Lars Sveen - Children of God

Reuben took hold of me and turned me toward him. “Nadab,” he said, “we’re tough, we believe in what we’re doing. Listen to Jehoash and what he says, and we’ll stick together.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yes,” I said. “I belong with you.”

That’s how I became one of them.

If it had all come to me in a language clear and plain, telling me what would happen, then maybe something would’ve been different.

I’d met Jehoram several days before, in Beersheba, when I sat down to eat a loaf of bread and some dried figs I’d begged for. He stood there, grinning at me, half hidden behind a pile of clay, with his back leaning against the wall of the building. I asked him what he was grinning at.

“You,” he said. “It looks like you’ve still got your mother’s blood stuck to your hair and your beard.”

I told him I couldn’t remember my mother, but that I could remember his mother, and she hadn’t had anything against my hair.

“Neither up here nor down there,” I said.

Jehoram grinned even more, so I went over to him and asked if he was hungry.

“No,” he said. “I’ve eaten.” But he still took some figs. I told him my name was Nadab; he told me his was Jehoram and asked what it was like to have hair that color. I told him I didn’t know what it was like. It had always been like that.

“Do the ladies like it?” he asked.

It was the middle of the day, the sun beating down right through to the inside of your head, and we were in the shade. Jehoram said he was there with his brother. His face was full of sores, red and pink cuts. His hands and his feet were covered in the same pattern, and I asked if it hurt. He said it didn’t, or, he didn’t know, it had always been like that. I nodded. One time when I was starved and on the run, I’d spent two days and two nights with a group of sick and infected people. They’d welcomed me. They’d given me food, let me sleep where they slept, and when I left, I shook them by the hand and thanked them. Most of them may be dead by now, as far as I know, but I didn’t catch anything, so I didn’t think Jehoram’s sores and wounds could hurt me.

I asked what Jehoram did and if he knew of any work going. He said he didn’t, as they’d just got here. They’d soon be leaving again, but he wasn’t sure, it was Jehoash and Reuben who’d decide, he said.

“Are they your brothers?” I asked.

“Jehoash is,” he said. “Not Reuben. Come and meet them.”

I agreed. If I was lucky, they might offer me something to eat, a place to sleep, maybe some work. The farmer I’d been working for before had let me go when the fruit trees were all seen to. There were others who’d been promised work, who’d been with him for a long time, and he owed it to them to let them stay. The farmer said I could come back when it became warmer and the fruit was ripe. I was paid and given some food, but I was already out of most of it by the time I got to Beersheba.

We walked together along the edge of the city. Some children came running and started shrieking when they saw Jehoram, who swore and told me that he hid, that he spent all the damn time hiding, and he’d begun to cover himself up. First his feet, then his face, but his hands were always trouble, his cursed hands, as he called them. I took the ends of the rags and helped him, wrapping one hand first, and then the other.

“There,” I said, “you can change it if it’s too tight.

Jehoram fell silent, and then said, “Come on.”

“This is Nadab,” Jehoram told his brother. Jehoash came over and greeted me.

“Reuben’s not here,” said Jehoram. “He’s out on an errand, some kind of thing, all kinds of things, you never know with Reuben where he might be.”

“Jehoram,” said Jehoash, “that’s enough.” Jehoash wasn’t quite as tall as his brother, he had his hair cut close to his scalp, and his eyes seemed as if they were staring holes right through me. He asked what I did, why I was in Beersheba. I told him about the farmer and the fruit trees, and told him I was on my way to find something else. Jehoash asked me to join them, they’d be going in a few days.

“You’ll get food,” he said. “We won’t steal from you, and Jehoram seems to like you.” I thanked him and asked what they were doing there. Jehoram started grinning again, and Jehoash turned to him, asking if I knew anything.

“No,” said Jehoram.

“Do you trust him?” asked Jehoash.

Jehoram lifted up his hands. “He touched me,” he said. “He’s tough, can’t you see?”

Jehoash turned back to me. His eyes really glow, they do, I could feel my feet, my hands, my whole body starting to creak and crack. Jehoram had stopped grinning and was standing next to me.

“What’ll it be then?” he asked Jehoash.

Jehoash told him to be quiet, and then he told me who they were, what they did.

One time, when I was younger and living in a hut with some other children, I came across a dog that couldn’t stand. Both its front legs were broken, and the dog growled and whimpered as it dragged itself back and forth. Together with two other boys, I killed the dog, skinned and cleaned it, and tried to sell the meat, but it was no use. In the end we threw the rest away. Another time, I hit another boy in the head with a stick so hard that he keeled over and his legs began to shake. Jehoash’s world wasn’t unfamiliar to me. I’ve stolen from the people I worked for, I’ve been beaten and thrown in dungeons by guards. Nothing started or finished then. It was no rupture, I wasn’t a decent man who fell upon evil. I’ve always known what was good. But there’s a pattern, a sketch in the sand, that shows the order of everything. I’m a grain of sand in that pattern. When God judges us, I’ll be ready.

After they took me in, we left Beersheba and went up to Hebron. We got there in the pale light at the end of the day, and Jehoash said we’d stop there on the outskirts so that nobody would spot us. He went into the city and came back with something to eat and drink. When darkness fell, Reuben got up.

“Nadab,” he said, “come here.”

He gave me a knife and showed me how to hide it under my clothing, how to hold it. When I tried to tell him that I wasn’t unfamiliar with how to use a sharp blade, he told me to follow him.

“It’s not unlike seeing to an animal,” he said, “but animals won’t beg you to stop or call out the name of the Lord. So you’ve got to do it quickly, no hesitation, and you’ve got to do it quietly. It’s easy, but it goes a long way. You understand? Here, it’s yours, don’t lose it.”

The others got up. Jehoash stared at me, tilted his head, and scratched at a dark spot on his neck.

“It’s time for your baptism, Nadab. Come on, follow me.”

We went into Hebron. Jehoash told the other two to wait while he led me off the road, and we stumbled and scrambled across behind some buildings. A small brood of hens started flapping about, some dogs barked.

“Get ready,” said Jehoash. “Show me who you are.” He raised up a hand, drew a sign in the air in front of me, sat down and picked up some stones and soil, letting them run through his fingers. Then he got up, went over to a door, and knocked. A voice asked who it was, and Jehoash answered that he was waiting, that everything was ready. The door opened, and a man stepped out. I couldn’t see his face clearly. The man was around the same height as me. He greeted Jehoash and asked where it was.

“Come with me,” said Jehoash.

“Wait,” said the man. “Who’s that?” He pointed at me.

“He’s with us,” said Jehoash. “He’s going to show you.” The man stared at me, nodded, and came along with us.

We walked out into the field there, which was cultivated. Jehoash talked quietly to the stranger. We stopped, Jehoash came over to me, took me by the shoulders, and pulled me toward the stranger.