The Book of V.: A Novel by Anna Solomon

The Book of V.: A Novel by Anna Solomon

Author:Anna Solomon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2020-05-04T23:00:00+00:00


* * *

Robes are timeless, convenient, easily opened, easily closed. When the king was done Esther closed hers and, without asking, went closer to his table. The objects weren’t stones, she saw, but bones. Tiny bones.

“Birds,” she said.

“How do you know that?”

Behind her, on the cushion, the king lay atop his own robes, unclothed. She did not look at him.

“I know a woman—” Esther stopped. It struck her that these bones were those bones, that the reason the palace kept commissioning more necklaces from Nadav’s mother was not to adorn the wives’ necks—Esther had never seen any of them wearing one, now that she thought of it—but to supply the king.

“She’s very gifted,” the king said.

“Why have her go to the trouble of separating all the pieces and making necklaces, only for you to take them apart again?”

“It’s a puzzle. I like the puzzle.”

On the shelves, Esther saw, the bones had been put back together again to form birds, or skeletons of birds. Some were complete, others partial. Some bones that could not take a wire through them, foot bones for instance, the king had fashioned out of silver. Esther lifted one skeleton to see how it could stand and was impressed by the intricate joints and loops, the melding of wire and bone. The thing weighed so close to nothing she had an urge to crush it in her palm. She picked up another, larger one—not a bird.

“Fox,” the king said. “Be careful.”

She touched a few more, letting him worry, feeling the beast’s hardness climb up her back. Then she picked up the largest one and set it on the flat underside of her forearm, as if it were running toward her hand. “So how do you get the bones now?” she asked, without looking at him.

“What do you mean? Birds are always dying.”

“I mean with the edict. She’s a Hebrew. No buying, no selling …”

“I make an exception.”

Esther set the fox skeleton back on its shelf. Then she picked it up again, twisted off its front feet, and returned it to the shelf on its back. She let the feet drop to the floor.

“Esther!” The king heaved himself off the cushion, tying on his underrobe as he went. He gathered the foot bones in his palm and held them under a torch.

“I’m not done,” Esther said. “I want my people left alone. Send them into the desert if you want. But let them be.”

He placed the bones on his table, out of her reach. “They can go into the desert whenever they want.”

“But they won’t.”

He began putting on his other robes.

“Expel them,” Esther said.

He worked slowly, meticulously. Black, purple, blue, red. He tied the knot as if constructing one of his skeletons, and she thought of Vashti. How could this man have been able to bear killing her?

“It’s not up to you, is it,” she said. Lara’s words to her. “Expelling them, ending the cleanse. You’re not the one in control.”

The king did not react.

Esther picked up a bird skeleton.



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