Pearl in the Sand (5 page)

Og chose to march. Like the proud fool he was, he took his whole army out to meet the Hebrews in battle. One soldier survived long enough to tell the story, and a passing merchant brought it to Jericho. Edrei had been attacked by swarms of hornets. The city was thick with them. They drove the horses wild, and there was no escape. Their stings were so bad they killed the very young and old. Even their strong men howled with pain and cursed with vexation. Og could not bear it. To be imprisoned in your own kingdom by an inferior enemy was bad enough, but the added indignation of being stung by hornets was too much for him. Was he a slave that he should cower in his own domain, hiding from mere vagabonds? So he marched out together with his sons and his army to engage the Hebrews.

And the Hebrews killed every single one of them and took possession of their land.

“It won’t be long now before Moses sets his eyes on Jericho,” Debir said after telling Rahab the story of Bashan’s defeat. He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. “We are the first great city west of the Jordan, and if he understands anything about warfare, he’ll make us their next target.”

Her mouth turned dry at this pronouncement. “Well, for pity’s sake, don’t open the gates and rush out to meet them if they come. We’ll be safe inside our walls.”

With his thumb and middle finger, he flicked a fly that had settled
close to him. He had faultless aim. The fly pitched over in death. Turning toward Rahab, he said, “They crossed the Red Sea, you know. When they ran away from the Pharaoh. The sea parted for them and collapsed over the Egyptian army.”

Rahab flopped down on a feather-filled cushion and leaned back against a scarlet trimmed tapestry. “Don’t tell me you believe in that nonsense?”

Debir looked at her from beneath bushy brows. “I do believe it. I have believed it for almost forty years since I first heard about it. Their god is mighty beyond our experience.”

Her smile was tinged with sarcasm. “Another bloodthirsty god. Excellent. Just what Canaan needs.”

He shook his head, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “You have the strangest notions, Rahab. It’s a wonder the gods don’t strike you down.”

“I leave them alone and they return the favor. Why do you believe this nonsense about the sea parting and the Pharaoh drowning, Debir? It’s not like you to credit rumors.”

“It’s no rumor.”

“You saw this with your own eyes?”

Debir ran a hand through his hair. “No. But I saw it through the eyes of someone who
did
see it firsthand. One of the Hebrews.”

Rahab bolted upright. “You know one of them?”

“Forty years ago I did.” Debir rose from the mattress and came to sit near her. “I met him just before my military training. If I hadn’t been so young, I would have recognized him for the spy he was. At the time though, I believed him to be a merchant like he told me. He saw me at the gate and gave me a week’s wages to give him a tour of the city.”

Her eyes widened. “Why didn’t they attack us back then? Why wait forty years before starting their campaign?”

“I don’t know. This Moses must be getting on in years. He was their leader back then too.”

“Maybe he’ll die before they come against Jericho.”

“I have a feeling even that wouldn’t stop them. The man I told you about, he said their real leader is their god. It was this god who sent Moses into Egypt to free them from slavery. He told Moses He had seen the affliction and misery of His people and was concerned about their suffering. He wanted them released from Pharaoh’s yoke.”

Rahab frowned, her mind racing. Words like
concern
were not in the gods’ vocabulary. Yet if Debir was correct, here was a god who had compassion on human suffering. The thought of a god of compassion did something to her heart. A longing came upon her that almost brought her to tears. A longing for someone to look upon her suffering and care enough to rescue her.

With ruthless precision, she squelched the traitorous desire. “Well, he wasn’t very compassionate to the Egyptians if he drowned the lot of them. Is it only the Hebrews he cares about? Didn’t he consider the weeping wives and mothers back in Egypt?”

Debir lifted a fat curl lying on her shoulder and pulled it softly. “I wouldn’t have shown the Egyptians any compassion if they had treated
my
people as they did the Hebrews. Incredibly, the Hebrew god gave the Egyptians plenty of opportunities to release his people without bloodshed. He gave them warning upon warning. But their pride was too great. They wouldn’t bend to his will. If they hadn’t chased after the Hebrews, they wouldn’t have drowned.”

Rahab pulled her hair free from his hold. “What else did this man tell you about their god?”

Debir shrugged. “He sounds very odd. He allows no statues to be built of him so you can’t see or touch him. He claims to be the One True God, at once everywhere and over everything. It would be laughable if it weren’t for the power he seems to display.”

“A god you can’t see? What would be the point? How are you supposed to believe in what your senses tell you isn’t even there?”

“I don’t know, but the Hebrew spy told me he did not find this an impediment. He claimed there were other ways to experience god apart from images.”

Rahab leaned on her elbows and pinned Debir with a steady gaze. “Such as?”

“I didn’t become a follower, Rahab. I’m no expert at this. I can tell you he is ridiculously strict. For example—and you’ll find this interesting—he forbids prostitution even as part of worship. One of the places I took the Hebrew was a temple. He covered his eyes when he saw the prostitutes mating with the worshipers and told me that according to Hebrew Law, they would have been stoned.”

“Stoned?”

“You would make a very bad Hebrew, eh, Rahab? Or a very dead one.”

She swallowed. There was a flagon of wine sitting next to her and she poured some into an ornate silver cup for herself, forgetting to offer any to Debir. It tasted like dust.

N
obody knew better than Rahab the destructiveness of her profession. Nobody knew better what it did to your soul when you gave away your body without emotional attachment, without commitment, without hope of a future. No pleasure could fill the gulf of loneliness that widened with each day. There were days when she wanted to strangle the men who pawed at her without a thought for her heart. And there were days when she thought her own death might not be a bad fate. She felt part dead already. It seemed that the Hebrew god agreed with her. So he was a god of compassion. But for Rahab, he had only stones. “Go on,” she said to Debir, filled with dread and fascination at the same time.

