'Michal, what can we do?' I whispered. 'What does it all mean?'
'It means that if thou save not thy life tonight,' was the sage counsel she gave me, 'tomorrow thou shalt be slain.'
It was Michal who concocted most of the elements in the scheme that allowed me to save my skin and who took upon herself most of the burden of implementing them: we laid an image in the bed with a pillow of goat's hair for a bolster and covered it with a blanket, to represent me sleeping; she let me down by a rope through a rear window; in the morning, she would give it out that I was sick when the messengers from Saul came inquiring about my failure to appear from my house as usual. By that time I would be far off, and the lie and the ruse would give me hours more. It was Michal too who, sooner or later, would have to face the music when the deception inevitably was exposed, and justify herself against the ire of her father with the precarious excuse that I had threatened I would kill her. To the questions of why, if she had indeed been in such fear of me, she had not raised a hue and cry the instant I was departed, or had not thrown herself under the protection of the messengers from her father instead of delaying them with fabrications, she could give whatever lame explanation came to mind. Or she could weep or faint. Or both. We put together a shepherd's ration of bread, cheese, dates, olives, and raisins, along with a water bag and another bag of curdled goat's milk. And some fig cakes and pistachio nuts. She took hold of the rope.
'I love you,' she said in a clipped voice. 'I hope you know that.'
I could see that she did, but in the only way she knew how, with acrimony, injury, envy, and disdain, and with consummate selfishness and egocentricity. We kissed goodbye on the sill of the window.
'Do you have your mouthwash?'
I lied and said yes. And out the window I went, like some hairy legged clown in a dirty burlesque. When next we met, I had been king in Hebron for over seven years and she had been given by her father to another man as wife. And neither one of us was that much fond of the other.
It's a wonder to me still that I landed on my feet and escaped in one piece. I headed directly for Ramah to the abode of Samuel, seeking shelter, solace, and wisdom from the one man left in the kingdom who I thought might still have influence over Saul and the strength of character to exercise it in my behalf. It was a waste of energy. What I found instead was a man with frantic woes commensurate with my own who was vexed with me for having added to his.
'What do you want?' was the irascible way he greeted me. 'Why did you have to come here? What are you doing to me?'
With his shaggy hands he was rapidly throwing things into his knapsack, and he seemed to be grumbling in his beard while I did my best to explain. Samuel was just about the crankiest individual I had ever met, and I have not come upon any since to rival him. He was even hairier than I remembered him: his endless black beard, profusely lined now with wiry strands of dingy gray, was, it embarrasses me to reveal, a bit unkempt.
'From me you want wisdom?' he demanded curtly. 'From me you want influence and shelter? Solace I should give you? How should I be the one to tell you what to do?'
'You're a prophet, aren't you?' I shot back.
'When was the last time you heard of me doing any of that?'
'You're also a Judge.'
'When was the last time you heard me judge anything? Listen, even when I was speaking directly for the Lord I wasn't always sure I was telling the truth.'
'You can still give me advice, can't you?'
'You want advice?' spoke Samuel. 'I'll give you a beautiful piece. Go far, far away.'
'From where? From whom?'
'From me, you damned fool,' Samuel sputtered. 'Haven't I got troubles enough? Now he'll think I've been helping you. You had to come here?'
'You had to start the whole thing?'
'Me? What did I start? I started nothing.'
'Did I ask you to anoint me? You came and said I'd be king, didn't you?'
'You want to be king?' Samuel retorted with a snarl. 'Go be king somewhere else, and leave me alone. I've got to run now--thanks to you.'
'To where?'
'Naioth. You think I'm staying here, now that you showed up?' Samuel was squeezing his hands and chanting distractedly. 'Look at me, look at me,' he grieved. 'A Judge, a prophet, yet. I used to be the most powerful man in the country until God told me to turn away from Saul and go to you. Why did I have to listen to Him?'
'Why did you have to make Saul king?'
'I made Saul king?' Samuel shook his head vehemently. 'Oh, no, sir, mister. Not me. God made Saul king. I just delivered the message. None of it was my idea. It was the people who wanted a king, not me. They weren't satisfied with just me, with just a Judge. They want a king, make them a king, said God. He told me pick Saul, I picked Saul. Who would have guessed that He'd pick such a meshugana?'
