Sabba’s eyes grew wide. “You want to what?”
“I want to marry her. If she will have me.”
Sabba took a deep breath. “She is willing to leave Egypt with you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t asked her yet.”
“You will have a very difficult time of it if you marry an Egyptian. And I’m not even talking about the fact that she is a concubine. You do realize that, don’t you?” Sabba’s gentle eyes assured Bezalel that any judgment would not be coming from him.
“I know.” Bezalel shoved the table away and stood. “But I’ve been an outcast my whole life for something that isn’t true and that I have no control over. How is this any different?”
“I guess it’s not. If she will marry you, you have my blessing. I will always be here for you.”
“You always have been, Sabba.”
Now if I can only get Meri to talk to me.
Bezalel sorted through his work, separating the finished and unfinished pieces, and tried to decide what to work on first. He picked up a necklace he had started before the hail. The piece was made of several strings of gold alloy, each longer than the one before and attached at the ends, so that it formed a cascade when placed around the neck. Now he needed to make countless amulets to attach to each string.
He selected a hefty piece of turquoise. He gripped his knife and sliced off multiple small chunks, each one just large enough for a single amulet. The pendants were to be in the shape of a cornflower, an abundant and beautiful blossom. The soft stone yielded easily and amulets were soon scattered about his table.
“Moses and Aaron were just with Ramses.” Kamose closed the door to Bezalel’s workroom behind him.
Bezalel set down his knife, put his palms on the table, and leaned on them.
Now what? “What did they say this time?” He hated to even ask the question.
“If Ramses doesn’t let your people go, locusts will come tomorrow and devour everything left by the hail.”
“There will be nothing left for you to eat.” Bezalel shook his head, sat on a stool, and reached for some grapes. He handed a bunch to Kamose.
“I know. Everyone knows.” Kamose paced as he spoke, ignoring the proffered fruit. “Every official—except Jambres—has begged Ramses to let you go. Begged him! He will not hear of it. We told him Egypt will be ruined. We will starve. We cannot possibly survive.” Kamose stopped pacing and faced Bezalel. “So the king told them you can go, but only the men, because you are clearly planning evil. Then he ran them out of the palace.”
“As usual.”
“As usual.” Kamose reached for the door but turned back. “I have not seen you with Meri for a long time. And I have seen her crying many times. Can I ask if everything is all right? Do you still want me to get her out?”
“I do. I’m not sure she’ll want out, though.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not really sure. She—I-I hurt her—”
Kamose stepped closer, his eyes narrowed. “You struck her?”
“No! I hurt her feelings. She wanted … it’s hard to explain….”
“Ohhh.”
“What do you mean ‘ohhh’?”
“I think I can guess. She became very … affectionate?”
Bezalel felt the blood rise to his face. “Yes. How did you—?”
“From Tia. When they come into the harem, the girls are taught for weeks that that is what a man wants. That that is all he wants. They are told that is a woman’s only purpose, and they are given very specific and detailed lessons. When you rejected her advances, you rejected her.
“I think—I know—Tia knew differently. She knew my father valued my mother for her wisdom, and caring, and many other things. But Meri is very young, and her father obviously did not show her well what love is. If she believed what they taught her, nothing else you said would have mattered.”
Bezalel sighed. “She’s avoided me for weeks. She won’t come out of the harem. And I can’t very well go in there.”
“I happen to know she sits in the garden in the evenings when the moon is out.”
“I can’t go out there with her. I’ll be seen.”
“Ramses is hiding in his room tonight. He thinks he can avoid the locusts. No one else will care if you are with her. This place is in chaos.”
“What do I say?”
“You’ll think of something. She loves you. Or she wouldn’t be crying.”
The pond reflected an unnatural, scattered version of the moon as Bezalel looked under the date palms and willows, sycamore and pomegranate trees. Damage from the hail was everywhere. No Meri. One more time around the wall.
There she was—hiding in the pergola, which servants had repaired in an aborted effort to restore the gardens to their former state. She sat on the ground, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes closed, her face drinking in the moon’s light. He strode over to her.
She leaned back on her hands and looked away. “I don’t want to talk to you. You don’t want me.” Her voice had a hard edge to it, almost worse than before.
He sat on the ground, facing her, his hip next to her raised knees. “That’s where you are wrong. So wrong. I do want you. More than anything. But I would not honor you if I did not marry you first.” He kept his voice low and calm. Please look at me.
“But you can’t, so that’s just your way of saying you don’t want me.”
He reached to touch her but she jerked her head away. “Meri, I know what they told you in the harem.”
She shifted her shoulders. The moonlight gave her skin a soft glow. A lone strand of ivy dangled above her head.
He touched her tattoo. “It’s not true. You know, they only teach that in the harem. The rest of the world doesn’t think that way.”
She still refused to look at him.
“Meri, love can be shown in so many more ways other than physically. You don’t have to do those things to prove you love me.”
She looked sideways at him. “So …you don’t want me to kiss you?”
He leaned across her and put his hand on the ground on the other side of her. “I love it when you kiss me. I love holding you, kissing you. But that day … there are some things we can’t do yet, no matter how much I might want to.”
