Slender Reeds: Jochebed’s Hope

by Texie Susan Gregory

  “He is in custody, he who dares disfigure a statue of Pharaoh’s wife?” It was not a question, and the guard did not answer. “Foreigners, perhaps, unaware of the meaning of such a desecration?”

  “A boy, my lord.”

  “A vengeful slave?”

  “A Hebrew.”

  Ah, a Hebrew. Again. Red hatred snarled through Ramses’s veins. Was it not enough they lashed out at him? This time they dishonored his family, harming his beloved by striking her stone image until it was no longer the human face he most cherished.

  “This boy is of fighting age?”

  “A child.”

  Ramses thought of the danger to his favorite stallion.

  “And already a menace. They grow and propagate like beasts of the field. There is no end to their audacity. Chisel off his nose since he removed Nefertari’s.”

  Bowing, the guard backed away.

  Ramses pressed his lips into a tight line. No more delay. These Hebrews must be dealt with immediately. Who knew their weaknesses? Who would be best to consult? A general? A foreigner? Someone logical and indifferent or even someone with a grudge against the Hebrews would be ideal.

  Ah! There was a local man, a priest known to hate the Hebrews. Tall man, thin—except for a stomach that preceded him like that of a pregnant woman … what was his name? Nabor, no, he was dead. Nekiv … Nee … Nege.

  That was it. Nege.

  He’d heard rumors about Nege—foul rumors.

  Ramses smiled. All the better for his purposes.

  Sun splintered the shadows of the one-room house as Jochebed slapped at a fly, swirling the dust specks, and then winced, gritting her teeth against the throbbing in her hand and the anger roiling in her gut. Again this morning, Deborah’s heel had pinned Jochebed’s fingers against a stone before the other girl strolled away as if unaware of her actions. Furious at herself for hiding the pain instead of screaming, Jochebed rubbed the base of her throat where a prickly ball of anger lodged. Someday she would stand up to Deborah.

  At least Amram had not been there to witness it. When they were married, would he be protective or expect her to fend for herself?

  Clenching her tongue between her teeth so she would not groan, Jochebed twisted the reeds around the basket’s stiff rib. She slid the stalks off two fingers, picked up a flat reed, and added it in the pattern.

  Aware she was watched and anxious to distract her mother from questioning her unusual clumsiness, Jochebed pelted the silence with questions. “When will the betrothal be announced? I wonder what Amram will say to the elders tonight. Will they approve? What am I going to do about Lili? She has her heart set on marrying Amram, and she may never speak to me again when she finds out who Amram has agreed to marry. This pattern is so hard. Will I ever do it right, Mama?”

  Elisheba nodded. “Pull out the reeds and try it again. These baskets will be used to store temple linen, so the weave must be perfect. It will become easier. Remember how simple braiding is now and how difficult it seemed at first?”

  Rubbing her fingers to ease the pain and work out the kinks, Jochebed forced a smile. “I remember the game we played when you first showed me how to braid. You called it the family-weave.”

  She shooed the fly, sat up straight, tilted her head, and tried to sound like her mother. “‘We’ll give each strand a name. The first one is Bedde. This will be Mama, and this one is Papa. Braiding binds us together like…’ Mama?”

  Her mother dabbed a tear from the corner of her eye.

  “Oh, Mama.” Jochebed’s shoulders slumped, and she watched the fly circling a pile of reeds as her mother sniffed and cleared her throat. She dropped the basket in her lap and rubbed a broken fingernail against her knuckle. Even the thought of Amram’s hands touching hers did not ease the sadness.

  Since Papa died—had it been eight years?—there had not been many smiles and almost no laughter. Only quietness. The sun seemed hotter, the crocodiles bolder, the mosquitoes hungrier. She and Mama didn’t cry out loud anymore, but Jochebed knew the deep hollowness as surely as her mouth knew the tooth she’d broken last year. She didn’t mean to keep poking her tongue against the jagged edge. It seemed to go there on its own as if hoping the roughness had been smoothed.

