Sunrise on the Mediterranean

by Suzanne Frank

  “What language is that, isha?”

  I spun around. The slayer of Goliath, the sweet psalmist of Israel, the however many times removed grandfather of Jesus, stood not a foot away from me. “My, my …adon,” I said quickly, bowing.

  “How are you?” He glanced around. “This room is dank enough to be a prison,” he said. “How many more days do we spend here?”

  I felt a strange sense of peace steal over me. Did Dadua carry a force field with him? “I don’t know. How is Avgay’el?”

  Dadua sighed. “Still in this life, but very ill.”

  “I grieve for you.”

  “She is a good woman, better than I deserve,” he mused. Leaning against the wall, he slid down onto the straw opposite me. “What question were you asking Shaday?”

  “You, you understood me?” I was shocked. Beyond shocked.

  He chuckled. “Not the words, lo, but the nefesh behind them, ken. I recognize the sound of it.” He looked at me, a Rossetti in the raw. “What did you ask?”

  Why not ask David? I mean, if anyone really knew God, it was he, right? I licked my lips, fighting hysterical giggles. I was chatting up the king of Israel while waiting to see if I had the plague. Boy, was life weird. “I wanted to know if I still had free will.”

  “Because you were a slave?”

  Instinctively I touched the hole in my ear, the hole I rarely thought of anymore. I almost said, “No,” then realized that being a time traveler, I really was some form of slave— depending on one’s perspective. “Sometimes,” I said.

  “We are all slaves,” he said.

  “You are the king, how can you say that?”

  “Shall I tell you a story?”

  “B’seder.”

  “First, I brought some wine.”

  He poured and we sat. I was dazzled to be in his company; I guessed that he was worried sick over his wife.

  “A king is also a slave,” he said. “When I was no king, indeed I was fleeing the king’s wrath, hiding in the caves of Abdullum, I mentioned, on a hot day, how I would love to have some water, cool and refreshing, from the well in my father’s yard.”

  “Ken?”

  “At that time it was behind enemy lines. A dangerous path to get there, an even more dangerous one to return home.”

  “Did you not have water?”

  “That was it. We did have water. I was longing for the security of home, the refreshment of being with my family, yearning for the years before all this began. That was the meaning of wanting water specifically from that well.” He sighed. “So then: Two of my giborim slipped through enemy lines, drew the water, then came back.

  “It was an expensive trip. They were covered in gore, for they had had to kill several people to get the water.” Dadua licked his lips. “I was so humbled, so terrified.”

  I could understand the humility, but the terror? “Why?”

  “I had spoken thoughtlessly. Because of that, they had undertaken this feat that could have lost their lives. Over my frivolity!”

  “They were grown men, they made a decision,” I reminded him.

  “Ken, but they had made it because of my longings. I realized then, for the first time, that I wielded power.” He drained his cup in one swallow. “Power is as great an enslavement as any ring you’ve ever worn through your ear, g’vret.”

  “What about slavery to God?” I asked. “How do you know you are doing the right thing?”

  “The right thing?” he repeated. “If you do not worship idols, if you are faithful to your family, your tribe, Shaday …” He trailed off. “What other ‘right thing’ is there to do?”

  I opened my mouth to retort, but I had no response. Was it really that easy?

  “My mother is from the land, a cousin whose father did not go into Egypt,” he said. “They do not have the laws that we, the tribes, were given. For her, it is very simple. She doesn’t have to worry about the Seat, or cleanliness, or hal. Three things Shaday asks of them, because they are not chosen.”

  “They are … ?”

  “Show justice, love mercy, walk every day humbly with Shaday.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “They are not chosen, so less is required of them.”

  “More is required of the tribes because they are chosen? Why is that?”

  Dadua sighed, poured himself another cup of wine. “Being chosen is an extreme, b’seder?”

