by Trevor Hoyle
We dozed for a while, her legs resting across mine, and then she asked if I’d brought any food with me, but unfortunately I hadn’t. Having mentioned it made me begin to feel hungry. My stomach gurgled and Hannah giggled in the darkness. She said craftily, ‘We’ll have to do something to make us forget how hungry we are.’ She put her hand on my leg.
The same thought had probably been at the back of my mind but it hadn’t occurred to me to do anything about it. I’d never done it with Hannah.
I said, ‘Do you want to?’
‘If you do.’
‘I’m not bothered.’
‘Please yourself.’
‘It’ll pass the time I suppose.’
She moved her legs, which allowed me to kneel up, and I lifted my robe and was about to lie on top of her when we both heard the noise. It was like the sound of the wind blowing through a thorn hedge but deeper and steadier, a low monotonous droning that kept to one note.
Hannah drew up her legs. ‘What’s that?’
Behind her head, further into the depth of the lava-rock, I could see a faint illumination: the reflected glow of light through a narrow fissure. But then I thought my eyes were playing tricks because the light faded and all was darkness again. We waited, holding our breath, listening to the steady droning, and after a moment the light glowed again and died away.
‘There’s someone with a lantern,’ I said, and Hannah knelt up and turned to look.
‘I don’t see anything.’
‘They keep moving about.’ As I said this the light increased in brightness again. ‘This must lead to one of the larger caves. Perhaps they’re lighting a fire.’
‘But what’s making that noise?’
‘Could be the wind.’ I wasn’t certain.
We crept towards the fissure, the glowing and fading light guiding us, and looked into a large high cavern with a flat sandy floor. In the centre – I don’t know how to describe it properly – there was an object taller than three camels; it was made up of several globes and flat pieces, like boxes, joined together by shiny curved channels, like burnished brass, and on top of this arrangement was a circular dome with grooves in it: this was what furnished the light, glowing from within, as though someone had lit a steady fire which never flickered.
Our first sight of this strange object transfixed us both. We were too amazed to be frightened, though I know that Hannah was trembling and my mouth was so dry I could hardly swallow. As we gazed at it I knew without any doubt that the same thought was in both our minds: this was the handiwork of God, and we were the ones chosen to witness it. The legend of our Tribe had prepared us to expect that one day the Prophet would appear before us and this surely could only be an instrument of His divine power.
We went down into the cavern. There was no fear in us. The glowing sphere shone with a keen hard light and then faded to a dull orange glimmer, like the sun seen through a dust cloud. I couldn’t imagine what the object was or what purpose it was meant to serve. Inside me was a dreadful excitement that of all our Tribe I should be the one chosen to find it and bring word to the elders.
Hannah gripped my hand fiercely. She said, ‘Look …’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m sure I saw—’
‘What?’
But I didn’t need to ask. I saw it too. Yet it might have been a trick of the glowing sphere, the rising and fading of light on the rough chamber walls, for I could have sworn I saw the outline of a man. Strangely, that’s all it was – an outline. As though the man’s shape was hard at the edges but faint inside, as though his body was colourless, like water.
When the light faded the shape faded too, and I was no longer certain that what I had seen was a real image and not a phantom of my imagination.
‘It’s gone,’ Hannah whispered. Her fingers were gripping my wrist like talons.
‘Was it real?’ I looked at her. ‘Did we actually see it?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her voice was very small.
‘Perhaps it was a ghost.’
‘The Holy Ghost?’
I shook my head slowly. ‘The elders will know. We must go and tell them. This is the work of the Lord; we have been brought through the desert to a sacred place, to His Holy Temple.’
Hannah whispered something and pointed to a line of markings, an inscription of some sort, on one of the flat shiny surfaces. Neither of us could read or write and we couldn’t decipher its meaning.
‘Kish, explain to me,’ Hannah said. ‘Was the shape of the man the Prophet … or is this the Prophet? Could it be so, even though its flesh is hard and shiny, like polished copper?’
I was just as baffled. ‘How can we know these things?’
‘But can it move? Can it speak to us?’
‘The spirit of the Prophet might live inside it, I don’t know. It will make known all these things to the elders. I – I don’t know; it isn’t given to us to understand.’
Hannah pulled at me and said in a low urgent voice, ‘We should pay homage. The Holy Ghost from within might be watching us.’
We knelt down and pressed our foreheads to the sandy cavern floor. And as we prayed the words of my father came back to me: the prophesy of his grandfather that the Prophet would appear amongst us within seven generations – and with it a terrible thought. It was so disturbing, so fearful, that I tried in vain to push it from my mind.
Because the vision was this: that I, Kish, was the chosen one. The word of the Lord would come through me – the Prophet come at last among his people.
*
It transpired that there was no other way to reach the inner cavern than through the narrow cleft in the lava-rock. At first our story of having found the sacred object was disbelieved by the elders because they weren’t able to see it for themselves. But when we were questioned separately, and our stories fitted exactly in every detail, the elders gave instructions to have the passage widened and a way made so that a man could walk through without stooping.
