The Journey Begun (36 page)

Thirty-eight

onah knelt before his father’s grave. He brushed away a wilted olive sprig that had fallen onto the rocks covering the hillside tomb. His mind wandered back over the countless visits he had paid to this place of remembrance. When they were still young men, he and Ehud gouged this hollow into a sheltered niche on the western slope above the family property to accept their father’s shrouded body. At the end, their father had weighed almost nothing, emaciated from an unknown disease that had slowly and cruelly sapped his strength and then his life. The plot of pressed earth and rocks, now cracked and stained brown, reflected the assault of time and the snub of a world that had somehow still gone on.

Today a rounded mound of freshly turned earth topped by a cairn of newly cut limestone lay tucked against its weathered twin. The white stone shone luminescent in the bright late-afternoon sun, as though trying to revive its tired mate from years of dormancy. Amittai and Deborah were reunited once again.

He could still not bring himself to fully face his mother’s final resting place. Neither the ache squeezing his heart nor the knot blocking his throat had abated since she surrendered her last breath resting in his arms three days earlier. The gentle smile of contentment that had settled onto her lips upon learning of her son’s return to
Adonai’s
call survived her passing into Sheol. It was that smile that both comforted and pained Jonah. He was sure she had waited for him to return, sensing his absence in the few periods of lucidity that punctuated her coma over the past two weeks. He imagined her fighting for each breath until she saw her beloved son, until her house was again in order. Now Jonah had returned to his calling, her family was whole, her job finished. She could join her precious husband knowing all was well.

Jonah could easily picture his mother and father resting side by side, basking in the joy of their renewed oneness, she excitedly filling him in on all that he’d missed, he gently settling her into her new world. An unexpected twitch of a smile jerked at his lips and coaxed a light mist to his eyes.

Jonah loosened his clutched fingers and examined the ebony hair comb lying in the palm of his hand. The stub of the once broken tine now sported a sliver of obsidian painstakingly shaped and smoothed to a perfect match of its mates and held in place by a single bead of cured terebinth gum. The sight of the relic gleaming in the brilliance of the sun swelled the lump in his throat and threatened to cut off his breath. His heart felt as though it would twist itself out of his chest and burst. He steeled himself, then reached down with his free hand and burrowed into the loose soil at the base of the cairn. Scooping aside several handfuls of earth, he cleared a recess deep under the base of the limestone monument. Raising the comb to his lips he brushed it with a light kiss and then tucked it into the niche. A moment later the soil was patted back into place and the grave was once again ready for the ages.

As the prophet raised to his feet, a sense of well-being welled up and washed over him. The swelling in his heart subsided and, for the first time in days, the lump in his throat dissolved.

His mind flashed back over the events of the past week as he made his way back from Joppa to Gath-hepher. Mercifully, they crowded out the memories of the week prior to that. The words of the angel on Joppa’s beach filtered into his heavy head and he smiled.
“The actions—both good and bad—of those the Lord calls always affect others around them, never them alone.”

His thoughts settled on Moshe’s grizzled face and his mind’s ear replayed the gravelly voice chortling at the recounting of a ribald joke, then cracking and wheezing as he coughed and spat on the pavement of Megiddo’s marketplace. The image slipped to the side as Deborah’s lovely image loomed into view, her hazel eyes sparkling with laughter in the glow of an evening’s oil lamp while she played with her twin infant great-grandsons squirming on a sleeping mat. Her gentle voice cooing and clucking at the boys floated through his mind, anointing Moshe’s guttural hack like a soothing balm of myrrh. No two people in this world could be more unlike the other, yet they seemed quite at peace together sharing his consciousness.
Elohim Adonai
had touched and used both lives in such different ways, yet each had discovered final fulfillment in the road laid before them. They both lived fully, and they both died well. Jonah wondered if more could be asked of life in this world.

The brush of an olive leaf floating to earth from above tickled Jonah’s cheek and broke his reverie. He blinked into the brightness of a sky now fading to pale blue as the sun slipped closer to the ridgeline across the valley. This would be his last sunset in Gath-hepher for how long, who knew? Early tomorrow morning he would set off on the unfamiliar road toward the Sea of Chinnereth, skirting the shadows of Mount Hermon and on into the barren stretches of the Eastern Desert. He knew Damascus lay somewhere along his route, but beyond that was only mystery.

