The 22 Letters (3 page)

“Apprentice scribe,” corrected Aleph, blushing. “I can count, and I know a lot of the signs.”

“What were you doing in the mountains?” was the next question.

Aleph thought there might be a clever answer to this question too, but he answered simply, “Counting trees.”

The civilian and the officer consulted together, and at length the civilian said: “If you're a tally clerk, we may have work for you in the South. Join the draft that leaves tomorrow.”

Next morning a column of soldiers and prisoners was formed, and the southward march began. There were plenty of guards and there was nowhere to flee to but the forest full of wild beasts, so the prisoners were not bound or chained and the pace of the march was fairly brisk. In this fertile valley there was no shortage of food or water, and Aleph settled down contentedly enough to the routine of daily journeying and nightly camps. He even took a positive pleasure in looking around at new landscapes every day.

The civilian overseer, Ish, who had questioned Aleph on the first day, was with the draft. As he spoke Aleph's language and wanted to practice it, he sometimes walked beside him and they would talk. Aleph spoke of his family, and of his father who was a master builder, and he began to realize that Ish preferred his company to that of his own countrymen, the Egyptian soldiers.

They passed by the foot of a massive mountain in the eastern wall of the valley, capped and streaked with snow. Ish told Aleph its name, which was something like Haramun or Hermon. The valley narrowed and the floor of it became crumpled and rocky, and water was difficult to find for a while. One evening they came to a wooded gorge, where the source of a river bubbled up from the base of the rocks and flowed away to the South. After some discussion the escort decided to camp there for the night. The air was chilly and full of the evening cries of frogs and strange beasts in the forest, but the soldiers and prisoners were happy to drink their fill and wash away the stains of travel. They lit fires, and some of the soldiers began to sing, and brought out musical instruments, simple pipes and drums, to which they danced.

Aleph felt it must be a sacred place, as most springs were in that part of the world, and that it was right to celebrate the fact with music and dancing. But he noticed that Ish did not join in, and seemed somehow to
disapprove.

“Does this river flow to Egypt?” he asked Ish, but Ish laughed and shook his head and said he wished they could have such pleasant company all the way to Egypt. Then they talked of Egypt and of the marvels Aleph would see, and Ish revealed that he, too, had been a slave; but he was glad of it because otherwise he would not have had such good education and learned to calculate and write.

They followed the river south, skirted a swamp and a small lake, and continued on until they came to a larger lake, almost an inland sea, blue and sparkling among the wooded hills. There were fishing villages on its shores and Ish, who was caterer to the officers of the escort, obtained some delicious freshwater fish of which Aleph had a share.

Here there seemed to be an argument between the guides and the soldiers as to which way they should proceed. There was much shouting and pointing of arms, and the choice seemed to be between a new westerly direction and continuing south. It was southward they eventually moved: a difficult track where the river wriggled through jungle in a narrow valley, and the air became hot and steamy. At last the valley broadened out again and they came to inhabited and cultivated land. A copious spring gushed from the foot of an arid mountain, and guarding it stood a walled town. The column halted by the spring, and once again gladly washed and drank, for the air still held the heaviness of the deep valley. The commander of the soldiers was admitted through the gate of the town.

“He's going to pay his compliments to the Governor,” said Ish.

Aleph asked the name of the town.

“Jericho,” said Ish. “It's a very old town. Look at the stonework done by the Ancient People! Or some say by the old gods themselves. No one can tell how old those walls are—but we build better than that in Egypt now.”

There seemed to be no hurry to move on from Jericho, and there was little for Aleph to do but see that the pigeon was fed and watered. Aleph and his pigeon were the joke of the whole column. The soldiers were always offering to wring its neck and put it in a stew, but luckily there had been plenty of food for everyone so far, including the pigeon. Aleph was more worried about whether it was taking enough exercise. He still intended to carry out his sister's instructions, and let it go when he reached the place he was going to. But he had no idea how much longer they would have to march, and he was afraid the unfortunate bird would forget the use of its wings. Once he tried the experiment of letting it out of the cage to fly around for a little, and tempting it back with corn before it took it into its head to fly off for good. He wondered whether it could ever find its way back to Gebal now.

