Zipporah, Wife of Moses

by Marek Halter

  “Murti, what happened?”

  The handmaid shook her head and pushed Zipporah’s shoulders, trying to break free of her.

  “No, don’t run away!” Zipporah said, holding her back. “You can talk to me! I won’t say anything. It’ll be just between the two of us, you know.”

  Murti knew it, but she still needed time. She remained with her head on Zipporah’s shoulder, her body shaken with spasms, until she regained her breath. “You won’t tell anybody?” she asked, in a barely audible voice.

  “I promise before Horeb. I won’t tell anybody.”

  Murti put her hands over her face. “I’d been wanting to do it for days. I couldn’t help it. I thought about it as soon as I woke up.”

  It was not difficult for Zipporah to believe her and understand her. There was no doubting Murti’s sincerity, no doubting her torments, or that she had been powerless to resist the force that had impelled her toward the stranger.

  She had slipped into the tent while Moses was still asleep, and had woken him with her caresses, the caresses she had been giving him in dreams night after night. She had not doubted for a moment that he would welcome them with joy. But, when he opened his eyes, he had seemed more surprised than pleased. He had taken hold of Murti’s hand. But she had persisted; she had taken off her tunic and placed Moses’ palms on her bare skin.

  What happened next was so terrible, Murti found it hard to talk about: the way Moses had looked at her, the tunic she fumbled to put back on, the noise of her tears, which filled her with shame.

  Zipporah stroked her neck and shoulders. “What did he say?” she asked.

  Murti shrugged.

  “Did he throw you out of the tent without a word?” Zipporah insisted.

  Murti sniffed, dried her cheeks, and broke away. She glanced anxiously at the tent. “I don’t know; I wasn’t listening. We mustn’t stay here.”

  “Try to remember.”

  Without answering, Murti began walking quickly toward Jethro’s domain. Zipporah followed her. She felt no anger toward her, only a kind of tender complicity, mixed with fear and sadness. And a curious sense of relief.

  What would have happened if she herself had woken Moses?

  As they were nearing the enclosure where the mules were kept, Zipporah stopped Murti. The handmaid was no longer crying. Her face had grown curiously ugly. Without waiting for Zipporah’s question, she pointed to the west, which was still milky with dawn. “He told me I was beautiful,” she said, in a voice swollen with rage, “and that I shouldn’t be angry with him. But he couldn’t. That’s what he said: ‘I can’t!’ Not because he wasn’t a man, but because there was something stopping him. I tried to mock him. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘What can stop a man taking a woman?’” She broke off, and gripped Zipporah’s wrists. “Do you promise me you won’t tell anybody? Even your sisters?”

  “Have no fear,” Zipporah assured her. “And he will say nothing, either. I know.”

  Murti sighed, a veil of incomprehension over her eyes. “I was struggling to get dressed again. I felt like scratching his face. He helped me to fasten my tunic by putting the brooch back in place on my shoulder. That was when he said: ‘Memories. That’s what stops a man from taking a woman.’ I didn’t even know what he was talking about!”

  PART TWO

  The Call of Yahweh

  News from Egypt

  Winter had come, and with it the rains that each year made the plains between Horeb’s mountain and the sea green again. Moses now had his flock. It was a small flock, one of those reserved for younger sons as a means of teaching them about breeding and migration.

  Jethro sent for Moses and told him that it was now time to leave for his first pasture.

  “My son, Hobab, my sons-in-law, and my nephews have gone to Moab to sell our biggest animals. On the way back, they’ll take advantage of the rains to put the lambs and calves out to pasture on the hills of Epha and Sheba, which are infinitely greener and better for the young animals than ours. That’s the way the rulers of those territories pay me back for the counsel I give them and the offerings I make to Horeb in their names. Go to them. Tell them Jethro sent you.” From his tunic, Jethro took a thick metal disk with a hole pierced in it, through which a length of thin woolen rope had been threaded. “Show them this, and they’ll know you’re telling the truth. They’ll welcome you with open arms and teach you what you don’t yet know.”

  Moses was so moved, his fingers shook as he touched the metal coin. “How will I find them? I don’t know any of the roads in Midian.”

