The Secret Chord: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

husband did, she said, and she defied him, and brought the goods herself. That is how she—”
    “Shhh.” My mother raised her hand and laid her fingers on my lips. They were rough fingers, work worn from the hundred tasks she knew how to perform. But they were gentle fingers, too, always ready with a caress. “Your father heads this household. Leads this village. It is not for us to doubt him. I am no slut like this woman, who threw herself at the feet of a stranger and defied her husband’s will.”
    “But she did it to save—”
    “Hush, I said. You will obey me, and you will obey your father. Go now. They are waiting for their wine. Serve and be silent as I bid you.”
    A dozen wineskins and a few bushels of dates. It would have been a small price, and I might have lived a different life. I might have stayed in that village lit by the glare of the Salty Sea. Grown to manhood the beloved son of a prosperous house, learning to become a winemaker at my father’s side. Feeling the weight of the warm grapes fall into my hands as each long summer ripened, plying the pruning knife with skill till the long rows of old vines held their balled fists up to the winter sky. By now, the vineyards would be mine to tend, and I would be teaching my sons in their turn. Or so I like to think. But perhaps this other destiny could not have been gainsaid. I do not know. All I do know is that no supplies were delivered, and I was instructed to take the goats by the southern wadi rather than the stream that ran to the north. Two days later, David sent to ask again. One of his men—a youth, really, no older than David himself—presented himself in the village asking for my father. He was received, and put his requests—or I should say, demands—rather more urgently than David had put them to me. My father became angry. I heard him say hard words: “traitor,” “brigand,” “thief.” The young man became angry then in his turn. He raised his voice even louder than my father’s, so that I could hear every word he said as if I were in the room.
    “You dare to speak so of a man whose spittle you are not fit to wipe. David son of Yishai is the rightful leader of our people, the best leader—the best man—any of us has ever served. The king in Geba knew that, once. Did he not make David his son-in-law before madness seized him? Now he hates David for his very qualities, which are a reproach to his own failures. You should ask Shaul’s son Yonatan, if you doubt me. It is well-known where his heart lies. Were it not for the command to honor the father he would be with us now, not propping up a demented, drooling . . .”
    My father cut in then—loud, angry—saying that he would not have such disloyal words uttered in his house. He was not a stupid man: he could see the danger by then, I am sure. Yet he did have a stubborn streak, and a regard for his own opinions. Small flaws, maybe, to cost such a price as he paid for them. But he could not unbreak the eggshell. A few moments later, the tall young stranger pushed past me, thrusting me against the wall so hard that the stone bit into the bare skin of my upper arm. When he looked me in the face, I saw naked anger. For perhaps a thousand men, that look has been the last thing they ever saw. David’s messenger to my father was Yoav, who would become our mighty general, though on that day I did not yet know his name.
    At dawn I walked through my father’s blood and stood face-to-face with his killer. David had come in the dark, swift and silent. He slew my father and my uncle Barack with the dispatch of a slaughter man attending to his trade. As I approached David, I could hear my mother screaming. Her voice was horrible—a ragged rasp. Stay back, she cried. Run. Hide yourself.
    But I had done with obeying. I could no more heed her than stop my own heartbeat. I walked up to David. He looked down at me, puzzled. I imagine he saw a tear-streaked child, too touched or stupid to