But it didn’t matter
. Adonai
would provide.

Epilogue

Nineveh, the Temple of Ishtar

Second Day of Šabatu, 786
b.c.

pungent incense haze enveloped the young girl, swirling about her lithe form as she swayed to the monotonic chanting of the temple priestesses. The primal throbbing of ceremonial drums accompanied popping tambourines. Belled instruments tinkled above the hollow cooing of reed and clay pipes. A sheen of tears thickened and blurred her vision before spilling over the thick kohl underlining her dark almond eyes. The drops traced gray rivulets over cheeks stained with henna and powdered with ochre. The musky moisture assailed her taste as the teardrops curled around the contours of her half-parted lips and glistened on the tip of her tongue. Charcoal smoke joined the incense fumes in squeezing her throat and convulsing her chest, as her violated lungs fought for air. Deprived of oxygen, her brain slowly surrendered to the hypnotic effect of the frankincense and myrrh clouding the cella of Ishtar’s temple.

Ianna reveled in the throes of her coming-of-age ritual. She and her sister initiates danced and dipped to the mantra of the
naditu
priestesses paying homage to the Mother Goddess.

Praise the goddess, the most awesome of goddesses.

Let one revere the mistress of the peoples, the greatest of the Igigi.

Praise Ishtar, the most awesome of the goddesses.

Let us revere the queen of women, the greatest of the Igigi.

This was the day the young beauty had awaited so long. Today, the only daughter of a prominent Ninevite family celebrated entering womanhood in an ancient ritual dedicated to Assyria’s greatest goddess. As they came of age, young women from all over the land gathered under the tutelage of Ishtar’s priestesses for giving themselves in sacred ritual to the Goddess of Fertility, Love, and War. Following the ceremony, she would remain at the temple until a random traveler passing through the city selected her as a carnal partner. He would offer pay for the evening, of course, but she would accept his proposition regardless of the price, for it was the spiritual aspect of the rite that was important. Besides, the money went not to her, but to the temple and into the service of the adored Mistress.

The young initiate was fortunate in her extraordinary beauty. Her time at the temple would be brief, perhaps only a night or two. Others less comely could look forward to a longer stay, some even waiting weeks to catch an eye. After their inaugural night in a man’s arms, some would remain at the temple to become
qadishtu
and
ishtaritu
, priestesses and sacred women, destined to remain unmarried and childless in dedication to the Mother Goddess. Few alumni of the ritual, though, aspired to that level of devotion. Most would return home and go on to marry and bear children, as Ianna knew she would.

For now, though, the temple ceremony was everything she dreamed it would be. The priestesses specializing in ceremonial dancing and singing joined the festivities. They mingled with the novice devotees, adding to the mass of oiled and painted bodies flowing with the swelling and ebbing of the music.

She is clothed in pleasure and love.

She is laden with vitality, charm, and voluptuousness.

Ishtar is clothed in pleasure and love.

She is laden with vitality, charm, and voluptuousness.

The young girl’s movements slowed, her strength flagging into hypoxic lethargy. Her head swam and her legs stiffened, the heady aromatic fumes drugging mind and body beyond their ability to respond. She closed her eyes, her feet rooted in place as she twisted and reeled with the music pulsating in her ears. Finally, her oxygen-starved muscles succumbed and she ceased all movement. Her arms settled to her sides.

In lips she is sweet; life is in her mouth.

At her appearance rejoicing becomes full.

She is glorious; veils are thrown over her head.

Her figure is beautiful; her eyes are brilliant.

Ianna didn’t know how long she stood there when she felt a delicate touch glide up her arms to her shoulders. She lifted leaden eyelids and peered through a glassy sheen into the smiling painted face of a
naditu
. The priestess was richly adorned with multiple necklaces, bracelets, and rings of gold inlaid with lapis, setting off a light blue tunic. The torches in the room sparked flashes of light from the jewels, despite the thick haze.

Ianna tried to speak, but her lips, now encrusted with half-dried ochre, tears and sweat, failed her. The priestess only shook her head, pursed her lips, and slid her fingertips back down the young girl’s arms, pressing them against her sides. Ianna lost focus, and the
naditu’s
painted face began to fade. The young girl’s knees buckled. The last thing she saw was the glint in the
naditu’s
ebony eyes. Then everything went black.

Lll

“The prophet from the west approaches.”

“Use the girl.”