  Jethro could not help laughing merrily. “You’re not alone any more, Moses! I’ll send some handmaids and shepherds with you to show you the way.”

  Moses was about to put the medallion around his neck when he stopped. “You have long since paid your debt to me, Jethro. What I did for your daughters, you have paid me back a hundredfold. Why are you still so good to me?”

  Jethro screwed up his eyes, and gave a sharp, ironic little growl. “I don’t think I can answer that question yet, my boy.” As Moses appeared disconcerted by this answer, Jethro laughed openly and covered his hand with his. “Go in peace, my boy. All you need to know is that I like you and that I’m weary of being surrounded by so many girls.”

  OF course, all the children wanted to go with Moses. Jethro had to lose his temper and make a selection himself, much to the delight of those chosen. The little caravan, consisting of the flock, the mules, and the camels, set out under a sky full of low clouds. The sun did not appear all day. At twilight, the winter wind swept over Jethro’s domain, bringing with it a kind of languor.

  The next day, a fine rain began to fall, and the surface of the courtyard and the paths around the domain turned to mud.

  “Come,” Sefoba said to Zipporah. “Let’s weave a woolen tunic for Moses. You can give it to him when he gets back.”

  Zipporah hesitated, claiming that she had other chores to attend to.

  “Come on!” Sefoba teased. “Don’t think you can hide anything from me!”

  As Zipporah’s lips set in stubborn pride, Sefoba pointed out astutely that now, in any case, was the time for weaving and that Zipporah had to join in. Besides, nothing could be more pleasant than to work like this, by the fire, while outside the palms swayed in the icy wind.

  They set to work, and for several days nobody spoke the name Moses. On the other hand, there was much talk of the latest gift Reba had sent Orma: a belt made from stones, feathers, and pieces of silver.

  “This time, Reba didn’t take the risk of coming and giving it to her himself. But how constant he is! Has anyone ever seen such perseverance? And the belt is so beautiful!”

  Like the fabric Orma had disdained, it came from somewhere far away in the East. Sefoba and the others chuckled, and discussed how long it would be now before Reba finally declared himself.

  “Who knows?” Sefoba said. “The belt may also end up in little pieces under my bed, just like the fabric.”

  The women responded with giggles.

  Later the same day, when they were alone, Sefoba suddenly cried, “I’m so happy for you!”

  Zipporah stared at her in surprise.

  “For a long time,” Sefoba went on, a wicked gleam in her eyes, “I thought, like the rest of the women, that you would never find a husband. And now look!”

  “Look at what?”

  “The men of Midian are stupid. Too bad for them! It took a man from Egypt to come along and see the daughter of Cush for what she really is—a precious jewel!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Sefoba’s laugh now was more high-pitched. “Zipporah! Don’t pretend, not with me. Or I’ll think you don’t love me anymore.”

  Zipporah lowered her eyes to her work.

  “I have eyes in my head,” Sefoba went on, enthusiastically. “Orma isn’t the only one who can read a man’s face. Or a woman’s.”

  Zipporah’s hands were shaking, and she gripped the weaving fr
ame to steady them. “And what do you read in my face?”

  “That you love Moses.”

  “Is it so obvious?”

  Sefoba laughed. “As obvious as the nose on your face—even on you, my girl. On his, too, I promise you.”

  “No. You’re making a mistake.”

  Sefoba protested with another laugh.

  “You’re making a mistake, Sefoba, because you love me.”

  “Am I making a mistake? Are you telling me you’re not in love with him? Are you telling me you don’t fall asleep every night thinking about him, that you don’t wake up in the night hoping he’s beside you in the darkness? Are you telling me it isn’t true?”

  “It was true, but it’s not true anymore.”

  “What do you mean? May Horeb protect us! Are you going as mad as Orma?”

  Zipporah tried to laugh, too. Instead, she could not stop the tears, long held in, from welling up in her eyes. Sefoba’s laughter vanished like a flame that has been extinguished.

  “What’s the matter? Zipporah, my darling!” Sefoba knelt by her sister and lifted her face. “I wasn’t mocking you. I’ve seen the two of you and . . . Not often, I admit, but I know what I see.”

