Zipporah, Wife of Moses Read online

The sheep had sensed water. It was too late to stop them. They began trotting toward the troughs, jostling one another and bleating.

  Zipporah caught hold of Sefoba’s arm. “Less than a moon ago, our father passed an unfavorable judgment on Houssenek. He and his sons aren’t too keen on the law.”

  Sefoba, eyebrows raised, asked her to explain what she meant. But they were both interrupted by Orma’s shouts: “What are you doing? Have you gone mad?”

  Houssenek’s sons had started running toward the sheep, yelling raucously. In a panic, the animals began to disperse. Within a few seconds, they had scattered in all directions. Zipporah and Sefoba tried in vain to stop them. Some ran down the slope, risking breaking their necks on the rocks. Houssenek’s sons laughed and swung their staffs.

  Sefoba stopped running. Out of breath, her eyes black with rage, she pointed at the scattered flock. “If a single sheep is hurt, you’ll regret this! We are Jethro’s daughters, and this is his flock.”

  The four men stopped laughing.

  “We know perfectly well who you are,” muttered the one Zipporah had pointed out as the eldest.

  “Then you also know it isn’t your turn to be at the well,” Orma retorted. “Get out of here and leave us in peace. What’s more, you stink like old oxen! It’s quite disgusting!”

  She underlined her disgust with a grimace, adjusted her tunic, which had slipped from her shoulder, and walked toward Zipporah. Heedless of her insults, the men watched her, fascinated.

  “It’s our day today,” one of them said. “And tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, too, if we feel like it.”

  “You animal!” Orma snapped. “You know very well that isn’t true.”

  Zipporah placed a hand on her arm to silence her.

  The one who had spoken before started laughing again. “It’s our day whenever we like. We’ve decided this well belongs to us.”

  Sefoba let out a cry of rage.

  Zipporah stepped forward. “I know you, son of Houssenek. My father passed judgment on you and your brothers for stealing a she-camel. If stopping us from reaching the well is some kind of revenge, it’s stupid. Your punishment will be really harsh this time.”

  “We didn’t steal any she-camel,” one of the brothers exclaimed. “She was ours!”

  “Who are you, black woman, to tell me what I can and can’t do?” the eldest jeered.

  “I am Jethro’s daughter and I know you’re lying.”

  “Zipporah!” Sefoba said in a low voice.

  It was too late. Brandishing their staffs in the air, the men stepped forward, coming between Zipporah and her sisters.

  The eldest of Houssenek’s sons pushed her away with a blow on the chest, and laughed. “Your father is only your father because he kissed the arse of a black ox.”

  Zipporah slapped his cheek with such force that the man staggered. His brothers stopped laughing. Zipporah tried to take advantage of their surprise and started running. But one of the men was too quick for her. He threw his staff, aiming it between her legs. She fell headlong.

  Before she could even try to get up, a heavy body, stinking of sweat and grunting with hatred, fell on top of her. She cried out, in fear as much as in pain. Rough fingers clutched at her chest, tearing the fabric of her tunic. A knee was planted between her thighs. Her head throbbing, she could hear Sefoba and Orma screaming in the distance. Nausea rose in her throat. Her arms felt weak. The man seemed to have a thousand hands, as he scratched her thighs and mouth and stomach and crushed her wrists and her breasts.

  Then Zipporah, eyes closed, heard a wet sound, like a watermelon bursting. The man groaned and rolled over onto his side. All that remained of him on her was his smell.

  She did not dare move. All she could hear was heavy breathing and the sounds of struggle and stamping feet.

  Sefoba cried out. Zipporah finally opened her eyes. Sefoba was dragging Orma toward the well. Close to her, the eldest of Houssenek’s sons seemed to be asleep, his cheek squashed up against a stone, his mouth red with blood and his arm strangely twisted.

  Zipporah leaped to her feet, ready to run away. Only then did she see him.

  He was standing facing the three men who were still on their feet, holding his staff at shoulder height. It was no ordinary shepherd’s staff, but a real weapon, with a heavy bronze tip. He was dressed in a pleated loincloth, and his feet were as bare as his chest. His skin was very white, his hair long and curly.

