Among the Gods (21 page)

She shielded her eyes and glanced up to gauge the sun’s height. There was plenty of time for the bread to rise and then bake. It would still be warm when Joshua arrived home for lunch in a few hours. She covered the dough with a cloth when she was finished and placed it in the sun to rise, then wiped the flour off her hands. She heard the back gate creak open, and when she looked up she was surprised to see Joshua. He stood in the courtyard as if carved from stone, staring into space with a vacant gaze, watching a scene she couldn’t see. Her immediate fear was that something had happened to Nathan. She groped for her crutches and struggled to her feet.

“What’s wrong?”

He gave a start, as if he hadn’t noticed her until then. “I just came from a meeting with Prince Amariah,” he said slowly. “Our homeland is gone.”

“What do you mean, it’s gone?” She hobbled over to him and reached up to touch his face, trying to draw him back to her, back from the place inside himself where he so often retreated. He brushed her hand away in an absent gesture, as if shooing a fly.

“We just received the latest news from Judah. King Manasseh has forfeited our sovereignty to the Assyrians.”

“But why? Was there a war or something?”

“No. That’s what’s so ironic. Not one Assyrian soldier ever left Nineveh. Their emperor announced that he was building a new empire, and Manasseh signed up as his willing vassal.”

Joshua’s voice was calm, almost dreamy, but Miriam saw the repressed rage in his clenched jaw and rigid shoulders, heard it in his wheezing lungs. She needed to help him douse the flames of his anger before they burned up everything that was good in him.

“What will this mean?” she asked.

“It means that our country has lost its independence. It means that everything my father worked for, all of his prayers, his faith, were for nothing. One of the greatest miracles in the history of our nation has been canceled with one stamp of Manasseh’s royal seal…. And it means that we’ll never be able to go home now, unless we’re content to be Assyrian slaves.”

“Is Egypt in danger? Could the Assyrians come here?”

He shook his head as if the question was irrelevant. “Pharaoh has armed garrisons like this one all across the nation. He’s ready for the Assyrians.”

“Then what’s wrong, love?”

“I don’t want to fight for Pharaoh, I want to fight for my own country. Manasseh never should have given in. We could stand up to the Assyrians just like Abba and King Hezekiah once did. I begged Amariah to send our men and me to Jerusalem. Pharaoh would give us all the weapons we needed. We could convince plenty of other Judeans to join us and fight for our freedom. God would surely give us the victory.”

“What did Prince Amariah say?”

“He won’t do it. He thinks this is God’s revenge, that God is using the Assyrians to punish Manasseh.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted, Joshua? Didn’t you want God to punish Manasseh?”

He shook his head slowly from side to side, his gaze turned inward again. “No. I wanted to punish him myself.” He moved away from her like a man walking in his sleep.

“Joshua, where are you going?” He didn’t answer. Instead, he drifted out through the courtyard gate, leaving it to swing open in the breeze behind him. “Joshua, wait! Can’t you talk to me about it?” He didn’t seem to hear her.

Miriam knew that he was heading to the nearby riverbank to be alone. She also knew from experience that being alone was the worst possible thing for him. He couldn’t pray when he was this upset, and his anger would slowly grow and swell like the rising bread dough, with no release. She considered sending one of the servants to the marketplace to find Jerimoth, then decided that it was her job to console her husband, not Jerimoth’s.

Joshua was such a complex man, and so much smarter than she was. Miriam looked at life in simple terms, while Joshua made everything complicated. He tried too hard to analyze and organize everything, even things he couldn’t change. Why had God ever put them together? Could it be that Joshua sometimes needed her practical, commonsense approach to life as a balance?

It would take her nearly thirty minutes to walk the same distance he could walk in five, but she steeled herself for the long, arduous trek over rough terrain to the riverbank, dragging her useless legs. Three times her crippled limbs gave out and she fell, struggling alone like an overturned turtle until she righted herself. When she finally found Joshua he was standing close to the shore, staring downriver toward the sea, his shoulders slumped in defeat. He didn’t see Miriam limping toward him until she staggered up behind him and collapsed to the beach in exhaustion.

“Miriam! What are you doing here?” he said angrily.

“Following you.”

He sank to his knees beside her, and she felt his hands trembling with fury when he gripped her shoulders. “You know you can’t walk this far over rough ground! What a stupid, dangerous thing to do! What if you fell?”

“I did fall—three times!”

“You could have hurt yourself.”

