Pearl in the Sand

by Tessa Afshar

  It was easier for Rahab who had had so much time to adjust. She already had faith in the might of the Lord, in the truth of who He was. “Thank you,” she croaked, but could think of nothing more to say. On impulse, she grabbed the scarlet cord and shoved it in her sack. She would always treasure it in memory of the Lord’s goodness to her. It would serve her as a reminder that He had chosen to save her.

  The stairs to her inn remained as solid as ever, impervious to the destruction that reigned everywhere about them. Hanani went first, then Rahab and her family, with Ezra bringing up the rear. A stench hit Rahab the closer they got to the outside. The smell of burning wood and flesh, of blood, of flying dirt and ashes hit her so hard her throat began to burn. Rahab’s hands were full and she couldn’t cover her nose. She began breathing through her mouth, trying hard not to gag. Just as they were about to emerge from her stairway, Hanani came to a sudden halt, and Rahab, bowed under the weight of two bulging sacks, plowed into him. “Oh! Pardon.”

  Hanani shook his head. “Don’t look down,” he said to her. Then raising his chin he addressed everyone. “Don’t look down. And cover the eyes of the children.”

  Rahab felt the blood draining from her face. Hanani began to move again, and she followed him, her mouth dry. At the threshold of the downstairs door a body had fallen lifeless and bloody. To move forward, Rahab had to take a wide step over its torso. She tried not to look. Still she saw that its neck came to an abrupt and messy end where a head should have been. A dismayed croak escaped her lips before she managed to silence herself. She turned her face away only to see the head, rolled away near a pink rosebush, eyes staring wide, mouth open more in surprise than agony. She recognized that face. It was Hamish the guard. A fat horsefly flew out of his lifeless mouth, and Rahab bit her lip to keep from retching.

  She forced herself forward, pasting her gaze on Hanani’s back, ignoring everything but that small patch of fabric, the muscles underneath it bunching and relaxing with each step. Because she lived in the wall, the carnage they passed was limited. It was more than enough horror to last a lifetime, nonetheless. Whenever she heard the words war or battle after that day, these were the pictures that her mind would conjure up.

  Near where the great gate to the city used to stand, Hanani came to a sudden halt and turned. “I must tell Joshua we found you. Don’t move from here. Ezra, I will return shortly,” he yelled in order to make sure he was heard over the din. Ezra waved a hand to signal he understood.

  Rahab set down her bundles and covered her nose and mouth with a shaking hand. The sounds that surrounded her were horrifying and unmistakable—the sounds of destruction and annihilation.

  Out of nowhere, it seemed to Rahab, a tall warrior moved quickly toward their waiting group. He pivoted with a lightning movement toward her, brandishing a broad sword stained red. Rahab gasped and raised her hands in an unconscious gesture of surrender. Ezra jumped from behind Joa and cried, “Salmone, stop! They’re with us!”

  The man bent his face toward her and for a fleeting moment Rahab found her gaze locked with his. His long eyes, almost black, narrowed as they studied her. Although handsome, with a well-formed mouth and chiseled nose, a dark sternness marked every feature, making him look far from inviting. He was beautiful, but cold.

  “You had better get them out of here before someone else cuts them down,” he bit off.

  Hanani was now running toward them and heard the man’s words. “We will, straightaway, Salmone. I was only reporting to Joshua.”

  Rahab had an impression of impatient ire before the man turned and shouted to a group of soldiers who ran to obey his command. Only after his back turned did she breathe again. With relief, she resumed her interrupted march behind Hanani, step-by-step, as he led them out of the ruins of her nation.

  They had walked for an hour in unbroken silence before Rahab could find her voice. “You’ll fight other cities?”

  “Yes,” Hanani said.

  She nodded. Of course the Lord wasn’t satisfied only with Jericho. Hadn’t Debir told her as much months before? The thought of him brought tears to her eyes. All too well she now knew his fate—the fate he had chosen. She mourned his loss for he had been a friend.

