Amos Oz - Where the Jackals Howl

In those days Gatel ruled over the children of Ammon. He was a boy king. When Jephthah came before King Gatel the king looked at him as a sickly youth looks at a racing charioteer, and asked him to tell him stories: let the stranger tell the king stories to sweeten his sleep at night.

And so Jephthah sometimes came to King Gatel at the end of the day to tell him about rending a wolf barehanded, about the wars of shepherds and nomads, about whitening bones in the desert at midday, about the terror of the night sounds that rise from the desert at the middle watch.

Sometimes the king would plead, More, more; sometimes he would implore, Don’t leave me, Jephthah, sit here till I fall asleep, because of the dark; and sometimes he would suddenly burst out laughing feebly like a haunted man, unable to stop unless Jephthah laid a hand on his shoulder and said to him: That’s enough, Gatel.

Then the king of the Ammonites would stop laughing and turn his pitiful blue eyes on Jephthah and beg, More, more.

In the course of time King Gatel made Jephthah his confidant and was always watching attentively for the yellow spark which did or did not glint in Jephthah’s eye.

The elders of Ammon looked askance on all this: A young slave has come to the city out of the sand dunes, and now the king is under his spell, and must we watch and say nothing.

King Gatel was an assiduous reader of the chronicles of ancient times. He had set his heart on being like one of those mighty kings who had brought many lands under their dominion. But because he loved words with all his being and always paid more attention to the words in which his chronicle would be written than to the victorious deeds themselves, he was smitten by serious doubts about even simple questions. If he had to select a new groom, or order the construction of a new turret, or in general to choose between two different courses of action, he would torment himself with doubts all night long because he could always see both sides of the problem.

If ever Jephthah deigned to hint which was the better course or which would end badly, Gatel would be overcome with gratitude and affection, of which he was unable to express to Jephthah even the smallest part, because it is the way of words to delude the man who courts them.

He would say:

“Let’s ride to Aroer or Rabbat-Ammon to see if the figs are ripe yet.”

Then he would add:

“Or perhaps we shouldn’t, because the stars do not favor a journey today.”

Or else:

“I had a pain in my ear and in my knee all night. And now I have a toothache and a bellyache. Tell me another story about that boy you told me about, the one who could speak the language of the dogs. Don’t leave me.”

And so it came to pass that King Gatel fell in love and confusion, and would stamp his foot with longing if Jephthah did not come to the palace in the morning. And within the palace a secret enmity was hatched. People said to one another:

“This will lead to no good.”

Abel-Keramim was a large and happy city. Its wines flowed abundantly, its women were round-hipped and sweet-scented, its servants were eager and merry, its maidservants were easygoing, and all its horses were swift. Chemosh and Milcom had showered the city with delights. Every evening the trumpets sounded for banquets, and at night sounds of players and musicians rose up and rows of torches blazed in the squares of the city until morning light appeared and the caravans set out through the city gates.

Jephthah did not stand aloof from the pleasures of Abel-Keramim. He tried everything and saw everything, but he touched it all with his fingertips only, because his heart was far away and he said to himself: Let the Ammonites play before me. Three or even four women flocked to him in the same night, and Jephthah loved to revel with them and enjoy them one by one while they enjoyed each other in unison and he would enter among them a scourge of lust a rod of rage and sometimes after all the sound and fury they would sing him Ammonite songs about expanses of water or bucks in the vineyard or suffering and grace while he lay back among them awash on a sea like a dream-swept child. At first light he would say to them all, Now, go, that’s enough. And he would sit at the window watching the fingers of light and the pallor of the mountains and the distant conflagration and finally also the sun.

The summer came and went. The autumn winds snatched at the treetops. Old horses suddenly reared and whinnied. Jephthah sat at the window and remembered his father’s house. He suddenly longed to be sitting in the stable with the household priest and his three brothers Jamin, Jemuel, and Azur while the priest read to them from a holy book and outside the water ran in the channels, the orchards were cloaked in wintry sadness, and the scent of autumn rose from the vineyards as the vine leaves fell. The longing pierced and stung him with the sharpness of an arrow until his soul was writhing in torment.

He rose and stood at the window while, behind him on his couch, one of the beautiful women lay sleeping, her hair covering her face, breathing peacefully. It sounded to him like a soft evening breeze, and all of a sudden he could not remember who she was, or even whether he had already been with her or if he still had to go to her, and why.

Jephthah sat down on the end of the bed and began singing his mother’s songs to the sleeping woman. But his voice was rough and the song came out bitter and rasping. He reached out and touched her cheek with his fingertips, and she did not wake up. He rose and returned to the window and saw dark clouds hurrying eastward in a panic, as though something were happening beyond the eastern horizon and he must arise and go there at once, now, before it was too late. But he did not know what the place was or why it might be too late or who it was who was calling him to go, and he only said to himself:

“Not here.”

And then Jephthah also thought: My brother Azur is not Abel and I am not Cain. O Lord of the asp in the desert, do not hide yourself from me. Call me, call me, gather me to you. If I am not worthy to be your chosen one, take me to be your hired assassin: I shall go in the night with my knife in your name to your foes, and in the morning you may hide your face from me as you will, as if we were strangers. You are the lord of the fox and the vulture and I love your wrath and I do not ask you to lift up the brightness of your countenance toward me. Your wrath and barren sorrow are all I want. Surely anger and sadness are a sign to me that I am made in your image, I am your son, I am yours, and you will take me to you by night, for in the image of your hatred am I made, O lord of the wolves at night in the desert. You are a weary and a desperate God, and whomsoever you love, him will you burn with fire, for you are jealous. I say to you cursed be your love, O God, and cursed be my love of you. I know your secret for I am in your secret: you paid heed to Abel and his offering but in your heart it was Cain, Cain, that you loved, and therefore you spread your wrathful care upon Cain and not upon his simplehearted brother. And you chose Cain and not Abel to be a fugitive and a vagabond upon the face of this evil earth, and you set the seal of your image upon his brow to wander to and fro in all the land and to stamp your seal the seal of a barren God upon people and hills, O God of Cain, O God of Jephthah son of Pitdah. Cain is a witness and I am a witness to your image, O lord of the lightning in the forest of the fire in the granary of the howling of maddened dogs in the night, I know you for you are in me. I the son of the Ammonite woman loved my mother, and my mother clove to my father out of the depths, and out of the depths my father cried to you. Give me a sign.

The city of Abel-Keramim stood at the crossroads of the caravan routes, and as dusk fell long lines of caravans from afar passed under its gates, laden with all the riches of Egypt, spices and perfumes and copper from Assyria, glassware from Phoenicia, fragrant game from the land of Edom to the south, from Judea grapes and olives, wines from the Euphrates, silk from Aleppo, little blue-eyed boys from the blue isles of the sea, Hittite harlots, bracelets, myrrh, and concubines; by nightfall everything was gathered within the walls, the heavy gates were barred, and the whole city was filled with torchlight and tumult. Sometimes the golden domes caught flashes of light and seemed to sparkle with blood and fire and all the temples overflowed with strains of ecstatic music.