A Favorite Son Read online

  I let one word escape, hoping that he cannot catch the sound of it—but wishing, in spite of myself, that he would.

  “Dad,” I whisper.

  It is then that he raises his hand and with a strength I did not know he possessed, takes hold of my limb. He runs his fingers through the hair of the goatskin sleeve, comes as high up as my heart—and then, loses his breath and lets go. “The arm is the arm of Esav,” he whispers. “But the voice is the voice of Yankle.”

  He falls silent, and I wait. I am beside myself with worry: in his mind, who am I? There is no way to tell. He would not reveal it, except to say, at last, “Now, what I am about to tell you, son, will guide you and protect you in the future,” after which he tells me that which I came here to hear: I shall become my brother’s master, he—my slave.

  This, I know, is a crucial sentence. From this moment on it can never be undone, not even by my father, no matter how pathetically my brother will shed tears, or how intensely he will plead with him.

  My father follows it with a long list of advice. His words are not only strange—but in one case, entirely new to me. In halting sentences he tries to explain that which to him, is inexplicable, and to me—plain hard to grasp. Something about finding a connection to something abstract, without face or name. He asks me about something higher, greater than myself?

  Meanwhile I start to count time. Time is a fearsome thing, especially when you are expecting your brother. He will be back any moment now, to claim that which is his, which is his to lose: this blessing.

  I listen to sounds from outside: birds come flapping their wings over us in a feverish flutter. I look up at the two open tears in the canvas overhead, and know that by now, it must be high noon.

  I know it because the two rays of light have changed direction by now: they fall straight down like heavy ropes, like a ladder, really, with no degree of slanting.

  I try to focus on my dad, and then, in a blink of an eye, it happens: things go dark before my eyes and right there, for the first time in my life, I think I see angels, climbing down that ladder, kissing his feet, which are nearly white, and then flying away.

  I wipe my eyes in amazement, only to realize it was nothing, nothing but an odd, fleeting vision. And yet, I wonder.

  Earlier in the day, I expected to obtain great riches from the old man, and now I have come to realize that what I possess now—what I have just taken from my dad—is a fortune beyond my imagination. The fortune of a dreamer: to be connected, if only for a second, to something higher and greater than myself, something vast and eternal. A ladder of sorts. A ladder to heaven.

  I bend my head before him. He holds me. It is with great difficulty that he utters, “Forgive me, son, if I have hurt you.” His lips move again, and I believe they are forming the words, “I forgive—”

  He is in agony. I turn my head away from him, and the first thing I see, on the outer side of the tent—just below the flap—is my mother’s high heel, snakeskin shoes. They are pacing nervously to and fro, between one peg and another. I figure she is there to warn me. Perhaps she wonders what is being said. From time to time the shoes come to a stop, and you can see a shape being pressed to the canvas: her ear, listening in, hearing nothing, because at this point, the only sound to be heard is coming from outside.

  ❋

  From the far edge of the camp there rises a loud, terrible roar, full of rage. At first I wonder what beast could have uttered this cry—but soon I realize it could be only one: my brother. I understand his pain. He is no longer the favorite son. His luck has turned, and he knows it.

  As for me—I am so lucky that, for fear of being murdered by him, I have to run. So I do what comes naturally, and what I will come to regret one day: I turn my back on my dad. I tell myself that I have to leave him lying here, fighting for his breath. Time is up. Have to go.

  And so, I release myself from his grip and rise up, rise away, for the first time, with a new, unfamiliar feeling in my heart. This, I think, is a fresh beginning.

  My name is Yankle. I am blessed.

  Chapter 4

  The Curse of the Striped Shirt

  You may have heard those rumors about me: how I escaped by moonlight, how I hid inside each one of the seven wells of Beersheba, with nothing in my possession but the shirt on my back, how I eluded my enemy, my brother, and then, how frightened I was, how alone. I’m afraid you have been, at best, misinformed—or, more probably, mislead by some romantic foolery, some fiction and lies, the kind of which can easily be found, and in abundance I might add, in the holy scriptures.

