Prologue
And on that day a monk of God and a Midianite woman sat together and the woman sang to him. Her voice was pleasing and the monk who knew many languages listened and understood the song to his core, to his very soul she sang and his face wettened as if rain fell and the angel of God sat with them. A meal from the fruit of the garden she served but he refused to bring any thing to his mouth. Eat, said the angel, for the road is long before you. The monk ate but wine he did not drink and he lay down to sleep and he rose and walked for three days neither eating nor drinking and he stopped there in the shadow of the plane tree and he sat there and died.
Chapter 1
And the sons of Israel will do the wrong in the eyes of God and worship Ashtoret and Ashera and Ba’al and God shall bring upon them Eglon King of Moav and they will be slaves to him for eighteen years. And the Sons of Israel will cry out to God and He shall send to them Ehud son of Gera son of the Yemini to save them and Moav will surrender that day under the arm of Israel. A day will come and a day will go and the Sons of Israel will sin again before God and He shall punish them and enslave them again and again they will cry and again He shall bring before them judges and again the seed of Israel will be tempered in war and again weakened in peace and worship the idols and return again.
Came Yehushafat son of Utniel son of Kanaz, a man learned in battle who judged over the dwellings between Yerushalaim and Mevaseret, a cabin he had there and he was aged fifty five years.
And although he bore the title Judge he had in his heart no love for neither war nor judgement for war was a fear that stalked him all the days of his life and held him in his grasp all of his nights. Tall he was and his arms thicker than a man’s thighs and although his palms remembered the weight of the sword and her ways, his eyes were dull and his ears blunt since the days of the war and his speech tender.
Came spring and died and came summer in his stead and Yehushafat awoke from his bedding cold with sweat and left his cabin to let the light sooth his terrors. The sun had risen and shone fully in the sky before Yehushafat came to greet her, and her heat was on his skin as if he were a cut of meat drying.
And Yehushafat saw a boy run up the hill, his breath short and his black hair adhering to his forehead. And Yehushafat did not see his face for his sight was short but knew him by his hurried steps and said unto him – Is it you, Gid’on son of Laish? I have told once and shall again, I shan’t judge between you and your brother, no matter what words he said. Go to you father and let him be judge over you.
Not that, answered the boy when he was close enough for Yehushafat to hear, and stood there panting. Not that. Yehushafat looked closely at the face of the boy and saw a fright that was not the result of a quarrel between boys. Kneeled Yehushafat before the boy and held him, and his hands wettened from the sweat soaking the little shirt.
A man we found, finally said the boy. On the lip of the pond he sat, by the shattered altar.
What of it? Asked Yehushafat, yet in his heart the answer was known.
Dead he is. He sat by the pond and died.
The knees of the boy gave and Yehushafat hardly caught him, and when the boy lay to drain his guts Yehushafat turned him on his side lest he drown and held him as was to be done.
Climbed to the cabin Kfir son of Eyal, Yehushafat’s depute under him who had been nearby and heard the boy’s shouts. And Kfir was a man of war seasoned and clever and yet when he saw the boy sorrow took him and he said – what has him, the child?
And Yehushafat without knowing commanded – Bring him to his mother and ask him nothing. And when she takes him order her to tie her tongue, questions she shall not ask. If he saw as he said, I shall find it.
And Kfir carried the boy in his arms and left Yehushafat with the wonderings of his heart.
By the shattered altar, he repeated the boy’s words. Yehushafat knew their meaning – the same alter generations forgone built to Ba’al at the top of the hill, that was taken apart and his stones were forbidden of use even for building, and only unruly children would play by them in summer days like this one.
Went Yehushafat to the altar and with a heavy step climbed the hill. Dried squills and thorny thistles swung stiffly in the wind to his left and right, gripping at the earth by their dead roots. In his heart he cradled a hope that nothing would be found up at the top, but the calls of crows had frightened that hope from her hiding place, and even the growls of a little predator were heard loud enough for Yehushafat’s blunt ears. Followed Yehushafat their voices to the heap of stones where sacrifices were long ago raised, and the little pond beside him where the idol-worshipers would wash themselves with water they carried up the hill. Now she was dry and empty but for stones and branches that children would throw inside, and the roots of a great plane tree that had drank as she filled with rain. On her other side a man sat and his back to the stones of the pond, his head dropped and a cloud of flies humming greedily about him.
And Yehushafat yelled to the man – What have you? And none answered. Around Yehushafat went and saw the crows picking at the body and the red fox gnawing at his guts spilt before him and grunting through his teeth to the crowding birds.
The man’s mouth was open with the semblance of laughter and his eyes empty. His hair was very dark and very long, perhaps never shorn, and tangled in a single braid. Wrapped in worn and soiled clothes he was, long unchanged, and around him blankets, as if he had prepared to sleep.
Looked Yehushafat at the man with no life in him, and dropped to his knee and brought his hand to his chest and his breath cut short and sweat covered his forehead and back and arms. For a long moment he rested on his knee and breathed. Finally he rose, and with his sword drove away the crows and the fox, and the flies also but those returned in instants with renewed fervor.
Decided in his heart to take him away from there lest the wild animals desecrate him further, and then to his grave. But once he laid the deceased on the ground he erringly peered into his eyes and for a moment saw the reflection of the place where only the dead may look. He covered the man in his blankets and did not look again.
Lifted the bags of the man and before he scrabbled through them a sealed scroll fell into his hand. Held her and she was heavy in his palm and warm without reason. Of cheap make, like the training skins scribes used to practice at the temple. Wondered Yehushafat – if he were to pick through the papers of the dead, it will sin to his honor. And if he threw them in the fire to annihilate them, there might be lost hints for the murderer’s name. Around he went and could not decide until finally he placed her by the stones of the altar and chose one so heavy that none but him could lift and placed it over the scroll and there no man will ever find her.
A brisk wind blew among the trees and her rustling calmed Yehushafat’s spirit, and in the quiet he saw that blood and guts had spread through his cloths. He went down the hill where a ravine flowed and washed there, and returned to his cabin and called his deputes to him and commanded two to fetch the deceased and bury him and two more to run to the city and call the elders to fulfill the commandment of Beheaded Heifer.
Chapter 2.
And on the next day the Elders of Mevaseret came down and with them a brown cow that had not given birth to fulfill Beheaded Heifer as God commanded and they met Yehushafat and patted his shoulder and gripped his arms with affection and said to him – come and speak in our place.
What have I that I should speak? I am not of the elders.
One answered to him, a bony white-haired man with a sharp tongue – An elder you are not but one you shall become, and the days they quickly pass. Speak now as one of the elders and be honored as one.
Yehushafat agreed and drew his heavy sword and led the cow to the water without looking at her round eyes and with a confident hand he swung the blade and broke the bones of her neck and the blade went half the way to her throat. Collapsed her knees into the water and Yehushafat struck again beheading her and the cow if she had felt any pain she did not cry out. Carried he her head from the horn and cried to the heavens a great cry – Our hands have not spilt this blood! And our eyes did not see! Atone for your people of Israel that you have salvaged, MY LORD, and do not let pure blood spill among your people, Israel.
Yehushafat raised in one hand the blade in the other the cow’s head and blood dripped on his torn cloths from both and declared with his own words that were beyond the ritual’s demands – Here I swore before witnesses that the murderer will be found and brought to judgement person by person I shall ask and clod of dirt by clod I shall overturn until with the arm’s might justice will descend from the heavens to the earth.
Yehushafat washed his cloths in water while the elders and the people of the village gathered to sing together mourning for the one did not know.
