Pearl in the Sand

by Tessa Afshar

  “Don’t tell me the slaves brought Pharaoh’s chariots down with their slingshots.” Rahab smirked.

  Jobab sighed. “Nothing so ordinary. Their escape route brought them to a dead end against the sea. Behind them came Pharaoh’s invincible army. Before them lay a body of water impossible to cross. They were doomed. And then their god parted the sea.”

  Rahab raised an eyebrow. “Come now.”

  “He parted the sea, I tell you! Divided it right up the middle. They walked straight through to the other side on dry ground with the water piled up all around them. Then, when Pharaoh and his army tried to follow, the waves came crashing down on top of them. Every single one of them perished.”

  Now that Jobab was rehearsing the story, Rahab remembered hearing about the mysterious death of one of the Egyptian Pharaohs and his army. It was when her parents were young. Egypt had not yet recovered its great strength after that loss. What kind of god wielded so much power? If this was all true, who could stand against such a god? She began to understand the scent of fear that clung to Jobab.

  Bending, she picked up her shift from the woven rug on the floor and pulled it over her head. “Do you wish to stay the night? I can cook you supper if you want.” Better she focus on her own menial tasks than the workings of kings and gods. What had she, a mere innkeeper, to do with such great events?

  But she couldn’t get Jobab’s stories out of her mind. In the morning the soldiers at the gate confirmed what he’d said, at least about the destruction of Sihon. Heshbon had fallen to the Hebrews. Surely that was frightening enough without bringing magical powers into it.

  Along with everyone else in Canaan, Rahab soon heard more distressing news about the Hebrews. In the months following the defeat of Sihon they triumphed in other astonishing battles. They besieged and captured the walled cities of Nophah, Medeba, and Dibon, killing all their inhabitants. With every defeat Canaan grew more petrified. Rumors abounded. The Hebrews were giants. They were numberless. Their weapons were forged of a metal no one could break. They had winged horses. They grew larger than life with every victory.

  Rahab disbelieved these exaggerated accounts about the Hebrew people. She recalled Jobab’s words as he told her about the destruction of Sihon. They were nobodies. No sophisticated weaponry, no armor, no land, no riches. This was the true picture of the Hebrews, she believed. And yet they were vanquishing town after town, army after army. What was it about these people?

  Even Jericho, sophisticated Jericho with her ancient walls and well-trained army, grew pensive. Canaan boasted many walled cities, but none to compare with Rahab’s home. The walls of Jericho were a marvel. They were so thick that people built houses and places of business into them. In the land of Canaan, when they wanted to make a point about someone’s strength, they said he was built like the walls of Jericho. But even the people of Jericho were unnerved by the astonishing victories of the Hebrews east of the Jordan River.

  Sacrifices increased in those months as people sought protection against the threat of this terrifying new enemy. Rahab could smell the burning flesh from the temple fires a league away. The priests grew slack-jawed and grey from lack of sleep. People poured into the temples and high places at such a rate the king finally appointed soldiers to keep order. Rumor had it the temple prostitutes were kept busy day and night. Rahab pitied them. She hoped they were too exhausted to think or feel anymore.

  The desperate idolatry of her people did not attract Rahab. The more she saw their faith in practice, the more she reviled it. Not even fear and desperation would drive her into the arms of Asherah, Baal, or Molech.

  Her life went on despite the upheavals outside her walls. She left Jobab, and for a long season her inn and her bed were empty. Fewer people traveled those days for fear of marauding foreigners. She had enough gold saved up that the temporary lack of income didn’t worry her. Her father’s land could always use an extra pair of hands, and she spent her days in the fields, doing the hard work of farmers. Her skin grew brown and her nails ragged. Not good for my trade, she thought, examining their rough edges one afternoon under the hot sun. The realization made her smile. Though she would eagerly have chosen this at fifteen, she knew she couldn’t earn a living off manual labor. The life of a farmhand was short and far from sweet, and she hadn’t the strength.

