Chapter Eleven
Moses saw it all happening from where he stayed in the Hebrew village. He wanted to look away as the land boiled with frogs, clogging both water and land with croaking creatures. In the morning, a few Egyptians had ventured out only to balk, horrified, at the sight of all the frogs. By midday, there were thousands of frogs and only about a half-dozen Egyptians out in view. It was surreal not to see the Nile teeming with boats of traders, fishers, hunters, fowlers, and the royal barge was absent too. Dead fish still bobbed on the Nile's surface, but more washed up on the banks with each crash of the water onto the shore as it tripped downstream. The stink rolled over the banks, stumbling like a drunken man over the rooftops and sand, permeating the atmosphere with sickness. The frogs had swarmed, slipping and sliding, over the fish, not seeming to be bothered by their stench. The Nile's birdlife had evacuated the banks, searching for healthier waters, even though the liquid was no longer blood. Birds had to eat, and the fish here in Egypt were dead.
Moses knew that the frogs would not cross the hairline border between the slum where the Hebrews "lived"—not that it was much to live for—and Egypt itself. God would ensure that the throbbing layers of frogs would never put so much as a webbed toe across the village's border. Still, he could not help but think what would happen if the frogs somehow rolled into the village in their thousands. The slum would fill with frogs swarming into the homes and infiltrating the water wells that had been fresh for only a day and a half. Food stocks would be invaded, the stale bread and rotting vegetables slick with frog slime.
He also knew that the palace would be teeming with frogs on every surface they could possibly sit on. The image of frogs sitting like green lumps of fat on the grand foursome of statues in the entrance hall didn't quite leave his imagination. His old room with its collection of weaponry and the bed with its luxurious canopy would be overwhelmed with the green amphibians. Quite possibly, frogs were bedding down in what used to be his bed at the palace. The innocent lilies and lotuses in the water garden would be trampled to limp, soggy deaths as the frogs bloated out of the water and up the steps into the palace.
It's all for the greater good, Moses told himself, the Hebrews will be free soon.
Still, he couldn't help a twinge of sadness at imagining those poor flowers and lilies being drowned to a soggy mess on the bottom of the garden. Back when he lived at the palace, some evenings Moses would watch the setting sun's golden light play on the petals of floating flowers. But nothing lasted forever, he knew, and he tried to push such nostalgia out of his mind.
Conceal the memories, Moses chided his heart, for the past is in the past—God has given you a mission far more important than flowers or nostalgia.
Late in the afternoon a guard from the palace came a-knocking at the door; his uniform was unmistakeable as Egyptian. Gershom yelled at the man to "go away!" but Moses went to the door with complete sureness of step and expression.
"What is it you need?" Moses asked in an even voice.
The guard stiffened, peering down at Moses through squinted, black eyes.
"I presume you are the Hebrew shepherd called Moses?"
"I am," Moses confirmed.
The guard spun around, his acne-ridden back to Moses. "Come with me. Pharaoh demands to speak with you."
Moses nodded at his son and wife, "You stay here. I will go alone with the guard."
The guard's left hand never unclutched his dagger as he led Moses up the steps, kicking aside croaking frogs. Moses could hear his loud cursing above the din of frogs as they half walked and half waded through the critters. The guard stabbed a few frogs—with a string of expletives every time—as they made their way to the grand residence of pharaoh.
Lice are next, Moses reminded himself, a threat that will topple Rameses' dynasty when it comes to pass.
Moses may have become more serious and mature over time, but he definitely didn't forget the joy of sarcasm. Guilt nicked his heart as his thoughts kept playing along in a slightly sarcastic form. He didn't have to be Rameses' lifelong adoptive brother to guess how he would take the plague of lice.
A terrible scourge on Egypt from which the economy will never recover, Moses quipped in his thoughts, no man or woman will have seen lice as fearsome as those yet to come.
Now Moses and the guard were thigh-deep in frogs as they dragged their feet through the mass of amphibians.
