Lars Sveen - Children of God

“Have you met Jesus?” I ask them. They both nod.

“We met him in the valley below Mount Gilboa,” says the eight-fingered man. “We spoke with him and his followers. There were women and children there. You can’t take people like them into war.”

“That’s enough,” says Jehoash. “It’s time for a little rest. We’ll take a break here.”

The two men with us stop and sit down. I walk over to Jehoash. It’s silent, except for a bird singing from a nearby tree.

“Why are we stopping?” I ask. “Shouldn’t we walk a bit before darkness falls?”

“Nadab,” says Jehoash, taking hold of me, “do you remember what I told you that night when we were awake?”

I try to work out what he’s talking about.

“Sometimes I lose my way,” he goes on, “but I always find it again. I’ve tried to do the right thing, we’ve served other people, kept away from what we used to do. But they can’t buy me, I can’t sell us, we’re not owned by the wealthy. I can’t change who I am or what I am. Perhaps there have been evenings when I’ve wondered whether I could become somebody else. But we’ve tried this out now, and the more we’ve done, the longer we’ve spent doing it, the longer these two rich men’s sons speak, the surer I feel. We’ll go back to what we were, what we’re meant to be.”

I still don’t understand what he’s talking about.

“You said you didn’t want to kill again,” says Jehoash, “but we are what we are. Get ready, Nadab, show me who you are.”

His face was a fresh, rosy color, his eyes blue. He was beautiful, and he was the king of Jerusalem. That’s why he called himself David, and all the boys in his band, his court, were called David II, David III, David IV, and so on. There were seven girls in the band, and they were given the names Bathsheba I, Bathsheba II, Bathsheba III, all the way up to Bathsheba VII. David had heard the stories from Joseph, who let them sleep in the back room facing out toward the stable. Of kings and wars, of queens and the voice of God.

Joseph called David “little one.” He had no father, no mother, but he had Joseph: a booming voice, sinewy hands with yellow nails, a long, shabby beard that prickled when he kissed. David was one of the small and vulnerable ones, but he had to fend for himself. He helped out in the kitchen, cleared tables, and was responsible for sweeping the floor in the morning. When he began bringing others with him, Joseph had nothing against it, as long as they all worked and helped him run the place. There, in the back room at Joseph’s place that faced the stable, was where David’s short time as king began. There, in that back room, the others swore their allegiance to him, and he swore to be their king and rule them fairly.

That’s why there was only one thing for David to do when Bathsheba VII came back, all beaten and torn up. Just as water runs downhill, as the sun runs its course, as fire lights up the sky, as night turns everything to darkness: he had to punish the culprits.

When they could get Bathsheba VII to talk, she told them what had happened. David held her hand the whole time, and he stroked her forehead and her cheek, even the mark of the beast that covered half of her face and ran all the way down her body. Little Bathsheba VII cried and cried, but David told her to be strong. He told her to close her eyes and think of the taste of pomegranates, how their color was as bright red as the tears of angels. He told her about the great sea and how it sparkled in the day, how it sparkled at night, how it never stopped sparkling, in spite of its enormous depth and all the unknown creatures that dwelled down at the bottom. David had never seen any sea, and he’d tasted a pomegranate only a few times, but he’d heard grown men speak of all sorts of things as he went between the tables at Joseph’s.

For Bathsheba VII, a new world was opening, as this was the dream she carried in secret. That something miraculous would happen, that it must happen, that David, her king, would open, that his heart would open, that one morning she would lie in his hands and be saved. She was only Bathsheba VII, but now she was there with him, and he was there with her.

For David, this was the first time he’d seen darkness gather around him. He knew what evening and night were, but he’d never seen such a darkness as the one that was now gathering in the corners, up beneath the ceiling, indeed even around the eyes of some of the people standing near him. He wondered where the light had gone while Bathsheba VII had been speaking.

There were rules in David’s kingdom in Jerusalem, the city of peace. One of the rules was to stay away from the Temple, the territory of the Temple Dogs. David recognized this, he acknowledged that his royal power didn’t reach all the corners of the kingdom. The Temple Dogs had their own king, Saul, and he and David had never met. They shared Jerusalem between them.

Bathsheba VII struggled to explain why she’d gone up to the Temple. First she said that she’d gone to fetch something up there, but she couldn’t explain what it was she was fetching. Then she told them about a family who’d asked her to join them, since she was alone. Eventually, and this was the version of the story that David and all the others believed, it became clear that Bathsheba VII had quite simply been tricked into going up to the Temple by one of the Temple Dogs. The boy, who’d also had a mark on his face, a scar stretching from one cheek to the other right across his nose, had told her she was allowed. The boy gave her safe conduct. The Temple Dogs wouldn’t do anything to her, as long as she held his hand. But when they’d got up to the Temple, the boy wanted to kiss and lick and taste Bathsheba VII, so she tore herself away from him and ran. She ran as fast as she could, with the boy barking behind her, and then she was caught by the Temple Dogs, who took her with them and did all they wanted and could to her. It was so painful for her to tell that David had to hold her still until her whole body stopped twitching and trembling.

He had to punish them, and he knew how. He was the king, he’d make everything right again. But he’d seen the darkness, it’d shown him what had been started. All the stories he’d been told, of kings and wars, of queens and the voice of God: there was a pattern there, and he knew it. Everything’s built up, and everything’s torn down. Then it’ll be built up again, and the same thing will happen again. Once it’d been started, nobody could stop it.

The next day, David asked everybody to go to Joseph’s and help out. If Joseph sent them away, they were to go into the back room and stay there. He took out some coins he’d been saving, which were all he owned. He went over to Bathsheba VII, kissed her, and told her it would all be over soon.

Without Joseph seeing him, David took a cloak Joseph used only when he went to the Temple, and he put it on. It was far too big, but it was clean, and there weren’t any holes or wear marks on it.

When he went up to the Temple, he kept close to a father who had three children with him. He walked right behind them so nobody would think he was there alone. He followed the family some of the way, then he left them and stayed close to another family of two women and two little boys. David carried on like this, back and forth across the temple precinct, until he spotted the boy with the scar who’d tricked Bathsheba VII. The boy was sitting like all the Temple Dogs did at that time of day, kneeling down with a small bowl in front of him. David knew that they barked at each other, he knew that was their signal. If the boy barked, he’d be exposed. But the Temple Dog kept his head up, so that everyone passing could see the way his face had been cut up.