She turned to face him. “You do want to?”
He ran the backs of his fingers slowly down the side of her face. Touching her just that much made his heart race. She obviously had no idea what she did to him, no matter what training she had received. “Believe me, I didn’t want to stop you. Any longer, and I might not have been able to.” He lifted her face toward his. His face was a finger’s breadth from hers. “But you deserve more. I love you. I want to be with you forever, not just one night. I want a wife, not a concubine. I want to take care of you, protect you, make a home with you.” He kissed her and tasted a hot, salty tear. He pulled away.
Her slender shoulders shook as she wept.
“Habibti, what’s wrong?” He brushed away her tears.
“I can’t have you as my husband. So I will take you any way, any time I can. You are the only person who has cared for me. No one has ever wanted me. Not my father. Not Ramses. No one. Until you.”
“But I could be.”
“Could be what?” She yanked at the ivy above her head and pulled off a leaf.
“Could be your husband.”
“Don’t be foolish. We’ve talked about this.” She ripped the leaf apart.
“No, it’s true. I talked to Kamose. It’s illegal to force someone into the harem.”
“Who’s Kamose?”
“Captain of the guard. He says he might be able to get you out. Then you could marry me.”
“You would marry someone from the harem?” She scoffed, tossing the pieces of leaf aside. “But what about your family? What will they say when you bring home a girl from the harem? You can’t hide it.” She pointed to her tattoo. “And what about the rest of your village? It will ruin yo
ur life. You can’t do it. I won’t let you.”
He laughed. “Slow down, slow down. One step at a time.” He cupped her face in his hands. “First, my family will be happy if I am happy. Second, there are many Egyptians in our village, though I honestly don’t know of any Israelite who has married an Egyptian. So, yes, there will always be some who do not like it.
“Third, there will be those—Israelite and others—who will never believe you did not spend a night with Ramses. But I love you. That is all that matters. And I will protect you from everyone and everything that threatens you, no matter who, no matter how. Do you believe me?”
She nodded.
“Do you love me?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
“And will you marry me?”
“Yes.” Her dark eyes danced.
He laughed again. “Then all we have to do now is wait for Kamose.”
Bezalel walked with Ahmose at the river’s edge after the midday meal. The water tickled their feet as they wiggled their toes in the mud of the Nile, and he turned his face to the sun and let the warmth flood over him. The smell of the wet earth, capable of producing and sustaining so much life, was comforting.
“Bezalel?”
“Yes?”
“Tell me more about your God. What is His name?”
“Most of us know Him as El Shaddai. This is what we have called Him for generations, what our grandfathers’ grandfathers called Him. It means the Almighty God. Or just Shaddai, the Almighty.”
A gray heron beat his huge wings and struggled into the sky, his long legs trailing far behind.
“What is He the god of?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Ra is the sun god, Hapi is the Nile god, Osiris is god of the dead.”
“Those gods are not gods at all, but only make-believe. There is only one God, and He is Shaddai. There are not many little gods running around, each in charge of one little thing. What if they got into a fight? What if one didn’t like what another did? There can only be one God. That’s the only way it will work.”
“This is a hard thing to understand.” Ahmose kicked at the mud.
“Yes, it is. But you will see. Just keep watching and waiting. Shaddai will help you understand.”
A low hum from across the river drew their attention. They looked up, their hands shielding their eyes from the morning sun. A black cloud in the distance grew larger as it neared, darkening the sky.
“What is it?” Ahmose moved closer to Bezalel.
The whine grew louder. The mass grew larger as it neared the river.
“Bezalel!” Ahmose yanked on Bezalel’s sleeve. “What is that?”
“I’m not sure what it is. But Shaddai has protected us so far, and there is no reason to believe He won’t now.” Despite his words of assurance, he worried.
The locusts!
Pushed by an easterly wind, the cloud crossed the river and headed for the fields.
Bezalel took off after it, with Ahmose close behind. They crossed the paths by the river. The drone pulsated in Bezalel’s ears, drowning out all other sound. The cloud dissolved around them into millions of winged insects and dispersed, flying toward the croplands of Egypt.
Ahmose screamed as a number of the bugs settled on him.
Breathing hard, Bezalel bent over the boy and grasped his shoulders. “Ahmose, calm down! They just want food! They won’t bite!” Bezalel removed his thawb and wrapped it around Ahmose’s head and arms. He pulled the boy close and kept one hand on his back while he stared at the moving blanket of winged invaders.
Locusts landed on him and then flew away. The insects enveloped every stalk of wheat and spelt, each fruit tree, any green thing not destroyed by the hail. The ground was a writhing floor of black, and the pests devoured even what had fallen from the plants and trees.
“Ahmose, run home! There will be no bugs there. I’m going to the palace.” Bezalel shoved Ahmose toward the village and bolted for the palace.
