The Source

  Soldiers were required to bring him under control, and he would have been treated roughly had not Amalek, bewildered by the attack, protected his neighbor by saying, “He did no harm.” The soldiers hesitated, and Timna made their decision for them by saying, “I’ve come to take him home.” But when the soldiers were gone, Amalek shook Urbaal and said, “Old friend, come back to this world,” and under the patient ministrations of those who loved him the stupefied farmer lost his madness and began to know himself. He found it difficult to believe that he had tried to injure his neighbor Amalek and felt ashamed when it was explained that only the herdsman’s good nature had saved him. He studied Timna, pregnant and beautiful, and was able to recall the patience she had shown in trying to win him back to sanity. When the time came to go home Timna chose a path that would avoid the temple, but he guessed her strategy and remarked, “We can go past the temple now. I’ve forgotten her.” He insisted upon walking even to the monolith of El, where he gave thanks for his deliverance, and as he prayed Timna again reflected that if this town had not had its profusion of deities, its shocking rites that pulled the human mind this way and that, Urbaal would have remained the laughing, simple-hearted man who had begun as such an understanding husband. She was reluctant to think that the moral structure of a town could determine the kind of people who lived therein, but that appeared to be the case.

  The days that followed were a kind of benediction to the faith Timna had shown. Urbaal returned to the winter prunings of his trees, and in the late afternoons when work was done, took his accustomed place in the rambling courtyard and talked with his children. He kept a set of dice with which he played a kind of backgammon with his slave girls, and he ordered some jars of good wine from the vintners, where great clay pots were sunk in earth to keep the liquid cool. He no longer worried about the big monoliths before the temple, but each day he walked among his fields, paying his respects to the petty baals who supervised his interests.

  His strangest satisfaction, however, came from a quarter that he could not have foreseen: when word of his incompetence with the ritual prostitute had first spread through town it had caused him much embarrassment, but now he was able to look at himself as he was, and he laughed at the humiliating experience. He was a man of thirty-six, approaching old age, and he recognized that the wild excitement Libamah had caused was merely an attempt on his part to revitalize his memories. “Now I can leave her to Amalek,” he confided to Timna. “He’s six years younger than me.” He laughed at himself and in doing so paved the way for a return to the gaiety he had once known with his slave girls. His greatest love, however, was saved for Timna, who, as her child grew near her heart, became even lovelier than she had been on that first hot afternoon when she climbed the ramp leading to the zigzag gate. There she had met Urbaal, playing dice with the guards, and her happiness had begun. Now, when she saw her restored husband actually seek out Amalek to joke with him over the misunderstanding, she was reassured that she had behaved correctly throughout this difficult time.

  Then came the end of the year, the end of winter, a time marked by apprehension as to how the gods would treat Makor in the growing season ahead. The various rituals of an agricultural community were observed, and as an act of faith in every kitchen all bread and wheat left over from the passing year was burned. In Urbaal’s house the children scurried in and out, looking for little caches of cereal left by Timna for them to find, and these they brought triumphantly to the fire, where Urbaal burned them in an ancient ceremony, praying, “We trust the gods that this year our harvest will be good.” He then produced fresh wheat from the winter fields, and this was hastily ground and made into bread without even stopping for the leaven so that there should be no empty space of time when bread was not in the house. All women able to walk then assembled with jars and paraded to the great well of Makor outside the wall, where instead of drawing water from the well they gave back samples taken from their homes, praying that in return the well would sustain them through the coming year.

  On the last day of the dying year the town fasted, and before dawn, assembled at the western end of the temple, where doors not used at any other time were thrown open. At the eastern end similar doors were opened, so that the townsmen could look straight through the empty hall, from west to east, and as the sun approached on this day when day and night were of equal length, all grew reverent and whispered prayers imploring Baal-of-the-Sun to protect this town for another year. The sun rose, and the astronomy of the priests was so exact that the rays shone straight through the temple without touching any wall. The year would be a good one.

