Sunrise on the Mediterranean

by Suzanne Frank

  His gaze met mine. “Next week. After Shavu’ot.”

  “Do we celebrate that?” I asked. Shana had said nothing beyond mentioning the preparations.

  “They go to the city of Shek’im for it,” he said. “That is where their totem is. I believe we stay here, guard the fields.”

  The awkwardness was back. Sitting cross-legged in this olive grove, I felt strangely alone. “Where are you?” I asked bluntly.

  He blinked, a little surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “You. You’re not here. Are you already at the Mountain of God?”

  His gaze dropped. I was right. “Cheftu, you are going on this journey. You leave next week. These are terms I begin to understand, to believe. However, while you are here, please be here.” I reached over and raised his face to mine. “Tell me of your excitement, tell me what you think you will learn or the reason you want to go. Don’t shut me out. Don’t leave me even before you go. Please.”

  Spears of sunlight gilded him all over, catching lights in his black hair, accentuating the small scars on his skin. “How are you going to experience this as an ‘uncircumcised’ Egyptian?” I asked. “They won’t let you on the mountain, they won’t let you touch or do anything once they are there.” I squeezed his hand to cushion my words. “They are using you.”

  “As I use them,” he said. “B’seder, you want my truths? You want to hear the whole of my heart?”

  “Yes!” I said in English. “Yes, of course I do! How could you even doubt it? Ach!” I screeched in frustration.

  “We are here, Chloe, with people whose fathers sat down face-to-face with God. They ate with him, they spoke with him. This was no deity too powerful to be viewed except the back of his head. He was real, flesh and blood, sitting with them. Incarnated before we ever know of an incarnation!”

  His eyes were glowing, he was animated, he was beautiful. And I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “When haMoshe asked for God’s name, he was told an unfathomable riddle. But Moshe had already given God his name, so he was in God’s power.”

  “Because he knew his name?”

  “Names are powerful magic, chérie. To know someone’s name is to know about them. This is why people, especially royalty, have always had secret names.” He touched the side of my face, running the backs of his fingers over my cheekbones. “When first you told me your name, Chloe, I knew it was the truth of you.”

  I frowned slightly as the wind rustled the trees and silvery green leaves rained down on us. “How is that?”

  “In the Greek, and I told you this, your name means green and verdant. More than that, it means alive, growing, hopeful.” He smiled at me, a slow smile that started in his eyes and moved to his mouth. “To me, you are these things. No matter what happens, you grow beyond it. Never do you lose hope, never are you less than alive.”

  My face was warm and my heart was in my throat. We stared at each other for a few more minutes, content. I didn’t remember what we’d been discussing. “Kiss me, chérie,” he said.

  We melded mouths in the sun-dappled shade, then bodies, then our souls. As we lay there, staring up at the blue sky, he said, “I am a scholar, and a Catholic; that is why I want to go to this place. How much more is my life to see these things, to experience them. Even if I do not touch the mountain. I have no desire to see God; I will see him when I die.”

  “If you die,” I corrected.

  “Ach, Chloe,” he said, turning to me, watching his brown hand on my white skin. “Our children are the only immortality I want,” he whispered. “For myself, to be locked with you, living with you, is forever.” He kissed me, whispering against my lips, “This is eternity to me.”

  WASET

  RAEM GLARED at the priest who dared to present himself, uninvited, before her. Two days ago Akhenaten had sent the news throughout Egypt: His brother and son-in-law, Smenkhare, was co-regent with him in the light of the Aten forever. RaEm had not been free to leave the audience chamber in Waset since then, for many of the nobles who had escaped Akhetaten suddenly presented themselves, begging forgiveness.

  And, thank the gods and goddesses, Meryaten believed herself to be pregnant, which also took Tiye’s hawkishness off RaEm.

  “My name is Horetamun,” the priest said, bowing. “As high priest I have come to welcome you to the Temple of Amun-Ra, Lord Smenkhare.”

