Heaven's Lies

by Daniel Caet

  “Moses, enough!” Iohebed shouted, crying. As if his mother's voice had aroused in him an inch of sanity, Moses looked at her and his eyes filled with tears. Then he ran out of the house.

  Sadith hugged Iohebed who was crying now in a disconsolate way. Miriam was still at her side holding her hand without saying a word.

  “When Rameses attacked the slave village, you told me he was looking for Amram's family, but you did not know why,” I said, leaving the question in the air, a question I already knew the answer to.

  “Excuse us for lying to you, Helel!” said Aaron. “We did not know who we could trust, and this secret has always been that, a secret that we have jealously guarded in the family. In fact, we do not know if this is the reason why Rameses was looking for our family.”

  “Yes, it is,” Miriam said suddenly, making her mother raise her head and look at her with wide eyes. At that moment the pieces began to fit.

  “Your visit to the palace…” I said looking at her and, although unintentionally, making her blush.

  “Visit? Which visit?” Iohebed asked.

  The girl was clearly embarrassed, but it seemed to me that it was more because she had kept a secret from her mother than for anything else.

  “Rameses' soldiers came looking for me one night while I was taking care of grandmother Mariam. You had gone with Aaron and Moses to tend to the wounded slaves like you used to. I did not want to go with the soldiers because I know what Rameses uses the girls in the village for, but grandmother convinced me that if I refused, I would only endanger the whole family; so I let them take me.” The girl paused to assess the reaction her words provoked in the woman and when she saw that she was not saying anything, she continued. “The soldiers took me directly to the rooms of Rameses’ and my body trembled thinking that my own brother was going to force me to be with him, but to my surprise, that was not what he wanted. Rameses was only interested in knowing if I was Amram's daughter and if a story that had reached his ears was true, he wanted to know if it was true that my father had conceived a son in an Egyptian noblewoman, and who were aware of it.”

  Iohebed's face was distorted. Her hands began to tremble and Sadith could barely hold them. Miriam, realising the state of her mother, ran to kneel beside her.

  “But I did not say anything, mother! I lied to him, I told him that I was not Amram's daughter, that my father's name was Camram and that that's probably why his soldiers had been wrong. And he believed me, mother, he let me go without touching a single hair on my head, I promise,” the girl said barely breathing between words.

  “I'm afraid it's just the opposite, little one,” Sadith said suddenly. “If Rameses had believed you, you would have been raped right there by him or his soldiers because you would have no value to him. The fact that he let you go is proof that he did not believe you, on the contrary, he used you to be able to reach your family. If he managed to capture everyone, sooner or later one of you would break under the threat of what might happen to others, and tell him what he wanted to know. Rameses is a strategist and he never gives up.”

  Once again Sadith's words were premonitory. Immediately Moses came back running into the cabin with his face dislocated.

  “Soldiers!” he screamed. “Soldiers are coming!”

  “It cannot be!” Aaron answered. “Are you sure?”

  “The men in the caravan have seen them approach as much as I did. They will be here in a moment.”

  “Stay inside the cabin and do not leave no matter what happens, do you understand me?” I told them. “Sadith and I will take care of this.”

  Sadith followed me outside without saying a word as if she once again knew what was about to happen. Outside we found a group of ten heavily armed soldiers coming down from their horses. One of them stepped forward to approach Sadith.

  “My lady Tyri, you are the last person I would have expected to find here!”

  “I think I can say the same, General Rajsept!” Sadith answered without showing an ounce of nervousness.

  “I think our Pharaoh is going to be very interested to know what the reasons are for you to be so far from the palace,” the man said, getting even closer to Sadith until their faces almost touched.

  “Surely you mean his son, Prince Rameses, right? I have heard that you and other generals have become his servants. A curious evolution for a military career, my dear Rajsept.”

  The man's face flushed with anger at Sadith's words and his hand grasped reflexively the hilt of the sword that hung from his waist.

