She knew that if this was the message from the Lord, Moses would be content. But she knew that would not be the Lord’s message.

  Moses kissed her, kissed his two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, and gathered the younger children, all girls, into a single vast hug, which left them screaming with laughter. Then he walked off across the meadow, deftly gathering a portion of the flock and guiding them toward the path that would take them along the ridge to the shoulder of Sinai itself.

  “Watch for snakes!” Gershom cried out.

  “I’ll be watching!” Moses called back to him.

  “I want to follow him, Mother,” Gershom said.

  “You are following him,” said Zeforah. “That is your life’s work.”

  “No, I mean I want to follow him now.”

  “It was your father who was called to the mountain,” said Zeforah. “Bide your time. The Lord knows where you live.”

  “Oh, Mother,” he said. “You always say that.”

  “And it’s always true,” she said. “Come, we have a feast. Time to celebrate!”

  “Father took no food with him,” said Eliezer, the younger boy.

  “He’s on the Lord’s errand,” Zeforah said.

  “But he ate nothing all day yesterday,” Gershom pointed out.

  “The Lord will give him strength.”

  “It’s dangerous out in the rocks, up on the mountain!” Eliezer had a couple of bad falls that had taught him that lesson.

  “Nothing will happen but what the Lord intends. That has to be enough for you, Eliezer, Gershom.

  “Is it enough for you, Mother?” asked Gershom.

  She laughed then. “No. But I pretend that it is.”

  He thought about this for a moment. “Then I will, too. As long as you know how worried I am.”

  But Zeforah was not worried for Moses’ safety. The Lord didn’t bring him this far to let him perish in the rocks of Sinai. She had different fears that Gershom and Eliezer could not understand. It didn’t matter. She would be strong to help her fretting boys, and that would help her also.

  “Oh Lord,” she prayed quietly, “let him come back to me. Let him still be mine. Yours too. Yours first. But also mine.”

  * * *

  The mud huts of the Israelites, hundreds of them, thousands, spread like a rash across the clay flats of the delta. All around them and among them were the fields of brick molds, the ones filled with clay and strewn with straw, drying in the sun; the empty forms stacked and waiting to be filled with river mud. And during the day, the people swarming like termites on the face of a hill, carrying sledges of river mud, bags of water, empty molds, ricks of straw.

  Then came evening, and the people returned to their squalid temporary hovels, built in a few hours, to be torn down eventually by the annual flood of the Nile, then built again. Slaves in name and law ever since the Hyksos rulers were driven from Egypt, the Israelites were slaves now in daily, hourly fact, slaves like the prisoners of war who were worked to death, to help defray the cost of capturing them. There were few Israelites alive who could even remember the days of the Hyksos Pharaohs, the glory days when the children of Israel helped rule over the land. Nor were there many Egyptians who had ever seen an Israelite being proud, or exercising any kind of authority. Yet the passion for vengeance was kept alive in the Egyptians’ hearts, not least by the priests who still told their stories of how the gods delivered Egypt from the foreign oppressors. To see the Israelites slaving in the brickyards by the river, that was proof to the Egyptians of the power of their gods and the greatness of their kingdom.

  But a strange thing happened among the Israelites. A generation before, their desert roots had been almost forgotten. They dressed like Egyptians, or undressed like them; the Egyptian language was more and more the first language of the children growing up; Israelites married Egyptians, and taught them in Egyptian schools; and Israelites, even while claiming still to serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, attended the public rituals and knew the names of all the Egyptian gods.

  Now, in slavery, without even deciding openly, the Israelites did not strip off all their clothing as an Egyptian would, to work in the sun; instead they covered themselves as desert people did, even though their light but voluminous clothing was stained with mud by day’s end. The women modestly hooded their heads in defiant contrast to the way the Egyptian women brazenly showed their faces to any man. The names of Egyptian gods stopped being uttered in oaths or figures of speech; the Egyptian language was hardly spoken in the brickyards, except when an Egyptian overseer was making his inspection. Even then, Israelites who were probably more educated in Egyptian than their masters pretended not to understand them when they spoke.

  And Miriam saw these things, and rejoiced.

  “It really annoys people to have you go about smiling and telling them you told them so,” Aaron said to her. But she only smiled at him and said, “I don’t rejoice at our suffering. But God will cause us to suffer if that’s what we require to remember him.”

  Now they stood beside each other, with several of the other prominent leaders of the tribe of Levi. No one questioned Miriam’s right to stand among them. They might resent the presence of a woman, but they knew she had foretold all this. They knew that the light of God was in her, and they clung to whatever light they had, even in the form of this most obnoxious and outspoken woman. They looked out over the river, as they had been commanded to do, to watch as Tuthmose’s barge came down the river.

  “It is unseemly,” said one man. “He does not mourn Hatshepsut’s death, but acts as if her dying were a triumph of his own.”

  “He probably killed her,” said another.

  “Keep that thought to yourself in the future, please, unless you want us all killed.”

  “What troubles me,” said Aaron, “is that he particularly wanted us Israelites to line the riverbanks to watch him pass. I’m not sure how much worse our lives could get, but I imagine he’ll find a way.”

