by Angela Hunt
But at his right hand the land gathered itself into deep folds. Rocky cliffs rose above the barren landscape, and in the mountainous formation Shim’on thought he could see the vague outline of a cave.
He dismounted and pulled the brawling donkey with him toward the rocks. No trees remained to shade the place; only a few withered stumps marked the spot. Shim’on knelt at the base of the cut-off trunk nearest to the entrance of the cave. If the baby had died, wouldn’t its bones be buried here beneath the sand? Or had the vultures and jackals scattered them?
He poked a finger into the dry sand and moved aside a handful of dirt.
Nothing.
Using both hands, he scooped out a sizable hole and let the coarse powder trickle through his fingers.
Again nothing.
Crying aloud in frustration, he pushed his hands through the sand to his elbows, struggling against the weight of the earth as he thrust it upward. He pawed frantically, searching for even a tiny bone, some fragment he could show Dina to prove that her talk of dreams was as senseless as describing color to a blind man.
The claws of the wind raked at him, but still he dug, desperate for some shred of evidence. Dirt blew into his eyes and hair and between his teeth; he spat and cursed and continued flinging sand over his shoulders, scraping and burrowing around the base of the dead and withered tree. The heat, radiating from the sand, came at him like a mortal enemy, invading his mouth and nostrils as he gasped for breath. The hot sand beneath his hands and knees scalded and blistered his skin even through the fabric of his robe, but Shim’on did not care.
If he could find something here, even a shred of rotted fabric, he could assure Dina that this chapter of her life was done, forever finished. She had accused him of living in a past where Yaakov did not love Lea, but did she not live within a fantasy world of her own making? If she would accept that her child was dead, she could open her eyes to the real world. But she would have to see that God Shaddai did not work miracles, that the past could not be changed, that Shim’on was the monster who had murdered her child, so he deserved the burden of scorn he carried.…
He clutched at a white shard in the sand and pulled it out, but it was the broken bone of an animal, probably a lion. Such a large bone would not fool Dina; she would insist upon believing in hope, forgiveness, even resurrection.
“God Shaddai!” He pressed his sandy, sweaty palms to his wet forehead. “If You are Almighty, why have You never helped me? My father says You guided him, Dina says You preserved Yosef, and yet You thwart me at every turn!”
The blindingly bright sand beneath him went dark. Shim’on looked up; the sky above him churned as a mass of dark, boiling clouds blew in from behind the horizon. As the atmosphere congealed around him, the donkey brayed and rolled its eyes toward the back of its head. A sudden, inexplicable burst of thunder sent the animal cantering over the trail of its own hoofprints.
Shim’on rose to run after the animal. “Stop!” The bawling winds snatched his voice away. No match for the terrified beast, after a moment he stopped running. Above him lightning cracked the skies apart, and yet Shim’on knew the storm would not bring rain. Yaakov’s Almighty, illogical God had forsaken this land; He now loved Egypt, not Canaan. Just as Yaakov loved Rahel, not Lea, and Rahel’s sons, not Lea’s. Yaakov had even allowed his second son to be named Shim’on, “the Lord knows I am not loved…”
Shim’on’s brooding misery seemed to burgeon and spread until it mingled with the innumerable other sorrows borne by Lea, Re’uven, Levi, Yehuda, Yissakhar, Zevulun, Gad, Asher, Dan, Naftali and Dina.
“Why, Father?” Shim’on sank to the sand and pressed his hands over his face, assailed by an overwhelming sense of bitterness and regret. “Why couldn’t you love us?”
The wild wind hooted as if to mock him, but through the moving air a shaft of dull gray light broke from the dark clouds and inched across the plain. Peering through his fingers, Shim’on watched it, tired and uncomprehending, until the searching light shone upon him.
A devouring heat singed his scalp and shoulders. He gasped, panting in terror, and looked up. A whirling ball of fire hovered in the sky above him, bright as a thousand suns. Shim’on felt sweat run from his forehead and under his arms, then a voice shattered the last vestige of his composure: I love you.