When first describing it to the elders I had been lost for words to convey its nature, saying it was made up of many shining globes connected by curved pieces, and that there were several flat surfaces like the sides of boxes, and on top was the grooved dome which emitted the rising and fading light. In desperation I had likened it to an ark; not an apt description but the best I could manage. The elders glanced at one another with those veiled looks which I knew implied the scepticism of adults listening to a child’s flights of fancy. But when they were able to see it for themselves they were amazed, and as perplexed as I had been, and just as dumbfounded when trying to describe the object or explain its purpose. In small groups the members of the Tribe were permitted to enter the cavern and gaze upon the object. Some were fearful to go, believing it to be an instrument of destruction, and there were endless arguments as to whether we should ‘capture’ the object and use it against our enemies (nobody could say how) or whether the cavern was its sacred resting place and the spirit within would be angry if we took it with us on our wanderings. Some of the people were so vehement in their opinions that squabbles broke out, and after only a day or so the camp was seething with discontent, whereupon the elders forbade any member of the Tribe to enter the cavern without express permission.
My father, I noticed, had become very morose and brooded a good deal. He had spoken privately with the elders but he would not say what had been discussed. I said to him, ‘Shouldn’t we be joyous to have discovered the instrument of the Prophet? We don’t know its purpose but surely that will be revealed to us in time?’
‘That’s what I fear most,’ he replied. ‘That its purpose will be revealed. The hearts of men may not be capable of understanding. And even if they understand they might not accept.’
‘Is that what troubles you?’
He looked away from me. ‘I wish it hadn’t been you, Kish. I wish someone else had discovered it. People can become twisted with envy and spite.’
I couldn’t see the sense
of this. ‘But surely now that we’ve found the Ark it belongs to the Tribe – it belongs to everyone? It might have been any one of us who found it.’
‘But it happened to be you.’
‘And Hannah.’
‘Yes,’ he said, gazing into the distance.
‘I know that people can be spiteful,’ I said, wanting to show him that I was no longer a child. ‘I’ve seen how some of them behave and their petty ways—’
‘You haven’t seen what men can do to each other in the name of belief,’ he said sombrely. ‘If you threaten that belief you threaten their existence, and many will not tolerate it. They will strike you down and excuse the act in the name of their belief, the Prophet, even God Himself.’
He fell silent, his lean sinewy fingers clasped together in his lap.
I said, ‘Have the elders decided what should happen to the Ark?’
He shook his head and smiled wearily. ‘For all their so-called wisdom they are lost frightened men. They would rather wait a lifetime for the Prophet to come than have him appear in their midst.’
I stared at him. ‘Do they believe the Prophet has come?’ My voice sounded peculiar in my ears. Supposing the elders believed … but I dared not say it out loud, or even think it without trembling.
My father turned and looked at me. His face was tight and drawn hard together. ‘They wish to question you and Hannah about the finding of the Ark. You must not say anything that will make them suspicious. You must behave as children and answer them as children, even though you have the minds of young adults. Do you understand?’
‘But they’ve already questioned us. More than once. We told them everything that happened, omitting nothing. What more, can we tell them?’
‘They believe,’ my father said heavily, ‘that the Ark spoke to you. That it gave you certain knowledge which you have not imparted.’
‘Why should we hold anything back?’ I said earnestly. ‘For what reason? Everything happened the way we told it. There’s nothing more to say.’
‘Nevertheless they wish to question you further.’
I looked at him directly so that he couldn’t avoid my eyes. ‘Are they afraid of me? Do they think I know the secret of the Ark, its true purpose, and won’t reveal it?’
‘Do you believe you have been chosen to lead our people? Did you receive the Divine Word when you discovered the Ark in the cavern?’
There was a haunted look on his face as he asked these questions. I didn’t know what answer I should give: it wasn’t clear in my mind whether he wanted his son to be recognized as the long-awaited Prophet or if the idea was so terrible that he had obstinately set his face against it. I needed my father’s counsel but he was unable to help me. Without fully understanding why, I said:
‘We must wait for a sign. The Ark has been delivered to us for a purpose, which is not yet revealed. We must have patience.’
‘You have more wisdom than is natural for a fourteen-year-old boy. I am afraid for you, Kish. I am afraid for us all.’ His lean windburnt face was closed and passive, hiding his true feeling.
‘What harm can befall me if I tell the truth?’ I demanded. ‘I have no reason to lie. I only want the Tribe to find its home in the wilderness. The elders must believe that.’
‘The elders will choose to believe or not believe as it suits them,’ my father said. ‘And if there is to be a sign let it be soon – for all our sakes.’
2
Pillar of Fire
I lay in the tent that night, unable to sleep, my mind overflowing with questions, perplexities, fears. It even occurred to me to wonder whether the spirit within the Ark had in reality spoken to me … if somehow it had communicated certain things which were beyond my comprehension and yet which I was expected to relate to the elders. Was it my appointed task to spread the Word? Had I to prepare the way for the greater glory that was to come? Would the mysterious purpose of the Ark be made plain to me, and through me to all our people?
