'If he be alone,' I reasoned out loud about the messenger hastening to us, 'there is tidings in his mouth.' Then the watchman called down that he saw a second man. There was tidings in his mouth too, I guessed, and it could not be tidings of defeat or they would be coming in droves. Next the watchman called down that he thought the running of the foremost was like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok, and I let out a great cry of relief when I heard that.
'Then the news must be good!' I exclaimed with joy. 'For Ahimaaz is a good man, and would cometh to me only with good tidings.'
And even as I saw him approach, his jubilant manner seemed to confirm my optimistic expectations, for Ahimaaz was calling out to me, with his head thrown back and his slender leaf-brown chest heaving, saying, 'All is well, all is well.'
'All is well?'
To me that seemed the most blessed of miracles: there was a God, and He answered prayers. All I'd wished for from the depths of my being had somehow come to pass: victory was mine and Absalom was yet alive! My limbs were quivering, my eyes overflowed with tears. I was laughing in an incoherence of hysteria. I wanted to catch this very dear boy by the cheeks and embrace him even as he came stumbling to a halt where I stood and threw himself to his knees to the earth on his face to bow before me.
'Blessed be the Lord thy God,' Ahimaaz proclaimed, gulping air, when I had bid him arise, 'which hath delivered up the men that lifted up their hand against my lord the king. They are dead and they are scattered.'
'Is the young man Absalom safe?' L wanted to know. That was all I wanted to know.
I saw his jaw drop. I watched him turn white as a ghost, and I felt my breath catch. He glanced off to the right with an expression of guilt, then began with a stammer, and I knew intuitively that whatever reply he was going to give me would not be a candid one. 'When Joab sent me,' he said, 'I saw a great tumult, but I knew not what it was.'
I ordered him aside with uncontrollable dread, to clear a path for the next runner, who was just then pounding up to the gate, and hurried forward to hear him. I almost could not restrain myself from speaking first, from interrupting him even before he began.
Tidings, my lord the king,' the runner-Cushi cried out to me breathlessly, his lungs wheezing, 'for the Lord hath avenged thee this day of all them that rose up against thee.'
And I screamed into his face, 'Is the young man Absalom safe?' I wanted to seize him in my fists and shake the reply out of him faster.
And this foreigner from Ethiopia, who was not too familiar with our incomprehensible, sentimental ways, responded heartily, The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is.'
I was too much moved to say more. I turned away, already sobbing, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept, and even as I went up, I heard myself weeping more and more loudly, and soon I was crying out at the top of my voice, and I heard myself wailing, 'O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!'
And I did not stop.
I wept inconsolably. I could not stop. I did not want to stop. I did not care if I never stopped. If felt so much easier to continue weeping than even to think about ever, ever doing anything else.
I was oblivious to everything else, and had forgotten in my grief that by the fact of my grief I was demeaning those who had fought for me and that I was turning our victory of that day into an occasion of tragic sorrow. All in the city heard how I lamented for the death of my son in that unlit chamber above the gate and would not stop.
'O my son, my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!'
And my soldiers, streaming back from the battle, got themselves by stealth into the city, as though returning in ignominy, as people being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. All passing through the way of the gate could hear me while they were not yet near, for it was with a raised voice that I wept, that I held my head with my hands and cried, 'O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!'
And I wept and I wailed all the louder each time I felt the pain of my sorrow abate and the desire to cease weeping begin to take hold in me. I was deaf and unmindful of all but my misery until from below, hours later, I heard someone say clearly:
'He's still at it?'
And I recognized the voice of Joab.
'He will not stop.'
They had sent into the field to Joab to tell him how I was weeping and mourning for Absalom. To those at the door I had given instructions to bar everyone. Joab shouldered right in anyway, and, without a syllable of condolence or a second of silence for compassion, said to me brusquely, 'David, it's enough already. Cut it out.'
'My son, Joab. My son Absalom, O my son--'
'You're making a spectacle of yourself.'
'You don't understand.' I tried to explain. 'I lost my son, my son Absalom.'
