Moses, Man of the Mountain (4 page)

And Amram hated it all. It made him feel flimsy and artificial. He felt worse because he could hear Miriam outside, the center of a large crowd, telling and retelling her story. “The child was crying and that is how she found him. So Pharaoh’s daughter asked me to bring mama to the palace to be a nurse for the child.”

“And why not?” one elder asked. “There is plenty of Hebrew blood in that family already. That is why that Pharaoh wants to kill us all off. He is scared somebody will come along and tell who his real folks are. The country can’t get along without us. Take Joseph for example now: Did Egypt ever amount to anything until he took hold of things? I ask you, did it now? Tell me! We are going to have another great man in
the palace when this boy they just took in grows up. This country can’t make out without us.”

“You said something just now, but you didn’t know it,” another added. “The higher-ups who got Hebrew blood in ’em is always the ones to persecute us. I got it from somebody that ought to know, that the grandmother of Pharaoh was a Hebrew woman.”

“Why, they tell me that the new commissioner of finance is an out-and-out Hebrew who renounced his race. He won’t even be seen speaking to one of us.”

“That would be just like him to do a trick like that. Afraid of being recognized, that’s why.”

“For my part,” one of the women said, “I think the Princess is a very fine woman. It is time we quit straining against the new order and took a active part in it.” There was hearty agreement from many women with this viewpoint.

“Oh, you women!” Amram snorted. “You are always ready to go with the conqueror. You recognize nothing but power. If it is a woman, a cow, a ewe, a dog or whatever female it is—let the male fight and die for her, and the moment that he is thoroughly beaten or killed, she gives herself to his conqueror. Talk about men being hard! We are the sentimental fools and you are the realists. Phooey!”

The little cakes were finally all gone and the crowd talked far into the night of the Hebrew victory over Pharaoh and went home. They did not question too closely for proof. They wanted to believe, and they did. It kept them from feeling utterly vanquished by Pharaoh. They had something to cherish and chew on, if they could say they had a Hebrew in the palace.

So the next day, Jochebed washed herself and walked the long and dusty way to the palace gate to offer herself as nurse to the baby, but they would not let her in. There was no new baby to be nursed, they told her. The Princess had been summoned home from Assyria on the death of her husband and had brought her infant son with her several months ago. But what is that to you, Hebrew woman? Anyway, no Hebrew
servants were being used in the palace. Begone with you!

Still and all, Goshen never gave up their belief in the Hebrew in the palace. It was something for men to dream about. Jochebed became a figure of importance—the mother of our Prince in the palace. Miriam told her story again and again to more believing ears. It grew with being handled until it was a history of the Hebrew in the palace, no less. Men claimed to have seen signs at the birth of the child, and Miriam came to believe every detail of it as she added them and retold them time and time again. Others conceived and added details at their pleasure and the legends grew like grass.

I
nside the royal palace affairs went on unconscious of the legends of Goshen. The Pharaoh had his programs, national and international. At home he worked to reorganize the county into a unit intensely loyal to the new regime. Externally he strove to bulwark the country against outside attack. Force was his juices and force was his meat. It was his boast that his reign should make it so that outsiders trembled when they breathed the mighty name of Egypt. The very rims of the earth should bear the spread wings of the Hawk-god Horus, who signified the sun in Egypt and should bear its light to all the world.

Inside the palace was Pharaoh’s son and daughter. The son Ta-Phar had all the self-assurance of the actual ruler without his father’s ability. He was impatient of the day when he should take hold of the rod of state. Ah, then Egypt and the world would see a Pharaoh! Crowns, state and personal robes would take on new glory. Finer chariots and horses and many more dinners of state. His tomb should outdo every pyramid that had been built or ever would be built. The stumbling stones in the path of doing these things had never occurred to him. What was the use of being a Pharaoh if one could not be lavish? Why should the wishes of a Pharaoh be opposed? So none about the court dared oppose him. In the chase and other
tests of strength and skill, the courtiers learned to be a poor second to his poorer first. The arrow of the Suten-Rech, Ta-Phar, was somehow found in a vital spot in every dead lion or antelope.

Inside the palace also was the Pharaoh’s widowed daughter who was not expected to do any more than she did. She must lend her support to the female robes of state. She must lend her ears to the sounds of mighty words boiling out of futile men. She must bear something in male form, for after all that is what she was born for—a passageway for boy children. If she seemed too attentive to her son and a little blank while her brother, the heir apparent, poured out his boasts, he attributed it to her jealousy that she would not be sharing the throne with him when the time came to share or not to share. She had been mated with a foreign prince and since she had the misfortune to become a widow, she must not be allowed the notion that living in the palace meant advancing the position of that misfit son of hers. Ta-Phar did not intend to break his neck in the chase nor expose himself too much in battle. Just to make way for that Moses, that little smart-aleck who was always nosing among the papyrus rolls in the library.

