Brothers Page 23

By midafternoon on the third day, both Mandisa and the master were exhausted, drained of will and thought. “Why don’t you go to your chamber and sleep for a while.” the master asked, stepping away from Asenath’s bedside. He turned toward the high window and seemed to study the shaft of sunlight that trapped slow convections of dust.

  “If it please you, my lord, I will remain until the—until she no longer needs me,” Mandisa answered.

  For another hour the two of them waited without speaking. They traded places: Mandisa stood beneath the window, lost in her own thoughts, the master sat at the side of Asenath’s bed, imprinting his memory with the image of his beloved wife, still carrying the unborn child.

  Without warning, the lady opened her eyes. “My husband?” Her words were jagged and sharp, sounds torn by the blade of a knife.

  “Here, beloved.” Zaphenath-paneah lifted his head and took her pale hand in his.

  “I have been foolish, my lord. I thought another child would make you happy.”

  “All I ever wanted was you, Asenath. Children are an added blessing from God.”

  She spoke in a weak and tremulous whisper. “I have played the harlot with another god—”

  “Shh, Asenath, don’t talk now.” As the husband lowered his face to his wife’s, Mandisa retreated into the shadows of the room, unwilling to intrude upon the private moment.

  The burning pain of her loins had faded to a distant memory, and Asenath’s hands and legs had gone as cold as an empty bed. She felt surprisingly light and carefree; the heaviness that had pressed upon her stomach, back and legs had completely vanished. The only burden upon her now was guilt, but Zaphenath-paneah sat by her side, his dark eyes inches from hers, his gaze probing her soul.

  “I did something,” she began, forcing the words from her stubborn tongue.

  “I know all about you, beloved,” Zaphenath-paneah said, his tone unfailingly patient and compassionate. “Your denial has kept us apart these last few months, but I was ready to listen anytime you wanted to talk. Nothing you could ever do would make me turn you away.”

  “I was so selfish. When God Shaddai would not give me what I wanted, I left him for another.”

  His fingers fell across her mouth. “You don’t have to talk.”

  She closed her eyes, too weak to resist him. “Please.” His fingers lifted, and she ran her tongue over her parched lips, struggling to find the words. “I left your God, the Almighty One, because He seemed too distant and unaccommodating. Because He said no.”

  Zaphenath-paneah did not answer, and with an effort she opened her eyes to look at him. His usually lively gaze sparkled with weariness. She blinked in surprise when she saw that he held her hand pressed to his cheek; she hadn’t felt the pressure of his skin against hers.

  “Beloved wife,” he said, “God honors a repentant heart.” His voice, without rising at all, had taken on a subtle urgency.

  “I know.” Tonight there were no shadows across her heart, only a feeling of glorious happiness within it. “When you did not cast me aside, my love, I knew your God would not abandon me, either.”

  He drew her into his arms, and Asenath closed her eyes, glorying in the shared moment.

  Her ragged breathing stuttered and died, and then there was nothing but silence and the pounding of Yosef’s own aching heart.

  “Beloved?”

  Her mouth was as pale as her cheeks, her eyes closed in eternal sleep. Yosef sat up, still clutching her icy hands, his sense of loss beyond tears.

  Why couldn’t she trust his love? He had spent the last years of his life protecting her, trying to convince her that she was the most precious person in his world, and yet she would not believe him. He had seen the pain in her eyes when he denied her requests, but he had only refused her out of love.

  “Oh, Asenath.” He cradled her against his chest as he traced her cheek with his fingers. “How like a child you were! Could you not know I would give my own life rather than allow you to suffer like this?”

  Somewhere outside the villa a pair of servants broke into a brawling argument, giving voice to the unuttered shouts and protests lodged in Yosef’s own throat. He pressed Asenath to him, breathed in the scent of her skin and hair one last time, then released the keening wail of grief.

  Tarik stood at attention by the gatekeeper’s lodge, his eyes raking the face and figure of each guest. Hundreds had already filed through the villa to pay their respects to Zaphenath-paneah in the loss of his wife and unborn child.

