Brothers

by Angela Hunt

  Idogbe lifted his eyes to the solitary, majestic figure in the gilded chair. “A woman, O glorious one. I have sought the Canaanite woman called Mandisa for many days, and Sebek, god of my strength, has led me to your noble house. If I had known she was serving you, I might have come sooner to offer myself. But not until I saw her figure among those destined for your wife’s eternal resting place did I know that Mandisa resided here.”

  “You have not sought her in nine years,” the vizier answered. The muscles in his back and shoulders rippled in a fluid motion as he leaned forward. “Mandisa told me her story before she entered my household. You abandoned her when she told you she would bear a child.”

  “How was I to know she would bear a son?” Idogbe asked, smiling with complete candor. He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “A seer from the temple of Sebek assured me she would bear a girl.”

  “And so you left her?” The vizier’s left eyebrow rose a fraction. “You took a woman away from her people and homeland, you planted a child within her, and then you departed.” His handsome features sharpened into a glowering mask of rage. “I would not treat a dog as roughly as you have treated the woman you called your wife. The law says that if you abandon her, you divorce her. One-third of anything you own is now hers.”

  “But, O glorious one, I did not make her my wife.” Idogbe turned his smile up a notch. He lowered his voice and edged forward, as though being closer would help the vizier understand. After all, Zaphenath-paneah was a man of the world, and a man of his position would have as many concubines and wives as Pharaoh, probably more, since Amenhotep was still a child.

  “Mandisa’s true role was more like a concubine’s,” he said, hoping to disarm the solemn vizier with a let’s-be-honest smile. “She was a pretty thing I bought for my pleasure. I never promised to love the girl, and the silver I gave her father was not a bride-price. After all, she was a Canaanite—” he wrinkled his nose “—fresh from the fields.”

  “You didn’t deserve her,” the vizier snapped. “And you have no right to know where she is.” He nodded at the guard who stood at his side. “This man is dismissed.”

  “But surely a man has a right to his son,” Idogbe protested. “Even the son of a concubine belongs to the man who fathered the child.”

  Two impassive guards grabbed Idogbe’s arms. “I haven’t finished,” he cried, pushing them aside. “By Sebek’s destructive strength and in his name, the boy is mine. I have a legal right to him! By the life of Pharaoh, you should listen to me!”

  But the vizier was no longer listening and other guards swarmed forward, ready to eject Idogbe from the villa. A multitude of hands fell upon him, and though he could have beaten any single one of them easily, Idogbe allowed the guards to drag him from the hall.

  Once they had deposited him on the sands of the courtyard, he stood, brushed a layer of grit from his knees and fixed a steely eye on the bantam captain who had escorted him to the vizier. “The woman may not be my wife,” he said, forcing his lips into a stiff smile, “but the boy is my son. And as certainly as Sebek is lord of the river, I will find him.”

  Lost in the heart of Thebes, Idogbe moved down a dark street, searching for a market where he could buy a hin of beer or even stronger drink. The confrontation at the vizier’s house had lit a hot, clenched ball of anger at his center. Passersby scurried out of his way; he knew he made a frightening picture. Frustration always brought a hard frown and a glint of temper to his face.

  He would not let himself be stopped by this powerful puppet of Pharaoh’s. A man could own but a few eternal things in life: his name, his soul and his sons. Neither the vizier nor Pharaoh himself had a right or a reason to keep Idogbe from his boy.

  Turning toward the west, he moved with unhurried purpose toward the riverfront. From the birdlike steward he had learned that his wife had been Lady Asenath’s handmaid, and he also knew that noble lady lay quiet in her chambers, still awaiting her tomb. So if Mandisa had truly left the vizier’s house, she had not had time to go far.

  And all things moved along the river. Even in its depleted state, the Nile was still the lifeblood of Egypt, carrying its people upon its verdigris back, watering the earth, bringing life and nourishment to an otherwise parched land. No one traveled without stopping for food in its merchant stalls. Wherever Mandisa had gone, she had followed the Nile. And since she would not go toward Canaan in the north, she had assuredly ventured south.