  I insist: it was not moonlight but rather, high noon. I was wearing no shirt whatsoever—nothing, really, but a goatskin sleeve. There was only one well in which I could hide, not seven. And most importantly, I was hardly alone, for the entire camp—all the maidservants, the shepherds, the guards—stood aghast all around me. So now, you must see that I could not, despite my best intentions, escape stealthily out of there, nor could I elude anyone.

  Instead I was flung out, kicking and screaming, with tugs and pulls loosening the remaining shreds of my clothes, and whacks and smacks coming at my bare back from all directions. My left eye swelled up to such a degree that out of necessity, I resorted to use the right one—only to discover, once I raised my head from the dirt, that my brother was standing right over me. His foot could be seen coming straight at me, at an easygoing, unhurried pace, until it turned into a full blown kick.

  I managed to roll away, mainly by flailing my arms wildly over my head. With a great sense of urgency I crawled on all four through the crowd, and hid inside the closest well. Luckily it was bone dry, thanks to a yearlong drought. And so for a second, I could hang there by my fingernails and pant, and catch my breath. Then I tiptoed behind the corner, right into the shade of my mother’s tent.

  From there I took a plunge and hurled myself downhill—where, to my utter disappointment, I found out that my brother had already caught up to where I was headed, and was waiting there for me with open arms. He made a point of letting me know that his hate for me would, by no means, stand in the way of our closeness.

  “Come, Yankle,” said Esav. “I promise not to hurt you.”

  “Really,” I said. “Can I trust you?”

  “Aha,” said he. “I will just kill you.”

  His bulging, bloodshot eyes were full of vigor, and so, unfortunately, was his fist. It met my chin once, then again, attempting to drive the point home, but on the third try, he missed—which was the sole reason why I still had my wits about me.

  I staggered away, aided in my movement by the quaking of my knees. A desire to live made me, somehow, light on my feet. I turned and ran, leaving my brother behind, way back in the dust. I could no longer see him. He may have given up the chase—but still, knowing his skill as a hunter, I had to keep on going, opening a measure of distance between us. An hour later I found myself crossing the dry river bed, which was such a long distance from camp, so far from where I used to feel safe, that it was, for me, an unknown, dangerous zone.

  The sun scorched overhead, beating upon the steep, rocky slopes. I hesitated. I looked back. The peaks of the tents had shrunk away. A short time later, they disappeared completely from view.

  The notion of asking my brother—no, begging him—to forgive me, crossed my mind. I thought of retracing my footprints and perhaps, finding my way back home, only to realize, by nightfall, that those footprints had led me astray.

  I must have been walking around in circles that entire day, which made me feel helpless. I thought that in the future, if I was lucky enough to have one, I could never become more helpless than this. How wrong was I then!

  Now I laid down under some wilted bushes, using a rock for a pillow. So miserably disgraced, so alone was I, that I wished to bury myself right there in the sand. A great blackness yawned upon me. It was like no other night sky I had ever seen before.

  Back home, I remembered, it would be lit up by the campfire, around
which the family would gather for the evening meal. The faces of the young girls, sitting with their skirts spread on the woven mat, would blush. You could see their cheeks flaming as they giggled, hinting at the shepherds, who would rise up then, stand in a loop and play their flutes, made out of reeds, or strum their stringed instruments, made out of sheep sinews.

  The blaze of the fire would be mirrored in my father’s eyes, and looking at him, you could barely believe he was going blind. His rich voice would lead us in songs, which turned, gradually, into wordless melodies, as the wine cask was passed from one hand to another, making its way several times around the fire.

  At bedtime you could spot, through the canvas of your tent, the glitter of my mother’s candlelight. Her soft, charming voice would bid goodnight to you, goodnight to all.

  Then, from the maidservant’s quarters, you could hear the gurgle of a baby, falling asleep on his mother’s breast. And later, the whispers of love making from one tent, then another, followed by peaceful rhythms of breathing. All around you, men and women stirring, from time to time, in their sleep.

