The King’s Daughterby Tala Bar |
Table of Contents Synopsis Chapter 6, part 1 appears in this issue. |
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Chapter Six: David part 2 of 2 |
* * *
And Yonatan? My beloved brother Yonatan — what was David to him? From their first encounter Yonatan loved David a fully true love, a love which usually exists between a man and a woman, not a man and another man. David was unable to return such love to Yonatan because he could never love anyone in this way, as I learned later on; but he knew well how to use it.
I think that Yonatan was not made to love a woman. I have thought about it much since those days, and now, when I do nothing but think all day, I reflect on this as well. I suppose, like other boys, he had had some experience with the girls in town; but from the first day of his marriage my brother did not love his wife, and she must have felt that he was revolted by her presence. It was an open secret that after the one child she had bore him, he never went near her again; but there was no evidence that he had ever slept with other women, so she accepted the situation and sometimes found solace in the arms of other men. It seemed she knew it would not hurt him, or cause him to act against her.
But until my brother met David, he had nothing to do with other men, and it also took him a long time to reach the bed of his close friend. Yonatan could not fully accept his own inclination, even when he loved David deeply and sincerely. David, I know, was Yonatan’s only lover, and after their parting, he never gave himself to anyone else.
* * *
All this I did not know when I was a young girl, when David first appeared in Giv’at Sha’ul, and I fell desparately in love with the first man who was neither my father nor my brother. At the time, my attitude toward men or boys was more like friends than lovers. David was so different from anyone I had known; he looked to me like a young god, and I worshipped him with all the fervent adoration of the innocent. I know today that it is better when the man worships the woman; only then he is able to respect her, and without his respect she may lose her self-esteem as a woman and as a human being.
When I fell in love with David, although I had had a general idea of what the sexual act was, I had not had a chance to learn its practical side. Since I was in love with one man, I did not feel free in my heart to try it out with anyone else who would teach me the ways of love, as young girls usually do. David himself, at the same time, seemed to me beyond my reach; being a stranger, I had no idea how to approach him, nor felt any courage in my heart to do it. In his presence I would fall unusually silent, feel my knees buckle and my mouth go dry, my heart palpitating to a breaking point. I thought he saw me as a mere child, inexperienced, even stupid; worse, sometimes I thought he did not notice me, did not see me at all, as if I was nothing but air.
I felt at a great disadvantage because I knew I was not pretty as other girls were: I was not womanly looking, I was not plump, and my skin was not soft and glowing. The copper mirror Maakha had given me with my first menses showed me the reflection of a dark, thin face with deep black eyes and a shock of black curls, and a boyish, slim figure, almost flat, which I did not think was attractive to men. Today I know that the shape is not always the factor, that beside the desirable appearance there is also the question of character. And then, there is also the matter of chemistry: a female’s scent may charm the heart of a man who could stand against a pretty, attractive figure. Ahino’am, for instance: resembling me in appearance, though shorter and with long, straight hair, she never lacked suitors. But, at the time, I knew nothing of all that, and understood even less.
* * *
Ah, the heartache of youth, the pains of first love! No, I would not want to go back to those times. Remembering how I had nobody to turn to, how ashamed I was to talk about love to anyone close to me... I had no mother, no true sister, no close cousin or girlfriend, only a great-grandmother who was remote in her age as she was in her ideas. In the end, the most feminine personality I found in my vicinity, to whom I was able to pour my soul out, was my brother Yonatan.
Actually, it was he who talked to me first. I found him one day looking at me, examining my face closely. “Mikhal, what’s the matter with you? You look pale, you are not as gay as usual; you behave strangely sometimes, do not hear when people are talking to you. Are you ill?”
What can a growing-up girl answer to that? ‘Yes, I am lovesick?’
“Why,” he went on, “when we sit in the evening around the bonfire, listening to David’s tales and songs, you keep away, you sit on the side, alone, or disappear altogether instead of sitting with us, laughing with us as usual?”
“I can’t, Yonatan, it’s hard for me.”
“Hard? Why? What’s happened? Somebody hurt you?”
‘Yes,’ I was thinking, ‘someone hurt me badly, and the first time in my life I can’t return the hurt with a word or a blow.’ But to say such things to my brother, to David’s closest friend?
“Come tonight, sit with me, we’ll listen together. You may recover in the company of jolly people.” In the evening, he came and pulled me almost by force to the bonfire, sat me by his side, very close to the center of interest.
As had become the custom, David opened with a song, accompanying himself with the harp. Without paying any attention to the surroundings, I pinned my gaze at him, my ears tuned to his song, my mouth opened to swallow his looks, his words, his whole. Suddenly, I noticed Yonatan looking at me, grinning.
“You like it?”
I shut my mouth at once, closed my eyes. “I - I -” I stammered.
He took hold of me, hugged me tight to his heart. “You are in love!” he cried in a whisper.
“Shhh!” I shushed him. Only this I needed for everyone to know, to look at me curiously.
“Don’t worry. I shall speak to David. No one will know.” Then he let me ascape from the assembly, get away from the evening party to my solitude in the room I shared with other young girls, which was now empty, as none of them would miss an evening gathering with David.
* * *
The next day Yonatan came up to me as I was working in the field. “David will meet you at the edge of town, at sunset. Don’t be afraid.”
I found out later that he warned his friend to deal gently with his sister, not to hurt her. These were the circumstances of my first meeting face to face with David.
I went early out to the field, and sat on a rock, which had been cleared away from it; in the distance, I noticed the approach of the golden head that flared with the glare of the setting sun. Walking in his nonchalant way, whistling, I thought, David came up to me and stood there, examining my figure with his enchanting eyes. I kept silent, feeling my blood pounding, shaking my whole body.
