He gave me a perplexed look. Then, after reflecting a moment, he answered, “Like a father who loves his children.”
“Shame on you!” I cried. “Here, on the top of Mount Sinai, do you dare talk in such a way about God? Haven’t you read the Scriptures? The Lord God is ‘a consuming fire’!”
“Why do you tell me that?”
“So you’ll let Him burn all this—the past. Follow God’s fire, Pachomios, and do not collect the ashes.”
“Listen to my advice and stop working yourself up about the nature of God,” said Father Agapios, finally parting his lips. “Don’t touch fire, you’ll be burned. Don’t desire to see God, you’ll be blinded.”
Opening the sack which he was carrying on his back, he brought out a brace of roast doves, two lobsters, some walnuts and dates, a wooden jug filled with date raki, and a large loaf of whole-wheat bread.
“Dinner is served!”
Suddenly we realized how hungry we were. We set the food out on a stone bench at the spot where Moses’ footprint, so it was said, could still be seen: a depression resembling the coffin of a small child. Forgetting the kissing doves, the ones of stone, Pachomios gave himself over to the roast doves with voracious appetite. Seldom have I seen a man put eyes, hands, and teeth into operation with such rapacity. He even took the tiny bones that remained, piled them in front of him, and began to lick them.
“The doves have come to life, Father Pachomios,” I said with a laugh. “Go into the chapel and you’ll see that they aren’t there any more.”
“Why laugh?” said Pachomios. “Everything is possible.”
“Yes, and if the Holy Spirit was a dove, you’d eat Him too!” exclaimed Agapios, who did not care at all for the other’s gluttony. Crossing himself, he gazed out over the desert and sighed.
“Why do you sigh, Father Agapios?” I inquired, longing to learn more about this strict monk who, despite his age, had climbed the mountain with such agility.
“How can I not sigh, my child,” he replied, “when my hands, my feet—and my heart—are covered with mud? The hour is finally come when I must present myself before God—with what hands, what feet, what face? My hands are all bloody, my feet filled with mud. Who is going to cleanse them for me?”
“Christ will do it, Father Agapios,” said Pachomios in order to comfort him. “Otherwise, why did He descend to earth? You should say to Him, ‘Christ, here are my hands, here are my feet—wash them!’”
I laughed. Was this then God’s work, to wash our feet?
Pachomios was offended. “Why do you laugh?” he demanded.
“With your permission, Father Pachomios,” I replied, “I shall answer you with a parable. Once upon a time, in Arabia, there lived a king who was very, very cunning. Each morning he gathered his slaves together before dawn and did not permit them to begin work until he had commanded the sun to rise. One day a hoary sage went up to him and said, ‘Don’t you know that the sun does not await your command?’ ‘I know, I know, old master. But tell me, what kind of a god would we have if he could not become my instrument?’ . . . Do you understand now, Father Pachomios?”
But while I was speaking, Pachomios had discovered a tiny bone with some lean meat on it. He gnawed away and did not answer.
I turned to Agapios in order the change the subject.
“How did you become a monk, Father Agapios?”
“How did I become a monk? It was not my wish, it was God’s. When I reached the age of twenty, I was seized by a great yearning to don the robe. But the devil put obstacles in my path. What obstacles? you will ask. Well, just this: my affairs were going well, I was making money. And what does making money mean? It means forgetting God. I was a contractor; I built bridges, houses, roads, earned money hand over fist. As soon as I lose my money, I kept telling myself, I’ll go and become a monk. God took pity on me. I played the stock market and lost my shirt. The Lord be praised, I said. I cut the cord and left. You know how they cut the cord on a dirigible and it rises to heaven? That’s exactly how I left the world.”
His pale face turned red. He remembered that he had saved himself from the world, and felt happy.
