The Gods Look Down (2 page)

It was a night I shall always remember, indeed one I can never forget. Perhaps with hindsight I can say this confidently, knowing that the following day was to be the most momentous in the history of the Tribe: when we first found the sacred place and there came upon the ark of the Lord.

*

As expected there was a fierce sandstorm which blew continuously all the next day and drove us in search of shelter. The desert is a fearsome place when the elements unleash all their fury and for several hours we staggered through a blinding wall of sand which stung our eyes and turned our lips to raw puffed blisters which split open like fat maggots roasted over a fire. (We hadn't eaten such delicacies for many a long day.)

I was leading my father's camel, an obstinate old beast, and it required all my strength to make her move a step and then keep her in motion. I remember thinking that it wouldn't be too long before my family would be sitting round the fire feasting ourselves on her scrawny meat and licking the fat from our fingers. Ahead of me – only a few paces – was the blurred figure of Elud, husband of Jael and father of Hannah, a pretty, smooth-skinned girl about the same age as me. Several weeks
ago Elud's camel had fallen and broken a shinbone and now he and his family had to carry what few possessions they could manage whilst hoping that the Tribe would encounter a caravan of traders or merchants who would be willing to sell them a pack animal.

The wind was the worst I could ever recall and we plodded on hopelessly into the grey wall, one faltering step after another, totally lost, going round in circles for all anybody knew. My two younger sisters were with my mother further down the line, roped together with the other women and children, trying to shield themselves from the brunt of the storm by following the main party. My father was up ahead somewhere, one of the four pathfinders whose task it was to lead us to sanctuary – though how he was supposed to do that when you could hardly see a hand in front of your face I don't know.

By luck, accident or divine providence, I'm not sure which, we came to a jumbled outcrop of rock – huge boulders piled one on top of the other – which offered some kind of refuge. In the lee of the rocks (whose surface, I discovered, was rough and pitted like lava) I could just make out a ragged grove of palms, their fronds lashing in the wind: though it would have been too much to hope for that we had stumbled across an oasis out here in the middle of nowhere.

We tethered the animals and then sought any suitable nook or cranny large enough to crawl into, away from the stinging sand. Most of the larger ones were quickly occupied by entire families and I skirted the boulders in search of a crevice or small opening that would shelter me. There was no point in looking for the rest of my family until after the storm had abated: in any case they wouldn't be worried about me, for it wasn't the first time we had been separated because of a sandstorm. On one occasion I had lost contact with them for three days when the Tribe had been attacked and pursued by a band of marauding Moabs.

Hugging the rocks and feeling their curious rough surface beneath my fingers I came to a deep narrow cleft, partly filled with sand, which I barely managed to squeeze into, despite my thin shoulders and small hips. It was much deeper than I thought and once inside, over the heap of sand at the entrance, the floor dropped steeply into a kind of hollow. I crawled down
into it, feeling my way, the air suddenly very close and still; it was almost in pitch blackness. This would do splendidly, I thought – out of the wind, a snug little hidey-hole where I could curl up into a ball and sleep the storm away. I hoped there were no snakes with similar notions, though really it was too late to worry about that.

I reached out my hand to gauge the dimensions of my little refuge and touched something soft and warm. Before I had time to think if snakes were warm to the touch my hand was bitten and somebody giggled in my ear.

‘Is it you, Kish? It is, isn't it?'

I let go the breath which had been caught in my lungs and nodded my head weakly – a futile gesture under the circumstances. ‘Yes,' I managed to say at last. ‘Who's that?'

‘Hannah. Did you follow me? I bet you followed me and saw which hole I crawled into.'

I touched her shoulder and then her neck to convince myself it was really her. After a moment I was able to make out the vague bulk of her shape, though it was too dark to distinguish her features. I said with slight annoyance, ‘I thought I had this all to myself. And how could I follow you with sand too thick to spit through? You are stupid.'

