V
After the mutiny at Thebes, Issachar went to Akhetaton, the City of the Sun, to see his brother Eliav and to carry out a behest of Ptamose so secret and terrible that he was afraid even to think of it, to say nothing of discussing it with anyone.
At the bottom of a deep cauldron-shaped hollow among the rocks of the Arabian hills, east of the City and within half an hour's walk from it, lay the penal settlement of the Israelites sentenced to work in the neighbouring quarries of Hat-Nub. The Egyptians called it the Dirty Jews' Village and the Israelite's name for it was Sheol—Hell.
Some ten days after Aton's nativity, Issachar walked to Sheol to see his brother Eliav.
An old man of seventy, looking like Abraham, with a fine, deeply lined, dark-skinned face and a long white beard, was walking beside him; he was Issachar's uncle, Ahiram, son of Halev, a rich merchant from the town of Tanis. They were climbing by a narrow goat's path one of the hills west of Sheol.
The sun was setting in the red mist, as in a pool of blood, and the bare rocks of yellow sandstone, covered in places with waves of loose sand, glowed with a red hot glow.
"I suppose you took part in the Nut-Amon rising, my boy, didn't you?" Ahiram asked.
"I? Oh, no. I am a peaceful man. And besides the holy father does not allow us to fight," Issachar answered. By 'holy father' he meant Ptamose.
The old man shook his head doubtfully.
"Come, come, you are telling fibs, I see it from your eyes! All of you, priests of Amon, are rebels. But remember, my son, nothing is to be gained by rebellion."
"What is one to do then?" Issachar asked.
The old man stroked his long white beard with a sly smile.
"Why, this; listen. When our forefather, Abraham, went to Egypt from Canaan because of the famine, he said to Sarah, his wife: 'you are a fair woman to look upon; say to the Egyptians you are my sister that it may be well with me for your sake.' She did as he asked and was taken into Pharaoh's house, and it was well with Abraham for her sake and he had sheep and oxen and he-asses, and men-servants and maidservants and she-asses, and camels. And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. This is how it was, my son! Blessed be the children of Israel, the people preserved by the Lord! They shall overthrow their enemies by cunning and not by rebellion or violence," the old man said in conclusion, and his eyes sparkled with Abraham's slyness.
A young eagle flew up from the rock, silvery-grey in the glow of sunset that lighted it from below; the royal bird circled round and round, looking out for prey in the desert—a baby antelope or a bustard.
"I bare you on eagles' wings and brought you unto myself," Issachar recalled the words of God to Israel. "This is how he bears me now," he thought. He remembered, too, what Ptamose said when he sent him to the City of the Sun: "Be firm and have courage, my son, for the Lord is with you: He will do it for you." And he gave him a small bronze sacrificial knife, with the head of the god Amon-Ra for a handle; Ptamose did not say what the knife was for and Issachar did not ask—he knew.
Recalling this he thrust his hand under his cloak, and feeling the knife hidden in his broad leather belt, clasped its handle firmly and tenderly as a lover clasps the hand of his mistress. "Well, am I afraid?" he thought. "No, not afraid at all: He will do it for me. He bears me and will bring me unto Himself!" And turning to Ahiram he said:
"Dear uncle, will you get me a pass?"
He had wanted to say this for several days, but did not dare to, and he had not known a minute before that he would say it.
"What pass?"
"Into the palace to-morrow."
"Have you gone crazy, my boy? Where am I to get a permit for you with the night coming on?"
"Uncle dear, you can do anything, you know everybody, you have influence. Do get it for me, please do!" Issachar entreated him as though it were a matter of life and death.
"What do you want it for?" Ahiram asked, looking at him attentively.
"To see the king!"
"But you have seen him already."
"Only from a distance. To-morrow is the day of petitions, everybody will be allowed to go right up to the throne. I should see him quite near, face to face. I like him very much. Joy of the Sun, Joy of the Sun, to see him is a joy." Issachar said ecstatically.
"No, you shall not have a pass," Ahiram said decidedly, shaking his head. "God only knows what is in your mind, you might get me into trouble...."
