by Tessa Afshar
“No, I’m well. And you don’t need to see us home. Izzie and I can take care of ourselves.”
“Can you?” Without warning, Salmone ran a finger down her cheek, just avoiding the livid wound that marked the tender flesh. Rahab shivered at his touch, and he drew his finger back, curling his hand into a fist. “I’ll walk you home,” he said through clenched teeth, and Rahab sensed that she had annoyed him again. What had she done wrong now?
Izzie, blissfully unmindful of this dense and lamentable soup of emotions, gave a cheerful smile. “You’re good to us. We’ll be glad of your company.”
Salmone’s half smile was drenched in irony as it turned on Rahab. “A mutual feeling, I am sure.”
Miriam packed some salve as well as a large ball of fresh cheese and half a dozen pan breads, which she insisted Izzie and Rahab take. “You’ve had a hard day. A little treat will cheer you.” Rahab was too tired to argue and Izzie too cheerful a receiver to think of arguing.
Just as they were leaving, Miriam ran back into the tent and came out with a feather-filled cushion. “Rahab, take this. You’ll need something softer than a blanket on sand for your cheek tonight.”
“Oh no, I can’t take your cushion. I’ve eaten your lunch. I’ve drunk your water. I’ve taken your cheese. I’ve received your bread. I’ve borrowed your salve. I can’t take one more thing.”
“For goodness sake, give me the cushion! You’re not sleeping on sand tonight and that’s final,” Salmone said, vexation in every syllable.
“But—”
“Not another word. Not a sigh. Not a peep. Not one more objection out of you. Understand?”
“Salmone!” Miriam sounded shocked.
“That goes for you too, sister. We’re going to have a quiet, peaceful, tranquil walk. Then I will knock some of our neighbors’ heads together. And afterward I will have another quiet, peaceful, tranquil walk home.”
The following day Rahab woke up clutching Miriam’s cushion, groggy from disturbing dreams. Her nieces and nephews, already nauseatingly alert, shrieked about the camp, playing hide-and-seek. She sat up and winced. Her cheek hurt. Her head pounded. Her body revolted against sleeping so long without proper bedding. She wished she could be alone and quiet. Instead, a four-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl and her eight-year-old cousin piled on top of her, insisting auntie Rahab hide them under her blankets. She held their cuddly bodies close to hers and dove under the covers. They giggled with abominable jubilation, moving about until they became a tangle of arms and legs.
“Don’t wriggle so much or the others will find you,” she warned her nephew. In his effort to quiet down, he raised an elbow and shoved it into Rahab’s face, too close to her tender cheek.
“Oof!” Her head reverberated with jarring pain, and she pulled the blanket down and sat up. She blinked once to clear her vision. Salmone stood over her like a big oak tree, his face hidden by the blaze of the sun. She realized that the sun was high in the sky, and that it was late morning.
“I thought you would have risen by now,” he commented.
“Uh.”
“Not talkative in the mornings?”
“No.” Her nieces and nephew started wriggling afresh, growing impatient. First one, then another, then the last sprang free from the blanket’s grasp and ran off.
Salmone’s eyes followed their progress with good-natured interest. Shifting his focus back to Rahab he said, “Do you always take so many people to bed with you?”
Shocked, she looked at him with widened eyes. He became very still suddenly, his face frozen, his skin turning a dark red. She realized he had simply blundered. He hadn’t thought through what he said. Those same words, if uttered in deliberate meanness or sarcasm would have reduced her to a defensive barb. Under the circumstances, however, they struck her as funny. She put her hand over her mouth, but the laughter leaked out in dribbles. “Thank you,” she said.
“What for?” He stared at her like she had misplaced her mind.
“For a moment you forgot my past. You’d never have said that if you remembered.”
He frowned at her and took a step back. “I’ve brought your tent. I came to tell you. Your tent is here. A couple of my men helped me bring it. They’ll stay and show you how to set it up. Your brothers and father aren’t around. So I came to find you.”
