Sunrise on the Mediterranean

by Suzanne Frank

  “There is the high priest,” Zorak said to us, “Abiathar.” The man walked by solemnly, his breastplate sparkling in the sunlight. “Those stones each represent a tribe,” Zorak said. I looked at the high priest’s ornament. Twelve etched gems were set onto a metal chest covering, in three rows of four.

  The tribespeople were drinking and laughing as they watched the Ark trundle by.

  “The ruby on the breastplate is for Reuben, topaz for Tsimeon, beryl for Gad, turquoise for Yuda, lapis lazuli for Y’sakhar, emerald for Zebulon, jacinth for Efra’im, agate for Mana’sa, amethyst for Binyamim, chrysolite for Dan, onyx for Asher, and jasper for Naftali,” Zorak said in a rush. I looked at Waqi, but she was focused on the baby.

  “Memorized that?” I teased.

  “Everything must be memorized,” he said, watching the street. “We are to be a nation who remember.”

  “Sela!” said my neighbor.

  The people were throwing wreaths of flowers before the Seat, showering the priests in petals and praise. A woman danced seductively in front of the Ark, welcoming Shaday in a tone and manner that sent shouts into the air. Undulating before it, her smile wide and her gestures unmistakable, she looked more like a pagan priestess than a worshiper, but what did I know? Dadua’s smile was fixed, the finery of his crown and clothing as impressive as the priests’.

  CHEFTU WATCHED THE WOMAN: though she was lovely, she did not stir him. Her style of rejoicing seemed rather inappropriate to welcome the presence of the living God. Beyond her he saw Chloe, smiling with her friend Waqi, drinking wine underneath the still-hot sun. The mood of celebration was contagious. Even the priests were laughing, jovial.

  Dadua rode behind the Mercy Seat in another gold-covered cart, waving at the people, accepting gifts of wine and kisses. This was the first day of officially recognizing Jebus as Tziyon, capital of the tribes, his own city. It was a day of celebration.

  A day of idolistic celebration.

  There seemed very little difference between this and the many Egyptian rituals of which Cheftu had been a part. The Be’ma Seat was being worshiped much as a statue of a god. The people were wild with their senses as they escorted their Ark into their city. They walked and danced beside the oxen.

  N’tan stood beside him, watching the Seat pass. He glanced at Cheftu. “Why do you frown? Is this not the day that the stones admonished us to bring in the Seat?”

  “You’ve never seen other lands, have you?” Cheftu asked.

  “Nor other times,” N’tan said, tipping back his wineskin. “Why do you ask?”

  Cheftu watched the milling, dancing, drinking horde, aware that he could be in any of the times and places he had lived. Human nature did not seem to alter with the passage of years. “Shaday admonished you to keep separate, did he not?” he mused. “Ways to remember this were to not wear or use interwoven fabrics, grow no intermingled orchards, tolerate no mixing of milk and meat?”

  “B’seder,” N’tan said impatiently as they moved forward, pushed by the bulk of the viewers, all sweating. It was a long walk back to Jebus, Tziyon, but it was eased by the glee and abandon of the moment.

  “Ach, well, these things are all examples. Daily reminders that you are to lead lives separate from the uncircumcised, nachon?”

  N’tan was smiling, staring at the Seat. “It is covered in gold. It is beautiful, nachon? Won’t it be perfect in Dadua’s temple, the most precious stone in the richest of settings?”

  Cheftu looked at the Seat, frowning more. Had it looked that way before? The male and female gold statues on the cover were positioned on the far edges of the piece, leaving at least a cubit and a half between them. He looked away. There was something familiar about this, though he couldn’t remember what. His gaze met Chloe’s again. Across the stream of people she blew a kiss at him. Cheftu caught it and returned it, smiling. He was faultfinding, he admonished himself, why wasn’t he enjoying the day?

  Because …

  The procession was moving slowly, making its way through the press of raucous tribesmen as they neared the huge threshing floor of Kidon, the last stop before Tziyon. It was uphill from there to the city, but the tribesmen seemed not to notice. All around, the hills were terraced with vines, sprinkled with the red of pomegranates, rich with the bounty of the land. It was beautiful. But they are admonished to be a different people, Cheftu thought again. Perhaps, though—

  The crowd crashed to a halt.

