Beauty sleeps in the kingdom of Israel but Absalom turns his face from it. He does not linger long in Jerusalem, staying only a brief period in his father's house. There is everything a man might need here, but it has nothing that Absalom wants except for the one thing his father will not give him. Once his father's dismissal made him angry but now it simply makes him tired.
Jerusalem is gold and scent and heat. In his father's house, Absalom watches his mother Maacah sit in her chamber combing the tangles in her hair. He sees his scores of brothers fighting and dueling in the dust. He sees Amnon lean back on the cushions and smile with his teeth at Tamar, who offers him wine but does not look him in the face. Tamar is particularly beautiful today, Absalom notes. His sister's skin gleams bronze and her black hair is like the penultimate night in Egypt before Moses led their people free.
Tamar comes to him later, her hands spread, her hair undone.
"Brother," she says, and he knows already her misery.
There was once a time when his father took Absalom onto his lap and explained to him the duty of kings. He remembers David's voice soft and strong, hands that plucked a harp plucking at his son's young, coltish limbs. Now the king goes through his court blind and unknowing.
Absalom wraps his hand around a lock of his sister's hair, hating himself for the way she flinches. He says, "Hath Amnon thy brother been with thee? But hold now thy peace, my sister: he is thy brother, regard not this thing."
There is nothing that Tamar can do, for such is the pillar of cloud that obscures the kingdom of Israel. When they leave Jerusalem, Absalom puts Tamar in the finest room of his house and tells her he will find her a good husband, one that will not hurt her. Then he waits, and he listens, and he dreams at night about a giant falling and a woman bathing on a roof while her husband marches off to war. When he wakes there is manna in his mouth and his hair is anointed in oil. He is so discomfited that he goes to his men and asks them pointed questions. When that is not enough, he goes to Tamar's room and watches her sleep.
In the third year, Absalom invites his brothers to Baal-hazor.
There is burden in killing the king's oldest son, double burden for murdering a brother. Once he is sure that Tamar will be cared for, he takes the few men he trusts and heads straight for the sanctuary of Geshur. Then he goes to Hebron, and after that he goes to places where men die in blood and sweat, and women wail out for husbands and sons and brothers who will never come home. He sees the tip of his father's spear, or the glint of a stone in a sling. He waits to be shot down, to experience the heavy fall. It came for the Philistine, it came for Saul, it came for his father's beloved Jonathan, but it does not come for him. He rides through the kingdom and sees the beauty of YHWH on every rock, every grain of sand, until his feet are filthy with it.
"I have no son to remember me," he says, and the thought fills him with grief and hope.
In Ephraim, Absalom sees the oak tree. He does not intend for it to happen, but with YHWH as god, it happens anyway. His hair is long and tangled like history, like a king's bloodline.
He is glad when it is cut.