Debir leaned over and took the cup from her hand and drained the remaining contents in one gulp. “The Hebrew god, it seems, is as tenderhearted as a woman. In the temple that day the priests were sacrificing a number of children. Would you believe the spy wept when he saw it? I will never forget his tears. He was a large man, well built and heavily muscled—not effete in any sense, except for these tears running the length of his face. As a young man I thought
him weak, crying like an untried boy at a sacrifice.

“He asked me if I felt no revulsion. ‘Of course not,’ I said. He told me his god would never bear such a thing. Then he said, ‘Your hearts are too hardened, Debir. Your people have grown hard beyond redemption. Even the Lord cannot reach you. And He is God in all heaven and all earth.’”

Rahab turned toward Debir, holding her breath. A god who cherished life? A god who cared for unnamed babies? A god who could see Canaan’s iniquity and declare them
beyond redemption?
Again she felt that longing, stronger than before. The irony of it didn’t escape her, the pitiful irony of a prostitute from Jericho longing for the god of the Hebrews.

“So you think their god is systematically wiping us out as judgment?” she asked.

Debir shrugged. “I’m not a priest. As a soldier, I can tell you they are winning victories they shouldn’t be winning. Their god baffles me. He appears to have more power than any of our gods. Power
and
compassion. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I don’t care to face it now, if you want to know the truth. I hope the Hebrew god is satisfied with the land on that side of the Jordan. Let them settle in over there, then maybe we can do business with them.”

“But you don’t think that’s what will happen.”

He leaned over and refilled the silver cup. “If I were their general, that’s not what I’d do. Trapped between Midianites and Edomites and Amorites and Egypt, how would they ever be safe? They would have to sleep with one eye open their entire lives for generations to come. If this god desires to give his people rest, leaving us untouched would not make a good plan.”

“Are you afraid of him—of this god?” she blurted out.

The fact that she had asked him this question would have been an insult to any other man. But Debir took no notice of the impropriety of her words. He stood suddenly and began to pace in the narrow room. “The
Lord
. That’s what they call him,” he said, dropping to one knee very close to Rahab. She could feel the warmth of
his wine-soaked breath as he spoke. “Everyone’s afraid. Even the barracks are filled with dread. If Og and Sihon couldn’t withstand the
Lord
, how can we? He isn’t interested in terms. He isn’t interested in compromise. He is like a consuming fire. You ask me if I’m afraid. Rahab, I have never known fear … until now.”

“You think we’re going to die.” It wasn’t a question. She could see the conviction stamped on every line of his face. The Lord. Finally, she had encountered a god of power
and
compassion. And he was her enemy.

“Yes. I do. I imagine it’s not going to happen for many weeks yet. The river is on our side because it’s at flood stage. You can’t cross an army through at this time, but as the waters dry up, they will come.”

“How will they get through our walls? No one has been able to do that, not for centuries, not since it’s been built up to this height and width.”

“You’re right. No
army
can get through these walls. But we’re not talking about an army; we’re talking about a god. No wall can withstand his will.” Debir bowed his head as he said this, and she caught a glimpse of something she never thought to see on his face. Despair. He had no hope. In that moment she became convinced of Jericho’s doom.

When Debir left, Rahab was filled with a sudden desire to be outside, away from the constraint of her home. Her sandals clattered down the stairs inside the dark bowels of the wall and then, relieved, she emerged into the bright day. Taking a deep breath she began to walk, her feet moving of their own accord.

A short way from her inn she turned down a narrow lane and came upon a group of playing children. Their noise drew her from her thoughts, and she gazed at them with a smile. Her smile faded as she realized the nature of their game. They had surrounded a beggar and were pelting him with stones and obscenities. The old man crouched in a corner, his trembling hands covering his face.

As a sharp rock cut the man’s forehead, blood welled up on the wrinkled skin and began dripping into his eye.

A girl pointed a finger at the beggar and shouted, “Look how his white beard is shaking—he’s starting to cry! Hit him again!”

“Cry nothing,” laughed a boy. “I think he might wet his pants!”

“Ee-uw!” Several spectators gasped, and cheered with laughter. “Leave him alone!” Rahab shouted.

The boy, about to hurl another rock, stopped short and looked at Rahab in her fine clothes. “My lady, he’s just a beggar, can’t you see?”

“Leave him alone, I said.”

They were all staring at her now. “What do you mean? He’s just a beggar. He stinks!”

Rahab grew very still. It was true that her people treated vagrants worse than stray dogs. She herself would have walked right by him without a glance on most days. She might not have tormented him, but she certainly wouldn’t have thought about his plight, either.

She examined the young faces before her. They displayed no remorse. No conviction. No regret. These were mere children, yet already they had learned to step on the weak and hate the helpless.

“Get out of here,” she rasped. They obeyed her, partly because she was an adult, but also because her clothes were finer than theirs. The people of Jericho did know how to respect money.

She knelt by the old man. “Are you hurt badly?”

He shrank back and said nothing. She saw that his cut was superficial, another injury to add to the scores he had received in the course of his life. Reaching inside her linen pouch, she found a few silver coins, probably more than the old man had ever seen in one place. Placing the coins in his palm she said, “Go and find a safe place to wash and sleep. And put some warm food in your belly.” His jaw dropped open, and she saw that his teeth had rotted away. The pathetic sight of that mouth, toothless, filled with decay, stinking of putrefaction, made her heart melt with pity instead of disgust.

He wrapped shaking fingers around the coins. Raising that wobbly fist he cried, “A curse on them! A thousand curses on those children!”