‘If you're going to be like that you'd better remember who got here first. This is my place. I could tell you to get out and find your own.'

‘Try it,' I said, and we wrestled about in the dim cramped space for a while until she grazed her elbow on the lava-rock and yelped and said we should call a truce: share and share alike. We settled down in the sandy hollow and made ourselves comfortable.

‘I hope there aren't any snakes,' Hannah said.

‘Huh, who's scared of snakes?' I said. ‘Anyway, hard luck for us both if there are. Shall we say goodbye now?'

‘Don't say that.' There was a shudder in her voice. ‘My sister was bitten once and her arm swelled up like a goatskin.'

‘Do you think this is an oasis?'

‘I saw some trees.'

‘So did I. They could be fed from an underground spring. Wouldn't it be great if we could bathe? Lying back in the cool
water, opening your mouth whenever you felt like it and drinking as much as you wanted.'

‘Nobody saying “That's enough, you've had your share! There are others besides you!”'

We both laughed at her impersonation of the grown-ups' continual strident warnings to conserve every drop of water; they were obsessive about it, harping on the subject night and day.

We dozed for a while, her legs resting across mine, and then she asked if I'd brought any food with me, but unfortunately I hadn't. Having mentioned it made me begin to feel hungry. My stomach gurgled and Hannah giggled in the darkness. She said craftily, ‘We'll have to do something to make us forget how hungry we are.' She put her hand on my leg.

The same thought had probably been at the back of my mind but it hadn't occurred to me to do anything about it. I'd never done it with Hannah.

I said, ‘Do you want to?'

‘If you do.'

‘I'm not bothered.'

‘Please yourself.'

‘It'll pass the time I suppose.'

She moved her legs, which allowed me to kneel up, and I lifted my robe and was about to lie on top of her when we both heard the noise. It was like the sound of the wind blowing through a thorn hedge but deeper and steadier, a low monotonous droning that kept to one note.

Hannah drew up her legs. ‘What's that?'

Behind her head, further into the depth of the lava-rock, I could see a faint illumination: the reflected glow of light through a narrow fissure. But then I thought my eyes were playing tricks because the light faded and all was darkness again. We waited, holding our breath, listening to the steady droning, and after a moment the light glowed again and died away.

‘There's someone with a lantern,' I said, and Hannah knelt up and turned to look.

‘I don't see anything.'

‘They keep moving about.' As I said this the light increased
in brightness again. ‘This must lead to one of the larger caves. Perhaps they're lighting a fire.'

‘But what's making that noise?'

‘Could be the wind.' I wasn't certain.

We crept towards the fissure, the glowing and fading light guiding us, and looked into a large high cavern with a flat sandy floor. In the centre – I don't know how to describe it properly – there was an object taller than three camels; it was made up of several globes and flat pieces, like boxes, joined together by shiny curved channels, like burnished brass, and on top of this arrangement was a circular dome with grooves in it: this was what furnished the light, glowing from within, as though someone had lit a steady fire which never flickered.

Our first sight of this strange object transfixed us both. We were too amazed to be frightened, though I know that Hannah was trembling and my mouth was so dry I could hardly swallow. As we gazed at it I knew without any doubt that the same thought was in both our minds: this was the handiwork of God, and we were the ones chosen to witness it. The legend of our Tribe had prepared us to expect that one day the Prophet would appear before us and this surely could only be an instrument of His divine power.

We went down into the cavern. There was no fear in us. The glowing sphere shone with a keen hard light and then faded to a dull orange glimmer, like the sun seen through a dust cloud. I couldn't imagine what the object was or what purpose it was meant to serve. Inside me was a dreadful excitement that of all our Tribe I should be the one chosen to find it and bring word to the elders.

Hannah gripped my hand fiercely. She said, ‘
Look
 …'

‘What is it?'

‘I'm sure I saw—'

‘What?'

