The Source

by James A. Michener

  On the roll of leather, made from a calf’s skin whose hairy side had been scraped smooth, and using a reed pen and an ink made from soot, vinegar and olive oil, Hoopoe finished the details of the master plan for his water system, and Meshab noticed that he took much care to insure that the diagonal of the shaft followed the range established by the six flags, and he asked why. Pointing to the diagonal, Hoopoe said, “It’s this that will make the tunnel possible.”

  Saying no more, he began to impress into soft clay tablets sectional drawings of the various kinds of work that would have to be done, some forty-five tablets in all, and when these were finished Meshab hauled them off to a kiln for baking into permanent form, so that on the evening before General Amram’s arrival the two men had their data complete: a large roll of leather which the general could use for explanations in Jerusalem and the series of indestructible tablets to govern the work in Makor.

  Next morning, on a bright day at the end of the month of Ziv, when flowering trees made the Galilee a land of singing beauty, when pistachio bushes sent forth red budlets and pomegranate leaves were a tender green, General Amram and his company rode in from Megiddo upon horses, which were rarely seen in Makor. Children ran along the road to greet the visitors, while at the gates of the city the governor waited with clay pitchers of wine and lavers filled with cold water, which the soldiers sloshed over themselves, drying their heads with cloths supplied by women of the town, among whom was Kerith, who had volunteered to serve the general.

  Amram was the typical military leader of the Hebrew empire, nearing fifty, hard and spare, with a close-clipped beard and stubby red hair. He had blue eyes, deep wrinkles across his brow and a short scar along his left cheek; he was relaxed and thoughtful, attentive to the life about him and able to judge it with a detached shrewdness. In these first minutes he saw that Kerith was a beautiful woman of the age he preferred, not entirely happy in Makor, who wanted to impress him with her husband’s accomplishments, and he suspected that if he responded he might have an enjoyable time in this provincial town. So when Kerith handed him a cloth he took it slowly and smiled, showing between his hairy lips white teeth that were widely spaced.

  “Your name is?”

  “Kerith,” she replied, adding hastily, “wife of Jabaal, who built these fortifications.”

  “From the approaches they looked strong.”

  Before she could assure him that they were, the governor interrupted to announce that the visitors were invited to his quarters for the speeches of welcome, but after two were offered General Amram said, “I’ve come to inspect the new walls and I wish to do so.” Brusquely he left the ceremony and entered upon the walls, pleased to see that Kerith was staying at his side.

  “These are strong walls that we have built,” the governor said unctuously, and Hoopoe, following at the rear, thought: For a whole year I had to fight him for permission to build them, and now they’re his walls. Condescendingly the governor added, “They were built by this man, whom we call Hoopoe,” and he bobbed his head up and down like a hoopoe bird. General Amram’s men laughed, but the general thought: They call him Hoopoe, which infuriates his pretty wife, but he does look fairly stupid.

  In his various inspection tours General Amram had often been involved in similar situations and he now saw what he must do in this one: Flatter the husband before his superiors, get him out of the way, and then see what his lovely wife wished to do. Accordingly, he said, “Jabaal, since you’re the one who built the walls, let’s climb that hill in back of town and see how good they are.”

  “I’ll bring the wine,” the governor volunteered, but Amram cut him off.

  “We’ll go alone,” he snapped, striding off with such vigor that Hoopoe’s fat legs had difficulty keeping up.

  For more than an hour the two men circled the town, checking various points, then climbed halfway up the mountain to study the fortifications methodically. “Those slopes of earth leading to the wall,” Amram asked. “Have you thought of protecting them in some way?”

  “We’ve considered two possibilities. We could pave the present slopes, which would take much rock. Or we could cut away two cubits of earth all around, which would lay bare the old Hyksos glacis which is paved and in good condition. Which would the general suggest?”

