each footfall. She stops by a small window at the far end of the chamber. It overlooks the distant vineyards, the palace gardens, and the path leading, with twists and turns, into the throne room.
“I meant,” she says from there, “want to play music?”


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Saturday, October 15, 2016

Here, Ben. Keep it. It is a gift



I remember: when I was six, we strolled together one morning along the beach. The tide was low, and dad picked up a shell, an empty, twisted shell of a sea snail, that had washed up on shore. 
He handed it to me, saying, “Here, Ben. Keep it. It is a gift.” 
My father taught me then how to hold it to my ear and listen, listen with all my being; because, he said, the sound of the waves had been caught, somehow, inside it, which is a secret only few people know, because it only becomes clear if you stay there, very still, and forget everything else for a while. The sound, dad promised, would always remain—even if you took the shell far, far away from here, say, to the city, or to Santa Monica Mountains, out there. Even so, you would still hear it. 
I remember doubting him. I thought, Oh well. High tide, low tide. Nothing stays. Nothing is forever. 
I admit, in the past few days I have judged him harshly. Now I know, I can tell where I might have gone wrong. When the old man says, “The day is shorter, it seems. And the shorter it is—the more precious each minute,” it is not his life he is thinking about. Perhaps, it is mine. 
My father is doing his best to hold things together. Memory is a fragile thing. So he is trying to capture the moment, perhaps for my sake. At least, the sound of it. One day, if—if like my mother, I shall start losing it, my memory, I mean—I want to believe that dad will be there, as close to me as once he was, holding it to my ear. 
Time in a fold of brain. The ocean in a shell.
I pick the papers from the floor, which is where they have been trampled on, and I flatten them under the golden lamplight, which warms the tips of my fingers. This is my story, I tell myself. This is me, fifteen years ago. Here is my voice. Here is his gift to me.


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Friday, October 14, 2016

A Time for Giving: Here's what you can win

Don't miss this opportunity! 
Click this link 
And click 
Going
For a chance to win our prizes

A select group of authors has joined forces with me
to bring you amazing stories
narrated by great voice actors. 
Just before Thanksgiving
We invite you to three days of storytelling and gifts. 
Come listen to voice clips from our audiobooks 
You may win one of them!









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Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Why did you bring me flowers

Why did you bring me flowers
To tell me you must go?
I thought this time is ours
Safe from gust and blow

Why did you bring me flowers
Before they’re buried in snow?
Now I stare at them for hours
They blossom, all aglow

Red burst in crystal vases
That is how my heart grieves
I try to find your traces
In a yellow drift of leaves.


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I send my bodyguard after him, with a gift



When Uriah comes before me he seems unusually tense. His jaw is set, his face—pale. 
At first I figure that the long journey to the city of Rabbah and back here again must have drained him. I try to ignore the pain I detect in his eyes. I mean, it must be my mistake, I am seeing things. And whether I like it or not, for his wife’s sake I must push him into a trap. 
For that I do feel guilty.
Even so I must make sure he goes home. Bathsheba will know what she must do, once he is there. No woman is more skilled than her in the delightful art of seduction. 
I imagine she will wash his feet from the dust of the road, and rub his aching muscles, each and every one of them, and take it from there.
I force myself to engage him in small talk, which feels uncomfortable to both of us. 
I ask, “How’s your commander, Joav?”
Uriah says, in his Hittite accent, “Fine.”
“And the other soldiers?”
“They’re well.”
“How’s the war been going?”
“Not bad.”
“Not bad, huh?”
“No, not at all.”
“That’s good,” say I. “Really.”
Nothing more remains to be said. I wonder if he wonders why I have pulled him out of a critical battle, and brought him back here, to Jerusalem, only to engage him in a polite chitchat, over nonsense such as who or what feels fine, well, not bad, and good. 
Trying to break an uneasy silence I tell him, “You must be tired. Go down to your house and wash your feet.” 
Uriah snaps to attention and leaves the palace, after which I send my bodyguard, Benaiah, after him, with a gift: a platter of succulent cherries and a casket of red wine, that he may loosen up and have fun with his beloved, loving wife.
Next morning I step into the court, hoping to turn my attention to pressing political and social matters, such as controlling some unrest on our border with the Sinai desert, and holding a series of meetings with ambassadors from Babylon, Egypt, and Moav, and dealing with an unexpected shortage of materials for a new wing for the palace, and consulting with city designers and architects, in order to select the most appropriate site to build a temple, and in the midst of all of that, separating between my boys, Amnon and Absalom, who are at each other’s throat. 
And just as I rise to my throne my bodyguard, Benaiah, comes in to tell me that my trusty soldier never made it home last night.
“What?” I cry. “How dare Uriah disobey me? What a scoundrel! What a fool! Doesn’t he know that his wife’s expecting him—”
“He knows she’s expecting.”
“What d’you mean by that?”
“Me?” says Benaiah, wearing his innocently dumb expression. “Nothing.”
“Where did he sleep, then?” I ask.
“At the entrance to the palace,” says Benaiah. “With all the servants. No matter what I told him, he refused to go down to his house.”
As Uriah is summoned back to the court I ask myself, why is he so obstinate, so determined not to visit his wife? It is possible that a hint, a rumor of his her adultery has already reached his ears? If so, is there any course of action open to him? I mean, what can a soldier do to defy a king? 