  Suddenly, he swung his staff, describing a perfect curve. With a dull thud, it struck the legs of Houssenek’s youngest son, who toppled over with a cry of pain. The two others leaped back, but not quickly enough to escape the weapon, which came down on their necks, forcing them to their knees.

  The stranger pointed at the eldest, who still lay motionless. “Take him away,” he said.

  His voice was sharp, and his accent made the words sound strange. He’s from Egypt! Zipporah thought.

  As Houssenek’s sons were lifting their wounded brother, the stranger nudged them with the tip of his staff. “Now get out of here or I’ll kill you,” he said, in the same tone of voice, stumbling over the words.

  Zipporah heard her sisters’ cries of joy. She heard them coming closer, calling her name. But she was incapable of turning her head to them and replying. The stranger was looking at her. He was looking at her with eyes that seemed familiar. There was something about his expression, something about his mouth—a self-confidence perhaps. She saw his arms reaching out to her to take her waist and lift her, and she recognized them even though they were not covered with gold.

  For the first time in many moons, her dream, the dream that had so troubled her, came alive again in her.

  WITH the shepherds gone, there was a moment of awkwardness. Sefoba ran to take Zipporah in her arms and set about repairing her torn tunic, joining the pieces and trying to hold them together with her silver brooch.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “They didn’t hurt you? Oh, may Horeb strike them dead!”

  Zipporah did not reply. She could not take her eyes off the stranger with his white skin and burning eyes and large mouth. The one thing to distinguish him from the Egyptian in her dream was that he had the beginnings of a beard. It was reddish and sparse, leaving his cheeks visible, the kind of beard that looked as if it was often shaved, quite unlike the beards of the men of Midian.

  He was looking at her, too, still clutching the staff tightly as if fearing he might have to fight again. It struck Zipporah that he must have seen black women before, because there was no surprise in his expression, but rather admiration. Nobody had ever looked at her so intently, and she found it unsettling.

  Orma broke the tension. “Well, whoever you are, we owe you a lot!”

  The stranger turned. It was as if he were seeing Orma for the first time. Zipporah saw his lips quiver and his smile grow wider. He finally released his grip on his staff and straightened his shoulders. His chest swelled. Faced with a beautiful woman, he was reacting like any other man.

  “Who are you?” Orma asked, in a voice as sweet as her gaze.

  He frowned, turned his eyes away from Orma, and looked toward the shimmering hills, the flock coming together again and climbing noisily back up the slope to the well. It was clear to Zipporah that the man was a lone wolf.

  He raised his staff and pointed toward the sea. “I’m from there. Over there. From the other side of the sea.” The words came out with difficulty, one by one, as if he were lifting stones.

  Orma laughed, with a laugh that was both seductive and ironic. “From the sea? You crossed the sea?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re from Egypt, then! That’s easy to see.”

  He’s a fugitive! Zipporah thought.

  Sefoba put her hands together in a respectful greeting. “I thank you with all my heart, stranger! Without you, those shepherds would have taken my sister’s honor. They might even have assaulted all three of us.”

  “And then they would h
ave killed us,” Orma said.

  The stranger did not seem impressed. He glanced at Zipporah, who stood rigidly, like a statue. With a modest little gesture, he pointed to the coping of the trough, where he had left a gourd of fine hide that was quite flat. “Chance. I was looking for a well to fill my gourd.”

  “Are you traveling alone?” Orma asked. “With no escort and no flock? Drinking water wherever you can find it?”

  The stranger immediately responded with a look of embarrassment.

  “Orma!” Sefoba said, coming to his rescue. “Don’t ask so many questions!”

  Orma dismissed the reproach with her loveliest smile. She stepped away from him, went up to the well, and announced that the water was quite low. Zipporah was in no doubt that the purpose of all this movement was to make sure that the stranger kept watching her with fascination, like a bee unable to extricate itself from a fig that has burst open in the sun.

  Orma was now casting the rope, at the end of which hung the little leather pouch that was used to bring up water for drinking. “Zipporah!” she cried. “Come and have some water. Why aren’t you saying anything? Are you sure you’re all right?”