Aleph saw Ish watching him with amusement. “Would you sell me your dove for a sacrifice?” Ish asked.

Aleph felt awkward, not knowing whether he was being teased again or not. “He's not mine to sell,” he answered. “He's my sister's.”

Ish laughed. “Never mind,” he said. “Perhaps I can get another. I have permission to go with a patrol into the mountains. Would you like to come?”

“If the soldiers need a slave,” said Aleph, “I suppose they'll pick one. Why ask if I'd like to come?”

Ish frowned. “You don't have to talk like a slave any more. I told the captain I wanted you as my personal servant to carry my things. Now are you coming?”

“With pleasure,” said Aleph, and he picked up the bundle, and the birdcage, and followed Ish to where the patrol was waiting to set off.

As they marched across the plain toward the mountains, Ish talked. “I persuaded them that it would be a good thing to send a reconnaissance patrol this way to see what the hill tribes are doing. But really I'm doing it for my own interest. My people passed through here generations ago. They say there is a place here which is still holy to them, if I can only find it.”

They climbed up out of the oppressive atmosphere of the valley into the clear air of the mountains again. Their guide, a young man from Jericho, led them confidently into the foothills as far as a little village where he was greeted and embraced by his family. Then followed a long and excited conversation in the local dialect, while Ish and the patrol waited impatiently. At last Ish interrupted.

“We have no time to waste here, guide! Lead us on to Urusalim, as you promised.”

“Yes! Yes! At once!” replied the guide. “To Urusalim. I ask the way to Urusalim.”

“You said you knew the way to Urusalim!” said Ish angrily.

Urusalim, Urusalim … the word passed from mouth to mouth of the group of peasants as they seemed to speculate upon the existence of any such place. Their eyes and faces showed that the word meant little to them, and their fingers pointed to opposite points of the landscape.

“Well?” demanded Ish of the guide.

“Yes! Yes!” said the guide hastily. “My cousin, he knows Urusalim. He show us the way!”

The guide took his farewells of his family, and the guide's cousin, a wild, ragged, dark-eyed boy, led the patrol, on confidently, farther and farther into the mountains.

But the farther they went the less confident became the leadership of this, their second guide. He began to look uncertainly right and left when they came to forks in the mountain track, and then he would stop and argue passionately with the first guide, although it was obvious that the first had no useful information to offer.

The corporal of the patrol, whose impatience was beginning to show, cursed the bickering guides and threatened them with the haft of his spear. Then he turned to Ish.

“This Urusalim, sir. If no one's even heard of it, it can't be very important can it?” He obviously wanted to say he thought the whole thing a waste of time. But Ish merely looked at him coolly. “It has more importance than you may think, Corporal,” he said.

Just at that moment there came round the shoulder of the hill a flock of sheep led by an even younger and wilder boy, who stared wide-eyed at the soldiers as he stood there, his sling and his staff in his hands. The two guides fell upon him with questions, but the boy stood his ground, and when he understood what they were asking he merely pointed with his finger at a distant hilltop and said the one word, “Urusalim.” Then he turned his eyes on Ish and Aleph and asked indifferently, “Is he going to kill him?”

As this unexpected question sank in, all the traces of doubt left the face of Ish. “The boy knows what he's talking about,” he said. Then, “Ask him what he will take for one of his lambs?”

The guides and the soldiers stood boggling at this curious exchange of words, but after some hesitation on the part of the boy, for it seemed that the sheep were not his to sell, and then some haggling about its value, they bartered a lamb for some of their provisions; the boy and his flock set off down the valley and the patrol continued on its way toward the rounded peak that bore the mysterious, name of Urusalim.

Aleph could not restrain his curiosity. “How do you know the boy spoke the truth, and why did he say, ‘Is he going to kill him?'?” he asked as they climbed the stony path.

“The second question answers the first,” replied Ish briefly. He seemed to be sparing his breath on the steep ascent.

“But I don't understand. Is who going to kill whom?”

“Am I going to kill you is what he meant,” said Ish, with a wry smile.

