The Sphinx at Dawn

by L'Engle, Madeleine;

“I will be careful, mother.”

  His father smiled. “But not too careful. He is a boy.”

  After his parents were in bed that night, Yos dressed and went to the compound in which Pakko’s father kept his camels. He spoke quietly, moving so softly that he barely disturbed the sleeping beasts. There were a few soft bubblings and blowings, but that was all. Except for Pakko’s camel, who was laboriously rising to his feet as the boy made his way down the line of stalls.

  Yos leaned against him, caressing the torn ear, the mangy-looking fur. “Oh, camel, camel.”

  The camel’s rubbery black lips brushed gently against the boy’s neck.

  “Pakko’s camel, dear camel, I wouldn’t disturb you at this hour of night if it weren’t urgent. Will you take me out into the desert? Not all the way to the oasis, just a little way, so that I can be where I can think. It will be cool, and you won’t get hot and thirsty the way you would under the sun. We will ride slowly. I need to think, Pakko’s camel. I need to think.” While he spoke he saddled the beast. The camel blew one long, self-pitying stream of bubbles, then peered at the boy from under drooping eyelids with extraordinarily beautiful, long, silky lashes.

  “Walk quietly, Pakko’s camel, very quietly. We don’t want to wake anyone in the village. Hush. Step softly.”

  There was no moon, and the stars shone, undimmed; the shadow of camel and boy was sharp against the desert sand.

  “For you to think,” the camel said crossly, “is to do what most people would call to stop thinking.”

  “My heart is heavy,” the boy said. “Thinking is not easy when one is heavy. I thought if I came out to the desert I might be light again.”

  “Let us hope so. I find this extra weight nearly intolerable. Remember that it takes no more than a straw to break a camel’s back. You do know that he stole the treasures, don’t you?”

  “Stole?”

  “You might say that Pakko took them, but that’s just playing around with words, and this is no time for that.”

  “Very well, then, you are right. He stole them. But why? His father gives him everything. And he must have known that I would find out, and that I would know he was the one.”

  “You assume,” the camel said, “that Pakko is capable of thought.”

  Yos sighed. “It would be easy for me to make excuses for him.”

  “Easy. And what good would that do him?”

  “What must I do, then?”

  “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

  Yos laughed, as the camel had intended. “They weren’t Greeks.”

  “They were foreigners. They might as well have been Greeks, since they weren’t Egyptian. Or camel.” The animal suddenly capsized onto the sand. Yos was used to these sudden descents, and slid to the ground. He stood, looking up at the lavish carelessness of galaxies flung across the night sky, then lay down on his back on the sand, reaching one hand out to stroke the camel.

  “Once upon a time,” the camel said, “as I’ve heard tell, the Greeks came into a village with a camel made out of wood. It was, they said, a gift to the villagers, and everybody admired it extravagantly and with much gratitude. At night a door in the side of the camel opened, and a whole army came out and devoured the village.”

  Yos laughed again. “The three men who brought me the gifts rode camels, but they were not Greeks, and my father says they were very wise, and knew how to read the stars. I do not understand why they would bring such gifts to an unknown child, but my father says that it was because one day I would have need of them.”

  The camel rolled over, scratching its flank on the cool night sand. “That day has come, little Yos.”

  Yos looked at him questioningly.

  “The box has been opened, and the gifts have all flown out. What should have been kept shut up in the box is now loose in the world. Greed. Covetousness. Resentment.”

  Yos continued to stroke the camel’s long, dour nose. He closed his eyes, and it seemed that he could feel the sharp, cold light of the stars pricking against his skin.

  The camel gave one of his loud and unexpected snorts, then said, “If you would scratch around my left ear it would be helpful. There is something about gifts which you must learn, Yos. They are not only bought for a price by the giver, but those who receive them must pay for them, too.”

  “But I didn’t ask for the gifts!”

  “Nobody asks for gifts. They’re given. And you have to pay for them. All that gold; all that crystal; all those rubies and emeralds.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, Pakko can have them.”