'Are you sure He told you later to pick me?'
'What then? I'd choose you myself?'
'You made no mistake?'
'God makes mistakes, not Judges. You w'ant the truth? If it was up to me, I would have chosen your brother Eliab, or Abinadab, or even Shammah-- they're bigger than you. And they were born first. But the Lord told me to look not on the outward appearance or the countenance. The Lord looketh on the heart, He told me. Sure--the heart, He told me. And He saw something special in yours. What it is I cannot guess. Do me a favor and give me a clue.'
'A lot of good He's done me,' I sulked. 'I can't even go back to Bethlehem--that's the first place Saul will look.'
'Here is the first place he'll look when he learns you didn't go back into Judah,' Samuel reproved me bitterly. The only prophecy Samuel would make was that Saul would go wild when he heard I'd come to Ramah to him. 'That's why I'm going to Naioth, fast.'
'Naioth?' I complained some more. 'There's nothing to do in Naioth. Now I have to run to Naioth with you.'
'With me?' Samuel's words were a cry of alarm. 'Oh, no, mister, not with me. Run somewhere else and leave me alone. I know trouble when I see it. Goodbye, goodbye, parting is such sweet sorrow, but not from you.'
I let him know I was sticking to him like glue. Where else could I go? How we squabbled from the beginning! He insisted on taking his cow.
'She brings me good luck,' he explained.
'She'll slow us down,' I objected.
'Who tells you to wait?' he wanted to know.
'And why go to Naioth?'
'Who asks you to come?'
If consolation was my goal, I was not going to obtain it from him.
Samuel was accurate in his prediction about Saul, who lost no time sending messengers to Naioth to take me once it was told him where his bird had flown. His men never got there; strangely, they fell to prophesying along the way. When that same thing came to pass with a second contingent, Saul set out to take me himself. Then the unforeseen occurred again. You wouldn't believe what happened. I had given up. Samuel and his cow would go no farther. Just as I was practically in his grasp. Saul was irresistibly possessed for the second time in his life with the need to prophesy.
It began at a great well in Sechu, where he learned by inquiring that we were still in Naioth. And as he went thither to Naioth, behold, as had befallen the men he had sent earlier to seize me, the spirit of God was upon him also, just like that, and he began to prophesy. And he went on and on and prophesied all the way into Naioth until he came to Samuel, and guess what he did then? He stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all the rest of that day and, as it turned out, all that night. Wherefore, it could again be seen and said that Saul also was among the prophets. This time, though, I saw it with my own eyes.
'It's a miracle,' I said in a hushed voice when Samuel and I were again by ourselves.
'Don't bet on it.' We spoke on the ground by torchlight. He was sweating from exhaustion. 'At least now I have a little room to breathe.'
'How long will it last?'
'He'll lie until morning, probably,' Sa
muel answered. 'Then maybe, if we're lucky, he'll go back home to pull himself together, until something else comes up to make him crazy again. What more can I tell you? Saul is miserable, murderous, and unstable. Saul is the unhappiest person I know--except, maybe, for me.'
'Samuel,' I proposed, with the germ of an idea stirring, 'you can help him, you can help all of us. Let Saul be king again.'
'Let Saul be king again?' Samuel echoed with disdain. 'How can Saul be king again? You're the king.'
'Does Saul know that?'
'Why do you think he wants to kill you? Why do you question me?'
'Why do I question you?' I repeated, amazed. The scruffy old goat was totally without imagination. 'Because I'm living in a fucking ditch, that's why. I have no home in Gibeah anymore, I can't be with my wife, and every Monday and Thursday I find myself dodging javelins from Saul. You call this being king? What the hell good is it?'
'You'll be king, you'll be king,' Samuel muttered without conviction. 'Why worry, what's your hurry? Bide your time. Rome wasn't built in a day.'
'From a Judge like you I don't need banalities like that,' I let him know. 'Saul is mad.'
'You're telling me? Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.'
'A lot of good that does me. I'm tired of waiting. I live like a bum.'
