She looked at him. “It has everything to do with me.” She shook her head. “What do you know about going through life”—she turned her face as her words caught in her throat—“with no idea of how you’re supposed to fit into it?”
“Djeseret.” Joseph looked at her and reached out again to touch her arm. “I’m a slave.”
The laughter rose again from within the house, but neither said anything more as they sat there in the garden.
At last Joseph said quietly, “I’m sorry to see you so unhappy.”
Her eyes were bright with moonlight, and she blinked, and they both looked away.
Chapter 28
Genesis 43:26–30
Amon smiled to himself as he watched the foreigners raise their widening eyes and step over the threshold into the interior of the villa. Trailing in through the front entryway, dressed in their new linen tunics and looking oddly between worlds with their unmistakably Asiatic appearance and the linen dress of Kemet, the men looked nervously subdued as they gazed around the open interior of the courtyard. Decorated with tumbling bursts of brightly colored flowers, scented with perfumed oils, and partially exposed to the softening pink evening sky above, the central space of the vizier’s home had been transformed into quite a breathtaking vision. Small candles set into the walls flickered against the coming evening. A wide semicircle of carved wooden chairs, cushioned and elegantly detailed, were set out with stately circular platforms beside each one for the food and drink that would be coming.
As if sensing that the tribesmen had been sufficiently awed by their host’s grand home, Amon gestured with his head to one of the servants. The man slipped out the front door and returned a moment later with another linen-clad foreigner, who let out a great cry. The others wheeled around at the sound of his voice and then cried out themselves in relieved happiness. Arms outspread and a great grin on his face, Simeon received the wave of brothers, surrounding and embracing him and asking a dozen questions all at once.
When he noticed Benjamin in the throng, Simeon reached out, clapping his youngest brother on the shoulder. “So you came to rescue me?”
Benjamin smiled. “If that’s what I’ve done, then I’m glad I could do it.”
“Who managed to convince Father to let this one come down here?” Simeon asked, turning to his other brothers, still chuckling.
Reuben, who stood slightly off to the side, said, “Judah did.”
The chuckle faded, and Simeon smiled slightly and looked at Judah. “Well,” he said, “thank you.”
Judah inclined his head.
Amon, who stood apart observing the reunion, was the only one who saw his master enter the courtyard. The vizier was dressed in his finest linen, ornate and beautifully spun, with an elegant, shoulder-length wig. Golden bracelets adorned his arms, and around his neck he wore the golden chain given to him by the king. But for all his regal presence, he moved quietly and paused as he entered the room unnoticed.
For a moment, Amon wondered whether he ought to intrude on this strange and fragile moment between the host and his guests; but then, catching his master’s eye, he cleared his throat and announced, “His Excellency, Zaphenath-Paaneah, Tjaty of All Kemet.”
Quickly the brothers turned. Seeing the man to whom they owed their liberty, they lowered themselves to the floor in a jumbling mass, and a fearful, respectful silence stamped out the laughter that had been echoing through the villa.
Keeping his eyes on their lowered forms and letting the silence ooze through the room, the vizier turned to the servant who had been translating for Amon and spoke in the quick, clipped native tongue.
“He asks about your journey,” the servant announced. The words rang in the abrupt quiet.
“A good journey, my lord,” Reuben replied, keeping his eyes down.
“And your father?” the servant asked, once the reply had been translated. “The old man? Is he still alive?”
The vizier was looking straight at Reuben.
“Yes, my lord.” Reuben nodded quickly. “He is alive.”
Hearing Reuben’s reply, the vizier lowered his eyes, then looked up again and stepped closer. His gaze traveled slowly over the men’s faces. A tense hush hovered in the room as he stood alone, facing the foreign brethren kneeling before him.
And then he saw Benjamin.
Judah watched Benjamin raise his eyes, tentative, as though feeling the strength of the vizier’s gaze upon him. The vizier’s throat moved, swallowing. Then, keeping his eyes on Benjamin, he spoke again, softly, quickly, and the servant translated.