  As the crowd chanted praises, the ritual gates were swung shut for another year and people left the west portal, moving to the monoliths where the priests had trundled out the war god Melak, under whose hungry maw large fires were lit. The crowd cheered and drums were beaten with frenzy as one perfect boy of three, fair-haired and lovely as a yellow bird darting after bees through an olive grove, was crushed down upon the stone arms and tumbled into the gaping pit.

  The sacrifice had a startling effect upon Urbaal and the apparent cure of the preceding months was placed in jeopardy. He began to tremble, and Timna understood why. At the harvest-time burning he had been so preoccupied with the impending dance of Libamah that he had not truly accepted the fact that his own son had been burned alive. It was something that had occurred at the periphery of consciousness, and later the seven days of ritual sex had obliterated all memories, following which his derangement had prevented him from missing the boy at home. Now he awakened to the meaning of these terrifying facts and trembled.

  Timna, anticipating disaster, knew that at this moment she should take him home, but when she started to do so, Matred commanded her to leave him where he was. “The priests would punish you severely,” the first wife warned, so against her sure judgment Timna allowed Urbaal to stay, and when he showed signs of weeping for his son, she placed his hand upon her swelling belly and consoled him. His trembling diminished, for as Timna knew, it was never death that corrupted.

  The priests ordered music, whereupon a door opened and Libamah came forth, now an ordinary prostitute but dressed in a spun cloth that looked handsome on her slim body. Slowly and with ritual grace the priests took away her clothing, and she stood alone with that provocative power that had filled the seven days and nights that Urbaal had known her. She was more exciting than he had remembered, lovelier than the concept of Astarte, a mirthful, lively young woman who could make a man experience joys he could not forget.

  Her effect upon Urbaal not even Timna had expected. The dark trembling now ceased entirely and a sense of irresponsible, youthful excitement took its place. He could see only Libamah, as if she were dancing for him alone, and he jerked his hand away from Timna’s and began preening himself as if there were a chance that again today the priests might choose him to lie with Libamah and insure fertility for the coming year. Edging himself into a prominent position, he pulled in his stomach and tried to look like a younger man. He held his head back to attract attention and smiled handsomely, but most of all he followed the girl on the steps, living again with her the surging ecstasy they had known in their service to Astarte.

  “That poor, silly man,” Timna whispered as she maneuvered to be near him in order to console him when the priests nominated another for the spring rites, but as she drew closer to her grinning husband Libamah began a portion of her dance that was appallingly sensual, and Urbaal moved nearer to the steps, dragged on by the hope that he would be called. He could not control himself, and Timna saw his lips forming the pathetic prayer, “Astarte, let it be me.”

  The drums stopped. Libamah ended her dance with her feet apart, her eyes waiting to welcome her next lover. The priests cried, “The man is Amalek!” and the tall herdsman leaped onto the steps and allowed his clothes to be torn away.

  “No!” Urbaal protested, stumbling toward the temple. On the way he grabbed a spear held by a guard, and as Am
alek stepped forward to claim the priestess, Urbaal drove the spear into his back.

  Amalek staggered to the right, seeking to control his legs and failing. Libamah, watching as the foolish-faced Urbaal came at her with trembling hands, screamed, and this act of rejection stunned the farmer. Before anyone could stop him, he stumbled down the temple steps and dashed wild-eyed through the zigzag gate.

  Almost as if they had anticipated tragedy, the priests moved swiftly into command. “Be silent,” they ordered as the high priest satisfied himself that Amalek was dead. But Libamah stood waiting, and since she was the earthly personification of Astarte, the rites centering on her must continue or Makor would face famine. Not even death could be allowed to interrupt the rites of life, and a priest cried, “The man is Heth.” Eagerly the bearded Hittite leaped to the steps, disrobed, and in a condition of astonishing virility, considering the preceding events, stepped past the dead man and carried Libamah to the love-room. Drums rolled, the sacred door was closed, and the symbolic ritual of homage to Astarte was continued.