  Jochebed watched the fly try to escape the room. “Mama, sometimes I think the Lord cares nothing more about us than I do about the stupid fly.”

  “Don’t say ‘stupid.’ You know slander is forbidden. There will come a time, Bedde, when His care will become as real to you as I am.” Her mother stopped working and rubbed her fingers. “Your ancestor Jacob and his grandfather Abraham both trusted the Lord’s care was real. Remember the stories, the promises?”

  Jochebed nodded. Of course she remembered. But Abraham had been ancient when the promises were kept, and Jacob had been old, too. Perhaps the Lord only cared about very old people. It seemed only old people believed those stories.

  What she’d said to Lili on the day the boy and Gray Ear were killed and what was in her heart were two different things. Maybe the Lord was a shadow god—not real—and deliverance was just another story like the ones she and Lili used to think up—pretend stories, like mud pies.

  She bent over her weaving, hiding her face so it could not betray her thoughts. If Amram suspected she had such doubts, he would not have called her a godly woman.

  And he most certainly would not be meeting with the village leaders.

  Amram stood before the village elders and spoke slowly. He had asked both Lili’s father and Deborah’s father to stand with him. They would not be pleased with his decision, but there must be no question or misinterpretation of his words.

  “Grant me another twelve months to mourn the death of my wife and son. Then I will return to live here and accept the woman my kinsmen have instructed me to wed.”

  Lili’s father straightened his shoulders as Deborah’s father cleared his throat.

  An elder studied Amram. “Why do you come to us instead of talking with the woman’s kinsmen as is our custom?”

  “I have received the blessing of my kinsmen Merari and Gershon, but because there are difficulties and I must break with honored tradition, I wish to have your blessing also.”

  The elders waited in silence. The two fathers stared at him.

  He went on. “My mother is deceased, and my father may also be dead. I’ve had no word from him since he was sent to the mines, and there is no one else to speak for me other than these kinsmen.”

  Nodding, the elders waited. This much was known.

  “Nor have I a home to take a bride.” Amram spread his hands. “You remember much of my village was destroyed in the last flooding, and I have nothing—nothing at all.”

  Deborah’s father began coughing and sidled away.

  “Rebuilding your home will be hard with yet another increase of time demanded for the conscription.”

  Amram nodded at the elder’s words. “I have a proposal for you to consider. If it meets your approval, I will have a home, a wife, and will assume the care and responsibility for one of your village’s widows.”

  “Speak, we are listening.”

  “My kinsmen have instructed me to marry the woman Jochebed, who lives with her widowed mother.”

  Lili’s father sighed.

  “We will be betrothed before I leave, but I cannot take her to wife while the thoughts of my son and his mother fill every night and every waking moment. I will go back to my wife’s village to grieve with her people for another year. When I return to this village, I will take Jochebed to wife and live in the house her father built. I will care for this woman and her mother, Elisheba.”

  “Have you spoken with them about this arrangement, or is this for your ease only?”

  This came from the eldest man in the circle.

  Amram looked away. His words would be repeated to every wife in the village and eventually reach the ears of Jochebed and Elisheba. “We have broken bread together in their home. The deaths of my wi
fe and son are only two years past. Jochebed knows this. I have observed her, and she is a godly woman who honors her mother and our ways. The three of us will work well together as a family.”

  He looked at the old elder. “I am aware I have no gift, no matten, for the bride and that I cannot even offer her a home of her own, but I will bring to her my faithfulness and my strength. With the help of God, blessed be His name, I will give her many sons and my protection.”

  The elders withdrew, conferring among themselves. Returning to Amram, they nodded.

  “So it will be,” said the old man. “In one year, return to fulfill your obligation to your kinswoman, Jochebed. May you be fruitful and multiply, increase our people with a multitude of sons and daughters. Fill this corner of Egypt, this land of Goshen, with the descendants of Abraham and the followers of the Nameless One, blessed be His name.”

  Amram bowed and left the gathering. Time. His promise to return and take the girl-child to wife had bought time to heal, time to shove the memories of his first love deep enough that no one could jar them loose.