  “Not necessarily,” said a man. “If we cheer him enough, perhaps he’ll take pity on us.”

  “Cheer him?” said Aaron. “I think he wants to see us sullen and miserable.”

  “Sullen and miserable would look like proud and stubborn to him,” said Miriam. “But if we cheer, he’ll see that we have lost all pride and are utterly submissive.”

  “So you think we should?” asked Aaron, shocked.

  “I think we should turn our backs to him,” said Miriam. “And I will do exactly that, though I know none of you will have the courage to do it.”

  “Are you mad?” asked a man.

  “The oppression of Egypt is making Israel remember their God.”

  “But if Egypt kills us all, who will be left to remember him then?” demanded another.

  “If we are all gathered around father Abraham, rejoicing, what will we care what happens in Egypt?”

  “She wants to die, Aaron. Please try to constrain her so she doesn’t take the rest of us with her.”

  “I don’t want to die!” said Miriam. “I want to live in freedom, like any of you! But fools that you were, you thought you were free when you were completely ensnared in the ways of the Egyptians. It took slavery to make us all see that Egypt was not beautiful or admirable. It took suffering to show us that the learning of the Egyptians was foolishness compared to the wisdom of the Lord.”

  They seethed, but one of them said what they all knew was true. “You were right, Miriam, all along you were right. We never belonged here. I would to God Jacob had seen Egypt, turned around, and gone home.”

  “No!” cried Miriam. “That was God’s plan as well! We have become a mighty nation here in Egypt. In Canaan among the dozens of tribes, who would we be? Here we have learned all the skills of civilization, and our numbers have increased as we ate the corn of this rich land. We had generations of shelter here, and that was what God wanted for us. If only we had remembered who we were. I tell you that the day is not far off when God will lead us out of Egypt and return us to the land he promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. We’ll carry the bones of father Jacob back to Canaan, and the nation of Israel will rise in that promised land.”

  They heard her reverently, and believed her. “The problem,” said Aaron, “is how to train our men in the use of the sword, without the Egyptians seeing.”

  “The sword!” said Miriam.

  “Keep your voice down,” said Aaron. “Of course the sword. Do you think they’ll let us walk out of here? We have to be ready to fight. We vastly outnumber any army the Egyptians can bring against us, but numbers are nothing if we have only our hands and bodies to thrust onto the swords and spears of the soldiers.”

  “God does not need armies to bring about his will!” said Miriam.

  “The barge is coming!” cried someone farther up the riverbank. The cry was carried downstream by voice after voice. Of course, the same thing had happened all morning, since the cry moved much faster than the barge, and it only meant that somewhere many miles upstream, the barge had been seen. This time, though, it turned out to be true for this place, for there shining in the sun was the great barge of Pharaoh.

  Miriam and Aaron withdrew from the other men. Miriam climbed up onto the highest point she could find—only a few cubits above the level of the river—and pointedly turned her back to the water.

  “Aren’t you even curious to see?” said Aaron.

  “I saw when Moses came down the river in triumph, after his victory at Saba.”

  Aaron’s face grew grave. “We harmed him, pushing him to go out among the people.”

  “He was in God’s hand, not ours,” said Miriam. “We did him nothing but good, helping him remember who he was.”

  “I thought it would be so easy for him to rally the people. But he knew,” said Aaron. “He had actually been a leader of armies, and he knew that it could not be done so easily.”

  “God is doing it.”

  “Yes, we are becoming more unified as we become less capable of doing anything with that unity.”

  Miriam laughed. “Don’t you see that it’s when we’re utterly helpless that we’ll turn to the Lord and he alone, by his power alone, will save us?”

  “An interesting idea, and if it’s ever put to the test I hope you’re right,” said Aaron.

  “I dreamed of Moses last night,” said Miriam.

  “Oh?”

  She knew he did not like hearing her dreams. It annoyed him that the Lord showed her things that were kept hidden from him. Or else it annoyed him that she claimed to see these things, for sometimes he asked her pointed questions as if he thought she made up these dreams. Aaron was a jealous man, and hated the idea that someone else knew things he didn’t know.

  “I dreamed of Moses dressed like a man of the desert, walking among stones. Then a great fire came and swallowed him up. And he came out of the fire all ablaze, but he wasn’t burned. It was as if he had become the sun, and wherever he went there were no shadows, and every corner and crevice of the rocks was illuminated.”

  “No doubt you’re going to tell me what it means.” There it was, that skeptical tone.

  “I would but I don’t know,” said Miriam. “I only know that I dreamed of Moses filled with light, and then today we stand by these dark waters and watch this evil son of Satan come down the river to gloat over us in our captivity and I can’t help but think God was showing me some portion of his plan.”

  “Moses is dead, Miriam,” said Aaron.

  “If God wills it so,” said Miriam.

  “He went out into the desert in the midst of a storm with scarcely any food or water. No one lives through that.”

  “They do if God wills it so.”

  “You and Mother,” said Aaron. “She died believing in him.”

  “In God? Or Moses?”

  “It’s hard to know whom she worshiped more,” said Aaron.

