Moses, Man of the Mountain

by Zora Neale Hurston

  They said goodbye at the door of Amram’s hut and Caleb went on home. Amram stepped inside to fate. Jochebed’s water had broken and she was in labor. Old Puah was in the back room squatting down by the straw pallet of Jochebed whispering to her to “bear down!” in her harsh old voice.

  Amram knelt by his wife and kissed her. She lifted her arms about his neck and hung there.

  “Amram,” she whispered, “You won’t have no time to move me at all. But you mustn’t let me scream, hear? No matter how hard the pain gets you mustn’t let me scream. Pharaoh’s secret police don’t never stop prowling.”

  “I know that. Oh, honey, I hate for our child to come like this. I don’t feel like no man at all.”

  “You can’t help it, honey. You done the best you could. Just don’t let me scream out when I get so bad I don’t know what I’m doing. Hold my mouth good, Amram. Don’t let me expose our child to murder, in case it’s a boy.”

  “I promise, Jochebed, but this is a mean moment in life.”

  She hugged him faintly and smiled up. “The pains took me hard once or twice. I was afraid it was going to come before you got here,” she said with a sort of happiness in her voice because her husband was there at her time.

  In a little while Amram started to eat his supper. But no sooner did he begin than Jochebed uttered a cry. He flew back to her side and lifted her head in his arms and put one hand over her mouth. She tried hard to scream, but Amram was there.

  The back of Amram’s hard hand filled her mouth. His rough hand clamped down fiercely over her lower face. Jochebed fought for her breath and for the boon of shrieking out her agony and suffering.

  “Shhh! The Egyptians will hear you!”

  The woman may have heard, but she struggled harder to release the agony of her loins through cries. Her lungs almost exploded with the pent-in air. She clawed at her husband’s hands which so relentlessly smothered her gasping cries. She drew up her knees violently and arched her back.

  Now old Puah, the midwife, knelt over Jochebed and laid helping hands upon her belly. “Bear down!” the midwife commanded sternly. “Bear down, Jochebed, and have done with this birthing. It is taking much too long. Bear down, I tell you!” The command was stern but whispered. It was muted by fear like every other sound in the house. Old Puah put her lips to the other’s ear and beseeched, “Ah, Jochebed, will you not hurry up with this child before the soldiers pass again?”

  “Shut up, woman,” Amram began, but had to turn all of his attention and strength to muffling the agony of his wife. She was flinging her head from side to side to wrench free of the hands that gripped her lower face like a vice. Finally the pain wave passed and she subsided on the straw limp and white.

  “Ah, it is awful when a woman cannot even cry out in childbirth,” Puah said. “When will these Egyptians be punished for their crimes?”

  “Hush! Mouth almighty!” Amram said. “The very air in Goshen has ears. Have you got the medicine fixed for her and ready?”

  “Certainly, Amram. I didn’t start to delivering babies just yesterday. As soon as I know a woman’s time is near, I boil the herbs for her.”

  “Where is it, then?” Amram whispered anxiously.

  “In that pot over against the wall. But do you think it is safe to give it now? It will speed up her labor but—” She looked fearfully over her shoulder towards the dark door of the outer room.

  Jochebed set her teeth and hissed a groan. Instantly her husband’s hands flew to her mouth. From his kneeling position he looked over his shoulder into the outer room and whispered “Aaron.”

  A young voice charged with fear whispered back from the dark outer room. “Yessir, papa.”

  “Don’t stand there yelling back and forth with me! Come and hear what I have to say.”

  Aaron the boy entered the back room lit dimly by the crude oil lamp on the floor and stood timidly back of the squatting Puah. The lamp shone between the pale face of his mother on the straw pallet and the tortured features of his father kneeling over her. He didn’t feel so much like a coward as he had out there in the dark front room for he saw the fear on the faces of the three grown folks in the room.

  “Yessir, papa, what you want with me?”

  “Where is your sister?”

  “Miriam is out there—” indicating the outer room.

  “Tell her to come here.”

  Aaron tiptoed back into the other room without a sound and came back shoving Miriam before him. They knelt before Amram and presented their ears.