Before they were done singing came The Teacher from the hill. His skin was wrinkled and stained with age yet his step was spry and confident and Yehushafat did not know him but the elders recognized him and greeted him and treated him with respect as would a boy his uncle. A judge they called him, and to that he answered that the only judge is in the heavens and the earth has but servants. An open eye he had and her glare spoke of wisdom and sorrow and the other closed and perhaps gone, and a small hunting bow strapped to his back. His clothes were faded from the sun and his sandals worn thin and his calves knitted with muscle and tendon; a nomad in the land he was. Presented himself to Yehushafat, his name and the name of his father and gripped his hand and though Yehushafat felt the bones of the fragile palm in his hand and could crush them in an instant he knew that he will learn a great lesson from this man.
The elders of the city left to command about and raised a fire for eating their sacrifice and Yehushafat was with The Teacher alone.
A grief in my heart for those, said The Teacher. Loudly and clearly he spoke, and Yehushafat was thankful, but still he did not understand his meaning – was his sorrow for the man, the cow, or those who needed to atone for their guilt for having done nothing.
And why not? said Yehushafat. A Hebrew he was, God’s monk. Why had he found himself in these woods, if not for that we have failed to welcome him on our doorstep? As it is right to torment one for doing what is unworthy of doing, so it right to torment those who neglected to do that which is worthy.
Truth in your words, agreed The Teacher. But who neglected, and who has been neglected? His guts empty they were of all substance, many days he has not eaten, but in his pockets were figs that have not yet dried. And where could you find fresh figs today if not far north?
Have you laid a hand to his body?
I have asked Kfir for permission and he granted it. And whom did it disturb? The cadavers do no complain and the slayer peacefully rests while we take our revenge on cattle and honor empty chariots that have no driver.
Stunned was Yehushafat, and answer he could not. The Teacher continued: Even though his sandals were of soft leather his feet were one great callus each, as if we walked and walked without resting or sleeping, even for three days.
What matter do we have in his feet if a blade was taken to his stomach?
Shook his head The Teacher from side to side in the way of one who does not know how to answer as to be understood. A lonely monk he was, he said, whose name no one knew, and started his journey three walking days northward of here. I shall go north to search for justice, and I shall find the one responsible there and bring him to judgement.
Why shall we venture northward? And why not search the slayer by the slain?
Gestured The Teacher in his hand to the people of the dwelling that had crowded to share the feast of the sacrifice, whispering their doubts and discussing the verdict that was decided and said – know you these people. Know you their names and the ways of their hearts. Do you see blood on the hands of any of them?
Looked upon them Yehushafat and not in a single one did he the see the movement or spirit of that who bleeds another. He said – And yet you claim that three days before he died he was murdered, and walked three days while the cut in his belly bleeds.
The Teacher shook his head again, barred from answering. He asked – Scrolls, did he have?
Yehushafat flinched. How would you guess?
A word-smith he seemed to me, one who swings quill like a sword, one who by putting one word before another finds pleasure and pain.
All that from a dead body?
From the ink stains on his fingers. But what is ink to man without scroll? What was their fate?
To the fire I brought them, lied Yehushafat.
The Teacher sighed, and his heart lightened. Well you have done, Yehushafat.
And Yehushafat, who had not yet realized why his senses hinted at him to annihilate the scroll and her memory, regretted not listening to their wisdom. Said to The Teacher – Why was it a good deed?
The Teacher answered – It will take me many days to explain.
Good and proper, we have a long journey ahead.
And do you not have your dominion to judge over?
I’ve sworn to bring justice to he who sinned against Israel. What is a judge and a word he has not?
The Teacher laughed. Join me if you will, but justice shall come even without you. Not once nor twice did I leave after such ceremony, and did not return until there was word in my mouth for the mourners that their vengeance has come.
And did you speak the truth?
The truth.
And nothing but this bow on your back did you take?
It escorted from my second chase.
And what did you take on your first?
A waterskin and blanket, said The Teacher, but no pride shone in his eyes. For days I brought nearly no thing to my mouth as the path lead me to my aim. Come with me if you will.
So I swore, said Yehushafat. We will gather horses and leave.
We will gather no horses. For the path that was traveled by horse we will trace on the back of one, and the path marked by footsteps will find with our feet.
And if the sinner will evade us?
He will not, versed The Teacher assuredly. He will wait, all that is on our shoulders is to find him.
Yehushafat looked upon The Teacher and knew that a greater judge he had never met.
Yehushafat went to say his farewells and pack his provisions, and The Teacher followed. Little possessions did Yehushafat have but many bonds and tight ones, and as soon as the people were done eating the sacrifice they went to their houses and came Yehushafat’s cabin to give to him and The Teacher from their own – Judean wool blankets that were thin and warm in the cold nights, and deer meet and dried figs and nuts and thin dry bread that will not go bad and more waterskins than he could carry on his back.
But Yehushafat his strength never waned, and he could stride for a whole day without halting for food or water, and in the nights he would not cover himself for his size and burning vigor and there was neither glee nor warmth in his heart for these gifts or the act of receiving them only a great desire to leave on his journey.
Looked Yehushafat at The Teacher who was close by and speaking to the people of Mevaseret things he could not hear. One by one he held their hands and embraced them and brought laughter to their mouths. Even though The Teacher too had all he needed he thanked them from the depths of his heart each woman and man who had given him these gifts, for he remembered that there are provisions that a man carries not on his back, and Yehushafat envied him.
Children came with their parents and played and laughed there, even Gid’on son of La’ish whose fever was forgotten. Soon they came to argue one with the other how will Yehushafat act once he finds that which he sought. One said – They shall fight by the sword. Raised his hands in the air and strode forwards and backwards as if fencing. For a moment it may seem to the Ba’al-spawn that he has won and only then will Yehushafat the Judge thrust the sword in his gut and say – Thus shall it be done to all who spill Hebrew blood!
A second said – Not so, for he is unworthy of dying by the sword. Yehushafat will find him in the night and place his hands on his throat! And the child practiced the motion and howled – Press and press until his eyes fly out of their holes!
A third, a boy whose beard was only a hint about his lips, said – Both of you err. Not in the sword as equal among equals, and not in the night in the quiet for he is no coward. He is a judge, and I have heard many stories about judges. Shimshon The Hero struck the Philistines with the cheek-bone of an ass, and Shamgar son of Anat with an ox goad as if they were cattle. Yehushafat will grip a rotten branch, or a horse whip, and strike the villain even if he brandishes the sharpest blade in all of Cna’an.
The children cheered for the great wiseman, but Gid’eon son of Laish that previously played like the other kids and laughed with them now held to his mother’s skirt and said nothing.
Chapter 3.
Came night and the judges slept in the cabin and in the morning left and strode north with their gifts on their back and for half a day walked in a shadowed path among the heels and found no thing worthy of being said. It had been a long time since Yehushafat spent even the quarter of a day without the quarrels and complaints of the people and he found his heart young again, dedicated to one thing an undisturbed by vanities. Then asked him The Teacher without preface how he had come to be a judge.
I was but a boy when my father died and left me with his land to work, and in that time the Yevusis raided and killed among us every year and we slept in fear and woke in fear. As soon as my father’s seven days of grief passed I went to harvest wheats in the field, and as I stood there a wind blew and a shiver rose in my back and all was silent but the sounds of leaves rustling and the angel of God was with me there. From above I saw this man called Yehushafat and thought in my heart – If he is to die, so be it.
And did you see the angel?
I have not, but I knew him. A great clarity, as if all were alight, and a fury so pure that only from the heavens themselves it could come. The words appeared as if another put them in my head and I knew what I would say to the Yevusis, and I crossed the border not far from here and went to their city with no companion but a good stone in my hand, and the men gathered tens and tens before me.
And what trade did you make with them?
Fractures in their skulls I gave them, one by one I have left them there and in return they gave me blood from their eyes and ears. Yehushafat sighed, and suddenly felt the burden of his days.
