Pearl in the Sand

by Tessa Afshar

  “But you don’t think that’s what will happen.”

  He leaned over and refilled the silver cup. “If I were their general, that’s not what I’d do. Trapped between Midianites and Edomites and Amorites and Egypt, how would they ever be safe? They would have to sleep with one eye open their entire lives for generations to come. If this god desires to give his people rest, leaving us untouched would not make a good plan.”

  “Are you afraid of him—of this god?” she blurted out.

  The fact that she had asked him this question would have been an insult to any other man. But Debir took no notice of the impropriety of her words. He stood suddenly and began to pace in the narrow room. “The Lord. That’s what they call him,” he said, dropping to one knee very close to Rahab. She could feel the warmth of his wine-soaked breath as he spoke. “Everyone’s afraid. Even the barracks are filled with dread. If Og and Sihon couldn’t withstand the Lord, how can we? He isn’t interested in terms. He isn’t interested in compromise. He is like a consuming fire. You ask me if I’m afraid. Rahab, I have never known fear … until now.”

  “You think we’re going to die.” It wasn’t a question. She could see the conviction stamped on every line of his face. The Lord. Finally, she had encountered a god of power and compassion. And he was her enemy.

  “Yes. I do. I imagine it’s not going to happen for many weeks yet. The river is on our side because it’s at flood stage. You can’t cross an army through at this time, but as the waters dry up, they will come.”

  “How will they get through our walls? No one has been able to do that, not for centuries, not since it’s been built up to this height and width.”

  “You’re right. No army can get through these walls. But we’re not talking about an army; we’re talking about a god. No wall can withstand his will.” Debir bowed his head as he said this, and she caught a glimpse of something she never thought to see on his face. Despair. He had no hope. In that moment she became convinced of Jericho’s doom.

  When Debir left, Rahab was filled with a sudden desire to be outside, away from the constraint of her home. Her sandals clattered down the stairs inside the dark bowels of the wall and then, relieved, she emerged into the bright day. Taking a deep breath she began to walk, her feet moving of their own accord.

  A short way from her inn she turned down a narrow lane and came upon a group of playing children. Their noise drew her from her thoughts, and she gazed at them with a smile. Her smile faded as she realized the nature of their game. They had surrounded a beggar and were pelting him with stones and obscenities. The old man crouched in a corner, his trembling hands covering his face.

  As a sharp rock cut the man’s forehead, blood welled up on the wrinkled skin and began dripping into his eye.

  A girl pointed a finger at the beggar and shouted, “Look how his white beard is shaking—he’s starting to cry! Hit him again!”

  “Cry nothing,” laughed a boy. “I think he might wet his pants!”

  “Ee-uw!” Several spectators gasped, and cheered with laughter. “Leave him alone!” Rahab shouted.

  The boy, about to hurl another rock, stopped short and looked at Rahab in her fine clothes. “My lady, he’s just a beggar, can’t you see?”

  “Leave him alone, I said.”

  They were all staring at her now. “What do you mean? He’s just a beggar. He stinks!”

  Rahab grew very still. It was true that her people treated vagrants worse than stray dogs. She herself would have walked right by him without a glance on most days. She might not have tormented him, but she certainly wouldn’t have thought about his plight, either.

  She examined the young faces before her. They displayed no remorse. No conviction. No regret. These were mere children, yet already they had learned to step on the weak and hate the helpless.

  “Get out of here,” she rasped. They obeyed her, partly because she was an adult, but also because her clothes were finer than theirs. The people of Jericho did know how to respect money.

  She knelt by the old man. “Are you hurt badly?”

  He shrank back and said nothing. She saw that his cut was superficial, another injury to add to the scores he had received in the course of his life. Reaching inside her linen pouch, she found a few silver coins, probably more than the old man had ever seen in one place. Placing the coins in his palm she said, “Go and find a safe place to wash and sleep. And put some warm food in your belly.” His jaw dropped open, and she saw that his teeth had rotted away. The pathetic sight of that mouth, toothless, filled with decay, stinking of putrefaction, made her heart melt with pity instead of disgust.