  “Miriam, you go and squat just inside the front door and watch. If anyone approaches come quickly. Do not call out.”

  “Yessir, papa.”

  “Aaron, you go outside.”

  “Not outside, papa. Please don’t make me go outside,” Aaron gasped in terror. “The secret police!”

  “Yes, outside!” Amram answered sternly. “These Egyptian scoundrel-beasts must be overcome somehow. There ain’t but a few of us Hebrews. We ain’t got nothing to fight with. Do as I tell you. Go out to the main street and watch. When you see a band of the plug-uglies coming, run back and whisper to Miriam. She will give us the sign.”

  “But I ain’t but twelve years old. All them Egyptian soldiers—”

  “Go on! It’s done got so that Israelite boys can’t wait to get grown to be men. You will have to be a man right now.” Amram gestured towards the pallet, the midwife and the room and Aaron stumbled out into the Egyptian darkness to watch. Miriam took her post by the house door and Puah gave Jochebed the drink she called the “friend of women” while Amram knelt in love and fear beside her head. He looked down on the thick red hair of his wife, her white face with the eyes closed in weariness, the hollows in her neck and her breasts. He saw the tracks of time over all and thought, “Of course, Jochebed ain’t a girl no more. We got a son twelve years old and a daughter who is nine. Girl-wives must turn into women some time or other.”

  The oil in the lamp was getting low and Amram moved to replenish it. Old Puah measured and folded swaddling clothes and the night kept its silence outside the house.

  Suddenly screams full of terror, sounds of strife and things overthrown came from another quarter of the village. Screams, gagging cries, metal on metal, metal on softer substances.

  Amram rushed to the middle door. “Where is that, Miriam?”

  “Beyond the house of Hur,” the girl sobbed. “Oh, please let me call in Aaron and let’s bar the door, papa. The soldiers will kill us!”

  A great scream of pain burst from the throat of Jochebed and Amram flew to her bedside and silenced her as before. The struggle was brief and fierce. Then it all ended with a little sigh of relief at the momentary cessation of pain. Amram smoothed back her hair and put his palm soothingly upon his wife’s head.

  “You, you let me scream,” Jochebed accused Amram weakly between subsiding gasps.

  Amram thought to quiet her fears with soothing words, but just then Aaron plunged through the front door, stumbling over Miriam’s knees and flung his ghastly face into the back room.

  “Papa! Mama! Puah! They had a baby at Jacob’s house and the soldiers took it and killed it! It was a boy baby, papa, so the Egyptians took it and killed it. Jacob tried to save his baby so they killed him too. I saw it all from the darkness outside.”

  “How did they know the child was there?” Amram asked.

  “They have been skulking around the neighborhood since yesterday, someone told me. Maybe they heard it cry. Perhaps somebody told on them.”

  Three pairs of eyes sought the midwife at once.

  “We know your loyalty, Puah,” Amram said, “but some of the midwives have been known to go from the confinement to the Egyptians.”

  “And, papa,” Aaron went on, “the soldiers also killed Jacob’s wife. Was it because she cried so loud?”

  For a space they all swam in the silence in the room. All their bodies leaned forward as if in flight. The midwife, the husband and the woman on the straw,
these were crumbling bags of fear. The naked flame of the rush light on the floor even tried to flee before the tiny breeze from the door. Then suddenly Jochebed clenched her fists and groaned like the earth birthing mountains, and the body and feel of the sound threatened them like a sword until the cry of the newborn baby ended it all.

  Old Puah was squatted on her haunches to receive the child. The man heard the cry but did not look behind him. He looked at the pain-struck face of his wife and she begged him with her looks. Puah busied herself around behind him for a minute and then she spoke.

  “Amram, your wife has borne you a son.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Amram bowed his head for a space, then straightened tensely as if he listened to every sound in Egypt, however distant. As if he gazed and saw every sight and scene in the Kingdom from end to end. As if he felt every throb and tasted every draught.

  “A son?” he gasped at last.

  “A son,” Puah answered him, “and a beautiful child.”

  “It must not live to cry again. Give it to me.”

  Jochebed roused herself upon her elbows.

  “No.”