“So I came here. I had no idea where to go; God—infinite is His grace!—took me by the hand and brought me here. I came, but I was still young and hardy. Don’t look at me now; I’ve grown old, have melted away, shriveled up like a raisin. In those days the blood was still boiling inside me. I couldn’t sit with folded arms and do nothing. Praying gave me no relief, so I began to work. I built roads. All the roads we’ve come over are mine. Building roads is my assigned task here; that’s what I was born for. If I go to heaven, it will be by the roads I build.”
Wishing to ridicule his hopes, he laughed. “Pff! Heaven! Is that the way a man gets into heaven?”
Pachomios, soporific from overeating, had fallen half asleep, wrapped in a heavy blanket. He heard Agapios’s last words and opened his eyes.
“You’ll get in, Agapios,” he said in a sweet voice, “you’ll get in. . . . No need to worry.”
Agapios chuckled. “You, to be sure, have everything just fine. No fear at all. You hold your brush and colors, paint paradise, and in you go. But what about me? With me, whew! it’s build, build, build from out to out! I have to construct a road right to heaven’s very gates or else I don’t get in. Each with his own achievements.”
He turned to me. “And what about you?”
“Me? I’m already in. In my mind I see heaven as a high mountain with a tiny chapel on the summit. And outside the chapel a stone bench, and on this bench a jug of date raki, two roast doves, some walnuts and dates; and two fine people as my companions, and all of us talking about paradise.”
But Pachomios was shivering. Wrapping himself still more tightly in his blanket, he rose. His lips had turned blue. He bent over, picked up the jug, and drank the little raki that remained.
“For God’s sake let’s go back. We’ll freeze to death here.” Saying this he began the descent.
That night, alone in my cell, I began to leaf through the Old Testament, keeping the vision of the desert deeply in my mind. Surely the desert is inhabited by no one, only by One, and this One neither forgives, smiles, nor pities. Panic is not the desert’s potentate, nor is thirst, hunger, or exhaustion; nor any famished lion; nor death. God is.
As I perused the Old Testament, that bush that burned with fire and was not consumed, I imagined I was re-entering the frightening ravine which Jehovah carved out between the mountains in order to pass through. The Bible seemed to me like a many-peaked mountain range where the howling prophets, bound with cords, wrapped in tattered rags, were descending.
And while I was bent over the Bible, leaping from peak to peak as I turned its pages, I remembered the girl who once spoke to me so feelingly about the ruddy adolescent “of a beautiful countenance” whom God selected to be king despite the objections of men. The hoary prophet Samuel, who resisted and was twirled about in God’s hands, filled my heart with distress. In order to soothe it, I got some paper and began to write. Such was the cowardly means to which I had already learned to stoop in order to exorcise my sorrows.
• • •
“Samuel!”
The hoary prophet with his leather girdle and patchwork tatters was gazing down at the city; he did not hear the Lord’s cry. The sun stood a spar’s length above the horizon. Sinful Gilgal was buzzing far below, wedged between the red rocks of Carmel with its sword-straight palms and thorny, fully ripened wild figs.
“Samuel!” God’s voice rang out once more. “You have grown old, Samuel, my faithful servant. Can’t you hear me?”
Samuel quivered. His thick eyebrows blended in wrath, his long forked beard blustered violently, his ears echoed like conches. The malediction whinnied in his entrails like an unbridled mare.
“My curse,” he bellowed, extending his emaciated arm over the city which was laughing, singing, buzzing like a wasp’s nest, “my curse upon all who laugh, upon t
he unlawful sacrifices which blur the face of heaven, upon the woman who beats her clogs against the cobblestones!
“Lord, Lord, have the thunderbolts in your palm of bronze been extinguished? You blew the sacred malady down upon the holy body of our king and he falls to the ground, foaming like a snail, puffing like a turtle. Why? Why? What did he do to you? I ask you—answer me! Loose a pestilence, then, on all men if you are just; pluck men’s sperm out of their loins and squash it against the stones!”
“Samuel!” thundered the Lord a third time. “Be quiet, Samuel, and listen to my voice!”
The prophet’s body began to tremble. And as he leaned for support against the bloody rock where the Almighty’s victims were slaughtered, he heard all three of God’s cries together. Lifting his arms high, he called, “I am here, Lord.”
