Zipporah, Wife of Moses by Marek Halter

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Horeb, god of my father Jethro, accept my offerings. At the north corner, I place the barley cakes I have baked with my own hands. At the south corner, I pour the wine, made from grapes I picked myself.

Horeb, god of glory, you who make the thunder rumble, hear me! I am Zipporah the Black, the Cushite, who came here from beyond the Sea of Reeds, and I have had a dream.

In the night, a bird appeared to me, a bird with pale plumage flying high in the sky. I laughed as I watched it fly. It flew above me and cried out as if calling me. I understood then that this bird was me. My skin is as black as burnt wood, but in my dream I was a white bird.

I flew over my father’s domain. I saw his houses of whitewashed brick, his tall fig trees, his flowering tamarisks, and the canopy of vines beneath which he gives his judgments. I saw, over towards the gardens, the servants’ tents in the shade of the terebinths, the palm trees, the flocks, the paths of red dust and the great sycamore on the road to Epha. On the path that leads to your mountain, oh Horeb, I saw the village of the armorers with its circle of rough brick houses, its furnaces, and its pits of fire. I flew far enough to see the well of Irmna and the roads that lead to
the five kingdoms of Midian.

And I flew toward the sea…

Its surface was like a sheet of gold, so bright I found it impossible to rest my gaze on it. Everything was blinding: the sky, the water, and the sand. The air through which I flew had lost its coolness, and I wanted to stop being a bird and be myself again. I touched the ground with my feet,
and my shadow was restored to me. I shaded my eyes with my shawl, and it was then that I saw it.

A canoe was swaying on the water, among the rushes. A beautiful, solidly built canoe. I had no difficulty recognizing it. It was the canoe that had carried my mother and me from the land of Cush to the land of Midian, from one shore to another, keeping us alive despite the sun, despite our thirst and fear. And there, in my dream, it was waiting to take
us back to the land where I was born.

I called to my mother to make haste.

She was nowhere to be seen, either on the beach or on the cliff. I waded into the water. The sharp rushes cut my arms and palms. I lay down in the canoe. It was exactly the right size for me. The canoe set off, the rushes parted, and the sea opened before me. The canoe advanced between two huge walls of water. Walls so close, I could have touched the
hard, green water with my fingertips.

My stomach was tight with fear. I huddled in the canoe. Terror made me cry out. Soon, I knew, the cliffs of water above me would come together like the edges of a wound and swallow me up.

I was screaming, but I couldn’t hear my own scream, only the lament of the sea, like something broken and suffering.
I closed my eyes, sure I was about to drown. Just as the canoe was about to crash against the sea bed, there, on the seaweed, wearing the pleated loincloth of the princes of Egypt, his arms laden with gold bracelets from the wrists to the elbows, a man stood waiting. His skin was white and his brow was covered with brown curls. With one hand, he stopped the canoe. Then, lifting me in his arms, he walked across the Sea of Reeds. On the opposite shore, he clasped me to him and put his mouth on mine, giving me back the breath the sea had tried to take from me.

I opened my eyes. It was night.

The real night, the night of the earth.

I was on my bed. I had been dreaming.

* * *

The dream lingered for a long time in Zipporah’s body, like the poison left by an illness.

For several moons, she dreaded the night. She lay on her bed without moving, without closing her eyes, without even daring to touch her lips with her tongue for fear of finding the taste of the stranger’s mouth on them.

She thought for a moment of confiding in her father Jethro. Who better to counsel her than the sage of the kings of Midian? Who loved her more than he did? Who better understood her torments?

But she said nothing. She did not want to seem too weak, too childish, too much like other women, who were always ready to believe their hearts rather than their eyes. He was so proud of her, and she wanted to show him that she was strong and sensible and that she held firm to all the things he had taught her.

With time, the images of the dream faded. The Egyptian’s face became blurred. A season went by without her thinking of it once.