  One evening she received an invitation to a feast thrown by a distant cousin of the king. Through the years, she had become a favored guest at receptions given by influential men who desired sophisticated entertainment away from their wives. She went to the feast knowing she could not afford by her continued absence to be forgotten among such wealthy circles.

  Rahab chose a dress in flowing cream silk edged in silver embroidery. Her clothing never marked her as a harlot. She dressed as any fashionable lady in Canaan might, leaning toward simplicity rather than high style. She found that the curves of a woman’s body, when displayed with clever modesty, provided far more drama than any outrageous garment might. Unlike current fashion, which demanded that women curl their hair into elaborate tiny tendrils on top of their heads, Rahab preferred to leave her hair loose down her back. She wore long dangled earrings and matching armbands on her bare arms. She did not intend to stay long, but merely to make an impression.

  “Rahab!” her host exclaimed as he spotted her walking in, his long face wreathed in a smile.

  She removed his hand from her hip and made a graceful curtsy. “Your servant.”

  “I wish you were.”

  She smiled into his eyes. “Your villa sparkles this evening, my lord.”

  “Now that you are here, it certainly does.”

  She laughed. “The dangerous royal charm.” Any distant cousin of the king liked being referred to as royal, she knew. The royal hand was snaking too close to Rahab’s lower back and she stepped quickly away, bumping into a hard body. Turning around, she exclaimed, “Your pardon.”

  She knew the man by sight. He served as a high general in the army—one of Jericho’s leading men of war. What was his name? Debir, she remembered.

  “Evasive maneuvers,” he said straight-faced. “I understand.” Small laugh lines crinkled around his eyes. Rahab flushed and turned her head for a quick look. Her host had moved to another conversation.

  “A friendly skirmish,” she replied.

  He grinned. “I am Debir.”

  “I know. Your reputation precedes you, my lord. I am Rahab.”

  “I know. Your reputation also precedes you.”

  She inclined her head. “I suppose it makes for entertaining conversation.”

  “Alas, I find I do not enjoy empty chatter.”

  “Nor do I. I prefer intelligent conversation, but there is not much of it in my profession.”

  “Nor in mine” They both laughed. A mutual understanding bordering on respect sprung between them that night. Within the first hours of his acquaintance, Rahab decided to accept Debir as her lover.

  For his part, he was delighted to become her companion. Rahab knew that he came to her not out of lust or sentimental affection, but out of a simple desire to be relieved of responsibility for a few hours. Even a steady man like Debir needed a place where he wasn’t continuously pestered for decisions and judgments and wisdom. Everywhere Debir walked, he shouldered the weight of endless expectations. His three wives and numerous children relied on his guidance as heavily as his troops in the king’s army. So Debir came to Rahab simply to be.

  Unlike her other lovers, he appreciated Rahab’s wit and enjoyed conversing with her. As a result he would often speak to her about matters of state, something the average man of Jericho considered above a woman’s comprehension. He never shared state secrets. There was too much soldier in him for that. But he would talk to her about the wars that raged around them, and of the change that was settling over Canaan.

  “It seems the Hebrews have besieged Og,” he told her one night, the planes of his face smooth and curiously expressionless as if he hadn’t just proc
laimed the most devastating news to reach Canaan in a hundred years.

  Rahab gasped. Og, the king of Bashan, was reputed to be a giant both in stature and in ability. His iron bed was considered one of the wonders of the world, so wide and long it was. No Canaanite could imagine anyone having the temerity to march against Bashan. “Now they’ll certainly be destroyed,” she said.

  Debir raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “You don’t agree?”

  “Let’s say I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion.”

  “You don’t think Og can beat them? You think they can overrun the city of Edrei?”

  “Edrei is a different matter. It’s protected by a gorge on the one side and a mountain on the other. Nestled right into the side of it. Militarily speaking, Edrei is impenetrable. I can’t see how even Moses and his magician warriors could get in.”

  “So? Isn’t that where Og is?”

