by Marek Halter
No sooner had he pitched his tent beneath the sycamore than he rushed to Jethro’s domain. He found Zipporah outside her room, fussing over Gershom’s cradle with the handmaids. The sight of the woman who was not his wife took his breath away.
Zipporah was again as slender as she had been before her son’s birth. In addition, there was a calm about her, which seemed to give her body a stronger outline, her hips and breasts an extra fullness. Her thick hair was cut short, emphasizing the refinement of her features, the breadth of her temples, the elegant curve of her cheekbones. Everything in her testified to a new, serene strength. Even her lips, rounded in a tranquil smile, seemed shaped by all the words she had whispered to calm her child’s fears.
She greeted Moses with a certain formality and ordered the handmaids to leave. She lifted Gershom out of his tiny bed and, for the first time, placed him in Moses’ arms. Moses laughed, purred like a tamed beast, and at last brandished Gershom in his hands, surprised at the size of the little creature moving about in his huge palms.
“I seem to have been gone for so long, my son ought to be able to stand and say his father’s name by now,” he joked.
Zipporah nodded and withdrew to the doorway. They both felt awkward. They did not know what to do with their eyes or their bodies, and could not bring themselves to utter the words they had murmured to each other during their solitary wait. Moses tried to put his son back in the cradle. He was clumsy about it, and Zipporah went to help him. As she did so, she brushed against him with a little laugh that made them both tremble. Hurriedly, Moses searched in the canvas sack he was carrying over his shoulder and took out a long, narrow length of material, on which thick purple stripes alternated with thinner indigo stripes that shone like bronze.
“In the great cities of Canaan, like Guerar or Beersheba, the noblest women wear these around their heads. It suits them well enough, though to my taste their skins were too light. I immediately thought of you and bought one.”
As he placed the cloth in Zipporah’s hands, their fingers touched, and he immediately squeezed her fingers in his and raised them to his mouth. Zipporah had to use all her willpower to resist the desire to huddle in his arms, to demand his caresses and to smell on his neck the almost forgotten scent of love.
“Go to my father,” she stammered, in a toneless voice. “He’s dying to see you.”
Moses tried to draw her to him, but she gently pulled away, taking advantage of a wail from Gershom. She leaned over the wicker cradle and began singing to him. She broke off to look up at Moses.
“Go to Jethro.”
JETHRO was beside himself with joy at the return of his son and son-in-law. When Moses came to pay his respects, the old sage moved his scrawny body and stroked the arm of the man who was not his daughter’s husband as if he wanted to make sure he was definitely alive. Moses placed a tall goblet of chiseled silver in front of him.
“You can either use it to make wine offerings to Horeb or to quench your own thirst,” he said, with affectionate mockery.
“Both!” the old sage cried. “May Horeb protect you! Definitely both!”
“There’s also a young she-camel outside my tent to replace the one you gave me when I arrived.”
Much to the surprise of Hobab and Sicheved, Jethro accepted the she-camel unreservedly. His cheeks were turning red from the wine, and his eyes shone as he ran his fingers over the beautifully carved engravings on the outside of the goblet. Moses’ behavior seemed to delight him more than anything in the world. “Did you meet any caravans coming from Egypt?” he asked, without any change of tone, after they had talked about the main events of the journey.
Hobab shook his head. “No. The merchants who trade with Egypt have stopped passing through Canaan, for fear of pillaging by Egyptian soldiers.”
Jethro nodded. “That’s why they passed this way while you were gone! It’s a long way around Horeb’s mountain, and you need good guides, but it seems to have become the surest route to reach the plains of the River Iterou.”