  The stranger looked at Zipporah again, and she suddenly became aware of the pain in her thighs and belly where Houssenek’s son had scratched them. She went to the well and took hold of the gourd that Orma had brought up.

  “We are Jethro’s daughters,” she heard Sefoba say, behind her. “My name is Sefoba, that’s Orma, and that’s Zipporah. Our father is the sage and judge of the kings of Midian . . .”

  The stranger nodded.

  “Do you even know you are on the lands of the kings of Midian?” Orma asked, curling her lips.

  Sefoba nearly protested, but the stranger did not seem to notice the irony in Orma’s voice.

  “No, I don’t know. Midian? I don’t know your language well. I learned it in Egypt. A little . . .”

  Orma was about to say something more, but he raised his hand. It wasn’t a shepherd’s hand, any more than it was a fisherman’s hand, or the hand of a man who works the land or kneads clay to make bricks. It was a hand that could hold weapons but also make the simple gestures of those accustomed to power: give orders, call for silence and attention.

  “My name is Moses,” he said. “In Egypt, that means ‘pulled from the waters.’”

  He laughed, with a laugh that made him seem curiously older. He glanced briefly at Zipporah, as if hoping she would finally speak, noted her waist, her slender thighs beneath her tunic, her firm breasts, but did not dare look at the luminous black pupils that stared at him. He pointed to the sheep.

  “The animals are thirsty. I’ll help you.”

  SURPRISED, they watched him in silence, sure that the man was a prince. A fugitive prince.

  Everything about him indicated a mighty lord: his clumsiness as well as his strength, the fineness of his hands as well as the quality of his belt. It was obvious he was not used to drawing water from a shadoof. He caught the cedar pole too high, then slid too close to the pivot. When the goatskins came up, dripping with water and as heavy as a dead mule, he had to hang on the pole with all his weight to maintain balance and turn it so that it was above the trough, where the sheep were waiting, bleating impatiently. So much pointless effort! Beneath the folds of the loincloth, his thighs swelled, powerful and hard; the muscles of his shoulders and lower back rippled, and his skin glistened with sweat.

  Despite his lack of skill, or because of it, he persevered, and ended up watering the animals alone, without Zipporah and her sisters doing the slightest thing to help him. When he finished, he took his weight too quickly from the cedar pole and it went slack, with a dull vibration that made his shoulders shake, and caused him to almost lose his balance. Orma gave a throaty little laugh. Zipporah had the presence of mind to catch the empty gourd as it slapped the air. When she turned, she saw Orma’s slender hand resting on the hoist, quite close to the stranger’s hand.

  “The sheep have enough water for the moment. Many thanks for your help. But it’s obvious that in your country you aren’t used to working a shadoof.”

  Moses let go of the beam. “That’s true,” was all he said. He rubbed his hands together to get some life back into them, went round to the other side of the well, picked up his own goatskin, and dipped it in the water.

  “There is a feast in our father’s enclosure tonight,” Orma said. “He’s receiving the son of the king of Sheba, who’s coming to ask his counsel. He would certainly be pleased to have the opportunity to thank you for saving us from the shepherds. Come and share our meal.”

  “Oh yes!” Sefoba cried. “What a good idea! Of course Father must thank you. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to meet you.”

  “Our beer and wine are the best in Midian, I can assure you.” Orma’s laugh was like a flight of birds. The Egyptian raised his eyes and looked at her in silence.

  “You have nothing to fear,” Sefoba insisted. “Nobody is gentler than our father Jethro.”

  “I say thank you, but I say no,” he said.

  “Yes, you must!” Orma cried. “I’m sure you have no place to sleep, perhaps not even a tent?”

  Moses laughed. The hair on the back of his neck glistened. She wanted to pass her fingers over his cheek to take away the rough bristle of his beard. He pointed to the sea again with his staff. “Don’t need tent. Over there, no tent. No need.”

  He slipped the strap of his gourd over his shoulder, turned his back on them, and started to walk away, his staff held out in front of him.

  “Wait!” Orma cried, momentarily surprised. “Stranger! Moses! You can’t leave like that!”