“Then don’t run away from me, Joshua. Share your problems with me.”

All at once the anger drained from his face, and he clasped Miriam to his chest, clutching her tightly. “I’m sorry … I’m so sorry.”

“I want to help you, Joshua. It breaks my heart to see you so unhappy. I don’t know what to do for you.”

“I don’t know, either.”

He sat back with a sigh and turned her around so she could lean comfortably against him, cradled in his arms. She listened to the gentle lap of water against the shore and the slow thudding of his heartbeat as she rested to recover her strength. The air wheezed through his chest as he struggled to breathe.

“What’s it like there?” she asked after a long silence.

“Where?”

“That place where you go, inside yourself. Where you mourn and grieve.”

“It’s horrible, Miriam. You don’t want to know.”

“But I need to know…. You go there so often.”

“I don’t want to drag you there with me. That’s why I left the house.”

Miriam felt her own anger rise as she turned to face him. “It’s not
your
life and
my
life anymore, it’s
our
life. We’re
one
flesh. That means we share everything—the sorrows as well as the joys. If you won’t take me there, how can I help you find your way back to me?”

He didn’t reply, and Miriam sensed the struggle he was waging with his demons of depression. “What goes on inside of you, Joshua? If you explain it to me in simple terms that I can understand, maybe you’ll understand it better yourself.”

He sighed and settled her against his chest again, his hand tracing idle patterns on her shoulder. “Did I ever tell you about my father’s tunnel?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“He carved it out of solid rock beneath the mountain in Jerusalem to channel water from the Gihon spring to the Pool of Siloam. He took me inside it once when I was nine or ten years old. We had an oil lamp with us, but as soon as we rounded the first curve and the light from the entrance disappeared, the darkness tried to swallow every shard of light. I could feel the weight of all that darkness, and the weight of the mountain above my head, closing in on me, trying to crush out my life. With every step I took, the water seemed to grow deeper and colder, and I didn’t think we’d ever find our way back to the light again. I was terrified, but I was too ashamed to tell Abba. The only thing that made it bearable at all, the only thing that got me through it, was Abba’s presence beside me.”

He folded her hand between his own.

“That’s what it feels like, Miriam. Like a mountain of darkness that I can feel, darkness that tries to swallow every bit of light and crush me beneath its weight. It’s like I’m wading through water that’s cold and deep, and it keeps rising—to my waist, to my chest, to my chin—until I feel myself being sucked under and I’m about to drown.” His wheezing worsened, and she worried that he wouldn’t be able to catch his breath.

“God keeps closing all the doors,” he continued. “Hemming me in, taking away more and more choices, forcing me to wander deeper and deeper into the mountain. I’m terrified. Lost. What if I can’t find my way out again? And Abba’s gone. He isn’t beside me anymore.”

“But God is still with you.”

“That’s the most terrifying part of all. God seems a long way off. Sometimes it feels like I left Him behind in Jerusalem. I can’t feel His presence here among all these foreign gods.”

She studied his face, desperate to help him. Miriam knew that false cheer and easy answers wouldn’t help him; only the truth. “You know what I see, Joshua? The darkness comes every time you get angry with God. You’re angry with Him today because of what happened in Judah. He didn’t work things out the way you wanted Him to. But He doesn’t leave you—you walk away from Him, away from His light. You enter the tunnel yourself every time you find it impossible to go in the direction He wants you to go, impossible to accept His will for your life.”

“How can I accept His will when I don’t understand it? Why does He keep taking away everything I love? You know what my biggest fear is? That He’ll take you away from me, too. He’s taken so much already.”

“I could get angry and depressed for what I’ve lost, too—not only is our baby gone, but I can barely walk, and my hands don’t work right, and I’ll be crippled like this for the rest of my life. I’ve always been so independent. I never wanted anyone to be in charge but me. But maybe that’s why God allowed me to be crippled—so I’d see how much I need other people. So I’d learn to lean on them, to trust them. Maybe it was the only way I could learn to trust God. Don’t you ever wonder what He wants you to learn from all this, Joshua?”

“I guess I thought I was finished learning.”

She leaned into him, nestling closer. “I trust your love, Joshua. I trust that you would never do anything to harm me, that you only want what’s good for me.”

“It’s true, Miriam. I’d give you my own arms and legs if I could.”