  Humming a confident tune, Idogbe strode toward the river.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  T he long train of ox-drawn wagons snaked from one horizon to the other as Yaakov, his sons, their wives, children and flocks moved toward Mizraim. Behind them lay a trampled bit of dry earth with empty pens for sheep and goats, a desolate land that no longer held a chance for life or happiness.

  With so many, Shim’on knew the seventeen-day journey was certain to take twice its normal time. The women did not like to move quickly, and the children complained about the heat and the unusual routine. Many of the animals were weak from starvation and thirst; more than a few collapsed as the family moved forward. Re’uven commanded that the dead animals should be left where they lay and not skinned, an extravagant waste if Yosef had not promised to provide for all of them.

  Shim’on made certain his sons handled his share of the family herds, then he fell into step beside his father’s wagon. Dina rode in the back under a canopy, her face hidden by a thick veil intended to keep out dust. Shim’on wondered if she wore it to keep out the world.

  “Dina?”

  “Yes, Shim’on?”

  He squinted toward the horizon, then shifted his gaze to the back of his father’s head. Yaakov had not turned; he probably dozed in the heat.

  “Before we left, I went to our family’s burial cave.”

  She did not lift her veil, and he wondered if she had heard him. He could not see her eyes, only a slight movement of the veil as it fluttered with her breathing.

  Finally, she answered. “What did you expect to find there?”

  He let out a short laugh touched with embarrassment. He had hoped to find proof that her faith in God was useless. He had come home convinced that she spoke the truth.

  “I didn’t find what I expected,” he answered, wiping sweat from his brow. “But I did find—something.”

  She shifted under the veil as the wagon creaked and jounced. “Will you tell me?”

  His pulse began to pound at the memory of his encounter. “I felt like a man who has spent his entire life gazing upon the world and thinks he sees with the strongest and keenest sight a creature can possess. But then a voice summoned me, and just as a man’s power of sight is dimmed and confused when he gazes at the sun’s brilliance, I was compelled to admit my sight is nothing. And every idea, every belief I have ever held must be reevaluated in the light of this new brightness, in the knowledge that God Shaddai cares—even about me.”

  Dina did not answer, but Shim’on had not expected a reply. He walked in silence for several moments, knowing that she understood. Despair and grief had driven her to God Shaddai years ago.

  “Were you frightened?” she asked, after a long silence.

  “Yes, but yet not afraid. He told me…I was loved.”

  He saw the gleam of a smile beneath her veil. “Yes, that is how He is,” she whispered, folding her hands at her waist. “To embrace Him is to know power, glory, agony, bewilderment and fear—but never to be afraid. He is unutterable love, Shim’on. Though the world burns around you, He is love.”

  Shim’on did not understand everything she meant, but he nodded and slowed his pace until the wagon pulled ahead.

  Of all his siblings, only Dina seemed to understand why his visit to the burial cave had left him shaken and unsteady. He had heard countless stories about how God spoke to Avraham and Yitzhak. Yaakov had often told the story of the night when he wrestled the angel of the Lord and earned the name Yisrael, or “he who strives with God.” But u
ntil the Cave of Machpelah, Shim’on had never heard the voice of God, had never imagined that he might personally strive with such an exalted being.

  The experience had humbled him and broken his furious spirit. After encountering the mind of God, he had seen his anger as a madness that would bring nothing but shame. Un-checked, it would bring death. But God was merciful. He would forgive.

  On the long walk from the cave back to the camp, Shim’on realized what Mandisa meant when she told him he was not a man who could love. Shim’on would yet prove to her that he had changed. But first, there were wrongs to right.

  He quickened his pace until he again walked abreast of his father’s wagon. Yaakov sat at the front, his lined face turned toward the sun, his eyes closed.

  Shim’on walked closer, matching the oxen’s plodding gait. “Father?”

  “Yes, my son?” Yaakov’s eyes did not open, and Shim’on wondered if the old man even cared which son of Lea addressed him. For Binyamin those faded eyes would open, for Yosef they would even weep.