  “Give me the child, Puah,” Amram said with a fearful calm in his voice. “It is a whole lot better for it to stop breathing in my hands than for those—”

  Jochebed had struggled to her knees. “No! My son is going to live. If the Egyptians come to kill it, then they got to kill me before they do him. If Pharaoh done scared all the love out of its papa, then let all Egypt come against me. I can’t die but one time nohow, and it might as well be now. Puah, hand me my son!”

  Amram turned his stricken face upon his wife. “Jochebed, there are different kinds of courage. Sometimes ordinary love and courage ain’t enough for the occasion. But a woman wouldn’t recognize a time like that when it come.”

  “Is my son got a Hebrew for a father or a Pharaoh?”

  “But you heard what Aaron said.”

  “What of it? Pharaoh may be dead tomorrow. Who knows? Let’s take a chance.”

  Amram looked about him wearily. “Well, if we must fool the crocodiles, let us begin and do it right. Aaron, go and watch up and down the road while I dig out a cave under the inside wall of the house. It must be large enough to hold the child.”

  Aaron arose sullenly. “But, papa, the soldiers may come along and kill me. They’ll ask me what I’m doing out there.”

  “Go on! As soon as I have finished I will come and stand guard myself and you can go to bed. The sound of my battle with the soldiers will warn you all to hide the child.”

  Jochebed, clutching her new son to her breast, threw her husband a look so full of love and happiness that Amram felt for the moment that the sacrifice of his own body was a little thing.

  The police, the secret police. That was what worried the people of Goshen. Just to look around, they were nowhere, but from the effects they were everywhere. Were ears pressed to their walls at night? It seemed so. A casual conversation might bring a public whipping and extra hours of work. How did Pharaoh find out so much? Hebrew began to suspect Hebrew. Men were accused of treason and revolt for saying Pharaoh was not kind. Everything was treason and subject to labor fines and lashings. No one except women were sent to jail. Pharaoh said it was a waste of man power and groceries to fasten up able-bodied Hebrews in jail. Every crime not punishable by death could be worked out in the brickyards, the stone quarries or on buildings. A beautiful new city bore his name and more were being planned. The Hebrews did not know all this about new plans. They talked together and said that when the new city of Rameses was finished, that Pharaoh would be satisfied. Some of them even thought that they might get back their houses and lands.

  But Pharaoh took counsel with his servants. Week after week he called them to listen to his newest ideas that he was going to work into plans. The servants told Pharaoh that all of his thoughts had genius and after ten meetings they told him his plans were perfect. So he called the Hebrew elders together to listen. He was going to speak to them in the public place. His messengers went all through Goshen and they went on all the public works telling them to come to the meeting. Pharaoh was going to be good and kind enough to appear before them in person and speak to them of his own free will. Three days after the announcement he was going to speak on the Hebrew future.

  The people in Goshen were excited. Hope burst its binding string and gushed over the province.

  Jochebed held her baby on her lap and smiled at her husband. “Maybe we won’t have to hide our baby no more, Amram. Maybe we can circumcise it and hold a christening.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I could make some little honey cakes and have palm wine and beer. That would be just like old times, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, it would. Like when Aaron and Miriam come.”

  “Only this baby is so much prettier than either one of them ever was, ain’t he?”

  “I think so. He’s awful fine looking. Too bad we can’t show him around some. Finest looking baby in Egypt.”

  “You know, Amram, I just felt all along that Pharaoh couldn’t keep up his meanness. It was too awful to last.”

  “What makes you think he’s changed his mind? Him sending for us got everybody to hoping and wishing, but it don’t have to be what we hope at all.”

  “Oh, there you go again! Amram, what makes you always looking for the dark side of everything? I declare to my rest you just like an old sorehead bear. Naturally, Pharaoh is fixing to free us and leave our boy babies alone. He couldn’t do nothing else.”

  “Oh, yes, he could, too. Everybody to their own nature. He don’t have to smell through our nose at all, and I don’t believe nothing until I see it.”

  “Aw, Amram, you wrong this time. I done talked to a heap of people and they all think like I do.”