At the edge of the courtyard he watched the cloud swarm, amazed at the sheer number of insects. The locusts invaded houses, storerooms, and kitchens. They found every bit of food until there was not a seed left. They climbed under tunics, buzzed around heads, and drove the people screaming outside. There wasn’t a surface left—walls, floors, tables, columns—that was not coated with bugs.
After only moments the wind changed direction and sent the locusts back across the river.
Bezalel rushed through the palace. He peeked into the kitchen, only weeks ago overflowing with food when he searched for honey and thyme. Now every pot, every shelf, every platter was empty.
He headed back toward the village, the river on one side, vacant cropland on the other. A young mother sat crying outside her house, an infant boy in her lap cooing, unaware of the calamity that had just befallen his world. An old man wandered helplessly in a field that little more than a month ago held the promise of provision for a year. Others prayed to gods Bezalel knew could never help them.
Bezalel stopped, knelt on one knee, took a scoop of dusty, barren earth in his hand. He sifted it through his fingers. He could not believe that less than an hour ago, spelt and wheat stalks stood tall in this very spot. All the other trials Shaddai had sent—until the hail—had taken at least half a day. This one happened so fast he could hardly comprehend it.
In the cloud’s wake was utter destruction. Desolation. For the Egyptians, there was simply nothing left. No food. No answers. No hope.
Bezalel walked down the hall toward the walkway. He peeked around the corner. As he had hoped, no guards stood outside the harem today.
He pulled apart the curtains and slipped inside. The vast room was empty.
He stepped back outside, crossed the throne room and portico, and entered the gardens. Spring was near and the air was warming. The trees and flowers should have been radiant, but the garden was naked.
He found Meri sitting under a tree.
She leaned against it, holding a stripped branch. She stared at the devastation around her, as if she were trying to make sense of it.
He sat next to her. “Meri? I brought you something to eat.” He unwrapped a loaf of bread and two plums. “Look familiar?” He chuckled.
She turned and stared at him. “There is no food.”
“I know. I brought you some.” He pushed the package toward her. “It’s what you brought to me the first time you came to my room.”
She looked back at the denuded yard. “It’s gone, it’s all gone.”
“Meri, you have to eat.” He broke off a piece of bread and held it to her mouth. “Here, eat.”
She took the bread, and nibbled at it.
“Meri, we’ll be leaving Egypt soon.”
She turned to him with blank, almost lifeless eyes. “What do you mean you’ll be leaving?”
“My God has said He will free us. He is responsible for these … signs. He is trying to force Pharaoh to let us go, and soon he will have to. Then we’ll leave for the land God promised us four hundred years ago. I want you to come with us. With me.”
“Your God did this? Took away the food? Brought the flies? The ice? Those … horrible … sores?”
“Yes, but—”
“And you worship Him? The God who did this to me?” Her voice rose in anger, and she stood and flung the bread to the ground.
Bezalel stood to face her. “Well, yes, but, in the end it will be better for us—”
“In the end? When is that supposed to be?” She waved her arms, and her eyes filled with tears.
He held her by the shoulders. “Meri, please, trust me. I know this looks bad, and it’s taken me a long time to understand it, too, but please, just trust me. I have never lied to you, have I?”
“Trust you? Trust you to do what? Let your God send more disaster?” Her sobs shook her body and she wrenched away from him.
“Meri, please.” He stretched his hand toward her, but drew it back when she shrank from him. “I am n
ot exactly sure of everything either. I just know that everything Shaddai has said He will do, He has done. I haven’t liked all that has happened.” He closed his eyes and lowered his voice. “I certainly have not enjoyed watching you suffer. I only know two things for certain. One: We will leave very soon. Two: I want you with me.”
She chewed on her nails. “I don’t know.”
“You said you’d marry me.”
“You never said that meant leaving.”
He spread his hands and looked around them. “What is here for you? Not your family. Not a home. Why not come with me? I promise I will take care of you. Nothing will hurt you anymore.”
“No.”
Her answer struck him worse than a fist. “No? But why?”
“Because I can’t trust you. Or your God.”
“Being with me can’t be worse than staying here.” He moved closer to her. “I can’t be worse than Ramses.”
She didn’t move away, but she didn’t respond. Her ebony eyes held no light for him.
“I love you. Please come with me.”
She remained silent.
Eleven
First Month of Shemu, Season of Harvest
Bezalel leaned against a stone column on the edge of the courtyard and gazed northwest toward the voided land. The empty fields were unsettling; farms should be bustling with activity from dusk to dawn. Men, women, even small children should be working under the unforgiving sun until they could no longer stand, trying to get the grain harvested and stored away. Instead, they were trying to figure out where they were going to get enough food to sustain them through the next year.
Kamose joined him at the rim of the palace. Bezalel noticed he always stood like a soldier, never totally relaxed, feet shoulder-width apart, arms crossed, eyes constantly scanning.
“I thought the biting flies were bad enough,” Kamose said. “Next the boils ate away at my flesh. Then falling ice killed my men and now, there is no food. I cannot imagine what else there is left to destroy and that man inside”—his hands balled into fists at his sides—“pretends none of it ever happened!” He took a deep breath and calmed himself.
In the Shadow of Sinai Page 12