  Given the choice, he would have remained a widower. Amram clenched his jaw against the familiar wave of sorrow. Remarried or not, he would grieve his loss every day for the rest of his life.

  Chapter 3

  Favoring her bad leg, Shiphrah followed her maid, Ati, past the open courtyard of the Temple of Hathor and behind the temple proper. With sweaty fingers she rubbed the god-amulet dangling from a cord around her neck and then forgot to be nervous as she tried to see everything at once.

  Scribes sat cross-legged between piles of scrolls, hunched over and squinting as they worked. Women stood or knelt before looms too numerous to count. Children stacked finished bolts of linen in the corners. Slaves slit and pounded papyrus stalks into flat strips before placing them to dry in the sunny yard.

  A group of wiggly boys sat facing a priest, their backs to the courtyard as they wrote on sheets of papyrus. Older boys holding bows circled a target in the far corner of the yard, and Shiphrah could see they pulled arrows from the marked hide. She listened to a cluster of scribes arguing as they counted and recounted bulging sacks. An artist displayed his mix of colors while explaining technique to the youth in his care.

  The pungent smell of roast meat clashed with the heavy sweetness of incense, and tinkling bells sprayed laughter through the solemn chants of priests.

  It was a town within a town.

  Stepping back, Ati pushed Shiphrah forward with her stubby hands. “Go on. Your papa give much for you learning music with royals. Maybe someday you worth something. You learn good, huh?”

  Several girls giggled and interrupted each other as two in the center of a circle, both wearing the white band of royalty, displayed their bronze sistra. Limping a little closer, Shiphrah saw Hathor’s head carved on each handle, the frames shaped with cow horns curving up and out.

  As she stared, a woman robed in the pleated linen of a priestess clapped her hands, calling the girls together and leading the way to a small room. She instructed them to sit still with their hands in their laps. The royals sat in front with the girls from the circle. Shiphrah huddled behind the group but close enough to smell the clashing perfumes of the royal sisters.

  The priestess lifted her hands. “Hathor is the goddess of happiness, of dance and music. She is also the protector of women. As we worship her through song and dance, she blesses us.”

  Holding up a large sistrum, she named each part of the elaborate rattle, starting with the movable crossbars. As she repeated the names, Shiphrah strained to hear over the girls’ whispering of their plans to meet on the river steps behind Amun’s temple. If only the girls would be quiet so she could hear everything the priestess said! She wanted to poke them, but she had been told to sit still, so she did not move even when a fly darted around her face.

  “This is a powerful instrument. It can frighten away the evil god Seth and prevent the Nile from flooding too far onto the land. As you can sing or dance to the sistrum, you decide how it will sound. When the rhythm is short and sharp, like this”—she shook the instrument with a tight tapping motion—“it calls people to move quickly.”

  Shiphrah felt her body respond to the rhythm.

  “To bring comfort, move it side to side so the rings slide back and forth. It will whisper like a breeze flowing through the papyrus reeds.”

  She didn’t remember hearing wind in papyrus reeds—she was not allowed to leave the house often because her bruises usually showed—but the soft sounds were nice. Maybe if she worked hard enough and pleased Papa, all her bruises would have time to heal.

  “But to sing or dance, you must shake it like this or this.” The teacher first played a tinkling melody and then changed to soft jangling. “Now, if you have your own, like Her Highness Merit-Amun and Her Highness Henuttawy, you may begin. The rest of you may use one of these.”

  The sistra handed out were small ones, almost the size of Shiphrah’s hand if she stretched her fingers. Made of plain wood with a stick for a handle, they did not hold as many small disks to slide on the crossbars, but Shiphrah caressed hers as if it were a living creature.

  Music.

  She could make music.

  They practiced simple rhythms, first tapping then jangling. One of the royals—the smaller girl with her own beautiful sistrum—could not get even the easiest rhythms right. How sad to own such a beautiful object and not be able to enjoy it.

  The lesson ended too soon. Shiphrah relinquished the wooden frame and followed the others out into the sun-sharp yard. Ati waved, and she started toward her, passing the group of girls who surrounded the two highborns, Merit-Amun and her sister.