  I sipped my cup, tried to understand. He must have sensed my confusion because he kept talking. “Chosen means you are picked out, you are no longer just part of the mass, but you are an individual.” He flashed a smile. “Usually, the only reason someone is selected from a group is for a good end or a bad one. Take, for instance, sacrifice.”

  “The sheep and goats?” I asked, thinking of the scapegoat now living in the garbage dump outside the gate.

  “Ken. They are picked out, selected as the best, because their blood must be shed for us. Selection is for a high holy purpose, but not so good for the sheep, nachon?”

  I laughed. “Nachon.”

  “Or a group of workmen. The one who is singled out is either the best of the group or the worst, ken?”

  I nodded. “So,” he said with a shrug. “We are singled out, chosen for a purpose. Sometimes it is to be the best, to show how it is done. Sometimes, ach, well, we are the worst example. ‘This is how not to be,’ Shaday tells the other nations. ‘Ignore them now.’ ”

  “How does that—”

  “Matter to slavery?”

  “Ken?”

  “Because as the sheep belong to the shepherd and are picked to be eaten or be sacrificed, or as the workmen belong to the overseer and are selected to be promoted or discharged, so a slave belongs to his owner.” Dadua swigged his cup of wine. “We are slaves. Shaday is our owner.” He stretched out his hand. “The fields and hills, they are not ours.” He belched. “They are God’s. Every fifty years, no matter who owns the land, it goes back to the very first owner, from when the first tribesmen bought land here. That practice serves to remind us that we are tenants.”

  He poured wine into my empty cup. “We are here, fed, clothed, housed, and protected through our own wits, ken,

  but because Shaday allows it. If we break his laws, he will kill us.” Dadua laughed humorlessly. “Obvious, nachon?” He shook his head. “The land will vomit us out. We must guard against any transgression, and that is why.”

  Avayra goreret avayra danced through my mind. “Is this selection a blessing or a curse?” I asked.

  I’d been allowed to see pivotal moments in history. Was that a blessing or a curse? I was sitting here, discussing theology with the writer of the Psalms; was that a blessing or a curse?

  He chuckled, poured another cup. “When we were in Egypt as kings, it was a blessing. When we were in Egypt as slaves, it was a curse.”

  “So when you are the rulers, it is a blessing?”

  “Lo, even ruling ourselves at times we have cursed ourselves. Lo, the blessing and cursing come from what we believe of Shaday. If he is disciplining us so that we behave properly because that will bring fruition to us, to the land, then even a curse could be a blessing.”

  “I think I’ve drunk too much to understand,” I said, my head spinning. I looked at my cup, staring into its depths, wondering how badly I was slurring. “So it is a choice, then, to decide if the wine cup is half-full or half-empty?”

  He looked at the cup in his hands, surprised. He laughed after a moment. “Ach, because the level of the wine does not change, but our perception of it does? Isha! That is a fine lesson!”

  I silently thanked whatever self-help book I’d read that in.

  Dadua stretched. “We are all slaves, g’vret. You may be a slave to Shaday, to live a certain way or in a certain place you would not have chosen. But you are free, if you choose to be.”

  The next day brought the good news that Avgay’el, while weak, was alive. Also good news was that if Dadua or I were going
to get sick, we would have by now. The bad news was that I had the worst hangover of my life—from getting drunk with the king of Israel.

  Lastly, Sukkot, which had been postponed owing to the fire-shooting Ark, was rescheduled. Zorak, who came to free me from my cell, told me that for that feast we would all live outside in tents, decorated with the four species.

  “Which are … ?” I asked as we walked the labyrinth up to the light. I was amazed when we got to the top, because we were above the city, looking down on the Milo and the gates.

  “Ach,” Zorak cursed. “I must have taken the wrong turn.”

  I looked over my shoulder and gasped unconsciously. The Tent of Meeting?

  “G’vret,” Zorak said, “I must get you down from here, I don’t know what court we are in.”