Issachar took a purse from his bosom and producing from it a two-inch sacred scarabee, Kheper, made of beautiful Sinai lapis-lazuli, gave it Ahiram.
The old man seized it greedily, weighed it on his palm and scrutinized it for a few minutes.
"A fine stone," he said at last, divided between the delight of a connoisseur and the wish to beat down the price. "There is a little flaw in it, it looks dull and greenish in one place, but it is a lovely thing all the same. It's from Amon's treasury, isn't it? Did you steal it?"
"What next, uncle! I am not a thief. Holy father gave it to me."
"Oh, what for? Though indeed there are all sorts of fools in the world—some give presents for nothing. How much do you want for it?"
"Nothing, only get me the pass."
The old man's eyes glittered, he examined the stone again, and even tried it with his tongue and teeth; then he stroked his beard with a quick, as it were, thievish movement, and lifting an eyebrow and screwing up one eye, said giving back the stone:
"Look here, my son, don't sleep in the town to-night: there will be a search. The chief of the guards, Mahu, has got wind of something and is looking for the Nut-Amon rebels. Spend the night in the Goats' cave above Sheol; Naaman will take you there. If I procure the pass I will come there before midnight, and if I don't it will mean things have gone wrong—then save yourself and run away."
Issachar handed him the stone once more, but he did not take it.
"No, I will not take it in advance. Payment is due when the goods are delivered. I am an honest merchant."
He was speaking the truth—he was honest; an honest man and a rogue at the same time, after the manner of Abraham.
"I am sorry for you, my red-haired boy!" he said quietly, with an old man's benignity. "Your brother Eliav has perished for nothing; mind the same thing does not happen to you.... Remember, my son: man is born to suffering as a spark flies upward, and yet the sight of the sun is sweet to the living; a living dog is better than a dead lion."
"He has bought my soul for a stone and here he pities me," Issachar marvelled. He looked once more at the eagle still circling in the sky, thought of what was to happen next day and his heart throbbed with joy: "He hears me and will bring me unto himself!"
They climbed to the top of the hill and saw in the hollow below a regular quadrangle of uniform houses, intersected by a network of streets and surrounded by high walls.
The dead desert was all round; not a tree, not a bush, nothing but stones and sand; in the winter it was a cold grave, in the summer a scorching oven, a true Hell—Sheol.
A stench as though of decaying carrion came from below. Ahiram sniffed and frowned.
"Oho-hoho! It's the human smell, the smell of two-legged cattle. There is no well or spring near, and one can't be forever going to the river to fetch water; they stifle in their own stench, poor things!"
They descended rapidly by the goats' path to the bottom of the valley and approached the entrance to Sheol. Ahiram knocked. A window in the wall was opened, the gatekeeper peeped out and, recognizing the old man, unlocked the gate. He did not mean to admit Issachar, but Ahiram whispered something in his ear, thrust something into his hand and he let them both in.
Long, narrow, perfectly straight streets led from the square at the entrance into the centre of the settlement. One side of each street was a bare wall and the other a uniform row of mud huts that resembled stable stalls; the streets were like prison corridors, the huts like prison cells. There were no storehouses or granaries; all the inhabitants of Sheol received government rations.
Dirty pools with clouds of flies buzzing over them and heaps of filth and dung spread such an evil smell that the whole village seemed to be one enormous heap of refuse.
"I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession," the Lord said to Israel. "If the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow strokes, greenish and reddish, the stones in which the plague is shall be taken away and cast into an unclean place; and if the plague come again and be spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy; the house shall be broken down."
All the houses in Sheol had such leprosy. Lifeless stones were cankered by filth, and living bodies of men even more so; the unfortunate creatures which came down into Hell while still on earth were covered with rashes, ulcers, spots, festers, and the terrible white scabs of leprosy.
The king in his mercy allowed the prisoners' families to live with them, but this only made matters worse: people were suffering from overcrowding more than ever. "The dirty Jews' wives are fruitful," the gaolers said jeeringly. "In multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven." The Lord blessed Israel, but this blessing turned into a curse; numberless children were born and died, teeming in the filthy place like maggots in carrion.