'You don't understand,' he cut me off without pity. 'You're losing an army. Your men are ashamed.' He thrust his face very close to mine. 'Yes, you are making your men ashamed, ashamed of themselves and ashamed of you.'
'Ashamed?'
'This day thou hast shamed the faces of all thy servants,' he reprimanded me roughly, his mouth twisted into a sneer, 'who this day have saved thy life, and the lives of thy sons and daughters, and the lives of thy wives, and the lives of thy concubines. And now you do insult them. You treat them as one treats people who are foul, and guilty of deeds that are evil. '
His harsh manner and fantastic allegation brought me up short. I didn't know what he was talking about and stopped my sniveling long enough to find out. I wiped my grimy tears from my eyes and cheeks and the snot from my nose.
'How, ' I addressed him weakly, 'have I done that? '
'In that this day, ' said Joab, at no loss for a reply, 'thou hast shown that thou lovest thine enemies and hatest thy friends, that thou hast no regard for thy princes or servants. For this day I perceive that if Absalom had lived and all of us had died this day, then it had pleased thee more. You would not have carried on for any or all of us as you do for him, would you?'
In craven admission I answered him weepily. 'No. '
'Let's keep that our secret,' said Joab, speaking in a more moderate voice.
'He was my son, Joab. He is dead. '
'He would have killed us both, David. Have you forgotten? Didn't they tell you how his face grew bright and how ready he was to agree when Ahitophel talked of smiting you?'
'How did it happen? I didn't ask before. Tell me how it happened.' I was more in control of myself now.
'Following your strategy, we slowly advanced in three parts, with a large space between, and waited to see how they would choose to attack. '
'How he died, I mean, ' I broke in. 'Tell me how he died.'
No sooner did he begin than I regretted I'd asked and was imploring him to stop. But he proceeded with a sadistic relish he made no effort to disguise or temper, telling me in painstaking particulars of the death of my son, of the mule and the oak and the darts from his hand, and of the pit in the wood and the very great heap of stones piled upon the hacked and mangled remains, until I was squeezing my eyes shut and was near to whimpering.
'Yes, ten young men bearing my armor compassed about and smote Absalom and slew him and took him down from the oak and cast him into that great pit in the wood.'
'Please,' I begged. 'No more, no more. Have a heart. Show mercy. Take pity.'
'When you wash,' said Joab, 'and dress and go outside and congratulate the men who fought for you, and who were ready to die. Was this a bad thing that they did for you this day that you will not let them see your face? Give them the reward they've earned, of allowing them to cheer you and celebrate.'
'Celebrate?' I said ruefully.
'Oh, David, David, you schvantz--'
'The death of my son?'
'--you selfish teivel, you naar. When will you learn to be a king? Have you forgotten you won a battle today, that you have a country to rule? We are
n't popular, David, not as much as we are tempted to believe. Doesn't this rebellion show you? We've never been popular in the north, and it turns out Absalom was better liked in Judah too. Oh, David, David--Uncle, Uncle--why were you too blind to see in him the same cunning deceptions you used for yourself when you were trying to win the hearts of the people from Saul? Sending him out to mollify malcontents--all he had to do was wring his hands and cluck his tongue, and he had another adherent against you. He didn't even have to kill a Philistine.'
'Why didn't you warn me?'
'Would you have listened?'
'Joab, tell me this. I have wondered. Why didn't you turn to Absalom's side?'
'He was going to lose.'
'How could you know?'
'We had the experience.'
'You would have given him experience.'
'I am loyal to you.'
'Why were you loyal?'
'I'm used to you. We know each other.'
That's all?'
'With Absalom there would have been arguments. He had respect for nobody. There is room for only one ruler.'
'Who will be ruler in Jerusalem now?'
'You can be ruler,' said Joab. 'But I am the straw that stirs the drink. You can make the laws, as long as I am the one with the authority and strength to enforce them. Absalom would have wanted both--he had too much youthful energy--and then there would have been no need for laws.'
