Sunrise on the Mediterranean

by Suzanne Frank

  Dadua’s black eyes glittered; it was his only outward sign of irritation. I suspected he didn’t hear lo too often. He spoke curtly, white teeth flashing in his russet beard. “Go to Midian and come back. Upon your return you will be made a free man.”

  Cheftu stiffened; if he’d been a dog, his ears would have perked up, his tail would have begun to wag.

  A free man. His children wouldn’t be slaves. He would have standing in the community. He could control his own life. I knew Cheftu, I knew this was the ultimate carrot, the seducer royale. Cheftu would have his freedom back; to get it he had only to do what he’d longed to do from the moment he’d heard about it. He would travel to the mountain of God.

  “Only if my wife is freed also,” he said.

  Dadua glanced at me, then away. “Go, return a free man. Then, in another year, on the anniversary of your departure, she will also be freed.”

  “Within six months.”

  “By the Feast of Unleavened Bread, next year.”

  Cheftu did the calculations, then looked at me. “What say you?” he asked me in English.

  It killed me to say this, but I knew I had to. Especially after our talk last night. “As you will. I want you to be happy, to be free.”

  “I will wait for him to offer six months.”

  “Why are you taking this at all?” I asked, trying to sound reasonable.

  “Because neither of us have found a portal. I spent seventeen years in Egypt. If we were free, we could live well here. Rear our children with the One God, be safe and happy.” He glanced at our audience. “Trust me, Chloe. We can craft a life this way.”

  “Do what you think best,” I said, though I choked at the cost of these words. “I love you.”

  “Ach, but do you trust me?”

  “Implicitly.”

  His gaze remained on my face a moment longer, then he turned to Dadua. “Thy will be done,” he said. “I will go.”

  They offered Cheftu a chair, then dismissed me.

  He’s leaving, I thought in a monotone chant that played with every step of my way through the hallways, back to the women’s quarters. He’s leaving. He’s leaving. I walked into the main women’s room, thinking, He’s leaving.

  Shana took one look at me and hugged me. For a moment we weren’t slave and owner, but two women. “They think such stupid things,” she said as I cried, explaining through my tears what Dadua had offered and that Cheftu had accepted. “Always they seek glory for themselves, or their gods or their king.” She patted my shoulder. “When all we really want is for them to be home, to laugh with us, to coddle our babes. Poor isha,” she said. “This, this is what it means to be a tribeswoman.”

  I pulled back, sniffling. “Why?”

  “Because every tribeswoman has bade farewell to her father, her brothers, and eventually her husband. It is the way. Now come, you. Change out of these clothes, wash your face, and go to the kitchen. Tell that harridan that I said you were to have some cucumber soup with honey.” I tried to smile but just ended up crying at her kindness. “Go now,” she said, pushing me toward the waiting slaves, who stripped me again.

  After my soup with honey, Shana said it was time for me to learn how to make bread; the dates were forgotten. “Kneading is Shekina’s way of relieving our anger,” she said.

  “Anger is not what I feel,” I protested.

  “Yet,” she said darkly. We crossed to the opposite side of the courtyard from the millstone. “Here,” she said. I was looking at another stone contraption. It was flat, rectangular, with a U-shaped ridge around it. “After ’Sheva finishes with the grain, you will mix it with water and a pinch of yesterday’s bread, to make everyday bread. Then,” she said, scrutinizing me, “you will cover it while you go get the water for the day.”

  “At the well?”

  “Where else do you find water?”

  I don’t know, a faucet, maybe? At 7-Eleven? I was feeling a little loopy. Cheftu was choosing to leave me. For good reasons, granted. But still. Where was Midian? The fleeing Apiru had crossed at the neck of the Gulf of Aqaba, going into … Saudi Arabia? Giddy laughter bubbled up inside me. The Jews’ gold was in the Arabs’ country?

  You already know that, the lexicon scribbled across the chalkboard in my mind.

  I heard it, I retorted, I didn’t know it, not like I do now.