  He wrapped shaking fingers around the coins. Raising that wobbly fist he cried, “A curse on them! A thousand curses on those children!”

  “Shhh,” Rahab whispered. Without understanding her own actions, she reached out and held the man as a mother might hold a precious child. Surprisingly, he began to weep, broken sobs that seemed to have no end.

  With painful insight she realized they were not much different. She too had putrefying wounds, though they were deep within. She too was forsaken. She too was rejected. Her life too had been wasted. No, she felt no disgust for him. Only sorrow and pity.

  When he had quieted, she rose up. “Lady,” he rasped. “No one has held me like that since I was a boy.”

  Rahab smiled and nodded. Drained by the encounter, she began to walk away, then broke into a heedless run toward home.

  She recounted the story to Debir when next he came to visit her. He shrugged, dismissing it with ease. “He’s a beggar, Rahab. I don’t know why you bothered.”

  Rahab studied him silently. Debir was closer to a friend than anyone she had known since childhood. She liked his forthrightness, his intelligence. She basked in his unusual acceptance of her. And yet she had to admit he was hard. Impenetrable. “Do you think the god of the Hebrews would care about beggars?” she asked, trying to goad him into some feeling.

  “How should I know? Am I a Hebrew? He cares for babies and slaves. Maybe he cares about beggars too.”

  Rahab turned away bleakly. “And yet he plans to destroy us.”

  “Yes.”

  She felt torn between fear and longing. Terror over a god who despised her people and longing for a god who championed the forgotten. Terror won. Without thinking, she reached for Debir’s hand and held onto its rough, broad surface until her fingers turned white. “Debir, let’s escape. Let’s run from Jericho.”

  “There is no escape. Don’t you see? The Lord has marked out this whole land for his people.”

  “We’ll go somewhere else. We’ll—”

  “Rahab, stop. I’ll not run. Why should I bend my knee to this wandering rabble and their tenderhearted god? I am a man of Jericho, a lord of Canaan. I will not betray my position or my people.” He pulled his hand out of hers and moved away.

  Rahab opened her mouth to argue and then closed it again. Debir felt none of the pull or longing for this new god that she felt. He was only afraid of his power. And that fear did not compare to the measure of his pride. How could Rahab pit herself against Debir’s pride when his own fear of the Hebrew god could not dent it?

  A great sadness settled over her as she studied his tense back. Their time together was at an end, she knew. He was a man who believed he had no future. A man preparing to die. Dying men returned to their families. Suddenly the very things they avoided as annoying or cumbersome seemed precious and worthwhile. Their harlots no longer answered for their needs.

  She approached him and waited near him until he acknowledged her with a glance. She caressed his face with a tender hand. “May you live long, my lord.”

  “Are we saying good-bye?”

  “It is best.”

  He nodded with a soldier’s disciplined movement. “May the god of the Hebrews deal kindly with you. Our own gods seem to have abandoned us.”

  “I abandoned them first, so their loss is no great sorrow to me.” He gave the ghost o
f a smile. “I will send you a token. Don’t bother saving any of it. Spend it as soon as you can.”

  In the ensuing days Rahab spent long hours brooding over her future. She thought about the destructive ways of Jericho and of the pointless passions of her countrymen that led only to unhappiness and destruction. She thought about the Hebrews and their strange customs. Most of all, she thought about their god. She could not pluck him out of her thoughts. Could there really be a god who ruled over everything? Could he be real, this phantom of the Hebrews who saved some and condemned others with incomprehensible rationale? Did he really champion slaves?

  After three days of such thoughts and no human contact she knew she was in need of a diversion. She decided to call on her family.

  “Do my eyes play tricks on me or is my younger daughter actually honoring me with a visit?”

  Rahab’s smile was dry. Her mother reached on tiptoes and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Izzie and Gerazim are here too. The whole family’s together.”

