Till Shiloh Comes (31 page)

“Well, you haven't been all that good, Joseph Great Provider, so no reward for you!”

They stood there for a moment in the Nile, forgetful of the boys and everything else. “I remember when I pulled you out of the Nile so long ago. I told you then you were the most precious thing in the world, and you are today. You're more beautiful than you were when I married you.”

Asenath tilted her head back, and Joseph kissed her. She was aware that the servants were watching and probably giggling, but they were used to this. As he kissed her, she was so thankful that he was a man who was not afraid to show his affection. He was the only man she knew who was like this, and she wondered if it was the Hebrew blood in his veins.

Finally she drew back and said, “Maybe I
will
give you a reward tonight, but first let's get this mud cleaned off.”

****

Joseph was irritated, for the pressures of work had piled up on him. “Where is Rashidi?” he yelled.

“I don't know, sir,” said the clerk, a tiny fellow with a wrinkled monkey face.

“Well, when I find him, I'm going to have him whipped!”

“Yes, sir,” the clerk said, unimpressed. “I think he might have gone to the market.”

“To the market! He's got servants to go to the market.”

Joseph wheeled and started toward the door, but Asenath caught him. “Where are you going?”

“I'm going to find Rashidi,” Joseph said loudly, “and when I do, I'm going to have him whipped!”

Asenath smiled. “When was the last time you had someone whipped? You didn't even have Ufa whipped after the evil he did to you.”

“Well, things are changing. I put that man in a position of responsibility, and all he does is spout his idiotic poetry!”

“You won't whip him,” Asenath said quietly. “It's not your way.”

“Maybe I'll change.”

“No, you never will.”

“Where have you been?” Joseph said to his wife.

“I went to visit Kesi.”

Joseph's expression darkened. He had no hard feelings toward the poor woman, but he still felt that Kesi was not the best companion for his wife. Asenath had a compassionate nature now, something she had not had when she was younger. “How is Lady Kesi?” he said.

“Oh, she's unhappy, but then she always will be.”

“I suppose if she had children, it might be different,” Joseph said. He seemed to have forgotten Rashidi for the moment. “I feel sorry for her.”

“Joseph, can I ask you something?”

Surprised, Joseph looked at his wife. “Why, of course. What is it?”

“How did you resist her? She was a very beautiful woman.”

“I don't know. I've forgotten.”

“No you haven't. You never forget anything. Was it difficult? Tell me. I've always wondered.”

“Why, of course it was difficult.”

“Oh.”

“What do you mean ‘oh'?”

“I mean—oh!” she said sharply.

Joseph looked at her, turning his head to one side, studying her face. “Are you angry about something?”

“I didn't know it was difficult for you to refuse a woman who was trying to seduce you.”

Joseph looked puzzled. “Well, of course it was difficult. It's like poking food under the face of a starving man! It would be hard for any man to refuse.”

“Well, I'm glad to find this out about you, Great Provider!” Asenath turned and whirled away.

But before she made it out of the room, Joseph caught her and turned her around. “What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing!” she sniffed. “Only, I suppose you still think about her pawing you!”

“Asenath, that's ancient history.”

Asenath's lower lip trembled. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm just jealous of you, that's all. I don't want any other woman to ever have any part of you, and I'm jealous of all the women in your past.”

“Well, that's a short list,” Joseph said. “And you don't have to be worried about anybody else. Why should I go to another woman when I've got the most beautiful woman in the world right here in my own house?”

“Do you really think so, Joseph?”

Joseph could never understand why Asenath felt so insecure. He told her often how he loved her and bought her gifts and was quick with his caresses, but somehow she seemed to feel a basic insecurity. “If you don't stop speaking like that—”

When he broke off, Asenath looked up at him. “What are you going to do if I don't?” she challenged.

“I'm going to throw you in the Nile again.” He leaned over, kissed her, and then said, “I'm going out right now to find some beautiful woman and make mad, passionate love to her. Good-bye!”