  “Neither,” Amram said. “Take too many slaves. And in the end you wouldn’t be a lot better off than you are now. But one thing I would do.” He pointed to a section of wall where private houses were encroaching upon the battlements, using the town wall for one side of the house and continuing it upward, with windows cut into the upper wall. “I’d get rid of those windows right away. Remember how Rahab let down the ropes for our spies at Jericho?”

  “What would the general suggest?”

  “Brick them up, today. While you still have some slaves.”

  Twice General Amram had referred to Hoopoe’s slaves. “Are you going to take away my slaves?” the little man asked.

  “When the work’s finished here we can use trained builders in Jerusalem. And it looks as if you were about finished.” He was a gruff man, long in the field, and although he had begun by feeling contempt for Hoopoe, an inspection of the man’s work forced him to recognize it as a superior job. Placing his arm about the little engineer he said, “And I shall tell the king that it was work well done.”

  Hoopoe mumbled his thanks, then muttered a silent prayer to Baal and tackled the bigger problem. “General Amram, the new fortifications mean nothing so long as the water supply is vulnerable.”

  “From here that waterwall looks strong.”

  “It’s been patched. It’s stronger than it was. But we both know that even one of your lesser armies could knock it down.”

  The general had to like this honest builder. In Amram’s first minutes on the mountainside he had spotted the fatal weakness of Makor, but he had said nothing, realizing that the town was a frontier settlement which might have to be sacrificed. If the Phoenicians ever decided to assault it, he knew they could puncture the waterwall and strangle the town, but the loss need not be crucial to the empire. Nevertheless, he was impressed that Hoopoe understood the tactical situation.

  “But there is a way that Makor could be made so strong that no enemy could capture it,” Hoopoe said, trying to make himself sound convincing.

  “How?”

  In a few crisp sentences Hoopoe explained that a shaft could be dug in the middle of town and connected by a tunnel to the well. Glancing nervously, he was pleased to see that General Amram understood. “Then we tear down the waterwall, erase all marks that it had ever been there, roof over the well with large stones and bury it in thirty feet of earth. No one would ever see our well again except from the inside of the tunnel.” He became inspired by the concept, and suddenly words spouted from his mouth. He was a poet, a general, compelling in his logic and command of detail. He spoke of the security that Makor would know, a security which the empire would share for centuries to come. “Against this town,” he cried, “the Phoenicians could thunder for fifteen months on end, while your garrison, General, would rest secure inside. Jerusalem would be safe.”

  Against his will—for he was not a man prone to enthusiasm—Amram became infected by Hoopoe’s excitement and he was seduced into visualizing Makor as a permanent bulwark of the western frontier. As Hoopoe continued, the little town began to look different: the ramparts became stronger, the fatal waterwall vanished and he saw Phoenician mercenaries beating against the town in futility. Hoopoe stopped speaking and waited.

  “What would it require?” Amram asked bluntly.

  “The slaves I have. Plus fifty more.”

  “Have you plans?” He was sure the enthusiastic little man did.

  “Come to my house,” Hoopoe said quietly, afraid lest he appear too eager, and as they re-entered the main gate he called to one of the guards, “Fetch me Meshab the Moabite.”

  “Who?” Amram asked.

  “My foreman. He has the cla
y tablets.”

  Waiting in the governor’s house Kerith heard that General Amram and her husband had gone directly to her home, and she ran through minor alleys hoping to reach there first so as to receive them properly, but when she ran up, out of breath, the men were already there, lying flat on the floor, studying Jabaal’s leather roll of the water system. “Oh no!” she whispered to herself. “My foolish husband is bothering that great man with such nonsense.” She brought them cool drinks, but they took no notice of her, so she sat where she could watch the general and where finally he found time to watch her while Hoopoe continued to draw imaginary tunnels with his finger.

  The three remained thus for some time, when the big Moabite appeared, led by one of the guards. The tall southerner had barely entered the room with his clay tablets when General Amram saw him, leaped to his feet and cried, “What is this one doing here?”

