Reflections in the Nile

by J. Suzanne Frank

  Moshe sounded the horns and they were off, a ragtag group of victors who had never lifted a weapon aside from their prayers. Chloe and Cheftu merged with the slow-moving mass of people: old people, children, young mothers, and their shepherd husbands. Chloe shouldered the basket containing her few extra garments, her palette, a bowl of unleavened bread, and other necessities, plus the gold they had been given as they left. The guard station was far behind them now, and Chloe smiled in stupefaction that she was part of the Exodus from Egypt.

  The fountainhead of the Israelite nation—never mentioned by the Egyptians because it happened only once. Once they were destroyed by plagues on command. Once they lost their firstborn in a lunar web of blood. Once their slaves left Egypt behind them in shambles, Only once.

  Chloe glanced behind them, her vision obscured by the cloud of dust these six thousand clans were stirring. The din was deafening, the calls and cries of thousands of animals and children mixing with the chatter of women and the excited undertone of men.

  Moshe kept them moving, acknowledging the psychological importance of being on the other side of the great pylons covered with Hatshepsut's triumphs. They were free for the first time in four hundred years! The excitement around them was a living thing, even in the exhaustion from this first many-henti walk.

  By noon the next day the sun was high and powerful, slowing down the tribes and quieting them through exhaustion. By dusk they were pressing forward painfully, all straining to hear Pharaoh's chariots on their heels.

  Moshe called a halt at noon the following day, and the multitude sank with relief onto the sizzling sand, ate unleavened bread, then collapsed into sleep.

  Chloe was so exhausted, she could barely think. Cheftu had formed a lean-to with their baskets and cloaks, and they fell asleep instantly, waking refreshed in the cold night air.

  After throwing on cloaks for warmth, they ate dates and raisins that Meneptah's family had shared, then hefted their bags. As the tribes assembled, facing Moshe with the stars of Abraham numbering millions above them, a hush fell.

  Moshe prostrated himself, and the tribes followed suit, for behind Moshe was a funnel of fire, spanning into the heavens, twisting and spewing flames yet consuming nothing and giving off no heat.

  The former Egyptian prince rose to his feet and cried out over their awed and bent heads, “Hear, O Israel! Elohim is one God! He goes before us! Behold the fire of his power, wisdom, and glory! Arise!” As a body they rose and followed the flame tornado.

  Cheftu was rooted to the spot, his face ashen. “Do you realize where we walk, my beloved?” he asked. “We see such wonders, yet shall forget so soon.”

  “When do we expect Thut?” Chloe asked quietly.

  He glanced around and answered, “It has been several days. If they have not come already, then perhaps they will come after the seventy days of preparation. That gives us seventy days to get to the sea.”

  Chloe nodded, the remembrance of the carnage in Egypt clear in her mind. All those bodies to prepare, bury, and mourn. All those who would never serve Egypt because of the stubbornness of a king and the demands of an omnipotent God. She trudged forward with Cheftu, her mind flitting from one event to another like a psychotic butterfly.

  GOSHEN

  “PHARAOH, LIVING FOREVER! HAS ARRIVED,” Ameni called to Thut.

  He sat in his brown and bare gardens, the fountains empty except for dark stains, a reminder of the blood that had filled them, until at his request the Israelite god had removed it.

  Thut was unshaven, dressed in his blue mourning robes, his eyes red rimmed with the pain of the people who had come to see him. His magi, holding their children or siblings in their arms, had decried him for the stubbornness that allowed them to die.

  He was not ready to meet Pharaoh, not when he would have to admit the Israelites, those ignorant and uncouth slaves, had defeated him. Perhaps he was not fit to rule, Thut thought. Indeed, all he wanted for himself and his people was to live and die and worship in total and complete security.

  He ran a shaky hand over his face. She would not understand.

  Approaching servants, warned Thut of the coming battle. Wearily he rose to his feet, his gaze on the ground.

  “Holy Osiris!” he heard her say. “Even in the garden of the god, this calamity would strike?” Her voice was filled with outrage and more than a little fear. She did not look well.