  The priests of Amun had come first to prepare Lady Asenath for mummification. Mandisa had helped them wash the body, excise the baby and anoint the skin with oils and unguents. The tiny, perfectly formed child was washed and wrapped in linen. The unnamed son would be placed in Asenath’s arms, and together they would sleep in a coffin within a sarcophagus within a tomb.

  Such great sadness after such great joy! Though Tarik stood like a warrior, stiff and proud, his spirit whirled in chaos. A war of emotions raged within him, a battle more vicious than any physical conflict he had ever experienced. Rumors within the household fueled his unrest. Some servants were saying that the mistress had tried to induce the labor of the child after discovering it would be the offspring of a Canaanite herdsman. Wiser, more practical voices proclaimed that the physicians had long said another pregnancy would result in Asenath’s death. The incident had only proven the physicians right.

  How could a man at the pinnacle of power be so vulnerable to pain? Tarik had never imagined that any earthly relationship could engender such feelings of loss and devastation, but he suffered with his master, and Zaphenath-paneah suffered greatly. The joy had gone out of the vizier’s eyes, and despite the pleasure he found in making arrangements for his family’s arrival in Goshen, sorrow had carved merciless lines on his strong face, muting his youth. Tarik wondered if the vizier would ever find a way to lift the shadows of pain from his countenance.

  And yet Zaphenath-paneah persisted in his worship of the invisible and Almighty God. If Wepwawet had led Tarik through such a torturous experience, the captain knew he would have cursed that god and followed another. But the vizier did not condemn his God or cry out. He continued in his silent and steadfast devotion, preferring solitude to the noisy Egyptian ceremonies designed to speed Asenath to the Otherworld.

  There remained the traditional seventy days of mourning, the necessity of filling and preparing the lady’s tomb and the mummification of the body. It was a pity, Tarik decided, that Lady Asenath would not meet Yaakov, Zaphenath-paneah’s noble father. Perhaps in the afterlife the Egyptian noblewoman and the Canaanite prince would be friends.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “T hey are home!”

  One of the grandchildren released the cry, and Yaakov lifted his head from his couch and pulled himself upright with an effort. His sons had been gone nearly forty days, more than enough time to make the trip to Mizraim and back, and with each passing day his heart had grown heavy with the nauseating sinking of despair.

  Swallowing the grateful sob that rose in his throat, he stood up and hobbled to the opening of his tent. There on the curve of the hilly horizon he could see a caravan of loaded wagons and donkeys.

  He frowned. The grandchildren were mistaken, for his sons had not left with the means to purchase such riches. This was another caravan, one bound for Aram or Uz. But perhaps they would have word of his sons and know if Binyamin was still among them.

  Bracing himself for disappointment, he stepped out of his tent.

  Shim’on saw the old man before the others, recognized his father’s distinctive lumbering gait, the way he rocked on his hips as if they were stiff. Re’uven had said they shouldn’t expect to see him outside, but Shim’on knew better. He’d been gone for nearly a year, so Yaakov would be waiting with the children and the curious servants, eager for news of his second-born son.

  Satisfaction pursed Shim’on’s mouth as he spied his father’s white hair and flowing beard. Yaakov had come for
ward to greet him. Perhaps Mandisa was right, the old man did care.

  His reserve and apprehension thawed in an instant. “Father!” he called, waving as his confidence spiraled upward. He slipped from the wagon where he rode with Levi and thundered over the hard ground, ready to forget the past and embrace the man with whom he’d had so many misunderstandings.

  Yaakov’s eyes lifted; he turned his head in search of the son who had called his name.

  “Father!”

  Another voice rang through the tumult of greetings, and Yaakov’s face brightened in a sudden look of eagerness. “Binyamin!” he cried, lifting trembling arms. “Blessed be God Almighty, He has brought you back to me!”

  Shim’on stopped abruptly and leaned forward, breathing hard, while Binyamin raced to his father’s arms and was enveloped in an embrace. Women, children and servants surrounded the caravan, and after a moment Shim’on heard Levi’s voice in his ear. “Give him time with the lad, Shim’on, he’ll be glad enough to see you later. But now his attention is reserved for the young one.”

