by Shlomo Kalo
“This Voice, as I say, did not shower any compliments on the head of the ancestor of your people, nor did it sing him a lullaby or a paean of praise, nor did it promise him all the kingdoms of the world, all of which, in the final analysis, are His and all things own His sway. Nor is it His custom to coerce. On the contrary, He has respect for His creatures and does their bidding: if a dream is what they ask for, a dream they shall have!” Denur-Shag was enjoying his impassioned lecture and he added:
“The Voice of the Speaker addressed that exceptional creature who, fortunately or unfortunately for you, was the ancestor of your race and told him, no more and no less: Go from your land and from your father’s house, or in other words – you have nothing to look for here because ‘your land and father’s house’ are destined to suffer all the afflictions of the world and be wiped from it utterly, because violence and destruction are their heart’s desire, and against this there isn’t much that can be done! The man of little intelligence will learn only from bitter experience. As is well known, the wise learns from the experience of the less wise, and he it is who is destined to wake, to wake and hear the Voice!
“And since then your people have distinguished themselves with this ability: to wake up, wake up and hear the Voice. But over the course of time you have sunk into a strange kind of lethargy, an idle pursuit of your own shadows, which has made you arrogant and proud and unfeeling, deceiving and leading astray, and this quality of yours has been lost, meaning, not lost entirely – not a loss on the scale of the destruction of this universe – as there still are among you a few who have awakened from the dream and are hearing the Voice, but they are few and becoming fewer, disappearing from sight.
“Something else that remains to be pointed out, is that those who hear one who has awakened from the dream, who is awake and hearing the Voice – they prepare for him an especially warm and enthusiastic reception: putting him on the pyre, or on the cross, or simply pelting him with whatever stones come to hand.” Denur-Shag smiled a soft and apologetic smile, was silent for a moment and then spoke again:
“Now that I have favoured you with my learned discourse, I am at your disposal and I am all ears, even if what you mean to tell me are the words of that Voice to which – as I have already warned you, my ears and the ears of my compatriots are deaf.”
“It seems to me you’re exaggerating a little!” – he smiled at him, enchanted by the flow of his speech and the nuggets of truth embedded there, despite the mild and inoffensive irony which added spice to his words.
“You’re mistaken, young man!” he retorted playfully, and he thought he even winked at him – “A white horse wins a footling little race for you and you get ideas above your station… Anyway – what business brings you here?”
“If you prefer, we can go to my room or to your lodging, and I’ll tell you there.”
“I don’t prefer that,” – Denur-Shag declared with resolute emphasis – “You’ve just listened to me holding forth between these walls, so your humble words may as well be heard here as anywhere else!” – and he pointed to a high-backed chair on the other side of the table.
In the cavernous hall of the library, there was nobody other than themselves and the old librarian, immersed in the perusal of tablets at the other end.
“So be it,” he agreed, pulled up the chair, sat facing him and began telling him about Gershon, about the close relative who was a tanner while he himself was a skilled and respected calligrapher of scrolls, about his decision to impersonate a tanner, to save his relative from exile and his family from poverty and hunger, a noble act indeed although less than entirely honest.
Denur-Shag acknowledged this last point with a nod of the head. “The believer doesn’t need to distort the truth to save anyone’s life,” – he expressed his opinion – “All he needs to do is turn with his whole heart to the Creator of all souls – and his request will be granted!”
“Anyway,” the other went on to say – “the state of this man, who is far from young – considerably older than me, and older even than you as it happens – is desperate! He sent me a letter, appealing for help.”
“And what am I supposed to do to assist you in this humane enterprise, extricating your friend from the claws of despair?”
“Perhaps an assistant is required in the office of the royal calligrapher? An expert assistant! Are you not allowed to confer with members of the corps of clerks?”
“I used to be,” replied Denur-Shag, “and officially at least, that permission was never revoked.” He lowered his huge head, studying the big coloured tiles on the floor of the library and continued: “Since the episode of my old slave, I’ve done everything I can to steer clear of that department, and avoid contact with the staff who work there. When my route takes me anywhere near the place, I make a long detour through endless dreary corridors, extending my journey just so I won’t be reminded of those days, when my faithful slave, who used to work there, was on trial for his life on fabricated charges. The experience wrecked him, physically and mentally.”