The Teacher sighed as well. Do you long for the glory of battle again?
Indeed, said Yehushafat, and in that moment did not remember the pounding of his heart and choking in his throat when he’d found the monk’s body, but he felt as if the truth in his words was not pure. I would not trade those days for these, he said, but these days are grey each one like the one that has gone before and nothing changes but the end nearing one step each day. I do not long for battle, but its absence leaves a lack in me. Do you understand?
I do. And do you remember the speech you have given them?
Not one word, admitted Yehushafat.
The Teacher nodded and said no more. At the noon of that day they found a small pond full with cold green fountain-water and not a man near it. Let us dip ourselves, said The Teacher.
Answered Yehushafat – It is one thing not to take horses, but to halt our walking to dip in water? This is the land of the Yevusi.
The heat tires us, said The Teacher. And long days are we to walk. Why should we hurry? We’ll dip in the water and refresh our vigor.
And were we to wet our clothes and continue? Suffice it to cool us.
Soon I shall entrust my body to the dirt, said The Teacher suddenly. And my spirit will fly where it may and never again will I be able to put my body in cold water in a day of smiting heat. We will find he whom we seek, so I swore, now come and dip.
Yehushafat sighed but loosened his clothes and uncovered his skin to the sun. The Teacher looked upon the scar on his breast, where he had been cut by a sickle and the cut was sealed with oil lest all his bloods would drain from him, a cleaving scar and a burn scar on top of her, and said nothing and cheered as he entered his fragile limbs into the water and blessed for being still alive. Followed him Yehushafat and let the cold water rinse his skin and silently professed that it is good.
Wasps hovered a hair’s breadth above the water searching for a thing no one knows. The Teacher let out his finger and the wasp sat on it but did not sting him. Looked for a passing moment on her colors, one somber and one bright, at her peculiar movements, and glee shone in his green eye. The wasp flew after her short rest and returned to traveling the face of the pool, as if searching for a hole through which to peer into the depth of the water and understand them.
The Teacher said – In those days, your chest raised and your heart full, and there is no dread of hesitation in you and even all the armies of the world come down to you from the mountain and you are still unbeaten, for God is with you.
Yet He had not always stood with me, said Yehushafat, and saw that The Teacher understood.
Who gave you this scar?
One Yevusi, a sickle in hand, swinging with a speed that has not second. My wife and I and my eldest son and my brother and my youngest daughter and a dozen more sat in the evening time and laughed and here comes a boy from the border and strikes us before we have even drawn our blades. The twelve he slaughtered and my wife and my son and brother and daughter and me he had cut and forsaken to bleed alone.
The Teacher listened to Yehushafat, and knew the quiet voice men use to talk about the breaking of their lives, for he had heard it many times. After a long moment he spoke, sorrow in his single eye. Surely you have been very strong, to stand where others have fallen.
Stronger I would have been to strike first, returned Yehushafat, and wondered that he did not sense the grief and sorrow that still hid somewhere in his heart.
And what was his fate?
His body was found among the woods, where he had sat and bled from a cut in his chest.
And how did that come to be?
Only The Sovereign of the World knows. Perhaps in the fury of battle he slit his own chest, by error or malice. Greatly fortunate he was, for my own vengeance would have been greater were I to find him.
Rose from the pond and adorned their clothes and returned to their walking until the evening fell, then they found a meadow in a valley and in it a dry brook and they unfolded their blankets and ate from the provisions the people had given them, sharing with each other nuts and dry fruits and meat before they laid and slept there.
In the night Yehushafat woke to the sound of trampled leaves, like a little stream suddenly flown down the brook but water it did not have, a gushing was not heard but little hooves and many beyond number. Yehushafat turned in his bedding and looked at the stampeders from the other side of the gorge, and lamented that even in moon light he could not see more than shadows. Snorts were heard among the trees and to Yehushafat’s blunt ears they sounded as authoritative like those of a commander hurrying his troops.
One black shadow came and neared Yehushafat, smaller than the others, and even in darkness Yehushafat could see the hesitation in her steps, her whelpish curiosity. Larger than a dog she was but her movements cumbersome and rigid. The beast feared Yehushafat but also longed to study him, and Yehushafat laid unmoving hoping that the she shall overcome her fears and come close enough to smell him.
One shadow within the stream, larger than the rest, stood in her place and a loud and angry snort was heard within the crowd, admonishing the boarlet as if her mother feared some forbidden knowledge she might learn from the sons of Adam sleeping in their blankets. Flinched the boarlet to hear her mother’s admonishment, retreated and returned to her tribe and the larger shadow reunited with the flow from whence she came.
Almost without moving, Yehushafat turned his head to see the man whose eyes shone in the moonlight bright and grey and open very wide, and murder glares in them. He did not know the man but the glare was well familiar to Yehushafat. The holder of the blade too did not say a word. Yehushafat’s sword was in reach but her distance from his fingers greater a thousandfold than the hair breadth between his throat and the blade waiting over him. Looked sideways to The Teacher and said – Bad fortune has befallen us.
Another bandit leaned over The Teacher, who had rose to his elbows, and another one, a sword resting in his hand, behind him.
Said The Teacher – Neither good nor bad, for all is done by His will.
The fourth bandit, who stood farther away, spoke as if he were their leader – Will these be your last words?
I’d rather my last words be a question, said the Teacher. The one who spoke, what is your mother’s tongue?
The bandit laughed at The Teacher’s audacity. Greek, he answered.
Far we are from the Philistine’s dominion, answered The Teacher in Greek, enunciating each word as if he was born and lived his life on the Philistine shores on the on the other side of the sea. The meaning of the words Yehushafat did not understand but he witnessed The Teacher’s fluency, so natural it was that even the bandit guarding Yehushafat turned to look and that was an error Yehushafat could not forgive and he gripped the wrist of the bandit holding the sword hard enough to bend the bones out of their joints and his other grabbed him by neck and brought him down against a rock and before he knew it Yehushafat was standing with a sword in each hand and the man was laying down unmoving. All was silent but the sound of the dead bandit’s excrement draining from his body.
The bandits whispered something to Yehushafat but they were like muted shadows in the dark and he could not hear them.
The Teacher said – My companion, he cannot hear. Yehushafat, do not kill them.
The leader spoke louder, saying – That was my uncle’s son. Drop your swords and I might forgive you killing him, or refuse and I will take vengeance on your uncle.
If you kill my teacher nothing will stop me from killing the three of you. Yehushafat’s voice was flat and his grip secure and all that heard knew that he was speaking truth, even if his back dripped with sweat. Leave now that you may remember this day.
Yehushafat, The Teacher said, stay your hand. With words we will solve this. He of you that leads, come to me. I will tell you one thing and then you will leave, those of you who did not die.
And why shall I come, said the bandit. Do you desire to put your teeth to my ear?
Never have I spilt blood from a living soul, said The Teacher, and Yehushafat heard the sound of truth in his words.
The bandit’s leader signaled with his hand and for the others to come nearer and their three swords flanked The Teacher’s neck from all sides. Said The Teacher – Please, come nearer still, you will not want your men to hear.
Hearing that The Teacher’s one eye closed and for a moment both were close before the other opened, white it was and gleaming in the darkness like another moon under the one in the heavens, looking to and fro like it had just awoken. Yehushafat’s guts coiled to the glare of that furious eye and his heart stopped as the eye met his.
The Philistines’ back stiffened to see the eye but they governed their spirit enough to leave their swords by The Teacher’s neck, who turned his mouth to the closest ear, and his pale eye watched Yehushafat as he spoke. His voice was like a scroll torn, like leaves crushed by the weight of a body laid to rest, like the first crackles of a nursery cabin kissed by a raider’s torch.