Asenath laughed. She waved and said, “Come home early.” As she did, she turned to find the scribe standing there patiently. “Do you think we're foolish, Benni?”

“Very foolish, my lady. People in love always are.”

“You're right. You're a wise man, Benni, and I hope my husband and I are always this foolish.”

****

Joseph finally located Rashidi. He had sent servants out to look for him, and finally one of them returned and said slyly, “I have found Rashidi, O Great Provider.”

“Well, where is he?”

“I don't want to say.” The servant had a smirk on his face, and when he saw Joseph lift one eyebrow, he added hastily, “He is in the house of a woman whose reputation is not at all that good.”

“Show me!” Joseph demanded. Rising from his seat, he followed the servant out of the house. The servant led him through the labyrinthine streets of the city until he finally stopped and said, “There. That's the house right there.”

“Who lives there?”

“A man named Jehunni.”

“Who is he?”

“He's a minor official, sir, but according to all reports he's a very jealous man. Lord Rashidi is not wise to tarry there.”

“All right. Go back to your work. I'll take care of this.”

Joseph marched to the door and, without even pausing, went right in. The house was large and comfortable for the house of a minor official, and hearing voices, he walked down a hallway until he stepped out into a much larger room. He saw Rashidi lying on a couch with a woman bending over him.

“Lord Rashidi, I am here,” Joseph said loudly.

The woman whirled around, coming off of the couch, her eyes wide. She recognized Joseph and fell to her knees, bowing before him. She had a wealth of reddish hair and was attractive enough to tempt most men, Joseph thought.

“Get out of here, woman!” Joseph said.

“But … but, master, this is
my
house.”

“Then find another part of it!”

Rashidi was not alarmed. He got up, stretched, and said lazily, “Well, I'm surprised to see you here.”

“You're a fool, Rashidi.”

Rashidi blinked. “Why do you come to that conclusion?”

“This woman's husband is jealous. He'll gut you like a fish if he catches you with his wife.”

“Oh, he won't catch me. I had him sent all the way to Memphis on business.”

Joseph shook his head. It was not the first time he had had to enter into the romantic life of his first lieutenant. “You ought to have better sense.”

Rashidi stood to his feet, walked over to a table, and picked up a jug of wine. He poured two cups to the brim with the sparkling red liquid, picked them up, and came over to Joseph. Offering one of them, he said, “Come. Don't be angry.”

Joseph took the wine and drank it down. He was not angry so much as puzzled. Rashidi had as much ability as any man he knew, but he floated through life fiddling with his interminable poem that Joseph suspected would never be finished, taking love where he found it, and sleeping. In between these three things, he did a little work for Joseph.

Rashidi finished his wine, then put the cup down. “You hurt me greatly, Joseph. You certainly do.”

“Hurt you! I couldn't hurt you with a club.”

“You don't understand why I do these things.”

“Yes I do. You're a glutton, a drunkard, and a womanizer.”

“But all that's only so I can experience life.” Rashidi sighed heavily and tried to look repentant. “It's all for art, my dear Provider. I must experience everything so I can weave it into my poetry.”

“Nonsense! You're a drunkard because you like to drink, and you chase after women because you enjoy them. Don't try to tell me there's anything noble about that.”

Rashidi laughed. “You are right, O noble Provider of Egypt—but then you always are.” He had been drinking a great deal and had to form his words rather carefully. “Tell me, Joseph, is there any hope for me in the hereafter?”

“You don't even believe in the life hereafter.”

“But
you
do, and that worries me sometimes. If a wise fellow like you believes a thing, there's always a chance it might be true.”

Joseph considered Rashidi carefully. He knew that beneath that bland face lurked one of the most penetrating minds he had ever seen. He made fun of Rashidi's poetry, but he actually was highly impressed with the epic that Rashidi had been working on for so long. He was convinced it would last long after the pyramids crumbled. “Are you serious, Rashidi?” he finally asked.

“Well, I think the Egyptians have the wrong idea about it.”

“How is that?”