“Is this your youngest brother?”
Reuben looked over at Benjamin and then up at the vizier. “He is, my lord.”
Benjamin had the same soft eyes he’d had as a boy and the same lush, curly hair inherited from a mother the young man had no memory of. And he knelt with such openness in his face, so strangely trusting of this official who had demanded his life to barter for his family’s survival, so seemingly willing to be bartered.
“God be gracious to you,” Zaphenath said, his voice hoarse. He flicked a glance at Amon, then turned and walked from the courtyard, disappearing back down the corridor from whence he had come.
As the vizier’s footsteps receded and he disappeared from sight, the brothers glanced frantically at one another. Catching Benjamin’s eyes, Judah mouthed, “What did you do?”
Benjamin shook his head, helpless.
“Please,” Amon said, stepping quickly closer. The guard picked up the translation. “Make yourselves comfortable. You are guests in this house. We will bring you refreshment.” He clapped his hands, summoning more servants bearing drinks.
Chapter 29
Genesis 39:7–9
Joseph winced as his foot splashed down into the shallows of the River, not quite making the leap between the edge of Potiphar’s boat and the dry riverbank. He shook his sopping sandal, already weary from the hours spent among the waving ripples of golden wheat he had been out to inspect. Potiphar’s lands lay upriver from the villa, and the day had been hot, but the short voyage back in the comfortable wooden boat had been pleasant enough until the wet sandal. Joseph watched to make sure the boat was under proper care by the waiting servants before moving on toward his master, who had accompanied him out for the inspections and stood waiting for him now. Making a squelching sound as he walked, Joseph sighed and looked up at the sky, shot through with rosy light, fading into a deep, slate-blue darkness.
“I suppose it’s not enough for your god to send us a bountiful harvest,” Potiphar said, following Joseph’s gaze. “He has to paint the sky each night, too.”
Joseph smiled. “Another harvest, in its own way.”
“Even so.” Potiphar waited for Joseph to fall into step beside him, and the two men walked on past the gates and into the courtyard of Potiphar’s property, awash in the sweet scents of flowers from the garden. “To think,” Potiphar said, as their footsteps crunched over the gravelly sand of the paths, “the same god that spoke to Abraham comes now to bless my lands.”
“If you believe it’s the god of Abraham,” Joseph said, “then he’s always blessed your lands.” He drew his outstretched hand across the darkening horizon. “And all of Kemet, and all that is.”
Potiphar was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Is that what you believe?”
Joseph clasped his hands behind his back as he walked. “It’s been a long time since I was in my father’s household.”
“You’ve adopted our gods, then?”
Joseph chuckled. “Perhaps they’ve adopted me.”
The candlelight within the villa was flickering out through the cracks in the woven mats hung over the small windows cut into the walls and casting shadows out into the garden. “Abraham’s god won’t mind?” Potiphar asked as they walked by the reflecting pool.
“Oh,” Joseph shrugged again, “he has my father and brothers to worry about. And I don’t imagine any of them have much concern about me.”
Potiphar slowed and then paused, standing in the garden with the stars beginning to peek through the veil of fading light. He turned his face to his steward.
“Sasobek,” he said, and Joseph, standing beside him, sensed a sudden gravity in his master’s expression, “do you really believe that?”
Joseph looked at Potiphar, not expecting the question and therefore lacking any immediate reply.
“I’ve always understood our gods to be forces,” Potiphar said, after a silence, “expressions of a deeper reality, symbols.” He paused again, looking up at the sky. “But the god I find in your Abraham’s writings does not strike me at all as a symbol.” He paused. “He strikes me as humanly real and disturbingly present, and that”—he focused his gaze intently on Joseph—“is why I have not been able to leave those texts alone since my father first gave them to me. That is why I feel driven to understand them.” He moved his head slightly to one side. “Do you feel nothing of this?”