As soon as the whispers stopped the leader stood at once, as if frightened out of his crouching place, and his eyes turned to the earth. His expression Yehushafat could not see, but in The Teacher’s body he could see how that one eye followed each of the Philistine’s movement and a wide and wild glee spread beneath her. A tremor passed through the bandit’s body and perhaps his lips moved also and suddenly he looked up and his face lit with the light of a great understanding and before he could say that which he understood, his skull split in two as if struck by and axe, from forehead to chin, and he fell to his knees and died.
Yehushafat screamed for his fear was great and the Philistines screamed and carried their legs and ran and their swords and sacks they left behind them in their fleeing lest they burden them. Ran and ran until their last breath.
Yehushafat tried to remain standing but the woods revolved about him and his legs tangled one in the other and the earth rose to catch him but before he collapsed came two strong arms to hold him and halt his drop. Finally he was laid on his back and saw one green eye look over him and compassion in it. Closed his eyes and slept again until morning came.
Chapter 4
Yehushafat opened his eyes and threw his blankets from him. His ears had filled with puss and became inflamed and reddened and the sight of his eyes darkened more than the day before. The sun had risen over the horizon and her light ignited the tree tops with dim stains of copper and gold. The Teacher was already on his feet, busy with the labor of packing and the bodies of the philistines were not to be seen. Yehushafat looked at the green eye and bent to fold his own blankets. The pale eye was bound, thought Yehushafat, and whatever possession laid in her now rested. He knew that if he waited for that eye to come again on her own she would kill him or another, and that a Judge cannot be allowed to walk the lands under this heathen curse. It was a Yehushafat’s duty to kill him.
For a long hour none spoke while Yehushafat packed his sacks, his hands trembling and his eyes not leaving that closed lid.
Went in a low path, a cliff to their left and a steep hill to their right and thick-trunked oaks standing above them. An Osprey was already in the sky, looking for hidden snakes and The Teacher just turned his back and Yehushafat charged him with such fury that he forgot his sword.
The Teacher had not yet turned and spoke two words but Yehushafat’s damaged eared did not hear the words and he was not killed by them and Yehushafat gripped The Teacher’s throat in his hand like a bird of prey would a rabbit pressing him against a trunk so his legs were dangling beneath him and he can neither speak nor breath. The Teacher’s arms flailed, clawing for Yehushafat’s throat but could not reach him. He closed his eye and before the other opened already something in has back changed, the bones of his spine like a snake seemed. Yehushafat did not turn away and looked as again the abomination opened and looked upon him. In the sun light it reminded Yehushafat of the eye of a scapegoat that he had found in his boyhood days floating in the dead sea, looking into the abyss. When that eye looked at Yehushafat, his stomach clenched and his heart was pressed and his throat chocked as if wrangled with rope and he was too slow to move away when the hardened foot of The Teacher was driven under his ribs up to his lungs, like the kick of a mule knocking him back and chasing the air out of him and he fell back and from the throat of The Teacher he let go and the white eye was already hidden again.
The judges both fell to the earth and coughed for a long time, fighting for their breath, but The Teacher caught his sooner and went to Yehushafat and brought him to his feet with strength incongruous of an old man, for he was still a Judge of God.
I will not hurt you, he finally said, his mouth close enough so Yehushafat could see the mouth and understand the words he could not hear for the Teacher’s voice was hoarse. His green eye meeting Yehushafat’s. I will teach you what it is you wish to learn, and not a droplet more. Please, do not lure the other from her hiding place again.
Tell me what I saw. What is this sorcery you have cast on the bandits? Is it the same spell that makes a man walk for three days and die on the edge of my domain?
Neither sorcery, he said, nor spell.
What then? Illuminate this darkness.
The Teacher resumed his walking, and Yehushafat slapped the dust away from his clothes and followed him. After a while, The Teacher spoke again, and his voice loud – Imagine in your heart a land that has not one sword in it. No one knows the meaning of the word, and war is made with sticks and rocks. Murder is a rare crime, done only in truest of rage and if you were to travel to that land with a sword in your hand, you’d have been the strongest of all sons of Adam, but they would not understand the weapon in your hand, nor fear the shining of bronze.
There he stopped, and Yehushafat still did not understand the words spoken to him. He asked – Is that that the weapon your hand carried yesterday? A hidden blade?
Fell the countenance in the face of The Teacher. No, he said. What I swung, a heavier burden it is than any blade.
Then, for the first time, wondered Yehushafat if it were better never to understand these things.
The Teacher continued. Consider what is happening in your spirit when your ears hear a thing, any thing that is spoken. I shall say it, and you have no choice but to accommodate them in your heart, even if they cause you disquiet. Were I to ask you to notice the resting of your tongue in your mouth, could you refuse, or are you now bothered by the discomfort between your jaws? And if I asked you to notice your breathing, when it enters your chambers and when it leaves, could you notice it without controlling it?
The words floated in the wind as if they were leaves, bathing in the sun light, from the mouth of The Teacher to Yehushafat’s ears. Yehushafat moved his tongue with in his mouth, breathed heavily in and out as if he had forgotten how his breath felt in ordinary moments. Understood the meaning of the words, but not their importance.
Continued The Teacher – and if I asked you about the color of the skys when you say your farewell to them, could you not wonder? And their color in the day after?
Stopped Yehushafat where he stood and closed his eyes. Even in the days of his wars he would charge into battle and there is no thought in his heart nor hesitation in his limbs. At times he had thought about being killed, but more often about killing his enemies, and rarely about the days he shalln’t witness after. The Teacher’s words grounded the question, bound it to his heard. Yehushafat looked at the skys. Will it be day or night? In winter, in old age and sickness, or in the summer in the battle field? After the skys will change their color and he shall not be there to see them. Their color will be red, Yehushafat said finally.
May be, said The Teacher. Could that every last day is a day where the skys are painted red, for the deceased. You have survived hearing this thing.
I survived. What of it? Wondered Yehushafat. These are the words of persnons, nothing more.
But there are words stronger than these. There are words with great power in them. Words will rip a tree from his roots, a wheel from his hinge. Shield and armor won’t stop them, and a sword cannot strike them down.
Am I to believe that is the weapon? If so, why not each and every bandit swings words like those and shatter the hearts of man?
And how will you teach their use? Would that I have tried to teach the Philistine yesterday, but this disciple of mine, the burden outweighed his competence. Words are things, to give them they must first be received. A double edged sword is that, and no son of Adam in this land swings it and his heart not drip with sorrow.
How is that? Anyone who gives them, must first be given. And who had given them firstly?
His green eyes looked at Yehushafat with curious surprise. That, he said, you must have already understood.
Yehushafat shook his head. Forgive me, my judge. I have heard in my days words that bring a man to his knees, words that deprive a man of sleep for long months, even words that turn a man to a broken vessel and his force won’t return to the day of his death. But words that split a skull like a sword, I have neither seen nor heard. If you are mocking me, desist.
The Teacher shook his head, a mirror. Do you remember the death of Eglon?
Surly. He ruled over my father’s father, until Ehud son of Gera killed him.
And how did he?
The judge was left handed, and so Eglon’s guards did not notice his sword strapped to his right thigh under his robes, and not to his left like the right handed man. It was a double edged blade, and he had slid it into Eglon’s abdomen beyond the hilt and it was never found. Why do you laugh?
Said The Teacher – And how would the guards of a king not touch Ehud’s two thighs? And how would he drive the blade so far that it was never found, if it was sharp on both ends? Do you remember what Ehud said to Eglon to make him call his guards away?
The word of God I have for you, said Yehushafat. Stop making riddles and speak clearly.
I am asking clearly, what was of the blade?
And how would I know?
Your eyes tell me your wit suspects. Say that which is on your heart.
You wish to say that there was never a blade.
Truth. Ehud did not lie. The word of God he really did have.