  Still catching his breath, Shim’on nodded. Like an old wound that ached on a rainy day, he climbed back into the wagon and reluctantly welcomed the familiar pain he had nearly forgotten.

  Yaakov did embrace him later, perfunctorily, when the brothers assembled to share their news. “Yosef is still alive,” Yehuda repeated as they sat in their father’s tent. Yaakov, his arm firmly entwined with Binyamin’s, shook his head in disbelief.

  “Indeed, he is ruler over all Egypt,” Re’uven added, leaning forward in eagerness.

  “Why would the idol-worshippers elevate a son of Avraham?” Yaakov said, patting Binyamin’s arm as if to reassure himself that his youngest son had actually returned.

  Yehuda gestured outside where the children and wives were gleefully plundering the pack animals. “How could we come to you with such fine wagons and the best goods of Egypt if they had not done so? Yosef said to tell you that the hand of El Shaddai brought him to that place. God Himself lifted Yosef from slavery and placed him on a throne equal to Pharaoh’s so we might be preserved in this time of famine.”

  Yaakov shook his hoary head, still resisting the truth. Yehuda looked around the circle of brothers, silently pleading for help. He caught Shim’on’s eye, but Shim’on only scratched his beard. You are our spokesman, so speak for us, he told Yehuda with a smile and a slight shake of his head.

  They had been talking to Yaakov for more than an hour. In that time they had confessed what happened at Dotan and quickly followed the news of their treachery with the glorious report of Yosef’s current condition. And Yaakov sat like a stone, with no reaction to either their shameful confession or the stunning summary of their latest venture into Egypt.

  “We are to leave this place and go to Egypt,” Yehuda said, “so we may prosper under Yosef’s hand.”

  “How can we leave the land God promised to us?” Yaakov waved toward the sullen fields outside his tent. “How can we leave the cave where our fathers and mothers are buried?”

  “How can we remain here, knowing we will die?” Levi demanded, his voice rising. “You talk of God, Father, and Yosef says God Shaddai has provided. If God can bring Yosef back to your life, can He not bring you back to Canaan when the earth is green again?”

  Yaakov lowered his eyelids, and Shim’on couldn’t tell whether the old man slept, prayed or was simply considering their words.

  “How like God Shaddai to do the opposite of what we expect,” he finally murmured, lifting his gaze. His eyes had a burning, faraway look in them, and when he spoke again, his voice was strong and fervent. “It is enough. My son Yosef is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”

  Alive. The shock of realization hit Yaakov again. Yosef, alive. Not dead, but living. In Egypt.

  He had waited until his sons left his tent, then he grabbed his walking stick and moved with as much speed as his bones would allow toward the hill that looked toward the south. Now he stared toward Egypt, his heart stirring in a new and dangerous rhythm. A howling wind blew from the desert, and through the roaring din, Yaakov breathed one word: “Alive.”

  A great exultation filled his chest and brought tears to his eyes. “If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my struggle I will wait. For there is hope for a tree, when it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its shoots will not fail. At the scent of water it will flourish and put forth sprigs like a plant.”

  He closed his eyes, relishing the solitude of the hilltop. Because they had carried the guilty secret that Yosef lived, the other sons would never know the indescribable, unfathomable rapture rising from Yaakov’s spirit, the ecstasy of resurrection.

  The son he thought dead now reigned as a king.

  A bottomless peace and satisfaction filled his soul; joy bubbled from his lips in laughter. Yaakov lifted his weak arms to the heavens as his shuffling feet moved over the sand. Through a blanket of clouds a single shaft of sun highlighted the hilltop where the happiness of Yaakov’s heart spun him around and around in a delirious dance of delight.

  As the others gathered their wives and children and made preparation for the journey, Shim’on wandered around the camp, refreshing the impressions and memories he had tucked into the dim recesses of his mind. The land of Canaan, once green with life, opened before him like an arid dust bowl. The few leaves that still dangled from trees were brown and stained with death. Nothing could live in this place much longer. If Yosef spoke the truth, none of the people in the neighboring towns would be alive in five years.

