The Eleventh Brother

by Rachel S. Wilcox

  Zaphenath’s chest rose and fell, and his brothers were staring at him, and Judah plunged on.

  “And so,” Judah said, “we told our father what you said, my lord.” It was as if Judah were holding out his hands, imploring, pleading, with his very voice. “And our father sent us back with the child of his old age, his most beloved son.” Judah’s voice was trembling now, and Zaphenath bit down on his lower lip to forestall the burning that threatened behind his own eyes. “Now”—Judah’s voice came stronger—“seeing that our father’s life is bound up in the boy’s life, when we return and the boy is not with us, our father will die.” He bowed his head. “It was on my word of protection that he came with us, my lord.” He raised his eyes one last time. “Let this boy go up with his brethren, and our family will live. I will stay here in his place.”

  Judah’s voice fell into silence. Not even the translator spoke. For a breathless and brief and terrible moment, Judah feared that perhaps his plea would not even be heard and he had spoken in vain.

  But when he raised his eyes, he saw the vizier gazing back at him, and the man’s eyes were shimmering, even as his own.

  “Go,” the vizier ordered suddenly, clapping his hands, and the guards in the room looked at each other. “Go,” Zaphenath repeated, and Amon cleared his throat, reaffirming the order. After another hesitation, the guards withdrew, and Amon glanced only briefly at his master before following them out.

  Zaphenath stood alone.

  Benjamin raised his head and looked at the vizier. The powerful man’s own head was bowed, and he covered his eyes, the golden ring glinting on his finger. Then he wiped his hand across his face, and the tears glistened on his skin like the River beneath the newly risen sun. He looked at Benjamin, who knelt, gazing up at him in terrified wonder, and then turned toward Judah, who looked up at him with the even gaze of a man who knows he has no hope and must hope anyway.

  “I am Joseph,” the vizier said, and he pressed a hand over his heart. “Is my father alive?”

  Judah blinked, staring uncomprehendingly at what must surely be an apparition, the strangest and cruelest vengeance the desert had yet taken upon him. He could not understand how their accuser could suddenly speak to them as if he were Joseph himself—as if he were the very brother they had murdered in the desert—it was some piece of sorcery, some horrible vision—

  But the vision stood before them and wept.

  And then he came closer, moving toward Benjamin, the accused thief staring at him with trembling eyes, and the vizier bent down and untied the bonds that held Benjamin’s wrists.

  The frayed rope fell to the ground.

  Benjamin gingerly moved his arms from behind his back, and the vizier rose up to his feet and slid the elegant wig from his head, and—

  And it was Joseph.

  It was Joseph—Joseph, who let the wig fall to the floor, his dark, curling hair matching Benjamin’s exactly. His face was Joseph’s, and the painted eyes were Joseph’s—Joseph, who had haunted them since that day beneath the terrible sun at Dothan—

  “Please,” he said, his voice breaking as he held out his hand, “come.”

  Judah rose up from the ground.

  For a moment, neither of them could bear to speak or dared to breathe, and then Joseph clasped Judah by the arm, and Judah felt the solidness of his touch and knew in one terrible, joyful, sweeping moment that this was no apparition.

  It was rushing upon Joseph now, the words of his fathers I show these things to you before you go into Kemet and the words of the sacred texts to make his soul live, to make his body live, to restore him anew—

  “Our family will live,” Joseph said, and Judah nodded, chin trembling. “Hurry back to our father, and tell him I’m alive, and bring him down to me.” He looked out over the faces of his brothers. “All of you will come, and stay here, and be near to me,” he blinked, spilling more tears over his face, “and you will be protected here. Please.” He looked back at Judah. “Will you go to him?”

  “We will,” said a voice.

  Joseph turned, and his touch fell away from Judah’s arm as he stared at the man who had been his brother—a child who had been only a small boy and to whom he had been nothing but a whisper, a dream, a far-off memory tenaciously clung to during all the years they had been apart.

  And though they had wept much in the years that had separated them, Rachel’s sons wept together now once more.

  Asenath—who could not understand what was being said as she stood outside the courtyard, listening because she and all the household had heard her husband weeping so openly—understood.

  And she smiled.

