Joseph and His Brothers, page 188
He wept a little more and then said, "But of course he should bury his worthy father, that old rascal, with full honors and take him to a foreign land in the company of his sons and brothers and his brothers' sons, in short, with all the male seed of his house—that will make a great cortege. It will look like an exodus, and it will appear to people as if he were departing from Egypt with his family to the land from whence he came. One must avoid such a misleading impression. It could lead to unrest in the land and to scenes of upheaval if the people were to believe their Provider was leaving them—I surmise they would feel it far more bitterly than if My Majesty were to depart and leave this land out of grief at their ingratitude. Hearken, my friend: What sort of procession would that be that consisted only of children and children's children? In my opinion there is but one choice, and this transport provides fully sufficient cause for arranging for a Grand Procession. It should be one of the grandest ever sent forth into foreign lands, so that it may return from there
with equal pomp. What sort of Pharaoh would I be were I to grant the Provider, my Unique Friend, a request without going beyond the mere granting of it? Tell him: 'Pharaoh, who covers you with kisses, gives you seventy-five days that you may bury your father in Asia, but not only your family and their households shall travel with you and the corpse. Pharaoh will also decree a true Grand Procession, and the creme of Egypt shall bring your father to his grave. I shall, so says Ikhnaton to you, assign my entire court, the noblest of those who serve me and the noblest in all the land, the administrators of the state and their households, together with chariots and an armed escort, a very great force. They shall all follow the bier with you, apple of my eye, both before and after you and to both sides, and shall accompany you in the same fashion on your return to me, once you have delivered your precious cargo to that place where you wish to leave it.'"
The Grand Procession
This was the answer that Mai-Sakhme brought back from Akhet-Aton for Joseph, and everything was set in motion and arranged accordingly. Invitations, tantamount to orders, issued by a high official of the palace, who called himself Privy Councilor of the Morning Levee and of Secret Decisions, were sent by express messenger in all directions, and a date was set for all those called from throughout the kingdom to participate in the procession to assemble in the desert outside Menfe. It was an inconvenient honor that had been bestowed upon Pharaoh's servants, upon the great men of his house and the great men of the Two Lands of Egypt. And yet there was no one who would not have been wary of declining it—in fact, dignitaries not included were objects of malicious remarks by those invited and fell ill with worry. Organizing the Grand Procession as its various components and contingents flowed into the desert valley was no small task—it fell to a troop commander who usually bore the title Driver of the King's Chariot of the First Rank, but on this occasion and for the duration of the enterprise was given the title Orderer of the Grand Funeral Procession of Osiris Yaaqov ben Yitzchak, Father of the King's Spender of Shade. It was this field
officer who, working from a list of participants, had drawn up the order of march and now at the point of assembly brought the beauty of clear hierarchical order to the muddle of chariots and sedan chairs, of riding animals and beasts of burden. The armed escort that was to protect them was also under his command.
The procession was ordered as follows: With a division of soldiers, trumpeters, and drummers in the lead, it was opened by Nubian archers, Libyans armed with scimitars, and Egyptian lance-bearers. This was followed by the flower of Pharaoh's court—as many as could possibly be included without entirely depriving the person of the god of a noble entourage: Friends and Sole Friends of the King, Fan-Bearers at the King's Right Hand, palace officials ranking as high as the Supreme Keeper of Secrets and Privy Councilor of the King's Commands, and other highly placed persons such as His Majesty's Chief Baker and Chief Butler, the Lord High Steward, the Overseer of the King's Wardrobe, the Chief Launderer and Bleacher of the Great House, the Sandal-Bearer to Pharaoh, his Chief Wigmaker, who was also a Privy Councilor to the Two Crowns, and so forth.
This gaggle of flunkeys formed the vanguard to the catafalque, which was incorporated into the procession once it arrived in Goshen and from there on glistened high above it. With its sparkling gemstones and face and beard of gold, the sarcophagus bearing Jacob's image had been placed on a bier, which was then set on a gilded sledge, and this upon a wagon whose wheels were draped and that was drawn by twelve white oxen; and now the towering cargo swayed along, just ahead of the professional mourners who broke into occasional wailing to the accompaniment of flutes and preceded the house of the dead man, his entire clan, for they were next in line. This included Joseph, with his sons and household staff, of whom Mai-Sakhme was the oldest; it included Joseph's eleven brothers with their sons and sons' sons—all who bore a male name in Israel followed after the casket, along with the dead man's closest attendants, especially Eliezer, his oldest servant, plus a good many other menials, so that the contingent from his house was very numerous and very long. But what a retinue was in their wake!
For now came the administrative officialdom of the Two Lands: the Viziers of Upper and Lower Egypt, Joseph's immediate subordinates; the chief bookkeepers of the House of Provisions; people like
the Overseer of Cattle and All Domestic Beasts, who also bore the title Overseer of Horns, Claws, and Feathers; the Head of the Royal Fleet; the True Head of the Cabinet and the Warden of the Treasury Scales; the General Overseer of All Horses and a great number of True Judges and Chief Scribes. Who can Hst all the titles and offices borne by all those who decided it was an honor to be obliged to accompany the mummy of the father of Joseph the Provider to foreign shores. Military, with standards and cornets, now followed the civil servants. And finally at the rear was the baggage train, with tents, wagonloads of fodder, mules, and drivers—imagine the supplies of food and drink that such a procession would need for a journey across the desert.