"Thou hast carried them all away captive.
Thou bindest them by Thy love."
Issachar recalled the king's hymn to the god Aton. "Fine sort of love," he thought, "casting the living into hell!"
Ahiram brought his nephew to Eliav's hut and saying good-bye to him went back to the city to get the pass.
Issachar walked into the half-dark entry. Two mangy sheep dozed in their stall; a sick old mule and a scraggy ass stood dejectedly by an empty water trough: beasts of burden carried stones in the quarry and lived together with the prisoners.
Beside them a decrepit old man, naked but for a ragged loin cloth, sat on a heap of dung and ashes scraping with a potsherd the white scabs of leprosy on his body, with a dull, monotonous wail, like the howling of wind at night. This was Shammai the Righteous, the grandfather of Eliav's wife Naomi.
He had once been rich, happy and respected by all; he had salt mines by the Bitter Lakes and a lot of cattle in the Goshen pastures, and he used to send caravans with wool and salt into Midia. He was a godfearing man and led so blameless a life that he was surnamed 'Righteous.' He had hoped to live to a happy old age and to die filled with days. But it pleased God to test him and he was suddenly deprived of everything. Two of his sons were lost with their caravan in the desert, probably killed by robbers; the other two perished in the rebellion. His son-in-law, who was steward over all his property, falsely accused Shammai of having taken part in the rebellion. The old man was seized and tried; the judges acquitted him, but they had a compact with his son-in-law and robbed him of all he had. Now that he was a beggar all his friends forsook him; his wife died. He thought of Naomi, his favourite granddaughter, and came to live with her in Sheol where he fell ill with leprosy.
Sitting day and night among the ashes, he scraped his scabs with a potsherd and comforted his heart with wailing. All the family had grown so used to his endless wail that they noticed it no more than one notices the creaking of a door, the sound of the wind or the chirping of a grasshopper.
Issachar stopped in the entry and listened.
"Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said there is a man child conceived. Why died I not from the womb? For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept, then had I been at rest. My soul is weary of my life; I will say unto God, do not condemn me; show me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it good unto thee that thou shouldst destroy the innocent?"
And it seemed to Issachar that Shammai's wail was the lament of the whole people of Israel and, perhaps, of all mankind from the beginning to the end of time.
Walking past Shammai, he entered a dark and narrow room dimly lighted by two small lamps filled with mutton fat, one by the wall, on a wooden shelf with little clay idols of the gods Elohim, and another on the low brick platform with a block of stone on it that served as a table.
Eliav was having supper at that table with his two guests—Aviezer, a priest, and Naaman, a prophet.
Aviezer was a stout, important-looking man with red cheeks and a black beard. His luxurious dress of Phoenician patterned material was not very clean; a number of rings with imitation stones glittered on his fingers. He came to Sheol bringing alms for the prisoners from the rich Goshen merchants.
Naaman, a plumber and a prophet—nabi—was a little bald old man, gentle, shy and timid, with the kind and simple face of a poor Israelite labourer. He came from Thebes with Issachar.
There were other visitors present, but they sat at a distance and took no part in the supper or the conversation.
When Issachar saw his brother, a tall, round-shouldered, bony man, with a face so deeply lined that it seemed crumpled, everything else suddenly vanished from his eyes and he only saw this face—familiar, strange, pitiful, dear, and terrible.
"Ah, so you have arrived at last; I began to think you weren't coming," Eliav said, getting up.
Issachar went up to him and was going to embrace him when Eliav seized his hands with a quick movement and holding him back looked into his eyes with a laugh:
"Well, I should think we might embrace each Other, or is it beneath your dignity?" he said, as though it had been Issachar who held himself back.
Issachar threw his arms round Eliav's neck.
"Well, sit down," said Eliav, disengaging himself and pointing to the place of honour by his side—a low, half-circular stone chair. "You see, we are feasting here, enjoying your gifts without you. Thank you for remembering us and sending alms to us poor beggars. I dare not offer you anything: you Egyptians think our Jewish food unclean!"
"Why do you say such things, brother?" Issachar began, but broke off, looking down and flushing crimson. He took a piece off the dish.