  For a moment Rahab felt a wrenching pang. If she had not happened by, would they have invited her? And why should they? She had spurned so many of their invitations in the past. Though she often sent gifts, her visits were few.

  “I’ll be glad to see everyone,” she said honestly.

  “Is that my little sister?” Izzie cried and ran over to envelop Rahab in a hug. “Looking ravishing as always. Come and soil your exquisite robe. I’m cooking and I could use your help.” She leaned closer so that only Rahab could hear her. “Mother is causing me to lose my mind.”

  Rahab laughed, feeling the tension drain from her body. Cooking with Izzie sounded delightful.

  “Mother, now that I have Rahab, you can rest from cooking,” Izzie announced. “Why don’t you go enjoy your grandchildren?”

  “What, and leave you girls to ruin our supper? I don’t think so.”

  Izzie growled under her breath. “Pardon, but I have been running my own household long enough to manage a family dinner. As for Rahab, she owns a famous inn.”

  “Thank you for the reminder, as if I could forget,” Rahab’s mother said, her lips turning white.

  Now Rahab remembered why she rarely visited. Izzie dug a sharp elbow into her side. “Ignore her. You come with me.” To Rahab’s relief, their mother did not follow, and she spent two hours helping prepare several dishes for the family’s supper. Her sisters-in-law joined in after a while and Rahab found herself laughing over stupid stories. She missed her family in spite of their annoying comments and stressful expectations. She had missed them and hadn’t known it.

  As the days unfolded, she found herself spending more and more time with them. With the women she weeded the garden, fetched water, made cheese and yogurt from goat milk, bartered in the bazaar, and spun wool. In time, the season for harvesting the flax and barley arrived, so Rahab joined her family in the fields more out of a desire for companionship than for financial gain. Debir’s “token” turned out to be a substantial bag of gold large enough to see her through a year. If she had a year, which she doubted.

  She didn’t believe she had a future anymore. Still, she scraped her hands raw, pulling flax from the root to protect the fragile stems that would yield linen. Who would live to use these stalks? Who would put the yarn on a loom and weave them into linen? Who would dye them? Sew them? Wear them? And yet she pulled and pulled, until the field about her was cleared and her bundles piled high.

  Her family wasn’t immune to the dread spreading over Jericho as continuous reports of Hebrew victories reached their gates. By its very nature, harvesting forced them to think about the future. And their future boded ill. The enemy was close.

  The night they completed the harvest there was little of the usual joviality that accompanied the last day of reaping. Rahab took her share of the flax stalks home in an old cart and laid them out on the roof to dry. She was exhausted from her labors. Too weary even to wash the sweat from her skin, she slid down against the wall and rested her head on her knees.

  She hurt, flesh and heart. An overwhelming sense of isolation swept through her. For all the time she spent with her family these days, and despite their kindness toward her, she felt as if she belonged to no one. She longed for sleep to release her from the pain of thinking. Of feeling. But sleep would not come.

  She was trapped. Trapped in the solitude of her heart, which no amount of companionship seemed able to pierce. Trapped in her body, the body of a harlot besmirched by a dozen men. Trapped in Jericho, which stood trembling before an enemy whose advances could not be turned away by walls of stone and mortar. Trapped in Canaan, which was marked for destruction by a god who claimed to have dominion over the whole world. She was trapped.

  Was there anyone who could set her free from so much bondage? Her thoughts turned again to the god of the Hebrews. If he were truly the one god over everything as the Hebrews claimed, did it not follow that everyone who lived on earth belonged to him in some way? If he were the one real god—a stretch to believe such an outlandish claim—but if he were, could not even Rahab the harlot, Rahab the Canaanite, Rahab the nobody make a request of him?

  Rahab sat up straighter. What would she have to lose by it?