  “He is Meshab, my foreman,” Hoopoe explained. “Show General Amram …”

  But before the Moabite could lay out the detailed drawings Amram turned his back and said, “Take him away.”

  “Sir,” Hoopoe protested, “he’s our best workman.”

  “I know who he is,” Amram snapped. “He killed my brother.”

  “He was sent to us some years ago.”

  “I know when he was sent. I sent him.”

  Meshab remained silent as General Amram recalled King David’s struggle against the Moabites. In strict fact, the Hebrews had never really defeated the desert kingdom, for Meshab and a few like him had conducted a brilliant strike-and-run defense, but in the end Moab had been reduced to a kind of vassaldom: “As peace was being discussed, this one struck at our camp and slew my brother. When he was captured I wanted to kill him with my own hands.”

  He turned away and silence in the room became embarrassing, but Kerith said, “Place the tablets here, slave, and return to camp.” Her command reminded everyone that Meshab was now only a slave and the tension eased. General Amram thought: That woman’s clever.

  At the feasts prepared by the governor, the general had additional opportunity to observe the superiority of this woman, and she, guessing at some of the ideas going through his mind, took pains to present herself appealingly: when he wished dates or honey he received them from her, and by the end of the second day it was apparent to General Amram that Hoopoe’s wife wished to be alone with him.

  Hoopoe, preoccupied with the chance of gaining authorization for his water system, overlooked his wife but continued to press upon Amram arguments in favor of the tunnel, so on the third day Amram said, “Hoopoe, why don’t you take your Moabite slave and go up the mountain and see if you can lay out the line of flags you’ve been talking about?”

  “We’ve already tried,” Hoopoe said. “We’re sure the plan will work.”

  General Amram was irritated. “I’ll tell you what to do. You go up on the hill while he stays here, and you can actually erect the flags.”

  A flush of joy came over the bearded face of the fat builder. “Does this mean that you are going to authorize the tunnel?”

  “Well …” General Amram had about decided not to waste the effort on Makor, but he could now see, standing behind the builder, his lovely waiting wife and something must be done to get rid of the foolish fellow. “Go ahead,” he said on the spur of the moment. “Dig the tunnel.”

  “I’ll bring the governor!” Hoopoe cried, and before either Kerith or General Amram could halt him he appeared with the governor, and the authorization for the tunnel was made official. “Now I’ll go on the mountain and locate the flags,” he cried, and with the joy of a child he ran through the streets, calling for the guards to send him Meshab from the slave camp.

  When he was safely gone, when the pompous governor had returned in bewilderment to his quarters, wondering how Hoopoe had persuaded General Amram to authorize the water system, the general suggested to Kerith, “Perhaps the slave girls would like to take the children for a walk,” and when the servants were gone he relaxed easily in Hoopoe’s wooden chair and speculated upon what was to happen next.

  General Amram was a man with much experience and three wives, two of whom he had taken from other men, and he fancied this lovely Makor woman. Certainly she had given him cause to arrange this meeting and he could guess the reason why: She’s annoyed with her fat little husband who can do nothing but dig holes in the ground. She thinks of anyone from Jerusalem as a man bringing adventure. He had other clever explanations in which he figured large, but none came close to the problem that Kerith now placed before him.

  “I wanted to talk to you so much,” she said, sitting primly on a three-legged stool some distance away.

  “About what?” he asked with grand condescension.

  “I must get to Jerusalem,” she said in a burst of words. “My husband can build so much there. You’ve seen his work. And I …”

  “What about you?” the general asked, leaning forward and showing his wide-spaced teeth.

  “I want to be where the worship of Yahweh is pure,” she said softly.

  “You what?”

  “My father was priest here in Makor, and his father before him as far back as we can remember.”

  “What’s that got to do with going to Jerusalem?”