  “After that, you wait, for maybe the length of a watch,” Shana said, continuing her cooking lesson. “Not too soon. Then you will put the dough down and knead it. You don’t know how to knead,” she said. I noticed it was not a question.

  “Ach, lo,” I said, unnecessarily.

  She tch’d only once, then pulled me down to show how to knead. You pounded the stuff, stretched it out flat, then rolled it back on itself. “Now you.”

  I managed it, but I wasn’t going to be starting an ancient pizza parlor anytime soon. However, I knew how to exercise my triceps for the rest of eternity. “Do that about forty times,” she said. “Then make it into rounds.”

  Rounds I could do. “If you will leave them here, the kitchen slaves will come and get them.”

  I nodded. “Now get back to your dates!”

  She had been gone for about six rounds when I wondered, Who was Shekina?

  Cheftu said nothing that night. I said nothing. What could I say? His reasoning was good; it was rational. I was the one being neurotic. We lay down in silence, not touching. We woke up in silence, still not touching. He left for the fields, I returned to my unconquerable mound of dates.

  Only I was conquering them. One by one they had been moved from one pile into another. Now all I had to do was add spices and whatever stuffing, then store them in the jars. After exchanging my flint for a small spoon, I sat down on my haunches and began stuffing.

  When we’d lived in Saudi, I’d had a friend who swore dates were roaches without legs. The thought grossed me out then, and it held the same power now. Putting Kafka from my mind, I stuffed them with pistachios and I stuffed them with raisins, listening to the women gossip around me.

  Somewhere in the palace, a door slammed. The whole building rattled with it. In the kitchens, we all froze. Even the constant babble of children playing was silenced.

  “How dare you?” we heard. The sound came from the windows, though I also could hear it closer. An irate woman, screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “Dare? You say such a thing to me, the princess of the monarch of our people?” Irate woman number two, also screeching.

  “You were princess until your father pissed away his right to be king!”

  The voices were recognizable: Avgay’el and Mik’el. The translation in my head was of a man not only urinating, but keeping the urine as a precious commodity. Someone whose priorities were twisted. I glanced around; we were all listening avidly.

  How embarrassing for these princesses and how humiliating for Dadua.

  “Royalty is never lost,” Mik’el said. The frost in her voice could have iced the windows. “I would not expect a person in your station to understand such a thing. You are just the proof that deep calls to deep. Or shallow to shallow.”

  We all gasped. Though he lived in a slummy house and ruled over a band of religious ruffians, the man was king. King! He was a man with the authority to say, “Off with her head.”

  “Now you dare to call Dadua shallow?”

  I guess Mik’el could say that, since we all knew Dadua didn’t care for her. I almost saw her shrug. “He is a commoner. Mixed blood of a Yudi farmer”—she laughed—“and an Apiru slave.”

  This was a grave insult, I realized now.

  Mik’el laughed again. “Only his brawn has gained him the throne. It is not his right; he wasn’t chosen, he snatched it!”

  “Ach, she is a fool!” one of the kitchen slaves whispered. “You would understand snatching,” Avgay’el said, her voice sharp with disgust. “Did you not snatch at the first doddering fool willing to take you in, a rejected wife?”

  “Dad
ua didn’t reject me,” Mik’el hissed, still deafeningly loud. “He knew I was too fine to live in a cave!”

  “This is true,” another of the slaves commented. “She wouldn’t know how to change her own straw!”

  I winced because that was a harsh dig: Tribeswomen sat on straw when they had their periods. I wanted to shush the slaves; we were going to miss the next part.

  “Nay, he knew you were too cold to live with a man,” Avgay’el shouted.

  “Nay, I lived well with a man. He knew I was too much a g’vret to scramble for some oversexed Apiru’s attentions like a rooting pig!”

  Silence. Poor Avgay’el didn’t have a choice except to compete with the other women in Dadua’s life. It was her lot; it was the time period. But it was a taboo subject. You didn’t mention it because it was tasteless and painful and there was no equal retort. It just was.

  Then there was the additional insult with the pigs. In my time pork was a grave sin in both Muslim and Jewish cultures. Had that rule begun already?