  The glow of this memory was as tempting and as fanciful as delusion. I ached for warmth, and wished I could leap, somehow, over time and distance, and find my way back into that circle. I wished I could sit there by the fire pit, and stretch out my hands, even blacken them by touching the dying embers.

  Now in this place, the moonless sky was completely devoid of light, and for the first time in my life I was forced to listen, really listen, to the desert.

  Here was the void. The silence of God.

  I was trying desperately to separate it into notes, invent some variants, some life. I imagined I could hear a rustling in the dry, brittle brush.

  Could roaches be creeping over me? Could a scorpion be slithering under my rock? I sat up, my mind tortured by things of phantasy, such as the noiseless flight of vultures. But then I decided to calm my nerves. I yelled, Come! Flap your wings! Let me hear you! Come here, scavengers, prey upon me! Pick my bones! Then the echo answered, “Bones, bones...”

  Let them perch on me, upon my skull! Who cares? Come morning, my brother would find me. He would spill tears all over my remains. For my untimely death, he would surely blame himself. My mother, too, would sob. She would grieve inconsolably. Now that ought to teach them, teach them all a big lesson!

  There was a chill in the air. It quivered with the last echoes of the echoes of my voice. And then—I swear, this is no exaggeration—the heavens opened up right there, before my eyes.

  This must be a dream, I said to myself. A dream born out of exhaustion. A vision, which I had seen once before, one that would keep coming back to me in later years, even in my old age—even as late as tonight!

  Nowadays, however, I am so much wiser, so much more cautious. Hush! Don’t tell my sons. Are they here? Let them not hear that which I am about to tell you, because I know, all too well, what happens to old men, crazy old men who are nearly blind, but can see things, things that no other human can see.

  But I digress. A distant lightning tore through the sky, and in a flash, I thought I saw a ladder. It was set up on earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, turning from time to time, like a flame in the wind. And behold! Winged creatures were ascending and descending on it. Were they lost souls, rising up from skeletons in the desert, and coming down to mourn them?

  Or else, were they angels, pulling my soul up, in agony and distress—and then, seeing how weak, how famished I was, coming back to hold me, in pity and compassion?

  The sight vanished in smoke, and I wiped my eyes in amazement.

  Soon I fell asleep, and dreamt of the long way awaiting me, and of the years of exile lying ahead, in foreign places, places faraway from home, and I saw myself coming back one day, with sons and daughters, and their sons and their daughters, a family, a tribe, a people, a multitude like the dust of the earth.

  And from the dust of the earth I awoke, to a clap of thunder. I knew instantly what it meant: the dry spell had broken! In a matter of minutes, the crevices and cracks around me filled up. They were bubbling with water.

  Rain washed over me, lightly at first. I opened my mouth and let it trickle in, let it break my thirst. I drank it up, in big, long gulps. I was intoxicated! I was alive! I sprang to my feet and it was just then that I saw, coming out of nowhere, a river gushing, rushing into the valley.

  I had heard of flash flooding before—but never did I stand in the midst of it. I started up the slope. My path was slippery, for a torrent of rain poured down mercilessly upon the earth. At one point I stopped to try and catch my breath. Was it my imagination? Between one thunder clap and another, I could hear a sound, a delicate clip clop coming towards me from the top of the mountain.

  And look: out there in the damp distance, against the backdrop of a clouded sunrise, you could detect two humps traveling in unison along the ridge. In a little bit, a camel came into view. And up there in the saddle, riding like a queen, wrapped in her goatskin coat, was no other than the woman I admired, the woman I adored: my mother.

  Hope filled my heart. She was my shelter, my home! With her, I knew I would be safe, safe from hunger, safe from thirst, and above all, safe from my brother. With a new burst of energy, I scrambled over the last few boulders that stood between us, and cried out for her.