  “When we go back to Thebes and you meet my lord, you will not show such boldness” the general replied, gritting his teeth.

  “You are wrong again, my dear Rajsept. When we return to Thebes you will have to explain why a general of the Pharaoh's army threatened the clairvoyant and personal friend of the queen when she was in the provinces checking her properties.” I had to restrain myself so that my face did not show my surprise. I did not know if what Sadith had just said was a risky bet to try to get out of that situation or there was some truth behind it, but it was clear that the general was succumbing to Sadith's threats, although not in the way she expected, but like a wounded animal about to show its teeth.

  “I did not know you had properties in this part of the country, I suppose that being the case you will not mind that my men and I rest for a while in that cabin and cool off with the water of your property,” said the man with the smile of whom knows he has won a card game.

  “I'm afraid it will not be possible,” said Sadith, and I could feel her body tensing as if preparing for what was about to happen.

  “And for what reason, my lady?” The man asked, bringing his face even closer to Sadith's until there was barely room for the edge of a sword between them.

  “Because you will not live long enough.”

  Sadith's hand grabbed the man's face and his mouth whispered a few words without taking his eyes from his. The poor bastard did not have time to react, his body tensed like a bowstring without Sadith letting go off his face and a dark smoke and an acrid smell came out of his mouth and his nose as terrible cries echoed throughout the oasis. In an instant, the man had combustioned from within, and all that remained of him were the ashes that stained Sadith's hand and clothes and that were swept by the desert air.

  The men who accompanied him took a few moments to process what was happening in front of them, and when they wanted to come to his aid it was too late for him and for themselves. My body reacted automatically. My sword materialised in my hand and, like a shadow, I was appearing and disappearing among them and they could not even see me. My sword cut off their limbs and their throats, causing them to meet their general’s fate without being able to understand what it was that had taken their lives. In just the time it takes a breath, I was in front of Sadith with nine corpses at my feet and, without being able to avoid it, the satisfaction that their deaths had caused me was manifested in my face. I think that at that moment both Sadith and I realised that there was a great difference between us, while neither of us hesitated to kill to protect those we cared about, it was evident that Sadith did not get any pleasure from it; while for me, snatching the lives of those men, had taken me to a state of ecstasy only comparable to the one I felt between Ankh’s thighs. If that thought should have caused me some remorse, I did not have time for it. With a wave of her hand, Sadith made the bodies of the soldiers I had massacred burn as she had done with the general's. Immediately, she turned to look for Ahmet and ordered him to remove from the horses any sign that could link them to the pharaoh's army and then she entered the house again.

  Iohebed and her family were embraced waiting for the resolution of what was happening outside. All except Moses who was by the window, and it was evident that he had seen everything that happened, his eyes were fixed on mine as I entered the cabin, but he did not say a single word and yet, there was no need for it because I knew that his look shouted ‘thank you’.

  “We cannot waste m
ore time, it is necessary that you leave. I'm sure that was not the only patrol Rameses has sent. Once you cross the eastern mountains you will no longer find yourself in Egypt, and you will have nothing to fear, for the whole world you are simply a caravan of merchants.”

  Iohebed got up from where she was sitting and without saying anything hugged Sadith in a gesture that said everything for itself. At the same time, Miriam came up to me.

  “My family and I are alive thanks to my lady Sadith and to you, Helel. Yahve knows that I cannot pay for everything you have done for us, but my lady Sadith told me that there was something I could do for you.” With an immense sweetness her hand caressed my face and a series of images filled my head. It was as if I was flying again, I could see the ground passing fast beneath me, beyond the deserts and mountains, to the sea and beyond, to another land. And then my mind ascended to a high mountain covered with woods and I could feel the air of the summit in my face. My mind showed me the entrance of a cave, decorated with two small stone pillars and from inside a voice called me by my name asking me to enter. The images disappeared when Miriam withdrew her hand, but I knew that they had been etched in my mind forever. I wanted to ask her what it all meant, what I had seen and why Sadith wanted her to show me, but Aaron grabbed Miriam by the arm and took her outside without giving me time to ask anything. Suddenly I found Sadith's eyes staring at me with the same tenderness as the girl who played around me in Sumer. And I did not want to ask anything else. I think my mind got stuck repeating over and over again the images Miriam had shown me for a long time, and when I finally got back to myself I was back on the boat with Sadith on our way back to Thebes. It was dark and Sadith was standing in the bow wrapped in her cloak and with her eyes closed. I approached her, but her voice reached me before I reached her.