  This was the sticking point. Should Smenkhare officially welcome this priest or acknowledge his god, then Smenkhare stood to lose every bit of power afforded to him by Pharaoh, living forever! If, however, Smenkhare didn’t dance to this flute song, he might well find himself escorted from Waset in a hail of rotting vegetables.

  RaEm’s head hurt. “Address me as Smenkhare, living forever!, Horetaten,” RaEm said. Already it was hot. The priest blinked insolently at her. The sun shone off his bald pate, dazzled on his white kilt, glinted amber from the eyes in the leopard he wore around his shoulders. Slowly, almost more as an insult than in compliance, he bowed his head.

  Through her peripheral vision she saw that his bowing to her had an effect on the courtiers standing around. It was a good thing that something had an effect on them; soon they would be starving, too, regardless of the pharaoh they supported or the gods they worshiped.

  There was nothing left, no stores left untapped. In her clenched fist was the papyrus response to the infuriated message she’d sent to Akhenaten. Two weeks past a reasonable response time, she had heard back: “Aye, those stores were used at Amenhotep Osiris’s last natal day celebration.”

  Fortunately the men who had worked the field had wanted payment in stone, which Egypt was overrun with. Pity the masses could not eat stone. She directed herself back to the priest. “My Majesty”—for some reason the thrill of saying those words wasn’t as sharp as she’d thought it would be—“welcomes you to this court, though you worship an outlawed god whose name will be unmentioned.”

  The priest’s lips tightened, but he said nothing. The silence grew longer, the rustling of the attending courtiers more pronounced. “Have you anything to say?” RaEm asked, irritated.

  He looked up at her, dark brown eyes meeting hers directly. “The blessings of the season upon you, My Majesty.”

  RaEm rose. The audience was over.

  She had just put on her robe and taken off her crown when the chamberlain poked his head around the door. “A man here to see you, My Majesty.”

  At least it wasn’t mulish Meryaten. RaEm rubbed at her neck while she bade the man join her. A cloaked figure entered the room, then threw off his hood.

  The high priest of Amun-Ra? “What are you doing here?” she asked, looking around. In moments she had bolted the doors, pulled the curtains that led onto the garden path. “It is death for either of us to be found here.”

  He stood, facing her bravely. “My Majesty, mistress—” RaEm spun on her heel. “What did you call me?”

  His gaze was direct, unapologetic. “Mistress, for you are, are you not?”

  RaEm crossed her arms. “My name is Smenkhare, husband of Meryaten and co-regent of Egypt.”

  “It matters not to me, though I pity the child Meryaten,” he said. “She doesn’t know, does she?”

  RaEm said nothing. How could he know? How did he guess? Had he told anyone else?

  “It is no matter,” he said again. “Save in this: We need the priesthood of Amun-Ra restored. The fields are rotting, the people will starve without that manpower to disperse the foods.”

  “I can do nothing,” she said. “I endanger my own life even to hear you.”

  Horetamun drew his hood over his head. “When you are ready to act as a pharaoh should, let me know.”

  He turned to unlatch the garden door. “When the time for action is upon us, Horet,” she said. “Let me know.”

  DURING SHAVU’OT the city emptied, with all the men required to go to Shek’im, where the Be’ma Seat, the Mercy Seat, waited. On it rested the power of Yahwe.


  If Yahwe was there, why were the zekenim trooping out to the mountain to see him? I wondered. But I didn’t ask. Slaves did not ask. I was becoming as silent as the mushroom.

  So, I temporarily lost my husband. Then someone decided I shouldn’t stay by myself, so I was reassigned to the women’s quarters: Avgay’el’s territory, since Mik’el had moved across the street.

  The men began to return from their journey, ready for the endless labor of vine tending. I was mindlessly grinding grain and sweating one afternoon when a soldier, not a gibori, but a normal soldier, knelt beside me. The mushroom was off somewhere. More and more often she vanished. I didn’t care; her absence saved me the trouble of trying to make conversation.

  “Isha, in the third watch, Yoav wishes to see you.” I didn’t notice much of him beyond crystalline blue eyes.