  The clip clop came to a stop. I drew closer, so close that by now, those long eyelashes and those ear hairs, used by the camel as a barrier against sand, swung by and gave my nose a sudden tickle. Meanwhile, my mother’s face remained high above me, curiously out of sight, hidden behind a black veil. And so, it was only by her shoes, which hung right there at eye-level, that you could recognize her.

  “Mom!” I cried.

  She gave no answer.

  “Mom!” I cried, even louder this time. “Help! Please, help me!”

  To which she whispered, “Hush, my child.”

  I shrank back. Long seconds passed, during which rain kept coming, sheets and sheets of rain. Her veil was so soaked—it clung so tightly to the features of her face—that by now, I could begin to guess her expression, even the movements of her eyes.

  Her gaze, I noticed, flew far beyond me. It seemed to focus at something—someone—in the direction from where I had come last night. Somehow I knew who it was, even before turning around.

  Right there, on the opposite hill, he stepped forth, his arrow slung into his bow. My brother raised it slowly, aimed directly at my heart, and drew the bow, but at the critical second he halted, stopping just short of releasing the string. His hand seemed to waver, and just as I allowed myself to breathe more freely, I caught him taking one more step. This time he pointed the arrow higher, aiming it at her—at our mother. For what seemed like an eternity, the three of us froze in position.

  She stuck up her chin, looking at him steadily, even defiantly. I closed my eyes. The only sound that could be heard was water, filling up the deep divide between us and him.

  When I opened my eyes, my brother was gone. It was then that her bold expression gave way to tears. She started laughing, a wild laughter mixed with cries. In a fit of rage, she shed her snakeskin shoes and threw them, one high heel shoe after another, in his direction. And one after another they splashed into the water and sank in. I figured, good riddance. Those shoes were ill-suited, anyway, for the desert sand.

  “What did I do,” cried my mother, “to deserve this?”

  She sounded so pure, so innocent, that if I did not know any better, I would swear that this woman was incapable of any sort of manipulation.

  No, she could not possibly have crafted the best, the most reliable way to deceive her husband. She could not have plotted against her son. Her tone was so injured as to convince not only me, but herself as well. It would be easier to believe that I had gone mad, that my grasp on reality must have failed me, that truth had no basis in facts.

  She moaned, “Where did I go wrong?”

  How could I answer? I might as wel
l have asked that question myself. Like a good, faithful son, I had followed her instructions, followed them to the letter, and took advantage of my old man, so that in his blindness, he had given me that which belonged to my brother, that which I did not deserve: the last blessing.

  Well, if that was a blessing, I wonder what a curse might look like, because here I was, lost, hungry, empty-handed, and stranded in the middle of nowhere. Where, I ask you, did I go wrong? It was all her fault! Her calculations had missed the mark and brought me here, to this place. Perhaps she figured that once Isaac blessed me, Esav would realize who was really the one in power, and in time, he would bring himself to bow down before her.

  Despite this minor mistake on her part I trusted that she, of all people, could show me the way out. My mother was such a shrewd woman, a woman unlike any other. Perhaps she could read my mind.

  “I am not like other women, never was,” she said. “During the first years of marriage I was incapable of giving life. I am no goddess of fertility, you know. So for twenty years I bathed in holy water. For twenty years I prayed on my knees for children, and in the end, all that effort did pay off: I was pregnant! Not one baby, but twins! Oh, the bliss, the happiness! Right from the start they kicked me, on the double. First he, then you, you, he. Both of you kicked so hard I would fold over...”

  Right away I felt defeated by the endless suffering, which she professed to have experienced on my behalf. My God, she was the mother of all Jewish Mothers! She was such an expert at guilt! You had to admire her.

  “I nearly died at childbirth,” she whispered. “Oh God, I wish I did.”

  I wanted to hug her, to calm her down, but she was perched up there, way out of reach.

  “Did I not feed both of you, hold you when you were sick, teach you everything you know?” said my mother. “What, in God’s name, did I do to deserve this?”

  “What did I do?” said I.

  To which she replied, “This is about me, not you.”