MEN

Our tabernacle is beautiful. You and I built it together, and I love you because we made something for God together. I know you are worried it’s not good enough, that the shape isn’t right or the walls aren’t strong enough. We’ve been waiting so long to hear his voice, and I love watching you at work, skinning the beasts of the field, the muscles in your shoulders working, your body glowing like a fresh young salmon. We stretch the skins around the cypress posts, creating our tabernacle walls, and you say, look at this, look what we’ve done for God. He hasn’t spoken to us yet, but when I’m gathering stones or wood for a fire, or sitting still, watching a feral pig rooting in the brush, I can feel him. His presence is so slight, a brush against the shoulder, a whisper against my ear. You weep when I tell you these things because he has never appeared to you. You find a honeycomb, and you say look, the love of God is sweet and thick. We break apart the waxy structure, smearing the honey over a limestone rock in the center of our tabernacle. The rock is where we make our sacrifices to God, where we wait for him to speak to us. We lick our fingers clean, smacking our lips against its stickiness. We wait but God does not appear. I don’t think he wants us to eat the honey, you say, and you are crying and afraid. We sleep inside the tabernacle, close to the rock. We don’t want to miss God. What do you think God looks like, you ask me. He may look like a fig tree, I say. A monstrous fig tree that we can climb up, wrapping our arms and legs around him, picking his fruit and feeding it to one another. You smile. He may be the wasp in the fig tree, you say. He may be a swarming nest of wasps, that come to settle on our skin, stinging and stinging. We both shudder.

You spend your mornings digging in the soil around the tabernacle. I watch you, crouching and standing, arms outstretched, a small shadow against the earth. The land here is shallow and dusty, and you wrap a wet strip of linen around your nose and mouth, gently prodding the ground with your fingers or with a sharp cypress branch. You find a potsherd, and bring it to me, laughing, relieved. God sees me and he loves me, you say, and we take it to the limestone rock, where we both kneel as you crack and crush the terracotta to a fine red dust, smearing it over stone, where the honey has dried, small crystals of it breaking under the terracotta. Do you hear him, you ask me. I shake my head. You rub the terracotta dust on our tongues, and we lie face-down on either side of the rock. I feel a pressure between my shoulders, like a foot is pressing there. I cry and leap around, the terracotta clotting at the back of my throat. You say you are happy for me, but I can see you wish it had been you. Let’s hold hands, I say, wanting you to feel better. We sing a little song about our love for God, and you perform a solo act in which you compare him to a gorgeous ripe papaya.

A single bronze coin: this is a sign that God would like you to build an army in his name. The army must amount to 100,000. The army must be made of men between the ages of twelve and twenty-one.

A pig’s jawbone: this is a sign that you have been neglecting God’s appetite. He would like more food offerings. There are four teeth left in the jawbone, and this is a sign of God’s displeasure regarding the papaya comparison.

You are very cheerful and walk around the tabernacle whistling. You do not know one hundred thousand men, but you don’t seem worried. You bring grapes and dates to the limestone rock. You arrange them beautifully in a pyramid shape. You split open pomegranates and carefully extract each seed, creating a complicated design around the rock. You do not mention papayas. I don’t ask if God has spoken to you because I know he hasn’t. What do you think God looks like, you ask. He can’t be described, I say. You point to a low mountain ridge, its creases lit in damp blue light. I see his face, you say. Just there, where the mountain smooths out and then dimples in again. I think you’re lying but I say, oh yes, right there. You begin carving little men from limestone, your body hunched over the rocks that you dislodge from the mountain and drag to the tabernacle. Your eyes are bloodshot from the dust, and your fingers bleed from the way you grip the sharpened stick you use to whittle the rock with. The men are two feet tall and wear elaborate helmets. They carry swords and staffs, some carry torches. You’re forgetting to sacrifice to the rock altar, I tell you, annoyed at how fixated you’ve become with the army of one hundred thousand.

Three candles dyed yellow, blue and red. I burn them when I pray.

A dead quail. Most of its flesh is gone, so I pull the feathers and snap the little bone in half, digging out the marrow.

Maybe God wants us to tie knots in our clothes, I suggest. The knots will signify our bondage to him. You shrug. You have finished three hundred soldiers, but your fingers are a mess. I can’t take care of the tabernacle on my own, I want to tell you. I tie knots at the front and back of our clothes. Maybe God wants us to braid our hair, I say. I comb yours back in two braids while you dig away at your soldiers. You’re neglecting the altar, I tell you, making my voice very stern. You haven’t fed God in days. You arrange the limestone sculptures around the temple, a massive army standing guard. You sleep amongst their ranks, leaving me alone beside the altar inside the tabernacle. I want to see God coming, you say.