  Then he was gone. Third watch of the day or the third watch of the night? I would certainly rather try to find Yoav in broad daylight, especially since this seemed an unorthodox way to suggest a meeting. After all, I was his slave and more or less at his beck and call. Why didn’t he just call?

  However, this was also an excuse to get out of the palace. By four o’clock the sun was still shining and the courtyard was deserted. It was the third watch of the day. I stood up and poured the flour into the appropriate storage jar, while I looked around. No one observed me.

  I wandered through the hallway and picked up a water jar. At least I could say I was on my way to the well, though that particular chore had never been made mine—I’d gone only once. I slipped through the courtyard, noticing that no one noticed me. Big change, that, I thought sarcastically.

  Outside. Wow! I was outside! This was the city. Mamre. I’d never been on this side of the doors by myself before. The thrill made me almost giggle.

  Yoav’s place was attached to Dadua’s, since we all lived together in some kind of commune. Did I go in the front or the back of his house?

  “Isha, come with me.” I turned, startled. It was the same soldier from this morning, only now his eyes seemed less beautiful and more robotic. He was a little too convenient. I felt suspicious. Who was this guy? Did I know for certain that he was from Yoav?

  “Tell me where to go, and I will find it on my own,” I countered.

  “I will take you.”

  “I will find it on my own,” I repeated with a little more force. I was a woman alone in a city I didn’t know. I’d never seen this soldier before this morning. I squared my shoulders, visually becoming more aggressive.

  He inclined his head in agreement. “As you see it. Yoav wants you to meet him at the tavern by the gate. The Honey Bee.”

  Israelites had taverns? “Go in, identify yourself to the owner, then he will show you where to meet Yoav.”

  “Todah,” I said, shouldering my jar. It was my tardy excuse slip, should I need one. As I set out, I noticed the soldier followed me at a distance. It was a little unnerving, but people were on the street. I was certainly safer now than walking the streets of Dallas at night or Istanbul during the day. I might not get this chance again—and working in the harem was making me increasingly antsy.

  As I pushed through the crowd, jar on my shoulder, I puzzled through why he would follow. Had I been single, I might have been in danger. Because I was wedded, anything, whether rape or seduction, would be adultery because the definition of adultery rested on the female.

  It was less of a moral law and more of a—I gritted my teeth at this—property issue. A man had to know that his children were his. However, everyone knew that I was married. Since I didn’t think this soldier would risk being stoned to death for raping a married woman, I looked for another reason.

  Why was this guy following me? I lowered my jar, then ducked into an alley to check my theory. He walked past, looking around with his eerie blue eyes. There were dozens of women carrying stuff on their shoulders and heads, moving through the streets. I watched as he hurried a little to catch up with a woman whose jar looked like mine. I slipped out of the alley and followed him.

  Only when she turned down a street did he notice she wasn’t me. I about-faced, knowing that he was looking all around him now, wondering where I’d gone. It was kind of fun—certainly more so than fetching and carrying dozens of garments to whiny women!

  After a few more false tries, a couple of times of losing him and being sighted, I realized I had a major problem on my hands: I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know my way around Mamre. It was getting closer to evening; the streets were emptying.

  The soldier had said by the city gates, so I followed some day merchants who would stay outside the city. Through pure luck I managed to overhear two Mitanni discussing the lentil soup that was served at The Honey Bee. My jar had grown heavy, despite being empty.

  I attached myself to them, walked in the tavern, and was told I had to leave my jar outside. Hoping it wouldn’t be stolen, I complied, then approached the bar. The man looked me up and down, then jerked his chin toward the back of the room.

  I walked through a curtained doorway.

  “Shalom,” Yoav said. Avgay’el sat next to him.

  “Shalom, adon, g’vret. You wished to see me?”

  “You lost my man very well,” he said. “This lets me know you are who I look for.”

  I said nothing, though I wondered what he meant. Play poker, Chloe. Don’t let him know what you are thinking.

  “B’vakasha, seat yourself,” he said with a wry twist of his lips.

  B’seder, Yoav, I too remember when the roles were reversed. I took the stool that was the room’s only choice, my glance moving between Dadua’s second wife and his second in command. Wasn’t it unusual for them to be here? Alone? Together?