  Chapter 39

  Genesis 45:28; 46:5–6

  He came upon Asenath standing outside in the garden, very early in the morning, watching the first light beginning its ascent into the fresh sky. She turned when she heard him and smiled. The soft, sweet scent of open lotus flowers drifted in the air. The wise fig trees spread their branches out toward both ends of the horizon.

  He came to her beneath the trees and beside the pool where the petals drifted peaceably in the new light of unspoiled day, and he leaned down, very gently, and kissed her. Neither of them spoke, while the morning all around them went on singing softly in the rustle of the breeze across the reflecting pool and the call of the birds stirring near the River.

  “You are my star of Isis,” he whispered. “You have brought this harvest in a time of famine.”

  She looked up at him, resting her hand against his chest. He pressed her hand against his heartbeat.

  “I will call you Joseph,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, but she shook her head.

  “It does matter,” she insisted. “A name matters very much.”

  He leaned down, touching his forehead to hers. “Asenath,” he smiled. “Daughter of the war goddess.”

  “I wasn’t named for war.” Asenath gave him a little nudge. “I was named for water. Creation.” She leaned in against him. “Neth is the great mother-goddess. I am Daughter-of-Neth, mother of Ra, and brave enough to nurse the crocodiles.” She closed her eyes. “You know why my father named me.”

  Joseph nodded, running a strand of her hair between his fingers in the morning light. “Brave enough to nurse a crocodile,” he repeated, quietly, and she closed her eyes and stood there with him, man of two names and two peoples.

  “What are you doing in the garden?” he asked at last.

  She smiled. “I wanted to see the sun rise today.”

  So he stood with his arms around her, watching the new sky shed its shadows and awaken in shudders of glowing light. They stayed that way, together, until the sun sailed back out of the stars, and the gentle moon faded softly into the horizon.

  The clatter of the caravan crept along the desert highway, drawing up over a cresting slope and stumbling upon the first glimpse of the border towns guarding the entrance into the land of Kemet. Their white-haired leader stopped, looking out at the foreign land that would be his home now and his family’s home. Then he turned and looked back toward Canaan, the land promised to his grandfather Abraham, the land of their inheritance.

  But his promised land had disappeared long ago into the horizon.

  “How long?” Jacob murmured, and Judah leaned closer, as if he had not heard. “How long?” Jacob shook his head. “This is not our home.”

  Judah looked out over the unfolding plain. “The famine leaves us no choice, Father.”

  Jacob nodded. “And Joseph—” His voice still grew a little hoarse when he spoke of his son—his son, his son whom he could hardly bear to speak of without seeing him, without knowing for certain—

  Judah lowered his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Joseph is alive.”

  Jacob looked back over his shoulder at his family—who, in one generation, had flourished from a solitary refugee into an entire tribe, with twelve sons and their wives and children, and his daughter, Dinah, who, of all of his children—t
he woman, daughter of four women—would have no husband and bear no children. Jacob had a glimpse of her face, veiled from the sun, before looking back toward the stretched-out horizon, arching over the land that would become his family’s home until God saw fit to lead them out again and fulfill his promise to Abraham.

  Somehow, this too was their birthright—to have place and to have no place, to inherit and to wander. He had been born the Displacer, but it had been his destiny to be displaced.

  But Joseph was alive.

  It was enough.

  His inheritance would be the survival of his family. His son would be his promised land.

  Without another word, Jacob walked on and did not look back again toward Canaan.

  A Note to the Reader

  The perceptive reader, upon reading a story set in ancient Egypt, will no doubt wonder why there are no Egyptians.

  And that is a very good question.

  The short answer is that ancient Egypt was not called Egypt at all, and the term Egypt isn’t Egyptian but Greek, and the Greeks didn’t show up in Egypt until many centuries after the time of Senusret.