  “I know. You do not understand anything.”

  “It's true, I do not understand,” I said without acrimony. “I do not know what has happened or what Miriam has shown me. I only know that you wanted me to see it, and I wonder why.”

  Sadith turned to look at me and her body profiled against the moon once again gave her the same look of one of the goddesses the Egyptians worshiped.

  “Do you remember what we talked about Enoch?”

  “Yes, of course,” I answered. “But I also remember that without a way of knowing how to find Enoch, it is not useful for me.” Sadith's smile hit me like a whip and made me wake up. “Miriam's images are the way to find Enoch,” I said barely in a whisper.

  “Actually,” Sadith replied, still smiling, “In Avaris I discovered Amram's story, but at the same time and unwittingly I found that Amran had married the daughter of a family that, although without power or wealth, had all the prestige that comes from being a direct descendant of Enoch. And then it was when everything made sense. The fact that Iohebed was descended from Enoch was not going to help us locate him, but at least it left a door open. To my surprise, I found among my books an even older version of the Enoch story that indicated that, due to the pain of having to leave his family to fulfill the mission that his god had entrusted him, Enoch committed the sin of confessing to his eldest daughter where he headed to, in case they ever needed his help. When I asked Iohebed about this, she explained that it was not a legend. The location of Enoch is only transmitted through the mother's side to the eldest daughter, and when the girls turn ten they receive the images of the grandfather's location, as they call him, and those images are erased from the mother's mind. So that meant that only Miriam was aware of the grandfather's whereabouts.”

  “And somehow you managed to convince her to show it to me.”

  “You're wrong, I did not have to. Her gratitude to you for what you have done for your family is sincere and, as soon as I explained that Enoch could help you return to your home and your family, they themselves decided that Miriam should help you if she could.”

  “But you did not tell them that I am ...”

  “Of course not, don’t be ridiculous!” she said annoyed. “But I repeat that it was not necessary. Even if you do not believe it, there are still among men people with the desire to do good in a disinterested way. Not many, it's true, but not all is lost.”

  We arrived in Thebes at dawn the next day and we went immediately to the palace. My body longed to see Ankh again and surrender to the passion that had been devouring us all that time. I have no doubt that Sadith was able to read in me the state of anxiety in which I was but, as was usual in her, she did not say a word and as soon as we arrived at the palace she went to her rooms without even telling me goodbye. I, who had become accustomed to this behaviour on her part, paid no attention to her and headed towards Ankh’s rooms, making an immense effort so that the anxiety that flowed in the depths of my being did not make me transport myself directly to her bed. But in my time as a human I should have already understood that life never makes things easy for us, and that you must always expect the unexpected, and as soon as I arrived at the door of the Ankh’s chambers reality slapped me in the face. The door was guarded by two soldiers of the pharaoh's personal guard armed with spears and blocking access. Upon seeing me arrive, their spears immediately crossed over the door indicating that I could not access.

  “What is happening?” I asked, with worse manners than were probably expected of a slave. “I am the personal servant of my lady Ankh, let me pass!”

  “Be gone, slave! Neither you nor anyone will cross this door, we have direct orders from lord Sarureptah!”

