Джеймс Миченер - The Source

However, when Hoopoe in his enthusiasm turned to the slave for confirmation of his feelings, Meshab said, “Amram is one who will understand.”

Kerith now suggested that Hoopoe come home with her to discuss other aspects of this exciting news, so with some reluctance the builder accompanied his wife back through the filth, after which they climbed the ramp to Makor. But at the gate Kerith turned to look at the slave camp and asked, “How can you allow men, humans like yourself, to live down there?”

“They live as long as they do only because of what Pm able to do for them.”

Inside the gates Kerith said softly, “Oh, Jabaal, General Amram is bringing us our freedom.”

“I hope he likes the walls.”

“And if he does,” she suggested shyly, “don’t be afraid to let him know that you were the one who made the decisions.”

As if they did not want to reach home, where the basic reasons for their excitement might have to be explored, they loitered before the wine shop opposite the temple, and there Kerith said hesitantly, “Above all, Jabaal, you must mention Jerusalem.” The little engineer said nothing. “You must ask him to take you to Jerusalem. Now.”

In the spring sunlight Hoopoe swallowed, shifted his feet and said, “No, Kerith. What I must do is explain to him my water system.”

Kerith gave a little cry, as if she had been wounded, then looked about to see if any loungers at the wine shop had heard her. “Dear Jabaal,” she whispered. “Have you lost all reason?” Then seeking to be fair she asked, “If he did approve your tunnel? How long would it take?”

“About three years.”

She bit her knuckles. Three years! Three years more in exile from Jerusalem! Then, giving her husband a smile of love and compassion, she said, “All right. If that’s your dream, I’ll wait three years.” But the prospect, stated in her own words, was frightening and she caught his hands. “What if your tunnel fails?”

“It’s my job to see it doesn’t fail,” he said.

And then she said a word of great significance, not ushered forth by her own will but by her longing: “You’re being a fool.” Never before had she used this word, for she loved her husband and appreciated the tenderness he showed her; but gradually she had been forced to admit that the substantial men of the town, like the governor, had come to look upon her husband as merely an amusing person, running about the streets and poking his sharp nose into cisterns and silos like a true hoopoe bird. Indeed, he was a foolish man. But this sense of disappointment she could have tolerated, like any average woman approaching thirty who saw her husband as he was destined to be for the remainder of their lives together, except that in her case a special dimension had intruded: the holy city of Jerusalem. It had been as a girl in mourning that she had first seen the hilltop fortress recently captured by King David from the Jebusites and her emotions that day were so entangled as to have produced an everlasting effect. It was in the winter that her mother died, and her father had gone up to Jerusalem to pray, and as they climbed out of the flat lands they saw upon a crest of hills a city covered with snow, as pure and white as a stork in spring, and involuntarily she had cried, “Oh, the City of David!” By that name it was known to Hebrews, but in Makor the old Canaanite name of Jerusalem persisted, which was proper, since the city had been Hebrew for only a few years. As Kerith and her father stood looking up through the cold air she had intuitively known that Jerusalem would become famous not for its growth or its fortress walls, but because of the fact that here Yahweh would take his spiritual residence; and from the first moment she saw Jerusalem she longed to be a part of it, to grow with it into its new functions and to share the radiance which was certain to envelop it. From this city the nature of Hebrew life would be determined.

Her father had sensed this when he said, as they continued to stare at the snowy battlements, “Before I die we shall see the temple at Makor abandoned, for in Jerusalem will stand the everlasting temple of Yahweh.” She asked him if he would feel regret at the passing of their little temple, and he replied without hesitation, “Just as our bodies must climb to reach Jerusalem, so will our souls have to climb their spiritual hills to reach Yahweh. It’s time we started.” But he had died before he could lead his people to the new understanding of religion as symbolized by Jerusalem, and the Makor priests who had succeeded him had lacked his vision and had clung jealously to their trivial prerogatives. It was therefore partly in furtherance of her father’s vision that Kerith longed to make her permanent ascent to Jerusalem; but if she had been asked for one simple reason why she yearned for the royal city she would have said honestly, “Because there Yahweh will make himself known.”

Her longing placed her in sharp contrast to her husband. He would go to Jerusalem, but only because it was a city where building was to be done. Because he loved Kerith he was willing to help her gain something she so keenly desired, but her preoccupation with Yahweh he only half comprehended; as a man of Ur he knew that Baal governed the earth of Makor and he was content to build here on the old familiar site. Where he worked and on what was of little importance, for like a good engineer he accepted whatever commissions reached his hands and he never inquired too closely as to their origins. He would have been as happy to build a new slave camp as he would have been to reconstruct the small temple of Makor, for he would have seen in the former job a chance to keep the slaves alive for a longer time, which was a sensible ambition.

So Jabaal the engineer committed to Baal, and Kerith the mystic dedicated to Yahweh came to their home at the end of the street and to that confrontation which would often be repeated within the walls of Makor during its long history: the conscious choice between gods. Like many people faced with this ultimate decision of which god they will worship and in what way, they shied away from direct dialogue, hoping that time would solve the problem and make the decision for them. Kerith started to point out that when General Amram arrived … but Hoopoe did not hear her, for he was already constructing imaginary plans. He rolled up his sheet of leather, collected his drawing materials and returned to the slave camp, where he directed a group of his men to build a rough table at which he and the Moabite could work in the critical days ahead.

On the roll of leather, made from a calf’s skin whose hairy side had been scraped smooth, and using a reed pen and an ink made from soot, vinegar and olive oil, Hoopoe finished the details of the master plan for his water system, and Meshab noticed that he took much care to insure that the diagonal of the shaft followed the range established by the six flags, and he asked why. Pointing to the diagonal, Hoopoe said, “It’s this that will make the tunnel possible.”

Saying no more, he began to impress into soft clay tablets sectional drawings of the various kinds of work that would have to be done, some forty-five tablets in all, and when these were finished Meshab hauled them off to a kiln for baking into permanent form, so that on the evening before General Amram’s arrival the two men had their data complete: a large roll of leather which the general could use for explanations in Jerusalem and the series of indestructible tablets to govern the work in Makor.

Next morning, on a bright day at the end of the month of Ziv, when flowering trees made the Galilee a land of singing beauty, when pistachio bushes sent forth red budlets and pomegranate leaves were a tender green, General Amram and his company rode in from Megiddo upon horses, which were rarely seen in Makor. Children ran along the road to greet the visitors, while at the gates of the city the governor waited with clay pitchers of wine and lavers filled with cold water, which the soldiers sloshed over themselves, drying their heads with cloths supplied by women of the town, among whom was Kerith, who had volunteered to serve the general.