Escaped from the Nations. Alexandra Glynn
Something had fallen outside the tent. “Is he okay? Is he okay?” It was her mother’s voice, scared. Beulah’s veins tingled.
“I’m fine, mama.” That was her little brother Enoch.
“You gave me a great scare. I shouldn’t let you ride on mules.”
“Oh, mama, you’re no fun,” Enoch said. He scampered into the tent, and ran to Beulah. She weakly tried to hug his little lively body close to her.
Her mother came in.
“Hi, Beulah.”
“Hi, Mother. Where are Father and Jubal?”
“Coming.”
“Where were you all?”
“Over by the tabernacle door.”
“For what?”
Beulah’s mother came over with her silent watchingness and leaned over her pale daughter. Beulah knew that outside, around them, the camp activity hummed. Nearby little children played a game in the desert sand with sticks and rocks. The older children carried water and tended animals and little children. And everywhere the faces of the adults were weary but hopeful, like you are after a long and fruitful week of work on the evening before the Sabbath. Beulah’s mother smoothed Beulah’s hair back. “How do you feel, honey?”
“Good enough, Mother. Why did you all gather?”
“There’s no need for you to have anything more to worry about. You worry enough as it is.” Beulah’s mother got up and began to straighten the tent, preparing it for taking down and traveling. She could do the entire process in fifteen minutes.
Beulah sighed to herself. She thought about asking her mother again why they had all gathered so long instead of traveling, but instead she asked, “Is Moses proud?”
Beulah’s mother whirled around and stared at her. “What?”
“Is Moses proud?”
“Where did you get that question from?”
Beulah was quiet, pallid, remembering the Levite’s liquid-flowing syllables. “Does it matter? Is he?”
Beulah’s mother walked back toward her. Her eyes were a troubled gray. “We are all proud, honey, every one of us. Nobody can say that one person is more proud than another.”
“So why would someone say that about Moses?”
Beulah’s mother would not answer. She seemed to be in some kind of transfiguration of annihilation, a durable soul-illness. She turned away, and went out the tent’s front door to begin the process of pulling up stakes. For some reason Beulah thought of something she had learned long ago: stars are bright still, though the brightest may fall.
Beulah settled back in her bed in the blistering heat. She listened to her mother’s sure movements outside the tent. Enoch had gone to the neighbor’s tent. As she listened, she could hear others coming out of their tents and pulling up stakes. With her thin hand she reached over and picked up her sewing. She was making a little doll out of animal skins. She tried to thread the needle. Over and over she took the thread and tried to get it through the eye of the needle. Her hands shook. She rested them for a moment, then tried again. The end of the thread filmed before her eyes, blurring, and she dropped her hands down to her thin chest. She set the sewing down on the blanket in front of her and folded her hands across her stomach, staring up at the skins above her head as tears rolled down her cheeks into her dark brown curls.
4.
They were finally on the move again. Beulah’s bed of animal skins was attached by ropes to a cow. The cow dragged Beulah behind her. Ahead of her, her cousin Zillah’s rich blue and purple hem dragged in the dust. It was Zillah’s job to be Beulah’s companion, and to make sure the ropes didn’t get tangled, and to make sure the cow walked at a steady pace. Zillah also watched out for rocks that might catch on the animal skin bed that held Beulah. Zillah was glad to help. Normally she would have been helping her mother with the smaller children in their family, but because she had other older sisters to help, the family could spare Zillah to be a helper friend to Beulah. Beulah’s family had only her mother, father, Jubal, Beulah, and Enoch. There had been other children, six of them, but they had all died, either in a plague, or after birth, or from miscarriage. They were all buried in Egypt. “God will remember them even there on the day when he raises us all up unto himself,” Mother had told Beulah. Beulah knew that was why Mother had named their last child Enoch. He was named after Enoch, a man who had lived very long ago, even before the time of Noah, and God had taken him up unto himself. Beulah’s mother had expected God to take this little boy from her too, so she had named him Enoch.
“Did you finish sewing your doll?” Zillah asked Beulah, sweet as always, like a little brown kitty in a basket. Even her eyelashes were dusty, because the animals kicked up so much dust. With so many people and animals on the move, the whole desert around them had a little dust cloud swirling at all times. Far to the back of the procession, where they were, the carrion creatures lurked. Day by day Beulah’s father tried to go faster and get up near the front, but somehow they always ended up almost at the end, with the slowest, the sick and the struggling.
“No,” Beulah said, the dust sheening the mottled paleness of her cheeks. “I’m too weak to sew today. Where was everyone this morning?”
“Different places,” Zillah said. “Some were at the tabernacle, others were gathered around drinking water where the jars of water are kept. Quite a few were at my parent’s home, actually.”
“Really?” Her tone was deferential, undemanding, but tinged with an undefined ache.
“Yes. My mother and father agree with Zed the Levite. He is a close work companion to Korah. They think something must be done to Moses.”
“Who is Zed?”
“He wears a gold cord around his waist, you’ve probably seen him. He usually tents near our family’s tent.” Zillah went over to the corner of the tent-space where the food was. She lifted a gourd to her lips and tilted her head back. “This tastes so fresh,” she said.
Beulah remembered the conversation between the two men that had woken her up this morning. “I think I know who he is. Short? Kind of young? He has a soft and friendly voice.”
“Yes,” Zillah said. “He has the gift of discerning spirits, and he has a list of all the people, including Moses, who he says are proud.”
Beulah opened her mouth to protest, but then she heard her mother’s voice above the din of the pack animals all around them. Around them the desert surrounded, ensnaring and unforgiving. She felt like Noah for a moment, letting a dove fly off, out of a window, wondering if it would come back.
“My dear Zillah!” Beulah’s mother greeted Zillah. She had dropped back from her fast pace up ahead so she could check on Beulah.
“What?” Zillah asked her, warily, baffled.
“Zillah, I heard what you just said. That’s not right,” Beulah’s mother said, her eyes unhappy pools, looking pitifully at Zillah. “Nobody should make lists of the bad and the good. Only God knows those things. He will reveal them in his time.”
“But Zed does know,” Zillah insisted. “He has the gift of discerning spirits.”
“If he says he knows the conditions of the hearts of men, then he is putting himself in the place of God.”
“But Moses really is proud.” Zillah was angry now. “He is.”
“Zillah, did your mom and dad say that?” Mother’s voice was sad.
“Of course. And my mother and father are good people. They cannot be wrong!” The brown of her eyes shimmered with bitterness, stormy and scrambled.
Beulah’s mother went close to Zillah and hugged her, as if by her embrace she could cause her to cast off her veil of distaste. “Oh, Zillah,