Till Shiloh Comes (37 page)

“Then you don't know what you're talking about,” Simeon said flatly. His anger was stirred by the richly dressed Egyptian who proposed to solve the problems of the world with a few lines written on papyrus. “One of these days you will, though. Someone you love will die, or you will get sick, or you will fall from favor. Something will happen. It always does.”

Rashidi stared at Simeon. “Well,” he said finally, “I can see that we don't need to talk about poetry.”

Simeon looked directly at Rashidi. “Tell me. What kind of a man is the Provider?”

“What kind of a man? Why, you can see.”

“I've only seen him briefly. You can't make a judgment about a man like that. Tell me about him.”

“Well, he has a very strict sense of justice. He will not permit injustice of any kind.”

“Does he believe in the Egyptian gods?”

“As a matter of fact, he seems to care very little for the gods of Egypt.”

“What does he believe in?”

“I'm no theologian myself, so I can't really understand it. But he believes in a very peculiar concept of the gods.”

Simeon continued to ask questions of Rashidi, who managed to avoid most of them with bland and evasive answers. Finally he changed the subject. “What will you do, my friend, if your brothers never come back?”

Simeon looked up, and his eyes were dull. “Then I will die here,” he said simply.

“Well, let's hope for better things.”

“I have no hope.”

“But, man, you must have hope!” Rashidi exclaimed. “Without hope man cannot exist.”

Simeon only shook his head and said, “It's no more than I deserve.”

Rashidi studied the Hebrew for a long time. “Are you a murderer?” he asked finally.

Simeon was looking down at the floor, but at the question he lifted his head. His small eyes fastened on Rashidi, and his voice was raspy as he said, “A murderer? I am much worse than that!”

****

“What did he say, Rashidi?” Joseph demanded as soon as his lieutenant came into the room. “Tell me everything.”

Rashidi had come directly to Joseph's quarters as soon as he had left Simeon's cell. He went over and picked up a bunch of grapes and plucked one and threw it into his mouth. He let the juice trickle down his throat, then picked another one, but Joseph came over and snatched the grapes away from him. “Never mind eating! Tell me what he said.”

“Well, he's rather a strange fellow. What was he like when he was younger?”

“We weren't particularly close. As a matter of fact, he couldn't stand me.”

“I can't understand that. A handsome, intelligent fellow like you.” Rashidi grinned.

“I wasn't all that nice when I was younger. Not like I am now,” Joseph said.

“Not nice? What did you do? Did you bully them? Beat them up, perhaps?”

“Of course not. I was too young for that. They were all grown men, and I was just a boy. As a matter of fact, Simeon pounded me a few times. He was very lean and quick and hot-tempered. He could be cruel at times.”

“Well, that's been taken out of him.”

“What did he say?”

“He's pretty much lost hope, Joseph,” Rashidi said with a shrug. “I read him some of my poetry to cheer him up.”

“Well, that was a fool thing to do!” Joseph exclaimed. “That interminable poem of yours would never cheer anybody up!”

Rashidi shot Joseph an insulted look. “You don't appreciate art.”

“I don't appreciate boring poetry. Now tell me what my brother said.”

Rashidi began to give a word-for-word account as far as he could remember it, and Joseph listened intently. When Rashidi came to the end and told how Simeon had proclaimed that he was worse than a murderer, Joseph started.

“His heart must have changed!” he exclaimed. “Simeon would never have admitted he was wrong in the old days. The only thing that could have brought him to this is a guilty conscience.”

“He looks guilty, all right. As a matter of fact, we ought to take his razor away from him. He looked gloomy enough to slit his own throat.”

“No, I don't think he would do that. It appears he's had a change of heart.”

Rashidi went over and took the grapes from Joseph's hand. He sat down on a padded chair and began to eat them one after another. His voice was garbled as he asked, “Do you think a man's heart can change?”

“Why, certainly!”

“Have you ever seen it happen?”