  “So Moses lived in Pharaoh’s house and you never had a chance to be great and famous,” said Miriam. “He’s been gone all these years and I haven’t seen that you suddenly blossomed outside of his shadow.”

  Aaron glared at her. “I was never jealous of Moses.”

  “Self-knowledge can be painful,” said Miriam, “but not half so damaging as self-ignorance.”

  “You don’t know everything,” said Aaron.

  “I don’t have to know everything to know more than you,” she said. “Moses was a great general so you think you have to be a great general, too. But he studied war, and you never did. He had well-trained armies, and you don’t know how to begin training one. Don’t try to become Moses. The only result will be slaughter.”

  “I’m not trying to become Moses! I’m preparing to lead Israel to freedom.”

  “Hear yourself: I’m preparing to lead.”

  “I know we can’t win by the strength of our own arms. God will give us the victory.”

  “God will give us freedom in his own time, in his own way. Instead of making your own foolish plans and then demanding that God fit in with your schedule, why don’t you submit yourself to his will?”

  “I don’t know what his will is!” cried Aaron.

  People turned to look. They lowered their voices.

  “Turn around,” some of them said. “Don’t make trouble for us!”

  But Miriam did not turn around. Quietly she said to Aaron, “If you don’t know what the Lord’s will is, why not try asking?”

  “He doesn’t speak to me.”

  “You don’t speak to him!”

  “I pray all day in my heart,” said Aaron.

  “You never pray. You just complain and make demands.”

  “You don’t know how my heart breaks when I bow before God,” said Aaron.

  Maybe it was true, thought Miriam. “No, I don’t know. I’m sorry. I judge you too harshly, because you’re my brother.”

  “Because I’m the brother who’s still alive,” said Aaron. “That’s what you won’t forgive me for. Wonderful Moses is dead, and all that’s left is Aaron.”

  “Moses wasn’t wonderful,” said Miriam. “He was confused, just as you are, and the Lord has chastened him and brought him low, just as he has done with all of Israel. He does it with all men and women, one way or another—we face our wickedness and weakness. What matters is, do we despair or rage or fight? Do we surrender to our wickedness and fear? Or do we turn to God to put strength and goodness into us?”

  “What you mean is, do we turn to Miriam and let her tell us what to do.”

  His snideness infuriated her. He still had that knack. “I’ve never asked anyone to do what I want,” she said. “But since no one has ever followed my advice, we have no idea whether things might have worked out better, do we?”

  “Moses followed your advice once,” said Aaron.

  “Yes. Your advice, too,” she answered. “We were wrong in every detail, both of us, but we were right about the most important things, and we still are. We’re still on the same side, Aaron. God’s side.”

  “If only he’d tell us where his side is.”

  “It’s not to take swords into our hands,” said Miriam.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes I do! If you led an Israelite army to victory, the temptation would be too great for you. The story would be told that King Aaron won the freedom of the Israelites.”

  “I have no intention of being king of anything!” he snapped.

  “When Israel leaves Egypt,” said Miriam, “it will be in such a way that everyone will say, Look what a miracle has happened here. The Lord God of Israel freed his people from bondage in Egypt.”

  “That’s what we’ll say when we win,” said Aaron. “Our victory will be a miracle.”

  “And thus my brother continues to earn his place at the head of the long line of people who completely ignore me.”

  The people around them were becoming quite agitated. “Turn around! Don’t make trouble! Don’t shame us! Don’t make him angry!”

  Finally hands were laid on Miriam and Aaron both, Miriam to turn her around to face the water, Aaron to keep him from springing to his sister’s defense. Forced now to face the water, Miriam threw back her head and cried out at the top of her voice, “Tuthmose! God sees your wickedness!”

  Thus it was that Miriam watched the passing of Pharaoh imprisoned by many hands, with a rag stuffed in her mouth. But she exulted in the moment, for there she stood, the perfect symbol of her people—bound and silenced, but still defiant. Look at me now and see Israel, ready for the Lord to come and redeem us from captivity.

  * * *

  For Moses, tending sheep had now become second nature. He watched them all without even thinking, herded those that strayed without losing the train of his own thoughts. He could sing softly to them, utter a sharp command, touch one with his staff to get its attention, and through it all his thoughts remained his own.

  The Lord’s call had come, not to Moses directly, but to Jethro; yet Moses did not mind, his pride was not hurt because he had no pride before God. This time, he obeyed, not because he had no choice, but because he had already made the choice. He knew that whatever God required of him, he would give, if not gladly, then at least willingly, for God would not require of him anything which was not intended, in the long run, to bring joy to the children of men. The only problem was how desperately uncomfortable it could be in the short run, to those who obeyed the Lord.

  In his years among the Midianites, Moses had been purged of ambition. All that was left was a heartfelt wish to remain with his family, raising his children, loving his wife, studying the scriptures, ministering to the villagers, and tending the sheep. But he knew that was not what his life pointed to. God did not give him this impossible life in order for him to spend his last years quietly. This call to the mountain meant the end of his peace.

  I will give all you ask of me, Lord, but please, please don’t take from me all that I love.

  Was this what Abraham said, going up the slope of Mount Moriah? Why am I complaining—has God asked me to slay my boy Gershom?