“So what, girly, you fancy me?” He opened, as if with an intentional derision.
I stood up, facing him. “I am not a child, I am a woman.” I stuck out my chest, as if drawing his attention to the sprouts of my breasts through my thin dress. Since my first period I had known I was a woman, and no derisive comment could change that fact.
He stretched his arm and touched my neck, and I quivered under his touch. I shut my eyes for a moment, then mustered courage to look at him properly. He was not taller than me, and we could look at eye level. His body looked solid, sturdy; the fat of later years only vaguely apparent around his waist. The lower part of his face was covered with newly-sprouted golden plumage, but I noticed that only vaguely, because I was looking into his green eyes — wishing to plunge into their lucidity — and on the soft, pink lips, half-parted for a kiss. This whole picture was immersed in the background of his fire-red hair falling to his shoulders in gracious waves.
David moved his hand from my neck to pass light fingers on my face, then down to my body. At that moment, as we were standing face to face on the edge of the field at sunset, I was full of fears and expectations; later, I felt grateful for his treating me gently, for not forcing me, for I certainly was most vulnerable then.
“I suppose you are a woman,” he said softly, smiling at me. He pulled my face to his and kissed me, and I could have melted to the ground if he had not held my body with his strong arms. When we parted, such a sense of loyalty to him was stirred in my heart, that later caused me to adhere to his needs above my own.
When we met in the field, David was quite relaxed, not at all affected by his having an assignation with the King’s daughter. In his treating me gently, he seemed to understand by instinct that although I was yearning for him and my body quivered in his presence, to achieve a real conquest he had to approach me carefully. It was as if he felt that if he forced his way with me at that moment, I would panic and reject him, maybe forever. One thing I must say in his favor: David was never a rapist, never took any woman by force. What gave him that knowledge, that wisdom, I cannot say; but I know that what he expected from women was pleasure (before he needed them to bear his children), and he never had any pleasure in violence.
III
At the beginning of our relationship we did not meet often, and I preferred keeping our meetings a secret. That seemed to be what David wanted too; after the discovery of his relations with Merav and her hurried marriage, he began to be more careful and circumspect of other people’s rights. It was interesting that at the time, my brother was angrier with his sister than with his friend; today, I can see Yonatan’s behavior as typical for men.
When David had been at Giv’at Sha’ul about a year, I noticed something which only became clear to me much later, that many women gave birth to red-headed children within a period of about one year. Most of Yhwh’s servants were angered at that phenomenon, ascribing it rightly to their misconduct with David; Ashtoret’s worshippers, however, saw it as a sign for blessing and fertility, and were encouraged in ascribing to David a symbolic image of godhead.
Indeed, it was the belief in the Goddess and her ways which helped me accpet all these other women as natural, with a heart free of jealousy, because it is the function of the Goddess’s consort to impregnate as many women as possible. My own assignations with David had continued, even though I still hesitated to join him on his couch.
* * *
One day, one of Maakha’s girls appeared, calling me to the old woman’s room after many days we had not seen each other. My great-grandmother looked at me for a little while with searching eyes, making me uncomfortable. She was already very old, most of her functions impaired. But her vision was still good, though it was hard to say whether it was physical, external vision, or a spiritual, internal one against which there was no camoflage.
“You are growing up, Mikhal,” she stated in her husky, grating voice; I was not sure whether it expressed satisfaction or the opposite. “Come closer!” she ordered. She stretched wrinkled, thin arms and passed her hands over my body. I shivered. She paused at my small breasts and my long limbs.
“Sha’ul’s body,” she remarked; “pity Re’uma was not your mother. Merav looks like a true woman.”
Her words pierced my heart. Won’t I be a true woman?
“Ah, don’t worry!” She pushed me away. “Womanhood has many forms. Ahino’am has no curves to speak of, but she completes the lack with her ferver of desire; it seems she had no difficulty in bearing you or your brother Ishba’al.”
Her face clouded for a moment. Ishba’al’s name bore no good will in anyone’s mouth; as a child, he was already infamous for his vicious nature and unruly character. More than one person at court wondered how Sha’ul had sired such a boy.
“I heard,” Maakha continued, signing me to sit by her side, “that you love David.”
“How did you hear that,” I protested, “no one knows, except Yonatan.”
“Ah, men!” A great deal of contempt sounded in her voice. “My maids told me and they know what they are talking about.”
“So, what do you say?” I forgot her opposition for a moment, got excited, “Isn’t he great!”
“Great? Handsome, I heard, with a golden head.” She pondered. “A golden head is royal,” she said, as if to herself. “Do you know his plans?”
“Plans? What kind of plans can he have?”
“At the moment, he serves as a musician at the King’s house, but do you think it’s going to be enough for him?”
“Granny, I don’t understand what you’re talking about!” I was irritated by her words, which sounded mysterious and omenous.
She glared at me with her gleaming eyes. “Take care, Mikhal!”
“Take care? Of what?”
“Take care!” She shut her eyes, made a sign with her hand; the servant girl approached, and gently led me outside.
“What did she mean?” I asked, without expecting a real answer.
“Don’t pay any attention,” the girl answered with a tinge of slight in her voice, which I did not like much, “she wants to impress her audience, and these days she does not have much of it.”
But I did not believe her. Maakha had never been a show-off, or had to boast of anything; each of her words always had a meaning, open or covert, and I did not think that had changed.
I am trying to think what would have happened if I had listened to Maakha, if I had kept myself away from David even then; but when I remember the situation as it was, I know such a possibility had never existed.
Copyright © 2005 by Tala Bar
