Thomas Swann - How are the Mighty fallen

One afternoon, when the sun was a pleasant prickle instead of a blaze, they showed her the stone elephant.

“His snout is too long,” she pronounced.

Before Jonathan could defend his creation, a shadow fell across their path. Saul had approached on soundless sandals and paused, unspeaking, to watch the work in the garden. David smiled at him and tried to assess his mood. For the moment, he seemed both sane and amiable, the father and not the madman. It was his curse that a simple farmer had multiplied into many selves, and he could not make them work in unison; he was now one person, now another, and the two, the three, the four were distinct personalities, and one of them at least was distinctly dangerous. David likened him to a cart drawn by wild asses, each pulling in a different direction notwithstanding the frantic instructions of the driver.

“It’s good to see my children at play,” he beamed. “We’ve had enough of war.” In the bright afternoon light, he looked bent and gray-if not old in years like Samuel, he was old in burdens-but he had gained weight at Gibeah and people whispered that he was a better king when he delivered judgments for his subjects, sentencing thieves, condemning usurers, than when he had sat for a month with his army at Elah facing Goliath and the Philistines across the stream.

He opened his arms to Michal and kissed her undisciplined hair.

“Michal, my heart, I have always said that you could choose your own husband. Am I right in thinking that you have made your choice?”

Michal blushed and began to stammer. “Father, I have made no choice. I liked Agag, but Samuel slew him.”

He turned to David. “And what have you to say, my boy?”

David did not need to deliberate his answer. Michal loved him, of that he was sure, and she would, he hoped, become a biddable bride who, underestimating its power and overlooking its passion, would not object to his friendship with Jonathan. Furthermore, it was good to be captain over a thousand men in time of war, but now, in peace, he had no official duties except as lutist to the king.

“I have long aspired to your radiant daughter’s hand,” said David, who knew that Saul, having once been an unlettered farmer, delighted in courtly speeches. “But who am I, a simple shepherd from Benjamin, to join the noble House of Kish?”

“Say no more. Your great-grandfather Boaz was a man of means and generosity. Though he married the foreign Ruth, he quickly won her to Yahweh. You yourself have proven to be a splendid warrior and a loyal subject Does the choice please you, Michal?”

“Oh, yes, yes, may Ashtoreth be blessed!”

Saul shook his head with mock severity. “It was not Ashtoreth who delivered us from the Philistines.”

“But it is she who understands a maiden’s heart.” Everyone knew that Michal’s room held a shrine of Ashtoreth or images of the Goddess. Yahweh was a man’s god. The women of Israel, though they followed his commandments and observed his festivals, sometimes gave their hearts to the Goddess, who was courtesan, wife, and mother.

“Perhaps you are right. At any rate we shall celebrate your betrothal as soon as you like.”

“Soon?” asked Michal to David, no longer the boyish companion to her brother and his friend, but a soft young virgin enraptured with her first love.

“Soon.” David smiled. “Jonathan, aren’t you going to congratulate us?”

“May Yahweh look kindly on your union and bring you many sons,” said Jonathan, turning his back to smooth a stone in the elephant’s side.

“Come now, my daughter, leave our young men to their elephantine labors and walk to the palace with me. We must tell Rizpah our news. Ahinoam too. She will know how to manage a betrothal feast in the grand manner. In my own youth, we shared a fatted calf, exchanged vows, and that was that. But now I suppose there must be bridal gowns and processions by torchlight and-well, we shall leave the arrangements to Ahinoam, who has a gift for such niceties.”

David and Jonathan remained with the elephant, David bemused by his sudden rise in fortune. To become the husband of the king’s favorite daughter! To become Jonathan’s brother-in-law!

Jonathan kicked the leg of his elephant and the whole outlandish beast, oversized ears, longish snout, and diminutive eyes, crumbled to their feet in a cloud of dust.

“Jonathan, what’s the matter?”

Jonathan’s eyes were full of tears. “I hate peace,” he said. “People get married in peaceful times and bear children. In war we could be together always.”

“It’s war you hate, not peace. You've always said so. And you knew I would marry one day. You even suggested Michal, because you love both of us.”

“Better Michal than Merab,” he sighed. “I didn’t think you would marry her so soon, though. I was vain, wasn’t I? To think I could keep you making gardens or throwing spears with me when you might be lying with Michal and producing the next heir to the throne.”

Ashtoreth had gone out of David’s day. Till now, the prospect of marriage had not meant a broken bond between him and Jonathan, but a bond which made him irrevocably Jonathan’s brother. His flexible conscience allowed him to marry a girl and remain her brother’s lover. A man’s duty to a woman, he reasoned, was to father her children and provide for their safety and security. He was obliged to esteem her but not to love her.

“Jonathan,” he cried. “Michal is a waterhole in the desert, but you are the Promised Land! Could she ever come before you?”

“Of course you must marry,” Jonathan sighed. ‘And Michal will make you a faithful and loving wife. And I'll be your friend forever, even if I have to make elephants by myself.“

“But you’ll marry too, Jonathan, one of these days, and your son will be heir to the throne, not mine.”

Jonathan shook his head. “I suppose I could marry. I like women. I like to talk to them. Their small talk puts me at ease, and I don’t have to think about things like battles and sieges and armor. As for Michal and my mother, I love both of them very much, and I even love Merab when she’s scolding me. And I would rather worship Ashtoreth than Yahweh. But I just don’t think I want to marry. You can’t be quiet with a woman. They expect sweet talk most of the time. If they wear a new robe and you forget to mention it, you get a cold supper without wine. And they’re always after you to have babies, and more babies, and they never leave you alone with your friends. The only exceptions I know are my mother and, I hope, Michal.”

“You might experiment before you decide against marriage,” David suggested. “Not a virgin, Yahweh forbid, because then you would have to marry her. I was thinking of a harlot, though Saul has driven them out of Gibeah.”

“Except Rizpah,” Jonathan reminded him.

“She’s retired. She doesn’t count. All the others are gone. But they still flourish in towns like Endor, and the nice thing about them is that they help. They don’t just lie there and wait as if they were expecting the Red Sea to open. And when you want to be alone, you pay your shekels and dismiss them with a compliment.”

“I'll think about it,” said Jonathan. Resolutely he knelt to rebuild his elephant. But his shoulders were hunched and he looked like a sad little boy whose toys had been nibbled by mice.

David embraced him and took the pale and forlorn face between his hands, and, because there appeared to be no one closer than the palace, which was hidden by poplar trees, kissed him on the mouth.

He did not hear Rizpah’s approach, he felt her shadow shut them from the sun. (Two visitors, two shadows. What was the proverb brought out of Egypt? “One shadow cools, two shadows kill.”) He looked into her wide, bland eyes and wondered if they concealed a perception which only Saul had perceived.