I had never felt so alone in all my life. My family was close around me, father, mother, sisters, but their physical nearness brought no comfort. They were like the rest of the Tribe, normal people, while I was cut off by the sense that more was expected of me than blind obedience to a way of life that had hardly changed for twenty-eight generations. It was a feeling in my bones that something – I can only describe it as ‘glorious’ – was about to happen. Our eyes would be opened and we would be changed far beyond the dead drab ways of our forefathers and of the elders who sought to impose their narrow preconceptions on us – as if by virtue of their extreme old age.
Lying there, wide awake in the chill darkness, I had a vision of the future. It was as much an indefinable emotion as anything else: a powerful inner certainty that we were about to embark on a great adventure. In spite of my father’s foreboding I had no real fear. There would be momentous changes but we would survive them. The elders were the last of a dying species, without hope or faith, and in time would be swept aside by their own ignorance. Yet the audacity of these thoughts took my breath away – that a mere boy should question the wisdom handed down through generations. What if this inner certainty was nothing more than a derangement of the mind, a flight of youthful imagination? I had nothing to fall back on other than a fragile belief which flickered inside me like a naked candle flame in the wind. It wasn’t unknown for people of the Tribe to be cast out and left to die in the desert for incurring the displeasure of the elders; and if this was to be my fate could I rely on the spirit within the Ark to protect and deliver me from the wickedness in the hearts of men?
*
The hammer of the sun pounded down upon the camp. The horizon was a shimmering wave of heat, a fragmented and distorted line of unreality encircling us like a trap. We could not escape from it, even at the full gallop of the fastest camel; it was our eternal prison.
The second day of interrogation was well advanced and I was weary with the constant repetition of questions which never seemed to lead anywhere but went on and on until they reached the point where they had started from and began all over again. Our replies were always the same – as they had to be – given that we were speaking the truth as near as we could remember it. The slightest hesitation or discrepancy was pounced upon and flung back in our faces as though we had been caught out in a blatant lie, and on Hannah’s face I saw the blank bewilderment of a child wrongly accused of a crime of which it has no knowledge. Several times she said: ‘Tell me what I’ve done wrong. Was it wrong to enter the cavern? If it was I didn’t know, I was curious, there was nobody to warn me – if it was wrong I beg your forgiveness.’
The elders were nine in number. The chief elder was called Ocran. He rarely spoke, watching us with hooded eyes and leaving the endless tirade of questions to the others. I gained the impression that he was the self-appointed judge, weighing the ‘evidence’ and then eventually coming to a decision as to our ‘guilt’ or ‘innocence’. I had little faith that this would be done dispassionately and without bias.
I was asked why I had sought shelter in that particular cave. Didn’t it seem odd that out of all the caves available I should have chosen the only one that led to the inner cavern?
Such was the abysmal level of the questioning.
I answered that I had chosen that particular cave because I had chosen it and for no other reason. There was a storm, I reminded them, it was as dark as a moonless night and my only thought was to find a refuge until the storm had passed.
‘You and the girl-child Hannah were alone together for a long time,’ said the elder Pagiel.
I said yes, that was so.
‘And what did you do all this time?’
‘We talked, then we slept for a while; when we woke up we heard the noise.’
‘You talked and slept,’ said the elder Merari, twisting his mouth into an ugly shape. ‘Such innocence. No thought in your childish heads but to talk and sleep.’ He looked at the others.
‘Did you cohabit with the
girl-child?’ Pagiel said. ‘Did you lay down upon her and introduce your semen into her womb?’
I answered that I had not.
‘All that time and you merely talked and slept,’ Merari said, shaking his head in mock wonder. ‘What a credit you both are to the Tribe. Not a single wicked thought in your heads. Well well. I am most impressed by your sobriety and self-discipline. Commendable!’
‘Are you able to conceive, child?’ Ocran demanded of Hannah. His eyes were as heavy as stones. ‘Has your body prepared itself to bear children?’
Hannah answered shyly that she was of an age when this was possible. ‘Though what Kish says is true,’ she added. ‘Nothing happened between us. We didn’t do anything.’
‘Then time will confirm your story,’ Ocran said, smiling bleakly. ‘Or it will not.’
I said, ‘Is this why we’re being questioned? Are we being accused of unlawful cohabitation?’ I could feel my face burning.
‘You are not accused of anything,’ Pagiel said quietly. ‘However, that tone of disrespect is enough in itself to demand chastisement. You are before the elders, a fact you should keep well in mind.’
‘I do not accept—’ I started to say, and checked myself: They were baiting me and it was perverse foolishness to go along with it.
‘You have told us that the object in the cavern spoke to you,’ Merari said.
‘I have said that it made a noise. It did not speak. It made the same noise you yourselves heard, like the low moaning of the wind.’
‘And yet you were not afraid. You went directly into the cavern and stood before the object – the Ark as you describe it.’
‘We were both afraid.’ I replied. ‘But the sight of it was so miraculous that our fear was set aside. We didn’t think—’
‘So it appeared before you as in a divine miracle?’ one of the elders interjected. ‘The Lord of Heaven made it suddenly appear in front of your eyes and you knew it to be an instrument of God.’
‘Do you believe you have been chosen to witness this divine miracle?’ Pagiel said.