“Samuel, fill your pitcher with prophetic oil and go to Bethlehem.”
“But Bethlehem is far away. A century’s beating against the earth in your service has made my feet turn to rot. Mount someone else, Lord; I am no longer able.”
“I’m not speaking to the flesh. That I detest and do not touch. I am speaking to Samuel!”
“Speak, Lord. I am here.”
“Samuel, fill your pitcher with prophetic oil and go to Bethlehem. Without opening your mouth, without allowing anyone to accompany you, knock on Jesse’s door.”
“I have never been to Bethlehem. How shall I know which is Jesse’s door?”
“I have marked it with a fingerprint made of blood. Knock on Jesse’s door. Of his seven sons, choose one.”
“Which one, Lord? My eyes have grown dim; I cannot see well.”
“The moment you face him, your heart will bellow like a calf. That is the one you should choose. Push apart his hair, find the very top of his head, and anoint him King of Israel. . . . I have spoken!”
“But Saul will find out. On my return he’ll lay a trap for me and kill me.”
“What do I care? I have never valued the lives of my servants. Be gone!”
“No, I refuse!”
“Wipe the sweat forn your face, Samuel. Steady your jaws so they stop rattling, and speak to me, to the Lord. You are gibbering, Samuel. Speak clearly!”
“I am not gibbering. I said, I refuse to go.”
“Speak more softly. You are screaming, as though from fear. Why do you refuse to go? I trust Samuel will condescend to answer me. Are you afraid?”
“No, I am not afraid. Love keeps me from going. It was I who anointed Saul King of Israel. I loved him more than my own sons. I blew my soul between his pale lips; it was the spirit of prophecy, my spirit, that made him illustrious. He is my body and soul; I will not betray him!”
“Why do you fall silent? Is Samuel’s heart emptied so soon?”
“Lord, you are almighty. Do not play with me. Kill me! You have no other choice—kill me!”
Samuel’s eyes filled with blood. Clutching the rock, he waited.
“Kill me!” his heart bellowed once more inside him. “Kill me!”
“Samuel . . .” The Lord’s voice was tender now; it seemed to be entreating him.
But the hoary prophet grew wilder and wilder.
“Kill me! Kill me! You have no other choice.”
No answer. Midday passed; the sun declined. A swarthy barefooted boy appeared. He ascended the path and approached the prophet in terror, as though nearing the edge of a cliff. Placing the prophet’s meal of dates, honey, bread, and a crock of water at the base of the rock, he left hastily with bated breath, descended to the city, and slipped into his family’s mean cottage. His mother leaned over and hugged him.
“Still?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Still?”
“Yes,” replied the boy. “Still battling with the Lord.”
The sun fell behind the mountain. The evening star came to hover above the sinful city like a seed of fire. A pale woman saw it from behind her jalousie and cried out, “It is going to fall now and burn up the world!”
The stars flowed playfully, sparklingly over the prophet’s long locks, revolving with obedience on an invisible wheel. While he stood in their midst trembling, they pushed into his hair and beat against his temples like bulky hailstones.
“Lord . . . Lord . . .” he whispered toward daybreak. More than this he could not utter.
He took down the jug, filled it with prophetic oil, clutched his gnarled staff, and began the descent. His feet had sprouted wings; the dewdrops on his white beard were twinkling like stars. Two children playing on the doorstep of the first house scampered off the moment they were confronted with the prophet’s patchwork tatters and green turban.
“He is coming, he is coming,” they began to shout.
The dogs huddled in corners with their tails between their legs, a heifer lowed, dragging her neck along the ground, and a vehement gust of wind swept through the city from one end to the other. Doors were closed; mothers called their children and brought them in from the streets. Beating his staff against the stones, Samuel marched with huge strides in order to pass through. “I feel like a war hanging over men’s heads,” he murmured, “like a plague, like the Lord!”
Two shepherds with long crooks appeared on the path. As soon as they saw the prophet, they prostrated themselves on the ground.
