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The walk back home is quiet.
The two slaves of my father chatter behind me, as our steps grind against dirt and gravel, knees buckling slightly with each thud down the mountain. They do not notice my shaking hands, the cold sweat still lingering on my skin, or if they do, say nothing of it. I allow my gaze to settle, albeit warily, on my father's broad back in front of me.
It is a back I know well. How many times have I trailed behind him this very way, in the fields as he showed me the ways of the earth, in markets where he seemed to know everyone, urging me to offer my greetings instead of clinging to his shirt like the little boy I was? Now that same back is a wall, an endless stretch of water like the one Moses commanded with a sweep of his hands, distorting and muffling all that had once passed between us.
My father is by no means a talkative man. I wonder if he has always been like this, in his long hundred years of being alive. But I have learned to read the different weathers of his silence—or at least, I thought I had. When I asked about the offerings, he dismissed my concerns with a wave. I took that as a sign to worry not.
The wind picks up. Strands of hair tickle my cheeks, along with the lingering smell of incense. Instinctively I touch my forehead and my fingers come away oily, glistening. I wipe them on my pants and shoulder the leftover bundle of wood, trying to focus on something, anything.
What would my mother say, if it had happened? What would the slaves say, first and foremost, though perhaps I know they would say nothing, not even their current mindless, ignorant chatter? I see it in my mind's eye: my father coming down the mountain alone, stoic as ever. The slaves with their eyes wide and nose keen. The smell of blood lingering in the air. My father's blood, in a way.
My poor mother would have to piece it together on her own. I do not think the slaves would tell her. She would have seen them coming home, without me, and my name would fall from her lips, the way it has a million times before: Eifo Yitzhak? And when that question was asked thrice but received no answer, she would be forced to look at the knife hanging from my father's belt, too terrified to say anything. Because saying it would make it real. I have heard the story of how they prayed for me, my parents both, their hair long and white, my mother's womb barren. She had even given one of her handmaidens to my father in hopes of siring a child at last. This I heard from the older slaves under our roof, only in passing, when they thought I was asleep.
I have never met my half-brother. My mother said he had become unfit to stay in the household, both he and the woman who bore him. It is very lonely as an only child; at times I wished to have a companion, and expressed as much to my mother. Yet when I was old enough to notice the tightness around her mouth whenever I brought up my sibling, I mentioned him no more. The guilt gnaws at me sometimes. My father said he had sent them to greater fortunes, but I have heard him and my mother talking in hushed voices from their bedroom. There were no greater fortunes for them. Only the desert.
But now, as I trudge behind my father, I think perhaps any fortune is better than this one. Less painful, at least. My wrists still sore from where the ropes bound them. Or was it all my imagination, like everything else?
Yahweh jireh, my father's calm, deep voice. Had I also imagined the tremor in his voice in retrospect? Had I dreamt up his unwillingness to look me in the eye, when he told me to lay on the very altar he had just built?
My mother says my father is one of the few who can hear His words. I wonder when he was told what was about to happen. Was it days prior, or when we were walking up the mountain, or at the same moment I did, when I wondered about the offerings? Did he know when we sat down for breakfast with mother last?
Sometimes I think I am still too young to understand what He is like. My father says He is just and powerful, my mother generous and loving. Which of these categories explained what my father had almost done—was prepared to do—in His name? Of course I will never learn the answer. I will never even dare to ask this question.
I often hear that my father is a merciful man. Right after I was promised to my parents, it was said that He planned to destroy some cities, cities filled with sinners. I know not the names of those cities nor the sins that were committed, but I know of a cousin living there, he and his family. He is a lot older than me, I am sure, although I have never met him—even his children are probably twice my age. My father bargained with Him on their behalf, on behalf of any good people still living there, surrounded by evil. He begged, mother said, to the extent she was afraid he would anger Him. But He agreed. And thus they were saved, and their cities with them. It is hard to imagine my father begging anyone. I suppose he must really care for my cousin, or perhaps for all the good that survives the bad. I wonder how many times has he begged like that, when life depended on it.
When he finished the binding, the way I had seen him do so many times, my father took out the incense he had tasked me to carry up the mountain and lit it, drawing circles around me, once, twice, enough for the sickly sweet to cling to my clothes, seep into my skin. I cannot tell you why I did not cry; my eyes only watered from the sting of the smoke. Perhaps it had not settled in yet, what was going to happen. Then my father placed his warm, big hand over my eyes. Said my name.