If it were me, I'd let the people go, Moses thought, one day of wading up to my thighs in frogs would convince me.
Frogs dropped and tumbled from windows, columns, and statues, but only on the guard and other Egyptians, never on Moses. It was as though the frogs were immediately repelled from Moses on virtue of being one of God's chosen. God made sure Moses was immune to the frogs, but not so much that he didn't have to wade up to his thighs through the croaking mass.
Despite the mass of frogs threatening to drown both men, they finally made it into the throne room where Rameses slouched on his throne, glaring at the frogs and forcibly slamming any that crawled onto him against the nearest column or wall.
"Moses!" he sniped, "Is this your doing?"
Moses straightened his spine, trying to look as tall as he could as he readied himself to speak on God's behalf once more.
"Yes, it is," Moses confirmed, "And—"
"You think it will make me let your precious Hebrews go?" Rameses interrupted, baring his teeth, "You think wrong. The priests have prayed to the gods and they will remove the frogs."
"They won't," Moses insisted, hand tightening on his staff, "It will be God, if you let my people go."
"What else can he threaten me with?" Rameses asked, a touch of cynicism in his words, "What else can your nameless god come up with that will convince me?"
Lice, Moses thought, cringing inside. If Rameses wasn't convinced by a literal sea of frogs, then lice wouldn't either. Everyone got lice at some point or another, especially young children. If one child got lice today, then a dozen would have them by tomorrow.
It is God's will that I warn Rameses.
"He can come up with much," Moses began his spiel, "but ask him to take away these frogs if you wish them gone."
Rameses glared at a fat frog that had jumped right onto his lap and looked at him with what he could swear were bedroom eyes.
You're going to be gone tomorrow, frog!
He gripped the frog in one large hand and slammed it down on the footstool of his throne, stomping on the poor creature with a foot. It let out one startled croak and its eyes became glassy with death. Moses winced and looked back up at Rameses' face.
"Tomorrow then, Moses," Rameses snapped, "These frogs had better be gone."
"Fine," Moses said lightly, "They will be gone tomorrow."
Not in the way you expect, Moses added silently.
"And what should I be afraid of next?" Rameses asked sarcastically.
Here goes.
"Lice," Moses proclaimed with a completely straight face.
Rameses gaped, his expression stunned. Then he laughed uproariously.
"Moses!" he chuckled. "I didn't know you still had it in you!"
Moses didn't see what was so funny. "Have what in me?"
His adoptive brother shook his head, still laughing. "You come here so seriously, ready to deliver another terrible plague. And then…" a beat of not-very-tense silence, as Rameses' shoulders still shook with mirth, "you come up with the most ominous of threats…lice. Maybe you really are coming back. I knew you were still the same Moses I knew somehow."
Moses fought a valiant battle not to roll his eyes. Rameses was babbling as usual, and he let his mind wander, not listening at all. He didn't laugh, and nor did he see Rameses' face fall when his own amusement wasn't echoed. When he returned his gaze back to Rameses, all he saw was the cold, hard look of a pharaoh. An awkward silence fell as the two men stared at each other without speaking.
"Fine," Rameses said without emotion, "I will warn the palace of the next plague. I will not let your people go, and the Hebrews will stay here in Egypt. Go, Moses, return to your people and do not disturb me again tonight."
He still blinds himself to the suffering of my people!
"That is your will, Rameses, and God has heard. The dust of the palace will turn into lice by sunrise. The frogs will bother you no more, and perhaps you will rethink—"
"Just go!"
I'm leaving, I'm leaving. I just wish you would listen!
Moses inclined his head, turning away from pharaoh, wading once again through the thick sludge of frogs. The guards squinted at him, but did not move from their posts as Moses exited the audience chamber. Moses never saw the extra frown line appear between Rameses' eyebrows as the latter watched his brother leave. The line was the one of sorrow that had appeared when Moses had exiled Egypt so long ago, and when he returned only to free his people.