And what was the word?
I have never heard it, but if I’d told it to you, you too would wallow in your own spilled guts.
Yehushafat swallowed down his spittle, and silenced.
Said The Teacher to Yehushafat – And how did Shamgar beat six hundred Philistines, and him alone? Not an ox goad was his weapon. And Shimshon, not a fresh ass’s jaw bone did he grip, and if he did, he did not use it for striking. And have you seen with your own eyes a woman whose hand on a stake is as sure as Yael is told to be, when she pierced Sisra’s skull? Not a mallet was her weapon. These are our tools of war, the Hebrews. The Philistines, they have war method and iron vehicles, and order and discipline, line over line they come like on a game board and a Philistine army could stand a Hebrew army twice as numerous. But judges come against them in the fields of battle, whispering words to the other, learning the other’s language and religion all the better to sharpen truths to carve open their hearts.
And their own, said Yehushafat, and the source of the words he did not know.
Some times, agreed The Teacher.
Why would you tell me this? Need you an apprentice for the sharpening?
Not so, but that these blades were already turned against you. And you survived them, but they have scarred you, and your own scars you do not understand.
And if that is truth?
If that is truth, the same blade that dulled the light of your eyes and the singing of your ears should heal you, if you learn to hold it.
Halted Yehushafat and sat down in the middle of the road and for a long time was silent. Even these words were enough to ground him and for long moments he could not raise his body. His dream that his eyes could read again, that his ears could hear the singing of the birds and the soft speech of children, his dream to sleep in peace and wake in the morning in peace, and not to awake in the darkness of the night awash with sweat, all those were before him and his passion burned in him to grip them. Did The Teacher speak the truth? Would that Yehushafat had known the weapon and was scarred by it, yet he did not remember, what danger would that be? If he had already bit the fruit and banished, why not taste it again? For a long time Yehushafat looked at the shut eye of The Teacher. If Yehushafat shall take the weapon and use him wrongly, perhaps this time he will lose the light of his eyes entirely, and his ears be silent forever, and never he could the word.
I do not believe, said Yehushafat and the lie in his words rang so clear that even the mockingbirds on the pines and vipers under the rocks raised their heads in suspicion.
The Teacher pointed with a lonely finger to his other eye. Twice you have looked upon the other, he said. Shall I summon her again, so that you may trade words?
A dread caught Yehushafat but his face showed not a shiver. A hero he was, and he conquered his fear, even if he did not vanquish it. That was not his teacher that looked through that pale window, and Yehushafat didn’t know if that was a man at all.
The eye remained closed and the mouth did not speak words of power, but that had been enough. The power was presented to him, even a hint, and the proposal stood – to become a true apprentice, to sharpen a blade sharper than any one made of bronze or copper.
No need there was to tell Yehushafat that which was clear to all, that the one who waits for them at the end of their path is also talented in these ways and knows them well. Would Yehushafat want to grip him, he will have to learn his ways as well. To spend his nights in fear, that he did not want, and gladly will he risk his life for a cure. But most of all, greater sevenfold was the truth that he could not deny – These poems of The Teacher, this sorrow that kills men, a great desire was in his heart for them. To hear them, to memorize, to recite them even when no one listens. To know them he desired, and the source of the desire he did not know.
The truth is already tied at your waist, said The Teacher. All you have to choose is whether to drew her from her sheath.
So be it, said Yehushafat and rose on his legs, and in these words dictated fate.
The green eye closed, and for a long moment The Teacher stood and both of his eyes hidden. Finally the green eye opened again and The Teacher looked sadly at Yehushafat, as if he hoped, despite his efforts, that Yehushafat would leave. Went to the path, and Yehushafat after him.
Said Yehushafat – Our time is short. If you are to train me in this art, we should begin.
And how will I train you? Recite of my poems, crueler and more bitter each one, as if I were to train your tongue with wormwood? Where you a boy, I’d train you. An empty bowl, you can fill with warm water. But you, the rains of your life you hold, and what you know you know. Are you prepared to listen? That is enough.
For a long time they walked in silence. A warm and dry wind blew in the gorge and patted their backs to encourage them. An Osprey was patrolling the skys, and Yehushafat did not know if that was the one they saw in the morning or another. A pair of swallows flew below him, the blades of their wings slicing the wind this way and that, so quick that they could take cover under the talons of the prey-bird with no fear.
Walked until noon and sat to eat in silence at the shadow of a cliff. Sat under a fig tree whose roots dug at the base of the cliff and his trunk growing towards the horizon, away from the stone wall to the light and the branched swing under the load, up and down. On the cliff above their heads rocks and rocks leaning as if ready to fall, and all the to his top oak trees holding with their roots bare among cracks in the rocks and there they will live their whole lives without soil.
A little nook between the ground and wall and a rock shelf covers it, and in it the remains of a fire that was once lit where it will be safe from the wind and rain, and died out. Yehushafat touched with his fingers the web of a spider that was stretched on the ceiling of the nook but the spider who weaved it was not on it, only dust and the cadavers of moths. Weeds that have grown in the cracks have and already dried.
Yehushafat examined these things while The Teacher passed his hands on the bent fig tree. Remembered the things The Teacher had first said – The season of figs is over.
Ate their dry meal and returned to their walking. Clouds have come from the west and arranged themselves as a great fire-colored pillar, as large as entire creation, and the sun as if tired was pulled behind the clouds like a man that a great sea-beast drags him under the water to drown him.
Stopped The Teacher and looked at the clouds, and Yehushafat stopped to look also. Said The Teacher – these are His words. With the first rain drop a great sorrow fell on Yehushafat and on The Teacher along with him. In silence they walked until the clouds passed and the sun appeared on their other side large and orange over the horizon and a pleasant wind blew on their faces, like a mother soothing her child.
Finally Yehushafat laid on his blankets and looked at the dome of stars and wondered what will be the color of the sky when his end comes.
Most days Yehushafat would look at the sky and not remember that there are days that he will not see, that the sky will change but he no longer will. But The Teacher’s question grounded the wondering, tied it to his heart. Who will find him? What will be his last sentence?
Maybe those will be night skys just like these, only that the moon will be a little fuller.
In the night Yehushafat awoke from dreadful dreams. His teacher was sitting and reading a scroll in the moonlight, and raised an eye to look at him and said – In the night time, when none are awake but beasts of prey, that is the time to wander and wonder, the time when truths remove their bindings and run free.
And what do these things mean?
They mean that it unworthy for a man to ask his companion about his dreams, said The Teacher, and collected his scroll into his sack.
And yet? Asked Yehushafat.
A man cannot lie in his dreams, and the truth we need more than any other thing. Imagine that your heart is a pond of water. In the day, the waters are muddy and hard to see through. Things hide at the bottom and will not rise. But in these hours, whether we are asleep or awake, the dirt sinks and the water clears. We cannot see to the bottom of the pond, but seldom we will be awarded a glimpse of what hides in her. Some die like that, waking in the dead of night and looking deep into their own poems and being felled by them.
Surely you speak in allegory?
Why is that? Do you know what hides in the pond of your heart?
I cannot say I do. When I was a boy it seemed that, as you say, the waters were clear, or at least shallow, but with the years the waters rise, and more mud and dirt is thrown into them, and blood. And they cannot be cleaned, every thing that enters stays there until we die. All we could do is let them sink. And you, do you know what hides in your spirit?
Two ponds I have, he said and pointed at his closed eye. One has only muddy water, the other only clear. One sees only truth and desires no illusion, and the other will spend her day and night in illusion, minding not the truth.
It would have been proper to Yehushafat, if he asked which of the ponds had the clear water and which the muddy, even to himself, but he did not. Instead he asked The Teacher – Will it be better to tell you the dream? Should I not be exposed to look at some thing that I would rather not see.
