Below is the first chapter of Seventeen Spoons, by Esther Goldenberg.

Minor edits and updates may have occurred, resulting in a slightly different final version.
The paperback and ebook contain a family tree.

Enjoy

By the time my body was placed in my coffin, I had taken over 924 million breaths. I had much to be grateful for. Also, some regrets. But this number impressed me, and I believe the smile on my face was one of pride due to realizing my body had been breathing for that long.

Mind you, this number might not be exact. Perhaps it was 924,134,123 breaths. Maybe it was 923,625,321. Or any number close to those, really. I did this calculation without the aid of my court magicians, nor did I have tools to help me other than my own thoughts. My Physician, who watched me as I climbed into my coffin, had assured me I would not die right away. Rather than panicking about being in a closed space, I began breathing the ceremonial breaths. Eventually, I began counting them.

Each inhale was an opportunity to bring My God into my body. Each exhale was a little bit of me going back out to My God and the world around me. True, the world around me was only six finger-widths of area between my body and the inside of my enclosure, but My God can fit in all spaces. YhWh. That was the name My Ancestors used for My God. We usually just said Yah or Elohim, saving the full name only for ceremonies. This would be my final ceremony. I would certainly use the name.

Inhale. Yhhhh. Exhale. Whhhh. Inhale. Yhhhh. Exhale. Whhhh. If I began to feel discomfort, I went back to noticing my breaths.

Inhale. Yhhhh. Exhale. Whhhh.

When My Pharaoh died, I knew I would be buried too. That wasn’t the custom of my family, but I had been an Egyptian for a long time. It was my new custom, and part of the pact of having the privilege I enjoyed as second-in-command[EG1]  of all of Egypt. All those close to Pharaoh must be buried with him so that he can take his riches into his next life. I was one of those riches. But unlike his throne and his horses, his horsemen and his other servants, I had power of my own. When the others were given the poison, they were commanded to drink immediately. As second-in-command,[EG2]  nobody would dare stop me from keeping mine in my hand, though a guard was assigned to my burial chamber to ensure that I didn’t leave it.

The important thing was that this gave me time to make preparations before my death because I knew it was coming. I spoke with my little brother, Benno. The idea of calling him my little brother made me chuckle. There was a brief time in our lives when I had been able to cradle him in my arms and sing him shepherding songs, and so in my heart, he holds the place of “little” brother, while in fact he grew taller than me by a full hand and fathered more sons.

But Benno, bigger or littler brother, no matter, was my closest confidant in the family. I taught him of the burial customs in Egypt. I told him what to expect: my body would be embalmed like that of My Pharaoh—an honor, really—and placed in a tomb almost as ornate. Pharaoh’s mummified body would stay there forever, but I wished for my bones to be returned to the Land of My Fathers when my family made that journey back to the north. That had been important to My Father as well. My death wasn’t long after his, so the request was familiar to Benno. I am just grateful that My Father was already dead when my time came. He could not have handled losing me a second time.

I took Benno to the hidden entrance of the tomb that would be mine so that he would know where to go to retrieve my body when the time came. He would not be the first person to rob an Egyptian grave, nor the last, I’m sure. But I instructed him to take only my body and the simple wooden case it was in, no more, no less. I knew it would be no easy task to carry the stone coffin, so it would need to stay behind. This way, the carvings in the stone showing me among the abundance of grain and grapes would remind the Egyptians of what I did for generations to come. The new pharaoh would not object to my body departing, as he would see it as a diminishing of My Pharaoh’s riches—an advantage to himself. Meanwhile, my own descendants would have my mummified bones with my likeness painted on the plaster case to remind them of who I was.

I took my last meal with my family the morning before the burial. It was the grandest feast they had ever seen or eaten, and though we were all aware of the morbid reason for our gathering, every morsel that passed our lips was enjoyed. The last food I took in was a fig, neither fancy nor dried like others on the table. It was fresh, full of goodness, and perfect just the way it was. As I savored the sweetness, I heard My God tell me that I was the same as that fig. Perfect just the way I was. That night, I dreamt of a land so sweet that its rivers were flowing with honey.