  Her once lustrous black hair was dull, braided, and hanging down her back. She wore a tunic and kilt, emphasizing her royal standing only by the pectoral resting between her full breasts. The kohl that ringed her eyes highlighted the violet shadows beneath them. She fixed her gaze on Thut, and he inclined his head, not caring at all whether she was satisfied.

  She turned to her entourage. “Bring my nephew and me beer and food!” she demanded. “Then leave us.” Hat sat on the bench across from him, surveying the empty, twisted grapevines, the trees as bare as winter, without even bark to clothe them. Every blade of grass, every stalk of papyrus, every blossom in this verdant area … gone.

  Did she feel a tremor in her soul, he wondered, as she looked at her ruined country and her shell of a nephew? He had not bathed in days, and his robe hung loosely. Hat reached out and laid a hennaed hand on his leg. “I feel your grief, Thut I too have no—” Her voice broke, and she steadied. “I have no one to support me.”

  He glanced up sharply. “Even at this moment of grief can you think of nothing except power and the succession of Egypt, Hatshepsut?” His voice was rough from tears. “Have you no woman's heart? Your lover is dead! My firstborn son is gone!” His outburst ended, and he stared down at his hands.

  “I had that prophet in my court fourteen times,” he said. “Fourteen times! When the Nile turned to blood, I was surprised, but not too concerned. Then when the plagues struck as the prophet said, I was filled with fear, but too angry to take back the words the ‘mighty Horus-in-the-Nest’ had spoken.”

  She sat, silent.

  “Why my own advisers, even Lord Cheftu, pleaded with me to give in and let the slaves go, I could not. My pride was at risk. I did not care for Egypt, just my wounded pride.

  “The last time I saw Moshe, I stood before him, a shell of a man, and threatened him. I realize now, death was no threat to him. He had no fear because his desert god knew what I would do.

  “Yet until I beheld Count Makab dead, my friend Sennedjm dead, and my firstborn Turankh, lifeless in my arms-—my wife Isis actually killed herself from grief—until then, the impact of my decision was not clear to me.”

  He pointed to the parapet facing the city. “I stood there that night. Ra's weak eye was like blood, and it seemed to pour down over the people. Haii-aii, Hatshepsut! The grief I heard that night! The cries of mothers who had entrusted the safety of their children into my care! Me! A god! I am responsible.” The grief in his voice was double-edged.

  “My pride has murdered a generation.”

  Thut buried his head in his hands, shoulders braced against tears no god would shed. They sat there for many moments, in that wreck of a garden, one intent on repentance … the other on revenge.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE SINAI

  The days and weeks ran together for Chloe. The tribes walked each night, following a pillar of fire, which turned into a gentle cloud that shaded them from the sun during the day while they slept.

  Cheftu spent a great deal of time caring for the sprained ankles, pulled muscles, and upset stomachs of a people in transit. Their position in line had changed. They were now bringing up the rear. They were accepted by Meneptah, his mother, and D'vorah. To the majority of the Apiru, however, they were Egyptian, the oppressors of four hundred years. Only because Moshe had spoken to Cheftu and thanked him for pulling Caleb out of the fire were they accepted, Chloe felt.

  It wasn't that they weren't Jewish. Hundreds of other Apiru had joined the Exodus, people who had never heard of the Children of Abraham. It was that they were Egyptian, wealthy
, and of the priesthood, a thing that plain white clothing could not hide. Bred into Cheftu was an air of command, and Chloe guessed it was recognizable in her as well. So they kept to themselves and Meneptah's small clan.

  Her thoughts halted as once again she pulled up their baskets and arranged the cloak over them, affording some privacy and shelter. After digging a shallow pit, she laid several sheets of unleavened dough into it, covered them with sand, and lit a fire on top. She took out a pot and put it into the fire to make the soup that had sustained them so far. Elishava walked into the shade and seated herself on the hot sand, fanning wildly.

  “How are you this morning?” she asked pleasantly. “The walk was good, aye?”