I heard the metal slipping out of its sheath. A careful, sharp prick to my throat, and I jolted, at the same moment my father's fingers twitched.
My hands were in tight fists beside me, the rope digging into my flesh as I waited for the inevitable. But it never came. After a long, unbearable silence, my father removed his hand. I blinked, confused, the sun flooding back into my eyes.
"Father," I croaked. He still wouldn't meet my eyes. But his knife sliced through the ropes, and I sat up, shielding the sunlight from my face.
A loud cry caught both our attention. There, right next to us, was a ram, its horns entwined up in the bushes. It pawed at the ground, bleating frantically, but the more it pulled, the more tangled it became. Wordlessly my father went over to apprehend it, hacked off the branches and brought the ram back, kicking and squealing. I slipped off the altar, letting the ram take my place. My father moved faster this time: the ropes, the incense, the knife. I have seen him sacrifice animals countless times, but now I looked into the ram's eyes, narrow and black, filled with an emotion akin to fear. I wanted to beg for it like my father begged for the cities of sin. Wrong place, wrong time. Or was it the other way around?
When the knife was brought down I averted my eyes. Heard the gurgling of blood. Watched my father's face shift into something like relief. We soon finished the rituals, the smell of sizzling meat in the air, though it did not stir my appetite. I looked behind me, down to the hills below, past where the slaves were deposited. My father seemed to read my mind. "Let us go," he said. "Your mother is waiting."
Sure enough, after the long journey down Moriah and back home, I see my mother standing on the front porch. It is as if nothing has changed. I let her pull me into an embrace, savouring the smell of flour in her clothes. Did my mother know?—no, she couldn't have. I know her better than I know my father. My mother would have found that ram long before I went up that mountain. Ten rams, perhaps.
That night, laying in my bed and rubbing my wrists gingerly, I try to talk to Him the same way my father has. I ask why, and in the end, why not. Moonlight shines through my windows and makes its way across my floor, but still I hear only the usual sounds of the night. No guiding voice, no dove, as my father calls it sometimes. Right before my eyes give way to sleep, I ask if my father had begged for me, too.
I wish he did. I am not sure what to do if he didn't. But I am also not sure what to do with the fact that He listened, when my father pled with Him to not wipe out entire cities of doom.
Perhaps I have done something unforgivable, I tell myself. Something worse than all of the vices of mankind. Or perhaps, like the ram, I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
I don't eat sheep again for a very long time.
"My father did that too," my friend says, reeling in his net and inspecting his catch. He has a knack for fishing, and carpentry. He built the boat we were both sitting in at this moment, and often invited me out to help with the sails. I don't fish, but I like the feeling of wind on my face well enough.
"He did what?" My thoughts return to the present, eyes widening at the severity of what I just heard.
"Killed me," my friend replies, as if we were discussing the grilling of fish. "I begged Him not to do it. But I knew it had to be done."
"Why? Why did He—"
He turns to me then, somber, grave. "Someone did something wrong a long time ago," he says, and I do not know if he is joking. "So someone has to pay for it."
My head is reeling. "But—then—how are you here?"
My friend's eyes glint, like a magician before revealing his secret. "Ah, you see. He promised to bring me back to life again."
I groan, and shove him a little. "Now that's a different story. I don't think anyone was going to bring me back."
"Still." My friend shows me his hands. Round scars in the middle of his palms. I shiver slightly at the texture, feeling the dark scabs. "It hurt a lot."
The choices are weighed out carefully in my mind. At least my father was going to make it quick back then. "Fair," I decide. "But still. Maybe it's not about what happened. Maybe it's not about whether I was killed, or whether you were brought back to life."
He doesn't answer for a long time, tossing the smaller fish in his net back into the waters. "Then what was it about?" My friend, so wise beyond his years, doubt seeping into his voice for the first time since I've known him.
I tug on the sail ropes, redirecting our boat. "About obedience." The answer comes to me easily, like the grindstone that was set into motion all those years ago is finally churning out an answer. "Us obeying our fathers. My father obeying yours."
"Maybe." He finally acquiesces. Voice tight. "Isaac, do me a favor."
"Yes?"
"I would like to believe that my father was right."
I look over at him, brushing his fingers over the wounds, the deep gash on his side.
"Of course," I answer. Together we make for the shore at last.