  Set in a time before Egypt was Egypt, the story takes place during ancient Egypt’s Middle Kingdom—as opposed to the Old Kingdom (which saw the construction of the pyramids) or the New Kingdom (responsible for the Valley of the Kings and the temples at Luxor), or the Late Period (marking the arrival of the first Persian kings), the Ptolemaic Period (the Greeks, including Cleopatra), or the Roman Period, amongst others. To be more specific still, the novel’s central action is set principally during the reign of the Twelfth Dynasty king Senusret II, who reigned from approximately 1897 to 1878 b.c. and who did instigate a major irrigation and land reclamation project in the area known as the Faiyum or Faiyum Oasis, located near the assumed location for the Middle Kingdom capital of Itj-Twy and south of the Old Kingdom capital of Memphis, near modern-day Cairo.

  Throughout the novel, effort has been made to avoid admittedly better-known terms, such as Egypt, Pharaoh, and Nile, that were not actually in use during the Middle Kingdom, referring instead to Kemet, the King, the River, and, as the citizens of Kemet thought of themselves, the People.

  As far as possible, the descriptions, events, and concerns of the various characters, both Egyptian and Hebrew, are meant to be appropriate for their particular time and place. That being the case, a certain amount of additional context, history, and culture may benefit from some brief explanation.

  Chronology: Joseph in the Middle Kingdom

  The chronological setting of the novel is, of necessity, somewhat arbitrary, but it is not entirely so. While there is no general consensus as to when Joseph actually arrived in Egypt (indeed, there is plenty of debate about whether he existed at all), a few tidbits at least make the reign of Senusret II an interesting time.

  Working with the Genesis account of the genealogy of the Patriarchs—meaning Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaac’s son Jacob—we will assume, remarkable longevity aside, that Abraham, the founder of his people and a fellow sojourner in Egypt during a time of famine, was easily one hundred years older than his great-grandson Joseph. If we put Abraham’s arrival in Egypt sometime around 2000 b.c. (at the very beginning of the Middle Kingdom), Joseph could have arrived relatively close to 1900 b.c., which would mean that the same dynasty would have been in power and Abraham’s earlier visit and teachings could certainly still be remembered by the time of his great-grandson’s arrival.

  For the sake of simplicity, to avoid skipping through too many kings and because the story must be set at some point in time, the chronology is therefore calculated upon Joseph’s arrival in Egypt in the year 1900 b.c., at age seventeen, during the long reign of Amenhemhat II, and becoming the vizier under Amenhemhat’s successor, Senusret II. A nice touch to this chronology is that Senusret would still have been alive when Jacob and his family arrived in Egypt.

  The Middle Kingdom is an intriguing time in Egyptian history. Interspersed between the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms were so-called Intermediate Periods, when central governmental power was weakened or disintegrated. In fact, the political history of ancient Egypt is essentially an undulating wave of central authority—where strong centralized power under the king wanes, splintering away from the native monarchy and out into the hands of other (sometimes multiple) rulers, only to have the centralized government reinstated by a new native dynasty, which in turn subsequently crumbles and again dissipates power.

  Egypt’s Middle Kingdom emerged amidst all of this undulating and is often referred to as a sort of golden age, both for its stable prosperity and its cultural outpouring (The Story of Sinuhe, a highly copied and frequently studied piece of literature, was composed during this time). Egypt did not really become a nation of warriors and empire builders until the New Kingdom and the overthrow of the foreign Hyksos rulers, who took power during the Second Intermediate Period. Their overthrow, it has been suggested, turned the Egyptian mind toward the necessity of conquest and warfare in maintaining their independence. In contrast, the preceding Middle Kingdom appears to have generally been a time of relative peace and prosperity.

  Speaking of the rise and fall of dynasties, the astute reader may also be wondering where all the pyramids are. Alas, the great age of pyramid building had already passed away with the decline of the Old Kingdom, which ended around 2200 b.c. With the end of the Old Kingdom, there was movement away from the old capital at Memphis (near modern-day Cairo) to the new capital at Itj-Twy (about two hours south of Cairo), near the marshy Faiyum region. Had he lived during the Middle Kingdom, Joseph, whose life centered near the king and the government, would not have been especially close to any of the Old Kingdom pyramid sites. If he did see them, they might have been a notable lesson in resource allocation to the foreign vizier: the end of the Old Kingdom was likely precipitated by the collapse of the government, rather than by external conflict or the dissipation of natural resources, and the government may well have bankrupted itself with building projects.