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Sunday, October 9, 2016

I should really thank her for it




It was then that I heard something, the whoosh of roller skates coming down the road in my direction. And as I turned, the incredible happened. Gliding with grace, there she was, coming at me with her hair glowing red, blowing backwards in the wind. Before either one of us knew what was happening Natasha ended up tripping on a loose stone, flying straight into my arms.
That moment I sensed the same rhythm, the same beat pounding in her chest and mine, which convinced me of one thing: despite messing up a 1941 Ford Super Deluxe Convertible, or maybe because of it, I was—without a doubt—the luckiest man alive!
But unfortunately, as moments often go, this one did not last. By instinct I drew closer and touched my lips to her forehead, taking in the fragrance of her hair, which must have been a mistake, I mean, not the fragrance but the thought of a kiss. Natasha pulled herself back from me, perhaps embarrassed because of the sudden, unintended touch. 
With delicate, almost transparent fingers she straightened her skirt and smoothed an unruly curl that slinked down the left side of her face. She tucked it carefully behind her ear, slowly composing herself. 
Then, catching her breath, “Now you’ve really done it,” she said.
And I asked, “Done what?” 
She answered by asking, “Didn’t you read what I wrote to you?”
“What?”
“I said, you must make a good impression on Mama, must behave yourself this time, because she remembers you, and she does so not exactly in a good way, if you know what I mean, and to make matters worse she’s suspicious of all men in uniform, because according to her they’re here one day and gone the next.”
I shrugged, and Natasha went on. “She says that nothing of value can come out of spending my time with any of them, because I’m too naive, and should avoid those good-for-nothing bums, because all they want is to take advantage of me.”
“Sorry,” said I. “I never got that letter.”
“Would it have made any difference if you did?”
“Probably not.”
“From now on, because of you, Mama’s going to give me an earful, much more than she already does, each and every time I happen to bring up your name.”
“Really? Like what?”
“She’s going to repeat, over and over, ‘He’s not for you and I told you so,’ until she’s blue in the face.”
“In that case you’re going to have no choice but to fall in love with me,” I said.
To which she said, “What?”
And I said, “With this much force, she’s practically pushing you into my arms, isn’t she?”
“I don’t wish to rebel against her,” said Natasha, under her breath. “But yes, she makes me so angry inside, she does.” 
“I should really thank her for it.” 
“Why?” 
“If not for her I would be slow to sense this heat in you.”


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Friday, October 7, 2016

I don’t want to hear no lies, and no long stories either

It’s awful nippy here, inside and out, even though this is only mid-fall. Shut tight in front of me is the glass door, which I can’t hardly open, on account of being tired, and a bit wobbly on my feet. Even so I can hear a sound, a muffled sound from the other side, out there on the balcony. From this angle I can spot him, kinda: at least his outline, bent over the desk, and the slant of the shoulders. 
And I can’t barely see a face, but somehow I can tell it’s a familiar voice out there, saying, like, Here is one thing I hope she knows: she deserves better. 
Which makes me shiver, even in my coat. The man, he’s tapping his fingers tensely on the edge of the record player, pressing one key, then another, which brings up the voice saying, louder now, She deserves better, and again, deserves better, then, better. 
That voice, it’s Ben’s voice—but them fingers, they’re the old man’s fingers. The instant he hits Pause is when my doubts go away, and like, I know who it is. 
So I don’t even need him to turn around, and I don’t even want to ask him, like, Where was you, ‘cause I don’t want to hear no lies, and no long stories either, and above all, I tell him in my heart, I don’t want to admit how lonely I am here, in this place, which isn’t my home, Lenny, without you.
Still absorbed in his work with his back to me, he tries to slide open a drawer, a drawer which I haven’t noticed in his desk before—not even the other day, when I went through the jumble of his papers, looking for clues, any clues of where Lenny had gone, or with whom he might be staying, or how he expected me to pay all them bills, because, like ma used to say, money don’t come cheap. 
I hope he finds things in place now, still in the right state of disorder. I hope I didn’t mess up no pages of his writing—or else, his stories will make even less sense than they already do. 
The drawer is damn clunky. It rattles a bit under his hand, like, the slides under it must have gotten rusty. Then it comes to a full stop, hanging in midair. He leans in to put his hand right there, inside the mouth of it, and his fingers are swallowed up by a deep shadow, which kinda scares me, like I’ve seen all this before, in a dream or a movie or something. 
So in distress I gulp for air, just about to cry out to him, Stop! Pull out, Lenny! Your hand—no, don’t talk, don’t even breathe a word—it’s about to be bitten off, like, if you don’t hold your tongue, right now, hold it from telling me a lie. 
Which is the moment he freezes, like he’s just caught a sound, the light sound of my footfall. There’s a chill in the air, which I can see right here, in front of my nose, ‘cause like, the vapor of my breath starts rising, curling in the air and clouding the partition between us. 
Lenny turns over his shoulder, and even before he can sense who’s standing here, watching him, you can tell he’s jolted, real shaken even, on account of not expecting no one here, at this time. He screws up his eyes, so I bet he’s looking for his own self, mirrored back to him—only to catch sight of me. 
In a flash he spots my outline, like, through them spots on the murky glass.  
Lenny gets up from the chair, awful stiff, and in one limp he comes to a stand right there, opposite me. My God, he looks strange today, and not only because he looks kinda naked, I mean, without them glasses. His gray hair isn’t even combed, like he’s awakened right this minute, after a fierce fight with a pillow or something—or else, he hasn’t slept a wink last night, just like me. 
Only in his case it happened who knows where.
Me, I look straight at him. His eyes, they have something wild in them: tender one second, mad the next, with wrinkled skin under them, sagging like squashed, hollow bags. He leans into the glass, laying his hands left and right of me, but I can’t be sure what’s in his head, like, if he wishes to plead with me, knowing I’m soon gonna forgive him—or else, he wishes to wring the life out of my throat. 
But he don’t try to do neither one nor the other. Instead he says, “Anita,” kinda gruff, “where is my son? You must know where he is, don’t you?”


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