For Salmone this was babbling. The laughter dried up in her mouth. A wave of desolation settled over her as she sat there being the object Salmone tried to avoid looking at. He may have experienced a momentary lapse of memory about her past, but clearly it was a mistake he preferred not to repeat. She was still Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute Joshua had foisted upon him, and he was still one of the high leaders of Israel, a man of honor and influence. The gap between them would never be bridged. Why such obvious facts depressed her so much, she could not explain to herself. She became aware once more that her head was pounding and put her hand against her temple.
She had remained in bed too long. With an ungraceful motion she rose up. She had gone to sleep with her clothes on, too tired to change. Now she stood, decently covered from neck to calf, though bedraggled, her clothes misshapen by wrinkles. With a sweaty hand, she tried to smooth out the fabric—to no avail. Salmone was looking down at his toes, anyway, so he wasn’t likely to be offended by her appearance.
He had gone to considerable trouble to secure them this tent in the midst of a hectic, anxious time. Rather than focus on what he could not give her—respect, admiration, true belonging—she ought to focus on what he did offer. He was a generous man, helpful, fair, protective of his flock, even the flock of which he did not approve. “Thank you for the trouble you have taken on our behalf,” she said.
Salmone nodded once, pivoted on his heel and left. She had never seen a man move so fast.
Sighing, she turned and noticed the two men who had helped him carry the tent, standing in the middle of their camp. They were busy conversing and took no notice of her. She glanced at the tent with curiosity. Behemoth-like, the thing spread on the ground giving no clue as to its beginning or ending. It was made of some kind of dung-colored hide, sturdy enough to hold off the rains and the heat of the sun. Enormous and thick, it must have required all three men to carry it. By no stretch of the imagination could it be construed as elegant. But it would be more comfortable than sleeping outdoors.
Rahab walked over to the men and introduced herself.
“You, we know,” the skinny one said. They were both much younger than she had first thought, perhaps about seventeen or eighteen.
The second one, more well-rounded and trying to grow his beard, asked, “Is it true that you let Ezra Ben Isaac down the whole wall of Jericho by yourself? This, I have to see. Show me how you managed that feat. Come. There is a tall rock near here, and you can let me down just as you did Ezra.”
Rahab held up her hands. “Some things are only meant to be experienced once.”
“You won’t show me your strength?”
“Not unless the Lord gives it to me again.”
“Aaah,” the skinny one said like he was the sage of Jerusalem.
“You fellows have more than enough strength to make up for my lack if you managed to carry that tent,” she said.
“Well, Salmone helped. A little,” he said with a distinct lisp.
“So what are your names? You know mine.”
“I’m Abel,” the skinny one said. “And this is my cousin Adam.”
“How do you do?”
“How do I do what?” asked Adam, puzzled. Abel elbowed him in the side.
“She means she’s happy to meet you, genius.”
Although their languages had sprung from the same root, and Rahab grew more accustomed to Israel’s speech with each passing day, there remained differences in their accent, dialect, and expression that made communication interesting. Their etiquette too, though overlapping in some ways, offered challenging moments. In most ways the citizens of Jericho conducted life with
greater formality than the Israelites. Occasionally, however, they found that their Canaanite ways proved far more permissive than Israel’s. One afternoon when Hanani and Miriam were with them at the camp, Rahab’s brother Joa casually passed wind and it made considerable noise. For the people of Jericho this was an acceptable means of relieving the tensions of the body. But Rahab noticed the Hebrews covering their mouths with their hands and turning puce.
“Is something funny?” Joa, always sensitive, growled.
In reply, Hanani shook his head, turning more puce if possible.
“Is it the lower cough?” Rahab guessed. “Do Hebrews not do that in public?”
“The what?” Hanani interjected, his expression arrested. “The lower cough did you call it?” He threw a look at Miriam, and the two bent over double, their shoulders shaking.
Poor Joa stiffened with self-conscious indignation. “It’s perfectly acceptable where I come from.”