'Joab, why did you kill him?' Like a dog returning to his vomit, I steeled myself. I had to ask. 'We had already won. Why did you have to kill my son?'
'Did you want to be the one to do it?' he answered.
'Was there no other punishment?'
'Give me an example.'
'It's a hard dilemma, isn't it?' I reflected.
'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,' Joab replied phlegmatically.
'Saul used to say that a lot.'
That's one of the reasons I'm content to let you wear it,' said Joab, and smiled. 'David, David, wake up. This was a war we had today, not a family quarrel.'
To me,' I told him honestly, 'it was a family quarrel.'
Then keep that our secret too,' Joab said. 'Or rebellions will sprout everywhere, and you won't have a soldier left to help you put them down.'
'Joab, my son, my son Absalom--'
'Don't start that again.'
'Have you no feeling?'
'Let me tell you a story,' he answered. 'I swear by the Lord that if you do not get up now, and wash, and put on a clean robe, and go forth with a cheerful countenance for the people to see you, there will not tarry a single one with thee this night. You will have no army left. And what will follow will be an evil worse to thee than all the evil that befell thee from thy youth until now.'
'Worse than the day of the death of my son? At the hands of my own soldiers?'
'It's only a life,' said Joab almost idly. 'What in the world are you making such a fuss about?'
'My son's too?'
'What then? From that bowl, millions of bubbles like us He has poured, and will pour.'
'Can we still be friends?' To his perfect and inimitable logic, I could find no better response at that moment, and I confess I have not been able to find one since.
'If you arise now, go forth, and speak comfortably to those who have served you,' Joab dickered.
The rest was silence. I did as he enjoined me, washing, combing, dressing in clean clothes, and sitting in the gate for all the people to behold and come before me, and it was all so much easier to go through than I had feared. Is it any wonder I hated him? And hate him still?
At sundown, with the lugubrious dirge from the ram's horn, we conducted our small private services for the dead. The priest said Kaddish. Nathan put his pontifical two cents in by mentioning, not for the first time, that we are all us of the dust and all things that are of the earth shall turn to the earth again and that which is of the waters doth return to the sea, and he would have discoursed longer on these matters of dust and water had not Joab, with whom he was squabbling even back then, cut him short. In the minute of silent prayer that followed, I lowered my head and prayed for my son Absalom to be brought back to life. I knew he wouldn't be. And then I prayed to God for another Joab to help me get rid of this one.
I thought I recognized him in my nephew Amasa and commissioned him to hunt down and destroy the rebel Sheba. I knew I was mistaken when Amasa started out late. By the time that floundering schmuck showed up, Abishai was already on the road with the brigade I had assigned and Joab had made plans to waylay and slaughter Amasa at the great stone which is in Gibeon.
Otherwise everything went smoothly after the war was won, and my restoration to the throne was a breeze. I thought I masked my feelings of agonized grief over Absalom well. Abigail would have seen into the window of my soul and known the truth, but Abigail had gone to eternal sleep with her fathers. Bathsheba, who was into astrology now, and palmistry too, asked to come to me daily, ravenous to begin making political hay now that only Adonijah stood in the way of her Solomon. It was not a subject I wanted to touch on then. I kept her away in her distant place in the caravan. I had no yen for pussy. Abishag the Shunammite was one year old.
There was the forbidding prospect of chaos in the fragmented political situation I now had to piece together. I deliberately took my time decamping in order to give the people back home time for the realization to sink in that I was returning to Jerusalem as their king, whether I was wanted there or not. With Absalom dead, they had no other.
The people of the north, those of the tribes of Israel, were the quickest to perceive the wisdom in soliciting my reinstatement, saying one to another, reported my envoys, that I had saved them out of the hand of their enemies, and delivered them out of the hand of the Philistines, and that now, with Absalom, whom they had anointed, dead in battle, why was each speaking not a word of bringing me back as their king? That was good. I was glad when they told me.
'And not Judah too?'