  This collapse of central authority shifted the balance of power away from the king and out toward a handful of powerful regional rulers called nomarchs who appear to have governed largely without a strong central government. Known as the First Intermediate Period and lasting around two hundred years, this time appears to have lingered in cultural memory as a chaotic and unstable period, beset with danger and darkness.

  It’s hard to say whether things were actually as desperate as later records indicate—a change in regime often necessitates unflattering comparisons with the period just preceding it—but not long after 2000 b.c., the First Intermediate Period ended as a new generation of native kings came to power, and the prosperous Middle Kingdom began. Amenhemhat I (along with his son, Senusret I) moved the ruling capital to Itj-Twy (not, interestingly, to his native Thebes, which became the capital during the New Kingdom) and unified the country once more under the Twelfth Dynasty. The Twelfth Dynasty (that is, the twelfth family of rulers, including one ruling queen) is synonymous with the time frame of the Middle Kingdom and lasted about as long as the preceding chaotic period (approximately 1990–1780 b.c.).

  King Senusret II therefore came to power about one hundred years after the rise of the Twelfth Dynasty, when the cultural memory of the First Intermediate Period and its accompanying woes were, if not exactly fresh, inevitably still present. Thus, a certain comparative pride in the stability, prosperity, and accomplishments of the Middle Kingdom—though likely not without concern about reverting to the country’s previous instability—would likely have been the dominant sentiment of the day.

  Beyond the Middle Kingdom

  One other chronological candidate, not represented in the novel, deserves mention, because placing Joseph in the Middle Kingdom is admittedly less common an approach to biblical chronology. While Joseph himself may not attract too much attention in regard to his chronological setting, the much later exodus of Jacob’s descendants out of Egypt, which is inevitably tied t
o Joseph’s own arrival in Egypt, has often been set, whether in academic or cinematic conjecture, in the aggressive New Kingdom, often under the Ramesside kings of the Nineteenth Dynasty.

  Even taking the Genesis account at its own word, calculating the time between Joseph’s arrival and the later Israelite exodus is a little tricky. For example, Abraham prophesied that his descendants would sojourn for four hundred years, and it’s unclear whether the four hundred years should be calculated from the time of Abraham or the time of Joseph, and so on. Nevertheless, it does seem that the later Israelite exodus fits nicely into one of the New Kingdom dynasties, after the expulsion of the (possibly Semitic) Hyksos kings, whose rise to power ended the Middle Kingdom and whose overthrow ushered in the New Kingdom thereafter. Assuming a New Kingdom exodus, the question for Joseph is which preceding period makes the most sense: the Middle Kingdom or the Second Intermediate Period, which fell between the Middle and the New Kingdoms? In the novel, he comes to Egypt during the Middle Kingdom; however, it has also been suggested that placing Joseph’s arrival during the Second Intermediate Period, during the reign of the foreign Hyksos kings, might better account for his rapid political ascendency.

  Along with shaping the New Kingdom’s cultural and political consciousness regarding the necessity of aggression and empire building (an attitude that certainly seems to fit with the oppressive conditions that open the record in the book of Exodus), the overthrow of the Hyksos rulers ushered in the new Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties of native Egyptian rulers. A change in political power and a new family of rulers would certainly explain the enigmatic opening line of the book of Exodus: “Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8). Putting Joseph in the Middle Kingdom would probably put the Exodus in the Eighteenth Dynasty; dropping Joseph in among the Hyksos rulers would likely push the Exodus into the Nineteenth Dynasty.

  As you may be sensing, at the end of the day no one really knows—though this is no reason to deny anyone the delicious pleasure of hearty speculation. Ramses II (whose name means Born-of-Ra), of the Nineteenth Dynasty Ramesside kings (that is, kings named Ramses), is not infrequently suggested as the ruler who might have instigated the Exodus. Tuthmoses, meanwhile, which shows up as the name of several Eighteenth Dynasty kings, means Born-of-Thoth. And if you think you recognize the mss root in both of these New Kingdom dynasty names—a root that means “born of” and, by itself, might simply mean “born of an unknown or unnamed god”—as the name of a Hebrew baby adopted by an unnamed but probably New Kingdom Egyptian dynasty, you do.