Джеймс Миченер - The Source

Then suddenly the posture ended, and he replaced his hand in Abishag’s. The last trumpet echoed on the wall. The drums beat no more. And he allowed her to lead him quietly on, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, a man aloof from the world he had created. “He’s turning the kingdom over to Solomon,” a Phoenician whispered. “He no longer cares about the principalities of this world.” For Kerith it was a moment of exquisite pain, seeing the old king thus, and she knelt in the path that he must cross and grasped his hand and cried, “In Jerusalem you danced in the streets for us when you rescued the ark.” He looked at her and for a moment the fires returned to his eyes; then he smiled and said, “That was a long time ago.”

Kerith, looking up at the tired, white face as it passed on, was tempted to think that the great man’s vitality had fled, but later in the governor’s quarters she realized her error when he divested himself of his outer robes and sat at ease in a large chair, holding Abishag by his side. Then Kerith saw that his body was still strong and free of lazy fat and she heard him utter words that made her heart leap: “The walls of the city are excellent. Fetch me the builder.”

“Here is the man,” the governor volunteered, and he pushed Hoopoe forward. But the little engineer stopped to reach for Kerith and together they bowed before the king.

“Are you also the builder of the water tunnel?” David asked.

“I am he,” Hoopoe said with another bow.

“I should like to see it,” the king announced.

“When you are rested,” the governor suggested, but the king said that he would go now to the tunnel, and with hammering excitement Kerith joined the procession to the shaft, where the governor surprised everyone by making a secretly rehearsed speech which ended flamboyantly: “And we of Makor, who have worked so hard to dig this tunnel, hereby dedicate it to be the David Tunnel.” The crowd cheered, but Kerith noticed that the king paid no attention, while Hoopoe saw that the one man who should have shared in the celebration was not there: Meshab had no intention of paying homage to King David.

A cordon of special ropes, festooned with flowers, had been strung down the stairs; but when David reached the opening he refused to descend and merely looked down into the gaping hole.

“And where does the tunnel run?” he asked.

“You’ll see when you reach the bottom,” Hoopoe explained, but the king said that he did not wish to see the bottom.

“Which direction?” he asked impatiently.

Hoopoe was too stunned to respond. It was inconceivable that a king would come so far to see a tunnel and then not explore it. The governor nudged Hoopoe, who still could not reply, so the governor said, “It runs over there, Your Majesty,” and he led David to the top of the northern wall to show him where the well lay; but with the removal of the water-wall and the clever masking of the former lines, the fumbling governor could not discern where the well lay hidden, and there was a moment of embarrassment, after which he called for Meshab, but the big Moabite had hidden himself and was not available.

“Where’s the well?” the governor snapped at Hoopoe.

Kerith nudged her husband and finally he came to the wall, pointing in a confused manner toward a slope which looked like any other. He might have said, “Your Majesty, we have hidden the well so cleverly that not even the townspeople remember where it is. How could an enemy find it?” Instead he mumbled, “It’s down there.”

“I see,” said David, seeing nothing. In some irritation he left the wall and asked, “The slaves? What will they be doing now?”

The governor looked at Hoopoe, who had nothing to say, so Kerith volunteered, “They can be sent to Jerusalem.”

“We need them there,” the king grunted. At this point Abishag indicated that David must return for his rest, but he was in a difficult mood and refused to comply. “I have been told that you have in Makor a singer who plays on the lyre.”

The governor looked about to see who this might be, and Kerith said to the king, “There is a fine singer. Shall I fetch him to my house?”

“I’ll go to his,” David said, and not one of the officials knew where Gershom lived, but Kerith did, and she led the king to the temple, then to the wine shop, then to the wool merchant’s, and finally to the small room in back where Gershom lay sleeping beside a jug of wine. The place was dark and smelled of rancid sheepskins, and the governor started to drag the king away, but David insisted upon entering the room, where he stood with Abishag on one side and Kerith on the other, looking down at the sleeping man.

“It’s the king,” Kerith whispered, shaking him.

Gershom looked up, thinking that children had come upon him as they often did, and he saw that the king had lifted his lyre and was trying the seven strings, which were slack upon the pegs. Gershom brushed his hair back, adjusted his dirty garment and pulled himself to his feet. “It’s a good lyre,” the young man said.

“And I’ve been told that you’re a good singer,” the king replied. He handed the young man the instrument and waited. Gershom reached down, took a swig of wine, washed it about his mouth and spat it into the street. He indicated a broken chair, which Abishag brought for the king, but he paid no attention to Kerith or the king’s beautiful attendant. He sat on a pile of wool which had not yet been combed and spent some time adjusting himself and tuning the strings. It was a quiet moment, with men in the alleyway pressing against the door as the governor warned them to be silent. It was an apprehensive moment when no one should speak, but Kerith said quietly, “Sing of the lamb and the bull.”

Gershom looked at her in surprise, as if she were an intruder, but the king asked, “Is that a fine song?”

“It is one you would like,” Kerith said, and the king nodded.

Gershom was now finished with tuning his lyre, and he played random music until, unexpectedly, he struck a series of harsh, commanding chords which seemed to please the king. Then, in a powerful cry, he called: “Oh, who among us can speak of Yahweh?

Who knows his mysterious ways?

He is in the whimper of the lamb I seek at night,

Lo, he is in the stamping of the wild bull.”

And the manner in which he changed from the initial cry of longing to the simplicity of the night scene, then to the vigor of the bull’s actions pleased the king, and he sat back in the solitary chair, listening to the artistry of the young man, and after more than an hour of songs the old king took the lyre himself and let his fingers fall across the strings, but he did not try to sing. Tears came to his eyes and he sat for some time with the lyre, until Abishag said quietly, “Now we must retire,” and he followed her like an obedient child.

That night there was singing in the governor’s house, which marked the first time that Gershom had been invited into that august center, and on succeeding days the king repeatedly asked the young man to sing for him; and the time came when David was prepared to take the lyre himself and to sing some of the glorious compositions which he had offered Yahweh in the young years when he was loved as the sweet singer of Israel, and the two psalmists sang together for many hours. On the fourth day, when the king had not yet seen more of the tunnel than the mouth of the square shaft, he concluded a singing session by stating firmly, “When I return to Jerusalem this young man shall accompany me,” and he put his arm about Gershom as though the latter were his son.

When King David uttered this command Kerith was sitting beside him and the words reached her with climactic force. The visit of the king had been like a series of hammer blows, coming at the end of six years of metaphysical turmoil: she had witnessed the humiliation of her husband and had seen the low regard in which a man like King David held the mere digging of a tunnel; she had also seen the clarity of judgment with which he had selected Gershom as the one talent in Makor worth taking to the capital. All that King David did placed the abstract wisdom of Jerusalem athwart the pragmatic values of Makor, for without knowing it the king had acted as if he wished to prove her tentative conclusions correct. For a brief spell following the departure of General Amram she had allowed Jabaal and Meshab to divert her attention from Jerusalem and she had begun to doubt her own conclusions; but now King David and Gershom fortified them and she would never again be deterred from doing what she had long ago decided was right. She was ready to take the decisive steps that would lead her to the City of David.