He fell silent, and so did Hobab and Sicheved. They knew Jethro well enough to know that he had not questioned them only to arouse Moses’ curiosity. But Moses simply rubbed his staff between his palms in a nonchalant gesture with which everyone was familiar by now. Jethro nodded and put down the silver goblet. He clicked his tongue and, in the tone he used for ceremonies, declared:
“This is what I’ve heard, my boy. According to the merchants, the land of the River Iterou is buzzing with rumors and plots. It’s being whispered that the woman who used to be Pharaoh is not dead. According to some, she’s confined to one of her palaces. Others think her ex-husband is keeping her in her father’s tomb. Apparently, it isn’t considered good to have been in the queen’s affections, or even simply her servant. The merchants also say that the lives of the Hebrew slaves have become harder than ever, with all the bricks they’re forced to produce, all the stones they’re forced to carry, all the walls they’re forced to build. Hundreds are dying every day, and still Pharoh’s whip is not stayed.”
Moses was already on his feet, his face ashen beneath the tan he had acquired on his long journey. Jethro did not take offense at his rudeness.
“I questioned these merchants as you would have done, my boy. I asked them if anyone in Egypt had mentioned a man named Moses. ‘That’s a name we never heard,’ they replied. ‘Even among the Hebrew slaves?’ I asked. ‘Who knows what names the slaves whisper to each other?’ they replied. ‘We’re not really allowed to get close to them.’”
Moses had walked away.
“Moses,” Jethro called in a loud voice. “Think of this: The woman who was your mother is alive, a victim of the same hatred that made you leave Egypt. If the Hebrews don’t need you, she does. She has been humiliated by her own family for having made you a son of Pharaoh, and now she has but one hope left: to see your face before her eyes close. That much I know. She loved you; she gave you her name. You may not share ties of blood, but surely you are tied to her through the childhood caresses she gave you. And I also know that a man lives a better, freer life when he can say farewell to his own mother.”
Moses had kept his back turned while Jethro was speaking. Now he wheeled around. “Nobody has the right to tell me what my duty is!” he screamed, brandishing his staff and pointing it at Horeb’s mountain. “Not even those rocks and stones and sterile dust you take to be your god, Jethro!”
His tunic swaying as he moved, he strode to the other end of the courtyard and disappeared. His departure was followed by a shocked silence.
A stunned Sicheved made as if to stand up. “He can’t say such things!”
Jethro calmly gestured to him to remain seated. “All that shouting is like the squeaking of a badly fitted door,” he said, smiling tenderly. “He still refuses to understand that it’s the whole building that won’t stand up.”
“But he’s insulted Horeb,” Sicheved insisted.
“Unless it’s his proud way of imploring his help?”
“What upsets me,” Hobab said, in a disappointed tone, “is that he refuses to speak to us. He never once talked about Egypt or Zipporah during the journey. And now here he is, running away like a thief.”
“Because he thinks he is a thief!” Jethro cried. “He thinks he stole what he is. He’s fighting his own shadow and his own heart.”
He seemed quite unconcerned, and went back to admiring the goblet Moses had given him. Hobab and Sicheved still looked disapproving. The old sage rolled his eyes slyly and patted his son-in-law’s thigh.
“Relax, son, and let time take its course. Horeb is big enough to respond to the insult himself if he feels the need. It’s a good thing that Moses is angry with him. That means he’s realized he himself lacks the power of eternity. Duty and shame are boiling away in his heart like barley soup that’s been overheated. Now the herb of wrath has been added to the mixture. And Horeb knows all about wrath.”
ZIPPORAH crept out of Jethro’s domain, carryi
ng her son in a basket. Laughter and the music of flutes and drums could be heard from where the dancing continued. Zipporah had tied the cloth from Canaan around her head, and it gleamed in the light of the torches. There was no fire outside Moses’ tent. He was sitting on a worn cushion, motionless. When he heard her steps, he turned and lifted his face to her, a face made hard by the moonlight. He watched her in silence as she put down the basket. The child’s face was barely visible in the darkness.
Without a word, Zipporah took a few steps away. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“To find wood for the fire,” she replied, over her shoulder.
By the time she returned, Gershom had woken up and was babbling merrily in Moses’ unsteady arms.