  Zipporah pushed Sefoba’s hands away, and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “You’re making a mistake.”

  “Perhaps I am. Explain it to me, then!”

  “Leave it be. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Come on, now!”

  Zipporah hesitated. She had given her promise to Murti. But Sefoba was like a part of herself. “You must promise to say nothing. Not to Father, not to anybody!”

  “I promise before Horeb,” Sefoba said, raising her hands.

  And so Zipporah told her all about her days and nights of torment since Moses had pitched his tent nearby, and how, one morning, she had found herself beneath the sycamore on the road to Epha just as Murti was fleeing from Moses’ rejection.

  “Poor Murti!” Sefoba said. “But what a stupid girl! You can do something like that to a shepherd, not to a man like Moses!” She touched Zipporah’s face with her fingertips, wiped away the last tears, and sighed. “What a relief she didn’t tell you it was because of Orma.”

  “Yes, it was,” Zipporah admitted. “I was afraid Murti would say, ‘Moses wants your sister, and nobody but her.’”

  “He’s much too intelligent for that,” Sefoba chuckled. “Only Reba wants Orma and nobody but her.”

  “I was relieved at first. Then I realized what a fool I was. Of course he had a life before he came here. A wife, perhaps children. If not a wife, then a woman. Many women. They say Egyptian women are beautiful. And I’m sure he’s just waiting for the moment when he can go back to Egypt. What am I to him? Jethro’s black daughter.”

  Sefoba had been listening in silence, but now her anger burst out. “Listen to you! ‘Not a wife, but a woman! Many women! They say Egyptian women are beautiful . . .’ Why not goddesses with the heads of cats or birds? Or Pharaoh’s own daughters, while we’re about it? May Horeb and my father forgive me, but this is the first time you’ve been in love, and it’s really making you stupid. Moses rejected a handmaid. So what? Moses thinks about his past! He has memories! Does that stop him from taking a woman into his bed? Don’t make me laugh! I don’t believe a word of it. I’ve also looked at him long and hard, this Moses of yours. I’m a married woman; perhaps that’s what gives me a clearer view of things. All I’ve seen is a man like any other man. From head to foot, and even in the middle.”

  “Sefoba—”

  “Let me speak! Moses is like any other man. Of course he thinks about his past. But he’s here now, and his past is vanishing like water from a gourd in the desert! And soon, when his gourd is empty, Moses will be quite new, and he’ll be looking for love, he’ll want a woman, like any other man. Or rather, not like any other man, but like a lord. He certainly behaves like one, and he doesn’t want to be caressed by just anybody when he wakes up. Not by a handmaid, that’s for sure. Jethro’s daughter, though, the finest, the most intelligent, her father’s favorite, now that’s another matter. . . . No! Don’t protest! That’s how it is! It’s about time you faced the truth. You haven’t seen the way Moses looks at you. You’re in love, and that’s worse than shedding blood every moon. You don’t know day from night. But as Horeb is my witness, I tell you this: Moses hasn’t just been taking an interest in the children since he came. He’s been watching you—your skin, your breasts, your waist, your lovely buttocks. He’s been hanging on your words and your silences, your knowledge and your pride. He has quite a lot of pride himself, so he has the full measure of yours! And he likes it all. When he sees you, I’d put my hand in the fire and swear that he isn’t thinking about his memories then. Wait until he gets back, and you’ll see for yourself.”

  But when, twenty days later, the caravan of Jethro’s sons, sons-in-law, and nephews returned, Zipporah was unable to verify the accuracy of Sefoba’s words, because Moses was not with them. One morning at dawn, a few days from home, he had disappeared.

  IT was not until evening that Jethro, who had arrived back that day, dusty from the journey, after a visit to the palace of King Hour, whom he had advised not to launch a punitive expedition against some lords of Moab who had stolen a flock and killed three shepherds, absorbed the news. “Disappeared? Moses?”

  Hobab nodded and drank a long draft of beer. Like his companions, Jethro’s son seemed as thirsty as if he had crossed the desert without a gourd full of water within arm’s reach.

