The Eleventh Brother

by Rachel S. Wilcox

  And thus far, Joseph had not been proven wrong about the character of his fellow prisoners. It was as if all who came into contact with the man seemed to blossom open under his presence, from the most taciturn scribe to the most obstinate and nervous courtier. The keeper knew that this man had been none other than the steward to Potiphar, when Potiphar was still the captain of the royal guard; he knew that no clear accusation had been brought against him and that his case, from all appearances, was either sufficiently open ended or so secret as to warrant no written record. So at last he sent word to the office of the vizier, inquiring about the prisoner and whether he were, in a word, dangerous. Not long afterward (which was most unusual for a reply from the vizier), he received word that while the vizier had reviewed the case and was unable to take any legal action on account of the prisoner’s lack of defense, if the keeper were so inclined, the vizier himself would highly recommend the man’s abilities and even allow for his release, provided he remained, for legal purposes, under the keeper’s care.

  The keeper grunted at the reply. He knew the new vizier had a reputation for being careful to avoid any hint of abusing his power. It seemed that the poor former steward would require a pardon from the king himself to have his case resolved.

  And so, one quiet afternoon, the keeper approached Joseph. An inspection of the royal prison was coming up, to be conducted by none other than the vizier himself, and the keeper wanted Joseph’s help in getting everything organized and prepared. The keeper would move Joseph out of the cell, and he could have a small sleeping space set up close to where the guards stayed.

  Joseph eagerly agreed to all of this. At last, he would see Potiphar again, and surely—surely—Potiphar would remember him.

  That first night, as Joseph lay outside the cell for the first time since the fateful day of Potiphar’s banquet, he wondered for a brief, startled moment if this meant that the Voice was going to leave him now.

  I’m still here, came the reply. Go to sleep.

  So Joseph slept, and he dreamed and found himself once more in the desert, standing beneath the open night sky. As he stood gazing up at a moon the color of linen, a cascade of words came whispering out of the stars, words from texts he had read before but now blending together, spinning into a new text he had never before read, only he wasn’t reading it so much as being enfolded within it, surrounded and filled and tumbled by the words.

  This is the beginning of the Book of Breathings—it was Potiphar’s voice, reading from one of his sacred scrolls—which Isis made for her brother Osiris, to make his soul live, to make his body live, to restore him anew.

  How many times had he read through those words—practicing his new language or seeking alongside his priestly master for the secrets hidden within the text—of the woman who raised the man back to life, of the initiate who found a way to approach the gods, of the steps undertaken to return to the presence of the divine.

  And then came the words he had read along with the story of Isis and Osiris, the sojourn into the stars that he had read as a child in the desert. Finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me—and it was his father’s voice—I sought for the blessings of the fathers . . .

  Justified!—that was the voice, once more, of Potiphar the priest—Thou art pure, thy heart is pure, cleansed is thy front with washing, thy back with cleansing water . . .

  Abraham—now the god called out, with his words transmitted through the voice of his father, Jacob—Abraham, behold, my name is Jehovah, and I have heard you, and have come down to deliver you, and to take you away from your father’s house, and from all your kinsfolk, into a strange land which you know not of . . .

  Thou enterest by the great purification, the Breathings text instructed, and now it was Djeseret’s voice, and her eyes and her touch that reached out—with which the two Ma’ats have washed thee—two women, Isis and Nephtys, life and its passing (I am Nephtys, she had said, I am Nephtys), for it was through life and death that the soul was bathed and renewed and prepared to ascend beyond, to begin again, to remember itself, re-member itself, draw body and spirit back together, and fuse into an eternally restored identity—

  Behold, Abraham was promised, I will lead you by my hand, and I will take you, to put upon you my name, even the Priesthood of your father, and my power will be over you—

  Thou breathest henceforth for time and eternity—washed and re-membered and brought to remembrance, and now the voice was his own, reading from his master’s scroll—Amon comes to thee bearing the breath of life—a soul restored to itself, the breath of life received through a sacred kiss—he causes thee to breathe and come upon the earth—the Breathings text was triumphant now, the moment of sacred creation and re-creation had come—

  My son, my son—the god had called Abraham his son—behold I will show you all these. And he put his hands on my eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made—the sun and moon and stars, the earth and women and men and all things that are and were and would yet be, all were one and all were his, and the voice was his own, as the dream had been his own of the sun and moon and stars and the way he had been carried up into the heavens—

  I dwell in the midst of them all; I now, therefore, have come down to you to declare to you the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excels them all, for I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath—

  Horus embraces thy body—this was the promise of Potiphar’s text, the purpose for the restoration of the breath, a body raised in life to reunite with its spirit, fusing once more into its full identity—and deifies thy spirit in the manner of the gods—raised out of the earth and up into the horizon, fusing with Ra and the Light-of-All-That-Is as the sun passes back up out of the womb of the stars and the soul rises out of its washings to ascend alongside—

  Abraham—that calm, familiar voice, that was now not quite his and not quite his father’s—you are one of them, you were chosen before you were born—and you will be a blessing to your seed after you, that in their hands they will bear this ministry and Priesthood to all nations—

  And Joseph, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, opened his eyes.