  And she told him. For the first time in his life General Amram heard the complaint that was going to echo throughout Israel for many centuries: “In Makor we are far from the sources of Yahweh, but in Jerusalem we could live near the sanctuaries of his holiness. In Makor we share the world with Baal; but in Jerusalem, Yahweh alone reigns. In our little town the great kings are not; but in Jerusalem, David lives, and to be near him is to be near the sun.”

  “There are many ways you could get to Jerusalem,” the general said, starting to come toward her, but in innocence she misunderstood his purpose and rose to greet him as if he were a travel-weary member of her family.

  “You must be very tired,” she said, leading him to a room where tubs of cool water stood. “May I pour the buckets over your head, and then you can sleep.” She made him take off his upper tunic and bend over a drain, while she washed his head as she would have done her father’s. Then she roughened his hair and chest with a heavy cloth and gave him a robe to throw about his shoulders. She led him to a bed and promised to call him if he slept too long, and as she closed the curtains she happened to see her husband on the mountainside. “He’s still up there,” she said, “waving his arms and making silly signals.”

  “I intended him to be there … for some time.”

  Kerith looked down at the relaxed general, so close to sleep and in such unexpected circumstances, and asked, “How shall we get to Jerusalem, General Amram?”

  The warrior looked up at the enticing woman and smiled. “Help him to build his tunnel. When it’s finished the king will surely hear of it.” And before he fell asleep he pictured Hoopoe on the hill, waving his arms.

  Hoopoe’s plan was simple. On a spot above the town, but in line with the waterwall, he had planted the first red flag which for the next three years would serve as the standard marker for the job, since it was visible from all parts of the town. Next he had climbed higher and planted a second flag, establishing a range which passed through the first flag, the well and the middle of the waterwall. Whenever the slaves had these two flags in line they could be sure they were properly oriented for digging the tunnel. This completed, he had begun doing what his wife had described to General Amram as “making silly signals.”

  On four different roofs in Makor, Hoopoe had stationed slaves with poles to which red flags had been tied, and by means of prearranged signals he was now moving his slaves back and forth until all were in line with the range he had already staked out on the mountainside. When each man was in position he waved a white cloth, and the slaves began fixing their flags in the permanent line that would be used for digging the main shaft.

  Meshab the Moabite had been assigned the roof of the governor’s house, for this ro
se higher than the others and thus formed a prominent landmark; but as the slave walked back and forth among drying seeds to position the important sixth flag which would anchor the range, he annoyed the governor, who left his quarters to cry, “Who is on my roof?”

  A crowd collected as the official began ranting at the slave and there might have been trouble, for the Moabite was loath to take down his needed flag, but just as the governor was becoming ugly, General Amram appeared, washed and relaxed, and he could see the desirability of keeping the flag in its present position. He joined Meshab on the roof to study the range of flags, then summoned everyone including Hoopoe to a council below. “The governor is right,” he announced. “The last flag should not be on his roof.” Hoopoe started to protest, but before he could do so the general added, “But since the flag is essential, why not place it on the wall?”

  The crowd murmured its approval of this wise decision, but Hoopoe said, “From the wall the stick will be too short for the flag to be seen.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” General Amram said, “and what you must do tomorrow is go into the forest and find a young tree that will be tall enough.”

  So the naïve little engineer disappeared into the forest while General Amram returned to the house by the west wall, where he spent the afternoon with Kerith. Meshab the Moabite, working on the wall, saw the trick that the clever general was playing and was incensed. When on successive afternoons Amram devised new ways to keep the fat engineer occupied, the big slave felt a growing bitterness; but his suspicions of what transpired in Hoopoe’s house were not justified. General Amram, at ease in the engineer’s chair, was finding Kerith even more complicated than he had taken her to be on their first afternoon together. She tended her famous visitor as if he were her father, bringing him cold drinks and comforts like a slave, yet rebuffing with charming innocence his attempts to seduce her. Had he been younger he might have wrestled with her; as a man nearing fifty he was amused by the faithful wife and tried to penetrate her reasoning, discovering that she really believed that if she were kind to him he might take her husband to Jerusalem.