Journey

by Angela Hunt

  His father paused by a merchant’s stall. “Shall you visit Efrayim now?”

  Jokim nodded, unable to tear his eyes from the brilliant wares lined up like treasures. “I will find you tomorrow at the docks. I hope you have a profitable day of trading.”

  He walked away with a quick step that implied more confidence than he felt, for he still spoke very little Egyptian and understood even less. The Hebrews spoke the Canaanite tongue, and despite the influx of Egyptian brickmakers who were helping his relatives erect permanent housing, Jokim had not had many opportunities to practice the foreign language.

  An obese, kilted merchant directed Jokim to the vizier’s villa, a sprawling, pink-washed estate south of the city. As Jokim followed a winding path along the river’s edge, he noticed that the cultivated acres outside the tall walls were lush with grain and ready for harvest. The vizier’s herds dotted other fields, a testimony to Yosef’s wealth and power.

  But the villa held Jokim’s attention most. He had spent his life in tents of canvas and leather, so the marble beauty of the elegant home rising from within painted walls left him breathless with admiration. Nervous flutterings tickled his chest as he approached the gatekeeper’s lodge and hoped that Efrayim would be willing to welcome a long-lost country cousin.

  For not only did he seek hospitality, but Jokim had been entrusted with a solemn responsibility. He prayed Efrayim would prove willing to help him bear it.

  After greeting Jokim with an affectionate embrace, Menashe explained that Efrayim was away. Jokim stuttered in embarrassment as Yosef’s elder son ordered a slave to wash his guest’s feet and bring him a clean tunic, then commanded that fruit and fresh bread be supplied.

  When they had settled in the privacy of Menashe’s comfortable chamber, Jokim breakfasted on lotus bread, dates and wild honey while his cousin asked about the family in Goshen—what were the uncles doing now that Yaakov no longer lived? After a few moments of trivial talk, Menashe flushed and asked if anyone had spoken of returning to Canaan.

  Was he still set on that topic? Jokim changed the subject, but frustration filled Menashe’s face when Jokim mentioned the brickmakers, masons and builders that had poured into Goshen since the clan’s return from the burial journey. “The older people are tired of living in tents,” Jokim said. “They want something stable. Something better. And while none of them will build a home as grand as this one—” he gestured to the elegant house surrounding them “—would you begrudge them the right to have a proper roof over their heads?”

  Menashe leaned forward. “I don’t begrudge them anything. I just hate to see them put roots into the soil of Goshen. It is not the land of promise. It is not where God wants us. But apparently no one wants to obey God Shaddai.”

  Jokim swallowed a stubborn lump of bread that had lodged in his throat. “So you have said.” He did not want to tell his cousin that uncles frequently joked about Menashe’s speech in the wilderness, mocking him as a youngster with hot blood, the one who would rush in and claim the promised land all by himself.

  “Perhaps you should try to understand the others,” Jokim said, reaching for a cup on a nearby tray. “You have lived here in splendor while they have lived in dust and dirt. Now they want the feel of stone under their feet. And many of them, my father included, insist that if God wants us to dwell in Canaan, nothing will prevent us from dwelling there.”

  Menashe’s face darkened. “Do they expect God to pluck us up and drop us back into our homeland? God has told us what He wants. He gave the message to Avraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov and me! But our people do not want what God wants. They want an easy life in the Black Land where food is plentiful and comforts abound. They want brick houses and stone floors.”

  Jokim took another bite of the delicious bread and told himself to keep quiet. He had been warned that Menashe was like a young lion roaring after his prey. Though he yearned for the glory of the hunt, he would not be prepared for the effort of the kill.

  He would say nothing else until he’d had a chance to talk to Efrayim. If Efrayim truly was the greater of the two brothers, he would be more suitable for the task ahead.

  “Jokim!” Perfumed and staggering, Efrayim entered the room and held out his arms. “What a wonderful surprise!”

  Menashe felt his stomach churn as the cousins embraced. Efrayim was drunk again, and the day not half spent. In the past few weeks he had changed. Though Menashe was not certain what motivated his brother’s newly hedonistic lifestyle, he could guess at a reason or two.

