THE STEWARD LED THE BROTHERS to the Great Hall and told them that they would be dining with His Highness the Viceroy at noon.
Benjamin looked around. He could hardly believe his eyes. The hall was lined with huge multicolored columns, and the walls and ceiling too were ablaze with color: images of birds, beasts, ancient pharaohs and their consorts, geometric patterns in blue, green, red, and yellow, gods with the heads of hawks or lions or crocodiles. At one end of the hall, a golden throne was flanked by two golden jackals lying at attention with their paws stretched in front of them and their large pointed ears unfurled like sails in the wind. Dozens of spear-bearing guards stood along the walls, naked to the waist, with thick bronze bands around their upper arms.
Then Simeon was brought in. Levi ran up and threw his arms around him. The other nine crowded close. Simeon told them that his chains had been taken off minutes after he had been led away three months before. He had been moved to a comfortable room in the palace. And though he had been under constant scrutiny, confined to his room and a small courtyard, he had been treated well, fed well, and allowed recreation and exercise. They had also offered him books, but of course he couldn’t read. The solitude had been painful, though. He had missed his family, more than he could say.
After half an hour, Joseph arrived. They presented him with their gifts and bowed to the ground before him.
“How is your father?” Joseph said. “Is he still alive? Is he well?”
“Yes, he is both, my lord,” Judah answered.
Joseph looked at Benjamin, his own mother’s son, and said, “This must be your youngest brother.” And to Benjamin: “May God be gracious to you, my son.”
The man had to be Benjamin. Still, Joseph was shocked. He stared at him, trying to make the thirty-two-year-old face fit the memory of his brother as a rosy eleven-year-old, a boy who adored him and followed him everywhere. Anxiety and deprivation had faded the boy’s flesh and dimmed his eyes, but as Joseph kept looking, the two mental images—past and present—approached each other and merged. He could feel deep emotion rising in him again, love and compassion and gratitude for being here at the end of this journey, an end that was contiguous with its beginning, like the ritual serpent biting its tail.
It was too much to contain. He hurried out of the room. He had to exert all his willpower to keep the tears from spilling out before he reached the door to his office.