  The older woman's dialect was difficult to follow, and Chloe smiled and said it had been good. She watched as Elishava poured a small amount of water on her hands and sluiced her face with it. Though Cheftu said the Jewish purity laws had not been written yet, the years of living in Egypt had made them a hygiene-conscious race. People began to arrive at their fire, D'vorah from walking with the little girls, singing songs and memorizing history, then Cheftu and Meneptah, who worked daily in one of the medical wagons. Chloe passed around the water as everyone rinsed, then handed them the soup and bread. As they did before every meal, Meneptah intoned a small prayer to the God of deliverance. “Thank you, O God, who makes bread from the field.”

  After a murmured agreement people began to share their days. Chloe alone had no task except to attend the tent and food, which was time-consuming and required organization but did not allow interaction with people. Aharon had suggested that the former priestess of HatHor keep a low profile, as there were already problems with the tribes whining about security and trying to worship other gods in this one God camp.

  The sun was high and hot, the terrain bare. The locusts had also been here. What would be known as the Gulf of Suez flowed off to their right, patrolled by soldiers protecting Egypt's borders—soldiers who were most likely dead, being the firstborn. Chloe chewed a lip as the others ate around her. To their left was the Sinai desert, whose towering mountain-tops were unseen, surrounded by dust and dirt and a terrible dryness that made one's scalp and nostrils bleed.

  But the Israelites were free. It had really happened. She drank carefully of the precious sweet water and watched as Meneptah forgot to eat, his gaze fixed on D'vorah. She was recovering well. The terrible burns on her face and hands had faded. She was no longer the fresh beauty she had been, but from Meneptah's dazed expression it didn't really matter. She had slipped into his family, loved by his mother, embraced by his sisters and brothers, and Chloe and Cheftu bet these two would meet under the marriage tent before the Ten Commandments.

  He leaned over, as if he could read her thoughts. “If he does not want his soup, do you think he will give it to me? Though I dreamt last night of salmon en croute with new pommes de terre and choc—”

  Chloe held up a restraining hand, while visions of paella, lobster bisque, and pistachio gelato danced in her head. “Do not talk that way. We have only been eating like this for maybe two months, Kaii?”

  Cheftu laughed and said in Egyptian, “Mmmm … just think of roasted fowl with pomegranate or fish stuffed with nuts…”

  Chloe shrugged. “From what I remember hearing, we have about forty years of this left.”

  “Perhaps, since the Great House has not pursued, the sea will not need to be parted, everything will go well on Mount Sinai, and we will not have to wander for forty years.”

  Chloe looked at him, setting aside her dish. “Do you think we changed history?” She watched the chattering Apiru.

  “I do not know what else to think. Thut is a broken man. I do not believe he would change his mind. He realized this was no stone god, but a living and breathing deity. He desperately wanted us to leave, though of course he threatened Moshe to save face.”

  “That is why he let us go?”

  “He did not care. Meneptah said his boy, Turankh, was in the chariot, the pink of life still in his cheeks, his youthlock braided for playing teams the next day. Nothing was on Thut's mind except his destroyed family and country. I can understand his preoccupation with his family; I cannot imagine his grief.”

  The sun was dizzyingly bright, and people were gathering their cloaks to sleep. Chloe shielded her eyes until the heavy cloud that covered daily came to darken and cool the day as a fresh breeze blew in from the sea.

  She rose, carrying the pottery plates to the sand. There she crouched and scrubbed them with sand, cleaning the porous surface, then packed them again. She was sleepy and lay down in the shelter of her cloak, her cheek against Cheftu's steady heartbeat. “I am so glad you are here with me,” he said sleepily. “We belong together. Even time could not separate us.”

  “If you had to pick a time to return to, Cheftu, when would it be?” she asked, eyes half-open in the shadow.

  He sat up a little and reached for the waterskin. “Where do you get these questions, haii?” He chuckled. “From Egypt? If it were my choice?” He thought for a moment, drinking sparingly, the mingled sounds of the thousands of people lost in the still daytime. “The time of Solomon. To see the Temple in Jerusalem … aii, that would be a marvelous, wondrous thing. Where for you, chérie? ”

  Chloe looked across the sands to the rocky cliffs that edged them in. Mountains on one side, the sea on the other. “To go back in time?” She shook her head. “Given a choice, I would have never done it. History was not an interest to me. Progress and change … things moving faster, more technology. I would have gone into the future.” She grinned. “I bet they even discover more ice-cream flavors.”