“Command me to smash in their skulls, Lord. Speak to my heart; I am ready.”
But no voice came to unsettle his mind, and he passed by, uttering heavy imprecations against the seed of man.
The sun was broiling; the dust beneath his feet rose and wrapped itself around him like a cloud. Feeling sudden thirst, he cried out, “Lord, give me something to drink.”
“Drink!” replied a quiet voice next to him, a voice like babbling water.
Turning, he saw water dripping from a fissure in a ledge and accumulating in a hollow. He bent down, pushed apart his whiskers, and placed his mouth upon the water. The coolness descended to his heels, and his ancient bones creaked.
He resumed his march. The sun went down. He reclined against the base of a palm tree, put his right hand beneath his cheek, and fell asleep. The jackals gathered around him. Catching his scent, they fled in terror. The stars suspended themselves over him like swords. He awoke at dawn and set out once more. On the third day the plain appeared through a pass in the mountains, the River Jordan sparkling in its center like a sated, slow-moving serpent with green scales. Three additional days passed, and then suddenly the houses of Bethlehem gleamed snow-white behind the date trees.
A flock of doves passed over the prophet’s head, hesitated for a moment, and all at once darted forward in terror toward the town.
At the large northern gate, with its oppressive stench of Hocks, and its lepers and blind men begging for bread, the elders stood awaiting the prophet. Trembling, they mumbled among themselves.
“Leprosy will fall upon our village! God descends to earth only to ravage His creatures.”
Steeling his heart, the oldest among them stepped forward one pace. “I shall speak to him,” he said.
The prophet arrived in his cloud of dust, his rags Happing like a tattered war banner.
“What do you bring us, peace or slaughter?”
“Peace,” replied the prophet, stretching forth his hands. “Go to your homes; empty the streets. I want to pass through by myself.”
The streets were emptied, doors bolted. Striding into the village, Samuel inspected all the doors closely, running his fingers over them. At the very edge of the village, the very last house, he descried the fingerprint in blood. He knocked. The entire house shook, and old Jesse rose in terror to open the door.
“Peace unto your house, Jesse, health to your seven sons, and may your daughters-in-law bear male children. The Lord be with you!”
“His will be done!” answered Jesse, his lower jaw trembling.
A man appeared, filling the doorway. Samuel turned, and when he saw him, his eyes were pleased. The man was a giant with curly black hair, a broad hairy ches
t and legs as solid as columns of bronze.
“This is my eldest son, Eliab,” said Jesse proudly.
Samuel said nothing; he was waiting for his heart to bellow. This must be the one, his mind kept saying. Surely this must be the one. Why don’t you speak, Lord?
He waited a long time. But suddenly the terrible voice burst forth within him: “Why this grumbling? Your soul fancied him, did it? Well, I don’t want him. I don’t want him. I examine the heart, delve into the loins, weigh the marrow in the bones. . . . I don’t want him!”
“Bring your second son,” commanded Samuel. His lips had turned pale.
The second son came, but the prophet’s heart remained mute, his viscera immobile.
“It’s not him! Not him! Not him!” he kept bellowing as one by one he rejected six of the sons, riveting his eyes on their foreheads, eyebrows, mouths, investigating their backs, knees, midsections, and teeth as though they were rams.
Completely exhausted, he collapsed in a heap on the threshold.
“You have deceived me, Lord,” he cried out in agony. “You are always crafty, always merciless; you do not pity mankind. Appear! It is I, Samuel, who call you. . . . Why don’t you speak?”
Jesse, troubled, came up to him.
“There is still David, my youngest” he said. “He is tending the sheep.”
“Have him called!”
“Eliab,” said the father, “go and call your brother.”
Eliab knit his brows, and the frightened father addressed his second son: “Abinadab, go and call your brother.”
But this one refused also. They all refused.
Samuel rose from the threshold. “Open the gate. I’ll go myself.”
“Shall I describe his appearance so you can recognize him?” asked the old man.