Zipporah lit the fire with the flame of an oil lamp. Then she unfastened her tunic and gave the child her breast. Moses watched her like a man who has just awoken from a troubled sleep. The flames rose, revealing Zipporah’s beauty, the coppery tones of her face as she held it tilted toward the child, the silky colors of the cloth from Canaan shining like a diadem on her brow.
When Moses finally spoke, it was in a low voice, as if he was afraid of scaring his son: “Your father said what he had to say.”
Zipporah nodded. She took Gershom off her breast, deftly refastened her tunic, and put the child on her shoulder. Like a little animal, he nestled his head against her neck. Gently, she swayed back and forth, humming quietly, so quietly that the vibration of her voice passed from her body to Gershom’s.
Moses did not take his eyes off her. Although his face was still full of anxiety, he made a small gesture of approval. Time passed. He pointed to Jethro’s domain, where the music and the sounds of merriment could still be heard. “Why didn’t you stay and enjoy the celebration with them?” he asked.
Zipporah smiled, a beautiful smile that glowed in the firelight, and kissed the child’s hand. “Because you’re here.”
“Does that mean you finally agree to be Moses’ wife?”
She shook her head, still smiling. “No.”
Moses closed his eyes and clenched his fists against his chest. Zipporah thought he was about to fly into a rage. When he opened his eyes again, he stared at the fire as if he wanted to throw himself into it.
They remained like that for some time, strangely patient and reserved, waiting for their child to fall asleep. Just once, Moses reached out his hand and put more wood on the fire. Sparks flew up into the branches of the sycamore. Gershom finally drifted into sleep. Carefully, Zipporah laid him in his basket. Then she came back, knelt by Moses, and embraced him.
“There hasn’t been a single night that I haven’t fallen asleep thinking about you,” she said softly, her mouth close to his ear, “and there hasn’t been a single day that Gershom hasn’t opened his eyes without my whispering his father’s name in his ear.”
“So why are you still so stubborn? Anyone would think we were at war.”
She put her hand over his mouth, pressed her lips to his neck, and began to run her fingers feverishly over his body. She stood and drew him up with her, kissing his chest through the tunic. “Zipporah! Zipporah!” Moses muttered, as much in supplication as in protest. She kissed him with a fury that made them both sway, and pushed him inside the tent. In no time at all, she undressed him. When she took hold of his member, he made as if to push her away.
“You did that to the handmaid Murti,” she said. “Will you do it to me?”
“You knew?”
“That morning, when she left your tent, I was standing outside.”
She had stepped away. He took hold of her and now he, in turn, undressed her, his hands and mouth aching for her. He fell to his knees and pulled her down until she was lying beneath him.
Gasping for breath, Zipporah offered him the scent of amber on her thighs and loins with just as much voracious impatience as the people in her father’s domain throwing themselves on the feast.
LATER, they lay together, their bodies intertwined.
“You and your father are both wrong,” Moses said. “Why should I confront Pharaoh in order to see my mother, Hatshepsut? Perhaps, among thousands of slaves, my real mother is also alive. She’s the one I ought to be supporting, not the woman who stole her child. But she’s lost among the suffering multitude, like a grain of sand in the desert. . . . Besides, Thutmose would be only too pleased to capture me and use me to add to Hatshepsut’s humiliation.”
Zipporah listened without replying.
“In Edom, Moab, and Canaan,” Moses went on, “they are preparing for war with Pharaoh. They’re being forced into it, and they dread it. You have to realize, Zipporah: Whole nations tremble before the might of Pharaoh, and yet you and your father keep telling me to go to Thutmose and ask him to lessen the suffering of the Hebrews! It’s absurd.”
Still Zipporah said nothing. She listened out to make sure the child was sleeping. Her silence disconcerted Moses. He waited for a moment, then sat up.
“It isn’t my death I fear,” he said, in a louder voice, his irritation growing, “but the use Thutmose will make of it. What good will my corpse be to you and Gershom? I don’t understand you! You are almost my wife; all it would take is one word. Why are you so determined not to say it?”