The dates you offered to God begin to rot, their sticky flesh moves with flies, and you pace through your rows of soldiers, muttering to yourself. He may want a blood sacrifice, you say. We dig for more potsherds, and cut our hands over the limestone, wiping the blood down the sides. We watch the blood mixing with the putrid fruit, forming little rivers down the side of the rock. I wonder what God’s voice sounds like, you say, batting away the flies that come one after another. He may sound like thunder, or like a single pluck of a harp string, I say. You watch the rock, your face sullen. He may sound like one hundred thousand flies, you mutter, jabbing at the rock.

One vessel, painted with slender figures reaching towards each other, their fingers intertwined: God is parched, and would like a water offering.

A small iron sickle, engraved with two antelope having sexual relations: God would like another blood sacrifice, this one a bit bigger.

You turn your head as I cut a small square from the inside of my thigh, peeling it back from my leg, watching the split seconds before blood comes rushing to the new surface of my skin. I lay the flap of skin on the rock, loving how pink and neat it looks against the rock. We tie up my leg and pour water from the vessel on the altar. I gently wash the small piece of my leg, and kiss it tenderly, feeling my love for God pulse deep inside my wound. Will you show him to me if you see him, you ask. I don’t know, I say, watching the sky. We turn my skin over, studying the patterns of dried blood closely. He is sending a messenger, I say, pointing to a small figure that has coagulated on my square of skin. I pack a small bag, some food, some water. The messenger will meet me in the foothills at dusk, and I am to come alone, with no clothes or shoes. I watch you walking through your rows of soldiers and wave goodbye. You are too far away to see me, and you bend to the ear of your general, whispering something I can’t make out.

The messenger is very small and pale, their cheeks long and flaccid. They are wearing enormous white robes that circle the dust in front of them, and they have a tattoo of a locust climbing their neck. I shiver. God would like a living sacrifice, the messenger says, smiling brilliantly at me. Any four-legged beast will do. The neck should be sliced in one motion, the blood should be first poured into a clean vessel and then upon the altar place. Many exultations shall be made. The flesh should be cut into twenty separate pieces, and the bones picked and washed clean. The flesh should be stacked upon the altar, and the bones on top of that.

I walk back to the tabernacle, limping in the dark. I see you crawling through the shadows of your army, reaching up to stroke each one’s head with a tender hand. I think about how heavy a rock I will need to crack open your skull, and I spend the night weighing the rocks that sit at the base of the mountain. I look for God’s face in the smooth part of the mountain, the craggy land puckering and flattening into a soft stretch of limestone. There is nothing there, no winking eye or chuffing breath, and I feel angry with you for lying about seeing God’s face. It is better that you die, I think. It will end your suffering, the living without knowing.

You’ve stopped speaking now, and only turn to me mutely when I offer you a water vessel or a little meat. Your army stretches for almost a mile, and sometimes it takes me hours to find you, your skin covered with dust, your eyes wet and red, shining against the cracked skin of your face. You move quickly through the ranks, springing and galloping on your hands and feet, your back rounded, hunched, the muscles in your shoulders are wide and ridged. I will drop a boulder on your head while you are sleeping.

I wait until just before dawn, pulling the boulder with a length of rope, the weight sliding easily through the dry, loose soil. I pass in front of the limestone soldiers, their shadows long and dark, their bodies glowing white. I hear a strange muttering as I move slowly by them, the soil rustling slightly under the weight of the rock. I stop, panting lightly, listening. The night air is still, and dead, heavy silence that makes it hard to breathe. There, I think, turning my head sharply to a faint whisper. On my left, the rows of soldiers stare blindly ahead, their armor carved in deep lines. I squint, trying to make out your form, a small huddle deep inside the rows of soldiers. I hoist the boulder on my shoulder, groaning at the weight, feeling the muscles in my stomach strain to keep me upright. I move into the rows, stepping carefully. The limestone figures seem endless, their longswords held tightly in their fists. There, I think, choking down panic. A soldier on my right has turned to face me, his gaze cold and inhuman. The boulder is eating into the skin of my shoulder, the flesh there feels raw and slippery. You are breathing slowly, deeply, your face caked in layers of limestone dust, the skin of your mouth looks strange and ragged. God’s face is like your own, I whisper to you. His back is craggy and strong, like the highest mountain peaks. You are awake now, and watching me, your breath is deep and even. You haven’t seen him, you whisper, and your voice is strange and broken sounding. The soldiers are turning, turning, the endless lines of them, their limestone bodies shifting the earth beneath them, their short arms lifting and testing their weapons. I lift the boulder over my head, and you close your eyes. The boulder feels like nothing coming down, like a wisp of air, like a falling feather.