  I’ve become a busybody, I thought.

  He leaned forward, the black curls by his ears falling forward. “Your husband is an Egyptian scribe, isha?”

  “He is,” I said. “And you, a ‘goddess’? What else besides? Do you spin gold from straw, a secret you forgot to tell us?”

  “Lo.”

  He sat back. “I know from our dealings in Ashqelon that you are no stranger to strategy,” he said. “Tonight you have confirmed that. You are aware of your surroundings, you know how to blend into the light and shadow. How is this?”

  I glanced at Avgay’el. Her eyes were dark, but kind. Or was this “good Israeli/bad Israeli” they were playing on me? “Why do you want to know?” I asked. “What lessons was I supposed to learn by your man following me through the city?”

  “A city you do not know,” he said. “Among a people to whom you do not belong. Yet you disguised yourself with a jar, covered your hair and ears so that no one would give you a second glance.”

  I said nothing. There had been no forethought on my part. He was giving credit where it wasn’t due, but I certainly wasn’t going to tell him.

  “Who are you? What are you?”

  “You said it yourself. A ‘goddess.’ ”

  His green eyes sparked. “B’seder. Keep your secrets,” he growled.

  “Todah,” I said sarcastically.

  He raised his brows at my tone of voice, reminding me that I was a slave and he was my master. Geez, Chloe, come on! “Forgive me,” I said, totally not meaning it.

  “Look at me and say that.”

  I raised my eyes to his; they were almost the same color as mine, though I doubted mine could be as expressionless as his were. For some reason, just as he had in Ashqelon, he really irritated me. I gritted my teeth, refusing to look away. He didn’t either. Another stare-down.

  Even if my eyeballs fell out onto the table, I refused to blink first. He must have felt the same way. We were focused on each other, neither willing to give in. My eyes started drying out, tearing up. Yoav’s bottom lids squinted, then filled with tears.

  “Ach! You two are children!” Avgay’el said, exasperated. “This will accomplish nothing, Yoav. Slave, isha, ach, what is your name?”

  “Chloe,” I said,
not breaking my gaze. The woman should know, since I worked beneath her nose day in and day out.

  “Klo-ee? Very well. You both win, now stop it.” Neither of us would look away, despite her words. Tears streamed down my cheeks, as down his. Avgay’el slapped his shoulder. “Yoav ben Zerui’a, your children act older than you! Stop it.”

  His eyes bugged in outrage, but he refused to look away. I started to giggle; I was staring down a Bible character! He started to chuckle. Avgay’el slapped him again. I was laughing in earnest now. She waved her hand between the two of us, then moved to stand there.

  My focus was distracted, and my eyes snapped shut. “Well, praise Shekina!” she said. “You two …ach ! Look, Yoav, all this time you have wasted!”

  I was rubbing my eyes, which were streaming with tears. “There was no waste,” he said. “I learned more about Klo-ee than if I spoke with her for an hour.” They had changed into another dialect, but still I understood. Was I supposed to? Did they know I did?

  “Isha,” he said, turning to me. “Do you want your freedom?”

  THE DESERT

  “TODAH,” CHEFTU SAID distractedly to the slave. The other slave, he reminded himself. Until the gold was dug up, loaded, and given to Dadua, Cheftu was nothing more than a slave, despite his missing ear chains.

  He looked out on the landscape. Not even a lizard crawled beneath the blazing sun, no breeze stirred, and the very air smelled sulfuric.

  Squinting against the light, seeing into the distance, he saw that it made no difference; there was nothing but the same terrain.

  The Salt Sea stretched beside them, blue green water that reflected the sky. No fish swam in its waters, no animals lapped at its shore. Chunks of rock, fantastically shaped crags of salt jutted up from the waters, littered the shoreline. Even the breeze carried the sting of salt in it.

  For one more day they would walk through the blazing heat beside these waters that offered no refreshment. To his west, the hills were distant and flat topped, riddled with rocks, homes for mountain lions and wild goats. And brigands.