“Then you have to believe that it’s the same with God. If the Assyrians take over Judah, if we live on Elephantine Island for the rest of our lives—whatever happens—it’s for our own good and for His purposes.” As he toyed with a lock of her hair, she noticed that his breathing had eased a bit.

“How many times have you saved my life now?” he asked. “God must have put you on this earth just for me.”

She smiled. “Maybe that’s why He hasn’t given us a baby. Maybe my hands are already full taking care of you.”

He kissed her then, and Miriam knew that he would find his way out of his dark tunnel again, into the light.

18

N
ATHAN AWOKE FROM THE NIGHTMARE
with his heart pounding, his body drenched with sweat. It was his running dream, the one in which someone pursued him down dark, lonely streets while he tried to flee on legs as heavy and awkward as tree stumps. He had no idea what he was running from. In his panic, he never dared to glance over his shoulder and see. The familiar dream should have lost its power to terrify him after all these years but it hadn’t, and at age eighteen, his childish fear embarrassed him.

He rolled off his sleeping mat and stumbled out to the courtyard to wash, squinting in the glare of the dawning sun. When his limbs finally stopped trembling, he went back inside for breakfast. Miriam was usually up by now, fixing their morning meal, but Joshua sat in her place, slicing cucumbers into thick, uneven pieces.

“Want some?” he asked, holding out the plate.

Nathan shook his head. “You didn’t cut off the peels. Miriam always does.”

“I guess I forgot.”

“Where’s Miriam?”

Joshua carefully laid down the knife and plate and rose to face Nathan as if he had something important to say. It pleased Nathan that he had grown nearly as tall as Joshua and could almost look him in the eye. But he knew that no one would ever mistake them for father and son. Nathan was thin and wiry and couldn’t seem to gain weight no matter how much he ate. Everything about him seemed paltry and insignificant compared to Joshua, from his thin brown hair and scraggly new whiskers to his stringy muscles, which were as streamlined as a long-distance courier’s. Joshua walked with the proud bearing of royalty, and his thick, curly hair and full beard were the rich color of ebony. To Nathan, Joshua’s aristocratic posture seemed pretentious on a man who was as bronzed and solidly built as the Egyptian slaves he ordered around all day. And it annoyed Nathan that Joshua paused to wipe his large, callused hands on a towel before answering his question.

“The midwives were here yesterday to check on Miriam’s pregnancy. They think it would be wise for her to stay in bed.”

“All day?”

“Until the baby is born.”

“You mean for the next six
months
?” Nathan thought of the frustration he would feel at being confined to his bed for that long and knew that Miriam would feel the same. But he also felt afraid for his sister. Why did she even want a baby if it was going to cause her so much trouble?

“It has taken five years for her to get pregnant again after losing the baby,” Joshua continued. “We don’t want to take a chance that she’ll lose this one. She’s going to need both of us to help her out. Can I count on you, son?”

“What do I have to do? Bake the bread?” He meant it as a joke, but he saw by Joshua’s scowl that he had misunderstood. The man was a walking storm cloud, spreading darkness and gloom wherever he went. Nathan wondered how Miriam could stand him.

“No, of course not,” Joshua said. “I’ll hire extra servants for that, and my mother will help, too.”

Nathan poked among the bowls of food Joshua had spread out on the table, looking for something else to eat.

“Here … are you looking for the bread?” Joshua handed him a small loaf left over from yesterday. Nathan knocked it against the table to show Joshua how stale it was.

“I’ll crack a tooth on that stuff. I’m going over to Mattan’s house for breakfast.”

Joshua’s frown deepened. “Well, I suppose it would be all right this morning … but I don’t want you moving in over there. Your uncle Jerimoth has enough mouths to feed as it is.”

“So? He can afford six kids. He makes more money than Pharaoh does.” Once again, Joshua failed to smile at his attempted humor. He gazed at Nathan with a mournful expression as he idly fingered his stupid eye patch.

“Don’t be disrespectful, Nathan. Your uncle Jerimoth works very hard for a living and he—Please don’t roll your eyes at me like that.”

Nathan couldn’t help himself. It was an automatic response to Joshua’s endless lectures. “Can I go now before they clear away all the food?”

“What about the morning sacrifice? I thought we—”

“I’m pretty sure Uncle Jerimoth can find the way. He’s been to the sacrifices once or twice before. I’ll follow him.”