  A slip.

  A slide.

  A Levi reached forward.

  “Lo!” the people screamed.

  Fire exploded from the sliding Seat with a mighty zzzzp.

  The Levi fell to the ground, screaming, clutching his arm. “I burn! Help me! Help!”

  The oxen tried in terror to get away, and the Seat slid farther.

  Gasping, clawing his chest, the priest writhed on the ground.

  The Seat fell with a jarring thud, flames shooting out from it.

  In mass chaos the people fled, trampling each other, screeching with fear as they raced away from the totem. Cheftu fought his way to the Levi’s side, dragged back by the bolting crowd as they tried to escape the Seat. Finally Cheftu broke free and ran to the man, kneeling beside him. The oxen bucked, edging the Seat farther up on end, two corners of it wedging into the dirt, the cover sliding. Tribesmen and -women screamed and cried, threw themselves on the ground, and raced for the hills, fleeing Shaday’s wrath.

  Cheftu’s hands moved over the man’s body, ascertaining what was damaged. Bits of bloody foam flecked the priest’s lips. His hair was on end, and scorch marks streaked his chest with black. Cheftu closed the dead man’s staring eyes, then he looked up. Only seven people—no Chloe, thank God—the frantic oxen, the instrument of death, and the resultant corpse were left. It was eerily silent.

  “To touch the Seat is death,” N’tan whispered. “I thought it was a punishment we were supposed to enact.”

  “Looks like Yahwe took that decision from your hands,” Cheftu said, his nostrils filled with the smell of burned flesh. He glanced up at the box, sitting at a seventy-five-degree angle in the road, erroneously named the Mercy Seat.

  N’tan took a step forward. “Stay back,” Cheftu said.

  “This man—”

  “Tzadik,” one of the remaining priests said, “you are not to touch the dead. You are a priest.”

  Was that yet another gibe at the religion of Egypt? Cheftu wondered.

  “What happened?” Dadua asked in stunned voice, running up from his cart, Avgay’el behind him. He knelt beside the body, also not touching it, staring into the man’s face, eyeing the Seat askance. “What happened?” His wife touched his shoulder as she tried to calm him.

  “Shaday struck him down,” N’tan said slowly. “The penalty is death.”

  “He was trying to keep it from falling!” one of the priests burst out.

  “What exactly occurred?” Dadua asked, turning to the young man.

  “The cart, it must have hit a rut.” The priest gestured toward the Seat. “The Be’ma began to slide and, and …” His face crumpled. “He tried to keep it from falling! That was all. There was no … he didn’t …” He buried his face in his hands. Dadua embraced him, glaring over the youth’s shoulder.

  Cheftu looked at the body, remembering what happened. What had that sound been? That zzzzzp sound? Then the man had fallen, clasping his arm and chest, crying that he was on fire. Where had the flames come from? The ground where the Seat was cantilevered was now black, also scorched. Cheftu backed away from the Seat. What was it?

  “Why would Shaday do this?” Dadua asked. “Ach, he accidentally touched—”

  N’tan spoke in monotone, his eyes closed, his hands outstretched. “We were welcoming Shaday and the Seat into our midst as though we were the focus for the occasion.”

  “You were acting like pagans,” Cheftu said, crossing the arms of the corpse in the position of death.

  “We were excited!” Dadua said
angrily. “We were delighted to have him among us again! There was no evil intent!”

  “The Egyptian is right,” the tzadik said. “We were focusing on the Seat like an … idol. It is not our possession, it is the residence of God.”

  They all glanced toward the Seat, sitting in the dirt, surrounded by a starburst of charred land.

  N’tan turned to another of the remaining priests. “Get some women to prepare the body.”

  The man, white-faced and shaking, nodded, then ran.

  “What did he die of?” N’tan asked Cheftu, crouching beside him.

  “See those marks?” Cheftu said, pointing to where the priest had raked his chest, clawing at his garment. “See his face? How his features are drawn down?”

  N’tan grunted.