“Of course I have. My own heart has changed.”

“Do you think a man like me can have a change of heart?”

Joseph looked at Rashidi to see if he was teasing. Rashidi had no religion as far as Joseph could determine. He merely went through the pomp and circumstance demanded by the customs of the land, paying money to the priests, going through the sacrifices with a bored expression, trying to keep from yawning, but more than once Joseph had seen that beneath that careless and caustic exterior was a quite different vein.

This was not the first time Rashidi had asked him about the matters of the heart, and now Joseph said quietly, “A man's heart is in his own hands, my friend. In one sense I think we all do what we want to do. Those who want to get drunk, get drunk. Those who want to take another man's wife do it, and those who want to do better, finer things find a way to do that as well.”

Rashidi listened as he munched the grapes, and there was a glow in his dark eyes. He was not a man who had many friends or who trusted many, but he had learned to trust this man. Now as Joseph spoke of such things as honor and truth and justice and kindness, he did not speak. But when Joseph finally ended, he tossed the stem of the grapes back on the table and said, “I've always thought it was too late for me.”

“It's never too late for anyone who wants to find God.”

Rashidi looked vulnerable for a moment, and then he quickly covered up what he considered a weakness by giving a short laugh. “Well,” he said in a blustering tone, “if I find this god of yours, I might have to change a great many things.”

“Yes, you would.” Joseph went over and put his hands on the smaller man's shoulders. “You might have to change some things in your behavior—and you would even have to change some things in your poem.”

“Change my poem?”

“Yes. There's a gloominess in it and an uncertainty. But a man who has God in his heart doesn't have those things. Now I must leave.”

Rashidi watched as Joseph left the room. He paced nervously back and forth for a time, then lifted up his head and said softly, “Well, Joseph, Great Provider of Egypt, you've got me confused now. I was all happy in my godlessness before I met you. Now you've brought all sorts of troublesome thoughts to my mind.” He laughed shortly and shook his head. “And now I'm talking to myself. That's a sure sign of a crazy man!”

****

Asenath sat beside Joseph, holding one of his hands in both of hers. He had come home in a strange mood. She knew at once that he was troubled, so she had listened carefully as he had repeated what Rashidi had told him of his visit with Simeon. He could not be still but twisted his shoulders back and forth and spoke more rapidly and in a less fluid manner than was usual for him.

“And so the poor fellow is there in prison. He's on the edge of despair, and he's pretty sure that my brothers will never come back.”

“Why would he think that, Joseph?”

“Because my father has an obsession with Benjamin. He had it about me once, but now that he thinks I'm dead, it's Benjamin he protects. Simeon believes my father will never let Benjamin out of his sight, so all he can see is a slow, lingering imprisonment here for the rest of his life.”

“He must think better of his brothers than that.”

Joseph did not answer her directly, thinking about the dreadful treatment he received at the hands of his own brothers. “I wish I could do more to help Simeon, but I had to keep one of them here. I thought it was the only way I would ever get to see Benjamin again.”

“He's very special to you, isn't he?”

“Yes. We were very close. I was almost like a father to him, holding his hand wherever we went. He was very trusting, and he loved me greatly.”

“He's a man now, though. He might have changed.”

“That's possible,” Joseph admitted, “but I don't think so. There was a sweetness in Benjamin.”

“If your brothers don't come back, what will you do to Simeon?”

Joseph shook his shoulders restlessly. “Oh, I'll let him go when it's obvious they're never coming back.”

Asenath studied her husband's face. It was tight with emotions, and his lips were drawn into a thick line. There were shadows in his eyes, and she asked curiously, “What will you do if they come back? Will you take your revenge on them?”

“Of course not, Asenath! You don't understand at all. I'm doing all this so I can help my family.”

“It seems a roundabout way of doing it.”

“Maybe it is, but you know I've been thinking about the way God dealt with some of my ancestors. He seems to be a God who works in roundabout ways.”