  Efrayim fell into a chair near Jokim, hooked one leg over the armrest and grinned at his guest. “We must celebrate your arrival. We will show you the city, take you to a few entertainments. Thebes is a magnificent place. The temples alone will make your eyeballs bulge from your head. And the women—beautiful!”

  “I’d like to see a few things.” Jokim smiled, then turned toward Menashe. “Will you come with us?”

  Menashe shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to accompany Efrayim on a jaunt around the city.

  A devilish look gleamed in Efrayim’s eyes. “We’ll have more fun if we leave my brother behind.”

  Obviously, Jokim did not want to venture forth with a drunken kinsman. “Please come, Menashe.”

  Menashe sighed and gripped the armrests of his chair. “I’ll come, but we will not stay out long. And we will not go to any of your friends’ parties.”

  Efrayim closed his eyes, then lifted a hand and shook it as if waving farewell to a host of people he would not be seeing. “We won’t take the cousin to the parties. I promise.”

  Biting his lip, Menashe looked at Jokim, then jerked his head toward the doorway. “Let’s go.”

  The pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty had lavished considerable care and wealth on Thebes. The shrines, temples and buildings erected during this dynasty alone had earned the city a reputation for splendor and beauty that would last for centuries. Flanked on the west by a two-mile-long prominence of cliffs that formed a backdrop for the small valleys and plains sprinkled with the tombs of the dead, the living city lay to the east of the river and pulsed with life even in the heat of the afternoon.

  Efrayim and Menashe led their disconcerted kinsman through a maze of winding paths in the heart of the capital, occasionally stopping to point out a spectacular statue, temple or a favorite merchant’s stall. Efrayim, Menashe noticed, seemed to walk more steadily than he had at the villa, and Menashe hoped that the morning’s beer had finally left his brother’s system. The Egyptians drank only water, beer or wine, and Efrayim’s freewheeling friends favored the strong black beer that flowed like water at parties, regardless of the hour of the day.

  They wandered through the city for more than three hours, Menashe dutifully following his brother and cousin while Jokim listened to Efrayim point out one architectural wonder after another. “There are hundreds of temples at Thebes,” Efrayim boasted, gesturing around him. “Probably more than any place on earth. The temple of Amon-Re is the largest in the world.”

  “And yet there are no temples to El Shaddai,” Jokim observed.

  Menashe thought the remark would offend Efrayim’s proud sensibilities, but his brother only grinned. “Why does an invisible god need a temple?” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “What are you going to put in it? Nothing! Why does nothing need a temple?”

  “God Shaddai is not a nothing,” Menashe muttered. Though he’d had his own doubts recently about God Shaddai’s wisdom and purpose, Efrayim’s flippancy galled him.

  “I didn’t say He was nothing.” Efrayim pressed his hand to his chest and smiled as though out of pity for Menashe. “I said His temple would hold nothing.”

  The sun had begun to sink toward the west when Menashe gestured toward the river, hoping to lead his brother and cousin home. Jokim’s tongue had loosened in the past hour, his previous awe and astonishment evolving into open admiration of the confident way his cousins moved about the city. Jokim was in the midst of explainin
g his father’s reluctance to enter the foreign marketplace when a shadow fell across the path.

  Menashe looked up, annoyed that someone else had entered the conspiracy to ruin his day. His frown faded, however, when he saw the hulking brute who had blocked the sun. The interloper wore the distinctive kilt and leopard-skin belt of one of Pharaoh’s elite guards. He had probably come to Thebes from Malkata on a pass of some sort, but by the sour look on the man’s face Menashe knew his holiday had not been pleasant.

  “Ho! You river rats!” The man swayed drunkenly as he pulled a sword from its scabbard. His sour breath blew over them like a fetid breeze. “You’ll not pass by me until you swear allegiance to my patron goddess. Nut’s her name!”

  With his free hand the barbarian pointed to a small stone statue by the tavern doorway. Menashe frowned; the statue depicted a woman wearing a sun disk and cow horns; it was the image of Hathor, not Nut. But this inebriated ruffian was in no condition to know the difference.