“Nathan, you know I hate it when you’re sarcastic—”

“Sorry.” He resisted the urge to roll his eyes again and slipped out of the back door, quickly crossing the courtyard to Mattan’s house. Not only would the food be better than anything Joshua might attempt to fix, but the atmosphere at jovial Uncle Jerimoth’s house would be an improvement, as well. Nathan could already hear laughter before he opened the door. Mattan sure won the luck of the draw when he got Jerimoth for a father. Nathan was stuck with the King of Gloom. Again he wondered how Miriam could stand him.

Miriam. He hoped his sister would be all right.

Nathan had a lot of time to worry about her as he waited for the boring sacrifice to end. Ever since he had learned that Miriam was pregnant again, he had tried not to wish that the baby would die this time. Now he wondered if maybe he should do something more for her. He owed it to her after causing her first baby’s death, yet he wasn’t sure what he should do. He shifted from foot to foot, thinking about his sister as the Levites droned the liturgy. By the time the service finally dragged to an end, he had formulated an idea. He drew his brother, Mattan, aside, knowing he would need his help.

“Come to the mainland with me, Matt. There’s something I need that I can’t get here.”

“I’ll have to ask Abba for permission. I’m not allowed to—”

“If you help me we can be back before he even knows you’re gone.”

Mattan gave him a hard shove. “What’s wrong with you? I’m not going to disobey my father. I’m going to school.”

“Jerimoth isn’t your father.”

“Yes he is!” Mattan stood with his hands on his hips, daring Nathan to contradict him.

“All right, then. He is. But I still need your help. Your father will never even know you were gone. Come on. It’s important.”

“I don’t understand you at all,” Mattan said, shaking his head. “Your father loves you. Why do you keep defying him all the time?”

“He’s not my father.”

“You’re going to go too far one of these days, and he’ll finally give up on you. Then you’ll realize how stupid you’ve been—after it’s too late.”

As Mattan stormed off, Nathan realized that he should have borrowed some money from him for the boat fare. His mission on shore was too important to risk being caught as a thief or a stowaway. Now he would have to return home and scrounge for some loose silver. Joshua had arrived home from the sacrifice first, so Nathan hid behind the courtyard wall, watching from a distance as Joshua carried Miriam outside, where she could rest in the shade. As soon as Joshua left for work, Nathan crept into the house and looked around for Joshua’s silver pouch. There wasn’t much in it—enough for the ferry but not enough for Nathan to buy what he wanted. He chose two small pieces that Joshua would never miss then left the house as quietly as he’d come and hurried to the ferry dock.

Nathan hadn’t been to the mainland by himself since his disastrous trip five years ago, but he didn’t have time to savor the exhilarating taste of freedom. He could talk his way out of being tardy for his lessons, using his sister, Miriam, as an excuse, but not for missing his lessons entirely. As soon as the boat landed, Nathan went straight to the marketplace, scanning all the booths until he found the one he wanted—the one where all of Egypt’s gods were on display. Some of the idols were carved from ivory, some from wood or stone, but the expensive ones, made of gold and silver, perched on a shelf in the rear where only the owner could reach them.

When Nathan had lived on the mainland, the craftsman he’d been apprenticed to had worshiped a collection of household gods and goddesses every morning and evening. He had explained to Nathan which goddess had blessed him with four strong, healthy sons—Taweret. Maybe the goddess could help Miriam deliver a strong, healthy son, as well. An ivory image of Taweret was on display near the front of the booth. Nathan knew it would be difficult to steal the image by himself with no one to distract the owner, but he had no choice. He sauntered up to the booth, cursing Mattan beneath his breath for not coming along to help him. The merchant glared at him.

“What are you looking at, Jew? There’s nothing here you want. Move along!”

Nathan bowed politely, adopting the humble pose he had perfected on his dim-witted Torah instructors. “Excuse me, sir. I’m an apprentice for an Egyptian bronze caster here on the mainland. My master sent me—”

“You’re a lying Jew, aren’t you! Be off with you!”

Nathan remembered the beating he’d endured at the hands of filthy Egyptian pigs like him, and his temper soared out of control. He didn’t have the time or the patience to work one of his con games on this fool. In a fit of desperate anger, he pointed to the shelf behind the man’s head.

“It’s going to fall! Look out!” When the owner whirled around to see, Nathan snatched the idol from the display and ran.

“Stop! Thief! That Jewish boy is a thief!”