  “And what would happen if you went to Pakko and said, I know you stole my gifts, Pakko, but that’s all right, I give them to you?”

  “Pakko would hate me, I suppose.”

  “And himself?”

  “He’d hate himself, too.”

  “Are you going to pay for your gifts by buying hate?”

  Yos said, “I think I would like to sit in my mother’s lap and cry.”

  “You’re too old for that. You’ll be too old for a long time.”

  “But what am I to do, Camel?”

  “If you were a grown-up, you might be able to tell Pakko that you knew what he had done, and that he must put the treasure back, and tell your parents that he was sorry.”

  “I’m two years younger than Pakko.”

  “Well, then, how do you suppose Pakko feels right now?”

  Yos sat up, held his hands out to the light wind that blew from the stars across the sand. “He’s awake, and he feels angry. He’s angry with me, because he thinks he’s hurt me, and he’s angry with himself. And he’s telling himself that he really has a right to the treasure because he’s the rich man’s son and I’m only the son of poor foreigners.”

  “Now do you understand what I mean about gifts?”

  Yos spoke in a loud, pained voice. “Camel, it seems to me that there was death in that box.”

  “There are two boys I would like you to meet,” the camel said. “Close your eyes.” Yos obeyed. “Keep your hand on my head. It helps me to think. That’s right. Now open your eyes.”

  Yos looked up, and before him stood a boy who was Pakko, and who was not Pakko: he was not Egyptian, and he was not dressed like an Egyptian. Yos regarded him questioningly.

  Pakko-not-Pakko bowed. “I am the son of a great lady from Shunem. She gave much hospitality to Elisha, a man of God.”

  “I know about Elisha,” Yos said. “My father has told me.”

  “Tell me, then, what he has told you?”

  “The Shunammite woman was old, like the wife of our father Abraham, and she had no children. Elisha, the man of God, promised her that in due season she would bear a son, and it happened as he foretold.”

  “And then?”

  “The child went out to the reapers where his father was, and all of a sudden he cried out to his father, ‘O my head, my head!’ His father told a servant to carry him to his mother; the boy sat on her lap till midday, and then he died. She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God.”

  “And you know what happened then?”

  “Yes. I know. My father taught me.”

  “You have been well taught. Elisha, the man of God, brought about two miracles for my mother. The barren conceived, and bare a child. The child died, and was returned to life. I was dead, and then I was alive. What you must know, Yehoshuah, is that these were small miracles, important to the Shunammite woman, my mother, and to me. But they did not make the stars shake in their courses.”

  Yos felt a coldness touch his limbs. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “More is required of you. Much more. I will leave you with my blessing, Yos. It is a small blessing, but it is as strong as the sun because it comes through the man of God.”

  Yos closed his eyes. The cold of the desert night bit deep into his bones. Close by him he could hear the stertorous breathing of Pakko’s camel.

  He opened his eyes, and another strange boy was
standing in the starlight on the desert sand, Pakko-not-Pakko.

  “Yehoshuah,” Pakko-not-Pakko said, “I am the son of the widow of Zarephath, a village of Sidon. I fell ill, and my breathing ceased, and Elijah, the man of God, breathed deeply upon me, thrice, and the breath came back to me.”

  “I have heard much about Elijah from my father,” Yos said. “Even more than about Elisha.”

  “You know, then, perhaps, of the small jar of flour, and the flask of oil, which never failed?”

  “My father has told me of them.”

  “You do not know, I think, that I took flour from the jar, and oil from the flask, in order to get silver for myself?”

  “No. That I did not know.”

  “I was dead, and now I live. That is what Elijah the Tishbite did for me.”

  The cold bit deeper into Yos. It seemed to chill the very marrow of his bones, the blood in his veins. Again he closed his eyes. When he opened them the pattern of stars in the sky had dipped towards the horizon. The camel was snoring. Yos rose, and his limbs were stiff, as though he had been sleeping in one position for a long time. He touched the camel’s long nose gently. The camel gave a loud snore, and twitched his ears.