  Jokim paled immediately and withdrew, cowering behind Efrayim’s shoulder. The Hebrew was at a distinct disadvantage since he couldn’t understand the slurred words of the drunk Egyptian.

  Keeping his voice calm and steady, Menashe placed his hands on his hips. “Let us pass, friend. We will not give you trouble, but neither will we bow to an idol.”

  “You will.” A vein in the warrior’s forehead swelled like a thick, black snake. “Nut demands it.”

  “We will not,” Menashe answered. He glanced around for a weapon, but saw nothing. He had no dagger in his belt, no club in his hand. Even Jokim’s shepherd’s staff would have been useful, but he had left it at the villa, not expecting this sort of harassment.

  “Can I help?” Jokim asked in a low murmur. “I know trouble when I see it, and I have fought before. If he is determined to confront us—”

  “He will let us pass.” Menashe answered in Egyptian, raising his voice so the soldier could hear. “As Pharaoh lives, this man has no reason to detain us.”

  “A pox on the life of Pharaoh!” the warrior roared, waving his sword. Menashe cast a quick glance at Efrayim. The man was either out of his mind or senseless, for no one, especially a guard in Pharaoh’s service, could curse the king and expect to live. If anyone else heard him—

  “I can settle this.” Efrayim advanced with a casual smile. “I would be happy to bow before Hathor—or Nut. Just clear me a space, will you?”

  “Efrayim!” Menashe barked, disbelieving.

  “Hush, brother, I’m going to bow.” Efrayim kicked a pebble out of his way, then fell to his knees on the path. Mindless of his spotless white kilt, he sprawled in the road, extending his arms toward the stone statue and pressing his face to the dirt.

  Menashe gaped in total incredulity, then realized that the warrior was staring as well. Menashe stepped forward, reached up and twined his hand in the savage’s hair, then brought the man’s head down to his own uplifted knee. The sudden, surprising blow knocked the last vestige of understanding from the savage’s clouded brain. He staggered backward and collapsed unconscious in the pathway.

  “Come!” Menashe grabbed Jokim’s elbow and pulled his cousin toward home. Efrayim rose from his place in the dirt and ran to catch up with them, laughing as he sprinted toward home.

  After dinner with the vizier and the chief servants of his household, Menashe said goodnight to his cousin, brother and father. He had scarcely lain in bed five minutes when a soft rap sounded on his door.

  He sat up, alarmed. “Yes?”

  “May I speak with you?” The words were Hebrew, the voice soft and conspiratorial. Menashe tossed off his linen sheet and padded to the door. Jokim stood there, his eyes glowing with a sheen of purpose. Menashe invited him in and directed him to a chair while he lit a lamp.

  He took a chair opposite Jokim. “What is so important we could not discuss it this afternoon?”

  A flush ran like a shadow over Jokim’s tanned face. “This afternoon,” he said, his dark, earnest eyes seeking Menashe’s. “I saw something I never expected to see.”

  “A drunken fool?” Menashe laughed. “There is one on every street corner in Thebes. I am used to them.”

  Jokim used his finger to dash small sparkles of sweat from his forehead, then folded his hands and leaned forward. “Today I saw a son of Avraham bow down to a stone idol. That I never expected to see.”

  “Ah.” Menashe slid down in his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. “Don’t judge Efrayim too severely. His action was part of a ruse to help us escape. And his plan worked. We caught the drunken fool off guard and no one was seriously hurt. The afternoon could have ended quite differently.”

  “But you wouldn’t have done what he did.” Jokim’s eyes were sharp and assessing. “I would not have done it. And neither would I have called God Shaddai ‘nothing.’”

  Menashe rested his head on his hand. “Maybe I wouldn’t have bowed. But Efrayim doesn’t worship idols. And he wasn’t thinking clearly today, so his words were not what they should have been. I can assure you that he is not always so frivolous.”