  “God of the Hebrews,” she began, before lapsing into silence. She had no idea how to speak to a god after so many years of enmity with them. “God of the Hebrews,” she began again with determination. “I have heard of your power. Your people say you are the one true god in heaven and on earth. They say you hear their cries and have compassion on their suffering.

  “If these are not the wild tales of desperate men, and if you are truly what they proclaim you to be, then I wish you would show yourself to me. I wish you would give me life.”

  The pale rays of dawn woke her from a deep sleep. She still sat where she had collapsed the previous night, against the wall, in a heap. Rahab was amazed that she had slept soundly through the night. Not for months had she known slumber so uninterrupted. The words of her prayer to the god of the Hebrews suddenly rose to the forefront of her mind. An unseen god. A god with no form or image. A god no one could touch. The god of her enemies. And yet on this early morning she sensed a peace beyond anything she had known these many years. Was this the doing of the unseen god? Or was she losing her mind? Would her mother be saddened or cheered to know about her madness? What was worse—having a mad woman or a harlot for a daughter?

  She rose with a grunt. Her day servant would not arrive for several hours, yet Rahab could not wait to wash. She stank of dried sweat and farm soil. She stank of honest work. Filling a large basin with tepid water, she added a few drops of rose water and oil and began to cleanse her skin of its dirt. The peace lingered. If this was madness, she accepted it gladly. If this was the doing of the Hebrew god, then he was everything his people claimed him to be. If this god was the enemy, she belonged to the wrong side.

  A glance out the window showed a cloudless blue sky, and Rahab decided to go for a walk. She chose a winding path lined with young sycamore trees, a beautiful road that led toward the marketplace. Without warning, the stench of charred flesh and the pounding of drums assailed her senses. Looking up, she examined her surroundings and found herself near the temple of Baal. Not ten paces away stood a prostitute, waiting, and half tumbling out of a dress that no longer looked fresh. Their eyes met. This was someone’s daughter, Rahab thought. Someone’s sister. But her life had been sacrificed, exchanged for the promise of prosperity.

  Abundance, fertility, health—Canaanites sacrificed their children in hopes of greater gain and satisfaction of every kind. Next to money, they worshiped lust with wild abandon. In satisfying one desire, they hoped the gods would satisfy all their other desires as well. Financial security and sensual pleasure mattered more than life in Jericho.

  It had been years since Rahab parted company with the gods of her people. Now she saw that it wasn’t merely their gods. It was her people. They chose these standards. They chose this order and abided by
it. Canaan had turned into the very pit of the world, and Jericho was the pit of Canaan.

  Was this why the god of the Hebrews sought to annihilate them? Did he see no hope for them? No redemption? The answer welled up within her like nausea she could not ignore. They had gone too far. And they were arrogant about it. Defiant. The weak, the helpless, the nameless babies, sickly beggars, and young girls forced to serve in the temples—like this girl, staring at her through vacant eyes—had no recourse. No justice and no hope of salvation. They either perished, or died a slow death of agony by growing bitter and refusing to forgive. While the powerful pawed and pillaged and used and violated as they pleased. This was her home. This was her heritage.

  Unsettled, Rahab instinctively made her way to her family’s house. In the small garden, she found Joa, tending vegetables.

  “Rahab!” he called out and straightened.

  “I was planning to buy some food in the market, but lost heart before I arrived.”

  “All of Jericho has lost heart. Come and pick vegetables with me.”

  Rahab knelt in the dirt, careless of her fine tunic. “Joa, do you think the god of the Hebrews is real?”

  “Mayhap you should ask Og or Sihon that question. Oh, wait. I recall now. They are dead.”

  “Or mayhap I could ask the Hebrews themselves. Oh, wait. I recall now. They are alive, in spite of years of wandering the wilderness, and being chased by Pharaoh’s army, and being attacked by Canaan’s finest kings.”

  “First you doubt him, now you defend him. You should make up your mind, sister.”

  Rahab shrugged. “It’s our gods I don’t like, and I’m not too fond of our people either.”

  “Rahab!”