Early the next morning, I climbed into my casket and was carried on parade by six men who showed the people that I was lying there with eyes closed and arms crossed. No words were allowed to be uttered, but they bore witness to my exit from this world and my entrance to the next. My vial of poison was concealed in my hand, not swallowed as they believed. For I would do that in my own time. When the parade was over, the men set my wooden casket gently on the stone slab reserved for the Second-in-Command. They sang a song of tribute to My Pharaoh and closed the lid. Though the sun had just risen outside, it was a quick sunset on my life.

“My God,” I said silently, my lips moving but no sound escaping them, “Elohim, God of My Father Jacob, God of My Father Isaac, God of My Father Abraham, You have granted me two lifetimes, one in the Land of My Fathers, and one in the Land of the River. They were not without challenges, but You have blessed me manyfold. I ask You now for two more blessings. Please bless My Children with Your presence and their children after them for all generations. And please be with me now.”

And then I took that first inhale. Slow, long, filling my body so that it rose almost to the top of my casket. Yhhhh. Then my first exhale. Whhhh. Slow, long, shrinking my body back down to the bottom. I was lucky; as Second-in-Command, my casket was lined with cushions and soft linens. Even so, I knew while lying there, awaiting my death, I would want to shift my weight and my position and not be able to. I quickly stopped that thought with an inhale. Yhhhh. My God is in me. Then an exhale. Whhhh. My God is all around me.

This went on for more than a day. I know because although I had no sight and little sound, I was able to hear the distant ringing of the morning bell. I had breathed, and I had slept, and I had lived through the night calmly. I felt strong enough to do it again. Inhale. Exhale. Although the air was already stuffy from my own breath, I was not yet ready to stop breathing. Yhhhh. Whhhh. I felt calm. And also a little bored, which was why I began counting my breaths.

I counted my breaths until the next morning. I don’t know if I slept. Perhaps I even counted in my sleep. I cannot know. But when the morning bells rang again, the number in my thoughts was 20,009. It was then that I began to be curious about how many breaths I had taken in my life. The exact number will never be known, nor is it important. What was important was each inhale and exhale. Each breath with My God while I could still breathe.

My physician had once told me that at the time of their deaths, many men spoke aloud about having their lives play in front of them like an act of theater, or perhaps a dream, in their last moments. They saw themselves as babies, youths, and grown men. They saw everything that happened in their lives, even many things which they had forgotten.

That is exactly what happened to me.

As soon as that began, I jolted with horror and opened my eyes. I had written many things for others, and many things had been written about me, but not since my youth had I written anything about myself. That had to be changed. Immediately.

“Guard! Guard!” I called, but he didn’t answer. I was sure he was close enough to hear me. He wouldn’t leave his post, for he knew he would be risking his own life. I needed to tell him that staying would be an even greater risk. “Guard! My Lord has just reprimanded me for not having written the accounts of my life. He has come to me and told me that I must do it immediately, or He will not allow me into the world to come, and the same fate will befall anyone who prevents His command from being carried out.”

The guard certainly thought that “My Lord” referred to My Pharaoh, though it was Elohim who had helped me come to this realization. The young Egyptian would understand nothing of this if I told him, nor did we have time. What he did understand was that I would give him riches from my own body in exchange for him bringing lanterns and oil as well as papyrus and ink.

As scared as he was of retribution from the afterlife, he was also scared of punishment in this life. His shaky voice repeated many times that he was standing beside me with his dagger drawn should I try to escape. It took longer than I had hoped to convince him to open my coffin just enough for me to give him the smooth golden ring from my finger. I promised that it would be his to keep if he would help me. Along with safety from My Pharaoh.

With the ring on his finger, he slid the lid off my coffin. I quickly instructed him to take a golden pendant from my wrist to hire the fastest horseman to bring him to Benjamin the Israelite. Then I took the bejeweled breastplate from my chest. “Give this to Benjamin,” I ordered, “and tell him to give you oil and lamps and all the papyrus and ink that he can gather. Quickly.”

Now, the guard has returned with all the supplies I requested. His belly and his pockets are full, so he was happy to push aside the lid of the coffin of the one who had filled them. It is with gratitude to My God that I sit in my lit burial chamber with a guard who has completed this errand and has agreed to stay out until the light under the door stops flickering. When he returns, it is of no consequence to me whether he believes that the missing fruit from the silver platter on the offerings table was eaten by gods in the afterlife or me in this one. What is important is that I can now write about myself before I die.

I am Joseph.

Son of Jacob.

Son of Isaac.

Son of Abraham.

These are the stories of my lives.