  We were inside the tented enclosure, steps away from the actual Tent where the Ark would someday go. I greedily took in every detail. The walls were woven panels, fixed on poles that formed an enclosure around the main tent. Candelabra the height of a man were arranged on either side of the bronze seas that Dadua had shown in his plan. The Tent stood in the center, brilliantly colored, the front patterned with stripes in purple, blue, and red. Two columns stood before it, the only permanent structures in sight. They were as thick as redwoods, fluted at the top with a frieze of pomegranates and grapes.

  A wind swept across the plateau; automatically I bent to remove my shoes. In twentieth-century Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock covered the Temple Mount. Father said those Jews who were devoutly religious wouldn’t step onto the Mount, since they didn’t know where the altar had been and they didn’t want to walk on it accidentally. I understood this feeling. Terror, joy, a sense of awe.

  God’s Mountain.

  How did we get here? I wondered as Zorak led me back down stairs that ran straight up from the city’s limestone pits into the inner court of the Tent of Meeting—where the Temple would be.

  We got turned around again but eventually ended up on the streets of the city, at night. “When will the feast begin?”

  “Look out, g’vret, it already has.”

  Sure enough, lean-tos of palms were sprinkled throughout the city, striping the night with lamp fire. I suddenly felt very lonely. “Is this another of the feasts when the men will go to Qiryat Yerim?” I asked, thinking of how I missed Cheftu.

  “Lo, Klo-ee, from now on the Tent is here, so the celebrations will be, too. Tomorrow is the progression and official start of the eight days.”

  We bade each other good night, and I stumbled home, filthy, hungry, and heartsore. My husband was waiting with hot food, hot bath, and open arms. I took them all, but not in that order.

  The shofar signaled the beginning of the feast. Song drifted through my window, not that that in itself was so unusual, but the volume was. The streets were dense with people, those gathered in from the local tribes, all walking to the hillock above the city. From here I could see the Tent of Meeting, which shielded us from the power of God.

  After the last week’s display I think we all felt safer with that protection. Within that area was the smaller tent, the home of God. The warm tones of sunset fell on the mesa, coating it with liquid gold. Donkeys and oxen laden with produce, and decked in flowers, were being led up to the Tent. Burdened with cakes and oil and wine, the tribesmen hurried along, their joy stilted as they pondered in fear if their gifts would be accepted.

  In some ways it must be nice to know immediately if you were on God’s good or bad side. If the rains came, you were. If they didn’t, you weren’t. No dodging, no wondering, no seeking. On the other hand, repentance wouldn’t necessarily have an immediate cumulative effect. The facts were in the soil, the precipitation. Where the boody-trapped Ark came in to play, I had no idea.

  The throng bypassed us, since we were pagans and not allowed into the presence of God, singing, “Hosanna!” They were really loud; or maybe for the first time in my ancient journeys I found myself part of the masses. It was unreal that I was hearing it for real. Before we knew what was happening, Cheftu and I were caught up in the group, absorbed into the milling, marching tribesmen. We walked uphill rapidly, the crowd’s song our rhythm, until we were all on top of the mountain.

  The wind had grown stronger, colder; it whipped around us. In a wavelike pattern, the people fell silent as this otherworldly feeling engulfed us. From this promontory you could see all the hills surrounding Tziyon, all of the city. We were raised above the earth, suspended on the platform that was Jerusalem. Above us were only stars.

  “We see as God sees,” Cheftu whispered as we were separated into groups of men, women, and foreigners.

  All around us women were covering their hair. Through the crowds of people I saw the Tent of Meeting, illuminated by a thousand torches. The men left the women and children behind, outside the curtained walls, as they entered into the territory of God.

  I pushed through the masses, getting closer to the screens, near enough that I could discern the interwoven pattern of pomegranates, winged lions, then so near that I could hear the tinkle of tiny bells in concert. The music of the bells decorating the hem of the priests’ robes.