'What's the big rush? It's the mills of the gods.'
'What about them?'
'The mills of the gods grind slowly,' he told me, 'yet they grind exceedingly fine.'
'And what am I supposed to do while they're grinding?'
Now it was Samuel's turn to blow up. 'What do I care what you do?' he shouted. 'Bang your head against the wall. Go shit in the ocean. You can grow like an onion with your head in the ground and your feet in the air, for all I care.'
We each spent a minute calming down. With long-nailed yellow fingers, Samuel peevishly picked bits of food, foliage, and other refuse from the dangling knots of hair falling down on his shoulders and his chest. I gave him a drink from my bag of water and he thanked me grumpily. I gave him pistachio nuts.
'Samuel, Samuel,' I implored diplomatically. 'Let us try to reason together.'
'I used to be the most powerful man in the country,' he reminisced again. 'I should have stuck with Saul, no matter what I thought God said He wanted.'
'Then let Saul be king again,' I advised, 'at least until the mills of the gods finish grinding. Go tell him. How can it hurt us?'
'It isn't true,' Samuel answered.
'Does he have to know? Let him think he's king. Ask God if it's all right.'
Unintentionally, I had touched another nerve; Samuel looked hurt for a second but answered gently. 'Don't you think I've done that? You think I'm dumb or something? Of course I asked God.'
'Did God say yes?'
'He didn't say no,' Samuel retorted, and then went on more candidly. 'He didn't say anything. God answereth me no more,' he confessed, in a voice weak with humiliation.
'Not you either?' I exclaimed. 'Saul told me the same thing about himself. What the devil is wrong with God these days?'
Samuel shrugged. 'Do I know?'
'Maybe,' I hypothesized, venturing forth again into the same uncharted intellectual territory which I had once started incautiously to explore with Saul, 'God is dead.'
Samuel's reply was terse. 'God can be dead?'
'God can't be dead? '
'If He's God, He can't be dead, stupid,' Samuel instructed me. 'If He's dead, He can't be God. It's someone else. Enough of your foolishness. '
'Then let's ask Him again,' I proposed eagerly. 'They say He likes me. Come on, Samuel. Try another sacrifice.'
'Why waste a cow? '
'Then do it without the sacrifice,' I persisted. 'It doesn't hurt to ask, does it? See if Saul can be king. '
'King-schming,' Samuel intoned.
I found his message incomprehensible. 'I don't think I understand that.'
'It's a saying.'
'An old saying?'
My question irritated him. 'How old can it be, you dummy? Isn't Saul our first king? Listen, you think I didn't ask enough times already? I asked and I asked. You think we have no feeling for Saul, God and me? No love? We pity him, repent for him, feel mercy toward him. God even chastised me once for mourning for Saul too long. That was just before He ordered me to fill my horn with oil and go find you. What a sad day that was. You've no idea how I hate the sight of you. I was much better off with Saul. All Saul did was disobey me once. I'm sorry I lost my temper and said those mean things to him. '
'Then go back to him and apologize,' I advised, nobly allowing his gratuitously insulting comments to pass without objection. 'Tell him you made a mistake.'
Samuel drew himself up frigidly. 'I should tell him I made a mistake?'
'Then tell him God did. '
'That's more like it,' Samuel agreed. 'Saul would believe that. But the Lord is not a man that He should ever repent.'
'But you can do it all on your own,' I coaxed. 'Tell Saul you decided to give him another chance. You told me he's miserable. Let him feel good again for a while.'
Samuel spoke with wicked relish. 'Let him twist slowly,' he said, his eyes smoldering, 'slowly in the wind.'
For the moment I was speechless. 'I thought you loved Saul,' I finally exclaimed. 'You said that you and God had pity and compassion for him and that you wanted to be merciful toward him.'
'That's the way we show it.'
Samuel went back to Ramah, where it was his good fortune to die before Saul got around to killing him too after slaughtering the priests at Nob and discovering through trial and error that people in high position get away with murder.
