Sunrise on the Mediterranean

by Suzanne Frank

  RaEm moved her eyes over the people, cool and calm, every inch a pharaoh. Hatshepsut had taught her well. “I will enjoy your cool hills this summer and will delight in returning to Kemt with this budding nation’s offerings to Egypt.”

  After a long silence Dadua spoke reluctantly. “You are invited to stay. My palace is still under construction, but every effort will be made for your comfort.” Mimi would have docked him hospitality points for his lack of enthusiasm. Then again, his house was under construction. “Our celebration of the New Year begins day after tomorrow.”

  RaEm raised her chin a notch. “I wish you well on its eve. Do you celebrate?”

  Dion was glaring ferociously at RaEm, then glancing at Cheftu. I felt like laughing because Dion anticipated that I was she and expected Cheftu to react to that. Meanwhile RaEm knew what I looked like as me, but Dion didn’t. So she was also looking at Cheftu, probably surprised that he was alive and casing him to see if I was around.

  And I had to feed and entertain all these people.

  “It is a month for celebrations,” Dadua said. “In weeks we will bring the totem of my people into this city as its new home.”

  “I have heard of this marvel,” RaEm said.

  “Then you must of course stay,” he responded coolly. “As you are also invited, Zakar Ba’al.”

  Dion bowed his head just a fraction. Modern business power plays were managed by who spoke first. Now, they were using the degree and angle of head inclinations in the same way. In my time, he who made someone wait carried the power. Here, he, or she, who bowed his, or her, head the least seemed to broker it.

  Dadua was holding his own well, especially considering he didn’t have the experience of his fellow rulers. He really was a Bronze Age Bible character. RaEm had played around in the twentieth-century world. I guess Dion had lived through the past millennia. They both had a right to more polish, but Dadua was recognizably a king.

  How had RaEm become Pharaoh? I was dizzy with questions.

  Avgay’el touched my hand, speaking from the corner of her mouth. “Is dinner ready?”

  Hysterical laughter bubbled up. She had an immortal— make that two—three time travelers, the founder of the nation of Israel, and twelve Amazons in this audience chamber, and she was worried about dinner?

  “Klo-ee?” she repeated my name.

  Yep, she was worried about dinner. “Thy will be done,” I said on my way out.

  The New Year (Rosh—first; ha—the; shan’a—year) began with the shofar blowing. Each family would eat sweet things, pray to Shaday, and prepare for the Day of Atonement.

  Cheftu was cracking nuts and eating the meats as we sat on our balcony, watching the sky darken with night. It was our first moment together alone since the weirdness that was a transvestite RaEm and Hiram Revealed had showed up.

  “She’s Pharaoh?” I commented, still amazed.

  He grunted.

  “Has she said anything to you?”

  “Lo, though there has been no time, with the feasting, the harvesting, the preparing for the day, and the return of the totem.”

  “Has he?” I asked, though my tone was a little arch.

  “Lo, nothing.”

  I leaned my head back, looking up at the stars. “Why are we here? Just how screwed up is history that RaEm is on the Egyptian throne? My sister the Egyptologist would completely freak out at how we’ve messed up the past with this crazed ancient Egyptian!”

  “Do you not like being here?”

  “I’m with you, but you must admit it’s kind of odd. Nothing is blowing up, no one is sick. There are no fires, no locusts. In fact, I don’t know what our purpose here is at all.”

  He looked up. “Perhaps simply living?”

  I sighed, antsy. “Perhaps.”

  “Dadua just completed negotiations for the plateau above the Tsori Milo,” Cheftu commented. We could see it from our balcony if I leaned out really far from the southern corner of the window.

  “More land for us to inhabit?”

  Cheftu’s gaze sharpened. “Is there an ‘us’?”

  “You and me,” I said. “Just you and me.”

  We harvested the olives by spreading linens beneath the trees, then using long poles to shake the branches so that it rained olives.

  RaEm and Dion sat on opposite hills, alternately seeking audiences with Dadua. RaEm wanted gold; Dion wanted access. Dadua gave RaEm some gold; he assured Dion of escorted access. Still they sat sprawled over the mountaintops, their entourages mingling in the city, growing lax under the summer heat, glowering at each other, trying to get more out of haMelekh.