What you have dreamed, you have already saw. If you understood it alone, that is also good. If not, tell me and will interpret it for you.
Again I was near my home in Mevaseret. In the same place where the Yevusi slashed my breast and forsaken my in the mud of my own blood to die. But in my dream he had not weapon – in stammering Hebrew, in a heavy accent as if he himself did not understand the words, he came and whispered words, and my breast burst and blood erupted from it. In my memory, my strength did not stand to even press the fountaining blood. But in this dream, I acted. The blood spilled, and I knew that the sooner it will drain and collapse me, the sooner I could forget that which my ears heard. In my memory, the blood spilled and spilled, and by the time the healer came with the boiling oil in his cauldron my ears and eye dried from blood and maimed. But in my dream my hearing and sight degenerated instantly, as if from their own volition, the moment the words were heard.
And the Yevusi? Asked The Techer.
As from his eyes I saw, his vision blurred and in pain he looked away from my convulsions.
A long moment they sat there and had no neighbor but the moon only a hair’s breadth from being full and the cooing of an owl that was killing in the meadow.
Finally said Yehushafat – Will you interpret this dream for me?
Said The Teacher – And what is left to interpret?
Chapter 5
Fell asleep and awoke and packed their blankets and for a long time walked and not a word has been said.
Finally said Yehushafat – Avimelech, do you know what has been his fate?
The Teacher brought his head from side to side but did not answer.
They say a woman from Shchem shattered his skull with a vehicle debris. But where is the woman who will shatter a skull with her hands, even more so one of a man like Avimelech? And how will a man with a fractured skull know with such confidence that his end is coming, and call the boy to skewer him with the sword? Said Yehushafat – I do not know such a woman, and one injured in his head I have never seen behave so lucidly. The same blade like you she carried.
That I will not know, said The Teacher. The same story as you I heard. And why not? The sons of Israel worship their gods, why would then not worship ours?
And Ehud, was he truly left handed?
The Teacher did not answer.
Did he say the word of God with his own voice?
No, answered The Teacher. In his right hand he wrote it down and did not look in it.
And his right hand, he was not her sovereign, could not write in it or swing a sword.
No.
Unless when she desired it.
Truth, truth you have spoken, said The Teacher, worry in his voice. From the moment the you have turned your face to the light every thing will discover itself to you.
And as The Teacher spoke the familiar scent of a man’s flesh in the sun made his way to Yehushafat’s nose. They walked down the valley and found a man sitting with his back to a tree’s trunk his hat on his face and flies and crows circle around him and his guts spread in front of him and his blood dry on the dirt and blackened.
Look, Said Yehushafat but The Teacher’s white eye was open and his bow in his hand. An arrow shot out of his bow and nailed one of the crows to the trunk and the others soared and flew far away calling with horror and rage. The white eye shut and her sister opened in her stead, and when The Teacher saw the crow bound in torment his face fell. Shook his grief and turned to Yehushafat – Can you hear the echo of the words?
Yehushafat looked at the man, at the way he lay, at the way his belly had burst, at the tormented look on his face, and it was as if he heard the recitation from far away, as if they were a whisper in the woods where the wind blows and the leaves rustle and cover every sound.
The monk I have found by the shattered altar, said Yahushafat, his belly was open as if with a knife, like this one. But when little Gid’on looked at it, he fell ill. I saw it and could not hear anything. And this person, his body is even more disturbed, and yet I can hear the poem’s echo. Why is that?
Because you remember. Do not let pride take root in your heart, stay in low spirit. The Teacher raised his nose, as if tracking beyond the smell of blood.
Is this the man we are after?
Answered The Teacher – Any whose words affect this way, we are after.
Walked until the sun set, and in a clearing set up camp but they had no longer provisions to eat from. Start a fire, said The Teacher. Left his blankets and sack and took nothing but his bow and his arrows and left.
When The Teacher returned and in his hands a rabbit and a rooster and a partridge the fire was already burning and Yehushafat was staring into it as if looking for some nameless thing.
That is much game, said Yehushafat when he saw The Teacher.
Agreed The Teacher. Too much.
They roasted the rabbit and the rooster they cut to pieces to dry and the partridge Yehushafat tossed into the woods to satiate the jackals.
In silence they made their supper, and in the silence ate and made their beds under the trees of the clearing.
Chapter 6
Again dreamed Yehushafat and again awoke in his moist bedding in the dead of night. Looked and saw The Teacher sitting with his back to him and reading a scroll by the moonlight, but which eye looked at the scroll he did not know.
Turned The Teacher to Yehushafat and his green eye shining. Said The Teacher – Again you dreamt?
Yehushafat said – Yes. I dreamed that I have climbed to the Yevusi and a stone in my hand but not one did I hit and the stone remained dry. I gave them words and no more, and when they heard them their ears split and they could not hear, and their eyes split and they could not see, and their blood spilt to the ground and they died there. And what I said I do not remember.
The Teacher looked upon him and listened carefully, until Yehushafat returned to talking as if the silence seduced the words out of him. Said – In my dream I saw again the Yevusi who said his things and left me to die there, but in my dream not of their own my ears and eye turned blunt, but of my own will, words I have whispered into them and those words maimed me so that I may never again hear words like these.
Said The Teacher – Neither hear, nor remember.
Yehushafat shook his head. It must have only been a dream, and those words were never said.
For a long time The Teacher said nothing, as if waiting for something to float in the heart of Yehushafat before reaching to fish it out. And said – You are close to the light. All that is needed is for you to turn you gaze into the light and look into it, if you want it.
And if I were not to want it?
Then again your ears will inflame and your eyesight dim and when asked you will make yourself to be a fool. There is no shame in that. That is the nature of every woman-born, just as flight is the nature of the bird, and crawling of the worm. The nature of the awake to observe, and the asleep to dream, but sometimes the things are reversed. Please restrain yourself. If you go too far too quickly, you will not be able to return.
Yehushafat wondered if he is struggling to look at the light or away from it. And what did you read before? He asked finally.
The journals of a monk of God whose body was found in the out skirts of Mevaseret.
Again Yehushafat calmed his spirit and his surprise was not seen on his face nor heard in his voice. How did you reach them?
I found the scroll under a rock, he answered simply. The poems sang to me to find them. Do not ask forgiveness, for telling me you have set it aflame. I envy you, Yehushafat, for not knowing how to lie. Those who know get tangled in their own lies further and further until they cannot move. Those whose skill in lies is blunt, they live free in a world of truth.
What’s written in it?
The pale eye opened in front of his suddenly, and even though Yehushafat wanted to flinch, he stilled himself and straightened his gaze to her as he would a beast of prey. These poems do not fulfill their promise, said the rough voice. Luke warm, without sharpness. How could they kill a man?
I did not know that it could speak.
The eyes switched quickly. In the night time, said The Teacher as he looked on Yehushafat with his green eye, the boundaries between one and other obscure. Crossing becomes easy.
Yehushafat looked upon this being in front of him. A man, he determined, but not a man also. A question I have to ask, if it is proper.
Laughter was in the pale eye as it opened. Would and you will not see another sunrise. Is this the time to worry about proper and improper?
And who will prevent the sunrise from me?
Such wisdom bears heavy on the air itself. Soon we will lay eyes on our slayer.
Why you are certain I will not survive? Many poems I have heard and I am not dead, said Yehushafat, and knew that he was speaking truth.
You have not heard even one of mine. You have seen the reflection in the face of another and already lost to yourself, so hear him you want?
Some thing will survive, The Teacher said suddenly, his green eye open and the white one closed. Not as it was before, but some thing, yes.
A malice was in the white eye as it opened and looked upon Yehushafat. Days will say. Now ask.