“Tell me about that.” Asenath had become fascinated with Joseph's God. She herself still went through rituals for the Egyptian gods, but she had no heart in it. “Tell me about how he works in a roundabout way.”

“Why, there's the matter of the Redeemer, the One that is to come and save us all. My father called him Shiloh. I think I have told you that.”

“Yes, you have.”

“If you or I were going to choose some man to save his people, we would go find the most powerful, strongest man alive to do it, wouldn't we?”

“I think we would.”

“But God chose a simple man named Noah and told him that He was going to flood the whole earth and destroy everything, except for Noah and his family.”

“Why, we have a myth like that in our own history!” Asenath exclaimed.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, the Babylonians have one too. Most cultures do, but this is no myth. This is history.”

“So what did Noah do?”

“Well, he probably didn't know much about boat building, but he built a boat large enough to carry a pair of every kind of animal. Then he and his family got on it, and the floods came, the waters fell from heaven, and every human being died on earth except for Noah and his family.”

“How terrible!”

“But Noah was saved, and his three sons and their wives and all the people on the earth now are descendants from one of those three sons. I would say that's a pretty roundabout way of saving the earth.”

“So, then, you think God would have you forgive your brothers?”

“He forgives me,” Joseph said simply. “Therefore, I must forgive them.”

As Asenath listened to Joseph speak, she remembered that he had never taken revenge on Lady Kesi or on Ufa—nor even on her. She held his hand tightly and listened as he continued to speak, and she tried hard to think of some way she might help him through this difficult time.

****

One day, just when Joseph was close to giving up all hope of his brothers' return, Rashidi burst into Joseph's quarters. “They're back!” he cried with excitement. “There are ten of them.”

“Yes, I've already had word from the guards,” Joseph said. His eyes were glowing, and he could barely contain himself. “My brother Benjamin must be with them.”

“I think that's possible. You won't be able to fool them this time.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean you can disguise your face and talk gruffly, but I've heard you talk about this younger brother of yours. Your voice gets soft, and your eyes begin to mist over.” Rashidi shook his head. “They will never believe that the Lord of Egypt would weep over a man he does not know—especially a Hebrew.”

“Well, I must deceive them for a little while longer.”

“Will you receive them in the hall of audience?”

“No, this time I want to have them here at my home for a meal. Go make provisions for it, and invite some people in.”

“Which people?”

“Oh, it doesn't matter. Some of the hangers-on. They all want something from me. It doesn't matter which ones.” Joseph paced the floor as he continued. “And another thing. I've made out a list here. I want you to seat my brothers in this order.”

Rashidi took the list and asked, “What is this?”

“That's the age of my brothers. Big Reuben first and little Benjamin last.” He suddenly laughed. “Little Benjamin. He may be larger than I am now, but I always think of him as a child.”

“Very well, but won't they wonder how you would know such a thing?”

“Exactly! I want them to wonder.”

“You're a fox, Provider!”

Benjamin enjoyed the trip to Egypt immensely! He felt a freedom he had never experienced, and throughout the trip he sang and talked nonstop.

His joy, however, was not shared by the rest of the company. Most of them spent a great deal of time handling Benjamin as if he were made of glass. After all, the trip would be utterly meaningless without him. Fear drove the brothers, and a sense of gloom pervaded them.

Benjamin, however, seemed oblivious to all of this. He wore his best clothing—a fine, colorful robe with fringes—and his hair was anointed until it looked like a shiny helmet. He laughed and said to his brothers, “I make the rest of you look like paupers.”

“You won't be so lighthearted when you stand in front of the Great Provider,” Judah warned.

Benjamin only laughed again.

As soon as they arrived in the land, they faced difficulties. They were commanded to go to the Provider's private home. This shook all of them—except for Benjamin, of course, who said, “Well, that doesn't sound to me like a cruel man. Having us to his own home—that says something about him.”