Nathan knew it had been a stupid, clumsy way to steal something, but the man’s contempt had driven him to it. Now there was nothing he could do but run through the unfamiliar streets, searching for a place to hide. Stunned shoppers stared at him as he pushed them aside and sprinted past. Nathan hoped that the idol merchant would give up the chase, but he continued to shout an alarm as he ran behind him.

“Stop him! He’s a thief!” Several bystanders tried to grab Nathan, but he twisted out of their grasp and shoved them to the ground. More men joined the merchant, taking up the chase. Nathan was tempted to toss the idol aside so they would have no proof of his theft, but Miriam needed it. Fear for her and for himself kept him going, desperate to escape. As he ran on and on, with his pursuers close behind, Nathan realized with horror that he was living his nightmare.

Just as he was ready to drop from exhaustion, he suddenly remembered the junkyard full of slag and debris behind the foundry where he had once worked. On his last reserve of strength, he staggered into the deserted dump and dove beneath a pile of scrap wood. The narrow hiding place was impossibly small. They would never look for him there. A moment later he heard his pursuers’ shouts as they ran into the yard behind him.

“There’s no way we’ll ever find him in this mess,” someone said. “We’ve lost him.”

“I don’t care. Search anyway!” Nathan recognized the idol merchant’s voice. He heard the men tossing pieces of junk around as they searched.

“We’d better send some men to watch the dock,” the idol merchant warned. “He’ll have to take the ferry if he wants to get home to Elephantine Island.”

Nathan’s heart sank like a stone in the Nile as he realized that he was trapped on the mainland. He lay unmoving, barely breathing, as the Egyptians combed the scrapyard. Hours seemed to pass before they finally gave up the search. Nathan stayed hidden until he was certain they were gone, then chose the largest chunk of wood he could carry and carefully made his way out of the village. A mile upstream, he waded into the river and began to paddle, clinging to his makeshift raft. With any luck, the current would carry him downstream to the southern tip of the island. Joshua had warned him that there were crocodiles in those waters, but Nathan would sooner take his chances with crocodiles than risk getting caught by the Egyptians.

He seemed to float in the filthy water forever, and by the time a Jewish fisherman pulled him into his boat, just offshore from the island, Nathan was exhausted from paddling and thoroughly sick from vomiting all the muddy water he had swallowed.

“What happened to you, boy? You fall overboard?”

“I was spearing fish when I fell in. The current took me away.” The fisherman looked doubtful but didn’t question Nathan’s lie.

It was late afternoon when Nathan reached home and slipped inside without being seen. The idol had miraculously survived the ordeal tucked inside his robe, and he hid it beneath his sleeping mat. Then he peeled off his ruined clothes and crawled beneath the blankets. The next thing he knew, Joshua was shaking him awake.

“Nathan? What’s wrong, are you sick?” His callused fingers touched Nathan’s brow.

“I never made it to my classes. I’ve been in bed all day. I’m sick to my stomach.”

“Are these your clothes? I’ll take them outside. They smell bad.” He bent to pick up the dripping bundle. “Nathan, they’re soaking wet!”

“I tried to wash the vomit off. I guess I didn’t do a very good job.”

Joshua held them at arm’s length as he gazed down at Nathan. “Are you going to be all right? Can I get you anything?”

Before Nathan could reply, there was an urgent pounding on the front door. He closed his eyes as his heart pounded in reply. Joshua dropped the clothes again. “I’ll be right back.”

Nathan sat up, straining to hear who it was, wondering if he should run while he still had the chance. The voice at the door sounded somber, official.

“Good afternoon, my lord. We’re sorry to disturb you, but we would like to have a word with your son if he’s home.”

“Nathan? He’s sick in bed. Why? What’s this about?”

“The Egyptian authorities have come over from the mainland. One of their merchants reported a robbery this morning, an idol carved from ivory. They said the thief was a Jewish teenager.”

“Are you accusing my son?”

“He has a reputation as a thief.”

“That was—how long ago—five years! Don’t you dare call Nathan a thief unless you have proof!”

Nathan crawled from his mat to listen beside the door to the main room, scarcely able to believe that Joshua would defend him. Again, he had the urge to run but knew he wouldn’t get far on an island.

“I’m sorry,” the elder continued, “but we checked with the rabbi before we came to see you. He said Nathan skipped his Torah class today.”

“I already told you he was home, sick.”

“Yes. And there is a simple way to prove if that is true. This is the captain of the ferry. He says that a Jewish boy was one of his passengers this morning, and he thinks he can identify him. We’d like to question Nathan if you don’t mind.”