  “He doesn’t worship idols now. But we have heard things. Last week a trader told us that a dozen cattle branded with the vizier’s mark had been offered to the priests of Amon-Re. My grandfather, Yehuda, said the man had to be mistaken, but the trader insisted he spoke the truth. My father was certain your father had been robbed—either that, or someone from the villa pulled the cattle from Yosef’s herds.”

  “Impossible.” Menashe shot Jokim a penetrating look, then rose from his chair and paced in the room. “That makes no sense. My father, Efrayim and I worship El Shaddai and Him alone. We have never sent offerings to any of the temples. But these things are easy to check. If cattle were taken to the temple, the steward will have a record of it.”

  Jokim nodded, but an almost imperceptible note of pleading remained on his face.

  “There is something else?”

  Jokim studied Menashe intently, then he continued. “I was not completely honest with you this morning when we spoke. I told you the old ones are content to remain in Goshen, and that much was true.” A strange, faintly eager look flashed in his eyes. “But there are many of us, mostly young men, who are ready to return to Canaan.”

  Menashe let out a snort of disbelief. “No one listened to me in the wilderness. Why should you heed my words now?”

  “You caught us by surprise, and we were silenced by the elders. But since we have returned to Egypt, we have seen our fathers cast off our way of life as easily as they disposed of their worn-out tents. They are old and tired, and they are resting on your father’s promise to take care of them. They are depending on Yosef, the almighty vizier, instead of the Almighty God. And so we, their sons and grandsons, find that it is up to us to lead the return.”

  Menashe felt his knees weaken. Was this another cruel jest, or had God finally decided to equip him for the task ahead?

  The memory of his own words passed through him like an unwelcome chill. “If you had only moved one of them to support me,” he had prayed. He had imagined himself alone and helpless, and all the while God had been working in hearts unknown to Menashe…

  He sank into his chair and fixed Jokim in a steady gaze. “You are ready to go back? But now we have nothing. Before we had chariots, horses, warriors—”

  “We can get those things.” Jokim’s eyes darkened. “We can get horses and camels, and already we have begun to talk to some of the border guards. For a price, they will join our company and fight with us.”

  “But we have nothing with which to pay them.”

  “We will have the spoils of Gerar, Gaza and Ashkelon. They will fight for the promise of riches.”

  The words rang in Menashe’s head like a clanging brass gong. He would win spoils in the battle—riches he could use to buy another harpist, some man or woman he could present to Pharaoh in exchange for Jendayi. He wouldn’t need to trade on his father’s influence, nor would he have to bring her
back to live in his father’s house. He would take her to Canaan, where they could be married…

  God Shaddai had not left him hopeless.

  “We will have to train in a safe place,” Menashe murmured, his thoughts racing along the track he had abandoned weeks before. “On the edge of the wilderness near Tura Quarry, my father has a house we can use as a base. It is isolated. He has not visited it in years.”

  “I had hoped we could count on you.” A faint light twinkled in the depths of Jokim’s black eyes. “The others thought Efrayim would be the one to lead us, but this afternoon I realized you are the one God has prepared. You know the Egyptians and the Hebrews, you can give us straight talk and simple answers. You, Menashe, are the one we need. Say you will come and help us, and we will follow you back to Canaan.”

  In that instant, Menashe’s resolve to forget the past shattered. A sense of fulfillment flooded his soul as his doubts vanished. God Shaddai had called him. Here was another proof of the call.

  Feeling alive for the first time in weeks, Menashe extended his hand to Jokim. “On his deathbed, Yisrael proclaimed that we would return to the land of our fathers. I will come to you soon, so prepare the others. And may God lead us home.”

  “He will.” Jokim stood and clasped Menashe’s arm. His voice rang with confidence. “Let the others do what they will, but we shall obey the will of God Shaddai.”

  ZAPHENATH-PANEAH

  And Joshua said unto the children of Yisrael, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the LORD God of your fathers hath given you?

  Joshua 18:3

  Chapter Sixteen

  No element distinguished Pharaoh from the common man more than stone. Like other pharaohs before him, Amenhotep knew the magic of enduring stone would enable his name to live forever. To achieve that end, he secured the quarries that provided raw materials for statues, temples and pillars that would bear his name throughout generations to come.