  She could say no more. Their trek proved substantial, and although Hanani and Ezra helped them with their bundles as much as possible, their weight was still a difficult burden. The younger children had to be carried most of the way. Rahab tried to ignore the stitch in her side and kept up as best she could under the scorching rays of the sun. Sweat made uneven track marks on her flesh where she was covered in the thick dust of Jericho’s fallen masonry. Her family stumbled along, bowed beneath their sorrow and loss more than beneath the weight of their worldly possessions. Rahab doubted they had ever truly believed God could overcome Jericho.

  Just after noon, they arrived at a small hilltop surrounded by palms and a few acacia trees. “We must leave you here for now,” Hanani told them. “Joshua asked us to bring preliminary reports of the war to Israel’s camp. On our way back to the city we’ll stop here again to bring you water. You have no well nearby.”

  Rahab curtsied to them. “You have saved our lives.”

  “As you saved ours,” Ezra said with a nod.

  They were grateful to have shade. No one was hungry, and the children, exhausted from their grueling walk, fell into sleep without fuss. Izzie helped Rahab spread some blankets to create a more comfortable atmosphere. They also strung her scarlet rope between two date trees and hung a blanket over it to create a space that afforded a measure of privacy. From Jericho’s walls to a blanket. They had been reduced indeed.

  The adults sat huddled together, trying to derive some sense of assurance from one another’s proximity. Rahab kept thinking of Hanani’s answer to her question—that Israel would continue its war on Canaan. And where would that leave Rahab and her family? At the mercy of other Canaanite gods and people? At the mercy of another indefensible attack from Israel? Had she risked her life merely to be abandoned? She realized she wanted so much more than this temporary respite. She wanted a security that lasted. She wanted a nation that she honored. She wanted the Lord.

  On impulse she blurted, “I want to ask Ezra and Hanani to intercede on our behalf with Joshua. Perhaps they’ll let us live with them.”

  A shocked silence met her announcement. Then Joa pivoted toward her. “Has your brain baked in the sun, woman? The Hebrews are murdering our people as we speak. You want to live with them? How do you think they’ll treat us?”

  “It’s out of the question,” her older brother concurred. “We’ll stay here out of respect until they come back. Then we’ll move west. Canaan has other cities. We’ll settle far from here.”

  “And what will you eat?” she challenged. “Your farm belongs to the Hebrews now, in case you missed the battle back there. How will you support yourselves?”

  “Same way we would if we stayed with those foreigners, Rahab. We would work,” Karem responded.

  “As laborers, you mean? And how long before you starve? Surviving was hard enough when you were masters of your own soil.”

  “You think these people are going to gift us with land?” Joa asked, his tone bitter with sarcasm. Turning, he punched the nearest tree trunk with a balled up fist. There was a sickening cracking sound and Rahab winced, hoping he hadn’t broken his fingers. He put his knuckles in his mouth and turned away. She saw that they were raw and skinned, but they didn’t look damaged deeper than that. Her shoulders sagged with relief.

  “They live differently from us,” she said after a few moments had passed. “No one in their midst starves. The Lord provides for them.”

  “The Lord! The Lord! I’m sick of hearing that name,” Joa shouted. “I want to get away from Him—as far away as I can.”

  She moved to his side. “Joa.” But she couldn’t think of anything to say that would be a comfort to him, so she hugged him tightly instead. He started to cry. “This is a nightmare,” he kept
saying over and over.

  Rahab’s father and mother came and sat near him, looking helpless and close to tears themselves. Her sister and sisters-in-law had been busy trying to start a fire and prepare some warm food, and missed most of the exchange. Drawn by Joa’s misery, they came over too.

  “What’s going on?” asked Izzie.

  “Rahab wants us to move in with the Hebrews,” her mother replied.

  “Would they let us?”

  “Izzie! You can’t mean you’d want to,” Gerazim admonished.

  “Well, where else are we going to go?”

  “Exactly,” Rahab cut in. “You cannot go far enough west in Canaan to get away from the Hebrews. They’ll come sooner or later—in our lifetime, or in your children’s. Haven’t you comprehended it yet? They want this whole land. The only safety is with them. As one of them.”