Standing in front of this horror it took Yehushafat a moment to fish the question out of the pond of his thoughts. How did the one become two?
That is not a story worthy of hearing, said The Teacher Softly.
And why not? Barked the rough voice from The Teacher’s throat. That is the only poem you have ever written. Have pride, and tell him.
Sighed The Teacher and surrendered. I was a hunter’s apprentice, and an orphan. For years I learned how to shoot the bow and hide in the woods, how to peel the skin and clean the guts, but only in targets I shot and only dead game I cut. Came a day and I had to kill something with life, and I could not stand it. Even in a tender age the wrongness of it was clear to me. I could not, but I had a duty. The hunter would have banished me from his cabin, and my mother and I would have starved. So I strung together the words of my first poem, and recited them in my own ears.
To yourself you have done this? Asked Yehushafat, stunned.
A boy’s error, he admitted. I did not know Poems existed, let alone their nature.
An error? Barked his throat as the white eye popped, and the green one hid from it. And what would you have done without me? An eye to look unblinkingly at the truth, so you said, and now I can look at the heavens like you never could. You are Lie, I am Truth. You are Profane, I am Holy. And you dare call my creation an error?
I understand, said Yehushafat. The poem, it cleaved you in two.
Yes. In a word he has created me, and saw that it was good. And the poem he called The Cleaver. His first sentence you have heard, would you like to hear the rest?
No! Yelled The Teacher. It is too soon! There is no need for him to hear it now!
And why not? This broken judge, who can neither listen nor recite – to let him live is too cruel. An evil laughter glowed on The Teacher’s face.
But he might still heal, pleaded The Teacher, if he remembers his own words. For days now I have lured them into the surface, I beg of you.
Yehushafat thought to himself – To beg to the merciless, it is as futile as singing to a deaf.
The white eye hollered, as bright and blinding as the sun. Now listen, the time has come to share our poems and you will either die or heal. Will you listen to The Cleaver and finally know if you can stand it, or will you grace me with your own poem, the one that had killed so many Yevusis and darkened your eyes and blunted your ears and mind? The choice is yours, and am I not as merciful as The Name Himself for giving it to you? The Teacher’s hands pulled the straps of his sandals of his feet, and that eye that looked unblinkingly at the truth, as the poem said, looking at him and no thing else.
A clarity fell on Yehushafat, and his heart beat in his breast like the paw strikes wolf in his charge. All was quiet, and from above Yehushafat saw himself and thought – this fool for days on days strode beside this wild beast, this murderer who thirsts for blood, and so occupied with riddles and birds that he chose to ignore the danger that was only an eye lid’s width away. If he dies, so be it. And the angel of God was with him.
Yehushafat took off his sandals and spoke then, finding in the depths of his heart the first word of that deadly poem that he had spoken so many years ago and has maimed him – Blunt. And the white eye watched and listened in silence. Then he found the second word – Stone, and by then, like a man drawing a blade from his own flesh he saw that though it did not become any less painful it could not but be drawn all the way through.
When he was done a shiver of pleasure went through The Teacher’s body and his eyes and ears did not bleed and the mouth under the white eye repaid Yehushafat with a single word – Good.
And the white eye saw Yehushafat, that he a was judge and Yehushafat looked upon that eye and saw in her the vessels of blood and the yellowing and the black void in its center and he looked at the moon and for the first in a long time his eyes saw her for all her blemishes like a white eye fully opened and his ears could hear every leaf rustling and every beast that was striding in the woods, even the steps of old feet coming slowly towards them through the clearing.
Glanced to his left, and saw a small woman walking among the trees, long in the days but with a light step like The Teacher. Yehushafat wondered if she had heard his poem and will die for it, but he calmed for as soon as she saw them she began to sing. Her voice was pleasing, and her manners without shame or fear.
How pleasing is your voice, said The Teacher, his green eye shining.
How pleasing is your listening ear. Welcome to my domain.
Yehushafat’s heart was still singing with clarity, and he did not wish to speak anything aside from pure truth.
The Teacher said – Is this your domain? Forgive us, we did not know.
All is forgiven. Yes, you are in my domain, but why should I refuse guests to sleep in my clearing?
And did the fire not disturb you earlier?
I went to tour my property and just now returned to smell embers, and see my guests are chatting pleasantly and I have not even blessed them as proper for a hostess.
Your domain must be very large.
Indeed, she answered. All of these hills are mine, and the plots and paths leading all the to the sea, and the sea is also my property, and although my guests do not ask my permission to sail him I still receive them. Beyond the sea there is another land and that is also mine, and all guests take as they will from the sea and land.
The Teacher laughed a great laugh, and blessed the vagrant for tricking him. He gestured to a rock by the dying fire, and said – Will you sit with us to share in our huntings? We have taken beyond our need.
Yehushafat listened to the laughter of his teacher, that only a moment before was in a dire struggle with his own shadow. Wondered if that was true laughter, or was his teacher as accustomed to pretense like a fish was accustomed to water.
Is that the truth? None of you seems to hunt for the sake of it.
Truth, but you also have the truth – the one who’s strum the bow’s string, does not sit with us now.
Where is he?
Wandering out there in the dark forest. Likely he will come soon, and you could trade words. The Teacher placed from the meat above the embers to warm again, and the woman again sang the same song she enjoyed singing in her pleasant voice, and her eyes searching for stars.
What song is that? Asked The Teacher when she was done.
And what is one song separate from another? She turned to him. All of the words in the world to a single song they unite and all of the people of the world his choir, in song they enter and in song they leave. She turned to look at Yehushafat. And you, what is your role?
I am a judge, spoke Yehushafat, and so is he. We are after a just sentence.
She laughed at him. Is your wish to string a just word to her sister until a just sentence is made?
A monk’s body I found in my domain, and gave oath to find the slayer and being him to judgment. Your own rules and sentences be what they will, so I will do. Have you met him? His hair and beard were black and very long, and his eye lashes long over his bright eyes.
The vagrant looked at him with appreciation, as would a child-keeper praising a brave child, and it infuriated Yehushafat. Many monks I saw, she said, but to tell them apart I did not know. From the moment they said the three words – I am a monk – the same they were to me.
And you cannot tell one man from the next?
An impairment of vision. From birth. My own mother I knew from her paces and the length of her hairs but her face I did not know. It is no great trouble, sons of Adam, they are more similar than they are different. Tell me, how many days did you walk?
Three, answered Yehushafat.
And hints did you find?
Few but clear.
Served her The Teacher a piece of meat that had by then warmed and singed. The vagrant looked at him in his green eye and thanked him from the bottom of her heart. I will never forget this, she said. She bit and chewed and swallowed and then looked at Yehushafat again and said – Did you know that the work of a judge is much like that of a poet?
Yehushafat looked at her with fresh curiosity he had not known in years. What does that mean?
The vagrant looked upon the heavens and said – A shard to a shard you put together from the fragments of the world and sometimes a piece falls with another and a grand truth is revealed to you. Could that a grand truth hides between profane details, and it is the nature of the whole universe. And if there was one, would we have seen it? Would we stand it, if it were told to us? Who is the man among those sitting that will eat all of the fruits of the tree of knowledge, and his gut will not burst?
With that The Teacher’s white eye opened. Finally I have found you, the whisper was heard.
She looked without fear at the white eye and nodded. It was your fierce gaze I have felt looking for me, she said. What is his nature?
He will go where I will, and do as I shall command. Too tender for our art, but a great use for daily things I care not about.
And he? She said, and with her chin pointed at Yehushafat.
Good to have an audience to our art, and art of his own he has, albeit weak. The Slave tried to convince me not to take him, that he may never take the shine, but I believe he can be a great poet still.
She shrugged like that was a thing of no interest. That we will find out together. She turned to Yehushafat. Of a monk you spoke.
I did.