"Why, he is eating! He really is, he doesn't despise our food!" Eliav cried, with the same unkind smile.
Aviezer also smiled into his beard, and Naaman anxiously looked round at them all with his kind eyes.
"Perhaps you will have a drink, too?" Eliav asked.
Issachar moved up his cup and Eliav filled it from a jug with pomegranate wine, blood-red and thick as oil—also his brother's present. He poured some out for himself, also.
"Your health, Iserker!"
He swallowed it at one gulp.
"Splendid wine this! I have never drunk anything like it."
He poured out some more. His wife, Naomi, a young, worn-looking woman with child, came up to him and whispered in his ear:
"You must not take any more, sir."
"Why not? I haven't seen my brother all these years and I mayn't have a drink on the occasion?"
He rudely pushed her away, giving her such a blow on the stomach with his elbow that she nearly fell.
"Oh, my dears, please don't let him drink, there will be trouble!" she begged the guests, retreating submissively like a beaten dog.
"A second cup to the success of your errand!" Eliav said. "You must have come to us on business I expect, and not for the pleasure of seeing your brother. Well, speak up, Iserker! What have you come for?"
"Issachar, not Iserker," his brother corrected him, paling slightly and frowning.
"Issachar in Hebrew and Iserker in Egyptian," Eliav answered. "Do you know yourself what your name is, I wonder? There now, don't be cross, don't look at me like Abel. I know you want to be an Abel, but I am not a Cain... Rabbi, what did Cain kill Abel for?" he asked Aviezer.
"Because God accepted Abel's gift and rejected Cain's."
"And why did God reject it?"
"No one knows this."
"That's always the way: no one knows the chief thing. But that was just the beginning of it all. The beginning was bad and I expect the end will be bad, too.... Well then, tell me what news have you brought us, Abel?"
"Good news, brother: the Lord has heard at last the cry of Israel. You will soon leave Sheol, captives.... Nabi Naaman, you are God's prophet, you know it all better than I do. Speak!"
Naaman shook his head, with a shy smile.
"Prophet, indeed! I am a simple man: all my wisdom is in mending cauldrons and saucepans..."
"Never mind, speak; God will teach you!"
The old man looked down and was silent for a time; then he began timidly and in a low voice, obviously repeating somebody else's words:
"Thus speaks the Lord of Sabaoth, the God of Israel: strengthen your arms which have grown weak, steady your knees that tremble. Behold your God! He shall come and save you; He shall stretch out his arm, He shall judge and lead his people out of Egypt, as out of the house of bondage. The second Exodus will be greater than the first, and the new Leader of Israel greater than Moses!"
He raised his eyes and his voice rang out with sudden force:
"How long, O Lord, shall the ungodly triumph? They trample upon thy people, they oppress thine inheritance, God of vengeance, Lord God of vengeance, show thyself, punish the proud! The Lord is to sit in judgment upon the peoples; He shall be judge of all flesh!"
"He is rather slow about it," Eliav said, with a jeering smile and, as though in answer to him, Shammai's wail was heard:
"Behold I cry out of wrong but I am not heard; I cry aloud and there is no judgment! Why does God mock the torture of the innocent? Why do the wicked live and spend their days in wealth? Why is the earth given over to evildoers and God gives them countenance? If it is not His doing, whose doing is it?"
"Do you hear?" Eliav asked, looking straight into Issachar's eyes. "Shammai is right: there is no judgment of God in the doings of men. All your prophecies are empty babble. The earth is a paradise for evildoers and a hell for the innocent, a Sheol. You are wretched comforters, useless physicians, all of you, damnation upon you and your God!"
Aviezar looked at Eliav and said, "Do not blaspheme, my son. Woe to him who disputes with his Maker."
"And what do you say, brother?" Eliav asked, still looking straight into Issachar's eyes. "Is Shammai right?"
"Yes, he is."
"Who is to answer him, then?"
"The Redeemer."
"And who is the Redeemer?"
"You know yourself."
"No, I don't. So many prophets come to us—not you alone. Some say that King Akhnaton is the Redeemer. Perhaps you have come to us from him?"