  He strolled onward, blankly watching his sandals crunch into the dry and brittle sand. Before he ventured into Egypt he had considered his father a leader, but today Yaakov seemed a tired old man, one whose life revolved around a submissive son and patch of dusty earth that yielded neither food nor water.

  Yaakov was the prince of a dead land. No wonder Mandisa had not wanted to return to Canaan. Who would want to live in this airless, desolate region after the splendor and abundance of Egypt? But Yaakov stayed because he believed he followed God’s will.

  A hot wind blew by him and Shim’on paused, remembering Yosef’s words. God sent me before you to preserve life. Yosef was like Yaakov, he believed El Shaddai took a personal interest in the sons of Avraham. Did He? Shim’on knew that God Shaddai lived and was more powerful than the stone idols of Egypt. But could an Almighty God care about one man? Or was He concerned only with offerings and obedience?

  Mandisa seemed to think her master’s God could be known on a personal level. Avraham had experienced dreams and visions, and Yaakov wrestled with God in the night. But Shim’on had never heard His voice, and never expected to.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  T izara’s constant weeping grated on Mandisa’s nerves. Zaphenath-paneah and the others bore their grief stoically, knowing that they would weep and mourn with abandon when Lady Asenath was interned in her tomb, but Tizara could not stanch the flow of tears that began every time she looked at Efrayim or Menashe. “Those little motherless boys!” she wailed, weeping into a linen handkerchief. “I was a motherless child, I know what they are feeling.”

  In the days immediately after Asenath’s death Mandisa had gently pointed out that they still had a father and a maid to care for them. When that tactic failed to stop Tizara’s tears, Mandisa tried adding extra work to the girl’s assigned duties, but Tizara merely went about the house with a wadded scrap of linen pressed to her streaming eyes.

  Now, her patience evaporated, Mandisa considered sharpening her tongue on the girl’s grief. Shim’on would love that, she thought, standing as Tizara paced in the women’s reception hall, her eyes bleary and red. I tell him that whatever is begun in anger ends in shame, and here I stand ready to begin my own shameful trouble. And it wasn’t so long ago that I felt guilty avoiding this girl. Now I cannot avoid her.

  “Tizara,” she said, looking for an avenue of escape, “I think I will take Efrayim and Menashe to the g
arden to play with Adom. If you need me—”

  She halted when Zaphenath-paneah entered the room. Duty forced her to stop and bow.

  The vizier told the women to rise, then took a moment to greet his sons. After greeting them warmly, he sent the boys out to play. “I am glad to find both of you here,” he said when his sons had gone. “I wanted to talk to you about the months ahead.”

  Tizara lifted her red-rimmed eyes toward the master. Mandisa sighed, half expecting to see some frenzied distress in the woman’s expression, but only trust and compassion shone from Tizara’s gaze. In fact, the girl wore a wholesome and appealing look, a complete transformation from the manner in which she had formerly conducted herself.

  When had this change occurred? And why had Mandisa not noticed it?

  “You may rise, Tizara.” Zaphenath-paneah’s expression softened into one of fond reminiscence. “Today I give you your freedom. After all you have learned, I think you will now be able to manage it.”

  The girl’s face locked with anxiety. “Must I leave this villa?”

  The vizier sank into a chair. “I hope you will stay and care for my sons. They are fond of you, and now they need someone to watch over them more than ever.”

  A hint of fresh tears glistened in the wells of Tizara’s eyes, but this time she did not lose control. Instead she smiled and bent low to kiss the master’s foot. “I can never thank you enough,” she said, clinging to his sandal. “I will serve you and your sons as long as I have breath in my body.”

  “I pray you will,” the master answered, turning to Mandisa. A melancholy smile flitted across his features. “Your mistress is gone, and so is the man you tended. What, Mandisa, would you like to do now? You are a free woman. Perhaps you might like a position in Pharaoh’s house.”

  She searched his eyes, searching for signs of disapproval, then relaxed when she found none. She clasped her hands. “I have been thinking…”