  “For now, yes. He’s settled in, and all he has to do is sit tight and wait the Hebrews out. It will be a long and grueling siege, and the Hebrews can’t afford to loaf about and do nothing for that long. They’ll need food, water, and fresh grazing land for their cattle. Eventually, they’ll have to give up and leave.”

  Rahab frowned. “I thought you feared Og might lose. Now you’re telling me he doesn’t even have to fight to win.”

  Debir walked over to the window and gazed out at the plains and hills leading to the Jordan. His smile didn’t reach his eyes as he turned back to face her. “It’s mighty hard on a king’s pride to hide rather than fight. He may not lose, but he also doesn’t win. Og is a warrior, and he has enough pride to match the size of his shanks. It will take a great deal of sense to keep him sheltered in Edrei.”

  “And you think he has more pride than sense.”

  “Let’s just wait and see.”

  Og chose to march. Like the proud fool he was, he took his whole army out to meet the Hebrews in battle. One soldier survived long enough to tell the story, and a passing merchant brought it to Jericho. Edrei had been attacked by swarms of hornets. The city was thick with them. They drove the horses wild, and there was no escape. Their stings were so bad they killed the very young and old. Even their strong men howled with pain and cursed with vexation. Og could not bear it. To be imprisoned in your own kingdom by an inferior enemy was bad enough, but the added indignation of being stung by hornets was too much for him. Was he a slave that he should cower in his own domain, hiding from mere vagabonds? So he marched out together with his sons and his army to engage the Hebrews.

  And the Hebrews killed every single one of them and took possession of their land.

  “It won’t be long now before Moses sets his eyes on Jericho,” Debir said after telling Rahab the story of Bashan’s defeat. He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. “We are the first great city west of the Jordan, and if he understands anything about warfare, he’ll make us their next target.”

  Her mouth turned dry at this pronouncement. “Well, for pity’s sake, don’t open the gates and rush out to meet them if they come. We’ll be safe inside our walls.”

  With his thumb and middle finger, he flicked a fly that had settled close to him. He had faultless aim. The fly pitched over in death. Turning toward Rahab, he said, “They crossed the Red Sea, you know. When they ran away from the Pharaoh. The sea parted for them and collapsed over the Egyptian army.”

  Rahab flopped down on a feather-filled cushion and leaned back against a scarlet trimmed tapestry. “Don’t tell me you believe in that nonsense?”

  Debir looked at her from beneath bushy brows. “I do believe it. I have believed it for almost forty years since I first heard about it. Their god is mighty beyond our experience.”

  Her smile was tinged with sarcasm. “Another bloodthirsty god. Excellent. Just what Canaan needs.”

  He shook his head, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “You have the strangest notions, Rahab. It’s a wonder the gods don’t strike you down.”

  “I leave them alone and they return the favor. Why do you believe this nonsense about the sea parting and the Pharaoh drowning, Debir? It’s not like you to credit rumors.”

  “It’s no rumor.”

  “You saw this with your own eyes?”

  Debir ran a hand through his hair. “No. But I saw it through the eyes of someone who did see it firsthand. One of the Hebrews.”

  Rahab bolted upright. “You know one of them?”

  “Forty years ago I did.” Debir rose from the mattress and came to sit near her. “I met him just before my military training. If I hadn’t been so young, I would have recognized him for the spy he was. At the time though, I believed him to be a merchant like he told me. He saw me at the gate and gave me a week’s wages to give him a tour of the city.”

  Her eyes widened. “Why didn’t they attack us back then? Why wait forty years before starting their campaign?”

  “I don’t know. This Moses must be getting on in years. He was their leader back then too.”

  “Maybe he’ll die before they come against Jericho.”

  “I have a feeling even that wouldn’t stop them. The man I told you about, he said their real leader is their god. It was this god who sent Moses into Egypt to free them from slavery. He told Moses He had seen the affliction and misery of His people and was concerned about their suffering. He wanted them released from Pharaoh’s yoke.”

  Rahab frowned, her mind racing. Words like concern were not in the gods’ vocabulary. Yet if Debir was correct, here was a god who had compassion on human suffering. The thought of a god of compassion did something to her heart. A longing came upon her that almost brought her to tears. A longing for someone to look upon her suffering and care enough to rescue her.