  “I believe his heart seized up,” Cheftu said. “However, I have no explanation for this.” He turned over the corpse’s hand, his blackened hand. “Or the fire. Or how his hair is still on end,” Cheftu said. “More than one thing happened. A stroke when he realized he’d touched it? Or perhaps …” He turned the hand over again. “I do not know for certain.” He looked up at N’tan. “Who was he?”

  “My uncle Uzzi’a.”

  The words popped into Cheftu’s brain at that, the Bible story of the failed entry of the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. Why couldn’t I recall it earlier? he wondered. Perhaps I could have said something, warned them. He looked at the body, the marks on a man who was trying to assist. It made no sense.

  “What does Shaday want?” Dadua said to them all as he paced a safe distance from the Seat. “Can we not be like other people, worshiping our God in joy?”

  “That is exactly right,” N’tan said. “We cannot be like other people.”

  “We are to have no joy? No celebration?” Dadua asked, his voice rising.

  His second wife looked at the Seat with calm eyes. “Perhaps our joy is to have a different motive.”

  Cheftu coughed, hoping he was doing the right thing. “In Egypt we carry our totems on the priest’s shoulders.” He pointed toward the Seat. “Perhaps that is what those rings are for?”

  Soldered onto each corner, both upper and lower, were gold rings. Substantial gold rings. “If we carried it on our shoulders, we would be exactly like the pagans,” Dadua said in frustration. The smell of seared skin still hung in the air. What had burned Uzzi’a? The box appeared to be nothing but gold.

  Cheftu covered the body as Dadua stared at the Seat, then shrugged hopelessly. “I know not,” he said. “N’tan?”

  The tzadik shook his head. “We know not to touch it,” he said. “That has been passed down. To touch it is death.”

  Everyone took a step back from the Seat, as though reminded. Cheftu looked at the elohim. “N’tan?” he gasped, staring in horror.

  “Mah?”

  “The elohim?”

  The tzadik looked up, then screamed, throwing himself facedown into the dirt.

  Dadua stood stock-still. “Then it is true,” he whispered. “When we are in disfavor it shows among the elohim.”

  Cheftu stared at the box, at the figures that had been on opposite ends of the cover but facing each other. Now they were each turned away. The inlaid eyes of the female were focused in the distance. The statues had moved!

  Dadua spoke, his voice heavy with despair. “How can I dare to bring this box into my city, knowing it may kill someone who was only trying to help? How can we please such a God?”

  Cheftu stared at the Seat, noticing details about it. Etched into the sides were depictions of winged lions, symbols and letters, grapes and pomegranates. The top was ajar, allowing a small space no wider than his finger. As he watched, something black flew up and away. A tiny black thing. Then another and another.

  “The top is off,” he said.

  “Only Abiathar may touch it,” another priest said.

  “Get him,” Dadua commanded.

  As Cheftu watched, the little black things continued spiraling out of the opening. His skin was crawling. What were they? What was alive inside the Ark of the Covenant? He was grateful that Chloe wasn’t in range of whatever device this was. It shot fire, and it was infested. He noticed people starting to slap themselves as they stood around, talking, watching the Seat.

  One of the black things landed on him, a vivid dot on his white tunic. Hesitantly Cheftu picked it up, examining it in the late afternoon light. A flea. The Seat had fleas?

  “In the desert, haMoshe ground the gold of the Egyptian idol, then made those who had danced and defiled themselves before it, drink,” N’tan said, continuing his conversation with Dadua.

  “But Uzzi’a wasn’t trying to defile it,” Dadua reasoned. “He was trying to help, to protect the Seat. He was no pagan; indeed, he was a handpicked priest in good standing. But Shaday killed him,” Dadua said. “Is there no tolerance?”

  The tzadik looked away, closing his eyes as though trying to see something in his mind only. “We think motive overrides action,” N’tan said, his tone entranced. “We think the wrong thing, done for the right reasons, will be accepted.” The prophet opened his eyes. “It won’t. Shaday is mercy, but he is also justice. We forget the latter.”

  As though they heard their names called, the stones shifted against Cheftu’s waist. The mercy and judgment stones.Would they be of use now? Cheftu squashed the flea, then another.