Beneath the damp hair of his head his scalp tingled, and panic welled in his throat. Was he losing his mind? He choked back a cry, more frightened than he had ever imagined he could be, and the gale around him increased from its first warning blasts to a great current of roaring air.
Curling to the ground, he closed his eyes and bowed his head, trying to maintain his fragile control. The sun had burned his eyes, the sandstorm had addled his wits; men often lost their reason in gales like this…
His muscles turned to water when the Voice spoke again: I am El Shaddai, and I love all those who love Me. The God of your fathers is a righteous God, a flame that will not be touched and must be approached with care. Bow your heart, Shim’on, son of Yisrael, and know that you are kneeling upon holy ground.
Awe smote and held him, and he knew. No man could hear the voice of God unless he sought it, and Shim’on had been more willing in the last hour to hear from God than he had been in his entire forty-six years. He wasn’t losing his mind. He had sought God and found His august presence, and now he could not turn his back on God Shaddai, the Invisible and Almighty One.
He squinted up toward the burning heavens, his knees rooted to the ground. “El Shaddai?” Never had Mandisa or his father prepared him for the dominant and imperious summons of a truly Almighty being.
Be still and know that I am God.
The voice was unmistakable. Shim’on’s heart turned to stone within his chest, weighting his body so he could not move.
Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make your people a great nation there. But do not serve gods, the work of man’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. Seek the Lord your God; you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. When you are in distress, return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice. For the Lord your God is a compassionate God. He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant that He swore to your fathers.
The Voice swallowed up the wind. When it grew silent, Shim’on lifted his eyes. The flaming sphere had disappeared, the earth was soft and still, the air sweet with the scent of impending rain. Rocks danced in the steaming heat; from some distance away Shim’on thought he heard a bird singing.
Then, like tears from heaven, luscious, blessedly cool rain fell from a widening blue sky, mingling with Shim’on’s tears and washing the dust of defeat from his face.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
T o Ani and a few others who devoutly followed the gods of Egypt, Zaphenath-paneah showed an appalling lack of concern for his dead wife’s eternal welfare. “I cared for her while she lived, and know I will see her in the Otherworld,” the vizier told Ani one afternoon. “But I do not believe physical objects will be of any use in the spirit world.”
Horrified by the master’s attitude and the prospect of what others would say, Ani finally convinced Zaphenath-paneah to allow him to fully prepare Asenath’s tomb in accordance with Egyptian rites and traditions. Though Ani knew Asenath had placed her soul into the hands of her husband’s invisible God, the citizens of Thebes would question both the vizier’s love for his wife and his devotion to his God if he did not honor her with a proper burial. As a practical, sensible people, they believed in physical preparation and tangible gods.
And so to Ani fell the complete responsibility of preparing his mistress for the tomb. The lady’s tomb lay on the west side of the Nile, past the dried-up, barren fields which should have been emerald with new crops, past the row of temples lining the Valley of the Dead. Like other members of the nobility, a mastaba had been ordered for her upon the date of her marriage, and the rectangular, flat-topped masonry bu
ilding lay in a neat row with several others, just one “street” in the necropolis, a city designed for the dead.
The people of Thebes believed that at sunset every night the spirits of the dead rose from their vaults to linger in the doorways of their tomb chapels. Aided by magic formulas and amulets, they looked over the river to the living city, glowing like a lamp in the gentle dusk. They felt the breath of wind that moved over the river of life, smelled the sweetly damp scent of flowering crops and the aromas of mingled evening meals.
Burial was not an event to be taken lightly. Ani had to be certain that Asenath’s chamber was adequately provisioned with food, furniture and the lotus blossoms she loved. The temple of her tomb had to face the river; narrow passageways connected the temple with her burial chamber and a storeroom.