Inside the palace walls was Moses, son of the Princess and second in line for the throne of Egypt. To his mother he was the most beautiful child in all Egypt. He was considered a handsome child by all. And everyone who came inside the royal enclosures was conscious of him. At first he followed the household servants about asking what and how and why until they tried to devise means of directing his attention elsewhere.

Then it was the gardeners and the grooms who caught his imagination. He was always wanting to know about plants. Was a frog a plant? Well, if a frog was not a plant, why was it in the garden? Who put it there? Why did frogs want to come in the garden? Why was the sky blue? Who bent it up like that? Did it ever fall down? If the sun could come up by itself and could roost on the high perch of noon, why did it fall down in the evening? Where did it go at night? Where was the river going and what were the sounds it said? Who made
the first day? When? Why? Some of these questions went unanswered, but not all. There was one old man who tended the horses. He had answers in the form of stories for nearly every question that Moses asked and he told stories unasked because they just came to him to tell. They were unexpected visitors, those stories were, he explained to the eager little boy, and they stood outside his door until they were asked to come in. He did not know why they called upon him and did not call on many others. They tortured him at times, these people and events who came unasked and walked about in his mind. They always seemed to want to get out where people could see them. That had puzzled the old stableman a great deal because they were not always beautiful nor their behavior pleasant. Nevertheless one and all wanted to get out as soon as ever they could to show themselves. They always departed about their own business once they had been given outside life by his lips—for he could not write at all. So they had no home in the papyrus rolls like others who spring from the minds of scribes. These, his images and happenings of the mind, scrambled from his lips and entertained the listeners for a day, then went to join the thousands of other dreams where they dwelt. Where did they hide? He did not know. But he believed that they did not die. They were stronger and more enduring than men.

So Moses learned how God made that first day. He had ordered the covering robe stripped from the sun. Why had He done so? Well, you see, He had made the world and the firmaments. He had hammered out the great bowl of investing firmament and starred it with rivets. Then the company of heaven had asked to see the work of His hands and He had said, “Let there be light” and flung back the blanket from the sun and the world stood revealed.

“Then why do we have nights between days?” Moses asked.

“Well, He is still working on the world and He must hide His hand from us humans. That is why things grow at night. Most things are born in the mothering darkness and most things die. Darkness is the womb of creation, my boy. But the
sun with his seven horns of flame is the father of life.”

Hours and hours they sat, the old hostler and the little boy behind the royal stables, in the shade of the structure. And the images arose in the brain chamber of Mentu, the stableman, and stumbled off his lips and became real creatures to Moses—to live in his memory forever.

“You see, male man was made with five strong senses to gather the truth of things and his mind is a threshing floor to clean his truth in. This is often an unhappy thing, for man sees himself as he really is. Thus he is made very miserable. But he does not destroy himself because the female man was made with squint eyes so that she sees only those things which please her. And her threshing floor is cramped and cluttered. She cannot separate the wheat from the chaff. But she achieves a harvest that makes her happy. When she sees man fleeing from his bowl in horror of himself, she feeds him from her own dish and he is blindly and divinely happy. Ah, yes, the female companion of man has the gift of the soothing-balm of lies.”

From old Mentu Moses learned much about the ways of animals. The old man interpreted their noises and told Moses what they said. It was very amusing to the boy to hear the comments of all the birds and the beasts on human conduct and appearances. In fact, they were human by Mentu’s interpretations. Tara the monkey, for example, was he not the smart-aleck person of no importance always trying to imitate his betters and making a mess of things? Why, certainly! Some folks said that monkeys were old folks and that all old folks turned to monkeys, when they got old. Possibly they did, but Mentu was not old enough yet to find out for sure. But he thought it just as well when Moses should be old enough to hunt seriously, that he refrain from shooting those monkeys with his arrows. “You might kill an old friend or two among those monkeys, Moses. And I know you don’t want to do a thing like that.”

“I certainly don’t,” Moses said emphatically. “Least of all would I want to kill
you
, Mentu. But how would I know?”

“If, when age comes upon me to the stage when I find myself a monkey, I would let you know.”

“But how could you, Mentu? You couldn’t talk to me like you do now, you know.”

“That’s right, too.”

Both the little boy and the old man fell into a gloomy mood for a moment.

“I have it!” Mentu finally shouted. “You know how I always tease you by running my hand down your collar?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if ever you come upon a company of monkeys and one should spring upon your shoulder and thrust its paw down your neck, you can be sure it’s me.”

They were both very happy at finding a solution. Moses leaned his head on the bosom of the old man and said. “Then I would take you into the palace as my pet and you would have a fine gold collar for your neck and plenty of fruits and nuts to eat, and sleep right on the bed with me.”

“It would be lovely if I were a monkey now, to enjoy all of that.”

“Wouldn’t it, though? I wish you were a monkey right now so I could take you inside with me and give you things.”