Joseph, who could not tell whether he was being rebuked or merely interrogated, averted his eyes, looking down and away toward where the reflecting pool sparkled with its water canvas of nascent stars. But then he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up.
“It was right to call you Sasobek,” Potiphar said, and his voice was gentler. “Son-of-Sobek, the Crocodile, the water god.”
“Why do you say that?” Joseph asked.
“Because water is the great in-between of the mysteries.” Potiphar gestured toward the reflecting pool. “It holds the realm between earth and heaven, solid and sky. Even the stars are transformed into an ocean—the watery womb where the sun goes to rest each day. The in-between places are where the divine manifests itself—in the water, in the horizon.” He fixed Joseph with a most earnest expression. “I very much doubt that Abraham’s God—if he’s the one watching over you—did not care that you were brought here.” He shook his head. “Perhaps it is simply your destiny to swim through the in-between, like the crocodile.” And he smiled. “Like Abraham.”
Joseph felt a strange constriction rising deep within his throat. “Perhaps.”
“Osiris was killed by his brother,” Potiphar reminded him quietly, “and was brought back to life with even greater divinity. He gained it by passing through the violence and the shadow.”
“I’m not Osiris,” said Joseph.
“Or,” Potiphar said, “perhaps you haven’t met your Isis yet.” He smiled. “Whatever—or whoever—it is that can bring you back to life.” Joseph looked away again, and Potiphar reached out and put his hand on Joseph’s shoulder. “All right,” he said. “Forgive me. Come on. Let’s have something to eat.”
Joseph walked alongside his master into the flickering embrace of candlelight, leaving the stars behind.
Later that night, after retiring with Potiphar to his study to go over the last of the harvest calculations, Joseph said goodnight to his master and walked, alone, through the candlelit courtyard of the villa, quietly closing the front door as he stepped back out into the garden. He could hear the frogs croaking beyond the estate walls. Their faint, rhythmic ribbitting was a familiar and friendly accompaniment as he strolled through the night garden, a gentle assurance that the natural cycle of the world was still in order and another peaceful night had settled across the estate.
Passing back by the reflecting pool, he paused, watching the rippling stars, and he closed his eyes, taking a deep, fragrant breath of night.
Abraham—the words of the text came to him, whispered out of the stillness of the garden—Abraham—and he opened his eyes, looking up at the stars—my name is Jehovah, and I have heard you, and have come down to deliver you, and to take you away from your father’s house, and from all your kinsfolk, into a strange land which you know not of . . .
It was the passage that came in response to Abraham’s being lifted up on an altar, prepared for the sacrifice of his own life—Behold, I lifted up my voice to the Lord my God, and the Lord hearkened and heard and he filled me with the vision of the Almighty, and the angel of his presence stood beside me, and immediately unloosed my bands . . .
Joseph felt a sudden chill, even in the midst of so beautiful a night.
And then, amidst the stars and the frog song and the silent flowers, he heard a rustling footfall and turned toward where the path dipped among the fig trees, their branches spread out over whoever might be passing below. He squinted in the darkness and moved closer, leaving behind the drifting stars. The gentle fall of his footsteps mingled with the muttering frogs as he drew closer still, and he saw a murmur of shimmering white coming along the path toward him.
He slowed, and she slowed, and they looked at each other across the darkness.
“Djeseret.” Her name, spoken out across the hush of the garden, brought the slightest of smiles to her face as she stood, safely sequestered beneath the branches that tangled the view of the stars, splattering the moonlight down in gentle patches.
“I didn’t think there was anybody else out here,” she said.
“I was just coming from the house,” he explained, gesturing over his shoulder, and she nodded and looked down at the ground. He turned back to her, but she didn’t raise her eyes, and he felt suddenly unsure what he ought to do as they stood in the quiet of the garden with the lowing frog song and the stars embracing the sky.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Well,” he said at last, “I should go.” He moved as if to pass her, but she moved with him, swallowing the distance back again, and when he turned around, his face was suddenly very close to hers.