“All this trouble to preserve the bodies. That's all nonsense, I think.”

“I think you're correct, Rashidi.”

“I went through the House of the Dead once,” Rashidi said. “I wanted to see what all the embalmers did, and it was a fascinating sort of thing but a gruesome affair.”

“I've never seen that myself.”

“Oh, it is quite a messy thing. The embalmers make an incision from a man's gullet down to his groin, and all his viscera are lifted out. The embalmer divides them into liver, lungs, stomach, and entrails, but they always leave the heart in place and the kidneys too.”

“Why the kidneys?”

“Oh, they're associated with water and thus with the Nile, which is the source of life.”

“What do they do, then?”

“Well, they put the viscera in beautiful jars made of milky alabaster. The more expensive ones also have stoppers in the shape of one of the animal-headed gods.”

“What do they think all that does?” Joseph asked.

“Oh, they'll guard Pharaoh's divine parts until he wakes into eternal life. It is a grisly business, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Somehow I can't get it out of my mind. They have bronze scalpels which they use to disembowel the pharaoh, and they have a long, pointed spoon, which they push up into the nostrils and scoop out the contents of the skull. And then, of course, they soak him in their special formula and wrap him until he's shrunken like a monkey.”

Joseph said soberly, “Well, I can't fault them too much. I have a superstition myself about this thing.”

“About disposing of the dead?”

“Yes. My grandfather bought a burial ground. It's really the only piece of ground he owned. God told him he was going to own the whole land, but that was all he ever owned legally. He made a grave there for his wife, and he's there now too, along with Isaac, my grandfather. My mother isn't buried there, though.”

“Why not?”

“She died on a journey, and my father buried her there rather than take her back. I'd like to be buried in the family tomb myself.”

“Why? What difference does it make after you're dead?”

“Oh, I don't know, Rashidi.” It was quiet in the house, but he heard the voices of servants speaking and laughing somewhere else. “Somehow I think God is caught up with people, and not just on this earth. He made the whole universe, all the stars and the sky. But I think He's more interested in us than He is in them.”

“Do you really think that, Joseph?”

“I really do. I don't think God makes us just for the brief span of years we have here on earth, but I think when we die we go to be with those we love, with God's people and with God himself.”

Rashidi did not answer but went over and sat down on the couch. He bent over and held his forehead in his hands. Joseph was surprised. It was not like the man to show emotion. He went over and sat down beside him and put his arm around Rashidi's shoulders. He found that to his amazement Rashidi was trembling. “What's wrong, my dear friend?”

“I make a joke of it, but … but I'm afraid of death.” He straightened up and turned to look into Joseph's eyes. Joseph saw the fear there and was shocked at the intensity of it. “Are you afraid to die, Joseph?”

Joseph considered for a moment, then shook his head. “I'm not afraid now, but then I'm not dying now. When I come to that moment, I will probably be … what's the right word? Maybe frightened in a way that you're frightened when an experience lies before you you've never had.”

“No more than that?”

“I hope not.”

The two men sat there, and Rashidi became very still. Joseph sought for words that would comfort him, and he said, “There are some people eager to leave this life, people who are in pain. I had a teacher once who was old and in bad health. He suffered all the time from terrible pain in his joints. It took him some time to die, and he cried out many times, ‘O great God, take me to yourself.' And when he finally did die, I was there. We all gathered around, and he told us good-bye, and then he smiled and said, ‘I'm going to God.'” Joseph shifted his shoulders slightly and said, “Those were his last words before he went out into eternity. I've thought about him often.”

Rashidi had grown very still as Joseph related the story of the dying man. He sighed and straightened up. “I'd like to feel like that when I die, but it seems so complicated.”

“It does seem that way. But it is much easier if we can think of God not as someone who is stern and harsh but more like a father who loves his son. The son goes on a long journey and comes back tired and washed out. And there's the father waiting for him. The father gets up and runs to meet the boy, who is absolutely exhausted. That would be a good thing to have a father like that, wouldn't it?”