  “Would they make us slaves?” Izzie asked.

  “Of course not … I don’t think.” Blight! They wouldn’t, would they? If they wanted slaves they would have taken them as prisoners already. “I think if we are willing to worship the Lord alone, and give up our gods, they might let us live with them—as free people.”

  Izzie’s brow crinkled. “Give up our gods? I’m willing any minute of the day.”

  Her husband stared at her like she had just announced she had taken up Rahab’s former profession. “Izzie, what are you saying?”

  She turned on him with a vehemence that silenced everyone before she even spoke. “I gave Molech my child. My child! And what did it gain me? Besides misery and regret what have I reaped from that sacrifice? So many years, and I’ve been barren. No blessing. No wealth. I have seen more power in the Hebrews’ god in the last seven days than I have in our own deities my whole life. I say good riddance to them. Bring on the Lord. Rahab, I’m with you.” She bit her lip with small even teeth, and then in a smaller voice asked, “Do you think they’ll take someone who has sacrificed her child to Molech?”

  “They will if they take a former harlot.” Karem pushed a hand through his hair. “Rahab, are you sure they’re going to attack other lands in Canaan too?”

  “Positive.”

  “You haven’t been wrong yet. If it weren’t for you, sister, we’d be dead, every last one of us. None of us have had enough sense about us to thank you. We owe you our lives. And I for one don’t want to live through another battle like that. I’m willing to join the Hebrews if they’ll have us as equals, and not as slaves. My family and I will stand by you.”

  Izzie looked at Gerazim. He jerked his head into a faint nod, looking greenish and sick. Rahab couldn’t blame him. It was like deciding to change their species midstream. What did they know about the Hebrew life? It spread before them like a dark, unbroken night.

  Rahab’s parents were quiet, looking from Joa to the rest. Joa didn’t say any more that night, though. He just stared toward where Jericho used to be, his lips trembling once in a while. His wife sat with him, and his children, still somnolent from sleep, came over. But even their clinging nearness didn’t draw him out. The whole night he sat against that tree. If he slept, Rahab didn’t see it. When she woke up, he was in the same place, his mood as black as before.

  “Joa,” she whispered and hunched down in front of him. “What is it? What eats you so?”

  “They’re the enemy. I feel like you’ve gone over to the enemy.”

  “Do you want to take your family somewhere else in Canaan? You may if you choose, brother. They have given us our lives free of conditions.”

  “If I go I’ll lose the rest of you. Haven’t we had enough losing already?”

  She nodded. More than enough. “That Hebrew camp is the only chance at life in the long run. You can learn to live with your enemy, turn him into your friend, or you can go where you and your children will have no future. Those are the only choices you have.”

  “Rahab, why do you want to serve their god?”

  How could she put into words something she barely understood herself? “Because He is true.” As answers went, it was sorely deficient. But Joa seemed to grasp it. He gulped hard. Then nodded.

  “I will go where you go,” he said, but he said it with defeat, not with hope.

  Rahab’s parents added their agreement after that, as she knew they would. The whole family stood in unity, yet for vastly different reasons. To Rahab, the Hebrews were hope. They were an answer to a longing she scarcely comprehended. Her sister came because she had nothing to lose, and her husband followed as he always did. Rahab’s older brother Karem came because he saw the practicality of it, and he made the moral and pragmatic compromise required in order to ensure that he and his family would survive. Joa came out of despair. Whatever their motives, Rahab had managed to convince her family to cast their lot with the Hebrews. But could she convince the Hebrews to want them?

  When Hanani and Ezra returned, she drew them aside and wasted no time on pleasantries. “Can we join Israel? I’ve heard there are some foreigners in your midst. Would you take us in as well? Would you let us live with your people?” Her words tripped over each other unrehearsed.

  From under dark curving eyebrows Hanani looked at her and quickly away. “That wouldn’t be up to us. But we’ll ask Joshua when everything concerning Jericho is settled and he has time to deal with other matters.”