A very great company, as tradition rightly says, for one need only picture this long-drawn-out hurly-burly of vehicles and resplendent teams, of colorful plumage and flashing weapons, of snorting beasts, rolling wheels, and marching feet, of whinnies, brays, and lows, of blaring coronets, drumbeats, and well-trained lamentation, and rising from its midst, dominating everything, the tiered structure for the sarcophagus, with its well-wrapped traveler inside. Joseph had reason to be satisfied. His father's heart had once lost him to Egypt, and now all of Egypt had to pay homage to that heart's heartfelt grief by bearing the dead Jacob to his grave on its shoulders.
And so the marvelous procession that awakened universal marvel wended its way toward the eastern frontier and now entered those bleak stretches that had to be overcome once one left behind Hapi's meadows in Pharaoh's eastern provinces to arrive in the lands of Haru and Emor. It moved along the upper edge of the mountainous desert of Sinai, but then turned in a direction that would have surprised anyone with a knowledge of its goal: for it did not take the usual, shortest route to Gaza by the sea and then through the land of the Philistines by way of Beersheba to Hebron, but instead passed below the port of Khazati and followed a road that fell away with the land to the East, through Amalek and toward Edom at the southern end of the Salt Sea. It skirted those caustic waters along their eastern shore as far as the mouth of the Jarden and then continued a short distance up that river's valley. It was from there, that is, from Gilead and the east, that it crossed the river and entered the land of Kenana.
A huge detour for Jacob's huge funeral cortege; it made a seventeen-day trip twice that long, which was the reason why Joseph had demanded a leave of seventy days—and even then he had not demanded enough and in fact slightly exceeded the seventy-five Pharaoh had granted him out of love. He had decided early on, however, to make this long detour and immediately revealed his intentions to the man in charge, the colonel who kept order in the procession and thought it a very good idea. He had been worried that the incursion of an Egyptian force of such size, with so many men under arms, entering Canaan on the highway from Gaza, would result in turmoil, misunderstanding, and difficulties and much preferred an evasive route that led through quieter country. In Joseph's mind, however, this very extensive detour was meant to enhance the honors of the journey. For him this solemn transport could not demand time and effort enough; no distances could be too great through which proud Egypt had to bear his father on its shoulders. That is why he had wanted to extend their route and saw his plan carried out.
When they had completed circling Sodom's sea and advanced a little way against the current of the Jarden, they came to a spot along its bank that was called Goren Atad; in ancient times it had been no more than a threshing floor surrounded by thorns and briars, but it was now a populous market. Nearby, along the river, was a broad meadow where they spread out and made camp under the curious eye of the locals. They stayed there for seven days and wept loudly, held a seven-day lamentation, begun anew each day in bitter and shrill tones, so that, just as had been the intention, the children of the land were very impressed, especially since even the animals were in mourning. "A very large camp," these people said, raising their eyebrows, "and a grievous mourning on the part of Egypt." And from then on they had no other name for this meadow but Abel-Mizraim, or "Egypt's meadow of mourning."
After delaying to pay these honors, the procession re-formed and crossed the Jordan at a ford that, to further their own commerce, the children of the land had made much more passable by sinking tree trunks and stones there. The sledge bearing Jacob's coffin was taken from its wagon and his twelve sons carried it on poles across the river.
They were in their own country and now ascended from the steamy river valley to fresher heights. They followed the well-maintained road that held to the mountain ridge, and on the third day they came to Hebron. Encircled on its slope lay Kiriath-Arba, from where many of its residents hastened down to behold the wandering splendor that had entered the region with its holy burden and now filled the plain of the valley, in one rocky wall of which was the bricked-shut entrance to the double cave, that ancient funereal heirloom. Supplied by nature, but enlarged and improved upon by human hand, it did not appear double on the outside, for it had only one door. When the wall was broken open, however, as was now done, it opened onto a circular shaft leading downward and then branching to the right and left into two corridors blocked with slabs of stone, behind which lay the two barrel-vaulted crypts—this was why the cave was called "double." At the mere thought of who all had found an eternal home in these rocky chambers, one turns pale—as the brothers now turned pale when the cave was opened before them. It left the Egyptians unmoved; indeed, there were even some wrinkled noses at such a homemade grave. But all that was Israel turned pale.
The shaft and corridors were very narrow and low, and two people from the house of Jacob, his oldest and second-oldest servants, one in front, the other behind, were just barely able to maneuver the mummy down into its chamber—whether into the one on the right or on the left, that has been forgotten. If dust and bones could marvel, there certainly would have been much marveling in the cave at this newcomer in his foolish foreign finery. But instead there reigned only total indifference, out of whose musty smell the crouching bearers hastened back up the shaft into the sweet airs of life. There slave artisans stood at the ready with trowel and mortar, and in an instant the final refuge, which would receive no one else after this, was closed again.