And his scrolls you found as well?
As well.
If so, you know the nature of the slayer.
She is sitting here in front of me, said Yehushafat, his voice calm like that of a man watching the armies riding down the hill for him and there is no savior for him but Him.
Is that so? She answered. He came to me willingly and asked for my songs. I have warned him not to write them in his scrolls, but he insisted. Have I killed him, if he asked me to?
And why would he ask that of you?
The Vagrant fell silent and looked at him as one does a child who’s fallen, waiting for them to pick themselves up. The Teacher’s white eye looked quietly at the vagrant, and turned to Yehushafat as The Teacher’s throat croaked. It was clear to you, Yehushafat, that we had been searching for he who had done to the monk that he should die, and now you see we have been searching what the monk had done to bring his own death. And here is what he did – dared search for a lucid truth.
And for that he died? For failing to carry it?
No! The woman cheered. He did not fail! He labored and labored and found it and a great joy was in his heart for finally knowing it. And so you too labored, and you too found. Believe.
The white eye narrowed at her. Did we find? That you have told him he wrote, but these poems I read and they have not the dullest sting. How could they have killed him?
He wrote the words of my songs, but not their tune. Words are but words, but a song is a window to the divine.
And what is a song but his words? Sounds pleasure the ear and not more, words are those who open the skys.
It is the opposite – words without tune, they are like a flesh with blood. Like a moon without moon light.
The white eye narrowed with hate. Poems are not flesh, and they are not the moon. They are blades. To carve through the thick cloud of ugly lies covering the world is their only purpose, and they have need not of blood or light.
She looked at him and her pity over him was great that tears welled in her eyes and spilt. We will go to the field, she said, and in your own eyes you shall see.
She rose, but The Teacher remained sitting. The white eye closed but the Green one did not open in her place, and for a moment each one trembled under her lid and sweat covered the forehead over both, as if they were locked in a colossal struggle. Finally the green eye of The Teacher opened to a crack and he rose and stood in front of Yehushafat and said – Yehushafat. And Yehushafat said here I am and The Teacher said – Run Yehushafat, with your vision clear and your life free run to your dominion and be judge over it and never return to this place again.
A great calm fell over Yehushafat and wind rustled through the leaves and his dry cloths. And Yehushafat said – No. I would like to listen.
For that The Teacher slapped him so hard that Yehushafat fell over, for his strength was still that of a judge, but not enough for him to stay fallen for Yehushafat was a judge also. The Teacher came over Yehushafat and offered his hand to help him rise and Yehushafat took her and as he did The Teacher struck again with his other hand trying to put Yehushafat to sleep, but his trick did not stand and Yehushafat gripped his thin wrist and pressed until the bones bent.
Not a moment ago you have dug into your own soul just so that I may not speak, and now you shall fight for the same words?
Words are things, answered Yehushafat. I have chosen to take yours, as I have chosen to unearth mine. Where is the other? Bring her.
The Teacher looked upon him and a heavy grief in his green eye. Then she was gone and the pale one came in her stead and his mouth filled with laughter. Here I am.
Yehushafat let go of the arms of his teacher and the Medianite woman looked at him, with neither approval nor reproach, and went to the clearing. The Teacher’s white eye stalked the woman’s movements and so his bare feet like a silent beast of prey tracking her. Noticed Yehushafat that the feet of the Medianite were bare.
Rose Yehushafat and his feet bare also and came to look at them stand one in front of the other in the high grass in the pale light, and listened. The woman gestured towards his teacher’s body for him to begin, and with no pause the ripping-scroll-voice was heard, loud and clear and paced. The first sentence Yehushafat remembered, but after it more and more words came like rain, dropping into their places one after the other and the name of their source no one knows. The Teacher’s hands gestured and his back bent and straightened and after several moments came The Teacher’s palm towards one another and the poem was done. For a long moment all stood like statues.
Joy rose in her face, and then in his. Laughter rose in her mouth, and then in his. She shook and hollered with glee, folding herself in two about the waist, and tears of laughter poured from the pale eye too.
Yehushafat stood silently against their cries of rejoice and exultation and the reason for them he was yet to know. Little by little their laughter soothed like waves ebbing in a pond until their death, and their faces flattened. An autumn wind blew as if the world itself prepared to listen.
The woman bowed, and for a moment her eyes met Yehushfat’s. Took a deep breath, her ribs expanding as far as her chest could bear, then she opened her mouth and her voice claimed dominion over every thing.
Different from the pleasing voice she had sung with before, haunted and seeping through the walls of his being and Yehushafat knew that it may be too true for him to hear without dying. Only then did Yehushafat understand the poem he heard recited by his teacher’s mouth.
Chapter 8
Yehushafat awoke sprawled on the earth and his body was aching.
Hardly did he raise himself over his shaking legs. The Teacher and the Medianite were no where to be seen and the moon that before had shown bright was now covered in clouds. Yehushafat’s sight was still sharp even in darkness but something in her wrong and he did not know what it was. He searched for his teacher turning his head his and there and around a tree trunk he found him.
The Teacher sat with his back to a tree and for the first time Yehushafat saw his eyes both open and his mouth too in great laughter, only then did he see the gash in his stomach, and the guts of The Teacher bursting ahead like snakes in their escape and the woman he did not see.
The poetry was still like embers that had not died, hot and dangerous, and Yehushafat bent over and wretched. On his hands and knees he brought his gaze up to look again at the two eyes of The Teacher and only then did he realize what had been wrong with his sight – only from his right eye could he see, and the left one only darkness was before her. Brought his hand to his face and touched with his fingers at the eye lid closed not by his command and pressed it with great force and prayed that it will stay closed, always closed, that it may never open and that he may never have to see what that eye had learned to look at. Tears fell from his open eye and dropped to the earth.
And Yehushafat was a great judge over Israel with his one eye open and one closed until he commanded his body to the dirt and he was aged seventy seven years. And the Sons of Israel did the wrong in the eyes of God again and He brought on them another people to raid and slay them and they cried unto the heavens and so God brought to them a judge to deliver them like all of the judges that have come before.
Acknowledgements
To Solomon Ratner, who lended his copy of Akutagawa’s Rashomon and 17 Others, that inspired me to have the initial idea for this story.
To Caitlin Sweet, that under her guidance I wrote the first version of this story, which was placed in Japan, and featured two ronin discussing Zen Buddhism.
To Tsezna, for having read said version and remarking simply two comments. One was that Zen Buddhism aspires to wordlessness, and my mother’s religion is better suited as a background for words of power. The second was that it does not make sense for them to hunt a pheasant, for the only kind of pheasant that comes through Japan is the green genus, that only passes in spring. That was his way, I think, of telling me that I should not write about places and religions I do not know.
To Adam Etzion, who co-organized the “writers’ camping” in which I sat down and described trees and birds and got awoken in the dead of night by a pack of boars (really!) and put all of those things into the next draft.
To Noam Tiran, the second co-organizer, who also landed me his copy of “Shimshon” by Ze’ev Zabotinski, which massively inspired the style. I promise I’ll get it back to him any day now.
To Johnathan “Schnee” Schneewise, who like many Jewish word casters refuses to be called a teacher, for sharpening my writing instincts like hell.
To Nimrod “Nimitz” Baratz, a hunter who does not fear God, for taking me along as a child and guiding me through dangerous woods as confidently as only a slightly older child could. (Also for getting for getting back to me barely twelve hours after I’d cold-sent him the story with exquisitely detailed and in-depth remarks).
To Melyn, Daniil, Stambo Jameson and Beacon for their comments that were as helpful as they were varied.
To my beloved Chen Raya Barnoy, for speaking the words of power that revive a writer’s heart: “Yeah, it’s a good story. I really liked it.”
Aaron Benelli 
Leave a comment