3

Finding a place to settle was at first hard, and then very easy. We felt as if it should have been a momentous decision, our new home in the wilderness, but we were in a trackless land, dotted with shrubs, small trees and small hills. We spent hours combing the wilderness. For what, we did not know, and at least we settled easily on a spot no better, and perhaps somewhat worse, than a thousand we had argued over. There we erected the tent that I had brought with me from my days as a shepherd in the mountains.

Our first problem was finding water. In addition to being an exigency it was a valuable thing for us to need at this time.

My wife is a wonderful woman who has her own secrets. I did not know, then, why she chose to come with me. What I did know is that when the voice came and told me to leave everything behind, it did not tell me to leave her and there is for this, I was, I am sure, a purpose.

What I also know is that every moment away from that moment on the hillside was a moment away from God, certainty, nor was it clear where we were going or what we would do there. Action, the need for water, that was our medicine for fear. There were things in the wilderness that were not God. One’s mind becomes uncertain.

I am reminded of another time, which we may discuss presently; my son Ishmael who I sent into the desert to die. For I remember I asked my God what was to become of my eldest son, should I do as my wife wished. And there was that pause which always seemed to me to be God’s laughter.

There you stand at the gates of the immoveable city of Ur, the wild wilderness before you. Behind you, men drink long drinks of water from cool pitchers, and the smell of roasted meat fills your nostrils, and you know no one, not even the gods, could batter these walls down. From the wilderness comes another smell, salt and emptiness, the stranger wind of the waste places. There was a moment of terrific fire, when the way seemed clear but now your desire, your certainty, is cold ash.

The world works in mysterious ways. I worked two days in the blinding sun, without water, to dig a crude well. And every day God moved farther from me, like breath on the waters. Years later, my infant son had only to kick his feet to summon water from the Earth. When God will come, and how, these things cannot be demanded. Second to courage, the virtue of the believer is patience.

And when I returned, hot and thirsty, to our tent in the desert with a skinful of water for my wife and she smiled at me and it melted away.

There was not only waiting. There was the gentle moonlight of the long nights, the silver maiden visiting in silence her secret shrines, older than the hills. In the chill morning, there was the warmth of the sirocco, spilling over the low shrubs and stooping trees like the breath of a god, waking the soul from ember to flame. There was the tent we shared and a life we had together, small, but perfect in its own way. Complete. And these things we shared with no one. In some ways we were waiting to be found, but when I look back on it now, I know that in some ways we were as happy as we would ever be. Nothing called. But we did not always mind.

When He would speak, and even then He would from time to time, it was not always to my satisfaction—and just like that, like that wind, he would be gone. He had, it seemed, curious blindspots. He told me once to circumcise myself and then circumcise the trees. The same word, just like that. It took me a long time to realize he meant pruning, a rather just description of both deeds.

He told me later he would make my generations as many as the stars in the sky. The word he used was sprouts. It was like He couldn't tell the difference…

It seemed to me just. Here in the wilderness, we were making a world,, and that world should have its own god, a new god. And he did speak to man, and not to trees, and this He knew, but there was always that sense--that I was being permitted into one palace room, one doorway. That this room was enough, much more, than my meager life could stand to hold and yet, I was aware. There were other rooms, and other halls. And I would never know them, or the reason for them, and this only God knew.

The Arameans, of whom I have met many and shared meals, they must have their own room in that palace, and by its ornaments they know it and recognize it.

From Ur, I left a room, I came to another. But this was still possible. It remained possible. Because I never really left. Shall I prove it to you? I will. The Canaanite god of death—for it was Canaan I came to—is called Mot. That is his name. And the Hebrew word, the tongue my sons and daughters would come to know, is Mavet. But when you describe the death of a person, there is a different Hebrew word. Mot. My death shall be Mot Abraham. I have run from him, it is true. Yet I know it is he who will come for me. It is not God’s fault but mine that I must be claimed by the gods I know.

And you while you live, force the world into what shape you will. We find our rooms the same, but I believe that we decorate them. But when you come to the end you cannot choose the world you pass into. There it falls from your hands-there you enter another room. And I believe, I do not yet know, but I believe, that that room is for all the people of the world. God is beyond you, He can never be caught. And he can never be changed. Things are as they always are, as they always were—though for us, they never cease moving.

When I die, they will bring me back to Ur.

So we journeyed on, by stages, towards the Negev. My cousin Lot joined us as our pack mules left the plain.