  “Isn’t that the ugliest old woman you’ve ever seen?” Merit-Amun’s sister said.

  “Beyond hideous.”

  “Utterly grotesque.”

  “I’m surprised they let her near the temple.”

  “We could take her to the river steps behind Temple Amun as protection against the crocodiles while we bathe.”

  “They could use her face to scare Seth.”

  The girls snickered.

  Shiphrah looked around the courtyard. Who were they talking about?

  “I think it’s the half-breed cripple’s maid,” came a loud whisper.

  Anger, thick and slow as soured milk, clotted her mind. She wanted to say something, but she just clenched her fists and walked away. Ati wasn’t ugly. She might be old … and when she forgot to shave her head, the stubble was gray, so she darkened it with the expensive fat of a black snake. And when she talked, you could see stained teeth between the gaps…

  But she wasn’t ugly.

  Chin up, Shiphrah walked straight to Ati and slipped her arm around the thick waist. She would teach those girls not to make fun of Ati.

  Several weeks later, Shiphrah was ready with her plan to punish those girls. Sitting behind the royals and talkers, she endured their whispers during the teacher’s review, waiting until it was time to practice the rhythms.

  “Ohhh! Stop, please stop!” Shiphrah wailed in a high-pitched voice. “Lady, make them stop!”

  Merit-Amun and the others turned to stare as the priestess hurried to her side.

  “Lady, my head aches from so many sounds all at once.” Shiphrah moaned pitifully. “May we each play them at a different time?”

  “Very well, today we shall play individually.” The teacher pointed at the girl on her right. “You may go first.”

  Each girl took a turn playing the rhythms. A few played with confidence; the others blushed and faltered as the teacher murmured her encouragement. When it was her turn, Shiphrah held the instrument lightly in her right hand, felt its balance, closed her eyes, and breathed music into the rhythms.

  “Excellent!” The priestess smiled. “Excellent.”

  The princess Merit-Amun clapped her hands. “Good, Shiphrah. Someday you will play in the temple of Taweret.”

  Shiphrah glowed. She did not need to b
e told she had made something beautiful, done something well. She knew.

  The last to play was the girl who said Ati was ugly, Merit-Amun’s sister. Now she would suffer. Shiphrah smiled. Beads of sweat formed on her enemy’s ashen face. Shiphrah saw tension draw the girl’s face in, her eyebrows raised, mouth slightly open as if she panted for breath.

  The class waited. Henuttawy trembled as she stroked the sistrum. There was no music in her playing. There was no rhythm in her hands. In the awkward silence, class was dismissed.

  Alone, Shiphrah hobbled from the room with her head down. Revenge had not felt good.

  “Shiphrah.”

  Merit-Amun’s eyes blazed golden fire as she slammed her hand across Shiphrah’s face. “Do not return.”

  Snores bounced off the whitewashed walls. Ati slept—at last. Legs trembling, Shiphrah wobbled down the stairs, slipped out of the front door, and limped through the streets. The servants would think she was napping with Ati. Her father was away, so no one would miss her or know of this desperate bid to return to class.

  It should not take long to reach the Temple of Amun, and if she’d counted right, this was the day the princess Merit-Amun might be there. She had to see her, plead for forgiveness, and beg her to lift the banishment from music class. She had practiced her plea and would promise anything to be allowed to return to the music class. Not only did music bring more joy to her than anything she’d ever known, but if her father discovered she had angered a royal … Shiphrah shuddered.

  Unused to being alone on the streets of Pi-Ramses, Shiphrah walked slowly, averting her face when a cluster of linen-clad priests approached. As she dodged children chasing each other through the stalls, a woman backed into her, stepping on her foot, and Shiphrah tripped, sprawling in the dirt. She scrambled up to avoid being trampled and fingered the dull eating knife in her belt. Brushing at her soiled tunic, she saw her left elbow and knees were scraped. Shiphrah grimaced. She’d need to explain the scrapes to Ati, but at least she had not lost her knife.