Zipporah lifted her hands and stroked his stomach and chest. “Because,” she said in a very low voice, its gentleness softening the sharpness of her reproach, “you are not yet the man who is worthy to be my husband. The man I saw in my dream.”
Moses sighed in exasperation and fell back on the bed. Zipporah sat down, smiling tenderly, and continued her caresses. “What you say is perfectly sensible. You’re such a sensible man.” She kissed his shoulders, chin, and eyes. “And you think that everything that isn’t sensible must be madness, don’t you? And yet, sensible as you are, you aren’t at peace.”
Aware of his desire rising, Moses tried to push her away. “The only reason I’m not at peace is because of you and Gershom. We are in sin. To everyone here in Midian, to everyone in your father’s house, we are in sin!”
Zipporah sat astride him and drew him into her. “How do you know you’re in sin, when you don’t even believe in the wrath of Horeb and won’t obey his will?”
LESS than a moon later, Zipporah announced to Moses that her blood had not come, and that for a second time he was going to be a father.
He opened his arms to welcome her, and clasped her to him. “We are in sin,” he whispered in her ear.
Zipporah pressed her brow to his powerful neck. “My will is the will of Horeb. Listen to him!”
Moses gently pushed her away, and turned with a set expression on his face to Horeb’s mountain, as if sizing up an enemy before a battle.
The next day, Sicheved came running and announced that Moses had taken down his tent and set off with his flock, his mule, and his two she-camels in the direction of the mountain.
Jethro greeted the news with a smile, but he was alone in doing so. The next day, Hobab himself returned from the western pastures. Jethro asked him if he had seen Moses on the way to the mountain.
“I was on my way back here yesterday when our paths crossed. I accompanied him until nightfall, trying to warn him about the dangers that awaited him. He didn’t open his mouth, but he made it quite clear to me that he would have preferred to be alone.”
“That’s good,” Jethro said. “That’s good.”
“How can you say it’s good?” Hobab retorted, with a vigor that surprised Jethro. “The pastures on the mountain are wretched, and the slopes are dangerous for sheep and camels alike.”
“He isn’t going there to feed his flock,” Jethro replied.
“Then you should have stopped him. It’s madness to let him leave like that.”
Jethro dismissed the protest with a flick of his sleeve.
“He doesn’t know his way about the mountain,” Hobab insisted. “He doesn’t know where to find springs. He’s sure to get lost . . .”
Jethro put his hand
on his son’s shoulder and pointed at the vaporous clouds swirling around the summit of Horeb. “Calm down. Horeb will take care of him. He’ll find his way.”
Hobab shrugged his shoulders gloomily, not convinced by his father’s assurance.
A few days later, Moses had still not returned. Zipporah spent all her time with Gershom. Not once did she join Jethro when he made his offerings.
“Is Zipporah ill?” he asked Sefoba when she brought him his morning meal.
“If it’s an illness to keep your mouth shut and hold back your tears simply out of pride, then yes, she’s ill.”
“But why?”
“Oh, Father, don’t act surprised!” Sefoba said, angrily. “Moses has gone, she’s pregnant again, and she still has no husband. Even the handmaids are starting to wonder what’ll become of her. It’s all because of your stubbornness.”
“Hold on a minute!” Jethro cried. “Don’t forget that when Moses came to ask me for her hand, she was the one who refused, not me.”
“Oh, come on! I know the two of you. If you hadn’t supported her and encouraged her in this madness, we would have broken bread at their wedding feast long before now.”
Jethro contented himself with an indistinct mutter.
Days passed, and nights, and more days, and still Moses did not come back. Anxiety spread throughout the household. All eyes were on the mountain, and not a day passed when they did not fear that Horeb might give vent to his wrath.
Every morning, at first light, Zipporah went outside and looked up at the sky and the mass of sulfurous matter on the mountain, hoping it would not again come rolling down the slopes and set the air on fire. Her belly was growing, both gently and quickly, as if it were not only a token of the life that Moses had left within her, but also a relentless measure of the time that had passed since his departure.