  Cheftu wrote: letters to Abdiheba’s old vassals, demanding tribute; documents that created a formal state with a governing structure; and transcriptions of N’tan stories. Around him the Tsori built the city of Jerusalem.

  Avgay’el was pregnant again. Mik’el never showed up for anything, ever. The mushroom sprouted breasts, and somehow her teeth began fitting in her mouth. The heat of summer faded into Indian summer—though pre-Indian, it seemed a strange statement. And every night Cheftu took delight in trying to impregnate me.

  It was Shabat morning, in the courtyard of the under-construction palace, where we all still were after the evening’s storytelling and feasting. The court—giborim, wives, priests, seers, and the ever-present minor nobles—were lying about in the sunshine like cats. My head was on Cheftu’s knee as we lazily munched grapes, listening to some musicians plink and pluck.

  From inside the palace there was a shout; doors slammed against walls, then another shout. Running footsteps, then Dadua stepped into the sunshine. The giborim were just getting used to treating him like royalty, affording him the protocol his station demanded, but there was a delayed reaction before we all knelt.

  “I have heard from Shaday,” he said without preamble. This was news; Dadua had been mournful because Shaday had been silent. “He has told me how to build his house,” he said.

  God’s house? What would that be? I wondered. Not a church or a synagogue—omigod. Suddenly I was fighting the urge to shiver and run. God’s house, on the Temple Mount? I swallowed.

  Dadua unrolled a sheaf of papyrus. “I dreamed, then drew the plans.” Motioning for us to step forward, he began to describe the House of Shaday.

  “It must be finely wrought from cedar and gold,” he said. “A temple that shows the most beautiful side to the world, but encases Shaday.”

  I looked at the plan. It seemed fairly small, compared with Karnak, where Amun-Ra was worshiped, or Knossos, home of the mother-goddess, but very elaborate. “It will be a permanent Tent of Meeting,” he said.

  Dadua was pointing to the drawing. “The outer court is here, where the sea and the fires are.”

  The sea was a huge basin of water. Huge. Sitting on the back of life-size bronze calves. The fires were at the top of ziggurat-looking buildings, a place for sacrifice. “This will be the outer court, where those who are not tribesmen, but who believe in Shaday, may come to be close to his glory.”

  His finger moved to the next enclosure. “This will be the court for women to worship. Here and here,” he said, moving his finger to the left and right, “will be storage rooms for the Levim priests.” The next space was the court for men, then for priests only, and finally only the high priest would enter the room with the Seat of Mercy.

  “The two pillars from the current tabernacle will front the building. The whole thing will be from limestone and cedar, the interior walls coated in gold, then etched with pomegranates and the winged lion of my tribe.”

  I watched the raised eyebrows among the giborim. With those emblems he would be making a clear point.

  God’s House. The Temple in Jerusalem. David went on to explain that this Temple would not belong to any one tribe; it would be the property of this city, which was the possession of Dadua. The strategic position of Jerusalem would be not only in bridging the tribes of the north and south, but also in housing their holiest
relic. Dadua would not only be king, he would be comptroller of the faith.

  He showed another piece of papyrus filled with his passionate but illegible writing. “These are the outbuildings, the priests’ offices.” He indicated how they would link through an underground passageway to the governmental offices below.

  “What does this symbol mean?” Yoav asked, pointing to a repeating character.

  “Covered in gold,” Dadua said.

  The whole Temple was going to be gold.

  We looked at the Temple drawings in silence. I wondered if these tough soldiers realized how this building was going to change everything. Had they brought back enough gold to do all of this?

  “What say you, N’tan?”

  “Most excellent, haNasi! This beauty is sure to please Shaday. These plans will be simple to execute. However, there is a great deal of gold needed.”

  Dadua met his prophet’s gaze until N’tan bowed his head. “Thy will be done.”

