Джеймс Миченер - The Source

The crowd murmured its approval of this wise decision, but Hoopoe said, “From the wall the stick will be too short for the flag to be seen.”

“I’ve thought about that,” General Amram said, “and what you must do tomorrow is go into the forest and find a young tree that will be tall enough.”

So the naïve little engineer disappeared into the forest while General Amram returned to the house by the west wall, where he spent the afternoon with Kerith. Meshab the Moabite, working on the wall, saw the trick that the clever general was playing and was incensed. When on successive afternoons Amram devised new ways to keep the fat engineer occupied, the big slave felt a growing bitterness; but his suspicions of what transpired in Hoopoe’s house were not justified. General Amram, at ease in the engineer’s chair, was finding Kerith even more complicated than he had taken her to be on their first afternoon together. She tended her famous visitor as if he were her father, bringing him cold drinks and comforts like a slave, yet rebuffing with charming innocence his attempts to seduce her. Had he been younger he might have wrestled with her; as a man nearing fifty he was amused by the faithful wife and tried to penetrate her reasoning, discovering that she really believed that if she were kind to him he might take her husband to Jerusalem.

“Why are you so dissatisfied with this pretty town?” he asked one afternoon, clutching at the hem of her gray robe as she went past.

Like a dancer from the desert she twisted and her skirt flew out in rhythmic swirls, passing over his hand and leaving an enticing fragrance in the air. He laughed, then listened as she said, “I feel corrupted, living in a town like Makor, where Yahweh and Baal are both worshiped.”

“I’ve found Makor attractive,” he said. “Not as much so as I had hoped.”

She ignored his response and asked, “When you waken in the morning in Jerusalem, doesn’t it thrill you to be at the center of the earth? Where Yahweh dwells?”

General Amram coughed. Kerith was being either naïve or taunting, and in either case he was growing bored. Seeing no reason to prolong evasions he said frankly, “To tell you the truth, I’m loyal to Dagon.”

“Dagon!” Kerith cried, appalled at the idea.

“Yes. I served with King David when he was hired by the Philistines, and I grew to like them. They’re good warriors and Dagon is a powerful god. Oh, I suppose Yahweh is satisfactory too. I know the king worships him, but I’m a fighting man and I keep to simple tastes.”

Kerith stepped back. This man, this famous general, saying without fear that he was loyal to a god made of stone like Dagon. “I’m surprised Yahweh doesn’t …”

“Strike me dead?” Amram laughed. “Oh, I pay homage to Yahweh, too. As a soldier you mustn’t overlook anything that may help your side. But my personal loyalty …”

“Is to Dagon?”

“Yes.” He rubbed his stubbled head, pulled himself out of Hoopoe’s chair, and to Kerith’s surprise caught her by the waist and embraced her with chuckling good humor. “You’re a dear wife, Kerith.” He kissed her. “And some day you’ll reach Jerusalem.” He kissed her again, holding her arms to prevent her struggling. “And Yahweh will be waiting.” He kissed her farewell and left the house, laughing to himself. She stood alone in the room, defiled, not by his kisses—which she understood—but by his blasphemy. Slowly she knelt beside her husband’s chair and prayed.

“Yahweh, let me ascend to your city. Let me come singing to your gates, Jerusalem.”

That night at the final dinner General Amram was astonished when Hoopoe announced, “Governor, I’m leaving my house by the west wall.”

Kerith gave a cry of joy. “Jerusalem?”

“No,” Hoopoe said. “Tomorrow we start digging the main shaft, and I’m going to build myself a new house along the edge.” The guests reacted noisily, and he added, “The work is so important that I’ll need to be on hand.”

“Good idea!” Amram said. “We’ll start tonight.” And with a spurious gaiety he led the party out of the governor’s house and along the curving street, past the silent shops and to a spot near the postern gate where Hoopoe showed him the location of the shaft. Pouring a glass of red wine onto the ground, the general made a short, sardonic speech: “It has been a long time since I have visited so charming a country town and met such charming country people.” He bowed toward the governor and Kerith. “In my travels I have seen no fortifications superior to these built by the man you call Hoopoe.” The crowd began to cheer this gracious compliment, but Amram spoiled the effect by bobbing his head up and down like a hoopoe bird, and there were giggles. “I feel sure,” he concluded, “that the new water system, if it is ever completed, will be the marvel of the north.” Kerith realized that he was mocking both Hoopoe and Makor, and that sense of disillusionment set in which would lead to her final judgment of the general; she felt pity for him, that he should live in Jerusalem so close to Yahweh and King David without having discovered the inner significance of either the city, the god or the king.

When the mock ceremony ended he smiled at Kerith condescendingly and said, “Go home now and help your little man build his little tunnel, and maybe some day you’ll both get to Jerusalem.” She was humiliated, yet in the morning she stood in the crowd that lined the town walls to cheer the general on his way back to Megiddo, and as he disappeared toward the swamp she thought how strange it was that he who appreciated Jerusalem so little should be allowed to reside in that city, while she who longed so desperately for Yahweh should be denied this boon. She resented the basic unfairness of life, and tears came to her eyes, but as she climbed down from the wall she caught Meshab staring at her with undisguised contempt, and she wondered what had occasioned this reaction.

She went home with Hoopoe, who now became so absorbed in launching both the water system and his new house that she was increasingly left alone in the old, to which the general had brought a fragrance of Jerusalem, and staying there with her two children she was able to see with unemotional accuracy what she must do: as carefully as her husband planned his punctures of the earth, she planned how she would reach Jerusalem, that citadel of the one true god. The next three years would be tedious, and she knew it, but she suspected that General Amram’s cynical advice was accurate: “Rely on your husband’s completion of the tunnel.” This she would do and with the compassion and love she had formerly felt for him, for she could not ignore the respect General Amram had shown for Jabaal the engineer, even while laughing at Hoopoe the man.

She therefore dedicated herself to helping him attain his ambition, trusting that if she did so she would gain access to Jerusalem. She helped him transfer his headquarters into the new house, then listened with understanding as he discussed the various difficulties he was encountering. In all outward respects she became a woman content with her life in Makor, attentive to her husband’s problems and respectful of the local gods; but never for one moment of one day did she submerge her longing for the presence of Yahweh and the reality of Jerusalem. When some months later word reached Makor that King David’s general of the eastern forces, Amram, had been slain in an expedition against the rebellious Moabites, she felt a personal involvement and went back to the old house and stood alone in the room where the robust general had sat. She remembered him now principally as the conniving, self-opinionated man who had spoken arrogantly of Yahweh and King David, and she was amazed that so insensitive a person had progressed so far in a spiritual city like Jerusalem, and when at table Hoopoe eulogized him she remained silent. “He was the author of our good fortune,” the little builder said, “and what is more important, when he promised me fifty new slaves he sent them.” He was deeply moved by the general’s death, for he had imagined that when the water system was finished and he went to Jerusalem, Amram would adopt him as a kind of protégé, but now the first man to have championed the tunnel was dead, and Hoopoe felt abandoned.