  “One morning I went to his tent,” he said, handing his goblet to a handmaid. “I was thinking of going hunting with him. We’d seen a small herd of gazelles the previous days. But his tent was empty. We waited two whole days before we set off again. Everyone was impatient to get home.”

  He fell silent and watched with a smile as more beer was poured into the goblet.

  Softened by his son’s smile, Jethro waited for him to drink another long mouthful. Zipporah was biting her lips to hold back the cry of impatience rising in her throat.

  It was already night, and she had had to champ at the bit all day. Several times, she had broken off from her work with tears in her eyes, barely able to breathe. Since learning of Moses’ absence, she had been tormented by wild thoughts, like a knife twisting in her guts. The handmaids looked at her anxiously and spoke in low voices when she came near, as if she were a woman in mourning. Two or three times, Sefoba had put her arms around her trembling shoulders and hugged her, trying to find something to say to console her. She knew only too well that Zipporah would not be satisfied with the usual banal words. But they would not know more until Jethro started to ask questions, and so they had to wait, as if for deliverance. And Jethro, drunk with joy at seeing his beloved son again, seemed to have forgotten Moses.

  They had been inseparable all day, sitting side by side under the canopy to receive the greetings of the members of the household and the caravan. Jethro kept asking the same questions of those returning from the long journey: How had the journey been? Whom had they met? How well had they traded? How had the women and children fared? Who had been born, who had died? Hobab called his companions one by one, and each time the greetings began over again.

  Jethro and Hobab had the same thin face, the same incisive eyes. The long road from the land of Moab, the dust and fire of the desert, had furrowed deep lines in Hobab’s face, making him look older than his years. They could easily have been confused with one another, were it not for their hair and beards—Jethro’s thick and white, Hobab’s short and black. Like Jethro, Hobab looked scrawny, but everyone in Midian knew he was capable of enduring long treks across the desert. Nobody had a better sense of direction amid the deadly valleys of sand and stone in Ecion or the Negev, or in the sunbaked folds of Horeb’s mountain. Admittedly, he possessed neither Jethro’s wisdom nor his sharp intelligence, but his father was very proud of him. “Hobab,” he would say, “knows the strength of the desert and the power of Horeb’s moun
tain. That’s just as important as being wise.”

  Now, as he warmed his hands over the fire, Jethro frowned. “There must be a reason. A man doesn’t just disappear without a reason. Especially that man.”

  A half smile on his lips, Hobab looked at his father, then glanced across at his sisters. Orma seemed the least concerned of the three, but it was obvious that her apparent indifference was assumed.

  “A man unlike other men,” Hobab said at last, still smiling. “And a man who seems to have you very worried, you and my sisters!”

  “Speak for them, not for me!” Orma protested. “I’ve long had my own ideas about him—the Egyptian slave! I’m not surprised he vanished without as much as a thank you. He came to us out of the desert, like a mad dog. He would have stayed there if Zipporah and our father hadn’t become besotted with him!”

  Sefoba shook her head and sighed. Jethro, as if he had heard nothing, took a piece of meat from the platter of roast lamb before him and began chewing diligently.

  Zipporah found it impossible to be so casual. “Did you give him a good welcome, you and your families?” she asked, with a throb in her voice.

  “We gave him all the consideration he was due, seeing that he was recommended by Father.”

  “Did he tell you who he was?” Orma mocked.

  Hobab paused to take another big gulp of beer. “Orma, beauty of the age,” he replied, tenderly, “don’t pull that face at me. I know as much about him as you do. I also know he thinks you’re beautiful and that he’s sorry he disappointed you by not being a prince of Egypt.”

  “He disappointed me? Just listen to that!”

  Hobab ignored Orma’s squealing. “I was with him in the desert, I hunted with him, I sat with him and the armorers in the evening,” he went on. “He didn’t need any prompting to tell us about Egypt and the reasons he fled. I liked the way he said straight out what he needed to say. I’m pleased you gave him your trust, Father. It isn’t my usual way, but it didn’t take me long to know that I wanted him to be my friend. The fact remains—he left without saying a word.”