Like a dog returning to its vomit, or a fool repeating his folly, I found myself journeying back to Gibeah, even though alerted by common sense that a lion could be awaiting me there in the streets. I walked on high winding paths deserted after dark, skirting the main ways through the villages in between, lest there be a lion in the streets of one of those too. I moped all the way. I came back toward Saul as though hypnotized, drawn by my wistful need to re-establish myself in the good graces of the man on earth who had made a deeper impression on me than any other--even though I now understood him to be mad and homicidal and even, perhaps, stupid and boring. I felt he was my father, my patron still, and I wanted to be near him no matter what. Believe it or not, I even wanted to be back with Michal. He was the only being I had ever succeeded in loving as a parent; his, for better or for worse, was the only house in which I had ever felt myself at home. Had Saul been just a bit more fatherly to me, I would have worshipped him as a god. Had God ever been the least bit paternal, I might have loved Him like a father. Even when God has been good to me it has not been with much kindness.
At the same time, I will admit that the notion of my succeeding Saul as king had never been entirely obnoxious to me or out of my daydreams for long.
My head told me that this final endeavor to reinstate myself with Saul would prove hopeless. My heart told me I was exiled forever from the only nest in which I could ever dwell without feeling myself estranged and adrift, disconnected from my own past, and with no strong sense of attachment to my future. I was nevertheless compelled to try, despite my foreknowledge of futility, which weighed in my breast like an anvil. I was much less stiff-necked with Saul than I have been with God. I knew he was crazy; yet I wanted to win his devotion and forgiveness. I would want to try again even now if he were still alive. I can't bear feeling alone. I never could.
Entering Gibeah after sundown, I conferred with Jonathan in secrecy, wretchedly craving to glean from him, the king's oldest son, even the dimmest ray of hope. What I obtained instead was a befuddling surprise.
'Jonathan, please help me,' I begged at the beginning, trusting no one fully, not even him. We conversed in a wooded corner of that same oblong field of moldering stalks of scythed wheat in which Saul and I had talked so familiarly on that magical moonlit night. Again the balmy air blowi
ng in from the distant sea was caressing in texture and laden with the intoxicating fragrances of plums and melons and of blue grapes in the winepresses. 'You can talk to him again for me. Observe him closely at dinner tomorrow night. Find out if he has forgiven me or if he still means to kill me. Then come and tell me.'
'You can observe him yourself,' was the answer with which Jonathan caught me unprepared. 'You're expected at dinner tomorrow.'
'That's insane!' I cried, suspecting a trick.
It was that time of month again when the moon was new, and I learned from Jonathan that I was expected to sit with the king at meat in the evening as in normal times, positively without fail. What kind of nonsense was that, I wanted to know. I was highly indignant. Wasn't I a fugitive? It was as though nothing at all untoward had occurred, as though Saul had not tried to smite me even to the wall with his javelin, sent minions to my house to slay me, ordered messengers to Naioth to seize me, and even come after me himself for the pleasure of apprehending me and ordering my death on the spot. What the hell was going on? Was all of that forgotten, did it count for nothing? Apparently yes, for a place would be set for me at the king's table the night following, and my failure to appear would be judged insubordinate. I felt myself enmeshed in absurdity. How did they even know I was there? With a logic that appeared irrefutable to him, Jonathan proposed that inasmuch as the king was not then pursuing me, I had no good reason to avoid him and was without legitimate cause for flight or truancy.
I wasn't buying it. 'They commissioned you to bring me?'
'There was no talk of that,' answered Jonathan. 'But as long as you're here, you can come tomorrow. You will come with me.'
They all must be crazy. 'Why shouldest thou bring me to thy father?' I pleaded with Jonathan. 'I know he still means to slay me.'
'I can't believe that.'
'Then you find out for me. What have I done? You ask him. What is mine iniquity, and what is my sin that he seeketh my life?'
Jonathan was disposed toward a rosier view. 'Behold, my father will do nothing either great or small, but that he will show it to me. Why should he hide this thing from me?'
'Jonathan, your father isn't that wild about you, remember?' I answered. 'Thy father certainly knoweth by now that I have found grace in thy eyes. You go about telling that to everybody. Perhaps he does not want you to grieve, or is afraid you might talk secretly with me, as we are doing now. What made him think I would even be back here after all that has taken place? He sent murderers to my house to kill me.'