I plucked the strings of my kinnor, feeling their eyes but not looking up. “My father’s dead. My mother too. I shepherd my uncle’s flock.”
My words killed the conversation. I knew this moment, having experienced it so many times in the past—the awkward quiet, the eyes turning away. Zim filled the silence with his drumming, increasing his pace and power. Daniel joined in, picking up Zim’s beat, with crisp plucks against the long strings of his nevel, the notes reverberating into the cool evening air. Only Yonaton remained silent. My eyes were dry—I learned long ago that tears would neither bring back my parents nor water the flock—but I was surprised to see that Yonaton’s reflected more of the night sky than my dry eyes ever could. I smiled and raised my kinnor, indicating that there was no more to say. Yonaton wiped his eyes across his sleeve, smiled back, and raised his halil to his lips.
The stars were already bright in the sky when I saw twinkling lights ascend the trail toward the caves. “What are those lights?”
“Lamps,” Daniel said. “The disciples are going to sleep.”
“And they carry their own lamps?” At my uncle’s house, lamps were reserved for holy times—olive oil was too precious to burn during the week.
The disciples reached their caves, and the lights went out. “I’m glad I’m not one of them,” Zim said.
My hand dropped from the strings of my kinnor, and I stared across at Zim. “Is it really so hard to go to sleep early?”
Zim laughed and leaned into his drum. His right hand tapped out higher-pitched notes on the drum’s edge as his left palm pounded the center with a booming bass.
And then it suddenly occurred to me: there could be only one explanation for his lack of interest. “You’ve never seen them taken by prophecy, have you?”
Zim met my eyes without breaking his rhythm. “No. Have you?”
“Yes.” That one word was enough to silence Zim and draw the stares of Daniel and Yonaton, but I wasn’t done. “When you see it, you’ll understand—”
“Don’t envy the prophets, Lev.” Daniel let his hands rest on his nevel and our song unraveled—only Zim kept up the beat.
I turned on Daniel, “What’s not to envy?”
Daniel sighed, “Theirs is a path that will lead you nowhere.”
“Why nowhere?” Yonaton asked. “Look at the masters—”
“Yes, Yonaton, look at the masters. Take Master Uriel. Where do you think he’ll be come harvest time when our backs are bent with labor? Out in the fields with us?” Zim snorted, and Daniel turned to me. “Can you imagine him chasing your sheep over the hillsides?”
He leaned over his nevel to press his point. “I’ve been playing here for twelve years. The first day, there’s always a musician or two who dreams of becoming a prophet; but soon enough they learn that’s all they are—dreams. And you’ll learn too.”
I recalled my last conversation with Dahlia, how she said that there was no telling where my future would lead. “But even dreams can come true—can’t they?”
“Not this one. It’s as King Solomon said: Wisdom is good with an inheritance.”
I winced at the word inheritance. “What does that mean?”
“It means that it doesn’t matter how wise or holy you are, Lev, you’ll never become a navi. Look at the bnei nevi’im: servants prepare their food, they light lamps to walk back to their caves—some even arrived on their own horses. They don’t dress like you. They don’t smell like you.” Zim chortled. Yonaton quietly sniffed his tunic. “Most of the disciples study for years before receiving navua, if they receive it at all. Who do you think watches their farms or their flocks while they’re searching for the Holy One?”
I shrugged.
“You have to be rich to become a prophet; there’s never been one that wasn’t. As far as I can tell, it’s part of their Way.”
I opened my mouth to respond but shut it again. What could I say? Uncle Menachem always told me that the smart man learns from his mistakes, but I never seemed to. When would I stop falling into the trap of clinging to dreams that could never come true? I was like the fool in Eliav’s favorite story, the one who sat by a pool of still water, the moon reflected in its surface. Such a beautiful stone, he thought, if he could only get it for himself, he’d be a rich man. But when he grabbed for it, his hands plunged into the cold water and the moon disappeared. He cursed himself for his stupidity, but when the water calmed, the moon reappeared, and he thought that perhaps this time he’d be lucky.
Daniel watched me closely. “Don’t look like that. You have a surer path open to you.”
“What’s that?” I asked, daring him to tout the joys of shepherding.
“The nevi’im use your music to lift themselves beyond this world. You may not reach prophecy, but it can uplift you as well. You just need to learn to play properly—start with this.” Daniel leaned his nevel against the boulder, came around behind me, and laid his hands over mine. He pulled my left hand further down the front of my kinnor and placed it in an unfamiliar hold. He twisted the angle of my plucking hand, my right. I didn’t like the feel of his hands on mine—after what he just told me I would have preferred to be left alone—but I didn’t fight him. “Grip it like this, firm up your left hand, but loosen your right. Now listen.” Daniel plucked the highest string, and the kinnor let out a crisp, clear note.
“It feels awkward.”
“You’re used to doing it wrong. Give it time—you’ll bring out the full voice of your kinnor. It’s a fine, fine instrument.”
Yonaton pulled his halil away from his lips. “They don’t smell like us?” Daniel laughed, “Sniff one tomorrow. They’re obsessed with purity. Most bathe at least once a day.” He returned to his nevel and picked up the melody again. “The way I see it, how much do they really have to tie them to this world? That must be why they can rise above it so easily.”
“It’s not so easy,” Zim said, drumming now with his fingertips so as not to drown out his voice. “They need us.”
“Just the disciples—the masters don’t need musicians.”
“But Master Uriel did.” I sat straighter now that I knew something that Daniel didn’t. “The day we met, he came to me for my music. That’s how I was hired.”
Daniel inclined his head to the side and stared at me again, then turned his eyes away and shrugged. “I’ve never seen a master use a musician before.”
Zim waved off our words with the back of his hand. “Enough of this. We may not be prophets, but we know what we need.” He stepped up his playing, and the rest of us followed his lead, bringing the conversation to an end.
The music indeed was unlike any I’d ever played. Few in Levonah had the time or patience to play instruments outside of festivals and celebrations. For the first time in years, I found myself in the presence of clearly superior musicians in Daniel and Zim, and even Yonaton harmonized beautifully, if quietly, on his halil. I closed my eyes into the rhythm and felt a tingling in my fingertips as they plucked out the melody. I soon left my concerns about the nevi’im behind.
A servant shook each of us roughly by the shoulder the next morning. “Master Uriel requires you.” He stepped out of the cave before I’d even sat up.
I squinted in the sunlight. I’d never slept so far into the morning—nor had I ever stayed up so late. By the time Daniel finally made us go to sleep, the eastern sky had already brightened to a dark gray. All through the night, I was telling myself I’d regret not getting to bed, but the music fixed me there. Guided by Daniel’s nimble nevel and driven by Zim’s rhythms, I discovered sounds in my kinnor that I never knew existed.