Asenath’s tomb also had to be populated with servants. Because the Egyptians believed her soul would live and work in the Otherworld just as she lived and worked in her mortal life, servants were imperative. No civilized eighteenth-dynasty Egyptian would consider burying human servants with a master or mistress, so specially engraved statues known as ushabti figures were placed in the tomb. In the other world these figures would be magically animated to perform their mistress’s bidding.
Since a host of slaves and servants had cared for Lady Asenath’s mortal needs, Ani hired ten sculptors to create her ushabti figures: miniature cooks, litter-bearers, guards, corn-grinders, herdsmen, dancing girls and maids.
The actual burial chamber lay beneath the surface of the ground, and a score of workers descended into its depths every morning to prepare the subterranean house for its eternal occupant. A team of skilled painters adorned the walls with hieroglyphic texts and pictures that described Asenath and depicted her most noteworthy worldly accomplishments. One set of pictures showed her sailing beside her husband, Zaphenath-paneah; another showed her with Efrayim and Menashe at her knee. The image of water was essential, for her soul would need water to drink, and the sail would encourage the breath of her ka to return.
Tomb paintings customarily showed the deceased standing with the god or goddess she had worshipped in life. When the artist came to Ani for instruction, he scratched his bald head. “My lady’s god?” He knew the lady had recently worshipped at the temple of Min, the goddess of fertility, but some inner voice warned him that she would not want that goddess staring at her throughout all eternity.
“Paint the sign for Neter, the Invisible God,” Ani finally told the artist.
The wall that would stand at the sarcophagus’s feet was reserved for an elaborate inscription to eternally remind Lady Asenath of her glorious funeral procession. Spelled out in careful hieroglyphics, the message foretold what would happen within a few days:
A goodly burial arrives in peace, your seventy days having been completed in your place of embalming. Your mortal shell being placed upon the bier and sledge dragged by young bulls, the road opened with milk until you reach the door of your tomb. Your husband and children, united with one accord, weep with loving hearts. Your mouth is opened by the lector-priest and your purification is performed by the Sem-priest. Neter adjusts for you your mouth and opens for you your eyes and ears, your flesh and your bones being complete in all that appertains to you. Spells and glorifications are recited for you. There is made for you an Offering, which the king gives, your own heart being truly with you, your heart of your earthly existence, you having arrived in your former state, as on the day on which you were born. There is brought to you the Son-whom-you-love, the courtiers making obeisance. You enter into a land given by the king, into the sepulcher of the west.
Despite his hard work and the success of his efforts, with every passing day Ani grew more nervous. The master’s brothers might return at any time, and the seventy days of mourning for Lady Asenath had not yet been completed. What if the master’s family came during the funeral? Would the Egyptian rites offend the Canaanites?
The mere thought of such a disaster shattered his composure. Enough troubles rose to vex him each morning; he did not need to invent new ones. Just that morning, as Ani stood on the deck of the felucca which ferried him across the Nile, one of the hired masons had approached with a basket.
“I have a question about this statue,” he said, grimacing as he lowered the heavy basket to the deck.
Ani peered into the basket. Inside was an ushabti figure, a lovely statue of a kneeling woman. The base of the statue had been inscribed with Asenath’s name and a magic formula through which the statue would be brought to life in the Otherworld.
Ani’s dread melted into relief. “Why, it’s perfect. What is the problem?”
“Who is it?” the man asked, lowering his callused hands onto the statue.
For the first time, Ani looked up into the man’s face. The mason had a stony face that did not look capable of any pleasant emotion. His wide-shouldered, broad body was adorned only with a working-man’s linen kilt.
“It is a maidservant,” Ani said, speaking as if to a slow child.
The workman stared back with scorn in his eyes. “I know it’s a servant. But who is it?”
“Lady Asenath’s handmaid.”
Unnerved by the big man’s persistence, Ani turned away, but the man grabbed his arm. “Does this handmaid have a name?”
“My lady’s handmaid is called Mandisa,” Ani said. “Not that it should matter to a common laborer. Mandisa is a lady.”