  “At least he offers his bed to me,” Avgay’el said archly. “With me, his energy is never lagging, his passion overflows. He wants me.”

  “Ouch,” I whispered aloud. Everyone knew that although Dadua had required the return of Mik’el, he had not bedded her. Not even on their renewal wedding night. There was nothing Mik’el could say. For the first time, I felt genuinely sorry for her.

  It was one thing to endure him even though she didn’t want him; it was another to be rejected and the whole court know it. Public humiliation at its most base.

  Now doors slammed in stereo.

  In the kitchen, none of us looked at each other. We simply continued our tasks, the model of decorum when Shana showed up a little while later. Her color was high. I knew she knew we’d heard. I kept stuffing my cockroaches and adding them to the jar.

  “Don’t forget the almonds,” she told me.

  Almonds? She’d never mentioned almonds. Before I could figure out how to protest, without making a fuss, she told me that the mushroom would bring them to me and I could use them to finish out the dates. I ducked my head and continued stuffing.

  By the afternoon every muscle in my body ached. My arms screamed, because I’d done nothing except stuff dates, my haunches were sore from my miserable position, and my neck ached. I was concentrating on getting through just a few more before quitting time when another woman touched my shoulder. “Isha, your husband is outside.”

  I looked at the dates, my hands covered in sticky goo. “Go on,” she said. “I will finish for you.”

  “Todah,” I expressed my thanks. “I will owe you.”

  She smiled. “I love dates. I can’t promise I will add to your jar, but I will clean up for you.”

  “If you eat any,” I said, “please, eat the ones that I haven’t destoned.”

  She laughed and helped me up. I tried to rinse my hands, but date meat is stubborn. A few minutes later I was outside. Cheftu stood in the sunshine, his gaze fixed somewhere to the south.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He turned to me, then touched my jaw, seizing my mouth in a tender kiss that turned my knees to water. Distantly I heard the cheers of the kitchen slaves. “Come with me,” he said.

  “Should I read a double entendre in that?” I asked, dazed, smiling.

  He flashed a grin at me. “I hope so.”

  I looked back. “Can I just leave?”

  “Trust me,” he said, and took my hand, deliberately linking our fingers together. He was frowning slightly, intent. We walked out of the palace, down the hill into the fields. I looked around me for the first time in weeks. I was outside during the day, seeing more than a mud-brick palace and blue skies. “Will we get in trouble—?”

  “Non,” he said.

  Shrugging at his response, I followed along. We took a steep goat path down the hill, bypassing our vineyard and watch house, going lower into the valley.

  “Do you know that I love you?” he asked as we edged our way down a steep path. My hand was tight in his, the other one outstretched to balance myself. It was amazing how tough the soles of my feet had become.

  “I, uh, of course,” I said, hopping the last few feet. We were on level ground again, in an olive grove. The whisper of silver green leaves was almost as soothing as the ocean. All around us, branches were adorned with red threads. More b’kurim. Spangled shadows fell across us.

  He took my other hand in his, turning me to face him. “Your certainty is lacking, chérie,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to say. I knew that he did, I just didn’t … feel it as much as I would have liked to.

  “I brought you here, because I want you to know, as I will learn, if it is destiny for me to make this journey to Midian.” He was speaking Egyptian again.

  “How will you—” I began, then remembered the stones, the Urim and Thummim. “You still have them?”

  He blushed, nodded. “I do.”

  “Are you still keeping them in your, uh …” I gestured vaguely toward his kilt.

  “That has been the safest location,” he said.

  I knew as an Egyptian, especially as a physician, that the anus was a vitally important part of the body. Enemas were the aspirin of ancient Egypt. I didn’t know if this were true with the Israelites; I didn’t really want to know. “You’ll understand if I don’t toss them?” I said.

  He smiled, then removed them from his waist sash. The Urim and Thummim: the oblong stones were engraved with rows of ancient Hebrew characters. If you brought them close together, they danced. He held one in each hand, and suddenly I knew what they were, what “magic” made them work.