  Enough. He had come to make peace, not to stir up old jealousies.

  “Father, I have heard the voice of El Shaddai.”

  Yaakov’s eyes did open then, and Yisrael turned toward him, astonishment lifting the lines on his face. “You, Shim’on?”

  “Yes.” Shim’on ignored the insult in the question.

  “And what,” Yisrael said, his tone filled with awe, “did God Almighty say to you?”

  “The God of your fathers,” Shim’on answered, staring at the dusty path beneath his feet, “told me we should not fear to go into Egypt. He warned that we should not worship gods made of stone or wood.”

  Yaakov turned his face back to the sun. “Anything else?”

  Shim’on fingered his beard and stared forward. “The voice told me that El Shaddai would be found if I seek Him with all my heart and soul. ‘When you are in distress,’ He said, ‘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.’”

  Yaakov seemed preoccupied for a moment, then he rested his hands on his knees and gave Shim’on a rare smile. “El Shaddai spoke to me, too, last night at Beersheba. He told me that He would not forsake us in Egypt. We will go down to Mizraim, but in time God will bring us up to Canaan again. And then,” his voice echoed with wonder, “El Shaddai promised that when I die, Yosef will close my eyes.”

  Sunshine broke across the old man’s face at this last remark, and the twin adders of hate and jealousy rose in Shim’on’s breast. In an effort to beat down the emotions that threatened to choke his voice, he punched the sand with his staff. He had come to this wagon to make peace.

  “Father, you must forgive me.”

  “Forgive you, Shim’on?”

  “For hating you.” Shim’on heard a trace of venom in his voice, but he could not erase it. “I hated you for not loving my mother. I hated you for favoring Yosef, then Binyamin. I hated you for placing my mother and my brothers before Rahel when we advanced to meet Esav. I hated you for not rising to defend Dina when Shekhem accosted her.” The bitterness and regret of a lifetime rose in his throat, shredding his voice. “And I hated you especially for not stopping me when I took Dina’s child into the wilderness.”

  Shim’on waited for a response, and when none came, he dared to look up at his father. Yaakov sat motionless in the wagon, his chin set in a stubborn line, his expression pained.

  “Father, will you forgive me?”

  After a long, brittle silence, Yaakov spoke. “I am weary, Shim’on.”

  Had he not heard a word? Or was he choosing to ignore Shim’on’s confession?

  At that moment Shim’on understood the release that comes from asking forgiveness, and the sting of forgiveness withheld.

  Was this how Mandisa had felt when he turned from her at the vizier’s house? Even though in his heart he knew she had not meant to insult him, he had enjoyed denying her forgiveness. And so he had wounded her again. Just as Yaakov’s silence hurt him now.

  For a long interval Yaakov sat in the cart, staring mindlessly over the heads of the oxen. Finally he drew a deep breath. “I have lived a long life,” he said, his voice dull and troubled. “I have done a few things to honor God, but many times, in my weakness and deception, I have dishonored His name. In a bit of trickery, I pretended to be my brother to steal his birthright. In a similar bit of trickery, Lea pretended to be Rahel to steal my love. God has not let me escape unscathed from my wanton deeds, and I fear I have paid the price for my mistakes with you, Shim’on.”

  “Father, I—”

  Yaakov cut him off with a gesture. “I fell short as a son, and I have fallen short as a father. I am not a perfect man.”

  He turned, eyeing Shim’on with a calculating expression. “I had to keep peace between two wives, Shim’on, and you have none. I had to keep peace between twelve sons, and you have only six. Can you be a better father and husband than I with no wives and half as many sons?”

  A muscle clenched along his jaw as he turned again to the horizon. “Judge your own house before you judge mine, Shim’on. Set your affairs in order. When you are a perfect man, come to me again.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  M andisa swallowed hard and squared her shoulders, willing herself to walk yet another fifty paces. At her right hand the river gleamed pale and gray beneath a silvery path of light cast by the moon. “Only a little farther, Adom,” Mandisa said, her voice sounding worn in her own ears. Adom did not complain, though they had been walking all day. She felt as though she had been walking her entire life.