The house closed, the father disposed of—ten pairs of eyes stared at the last brick in the last hole. What is wrong with them? How sallow they look, these ten men, chewing at their lips. They cast furtive glances at the eleventh, and lower their eyes. It is quite obvious: they are afraid. They feel abandoned, anxious in their abandonment. Their father is gone, the hundrcd-ycar-old father of these
seventy-year-olds. He has always been there until now, even as a wrapped mummy—but now he is behind that wall, and suddenly their hearts sink. Suddenly it seems as if he, he alone, has been their shield and protection, standing—where no one and nothing now stand—between them and retribution.
They stood off to one side, muttering among themselves as dusk fell. The moon rose, the eternal images emerged, the cool and damp of the mountains rose from the earth among the tents of Jacob's escort of honor. Then they called over the twelfth of their number, Benjamin, Rachel's child.
"Benjamin," they said with faltering lips, "pay attention, here's the thing. We have a message from him who has been gathered to his people to be given to Jehosiph, your brother, and you are best suited to bring it to him. For shortly before his death, in his final days, when Joseph was not there, our father commanded us, saying: 'When I am dead, you are to tell your brother Joseph for me: Forgive your brothers their transgression and their sin, that they did evil to you. For as in life so also in death, I shall be between you and them, and I lay it upon you as my bequest and last testament that you shall not do them evil and take revenge for old matters, even when I am seemingly no longer there. Let them shear their sheep, but leave them unshorn.'"
"Is that true?" Benjamin asked. "I wasn't present when he said it."
"You were never present for anything," they replied, "and so you have nothing to say. Such a little fellow need not be present everywhere. But surely you will not refuse to bring His Grace, your brother Joseph, our father's last wish and purpose. Go now to him at once. We, however, shall follow after you and await what news you have for us."
And so Benjamin went in to his exalted brother in his tent and said in some embarrassment, "Joseph-el, forgive me for disturbing you, but your brothers have asked me to inform you that on his deathbed Father implored by all that is holy that after his death you would inflict no pain for what happened years ago, for even after death he wanted to be a shield between you and to prevent your taking revenge."
"Is that true?" Joseph asked, his eyes welling with tears.
"It's probably not exactly true," Benjamin repHed.
"No, for he knew it was not necessary," Joseph added, and two
tears dropped from his eyelashes. "They are right behind you, I suppose, outside the tent?" he asked.
"They are," his Uttle brother answered.
"Then let us go out to them," Joseph said.
And he stepped outside beneath starry luster and the weft of moonlight. There they were, and they fell down before him and said, "Here we are, servants of the God of your father, and we are your slaves. As your brother has told you, we ask that you forgive us our evil deed and not repay us according to your power. As you forgave us while Jacob was alive, so forgive us now after his death."
"But brothers, dear old brothers," he replied, bowing to them with arms spread wide, "what are you saying! You speak exactly as if you feared me and wanted me to forgive you. Am I as God? In the land below, it is said, I am as Pharaoh, and though he is called god, he is but a dear, poor thing. But in asking for my forgiveness, you have not, it appears, really understood the whole story we are in. I do not scold you for that. One can very easily be in a story without understanding it. Perhaps it was meant to be that way, and I have only myself to blame for always understanding too well the game that was being played. Did you not hear it from our father's lips as he gave me my blessing, that in my case it has always been merely a playful game and an echo? And in his departing words to you did he even mention the nasty thing that happened between you and me? No, he said nothing of it, for he was also part of the game, of God's playful game. Under his protection I had to rouse you, by my brazen immaturity, to do evil, but God indeed turned it to good, so that I fed many people and matured a little myself besides. But if it is a question of pardon among us human beings, then I am the one who should beg it of you, for you had to play the evildoers so that everything might turn out this way. And now I am supposed to make use of Pharaoh's power, merely because it is mine, to revenge myself on you for three days of chastisement in a well, and again turn to evil what God has turned to good? Don't make me laugh! For a man who, contrary to all justice and reason, uses power simply because he has it—one can only laugh at him. If not today, then sometime in the future—and it is the future we shall hold to. Sleep in peace. Tomorrow, by God's counsel, we shall begin our journey back to the comical land of Egypt."
This is what he said to them, and they laughed and wept together, and they all reached their hands out to him as he stood there in their midst and they touched him, and he caressed them as well. And so ends this invention of God, this beautiful story of
Joseph and his brothers.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
John E. Woods is the distinguished translator of many books—most notably Arno Schmidt's Evening Edged in Gold, for which he won both the American Book Award for translation and the PEN Translation Prize in 1981; Patrick Siiskind's Perfume, for which he again won the PEN Translation Prize, in 1987; Christoph Ransmayr's The Terrors of Ice and Darkness, The Last World (for which he was awarded the Schlegel-Tieck Prize in 1991), and The Dog King; Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain (for which he was awarded the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize in 1996), and Doctor Faustus; Ingo Schulze's jj Moments of Happiness, and Simple Stories; ]din Philip Reemtsma's More Than a Champion; The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe; and Bernhard Schlink's Flights of Love. He lives in San Diego, California.