  Don’t ask me why I began crying. Not sobbing, but tears streaming down my face. I was here, for whatever reason. I was being allowed to observe this. Was this because I’d chosen it? Had it chosen me? Was I lucky? Or unlucky? What else was asked of me, or was my life now ordinary, the drama of time traveling passed? It was already October and still we hadn’t found another portal. Was it destiny to stay here now?

  “Why is it always the men?” a woman hissed behind me.

  “Ach, D’vorka, cease with your complaining.”

  “Still, I wonder. The men always see Yahwe. Why not us? We are the ones cursed with childbearing!”

  Obviously these were tribeswomen, not Jebusi, who were thrilled to have morning sickness.

  “Shush. We are blessed with childbearing.”

  Hushing her only served to make her louder. She snorted. “Tell that to my hips! With the birth of Yohan, I swear, my hips have spread so far that one is in Y’srael, the other in Yuda!”

  I had to bite my lips to keep from laughing out loud. “You call that a blessing? My Yuri, he says he can’t feel the walls inside me! He says it’s like loving a cave! This, this you call a blessing?”

  “Shush. Better not to speak of your husbandly relations in the presence of God.”

  “God? What? He doesn’t know what it is like between a man and woman? He knows too well! He knows why Lilith didn’t stay with Adama.”

  The high priest, the stones on his chest reflecting colored light upon the men, climbed onto a platform. He was visible to us all. His presence silenced the women behind me; the power of his office hushed everyone. He offered prayers, solemn and earnest. I imagined that the priesthood was a little nervous right now. We all said, “Sela.”

  “So why aren’t women in the Tent?” the woman behind me hissed. “What? We can’t repeat like these men?”

  “We aren’t there because who would take care of the children?”

  “Their fathers can’t?”

  The other woman said nothing; I had to force myself not to turn and see the look I felt her give her friend. “B’seder. That was a stupid question,” the complainer acknowledged.

  The priest said something, and all of a sudden people were passing food toward the front. Before us a man mounted the ziggurat-style stairs and we watched as a sheep’s throat was cut. I was a little squeamish—but at least it wasn’t a living baby.

  We sent the offerings forward: loaves, vials of oil, skins of wine, pots of honey.

  “So, the men couldn’t do this?” the woman behind me asked her friend.

  “You trust your Yuri to handle your loaves, make sure they get to the Almighty without damage?”

  “He gets the sheep to Shaday,” she said.

  “All your sheep do when they get there is die,” she said. “They don’t have to be in the best con
dition for that.”

  “And what, my loaves have to dance a jig for the Almighty?”

  “Better them than Yuri!”

  They smothered their laughter. I found myself stifling a grin.

  Priests, in cone hats and white-and-gold kilts, blew shofars. The men chanted in a rumble that seemed to shake the very mountaintop. A sudden gasp silenced everyone. “It is a sign!” someone shouted out. We were craning to see. Abiathar, the high priest, fell to his knees.

  “What is it? What do they see?” the woman behind me asked. We were all trying to see what was going on. The high priest hadn’t looked up, but the whisper moved over the crowd like wind over a grain field, stirring the stalks. My blood ran cold when I heard it:

  The scapegoat had come back, climbing up the hill and walking through the enclosure.

  The sash around his neck was still red.

  RAEM WAS SEATED, mentally penning a love letter that she would never send to Akhenaten, when the message arrived.

  “They live in huts tonight. Would you like to see my passages? H.”

  Hiram’s passages. It would sound nearly obscene from someone else, but not from Zakar Ba’al. RaEm told the messenger that her answer was affirmative.

  “Then if My Majesty will come with me?”

  “Now?”

  “Beneath the cover of guests, we can move you from one camp to the other without alerting those who watch.”

  RaEm sighed. Tuti would have to be cared for tonight. What had prompted her to bring him along, a small boy with the attitude of an emperor? “My slaves will know,” she said.

  The Tsori stepped a little closer. “Zakar Ba’al sent a decoy for you. She will wear your clothing, if that is suitable to you, while you will masquerade as her for a night.”