But I didn't need to ask. I saw it too. Yet it might have been a trick of the glowing sphere, the rising and fading of light on the rough chamber walls, for I could have sworn I saw the outline of a man. Strangely, that's all it was – an outline. As though the man's shape was hard at the edges but faint inside, as though his body was colourless, like water.

When the light faded the shape faded too, and I was no
longer certain that what I had seen was a real image and not a phantom of my imagination.

‘It's gone,' Hannah whispered. Her fingers were gripping my wrist like talons.

‘Was it real?' I looked at her. ‘Did we actually see it?'

‘I don't know.' Her voice was very small.

‘Perhaps it was a ghost.'

‘The Holy Ghost?'

I shook my head slowly. ‘The elders will know. We must go and tell them. This is the work of the Lord; we have been brought through the desert to a sacred place, to His Holy Temple.'

Hannah whispered something and pointed to a line of markings, an inscription of some sort, on one of the flat shiny surfaces. Neither of us could read or write and we couldn't decipher its meaning.

‘Kish, explain to me,' Hannah said. ‘Was the shape of the man the Prophet … or is
this
the Prophet? Could it be so, even though its flesh is hard and shiny, like polished copper?'

I was just as baffled. ‘How can we know these things?'

‘But can it move? Can it speak to us?'

‘The spirit of the Prophet might live inside it, I don't know. It will make known all these things to the elders. I – I don't know; it isn't given to us to understand.'

Hannah pulled at me and said in a low urgent voice, ‘We should pay homage. The Holy Ghost from within might be watching us.'

We knelt down and pressed our foreheads to the sandy cavern floor. And as we prayed the words of my father came back to me: the prophesy of his grandfather that the Prophet would appear amongst us within seven generations – and with it a terrible thought. It was so disturbing, so fearful, that I tried in vain to push it from my mind.

Because the vision was this: that I, Kish, was the chosen one. The word of the Lord would come through me – the Prophet come at last among his people.

*

It transpired that there was no other way to reach the inner cavern than through the narrow cleft in the lava-rock. At first our story of having found the sacred object was disbelieved by
the elders because they weren't able to see it for themselves. But when we were questioned separately, and our stories fitted exactly in every detail, the elders gave instructions to have the passage widened and a way made so that a man could walk through without stooping.

When first describing it to the elders I had been lost for words to convey its nature, saying it was made up of many shining globes connected by curved pieces, and that there were several flat surfaces like the sides of boxes, and on top was the grooved dome which emitted the rising and fading light. In desperation I had likened it to an ark; not an apt description but the best I could manage. The elders glanced at one another with those veiled looks which I knew implied the scepticism of adults listening to a child's flights of fancy. But when they were able to see it for themselves they were amazed, and as perplexed as I had been, and just as dumbfounded when trying to describe the object or explain its purpose. In small groups the members of the Tribe were permitted to enter the cavern and gaze upon the object. Some were fearful to go, believing it to be an instrument of destruction, and there were endless arguments as to whether we should ‘capture' the object and use it against our enemies (nobody could say how) or whether the cavern was its sacred resting place and the spirit within would be angry if we took it with us on our wanderings. Some of the people were so vehement in their opinions that squabbles broke out, and after only a day or so the camp was seething with discontent, whereupon the elders forbade any member of the Tribe to enter the cavern without express permission.

My father, I noticed, had become very morose and brooded a good deal. He had spoken privately with the elders but he would not say what had been discussed. I said to him, ‘Shouldn't we be joyous to have discovered the instrument of the Prophet? We don't know its purpose but surely that will be revealed to us in time?'

‘That's what I fear most,' he replied. ‘That its purpose will be revealed. The hearts of men may not be capable of understanding. And even if they understand they might not accept.'

‘Is that what troubles you?'

He looked away from me. ‘I wish it hadn't been you, Kish. I
wish someone else had discovered it. People can become twisted with envy and spite.'

I couldn't see the sense of this. ‘But surely now that we've found the Ark it belongs to the Tribe – it belongs to everyone? It might have been any one of us who found it.'