  The soul of Ra is giving life to thy soul, he heard, thy soul breathes, and he sat up, rising out of the swirling words and the shadows. He breathed slowly, and deeply, and deliberately, staring into the dazzling darkness, and turned and looked toward where the keeper of the prison stood, his arms crossed, his bowed head nodding, listening to the low whisper of a guard who had just come on duty.

  Then the keeper of the prison looked toward him.

  And Joseph learned that Potiphar was not coming.

  All the court that day was abuzz with the news—the vizier’s wife had, at last, borne her husband a son, and the child was strong and healthy and well, and the great man and all his household were in mourning.

  Ben-oni, Joseph thought, Son-of-Pain—that was the name his own mother had given his brother as her life bled away, but his father had shaken his head. No, he said, no. Ben-jamin. Son-of-My-Right-Hand.

  His mother too had carried life and death within her body to bring a child into the world—Isis and Nephtys, Sun and Stars, Time and All Eternity.

  I am Nephtys, Djeseret had said, and he lowered his head at the news and closed his eyes at the feeling that welled between sorrow and reverence.

  And now you are Isis, he thought. Life-bringer. Light-bringer. I am come to myself again.

  For it was in the prison that he remembered. And it was she who had brought him there.

  Chapter 38

  Genesis 44:14–34; 45:1–14

  Zaphenath-Paaneah, vizier of all Kemet, stood with his arms crossed, decorated in his fine linens and jewels and watching with cold, elegantly painted eyes as the men filed into the courtyard of his home. Amon was ordering all of the Canaanites to stand against the wall except for the accused prisoner, who was brought forward to kneel between his brothers and the offended vizier.

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nbsp; The young man kept his head down. His hands were bound behind his back.

  Zaphenath watched the others looking on with hollow eyes and broken faces, disoriented, weary, and frightened. Apart from the shuffling of feet and the admonitions of the guards, the courtyard was quiet—none of the brothers spoke as they moved to their appointed places. They simply stood, fidgeting, or staring at Benjamin’s bent back.

  Surveying the foreigners and satisfied that they were properly in place, Amon turned and approached his master. He bowed, holding out the stolen silver cup. Zaphenath took the cup from his steward’s hand and held up the offending item, perhaps weighing its worth against that of the offender. Then he nodded, and Amon bowed again, and stepped back.

  Holding the silver cup, Zaphenath moved closer, walking with slow, measured steps. He looked first down the line of brothers, from one to the next to the next. Only one or two dared raise their eyes in return. But none of them spoke, and none of them moved.

  Finally, Zaphenath looked down to where Benjamin knelt on the floor, head bowed, his body crouched, perfectly still.

  “This is how you repay my hospitality.” Zaphenath’s voice came low and cold, and the brothers shook their heads in vigorous unison at the translation, but Zaphenath raised his hand against the beginning swell of protests, and the wave broke and settled once more. “I am told you offered me the life of the guilty one.” He looked down at Benjamin, at his brother’s dark curling hair and the eyes that so perfectly matched his own, and thought for a brief moment, How is it they cannot see?

  But of course, he was no longer the boy who had been their brother, no longer even the young man who was sold in the slave markets of Kemet. When he was summoned out of the prison to interpret the desperate king’s troubling nightmares of devouring, skeletal cattle and insidious stalks of corn, and the Voice had whispered the visions of coming famine in a way that transcended words and flooded his mind with clear understanding, he had been given the name Zaphenath-Paaneah and raised to stand beside (or nearly beside) the Son-of-Ra, God-on-Earth, King Senusret II. Zaphenath had embraced the name as his new identity and his elevation as his resurrection, and it was as Zaphenath that he had been known ever since—even to Potiphar, the departing vizier who, just as the king’s dreams began, had expressed his wish to devote himself to the priesthood and to his young, motherless son. His whispers in the king’s ear had not been inconsequential in his former steward’s elevation.

  And when Zaphenath had met the boy Amon, he assured his former master that he would look forward to the time when Amon would assist him with his many important duties. And Potiphar—who had seen to it that Joseph was watched over in the prison and continued to receive reports from the guards as to his former steward’s well-being, and when the keeper of the prison at last created the opportunity by suggesting it (for Potiphar himself could not appear to abuse his authority), quickly had his former steward elevated as the overseer of the prison, where he could prove his abilities while continuing to have food and shelter and protection—yes, Potiphar was well pleased.

  Zaphenath believed that he had come to understand the words that swirled around him in the darkness, the mysteries of the texts that he and his father and Potiphar had all studied so diligently—new life came through the passages, the process of an elevation of the spirit from one understanding to another by experiences endured. Ma’at was restored in the sacrifice. Abraham had to first be on the altar before he could see the stars. Joseph had died first in the desert, once more in the prison, and then had risen as Zaphenath-Paaneah, vizier and counselor to the king, inheritor of the priesthood secrets of Ra and Abraham and transformed, as the sun is transformed in the womb of the stars, to rise again.