  “Camel,” Yos said, “wake up. Wake up. It’s almost dawn and we must get back to the village.”

  Unwillingly the camel lifted one long-lashed lid, closed it again.

  Yos continued to stroke his nose. “Camel. Pakko’s camel. Wake up. Now.”

  The camel tried the other eye, batted his lashes delicately, snored.

  “Pakko’s camel. Now.”

  Both eyes opened, and the camel blew a stream of noisy, ill-smelling bubbles.

  “Camel, what was it all about?”

  The camel pulled back his rubbery lips and made his sleepiest neigh.

  “Pakko’s camel, talk to me, talk to me.”

  The camel looked at the boy as though he were mad.

  “But we did, we talked, and I need to know—”

  The camel blew more malodorous bubbles, and rose, creaking, to his knees. He shrugged his bony shoulders: it was obvious, the shrug indicated, that the boy was either out of his mind, or, more likely, since he was usually a sensible boy, had been dreaming.

  Nevertheless, Yos felt an enormous wave of affection for the beast and hugged him before climbing into the saddle. The camel moved delicately across the sand. At the edge of the horizon a faint touch of lemon colour separated sand from sky; a low star dwindled, diminished, vanished.

  Dawn comes earlier to the desert than the village. When they returned to Pakko’s father’s compound it was still night, but servants ran to and fro with torches and there was a penetrating, painful sound of wailing.

  Yos took the camel quckly to the stable, unsaddled and tended him. One of the camel tenders, with a sickly grin, told him that the place was in an uproar because of the death of the master’s son. The boy had been stricken suddenly with a fever during the night, and had expired.

  Yos controlled his convulsing shudder. He knew that if he went to the front of the house he would not be allowed in, he, only a boy, a foreigner, a person of no importance. So he went to the back. The servants knew him well and, weeping, told him what had happened.

  “He was not,” one of them said, “the most pleasant of boys. Nevertheless—”

  Yos learned that Pakko was still lying on his bed, and that at this moment only his old nurse was with him.

  She looked up and beckoned him to come in. “Your friend is dead,” she said, and tears moved quietly down her cheeks. “Not many loved him. But he was the child of my heart, and you, Yos, were his friend.”

  Yos looked at Pakko. The boy looked thin and white and younger than Yos, and at the same time immeasurably ancient. Yos tried to remember the boys who had come to him in the desert, the boys summoned by Pakko’s camel. He remembered, too, small animals he had seen in the desert, small creatures who had been injured and had died before their time. He had often been able to breathe life back into them, to hold his hand over their small bodies until he felt healing, and the blood’s rhythm strong once more. Yos spoke slowly, quietly. “I do not think that Pakko is dead.”

  The nurse hesitated a moment and then said, “I will leave you alone with him.”

  Yos put his hand on Pakko’s chest. It was motionless, silent. He held his hand over the heart. He whispered, “This is what I am asked to do, isn’t it?” He felt a pain in his own heart so intense that it crashed across his eyes. But he kept his hand on the cold, still chest. His lips moved: in the desert he often sang to himself the songs of David, and these words came to him now: “In the volume of the book it is written of me, that I should fulfill thy will, O my God: I am content to do it; yea, thy law is within my heart.”

  —He is like one of those small animals, Pakko is like the lizard who lay scorched on the sand, he is like the night-grey mouse who was bitten by the scorpion, he is like the scorpion who.…

  Under his hand, Yos could feel Pakko’s cold flesh begin to warm. Then there was a small throbbing, like the throbbing in the heart of the small bird Yos had held in his hands for an hour until life came back to it.

  Pakko stirred.

  Yos closed his eyes. He felt terribly tired.

  Pakko woke, and looked startled. “What are you doing here?”

  Yos pulled back his hand. Morning light was reaching into the far corners of the room. “I came to ask if you’d like to come spend the day with me, Pakko. It’s almost time for my mother to clean the cupboard again, and I thought we might rescue the spiders. And then you could have another look at the treasure, if you like.”

  Pakko sat up, yawned, covering his mouth and the look of his face with his hand.