“I’m sorry I turned to you,” – his sorrow was genuine and he reproached himself for his lack of tact and consideration, for having raised the subject in such a clumsy way. “I’ll go and ask myself!” he declared and rose from his seat to take his leave of Denur-Shag.
“Don’t even dare think about it, my lad!” the pedagogue almost shouted, grabbing his pupil’s arm and pulling him down again into his chair. “If ever any one of the foreign students should try to interfere, however innocently, in the workings of the royal secretariat, he would be expelled from the school immediately, however brilliant his academic record, and sent as an assistant to the copper smelters in the mines up in the hills – in that foul atmosphere you’d maybe survive for a year, but no more.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Denur-Shag persisted – the expression on his face both serious and scared, as he had never seen it before or ever expected to see it.
He did not reply.
“And as for the request that you addressed to me,” – Denur-Shag sighed, a sigh of relief – “don’t push things, and let’s see what the One with the Voice can do for all of us! Anyway” – he continued – “make your appeal. I daresay He’s readier to hear your voice than mine. Yes, I too address Him now and then, but I can’t always catch His attention. Obviously, my soul is still mired in the fog and isn’t yet completely purged of doubt, unlike yours! And tomorrow, as you know, we shall meet in the classroom, and there will be a test on the ancient history of the Chaldeans. You have homework to do! When it suits me, I can be exceedingly severe to a pupil who wastes his time riding or in silly conversations with girls, aristocratic young ladies! Go in peace, Belteshazzar!” – he held out his round, little hand, and he shook it with warmth and gratitude.
Two weeks later, he was summoned to the reception hall.
“A visitor for you!” announced the slave responsible for rousing them, and did not elaborate.
Perplexed, he wondered who this might be – Adelain, or her father, or one of the other admirers he had gained on the day of the horse race? Or perhaps some unwelcome news awaited him there, in the ornate reception hall?
“Your will be done, my Father in Heaven, my God!” he murmured confidently. “All my desire, my Father in Heaven, my God, is to do Your holy and beneficent will with all my heart and might, all my soul and all my mind, at all times and always, amen and amen!”
A light shone in his heart, a solid resolve to accept everything with gratitude, with a blessing, with joy and with love. All that comes upon us comes only to awaken us to Him, our Father in Heaven who is love, to put us on the way to Him and to remove every obstacle from our path.
He went into the hall with that pure good cheer, that he had enjoyed as a child, glowing in his heart, that calm and contentment that nothing could spoil.
And then came the great surprise, that could not have been foreseen, overwhelming as a river in spate.
By the d
oor sat a middle-aged man, thin, with ravaged face, but wearing clean and decent clothes.
“Gershon!” he cried and ran to him.
Gershon had difficulty recognising him, but when he saw him running, his hesitation faded, and he rose to meet him and fell into his arms.
“You saved me from the claws of darkness, brought me up from the pit of the grave, saved me from Gehenna, where the flames were already licking my body and now – the announcement has been made – I have been appointed assistant to the deputy assistant in the office of the chief calligrapher of His Majesty King Nebuchadnezzar, the valiant and the wise, the conqueror of the world!”
His tears fell, his lean body shook in the clean, cheap robe that he wore, and the outer garment, a crudely worked sheepskin coat that still reeked.
“I knew at once it was your doing, and the coins that you sent me, such a generous sum of coins!” he stressed with happy bemusement – “I shared them with my brothers in adversity, those miserable tanners who don’t expect to live long on the bank of the Euphrates! And they thanked you. They thanked me too but most of all they asked me to pass on to you their gratitude and their blessing!”
“The gratitude and the blessing are due to God!” he declared solemnly and without a moment’s hesitation.
For a long time they sat facing one another, enjoying their emotional reunion and asking and telling of their experiences. And then messengers came from the office of the royal calligrapher looking for Gershon, and asking him to accompany them. They parted with a promise to meet again soon.