  The Feast of the Shofar, or New Year’s, segued into plowing season, interrupted by the Day of Atonement. Solemnly we stood on the walls and parapets and streets of the city, watching as a priest tied a red sash around the goat’s neck.

  One goat was sacrificed before the totem in Qiryat Yerim, coating everything in sacramental blood. We didn’t see that part. Another goat, the one with the red sash symbolic of the tribes’ transgressions, was sent into the Hinon valley to live with the garbage. He was the inspiration for the term scapegoat. The rumor was that if Shaday forgave the tribesmen their offenses, the red sash would turn white miraculously.

  Nothing was eaten on this day. We didn’t bathe or dress ourselves, as an outward sign of the internal realization of how we needed to strive after god. Although Cheftu and I weren’t tribesmen, we followed the ritual.

  The next morning the tribesmen were back to plowing and I was back to avoiding RaEm, Dion, and the entire surrealistic mess. RaEm wanted more gold; Dion—was just watching and waiting. He hadn’t sought out Cheftu, so maybe he had changed?

  At dusk the shofar blew, summoning us to the city gates. Dadua stood above us, the dying sun creating a ruddy nimbus around his head. Abiathar, the high priest, stood to one side, Dadua’s wives to the other. I was beside Cheftu.

  “Good people of Jebus,” Dadua said, “my friends, my family, my giborim. The vines grow heavy with fruit all around us, all about us el haShaday blesses our efforts throughout the land. In worship of him I have decided that the city of Jebus will no longer be known by this name. No more will the gods, the traditions, or the bloodthirsty rituals of the Jebusi be commemorated.

  “Tonight Jebus is reborn as a city apart from the tribes. A city fought for and won by myself and the giborim. It will be called Tziyon. This is the name el haShaday has himself given it.”

  What did Tziyon mean?

  “No longer a part of Binyami or Yuda, but a royal city.

  “Tziyon will be a city devoted to peace, to the worship of el haShaday. I will open her gates to any who seek to share their wisdom, knowledge, or skill with the tribes. Artisans may journey from any land to rest within her gates. Craftsmen from any tribe will be welcome at my table in exchange for their training. Scholars, scribes, and seers are forever after invited to stay for study, discussion, and to educate each other and us.”

  I was floored. He was talking nothing less than a Bronze Age renaissance! No wonder David had gone down in the history books. Especially the history book.

  He continued speaking. “The quarter once known for its prostitutes and idol shops will become an avenue of actors.”

  Actors? But the lexicon in my brain said, Actors = philosophers = thinkers. In this language there was no term for something as sedentary as thinking, no concept of an action with no visible end result. There were no verbs that didn’t actually move.

  “Already we are gathering scrolls from every country and culture to be stored here, available to any who seek knowledge.”

  “A library?” I said to Cheftu, speaking over the starting cheers.

  He nodded, grinning.

  Dadua pointed out where the new market would be; how the Street of Merchants would be expanded; where the new sectors of the city would be with new housing going up—literally—from here.

  This was going to be one hopping place, I thought. An open call for artistic types in a city that was already bursting at its seams. “Above us,” Dadua said, “I have purchased the Jebusi threshing ground, and there we will place the Tent of Meeting and totem. Tomorrow.”

  The shouts were deafening.

  Tomorrow the court and the country would travel to Qiryat Yerim by cart, along with most of the other tribesmen who could make it, and escort the Seat here, where it would stay forever. By moving the Mercy Seat here, Dadua was creating a theocracy. Both government and religion would be served by the same bodies and ruled by the same laws.

  Cheftu and N’tan would be leaving right after dinner, along with the other priests, seers, prophets, et cetera.

  Since Dion and RaEm were both still here, I was still on the clock. Smenkhare—who plagued us all with constant demands for more, whether it be food, wine, or Dadua’s gold—and Dion—alternating his costumes between Hiram the king and Hiram the contractor—were camped out. Dion was observing the building of the city’s addition from his mountain outpost; Smenkhare, RaEm, was lounging opposite, thinking of new ways to indebt Dadua to her. Tomorrow night an even bigger feast—this one with stuffed quail, since they were easy to find as they migrated south—was my responsibility.