  “Remind Joshua … remind him that I have set aside the life of a zonah for the sake of the Lord. I will never go back to it.”

  Hanani considered for a moment. “You really have stopped because of the Lord?”

  Rahab nodded. “Months ago.”

  “Our people stone a woman for such a sin. She becomes unclean in the sight of God. It is good that you have stopped. We’ll tell Joshua, Rahab, but we can’t promise anything.”

  “I understand. Thank you.”

  “Joshua believes that the Lord Himself sent you to Ezra and me. Perhaps that will move him.”

  She smiled. “Well, the Lord didn’t save me and my family just to lose us in another Canaanite town. What would be the point? He must have spared us for a purpose.”

  Hanani shook his head. “Do you never doubt our victory?”

  “Of course not. How could the Lord fail?”

  “I think Israel will always remember you for your faith, Rahab,” Ezra said.

  Pleasure pierced her heart. Was it possible she could be remembered for something other than her former profession?

  Chapter

  Eight

  Salmone dropped to his knees on a heap of charred masonry. The short sword he had wielded for long hours clattered to his side. He swallowed, his throat convulsing. The smell of death surrounded him, and he fought hard against a sudden urge to empty the meager contents of his stomach. A swarm of flies buzzed around him, drawn to the scent of blood drying on his clothes. He let them, too tired to swat them away. Peripherally, he became aware of a man striding toward him. Joshua. Salmone wished he would go away and leave him alone to make some kind of peace with his internal torment. But Joshua kept right on coming, his steps unwavering. He climbed Salmone’s heap and stood over him for a moment. A strong arm, brown from the sun, wrapped itself around Salmone’s rigid shoulders like a familiar blanket.

  For a moment Salmone avoided that comfort, drawing deeper into himself. Then dropping his head, he allowed the tension to drain out of him. “I’ll never get used to the killing,” he whispered, his voice raw. With a trembling hand he rubbed the side of his face, leaving ash streaks on his cheek.

  “God takes no pleasure in this either, my son,” Joshua said. “You know He hates iniquity the way a mother hates whatever pestilence harms her children. Like the days of Noah, the children of Adam can pile so much corruption upon corruption that their very being grows dangerous to all that breathes. So God’s holiness rises up. But I believe that like Noah’s flood, this part of our history is constrained to a season. This is only a short part of our story and is meant to reach an end. God has other plans for our people. He promi
sed Abraham that all the nations of the world would be blessed through him. Through us. That is our ultimate destiny.”

  Salmone groaned. “I wish for that season of blessing not to tarry. This is one job I can’t wait to be released from. Days like this are gut-wrenching. I suppose I sound ungrateful, given everything the Lord has done for us.”

  “You sound weary.” Joshua straightened and surveyed the devastation around him. “We’ll be returning to the camp soon. The very ground of this city is cursed. We will not spend a single night on this soil.”

  Salmone became aware that someone was running toward them. Hanani.

  “My lord, I’ve been seeking for you everywhere.” He panted as he reached them, addressing Joshua first as was proper. Unaware of the storm of emotion Salmone had only just sheathed, he smiled lightly. “Glad you’re safe,” he said to his friend before turning his attention back to Joshua. “Now that you are done with the arrangements for the city, can you spare a few moments?”

  “Yes, O renowned spy. How did events proceed with Rahab and her family? Did you see them to safety?”

  “We did. In fact that is what I wished to speak about, my lord. She asks for permission to live with Israel. She and her family.”

  Salmone snorted, but Joshua ignored him. “Does she now? Singular woman, this zonah of yours.”

  Hanani flushed. “She definitely isn’t mine, and I don’t think she’s even a zonah anymore. She said to tell you that she has given up that life. For the Lord.”

  Joshua wiped his beard with a callused hand, pulling on the hairs at his chin. His nostrils flared with a big breath. “I am convinced she has been sent to us by God. Though she can’t know much about the Lord, she follows hard after Him. Since our wanderings began, we have taken less worthy outsiders into our midst. If she and her family give up their idols and agree to live according to our laws, then I believe I shall allow her to join us.”