  “So where would you go?”

  Chloe chewed her lip. Nowhere without you, she wanted to say. “I do not know.”

  They laughed together, their tired bodies entwined. Cheftu spoke after a moment. “I am surprised you are such a woman of the future,” he said. “You have adapted to this world so well.”

  “Offending Pharaoh, murdering a girl—”

  “Chloe. Non, that was not your fault. You did not know.”

  She shrugged. “I have made a mess of things.” Except my art, she thought. My skills have quadrupled. My memory has sharpened. I am a far better artist than ever before. Somehow Cammy finds my work. I must glue the Exodus panels together and hide them.

  “Le bon Dieu will bring it about.”

  “Bring what?”

  “Everything.”

  A piercing horn jolted them awake, and Chloe, once her heart started beating again, realized it was atmu … time to move on. She rose to her feet. Cheftu helped her pack their belongings, dispersing the bread and dried fruit they ate daily. As she turned around he pulled her into his arms, standing in the purple smoke of twilight. “We will have a new life, Chloe. Together.” His gaze dropped. “Not in the future, not in the past, but living in the present.” He kissed her nose. “Remember that when days are rough, chéerie. ”

  GOSHEN

  HATSHEPSUT, LIVING FOREVER! stormed into the room. “This must cease!” she barked at Thut “You cannot sit there like a corpse before the Opening of the Mouth! You are Horus-in-the-Nest! You must avenge us!”

  He raised blank eyes to her.

  “We shall beg Amun-Ra for his guidance! We must bring those slaves back in bondage!”

  “I will not go after them, aunt,” Thut said in a monotone. “They have a powerful protector. I will not have more Egyptians’ blood on my hands. He will surely destroy us all.”

  “How can you say this?” she cried. “Have you no concern for the effect on our people?”

  “I have every concern. However, this god, he is … a, an … an individual. I will not cross him again.”

  She paced the room, fists clenched. “I never thought you to be a coward, Thutmosis the Third. We are the Great House! We must prevail! To do otherwise is to disturb Ma'at.” She turned and knelt before him, covering his dirty and unkempt hands with her own capable and gloved one
s. “We cannot unbalance the forces of the universe. It is unthinkable.”

  His weary brown stare met her worried gaze. “I will not go.”

  Frustrated, she stood. “Very well, then, I must return to Waset. I shall bury my high priest, Hapuseneb; my commander of the guards, Nehesi; my grand vizier … and my heart—” Her voice broke. A moment passed as she inhaled deeply. “The moment they are safely entombed, I will go after those khaibits myself.”

  He jerked back in surprise.

  “You shall be regent until I return in my glory, the Great House leading her troops. Then I shall take back my throne and you shall have to answer for your willingness to hurt the land we are entrusted with! You shall answer to Amun himself!”

  She strode from the room, and Thut knew she would not return from her vengeance. “O desert god of the Israelites,” he whispered. “Protect Egypt.”

  THE SINAI

  THE SOUND OF THUNDERING HORSE hooves echoed through the hot sand, and Cheftu woke with a pounding headache and churning stomach. He scanned the horizon but could see no signs of anyone … yet. He kissed Chloe hurriedly. “Wake up, beloved. That for which we have awaited is upon us.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “The Great House?”

  “Aye. Approaching.”

  She shook her head to, clear it and rose to pack away their belongings. “Shall I wake the others?”

  Cheftu nodded. “I will seek out Moshe.” He pulled her hard against him. “Be safe, chérie. ” He scanned the tent city until he saw the pennants denoting the leaders’ tent.

  The prophet knelt in shadow, his lips moving in prayer. “So, Pharaoh's heart has hardened again?” he said without looking up.

  Cheftu nodded, shaking. He was speaking to Moses. “I could not yet see the pursuers, but I heard their hoofbeats in the sand.”

  Moshe's head wagged. “Elohim must rescue us again. We have reached a point where we must again have faith. Perhaps then Israel will truly recognize and turn from following false gods.”

  “Where will you lead us? My knowledge of the land is great, and we have been walking parallel to the Inland Sea, so we must almost be to the Red Sea.”