“Oh, I have no doubt,” Miriam hurried to assure him. “We just … never heard—”
“What? You’re going to tell me you never heard a lower cough before? Come! Even the children of Israel must do that sometimes,” Joa exploded.
Miriam buried her face in her hands, her whole body quivering and quaking. Hanani interjected, “Yes, yes of course we do, though usually in more private circumstances. It’s that we never heard it referred to in that particular way before.”
Someone cleared his throat, drawing Rahab back to the present. She looked at her young helpers who had delivered her new home on their backs and bestowed a wide smile on them. “Yes, I meant it is a pleasure to meet you. So, Salmone said you would help us with setting up this tent. Do you know how to do that?” She had enough wisdom not to blurt that they looked too young to tie their sandals.
“Sure. We’ve set them up and broken them down hundreds of times.” Adam looked around. “You’d better set up your tent facing north this time of year. It will be cooler.”
Abel shifted from foot to foot. “Where are your men? Setting up a tent requires muscle.”
“I’m not sure. Let me find out.” Rahab noticed Izzie working on a pot of porridge behind her and ambled over to her. “Izzie, where are the men?”
Izzie stirred the pot one more time before rising up from her squatting position. “They left at sunrise with Ezra. He wanted to show them some of the farmlands and to ask their advice. Joshua is eager to start working the land.”
“Well, our tent has arrived. We need them to set it up. Salmone has sent two young strapping fellows to help.”
Izzie bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know when they’ll be back.”
The sisters went over to the men and Rahab introduced Izzie. “How do you do?” Izzie asked.
Adam grinned at Abel. “I’m happy to meet you too.”
“My brothers have gone with Ezra to examine farmlands. I’m not sure when we expect them back,” Rahab explained.
Abel rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “We still have to fetch the rods and nails and rings. It’s near enough to noon. We’ll stop and have lunch before returning. Mayhap they’ll be back by then.”
“Oh, please have lunch with us. We would be honored if you would stay,” Rahab offered.
Adam scratched his head. “Er, lunch? Umm, well, all right, I guess.” Abel nodded with a sideway jerk of his head. She was so delighted to be able to give back a little in return for the favors they were receiving that she ignored their halfhearted responses.
Rahab seated them on a blanket they had spread under the shade of one of their neighboring tents. As they rested, the two sisters scrambled to put together a hearty lunch. Rahab added a few precious spices, which she had had the foresight to bring from Jericho, to the porridge. Izzie melted some of Miriam’s cheese on the bread before serving it. The day before, Rahab had used a favorite family recipe to make raisin cakes. She knew this recipe broke none of Israel’s stringent food laws, which Miriam had painstakingly taught them in the previous weeks. They set the food before their guests and joined them for the meal. After the first hesitant bites, Abel and Adam began to make impressive inroads into the food.
“This tastes amazing!” Abel said around a mouthful of porridge and cheesy bread. For a skinny man, he certainly knew how to put food away. “I could eat a barrel full. What did you put in here?”
Izzie and Rahab grinned at one another. “Just spices. A little cinnamon and honey on the cakes, with the nuts ground very fine. That’s the secret,” Rahab replied.
“You women of Jericho can certainly cook,” Adam said between mouthfuls. Rahab recalled that his generation had been raised on a mysterious substance called manna as their staple. In all likelihood, they had minimal familiarity with the use of spices or the art of using different ingredients. With delight she realized that there might be a few things she could do better than the women of Israel.
Chapter
Fourteen
Rahab’s brothers and father hadn’t returned by the time Adam and Abel plodded back, panting with the effort of carrying several large wooden poles between them. They decided they could start the process by themselves and shooed Izzie and Rahab away. Rahab, suspecting that their work would last into the evening, fetched her sisters-in-law to plan an evening meal fit for their new companions.
Joa, Karem, and Imri sauntered into the camp within the hour, and if they felt weariness, they forgot about it once they saw the tent. By early evening, their tent was up in its full glory, looking similar to many of the other tents that dotted the camp’s sprawling grounds. The whole family insisted that Adam and Abel stay for dinner, and they obliged far more readily than they had for the noonday meal.