  Abiathar came huffing up the road, his skirts lifted, his white chubby legs moving slowly. He halted when he saw the Seat. “The top is off,” he breathed. “On your knees, all of you! This is blasphemy! You court death!”

  The group, now numbering about twelve, fell on their faces. Cheftu heard nothing aside from the pounding of his heart. When he looked up again, the high priest was adjusting his breastplate. The hair on his head was standing up, and his white clothing was spotted with tiny black dots.

  The fleas.

  Dadua spoke to them all. “I will give Uzzi’a a state funeral. It is a bitter thing to be a lesson used by Shaday to teach others.”

  Dadua arranged for the Seat to stay in the barn of Obed, a local Jebusi farmer, until the king knew what to do. “I cannot risk the people of the city,” he said again and again.

  More priests had rejoined the group at the Seat, so Abiathar directed them to edge some of Obed’s scythe poles through the rings. Warily they lifted it. Everyone waited to see if lightning flew from the elohim or if another person was struck down. When nothing happened they carried it into the barn carefully. One of the priests began to remove the scythes, but Obed motioned to leave them.

  “But you won’t have scythes,” a priest said.

  “The Seat has brought plague to those who touch it, ken?” Obed asked.

  Dadua nodded.

  “I’ll get new,” he said. “My body is uncircumcised, as is my household, yet we will honor the Seat of your God.”

  “We will give you them,” the priest said hurriedly, glancing at Dadua.

  Dadua looked over at the Seat, speaking in an undertone to N’tan. “Can we leave it here? Will it kill them?”

  “I do not worship Molekh,” Obed announced.

  N’tan looked over at Cheftu, who shook his head. Did Dadua see their communication?

  “ Lo, this household will be fine,” N’tan said dismissively. “We who touched the Seat, however, we will pay.”

  Dadua’s color faded. “The death of a priest is not enough?”

  “We sinned as a nation. We are admonished to live separately, to honor God above idols and legends and nature, to honor him with our lives.”

  The realization hit Dadua. Cheftu watched his face change, the anger and indignation fade to shame and brokenness. “I led them in pagan practice,” Dadua moaned, falling to his knees, stricken. “I tried to make us as other nations! I led them in believing the Seat was an artifact, not the home of the living God!” He picked up clumps of dirt and manure, rubbing them on his face, in his hair, and onto his iris blue clothing. “Shaday, Shaday,
I was wrong! Forgive me for blaspheming your holiness!”

  “Are you sure we should leave the Seat here?” one of the priests asked. “Should we not try to take it into the city?”

  “And endanger more of my people when the sin is mine alone?” Dadua asked, his face streaked with brown. “Ani haMelekh. The responsibility is mine, as is the punishment.” Tears overflowed his eyes. “We need, I need, to know more of el haShaday. I need to be forgiven for my pride in marching the Seat before the other rulers to impress them. I need to remember that the Seat, the Tent, the practices, are for God, not for us.”

  N’tan’s black pointed brows rose in fury. “You did this for pride? To impress the pagans of Egypt and Tsor?”

  “I was wrong, I was wrong.” Dadua was sobbing openly now. “I thought nothing I could do would err, but I was wrong.”

  “el haShaday looks on you with favor, as no man has ever seen, but he is still God, beyond the mountains, beyond the sea, beyond the stars,” N’tan raged. “He is not controlled by us.”

  A point made abundantly clear today, Cheftu thought.

  “He is immortal and invisible; we are earthlings formed of dirt!” The tzadik spun on his heel, leaving. Dadua beat his head on the dirt, startling the animals that were being led away, drawing sympathetic glances from the priests.

  “As the deer thirsts and pants for flowing water, so my nefesh thirsts after you. My nefesh longs after you, Shaday, the living God. When can I meet with you? My tears feed me as I hear men say, ‘Where is your God?’ I remember these words as I pour my nefesh before you. In my youth I joined the tribesmen, leading the procession to where your house resided. With joy and thanksgiving, we were a festive group.”

  “There was no joy, no thanksgiving, today,” another priest said. “It was ownership, even lust.” He dropped to his knees, wiping dirt on his robe, crying out. “My nefesh is downcast and disturbed in my guf,my flesh. I place my hope in Shaday, I will praise him even now, for he saves me, he is my God.”