  “They’re magnets!” I said. “But of course they are,” he said. “Now watch, read the signs as I ask.” He stared into my eyes. “You ask why we are here, beloved. Now maybe we will learn?

  “Should I, Cheftu, go into the desert, to the mountain of God?” he asked slowly. He tossed them, and I watched as they interacted with each other. The sunlight seemed to pick out a letter at a time, a letter that Cheftu read aloud.

  Before my eyes the squiggles and scratches turned into letters I knew: “T-h-e w-i-l-l o-f Y-H-W-H w-i-l-l b-e d-o-ne.”

  He frowned. “Does that mean you go or not?” I asked, staring at the stones. They lay on the ground, a foot or so apart, motionless. “That seemed an awfully esoteric response.”

  “It ofttimes is,” he said glumly. “May I try?” I said, reaching for the white one. “I thought you didn’t want to touch them?”

  I ignored him as I picked up one, then the other. When I brought my hands together I felt them vibrating in my palms. Zips of power went up and down my arms. It almost hurt. “Should I go?” I asked, throwing them.

  “D-e-l-v-e i-n-t-o t-h-e w-a-t-e-r-s t-h-a-t g-u-i-d-e.”

  “Maybe they are broken,” I said. “That makes no sense.”

  “Non, you asked the wrong question,” he said. “It should be, ‘Should Cheftu go?’”

  “Oops!” I asked the carefully worded question, and we got “T-h-e w-i-l-l o-f Y-H-W-H w-i-l-l b-e d-o-n-e,” again.

  “Ach, well, they made no sense when they said you were with Dagon until I was in Ashqelon.” He looked puzzled for a moment. “They said you weren’t safe, but when I arrived you were ruling the place.”

  “That was probably when I was doing the tightrope,” I said, amazed by the stones despite myself.

  Cheftu repeated the term slowly in English. “What is that?”

  “Long story. You asked them about me?” I said, still partially amazed that this wonderful, handsome, witty, and good man loved me.

  “You beautiful idiot, but of course! However, then, five days later you were bargaining for all of our lives. They are accurate, just not in a way we understand.”

  “What happened to you?” I asked, “While you were with the slavers?”

  He pressed his hands together, silent for a few minutes. “I will tell you once, then we will leave it here in this
olive grove, forever after, nachon?”

  “B’seder.”

  “They beat me,” he said tonelessly. “They beat me harder than the others. They starved me. They tried to violate me, but the, uh, stones …”

  My head was in my hands. I was embarrassed to know, sorry that I’d asked, that I’d demanded to know anything. Cheftu cleared his throat. “After that, they left me alone.”

  I said nothing for a while. “Why haven’t you wanted to practice medicine?”

  “Aztlan.”

  “Why?” We weren’t even looking at each other. “They all died, Chloe. No matter what we did, they died. Then I, the physician, ach, well, I end up extremely healthy.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Illness.” He sighed deeply. “I have lost my empathy.”

  I was stunned. Cheftu was easily the most empathetic soul I’d ever known. Had he just burned out? I waited in silence. If he wanted to say more, I would listen. However, I’d just learned a huge lesson about asking questions.

  Cheftu sighed and sat back. “In Aztlan, no matter what we did, people died. So we searched for the reason why.” He looked at his hands, turning them back and forth as though the answer might lie in their lines, in his cells. “When we learned the reason, when we tried prevention because there was no cure, still they did nothing. No one listened. No one believed. Everyone died. They died endlessly, needlessly.” He folded his hands and stared straight at me. “I find myself angry with them. They chose to die, yet I am the one who carries their deaths on my shoulder.”

  He flexed his jaw. “Then I thought of all the medications and cures and suggestions I’d made over the years, of how few people actually followed my advice and were healed and—” He threw his hands up. “It seems pointless. I don’t care to continue working my fingers and heart until they bleed when it means nothing.”

  “So go to Midian,” I said jocularly. “See how you feel when you return.”

  He shrugged.

  I handed the stones back, then watched as he tucked each one into his sash, his body between them so they wouldn’t dance. “When do you go?”