  Yos said, slowly, “I thought I’d take your camel out for a while first. I’ll be back by the middle of the morning, and then I must do some work for my father, so I won’t be home until midday. I could meet you here—”

  “No,” Pakko said, the words hurried. “I’ll meet you at your house. I would like to see the treasure again, and I haven’t anything better to do today.”

  The old nurse peered into the room, saw Pakko sitting up, and rushed at him in an ecstasy of joy. Pakko pushed her away crossly. “What’s this all about?”

  Yos said, “You see he was only sleeping,” and slipped out of the room.

  The camel was snoring, loudly. He had eaten well, had guzzled the water Yos had left for him, and did not wish to be disturbed. Yos said, “It’s important. I must go to the desert, Pakko’s camel. I need to think.”

  The camel rolled his eyes. He, being only a camel, did not understand a word that Yos was saying.

  But they went to the desert.

  The sun was as hot as the starlight had been cold.

  “I think,” Yos said, “that what Pakko meant when he said that he had nothing better to do, and sounded so grumpy, was that he was happy to be able to put the treasure back, with nobody knowing about it. Has it been paid for now, Pakko’s camel? A great miracle is easy to perform. To give life back to a body is no large thing. It is the other death, Pakko’s camel, it is the other that is the darkness, and to put light in that darkness is.…” He turned to the songs of David again, raising his face and his voice to the vast arc of sky: “For thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. Unto thee, O Lord, will I lift up my soul. My God, I have put my trust in thee. I will always give thanks unto the Lord; his praise shall ever be in my mouth. O God, my heart is ready, my heart is ready. I will sing and give praise.”

  And as he sang, the heavy tiredness left him.

  He would have been happy, singing, drinking in the light of the sun, for a long time, but Pakko’s camel began nuzzling him, drawing back the black lips, touching them with his tongue, giving every indication that he was about to expire from thirst.

  “All right, Pakko’s camel. I’ve worked you hard these past hours, haven’t I? We’ll go back and I’ll draw you a bucket of water.”


  The camel made noises of gratification; his legs buckled under him, and he waited for Yos to climb into the saddle.

  THE SPHINX AT DAWN

  Early morning approached the desert. One by one the stars dimmed, went out. At the crack of dawn on the horizon the light widened to a streak of pale yellow, then warmed to a rosy glow that bathed the sands which stretched and shifted sleepily around the great stone figure of the Sphinx. The stone was touched with light, was softened, quickened, en-fleshed. The enormous wings stirred; the heavy eyelids rose. The Sphinx stared slowly across the desert floor, fixed her hungry gaze on a small speck on the widening horizon.

  The speck grew larger, moved closer, was a camel, a white, one-humped camel bearing a rider. At this distance it was impossible to tell the size or tribe of whoever was mounted on the camel’s hump; he was simply a small silhouette against the deepening rose of the sky. The cold sands reflected colour, a warm and gentle hue, not the molten brass that would shimmer and burn as the sun ascended.

  The camel moved in a steady, rhythmic gallop, rocking like a small boat on a rough sea, coming closer and closer.

  The Sphinx waited, her stone lids half closed, then lifted slightly on her leonine forepaws as she saw that the rider was no more than a very young boy. Her long, poisonous tail twitched; her pinions quivered; she lay in her quickened stone, waiting.

  At hailing distance the boy raised his arm in greeting.

  The Sphinx released a slow, sibilant breath, widened her eyes to stare at him. He waved, smiled, then laughed. As the camel drew up to the great carved beast, the boy slapped the reins gently against the camel’s side. The animal’s legs crumpled as it dropped its ungainly body to the sand. The boy slid from the hump to the sand and walked up to the Sphinx, gravely regarding the pale, cold eyes.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, young king.”

  The boy laughed, joyously. “I’m not a king, O Sphinx. But I was told that I would find you here and that we should have a talk before my parents and I leave Egypt.”

  “Who told you?”

  “An old man I met on the highway, a very old man. I should think he was even older than you.”