“A lady?” A flash of cynical humor crossed the man’s granitelike face. “Yes, I am sure she is. I know her and her daughter.”
Ani gave the man a triumphant smile. “You are mistaken. Mandisa has no daughter. She has only a son.”
The amused look left the man’s eyes. He stiffened, his square jaw tensing.
The felucca had reached the opposite shore. Ani stepped back from the railing, eager to be away from the man.
The sooner his lady was buried, the sooner their lives could return to normal.
Standing at attention in the vizier’s courtyard, Tarik dismissed his guards with a curt command and turned his attention to the list of concerns Ani had dictated for him. A season of adjustment had come to Zaphenath-paneah’s household, and Tarik wondered if these changes were truly for the best. Since Lady Asenath’s death, Tizara had taken complete and confident charge of the vizier’s sons, and Mandisa and Adom had said their farewells and left the house. The steward, whom Tarik had always thought unflappable, seemed irritable and distracted without a mistress to consult for the daily running of the estate. And Zaphenath-paneah, his mind occupied with altogether too many things, spent much of his time in Goshen or at Pharaoh’s palace. When he was home, the vizier walked around the villa with a distracted expression on his face. He was preoccupied with his wife’s funeral and the arrival of his Canaanite family, but Tarik wondered how much of his master’s silence was due to concentration and how much was a result of grief.
One of the slave boys from the gatekeeper’s lodge skipped across the courtyard, a flushed smile on his face. “Hail, Tarik, captain of the guard! Anhur of the gatehouse salutes you!”
“What is it, boy?” Tarik answered, in no mood for diplomatic pleasantries.
“A stranger stands at the gate, seeking word of Mandisa.”
“That lady no longer resides here. Send the man on his way.”
“My master Anhur has said as much to the man, but he will not leave. He demands an audience with the vizier.”
“The vizier cannot be bothered with petty trifles.” Tarik made a shooing gesture as he climbed the steps to the portico. “Mandisa no longer lives here, and we do not know where she has gone.”
The boy bobbed his head. “My master Anhur has said as much to the man, but he says he will remain until the vizier hears him. His name is Idogbe, and he says he will not leave until the vizier gives him his wife.”
Tarik halted. “But Mandisa is a widow.”
The boy’s shaved head bobbed again. “My master Anhur has said as much to
the man, but the stranger is no spirit, Captain. He is real, and has eaten nearly half the figs in my master’s breakfast bowl.”
Exasperated, Tarik leaned forward. “What has your master Anhur not said to the man?”
The boy blanched and took a step backward. “Why, nothing, Captain.”
“I thought as much,” Tarik said, sighing. “All right. Tell your master to hold the man at the gate until I speak with Ani. Then we shall tell Anhur what to do.”
“He says Mandisa is his wife?” Ani’s eyes widened in astonishment. “But she told us—”
“She thought he was dead,” Tarik interrupted. He had found Ani in Zaphenath-paneah’s chamber, finalizing arrangements for Asenath’s interment. “But the man is alive, he is here, and he demands to see you, my lord.”
He had expected the vizier to turn the man away with a polite word of regret, but Zaphenath-paneah looked up from his papyri with an undeniable gleam of interest in his eye.
“By all means, send him in,” Zaphenath-paneah answered, a look of implacable determination settling onto his face. “I would like to talk to a man who buys a wife and abandons her when she finds herself with child.”
Idogbe shuffled behind the guards, trying not to gape at the luxurious surroundings of the grand vizier’s house. Mandisa had lived here? Unthinkable that such a slip of a girl should rise to such an exalted position. So why on earth had she left this place?
The guards turned to face him, exposing the reception hall where a stately, remote figure sat upon an elevated dais. Remembering his manners, Idogbe walked forward and slapped himself onto the polished floor like a swimmer diving into the Nile. For Sebek’s glory, he must not fail in this.
“Life, prosperity and health to you, exalted Zaphenath-paneah!” he called.
“Who are you, and what is it you want?” The vizier’s tone was coolly disapproving.