"Why do you laugh, brother, why do you jeer at what is holy?"
"But do you think you know what is holy? Is it true, they say you have been converted to the king's faith?"
"No, it is not."
"How is it, then, you were seen the other day at the festival of the Sun, among the converts? Whom are you deceiving, them or us? Why are you silent? Speak!"
"What am I to say, brother? You won't believe me in any case. Wait till to-morrow—to-morrow you shall know all."
"To-morrow? No, tell me at once, at once, what do you mean by saying 'you will soon leave Sheol, captives'? We shall not leave it without a rebellion. Have you come to stir us up, then?"
"You shall know everything to-morrow," Issachar repeated, getting up.
Eliav got up, too, and seized him by the hand.
"Stop, you shan't go like this! If you won't tell us, you will tell the king's overseer!"
"Will you inform against me?"
"And why not? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I have suffered for ten years on your account, and now it is your turn. Come along!"
"Oh, my dears, hold him, hold him, there will be trouble!" Naomi cried again.
All rushed at Eliav, but before they had time to restrain him, he dashed to the corner, seized the copper pickaxe, with which he broke stones in the quarry, ran towards Issachar, and raised it over his head, shouting:
"Get out of my sight, you son of the stinking Goat, or I'll kill you!"
Issachar ran out of the house, covering his face with his hands.
He ran along the dark streets, stumbling, falling, getting up, and running on again in terror.
He only came to himself outside the Sheol gates. Naaman had been running beside him and saying to him something he could not make out; at last he grasped that Naaman said:
"Let us run to the Goats' Cave and spend the night there."
By a steep narrow footpath cut in the rock, they ascended from the Sheol valley to the open ground at the top of the hill. A small red light flickered in the distance. They walked towards it. Fierce sheep dogs, with heads like spiders, rushed at them barking.
An old shepherd came out to meet them; he drove away the dogs and welcomed his guests with a low bow, calling Naaman by name. He had evidently been expecting them and led them straight to the cave at the top of the cliff overhanging Sheol.
Two young shepherds, who had been sitting by the bonfire in the cave among a sleeping flock of goats and sheep, got up and also made a low bow. They put more wood on the fire, spread some sheep-skins on the ground, and wishing their guests good-night, went out together with the old shepherd.
Issachar and Naaman sat down by the fire.
"Man is born to suffering as a spark flies upward," Issachar recalled Ahiram's words as he gazed at the sparks in the smoking fire and he thought "To-morrow Eliav will learn everything and will forgive and love me."
He lay down and as soon as he closed his eyes began to descend by the dark subterranean passages into the Nut-Amon sanctuary of the god Ram; he went on and on, but he could not reach it—he had lost his way. A small red light flickered in the distance. He walked towards it. The light grew bigger and bigger and became at last a red sun upon the black sky. Someone was standing under it, dressed in white, with a face as gentle as that of the god whose name is Quiet Heart. A quiet voice said, "Thou, Father, art in my heart and no one knows thee but me, thy son." "Cursed be the deceiver who said 'I am the Son'," Issachar cried, and drawing the knife from his belt was about to strike him. But he saw the red blood flowing on the white robe. "They shall look upon him whom they pierced and shall mourn for Him as for a son," he recalled the prophecy, and, throwing down the knife, flung himself at the feet of the Pierced One, crying "Who are you?"
"Ahiram, your uncle, who did you think I was? Come, wake up, my son," he heard Ahiram's voice and woke up.
"What is the matter with you, my boy? Have you had a bad dream?" the old man said, stroking Issachar's hair affectionately. "See, here is your pass!"
He took a day tablet from his bosom and gave it to Issachar: the king's seal—the sun disc of Aton—was at the top, next to the date of the month and below was the signature Tutankhaton.'
Issachar took the tablet and gazed at it, still trembling, so that his teeth chattered.
"Give me the stone!" Ahiram said, looking at him suspiciously, wondering if he would refuse payment.
Issachar took the stone out of his purse and gave it to Ahiram.
"But why are you so frightened? Have you changed your mind? Won't you go?" the old man said.
"Yes, I will go," Issachar answered.