  When he was married to Asenath—daughter of Potiphera, high priest of the Temple of Ra, and sister of Potiphar, the departing vizier, who was charged with arranging a marriage for his newly appointed successor—and as she prepared to bear him a child, Zaphenath had been nearly out of his mind with fear that he would lose her, as his mother and others he had known had been lost.

  But Asenath was breathless only with radiance, and the baby boy was strong and shrill, and Joseph, who by then was Zaphenath, wept as he held the child in his arms and called him Manasseh, for in the moment he held him he could not remember the pain of his father’s house or the taste of betrayal or the years of his imprisonment. There was only his son and Asenath, the woman who brought their child into the world and who smiled at him now, who carried life within her and only life, who had caused him at last to forget.

  He could not speak, and she understood.

  When a little brother was born, also before the onset of the years of famine, Zaphenath named the boy Ephraim as an expression of God’s abundance, an acknowledgment of what had been and a reminder for the times that would shortly come. He had received his own name from his father as an acknowledgment of God’s increase, and he hoped that this son would carry that blessing of abundance with him as well, an inheritance from his father and his father’s fathers. And still Asenath was strong and well, and for the first time since the day his father’s coat had been torn from his shoulders, Zaphenath no longer feared that his happiness would be taken from him.

  So it was no surprise that his brothers did not know him as he stood hidden behind his new name and ornate dress and extraordinary mantle of power, facing the men whose beards were gray and bodies weakened by the passage of the years that had separated them. And Benjamin knelt before them all, helpless and exposed, offered up like a lamb.

  “Did you think I would not know?” Zaphenath asked, his voice soft. Not one of the brothers dared raise his eyes to meet the accusation. “I know a man’s guilt.” His assertion hung unchallenged in the silence. “I know.” He looked down toward Benjamin. “His life is mine now.” He paused. “But I am a merciful man. This one will remain behind only as my slave.” He held out a hand, the most powerful hand in all the land beside the king’s, with the golden ring of power glinting on his finger. “The price of your dishonor is paid. The rest of you are free to go.”

  But suddenly and without speaking, the foreign men lowered themselves to the ground, kneeling behind their brother, faces toward the earth. Zaphenath stared at them, at the way their outstretched hands seemed to reach toward their captive brother, calling out to his accuser.

  “Get up,” he said and felt his voice waver—Behold, I dreamed a dream, and the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to me—and he swallowed. “You are free to go.”

  Benjamin was raising his head, slightly, as if sensing a change in the current of the air.

  “Please.” One of the men raised his head, gazing directly up at the man who held the life and death of his family in his outstretched hand.

  Zaphenath looked at the one who had dared to speak, seeing, in a moment, the man’s faded beard and lined expression, his weary eyes and his face so open, so hopeless, so determined.

  The other brothers also raised their heads, turning uncertainly toward the sound of Judah’s voice.

  Still kneeling, still with his hands upon the ground, Judah kept his eyes focused on the vizier’s face, strongly suspecting he was violating some sort of protocol yet feeling compelled that he could not do otherwise.

  “My lord.” Judah’s voice was quiet in the expanse of the courtyard, surrounded by the walls of wealth and authority, unable even to speak directly with the man who seemed intent on destroying them. The open sky itself seemed to be staring pitilessly down at his bowed back. “What shall we say to you?” His words dropped like rippling stones into the quiet, reverberating out into the still. “How can we clear our names before you?” He took a slow breath. “If your servants are guilty, my lord, it is not before you but before God—” and he could feel the echoed intake of breath from the brothers surrounding him as he said it, but he pushed on—“and we will all stay behind as your servants.”

  Benjamin had raised his head further, glancing halfway over his shoulder,
as if so distracted by what he was hearing that he had nearly forgotten where he was—as if he too was simply unable to resist turning toward his brother.

  Zaphenath kept his eyes on the one who dared to speak. “Only the man found in possession of my cup will stay behind,” he said, speaking to the man whose name, he knew, was Judah. “As for you”—he fought to keep the hoarse edge from his voice—“get you up in peace to your father.”

  He clapped his hands and turned, walking from them, feeling his throat tighten.

  “Oh—”

  Zaphenath stopped and closed his eyes, because the voice was his brother’s, and all the years and the bitterness of his betrayal could not erase his recognition of the voice that called out to him.

  “—my lord,” Judah said, making himself fully prostrate on the ground as the vizier turned back toward him. “Let your servant, I pray, speak a word, and do not be angry.”

  Zaphenath hardly heard the unnecessary translation. He simply stood, unmoving. When no reply came, Judah hesitantly raised his eyes.

  “You asked us,” Judah said, speaking faster now, as if sensing that he was being granted a brief dispensation to plead, “when you first believed we were spies, if we had a father or a brother.” Judah nodded, as if to reaffirm the truth of the story. “We told you that our father is an old man and that our brother”—he gestured to Benjamin, who still knelt, bound—“is the youngest, the child of his old age.” Judah raised his eyes to Zaphenath’s face. “And you asked us to bring him to you, so you could see him and know that we were truthful.” He shook his head. “And we told you, my lord, that this brother could not leave our father, because the boy is his very life. But you ordered us to bring him if we ever wished to see our other brother”—he gestured then toward Simeon—“or you, my gracious lord, ever again.”