An Echo in the Darkness(128)

Hadassah’s heart beat wildly. She had thought to reveal herself, but something within her held her back. O Lord, I am not like the Hadassah of Purim who saved her people. I am so much less than that. Father, show me who I am to her. Give me a name into which I can grow. A name Julia can use with ease.

And it came to her, like a whisper. She smiled. “I would ask you to call me by the name of Azar.”

Azar. Helper.

“Azar,” Julia repeated. “It’s a pretty name.”

“Yes,” Hadassah said, feeling a sudden lightness of heart and giving thanks for it. “Azar.”

“I will call you by that name,” Julia said in agreement.

“Then whether I stay or go is your choice, my lady. I will do as you wish.”

Julia sat in silence for a long moment. Full of doubt and distrust, she was afraid to say yes. Why would a Christian come to take care of her? What was there in it for her? If Rapha . . . Azar knew all she had done, she would turn away. And Julia knew it was only a matter of time until someone told her.

“I don’t believe you’ll stay,” she said. “Why would you? All of Ephesus knows about you. You are much in demand.” No one would give up fame and wealth for a life of drudgery and solitude with a dying woman. She wouldn’t. It made no sense.

Hadassah came nearer and lowered herself painfully onto a seat facing Julia. “I will stay.”

“A few days? A few weeks? A month or two?”

“Until the end.”

Julia searched the veils, trying to see the face behind them. She couldn’t. Perhaps Rapha . . . Azar . . . whatever her name was, was old. Certainly the labored way she moved and her strangely rasping voice bespoke a woman of substantial years. Maybe that was it. She was tired and needed the rest of caring for one person rather than many. And what did any of it matter if Rapha-Azar would give her word?

“Do you promise?” Julia said shakily, wishing she had a scribe at hand so that an agreement might be put in writing.

“I promise.”

Julia released her breath slowly. How strange it was. Two words uttered by a woman she didn’t even know, and yet she was certain she could believe her. She could trust her. Perhaps it was in the way Rapha-Azar said those words.

Suddenly, Julia was filled with an inexpressible sorrow. “I promise.” She heard another voice speaking those words, saw laughing dark eyes filled with an indulgent affection.

“I promise. . . .”

Marcus had once spoken those words to her, and where was he now? What had his promise meant? Her own brother had lied to her. How could she believe anyone?

With such desperate circumstances, how can you not? a voice seemed to whisper.

Every moment, she lived with fear. Death was a most terrifying fact of life, but what she had feared most was facing it alone. “Oh, Azar,” she said, “I’m so afraid.” Her mouth worked as her eyes filled with tears.

“I know what it is to be afraid,” Hadassah said.

“Do you?”

“Yes. From the time I was a child, fear almost consumed me.”

“How did you overcome it?”

“I didn’t. God did.”

Julia was immediately uncomfortable. She didn’t want God mentioned. And she didn’t understand. She only knew that any reference to Hadassah’s god distressed her. It made her remember things she wanted desperately to forget.

And now, Azar said her god was the same one. “What pathetic irony,” she murmured miserably.

“What is?”

“My life is in utter shambles because of one Christian, and now you come and offer to take care of me.” Shivering, she closed her eyes. “All I know is I need someone. Anyone.”

It was enough.

Yet, from that one statement, Hadassah saw the hard, treacherous road ahead. Thinking as she did, Julia might never turn. And, as Alexander had warned her, Hadassah knew she herself might yet die in the arena. She was absolutely sure of only one thing: God had sent her here for a purpose, and to his purpose she must yield. She could not count the cost.

“I will never leave you, Lady Julia, nor forsake you. Not as long as I draw breath in this body.” With that said, Hadassah held out her hand.

Julia stared at it. Face crumpling, she took it and clung to it out of her own need. Beyond that, she could not think.





31

Marcus spent several weeks in Gennesaret, walking the city streets. Dressed in the clothing Ezra Barjachin had given him and mimicking the reverent posturing of those he had observed, he was able to enter a synagogue. He wanted to hear the Scriptures being read and stood on the outer fringes of the gathering to do so. Though he understood no Hebrew, he gained strange comfort in hearing the Scriptures from the Torah. All the while the words flowed over him, he thought of Hadassah. She had spoken, and he had been deaf. Just as then, Hebrew or Greek, Aramaic or Latin, the language was alien to him, for the meaning escaped his grasp.