He went in search of Denur-Shag.
He found him sitting in his home, drinking red wine and perusing the same crumpled parchment from two weeks before. When the slave announced him, he greeted him without rising from his seat, simply pointing to the vacant chair opposite him.
He sat down and waited. Denur-Shag laid the scroll aside, turned to him and said:
“First of all, there’s no need to thank me! The little that I did was nothing but the fulfilment of a basic obligation. And in this instance, as you know, I served only as an instrument or, if you prefer, a pipe, a cracked and rusty pipe I regret to say – for the channelling of His grace, and I’m referring to the One with the Voice. And now, in accordance with an old and time-honoured tradition, which has plunged the members of our species into the morass in which they flounder even to this day – I am asking for something in return, a recompense for something which I did not do, but in which I played the part of an ineffectual midwife. Please listen to my request, which is far from modest!”
He leaned towards him, and continued earnestly:
“When the time comes and you have risen to a position of eminence – do something for the friends of your old friend, who have no advocate in the royal palace and no saviour. See their misery and lighten their yoke. I tell you, their yoke is heavy and their suffering unbearable! Will you remember this?”
He nodded his head in affirmation, and felt tears filling his eyes.
Denur-Shag noticed this, looked away and answered on his behalf:
“Of course you’ll remember! Do you think the burden will be too much for you? One way or the other – do your best! And now my young friend, we should part company, as I am busy with this work of mine, studying the sensational history of your earliest ancestors. They were such weird and wonderful people, it’s no surprise to find so many eccentrics among their descendants!”
He rose from his place, bowed low and hurriedly left the lodging of his Chaldean teacher and mentor. The old slave almost dropped his cloak as he handed it to him. As he went out into the darkness of the corridor, he could not stop the tears, they trickled as if of their own accord in a constant, unbroken stream, dripping from his chin to the stone floor and melting away without a sound.
A year elapsed and then another. Denur-Shag continued to teach, and toiled tirelessly to instruct the twenty-five young men remaining from the twenty-eight, in the ancient and the spoken Chaldee tongue, and in the learned precepts of Chaldeans and of others. He taught with energy and endowed every subject with breadth and depth, and the youths absorbed it according to their abilities. The riding lessons had been discontinued, but the youths were allowed to ride their horses twice a week, and on other occasions when there were urgent messages to deliver.
Adelain sent him short parchment scrolls on a regular basis, and beneath their playful style there was something buried deep, restrained and vibrant, something which gave him more grief than pleasure. Twice he went riding with her, and the outcome was tears on her part and awkwardness on his.
The minister Or-Nego used to bring him his daughter’s scrolls, finely scripted by an innocent hand, on fine parchment with a thin stylus and in fragrant blue ink. He used to send her succinct replies, copying her light and carefree tone, but with the difference that in his case there were no hidden messages, no subtle hints.
He also received a scroll sent from the homeland with a party of exiles who came down to Babylon about a year and a half after them, and it perturbed him and added confusion to his confusion. Nejeen wrote to him and after describing the situation as tolerable and passing on blessings and greetings from his family, she concluded with the brief statement “Love is stronger than death” – the amended quotation as he used to recite it in those days.
For a while Nejeen occupied all his attention, and he sat at his desk in the schoolroom distracted and flustered, floundering in an empty void.
In one of the intervals between lessons Denur-Shag commented with typical irony:
“There are great hopes that seem constant, cherished in theory and wonderful in practice – and they expire at once and give up the ghost through the influence of a tender girl with pretty eyes!”
Denur-Shag was mistaken. No “tender girl with pretty eyes”, no girl at all, could touch the sanctity of his hope. Rather, his mind was inundated with confusion that was not easily to be suppressed, as its roots were imbued with the power of the primitive. Light shone in this confusion, turning it into a founding principle of joy and rapture, something resembling a willingness to bear responsibility by virtue of his faith, and his unshakeable devotion to his Father in Heaven and his God. Matters became clearer to him in those days, and he laid aside his inner wrangling and invested all his energies in his studies, giving succinct, straightforward and lucid answers to Denur-Shag’s questions, to the delight and profound satisfaction of the teacher.