Aleph walked several painful paces, and his mouth felt dry in the dusty ravine. “Are you?” he managed to say at last.

“No,” said Ish.

Aleph felt better. “Why did he ask then?” he said after a pause.

“It seems,” said Ish, “that it is still a place of sacrifice. Maybe of human sacrifice. That is what makes me sure that it is the place I am seeking. Many, many years ago my people passed through this land on the way to Egypt. The leader of our tribe was bidden by God to sacrifice his own son on the mountaintop you see before you.”

“What had the son done?” Aleph asked.

“Nothing,” said Ish. “The son was innocent.”

“Did the father kill the son?”

“No. When he got there, God told him not to.”

“This God changed his mind?”

“That is the story our people tell.”

“Perhaps it was a different god that gave the order in the first place,” suggested Aleph.

“We listen only to one God,” said Ish.

“But you have many gods in Egypt!”

“My people are not Egyptians,” said Ish quietly. “Under the former kings some of us were people of importance. But now we are of no account.”

They walked on in silence as Aleph puzzled over these sayings. The day, much of which had been wasted by following wrong tracks in the mountains, was drawing toward evening. As dusk fell they came to the little settlement of Urusalim, on the side of a steep hill that fell away into a deep gorge. The soldiers commandeered rooms for the night, and Aleph slept deeply.

He woke with a start to see Ish standing in the doorway of the little room they shared with a knife in his hand that glinted in the moonlight. Beyond the doorway black peaks showed against the starry sky.

“Don't be alarmed,” said Ish. “It is not yet dawn. But I must prepare to do my sacrifice.”

“Do you wish me to help?” Aleph asked.

“No. This concerns only me,” Ish replied. “Sleep while you can.” As Aleph fell back into sleep he could hear the lamb bleating on its way to the high place.

When he woke again the sun had risen, the soldiers were preparing breakfast, and Ish was back and giving orders for the return to Jericho. Soon they were retracing their steps down the mountains. They kept up a good pace all the morning, and it was not until the noonday halt that Aleph had the opportunity to talk to Ish alone.

“Have we done what we came to do?” he asked hesitantly.

“We have,” said Ish.

“But—” Aleph hesitated. “But why have we come all this way to a place you've never been to, and nobody's ever heard of? I don't understand.”

“Many things are hard to understand,” Ish smiled. “For example, you have not explained what a young scribe from Gebal was doing in the mountains with a birdcage.”

Aleph was embarrassed that the conversation should be changed to his own affairs. He looked at his feet and shuffled them in the sandy soil.

“It was the writing,” he said.

“I understand even less,” said Ish.

“Not the real writing,” Aleph said hurriedly. “I would never dream of teaching the priestly writing to my sister. I
should
deserve punishment for that. This was more of a game we invented between us. But my father was angry, so he sent me on this errand to the mountains.”

“I am still puzzled,” said Ish. “What is this writing, that is not writing?”

“We thought of it only as a game. It seemed so simple and harmless. But I suppose being taken into captivity is my punishment for it. Do you think so?” Aleph asked.

“You will have to tell me more before I can answer that question,” said Ish.

Aleph looked around. In that remote mountain spot there were only the soldiers of the escort dozing in the shade, and the two guides. But he lowered his voice as if afraid of being overheard.

“You're a scribe in Egypt, sir,” he began hesitantly. “You know the signs and symbols of the priests, which it is forbidden to teach to outsiders, or to women, of course?”

The other nodded.

“I was learning them,” Aleph went on. “But I'm slow. That's why they call me Aleph, the slow ox. I hardly knew the first hundred letters. So I couldn't have been teaching them to anyone, could I? But Beth wanted to know about the writing. Beth's what we call my sister. It means ‘House' really, and, well, poor Beth does have to stay around the house rather a lot since our mother died. I was sorry for her, so I invented this game. We chose letters that made sounds, and then made words with them. It's strange—we found twenty-two letters were enough—so you see how childish it was, not a thing to concern the priests at all. But my father caught us playing it on the sand, and he was frightened and angry. And so here I am. Do you think I was wicked?”