  Urbaal, when he fled through the gates, ran blindly toward his olive grove, where he stumbled about for some minutes trying to comprehend what had happened, but all he knew, and this only vaguely, was that he had murdered someone. Confused, he left his olive trees to seek the road to Damascus, and along it he staggered eastward. He had gone only a little way when he saw approaching him a kind of man he had not met before: the newcomer was shorter than he but leaner from hard years in the desert; he had blue eyes and a dark beard, an air of competence and bravery, but he walked as one seeking no trouble; he was accompanied by sheep and goats and many children and by numerous wives and younger men who had attached themselves to his leadership; he wore heavy sandals secured by thongs which wound about his ankles, plus a wool robe which fastened at one shoulder, leaving the other free; the robe was yellow, marked with red crescent moons; and he led a caravan of donkeys.

  He was Joktan, a nomad from the desert who had elected to try life inland, and he was the first Habiru to see Makor, at a time when the great empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt were already crumbling. In later millennia experts would argue as to whether he had been the forerunner of the people known as Hebrews, but with such matters he was not concerned. He came late to the well of Makor, some two thousand years after the first formal town had been established on the rock, but he arrived with a reverberating force, not physical nor seeking war, but a spiritual force that would not be denied. His sudden appearance—looming up out of the east with many donkeys—startled Urbaal, who halted in the middle of the road. For some moments the two men stood silent and it was apparent that neither feared the other. Urbaal, now under control though still unaware of whom he had killed, was prepared to fight if necessary, but the stranger did not wish to do so, and it was Urbaal who spoke first. “From where do you come?”

  “The desert.”

  “Where do you go?”

  “That field near the white oaks. To pitch my tents.”

  Urbaal became the canny farmer, and although he sensed that with murder he had forfeited his ownership of land, he behaved as he would have done under normal circumstances. “That field belongs to me.” He was about to drive the stranger away when he remembered the pre-cariousness of his condition and the fact that he needed a place to hide. “You may stay near the oak trees,” he said.

  When the tents were pitched, there came a moment of uncertainty when the Habiru realized that Urbaal did not intend leaving their camp. Joktan dispatched his sons to care for the donkeys and waited. Finally Urbaal came to him hesitantly to say, “I have no home.”

  “But if this is your field …”

  “And this is my town.” Urbaal led Joktan to the edge of the field and there the Habiru first saw the walls of Makor rising from the mound and protected by hills on the north, its white roofs glistening with promise. The town was so compelling after the empty spaces of the desert that Joktan could say nothing. He summoned his children and they stood with him, staring at their new land, and the shadow of Makor seemed to reach far across the fields and fall upon them. But Joktan was a clever man and he asked, “If that fine place is your town but is no longer your home, and if you were running down the road alone … Have you killed a man?”

  “Yes.”

  Joktan said nothing. He stood in the sunlight and took counsel with himself, a man consciously trying to decide what course to follow. Still holding his silence he left his sons and walked to an area beneath a large oak tree where his men had already erected a simple altar consisting of stones gathered from the field, and before this altar he stood alone, praying. The words he used Urbaal could not hear, but when the prayer was finished Joktan returned and said, “You cannot stay with us, but I shall give you a donkey so that you can escape eastward.”

  Urbaal rejected the offer. “This is my land and I have decided not to run away.”

  This Joktan understood, and the two men discussed the matter for some time, at the end of which the Habiru told the murderer that he could have sanctuary at the altar. Joktan then assembled his wives and his sons and the husbands of his daughters and warned them that soon an army would march out from Makor seeking this murderer, and the first crisis in their new land would be reached. The men took counsel together but did not divulge their decision to Urbaal, who moved to the altar under the oak tree trying to understand the tragedy that had overtaken him.