They ate outside, enjoying the refreshing breeze as they admired their new domicile. Partway through the meal, Rahab noticed a couple of women wander over to their camp. A curly-haired, snow-white lamb tottered on knobby legs between them. Rahab assumed they had been disturbed by their lively conversation and stood up with a quick apology on her lips for the excess noise they had made.
One of them drew nearer. “You must be Rahab. Ezra has spoken so much about you. I’m his sister, Abigail. And this is Leah, Hanani’s sister-in-law.”
“Welcome. I am honored to meet you both.” Rahab dipped a hasty curtsy before them. “Please come and join us. We are just sharing a meal.”
“No, no. Thank you. We only came to bring you this.” Abigail pulled on a short, tattered leash tied around the lamb’s neck. “A gift from both our families for saving our brothers’ lives. We ought to have been here sooner. Forgive our rudeness for the delay.” She looked down.
“A gift? For me? But that’s completely unnecessary. They saved our lives every bit as much as I saved theirs. It has been a great joy to have both your brothers as our friends. Indeed, they have helped us without cease. If there were a debt, which there is not, they have far from paid it back since. With dividends.”
Abigail shook her head and pulled the lamb forward. “These men mean the world to us. We wouldn’t have ceased mourning them the length of our days should something have befallen them. We know the debt we owe you. ‘Rahab saved our lives more than once,’ they say. ‘She has greater faith than our fathers and mothers,’ they declare to anyone with ears. They praise you everywhere. You have been good to them, Rahab. You must let us thank you.”
Rahab hesitated, hating to take a gift for something she felt she didn’t deserve. Yet she also loathed offending anyone who belonged to Ezra and Hanani’s families. She decided she had best humble herself rather than run the risk of insulting these women. “I thank you both. We will treasure our first lamb in our home amongst Israel.”
Abigail and Leah both smiled at the same time. Without thinking, Rahab fumbled for Leah’s hand and took it into her own. “Won’t you join us for supper?”
“Come Abby. It’s the best meal you ever had,” Adam pronounced from the fire.
Abigail knotted her brows for a moment. “Adam Ben Hosea, is that you
with your mouth stuffed?”
“As yours would be if you had any sense, girl. Come and sit. You’ve never tasted food like this.”
Abigail covered her mouth with the flat of her hand and looked at Rahab through widened eyes.
Rahab held up her palms in a gesture of placation. “The food has been prepared according to Israel’s laws. Salmone’s sister, Miriam, taught us.”
“Oh.”
“Join us, please. Taste a little.”
Leah came first, avoiding Abigail’s accusing glare. She sat down next to Abel, who promptly dipped bread in one of the bowls and handed it to her. Abigail, who appeared a few years older than the rest, squared her shoulders and joined the crowd. Rahab tied the lamb to one of the tent’s posts, caressed its curly head, and returned to her guests. She sensed that Abigail had only joined the others with the intention of looking after them. With time, however, she noticed Abigail’s guard slipping in increments until she was talking and laughing as freely as the rest, dipping her bread into the bowls without pause.
Rahab studied the scene about her and was struck by the miraculous quality of it. In one day, God had provided them with a new home and new friends. Hope filled her chest, like a spring leaf, unfurling with life. She laughed at something Karem said, even though she hadn’t heard what the words were. She realized that she was happy. When had she last tasted carefree joy, untainted with guilt or fear?
“You look much better than you did this morning,” a voice said in her ear.
She jumped and turned her head, finding her face a breath away from Salmone’s. For a moment she looked into his eyes, unable to move. She dragged in a gulp of air. “You scared me.”
“Did I?”
“We’re having a feast. We have guests and everything. Won’t you join us? There’s plenty of food.”
Salmone’s gaze shifted and he perused the gathering. “Thank you. No. I have little time. I came to say farewell. You should send the girls home too. Ezra and Hanani will be leaving with us tomorrow.”