  “You all ain’t thinking, you wishing. Anyhow, keep our baby in the hole just like we been doing for the last three months. Keep him hid till we hear further. ’Tain’t no use in taking chances.”

  “He’s getting so strong! Look at him trying to sit alone! Look at him! He’s mad now cause he can’t quite make it. Listen at the voice he’s got on him!”

  “That’s just the thing I’m scared of. I can’t half work for worrying. Some of them secret spies is bound to hear him before long. Then what we going to do, honey? I thought they had us last night.”

  “Oh, a couple of days more and we won’t have to worry.”

  “I hope you know what you hoping about, but old Pharaoh is mighty hard, honey, mighty hard.”

  “You just wait till the meeting and you going to see I’m right. God wouldn’t let this thing we’re under keep on like it’s going. It’s bound to come a change.”

  “What god you talking about, Jochebed? These gods was here in Egypt long before we ever thought of coming here. Don’t look to them for too much, honey. Then you won’t be disappointed.”

  Jochebed made to lay the child down on the pallet and it burst into lusty crying. Instantly the woman and her husband became hunted beasts. She grabbed the baby up and pressed its face into her soft bosom and glared towards the window and the door like something at bay. Amram crept to the door and looked around outside. When he returned the child had vanished into the dark hole under the wall, and the hole covered with a mat, but its voice could be heard nevertheless.

  “See what I told you?” Amram gasped. “First and last we’re all going to be butchered without mercy. Oh, Lord! why didn’t I die before I cried? Why did I have to live for this?”

  Jochebed seized the child again and pacified him quickly.

  “Well, we got by again,” she sighed with relief.

  “But for how long?” Amram demanded. “Tomorrow, maybe, or in the next half an hour.”

  “You didn’t see no spies around outside, did you?”

  “Jochebed, you don’t have to see spies for them to see you. Maybe the soldiers are on the way already.”

  Jochebed started to say something, but her husband
shut her off with a gesture. His head hung down and for several minutes the thud-thud-thudding of his fists against his breast were like a funeral march in drum tones; a tearless sorrow throbbing over death; a muted wail without words. Finally he could bear his feelings and he stopped.

  “You oughtn’t to carry on like that, Amram, when Pharaoh done sent for you. Maybe things will be all right after you all talk with him and explain things.”

  “Listen, woman, Pharaoh is a flesh and blood man just like you and me, strange as it may seem. This won’t be the first of his hearing how bad off we is here in Goshen. We ain’t in the fix we’re in by no accident, neither. He knows the feelings of a husband and a father. It is a terrible thing to strip a man of his meaning to his wife and children. Pharaoh knows all that. He means to do all that he is doing and maybe more. He had hunted around in his own heart for something to measure one’s feelings by and the things that would hurt us the most. Then when he found them, he has done those things with calculated spite. You’re just dumb to the fact. And another thing, he ain’t sending for us to better our condition. He hates the very sight of us. The only reason he consents to look at us at all is because he wants to destroy us some more and enjoy seeing it gripe us.”

  The woman bent like a willow and cried softly over the child like a thin soprano sob song. Amram carried the bass part with his fists against his chest. Finally they crept to bed without eating. But all night the woman soothed herself by thinking “maybe.” Amram dreamed dreams of smiting out with a bloody sword. Then it was time for him to get up and go to work again.

  Everybody at work was whispering about the meeting with Pharaoh and everybody had made up their minds what would happen there, each one according to his courage. Some rolled over and over in a wallow of hope and scratched their backs with wishes. These men were afraid to think. Some stared in the face of probabilities and braced themselves for the shock.

  So the meeting came. The Hebrew Elders went and stood in the public place that was full of soldiers fully armed. Then Pharaoh came in surrounded by his high-born servants and took his place. After his chief scribe got through telling the Hebrews what a blessing it was for Pharaoh to not only let them see his sacred body, he was actually going to let them listen to his voice. He was going to speak to them, using his own sacred voice and lips. They had done nothing to deserve such a great blessing. It just went to show how very kind and gentle and gracious great Pharaoh was. Always considering others before he did himself, and so on and so forth. Then Pharaoh himself rose to speak.