  He turned to look at them, as if not certain he had quite understood, or as if there were some kind of threat in Orma’s protest. But then he smiled again, a happy smile that revealed his white, regular teeth. “It is I who say thank you. For the water. You are beautiful. All three. Three daughters of the sage!”

  When she heard him say, “All three,” Zipporah regained her composure and raised her arm in farewell.

  “SO!” Orma cried to Zipporah, pouting with disappointment. “Is that how you thank him? He saves you and you don’t say a word?” She looked back along the path, where Moses was walking fast in the ocher dust, until he was swallowed up in the shadows. “You could have called him back—said something! You aren’t usually lost for words!”

  Zipporah still did not answer. Sefoba sighed and took her by the arm. “How handsome he is! He’s a prince.”

  “A prince of Egypt,” Orma said, approvingly. “Did you notice his hands?” She turned to Zipporah. “Well? Did Houssenek’s son cut your tongue out?”

  “No.”

  “At last! Why didn’t you say anything to him?”

  “You were speaking enough for both of us,” Zipporah said, her voice quite hoarse.

  Sefoba laughed.

  Orma gave a grudging smile and even adjusted Zipporah’s brooch in order to hold the strips of her torn tunic together. “And his clothes! Did you see his belt?”

  “Yes.”

  “His loincloth is worn and dirty because he has nobody to take care of him. But I’ve never seen anything like his belt.”

  “That’s true,” Sefoba admitted. “No woman of Midian can weave such fine linen or dye it so well.”

  They tried to see Moses through the gray foliage of the olive trees, but by now he was out of sight.

  Sefoba frowned. “Perhaps he isn’t a prince.”

  “He is, I’m sure of it,” Orma said.

  “Perhaps. But, prince or not, what is he doing here?”

  “Well . . . ,” Orma began.

  “He’s a fugitive,” Zipporah said, in a neutral voice. “He’s in hiding.”

  Her sisters looked at her, intrigued, but, as Zipporah said nothing more, they were clearly unconvinced.

  “Do you know something you aren’t telling us?” Orma asked, suddenly suspicious. “Perhaps he’s on a journey.”

>   “An Egyptian, a prince, if that is what he is, doesn’t travel alone to the land of Midian. No servants, nobody to carry his chests or water jars, no woman with him, no tent.”

  “Perhaps he’s with a caravan.”

  “Yes? Then where is it? No caravan leader has come to pay Father his respects recently. No, he’s in hiding.”

  “In hiding from what?” Sefoba asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “A man like him is afraid of nothing!” Orma said, angrily.

  “I think he’s in hiding,” Zipporah said. “I don’t know if he’s afraid.”

  “Are you already forgetting how easily he broke the bones of Houssenek’s son? Without him . . .” Orma made a threatening little gesture with her chin.

  Zipporah did not reply. At the foot of the slope leading to the well, there was nothing to be seen now but the gold-and-white earth, where the path disappeared among the silvery olive trees and the mass of dark, chaotic rocks on the cliffs overlooking the glittering blue sea.

  “Zipporah’s right,” Sefoba said, thoughtfully. “He’s a fugitive. Why else would he have refused to come and pay his respects to Father tonight?”

  Orma shrugged and turned away. Sefoba and Zipporah followed her, and all three went back to the sheep and took turns in lifting the pole to fill the trough one last time. Each time they did so, they raised half as much water as the Egyptian had done, but with much less effort. They went about their task in silence, thinking of him: his strangeness, his beauty, his strength, his hands on the hoist, his smile—and the way he suddenly lowered his eyes and gave them a sidelong look.

  It was as if these thoughts were like a gulf between them. Even Sefoba, who was married, could not help thinking about the man as any woman might.

  Zipporah was at the point of confessing: “I dreamed about this Moses more than a moon ago. He’s already saved my life once before! He took me in his arms and carried me off from the seabed when I was about to drown.”

  But who would have understood? It was only a dream.

  On the other side of the trough, Orma was gathering the sheep with sharp little cries, hurrying them needlessly. It was clear from her determined expression and burning eyes that she intended to conquer the Egyptian. She had beauty, and she had white skin: There was no reason not to succeed. What she said on the way back came as no surprise: