Free Child of the Journey by Janet Berliner, George Guthridge

Emanuel?"
    "L'Am --The People. Do not ask me where they are. As for why they are, if I knew, I would tell you that!" He covers his head with his hands. "When I was young, my nights were full of such questions, but I did not ask my elders for fear they did not know the answers." His voice has taken on a hollow, haunted tone. "One day a group of Falasha nomads camped near our caves, come to graze their goats. At night I could hear them praying. One night, when I could not sleep, I stole in among their tents. Their kohamin --the priest--spotted me. They threw me into a thorn bush. As I lay crying and bleeding, the priest spat on me. 'Hydra-headed Jew!' he shouted. 'Go home to your pagan gods!'"  
    "No doubt he was referring to the First Commandment--'Thou shalt have no other gods before Me'," the woman says.
    "Does that Commandment not prove there are other, lesser gods? Yet they pretend otherwise! And our language--"
    "What about your language, Emanuel?"
    He stares at the cocoon of bread with its melting honey.
    She leans toward him. "Tell me."
    "The Falasha...they laugh at it. They call it 'The Language of the Bee.'"
    "Yours is the language of the Song of Deborah."
    "De-bo-rah." He pronounces the word as if it were music.
    She places a loving hand on his arm. "Deborah means 'bee' in Old Hebrew," she says. "She was a prophetess--a judge who was instrumental in freeing the ancient Israelites from the Canaanites."
    "I do not understand." He looks at her curiously, as though she is saying words he has never heard before.
    "The Cushitic Falashas--we call them Black Jews--don't speak your language," she says. "Only musty scholars like myself and your people know Old Hebrew. The true language of liturgy, I call it, for it is free of the Aramaic influences that changed Hebrew forever." She gives him a gentle shake as if to break him from his mood. "Your tribe is blessed, Emanuel. Your...your agony , if you will, has preserved the past. Soon the whole world will know of your suffering and be grateful to you."
    He furrows his forehead, then looks down at the ground as Malifu pads forward. The smaller man holds a huge dish quilted with injera layered with chunks of meat and light broth. The two men do not look at each other.
    "The wat --stew--looks lovely," the woman tells Malifu, taking the dish from him. "Fetch the wine, please. Then tend to your bees. The hives farthest away need the most attention."
    He bows; understood. He has not once looked at Emanuel. After he brings the wine, he wanders off amid the hives.
    "Tej --honey wine...nectar of the gods." The woman grins and drinks deeply. "If nothing else, this proves the whole universe isn't monotheistic!"
    Emanuel too drinks deeply, thoughtfully. "I prayed, after the Falasha threw me into the thorn bush like so much excrement. I wanted to understand why they had treated me in that manner. But Jehovah would not answer. At dawn, the goddess Anuket spoke to me out of the sun as I sat looking at the mountains and the hills lush with flowers. I knew it was she, for she wore a crown of feathers and carried her scepter and ankh."
    "Anuket--goddess of the Nile, nourisher of the fields." The woman takes notes in small, impeccably neat handwriting. "What other gods are important to you?"
    "Her sister, Sati. Their husband, Khnum, god of the cataract."
    "Anuket, Sati, Khnum." Her voice is breathless. "The Elephantine Triad. Does your tribe believe in any other Egyptian gods?"
    "Egyptian?" He frowns and leans forward to peer over the top of her notebook.
    "Any other gods." She tears off a piece of bread, wraps it around a morsel of meat and, after popping it into her mouth, readies the pencil above the graph paper.
    He puts his arms around a bent knee and looks toward the far horizon. "There is, of course, Ra, god of the sun."
    "Is Ra greater than Jehovah?"
    "Jehovah made the heavens and the earth. Therefore He created Ra. At least, as a child I thought so. That is what I was taught to believe.