  With ruthless precision, she squelched the traitorous desire. “Well, he wasn’t very compassionate to the Egyptians if he drowned the lot of them. Is it only the Hebrews he cares about? Didn’t he consider the weeping wives and mothers back in Egypt?”

  Debir lifted a fat curl lying on her shoulder and pulled it softly. “I wouldn’t have shown the Egyptians any compassion if they had treated my people as they did the Hebrews. Incredibly, the Hebrew god gave the Egyptians plenty of opportunities to release his people without bloodshed. He gave them warning upon warning. But their pride was too great. They wouldn’t bend to his will. If they hadn’t chased after the Hebrews, they wouldn’t have drowned.”

  Rahab pulled her hair free from his hold. “What else did this man tell you about their god?”

  Debir shrugged. “He sounds very odd. He allows no statues to be built of him so you can’t see or touch him. He claims to be the One True God, at once everywhere and over everything. It would be laughable if it weren’t for the power he seems to display.”

  “A god you can’t see? What would be the point? How are you supposed to believe in what your senses tell you isn’t even there?”

  “I don’t know, but the Hebrew spy told me he did not find this an impediment. He claimed there were other ways to experience god apart from images.”

  Rahab leaned on her elbows and pinned Debir with a steady gaze. “Such as?”

  “I didn’t become a follower, Rahab. I’m no expert at this. I can tell you he is ridiculously strict. For example—and you’ll find this interesting—he forbids prostitution even as part of worship. One of the places I took the Hebrew was a temple. He covered his eyes when he saw the prostitutes mating with the worshipers and told me that according to Hebrew Law, they would have been stoned.”

  “Stoned?”

  “You would make a very bad Hebrew, eh, Rahab? Or a very dead one.”

  She swallowed. There was a flagon of wine sitting next to her and she poured some into an ornate silver cup for herself, forgetting to offer any to Debir. It tasted like dust.

  Chapter

  Three

  Nobody knew better than Rahab the destructiveness of her profession. Nobody knew better what it did to your soul when you gave a
way your body without emotional attachment, without commitment, without hope of a future. No pleasure could fill the gulf of loneliness that widened with each day. There were days when she wanted to strangle the men who pawed at her without a thought for her heart. And there were days when she thought her own death might not be a bad fate. She felt part dead already. It seemed that the Hebrew god agreed with her. So he was a god of compassion. But for Rahab, he had only stones. “Go on,” she said to Debir, filled with dread and fascination at the same time.

  Debir leaned over and took the cup from her hand and drained the remaining contents in one gulp. “The Hebrew god, it seems, is as tenderhearted as a woman. In the temple that day the priests were sacrificing a number of children. Would you believe the spy wept when he saw it? I will never forget his tears. He was a large man, well built and heavily muscled—not effete in any sense, except for these tears running the length of his face. As a young man I thought him weak, crying like an untried boy at a sacrifice.

  “He asked me if I felt no revulsion. ‘Of course not,’ I said. He told me his god would never bear such a thing. Then he said, ‘Your hearts are too hardened, Debir. Your people have grown hard beyond redemption. Even the Lord cannot reach you. And He is God in all heaven and all earth.’”

  Rahab turned toward Debir, holding her breath. A god who cherished life? A god who cared for unnamed babies? A god who could see Canaan’s iniquity and declare them beyond redemption? Again she felt that longing, stronger than before. The irony of it didn’t escape her, the pitiful irony of a prostitute from Jericho longing for the god of the Hebrews.

  “So you think their god is systematically wiping us out as judgment?” she asked.

  Debir shrugged. “I’m not a priest. As a soldier, I can tell you they are winning victories they shouldn’t be winning. Their god baffles me. He appears to have more power than any of our gods. Power and compassion. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I don’t care to face it now, if you want to know the truth. I hope the Hebrew god is satisfied with the land on that side of the Jordan. Let them settle in over there, then maybe we can do business with them.”