  Two full weeks had passed since they left the vizier’s house, and in the past twenty days they had wandered through Hierakonpolis, a city nearly as bustling and prosperous as Thebes, and half a dozen smaller villages. Any one of the towns would have been a good place to settle, but she had decided to take Adom to Elephantine, an island city near the river’s first cataract. When El Shaddai again blessed the earth with floodwaters, Elephantine would be the first community to receive the benefits and blessings of the Nile’s annual inundation.

  Though an emerald strip of river grass still bordered the Nile, Mandisa yearned to see green when she lifted her eyes to the east and west. The emmer fields, from which the sun used to drink steam, now lay empty and barren. Even the skies had changed in the years of famine. The flocks of wild geese, pintail ducks and wigeons that used to swarm over Egypt had vanished as if they knew they could no longer nest in the bosom of the land.

  Beside her, Adom yawned, and Mandisa felt a flash of sympathy for her son. The poor boy would have to adapt to life outside a luxurious palace, for there would be no garden or servants or maids in whatever household Mandisa could afford to furnish for him. Yet she was glad she had left the vizier’s house while Adom was young. He was nearly old enough to choose a trade for himself, and a practical, ordinary outlook would be good for him. She would have to learn to make her own way in the world; Adom would, too.

  As the sun sank toward the west and lengthened the shadows along the riverbank, Mandisa pointed toward a small huddle of trees. “There, Adom, is a sheltering place,” she said, studying the riverbank to make certain no hippos or crocodiles had decided to beach themselves at the same spot. Since the drought had lowered the river’s water level, the water creatures had become hungry and restive in their confinement. More than once Mandisa had been warned that dangerous animals lurked in the river grasses, waiting for a passerby to stumble and fall in the dark.

  But the sparse stand of trees lay thirty paces from the river’s edge on a high mound of gray earth. “Here, Adom.” Exhausted, she found a sheltered spot under the branches of a still-green acacia. She cleared the ground with her sandal, checking to be sure no spiders or scorpions hid among the dry brush at her feet, then sat down with her back against the spindly tree trunk. Adom sat next to her, hugging his knees. She knew within a few moments the boy in him would overpower the emergi
ng man. Funny how worry and weariness made children of men. Shim’on had behaved much the same way.

  Adom’s breathing slowed and deepened; his head fell upon her shoulder. Relieved that he slept so soon, she looked up at the sky above. Silver moonbeams laced the branches of the acacias; a quarter moon the color of dappled stone hung in the eastern sky. The dense papyrus beds along the edge of the river vibrated with insect life; beyond them, the silver water of the Nile shimmered against an endless sky. Mandisa closed her eyes and thanked God Almighty for another day of survival.

  For it was El Shaddai who had brought her safely through the land, and no other god. None of Egypt’s divinities had the power to predict the famine or provide the food she and Adom had eaten. They had found dates overlooked by harvesters, grapes growing wild on vines by the riverside. One merchant, about to toss the crocodiles his leftover shat cakes, had changed his mind and given them to Mandisa and Adom instead.

  No, none of Egypt’s gods could provide like El Shaddai, but they were as plentiful as fleas on a dog. As she and Adom had traveled down the riverfront, Mandisa marveled at the many temples, statues and shrines along the riverbank. Some of the elaborate shrines were made of stone and decorated with festive paintings; others were as simple as a small statue concealed within a hut of sticks and twigs.

  She supposed her years in the vizier’s house had dulled her memory of Egypt’s pantheon of deities. Though Ani and a few of the household servants held special reverence for certain gods, Zaphenath-paneah had not allowed graven images in his private quarters or his temple.

  Apparently the famine had invoked a national resurgence in personal piety. Every city, town and village had erected a statue of its patron god or goddess at its gate in order to keep harm and want outside the city limits. In addition, each house had at least one replica of a favorite deity standing guard at the doorpost.