  “So to Shaday, who gives more than we ask, who shows unceasing chesed, be these blessings on you and your families. May he make his face shine upon you and give you peace.”

  As though choreographed, the first three stars shone in the sky.

  “Tomorrow” had begun.

  I joined the parade route with Zorak, Waqi, and the baby. We were part of a larger group that included Yoav’s wives, Abishi, and his new Jebusi bride. The pathway down from Jebus was packed. People already had their positions on the road, where they were indulging in tailgate parties even without tailgates. Wine flowed, music filled the entire eight-mile journey, and the general mood was feverish and anticipatory—just like Mardi Gras, despite the polarity in motive.

  Yoav and the giborim stood as an honor guard before the walls of the city, while the ramparts themselves were already filling up with people. The closer we got to Qiryat Yerim, the more densely packed the way became. People, all drinking, singing, and dancing, filled the roads, the hillsides, the valleys. If we hadn’t been VIPs, we might never have gotten close. Still, it was hours before we arrived.

  I saw Cheftu across the way, standing at N’tan’s side. He smiled at me and toasted me silently with his wineskin. The mass stood before a barnlike structure where the Mercy Seat had been kept since it was sent back from the Pelesti two decades ago.

  We waited. Priests milled about in their best. Any moment now the doors would fly open, and with a shout the Mercy Seat would be pulled forth. Or so I’d been told.

  The crowd inhaled sharply as the shofar sounded. Slowly, beardless Levim boys pushed open the doors. The people held their breath. According to Shana, who thought I was still an ignorant Pelesti despite my free status, no one had seen this totem of the tribes for the past twenty years. N’tan, even as a tzadik, had glimpsed it only once.

  Rumors and legends had grown up around the Mercy Seat in the years it hadn’t been used. It caused plague, it fought other deities, the elohim on it portrayed how Shaday felt about his people.

  How that was possible, I couldn’t guess.

  The mass craned forward, curious and demanding. This was their totem. They wanted to see it, to see if its magic worked, to learn if the tales were true. It would be a formidable weapon. The conversations flew around me as the wagon rolled out.

  The Seat was a rectangular gold box. Standing on its top were two winged creatures, elohim, embracing each other beneath the swoop of th
eir combined wingspan. God was purported to sit enthroned between the elohim. The sun was blinding on the cover, the actual place where Shaday dwelt when he stayed with the tribesmen.

  I blinked, dizzy. Was I having a Paramount movie flashback?

  The gold-plated cart was being pulled forward at a majestic pace by two white oxen, garlanded with flowers for the occasion. The shock wore off the throng, and the noise level grew exponentially.

  The Be’ma Seat, the Mercy Seat. Only I knew it by another name, famous for being lost, famous for fictionally being found: the Ark of the Covenant.

  How could anyone sit between the elohim? I wondered. They were in such a cli— I frowned, looking at the golden statues. Hadn’t they been hugging? Now they were facing each other, male and female figures, holding hands.

  I could have sworn—

  The oxen walked forward, the Ark wobbling on the flatbed of the wagon. I frowned; wasn’t the Ark supposed to be carried on poles? “What is in it?” I asked out loud.

  “Within it, according to tzadikim,” the man next to me said, “are the original stones of the Commandments. The ones written in Shaday’s own hand. HaMoshe threw them down—”

  “You know he was in a fury,” someone else added. “But how could they know? Our forefathers had been slaves for centuries!”

  “Our forefathers were worshiping an idol.”

  “We’d been Mizra—”

  “Ach! Silence yourselves,” some woman said. Strangely enough, everyone fell quiet as we watched.

  After a moment the first man, who was a bit older and more educated, edged closer to me, answering my question. “Also inside are Aharon’s budded rod, which proved el haShaday had chosen the Levim as high priests forever. Last, it contains a jar of manna, the honeyed food of the desert sojourn.”

  My helpful neighbor also explained that God had designed the Levim robes: they were to be white, with bells and pomegranates on the hems, embroidered in white and gold. They wore turban-type head coverings of blue or white, depending on their position.