“Please don’t go,” she said quietly. She reached out, tentative, and he felt her fingers slip through his; he felt her warmth against his skin.
There, in the night, he could hear Potiphar’s voice, could see the way his master had looked at him—Do you feel nothing of this?
And somehow, that voice became his father’s, speaking out across the sky—
That is the symbol of Melchizedek—the prophet, the priest—
His father had put that robe with its symbols upon him, clothing him in an identity and heritage and folding him into the covenant line, a covenant his brothers had tried to tear from him the day that Joseph, son of Jacob, son of Abraham, was scattered into a thousand pieces—
A thousand pieces—
Until now, beneath the stars and the darkness and the hush of the garden, as he felt her breath against his body, the words came tearing back across the sky, rushing through all that had been and all that he was, and he remembered that the god had a name and that the god had known Abraham’s name—
Abraham, my name is Jehovah—
—and that he was Joseph, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, clothed in a promise that his name too was known to the God of his fathers and that he still, somehow, belonged to Him.
“Djeseret.” His voice was unsteady, whispering, against the sudden pounding of his heart. “There is nothing your husband has kept back from me”—he took a slow breath—“but you.”
He could feel her lower her head, brushing against him. “Am I his to give?”
He looked away. “Please don’t do this.” He moved his hand, loosening her fingers from around his. “I can’t.”
She looked up at him and let his hand go. He looked at her, at the open, plaintive expression on her face and the hopeful, trusting, frightened glint in her eyes. “Your god,” she said softly, “is a god of abundance.” She laid a hand on his chest. “Don’t you think . . . he would give you . . . a child?”
How many times, he thought, had his mother pled with his father and his father’s God—and how many times had her plea gone unanswered?
“I can’t,” he whispered.
He knew she had understood what he said, but her eyes betrayed that she did not understand. He turned his face away from hers.
He could feel her chin trembling.
And then she slipped away from him, like a pale shad
ow beneath the light of the moon.
He was left alone.
Chapter 30
Genesis 43:31–34
Zaphenath splashed cold water from the elegantly carved basin up over his face, the droplets dribbling off his chin, and pressed a cloth against his eyes with his wet hands. Letting out his breath in a slow exhalation, he lowered the cloth, rubbing the fabric over his fingers, and set it aside. Taking another breath, he lifted a small, polished bronze mirror that lay beside the basin, blinking at his reflection. Then he set the mirror back and plucked up the small reed brush, dipping it into the kohl pot and quickly relining the kohl around his eyes. Blinking again, he raised the mirror once more. He assured himself that he looked no worse than when he had left the gathering, which he could hear echoing through the house along with the lyrical voices of plucked strings, rising in their own mingled conversation, which meant that the musicians too must have arrived by now. Very well.
Setting the mirror aside, Zaphenath moved from the washroom back out into the corridor, head held high, regal bearing returned. The swell of voices grew louder, cresting as he entered the room. Amon saw him, and nodded, and clapped his hands.
The brothers turned to see the vizier’s returning approach, and the hubbub of chatter grew quickly quiet as the brothers waited, respectfully, to see what their host intended. The great man drew closer, and looked over them all, and held out his hand.
From one of the rooms lying off the central corridor, a woman clothed in gentle linen emerged with two small boys by her side, each with a single dark side-braid of hair, dressed in fine linen kilts and armbands.
“The mistress and children of the house,” the translator announced. The vizier’s wife came and stood beside him, gazing out at the assembled guests—at their faces, their movements, struck by how fully like men of the desert they seemed with their broad shoulders and handsome beards and wind-weathered skin. She imagined that the servants would want to come and stare at these guests who were every inch men of Deshret, in spite of the linen garments they had been given to wear.
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