Mentu sighed heavily. So they decided to hunt the little birds that live in the tall grass by the river. They took a number of throw-sticks and set out. On the way Moses led the old man to the spot where he was trying to build a playhouse of bits of stone. A lizard peeped out from behind a rock nearby and looked at them with a long, earnest stare.

“That same lizard is there every day when I play here,” Moses told Mentu.

“He thinks you are acting crazy,” Mentu told him.

“Why? Why is it crazy for me to build a playhouse like the cities of Rameses and Pithom that the Hebrews are building for Pharaoh?”

“The lizard does not understand it that way. He thinks all structures are made for nesting. He thinks you have been building a nest for your mate to lay eggs in. He says you take
too long about it so that your mate must be ready to bust from holding her eggs so long. He asks why do men build such high nests for their mates? Are they afraid that their eggs will be stolen?”

Moses laughed heartily at that, and he suspected that the grimace on the face of the old man was more of a laugh than a sign of serious thought.

“Did he say all of that, Mentu? How do you know?”

“You are too young to understand now, but when you are older I will tell you how it is that men can understand the language of the birds and the animals and the plants.”

“You are not teasing me, Mentu? The lizard really said that?”

“Why, certainly he did. I explained to him that humans do many things in their nests besides lay eggs. He says he cannot understand such doings but perhaps it is just as well. He asks if you will be good enough to stun a few flies for him so that he can catch them.”

“But, Mentu,” Moses objected, “you told me once that lizards like to catch their flies alive and vigorous. You said it was a point of pride with him to use his speed and cunning.”

“So I did, little Suten-Rech. So I did, and they do when they are young and virile. But this lizard complains that he is old like me and a little hungry like me. He says that he has been driven out of the company of the females by younger males. He has lost the power that once resided in his mighty hind legs so that he cannot spring so far nor so quickly as before. So he cannot catch enough flies to support himself. And what is worse, he cannot catch the females any longer. He is much too slow. A sad, sad situation. He fears he will father no more families.”

“Why doesn’t he ask some of them to wait for him?” Moses asked full of sympathy.

“It is sad but true that females seeking love do not wait for the weak and the aged. When the power to spring is gone—when you are older you will understand such things. A very trying period in a male thing’s life.”

“He could lie in wait and seize him a wife as she passed. Then he wouldn’t have to run after her and he would not need so much strength to overcome her struggles,” Moses offered.

“He says he had a fight about that yesterday. He ambushed a female, a handsome young thing, but a young buck heard the struggle and attacked him in his weak moments, and drove him off. He is quite lame from the mauling he took. So it would be nice if you crippled some flies so that he might eat a dinner. When one is too old for love, one finds great comfort in good dinners.”

Moses obliged the lizard with some flies and said to Mentu, “Maybe you would like something to eat, too. I think I could get you something from the palace kitchen without too much trouble.”

“Of course I would, Prince Moses. You have a big heart in that young body of yours. Of course, I would like something to eat. It would be ridiculous for the stableman to pretend that the food of Pharaoh was not good enough for his belly. Food makes people what they are. If the palace food makes a god out of high-born Pharaoh, it ought at least to make a man out of me.”

“Then I will go and get you something from the cook.”

“Thanks, Prince Moses, but be very careful that nobody finds out the food is for the stableman. The scraps from Pharaoh’s table are set aside and dedicated to the stomachs of Pharaoh’s dogs. Don’t be caught in the misuse of the dogs’ dishes. Sacrilege is a terrible crime.”

Moses hurried to embrace the old man.

“Why do you embrace me, Prince Moses?” Mentu asked.

“Because I love you better than anyone, except my mother,” Moses answered with his face pressed against the cheek of Mentu.

“Why do you love me? It is natural for the stableman to love a prince, but why should a prince love a stableman?”

“I love you because you know all about the beginnings of things and you tell me about them. You tell me such nice lizard-talk.”

“Well, all love is tempered with something, so it might as well be lizard-talk as plenty and power. Run along now and fetch me some meat. The food of Pharaoh has a lovely aftertaste.”

Moses hurried off towards the kitchen and brought back a filling snack for his friend. Day after day he kept this up until old Mentu ceased to struggle with the older yard servants for bits of the hog head when roast pork was on the palace table. This was always an occasion with yard help. Roast pork at Pharaoh’s table meant boiled hog head for the help. And old Mentu used to struggle mightily for such bits as he could get. But now he loftily stood aside from the struggle and explained to the others mysteriously, “I am eating further back on the hog now.”

And Mentu continued to charge the imagination of the boy with his tales of creation. Those first days of the world, which he called the “Kingdom Age,” when people lived as long as trees.

“In the beginning,” Mentu would say, “there was neither nothing nor anything. Darkness hid in darkness—shrouded in nothingness.” Or he would talk at length on the seven rays of time; on fire, the father of the sacrifice who was the triple-formed messenger of men to the gods—as fire on earth, as lightning in the air and as the sun in heaven.