In one of the lessons, when the boys were required to answer questions relating to wisdom, love, freedom and God, and failed utterly, one after the other, he gave an answer which amazed even Denur-Shag, who could not resist saying:
“There is one here among us, wearing the guise of a Jewish youth, who has no peer or equal in the chronicles of the human race, and whom no verbal description is adequate to encompass!” These words were spoken without thought, an expression of admiration that simply could not be contained – and after them the teacher lapsed into sudden silence, his lips sealed and only the giant head moving from side to side in a strange rhythm, as if he were talking to himself, continuing his speech without sound.
“I have to admit,” he said finally, the spark still showing in his eyes, “I was carried away there just a little, the kind of thing that happens from time to time to an old goat like me! Experience of life, as you know, purges the human heart of all foolish expectations, and in this blessed instance all that is left for me is to refresh my parched soul, however infrequently it may happen, with the expectations of others.
“Be that as it may,” Denur-Shag went on to say – “the days of the great test are drawing near, and then, without doubt, all will be revealed, meaning – your talents and your abilities, plain and unvarnished, unaided by the pedagogic enthusiasm of an old teacher who is so quick to lose all his sense of proportion! This quality – loss of sense of proportion,” Denur-Shag pointed out – “is the one unmistakable sign by which you may recognise a gifted teacher! Remember this, and do no
t doubt the truth of what I say! Now,” he concluded – “enough flights of fancy! We must come down to earth and consider the somewhat harsh legislation of Nebuchadnezzar the First, former king of the Chaldeans.”
The Test
As Denur-Shag had said, the day of the great test was approaching. The King himself, in person, was expected to turn his attention to them and decide their fate.
At the feast of Bel, early in the spring, the youths were summoned to present themselves before the King in the assembly hall, the biggest hall in the royal palace and perhaps – the biggest in the whole world. So at least the Chaldeans believed, commoners and dignitaries alike, and so the King himself believed.
With the rising of the dawn people started streaming into the hall which was undeniably great – splendid, high-ceilinged and of vast and incomparable proportions, with a hundred narrow windows set high in the walls shedding gentle spring light. Round pillars of marble, likewise one hundred in number, supported the ceiling which was all reliefs and engravings in gold. The reliefs and engravings formed a continuous frieze, depicting the history of Babylon and its predecessor, Ur of the Chaldees, which was represented in the first circle in the centre of the ceiling; then there were throngs of herdsmen with their sheep and cattle followed by judges and lawgivers and leaders, and finally the image of Nebuchadnezzar the Second, the present King, charging into battle in his chariot, harnessed to four mighty horses, a heavy sword drawn in his hand.
Some fifty craftsmen had worked on the reliefs and they were artistic feats beyond belief, showing in meticulous and minute detail every item of clothing, and enlivening the faces of men and beasts with vivid expressions, paying them no compliments whatsoever and accentuating the cruelty of people and the fear and helplessness of beasts. At the eastern end of the hall, a giant stage had been carved out of granite, floored over with coloured marble, its superbly matching hues creating the impression of a lake lit by the rays of the sun on a bright spring morning. In the centre of the stage stood a throne, the throne of Nebuchadnezzar, made all of gold and ivory, the back – some ten cubits in height – and the arm-rests faced with innumerable tiny mosaic tiles. The seat of the throne was upholstered in glistening velvet all embroidered with threads of gold. On both sides of the King’s throne there were chairs fashioned from silver with backs receding in height the further they were from the centre. These were intended for the King’s senior counsellors, five on each side. A further one hundred and fifty chairs, made of polished wood, a few with arm-rests and most without, were arranged in a semi-circle to the right of the royal throne, the seats of scribes and magicians, sorcerers and astrologers. Behind the King and his ten councillors a space had been cleared for the seventy-strong bodyguard, standing to attention, drawn swords gleaming in their hands, with helmets, breastplates and shields – all of pure gold.