  At that moment the doors opened and behind them I found the face of Ankh's husband who left the room bare-chested and followed by three of his concubines. For a moment the anger of understanding what his presence meant made me about to make my sword materialise and end his life but, somehow, I managed to control my instincts and at the last moment forced my body into a reverence as I turned away from the door. Without looking up from the ground I noticed how Sarureptah and his entourage stood in front of me and whispered to me so that only I could hear him.

  “Her place will always be on her knees in front of my cock, never forget it, Helel.”

  Those words made my blood boil inside me and I had to dig my nails into the palms of my hands so as not to succumb to my instincts and pluck their guts right there, in front of all his entourage. Undoubtedly, Sarureptah realised my frustration and walked away laughing, knowing that his dart had hit the spot where it could cause the most damage. Once he was gone, followed by the soldiers, I ran into the room and found Ankh in a dark silk robe hugging herself on the terrace looking out at the horizon. I did not need to look at her face to know she was crying. I wanted to hug her, but she rejected my arms.

  “No, leave me!”

  “Ankh ...”

  “There is nothing to say. The time we have been together has been very beautiful and I have never felt freer, or fuller of life, but it has been all an illusion.”

  “Why do you say that? For me, our time together has been the most real and most mine I've had in a long time, and I thought that for you too.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said, turning to look at me with red eyes from so much crying. “I am Sarureptah's wife and that is something I can never escape. I will always have to be at his disposal for whatever he wants, to satisfy the darkest of his perversions because I am nothing more than one of his possessions, a dog which he can handle as he pleases”

  “That is not true, and you know it. That is not what you are but simply what you have lived. Believe me, I know well what it means to have to live a life that you have not chosen, but that does not make you less yourself.”

  “That's easy to say, Helel. I am a woman and that by definition in this world only means one thing, I am nothing. I will only be what my husband wants me to be.”

  “You are a woman and I am a slave, neither of us have been able to choose, but now life has given us the opportunity and we must take advantage of it.”

  Her eyes looked at me with compassion, the compassion of som
eone who knows that the person in front of her is deceived and cannot see reality. Slowly she placed her hand on my face and caressed me sweetly.

  “It would have been so beautiful ... it's been so beautiful!”

  I tried to grab her hand but, in an instant, she ran away from me without being able to retain her. The hunger for seeing her had given way to the immense anger of knowing that I was losing her, and the anger began to accumulate reaching the point where I could no longer control it; and without being able to avoid it I transported myself away from the palace. My mind took a few seconds to realise where I was. Carried away by the pain, my body had been transported to the same corner of the mountains where I had taken Ankh a few days before, so she could see the blood lilies. The edge of the waterfall was even fuller of those flowers that flooded everything with its fragrance. Seeing them and remembering the happiness of that moment that we had shared, a single word resounded in my mind. Lie. Everything I had lived, the things I had considered myself entitled to, the happiness I had stolen, it was a lie. I had lied to myself the moment I had believed myself a man, one of you. But the only reality is that, although I was trapped in a human body, I was not human, I had never been, and I could not hope to be. I was a pariah, an abandoned son, a disowned brother and a lost friend, a creature that was but never would be again, and I had no right to the happiness that humans enjoy. Life had already shown me once that I had no right to be loved or to love because those I loved always ended up injured or dead. I was a carrier of disgrace to everyone who came to me and that would make me live eternally alone. The rage of that thought overflowed and I noticed around me flames of an intense red and a scorching heat that devoured everything around me. A flame fuelled by a single desire that vibrated within me, destruction. When I finally managed to control myself and the flames disappeared there was no trace of the flowers that Ankh loved so much, nothing but a pile of ashes. Upon seeing that image a tear rolled down my cheek, but I did not even pay attention and let it roll until it fell to the ground, one last vestige of the human that I had wanted to be and that I would not make the mistake of believing myself again. I would not accept more lies, I would not believe in the love of a father who had abandoned me, I would not believe in the love of a family that had tried to kill me, I would not believe in the love that ended up betraying me, I would not believe anymore I had right to be loved.