  That day no army marched out of Makor, but a woman did, hurrying among the olive trees, looking here and there for her husband. When she did not find him she walked along the caravan way leading to Damascus and in time reached a spot from which she could see the unfamiliar tents pitched in her husband’s field, and she ran across the wheat stubble, crying, “Urbaal! Urbaal!” When she found him crouched by the altar she ran up to him and fell upon the ground, kissing his feet. She explained that the priests would not send the army after him till morning, trusting that he would be far to the east where his crime need not be known. She wanted to start immediately—a pregnant woman with one pair of sandals—but he said stubbornly, “This is my field,” and neither she nor Joktan could make him leave.

  The sun went down and a strange night followed. Urbaal, suddenly an old, bewildered man, huddled by the sanctuary while Timna spoke with the strangers, telling them that her husband was an honest farmer and explaining the inconsequential steps whereby he had destroyed himself. “You take much of the blame on yourself,” Joktan said.

  “We are all to blame,” she replied.

  “But surely the fault was finally his,” Joktan reasoned.

  “He was bewitched,” she said, and in the light of the campfire she looked toward her husband with great pity and said, “In another town, at another time, he would have died a happy man.” And she wept for the inconsiderate fate that had overtaken him.

  At dawn Joktan went to the altar to pray alone, and when he returned Timna asked, “To what gods do you pray?” and he replied, “To the one god,” and she looked at him.

  When the sun was up the army of Makor, eighteen men and a captain, marched out, hoping that the insane farmer had made his escape and that they could avoid further action, but when they saw the tents of the strangers they had to investigate, and under the oak tree they found Urbaal cowering beside the altar. “We have come for the murderer,” the captain announced.

  Joktan stepped forward, and without raising his voice, replied, “He has taken sanctuary at my altar.”

  “He is not inside a temple,” the captain declared, “and he must come with us.” But Joktan stood firm and his sons gathered about him. The captain withdrew to consult with his men, and they saw that whereas they could surely overwhelm the strangers, many lives would be lost in doing so, and they fell back.

  They sent for their priests, and when these came in regalia the captain explained, “Urbaal is here, but this stranger refuses to deliver him.”

  “He has taken refuge at my altar,” the Habiru said. The priests
were inclined to order the troops to drag the murderer away, but the apparent willingness of the strangers to fight deterred them.

  Finally the priests said, “We shall respect the sanctuary.”

  The high priest then went to Urbaal and told him, “Amalek is dead, and your life has come to an end. You must walk with us as forfeit.”

  The addled farmer did not fully comprehend what they were demanding, but at last he understood that it was Amalek, who had been his friend in this and many fields, whom he had killed, and he began to weep. The priests went to Timna and said, “Go and fetch him from the altar, for we must take him with us,” but Joktan insisted, “If he is determined to stay by the altar he shall stay here,” and the priests respected this honorable decision and stood apart.

  It was Timna who made the decision. Going to the oak tree she knelt beside her husband and said quietly, “The end of days has come, Urbaal. We have done all the wrong things and I shall die with you.” He looked at her helplessly, then placed his hands in hers, a gentle, tender man who had loved his fields and the sound of bees humming in the flowers. She pulled him to his feet and led him to the priests, who directed the soldiers to place a halter about his neck.

  “I shall die with him,” Timna said, “for the fault was mine.”

  “You shall wander along the roads,” the priests replied, but as far as the gates of the city she clung to Urbaal till she was pushed away, falling into the dust. She looked up to see her uncomprehending husband, the little king of the olive grove, walk for the last time up the ramp and through the zigzag gate.

  “No, no,” she wept as he disappeared. “The terrible thing I did to him.” The god of death he had been able to withstand, but the goddess of life had destroyed him. It was not mean-spirited Matred, who had never loved him, who had betrayed him, but Timna, who had tried to be a dutiful wife. Now she heard a rumble of drums, then silence.