There was not yet word from Judah of reconciliation. I was beginning to get an acrid taste of the aggravation God had complained of in the past from having to deal with such a stiff-necked people. I sent strong sentiments to Jerusalem to my priests Zadok and Abiathar to speak to the elders and demand why the peoples of Judah were last behind Israel in petitioning to have me come back as their ruler. Was I not near in kin to them?
'Say to them,' I gave stern orders, 'that they are my brethren, they are my bones and my flesh. And say ye also to Amasa that he is of my bone and my flesh, and that God do so to me, and more also, if he be not captain of the host before me continually in the room of Joab, and more, if he but declare for me now. Say all that.'
This last proviso, I knew, was rash. But what had I to lose? Amasa's life, as it turned out.
I had made to Amasa an offer he could not refuse. He accepted with alacrity, and Israel and Judah were soon at cross-purposes and quarreling like cats and dogs for the servile honor of submitting to me most slavishly and soonest, the elders of Israel advancing the claim that they had the stronger right because they had ten parts of me through ten tribes. Somewhere along the line, we had lost a tribe, but I didn't miss it. The men of Judah answered the men of Israel that they were nearer to me in kin. I was glad they were competing.
My confidence in my control of my realm was complete as I made my leisurely way homeward back down through Gilead toward the fording points of the Jordan over which I had fled so recently. My emotional state was a different matter. I was not always clear whether it was a triumphal or a funeral procession I was leading. My mind was most at peace in the pleasant company of ancient Barzillai the Gileadite, no fair-weather friend he--one of those who had come to my assistance freely and fearlessly in Mahanaim. Like good wine, he was rare, an affable old bird of advanced age who was neither garrulous, repetitious, nor forgetful, and he could hear distinctly as well. After the battle, he came down from Rogelim and offered himself to accompany me over the Jordan until he s
aw I was received in safety. I invited him to continue with me into Jerusalem, to come there to live: I promised him the run of the palace, he would live like a king. He shook his grizzled head, chuckling.
'Take my servant Chimham,' he said, declining amiably, 'and do to him what shall seem good unto thee, for him to enjoy the very good things in life.'
'And why not thee?'
His rheumy, yellowed eyes twinkled. 'How long have I to live,' he answered with composure, 'that I should go up with the king unto Jerusalem? I am this day fourscore years old. And can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear anymore the voice of singing men and singing women?'
'You hear better than you think.'
'And wherefore then should thy servant be yet another burden unto my lord the king? Let thy servant go a little way over Jordan with the king until the others greet thee and receive thee in safety. Then let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again, that I may die in my own city, and be buried by the grave of my father and of my mother.'
There is no wine like old wine, and no friend like an old friend. 'Whatsoever thou shalt require of me, that will I do for thee.'
And I knew that he would never require anything of me, for Barzillai the Gileadite was eighty years old and going home in peace to die in his own city and be buried by the grave of his father and of his mother. What better could a man aspire to when his days were fulfilled? We said farewell when we were come over Jordan. I kissed my countryman Barzillai and blessed him, and released him to return unto his own place.
'May you soon be comforted for the death of your son,' he consoled me in parting.
'Let thy garments be always white,' I extolled him in reply, 'and let thy head lack no ointment.'
He was not there to witness his odious opposite, that fawning hypocrite Shimei, come bursting through the restraining line of my guards to be the first of the penitents to seek my forgiveness. The crowds at the river were enormous and devout. By the time I arrived there, Judah had come to Gilgal to go to meet me and conduct me back over the Jordan. And a thousand men of Benjamin had come to escort me too. And at the river there went back and forth a ferryboat to carry over all in my household and to do whatever else I thought good. And then, on the other side, all of a sudden there came lunging toward me that sputtering indignity of a cretin, Shimei the son of Gera, who came with an animal cry and hurled himself down at my feet in a drooling, frenzied quest for pardon for the abuse he had heaped upon my head when my fortunes were at an ebb and I was coming out from Jerusalem in abdication and disgrace. I shuddered with revulsion the instant I recognized the scrawny, loathsome, bandylegged runt and despaired he might touch me.