‘But why?’ asked May.
‘He was playing a joke on them.’
‘That’s silly,’ said Shari.
May got irritated at this. ‘You mustn’t say that. It’s the Bible.’
‘I can say what I like. It’s a free country.’
‘Shush. There’s no need to fight. Yes, you can say what you like. But don’t fight.’
Shari looked down guiltily. May pressed on with her questions. ‘But you still haven’t told us how the Israelites became slaves.’
‘Okay, let’s move on,’ said Danny. ‘Because of the famine, Joseph’s brothers and their wives and children all came down to Egypt to live as there was more food there. And as time went by they had children and grandchildren and there were more and more of them. But then one day the pharaoh died and a new pharaoh came along. But he didn’t remember Joseph and all the good things he’d done for them. He only saw that there were lots of these Israelites and he was afraid of them because he thought there were too many of them and they were getting too powerful. So he made them slaves.’
‘And then he tried to drown the babies,’ said May.
‘Only the boy babies,’ Danny explained. ‘He said that all new boy babies would be drowned, but not the girls.’
‘But why?’ asked May.
‘Because he thought there were too many of them.’
‘But why not the girls?’
Danny shrugged; he wasn’t sure how to explain a patriarchal society to a six-year-old. ‘Anyway, when Moses was born, his mother wanted to save him. So she put the baby in a basket and hid him in the bulrushes on the River Nile.’
‘What’s bulrushes?’ asked Shari.
‘Just something that grows by the river. Anyway, Pharaoh’s daughter found the basket with the baby in it and she was nice. She didn’t want anyone to kill the baby so she took it home and asked her father if she could adopt it and he said yes. So she adopted the baby and brought him up as an Egyptian prince. In fact she was the one who called him Moses.’
The girls were looking at him in awe, hanging on to every word and desperate to hear more about this fascinating story. But he paused to take a generous helping of roast chicken and potatoes and served the twins who were shy about taking food for themselves. Once the twins started tucking into their food, it gave Danny a chance to enjoy his own, at least for a while.
‘Tell us some more,’ said Shari.
‘Okay, where was I?’
‘You said that Moses was an Egyptian prince.’
‘Oh, yes. Well now, this is where the story gets interesting. One day, when he was grown-up, Moses saw an Egyptian slave master beating an Israelite slave. And he was so angry that he killed the Egyptian slave master. Then, after that, he saw two Israelites having a fight with each other and he stopped them fighting and told them not to fight.’
‘Like you told us,’ said May.
‘Exactly. But when he told them not to fight, one of them got angry and said to him, “Are you going to kill us like you killed that Egyptian?” And when he said that, Moses realized that someone had seen him. And if they’d seen him, then maybe someone else had also seen him, so he was afraid. So he ran away because he knew that the pharaoh would be angry. And then he came to the burning bush.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Shari.
‘It was a bush that was on fire. It was burning and burning, but it didn’t get burned up, it just carried on burning. And then God started talking to him from the bush.’
‘What did he say?’ asked May.
‘He told Moses that he was really an Israelite not an Egyptian and he must become the leader of the Israelites and tell Pharaoh to let them go. So he went to Pharaoh and said to him, “Let my people go.” But Pharaoh said no. So God sent the first plague.’
‘What was the first plague?’ asked May.
‘It was blood,’ said Daniel in his most theatrical tone, causing the girls to giggle. ‘God turned the River Nile into blood, so they couldn’t drink the water. And then when Pharaoh still refused to let the Israelites go free, God sent a plague of frogs. Can you imagine that? Frogs running around all over the place?’
He created a pair of imaginary frogs with his hands and showed them jumping all over the table. As the twins giggled, Daniel and his sister exchanged a smile. It was her quiet way of thanking him for keeping the little ones entertained.
By the time he’d got to the Egyptian army drowning in the Red Sea, Shari had gone off to the couch and fallen asleep and May was finding it hard to keep her eyes open. Julia came over and asked her if she wanted to go to bed. May nodded, gave Daniel a hug and then went off to her room with her mother.
Amidst all the noise and clatter in the room. Daniel almost missed the sound of his mobile phone ringing.
‘Hallo,’ he said, moving to the hallway so that he could conduct a proper conversation without having to strain to hear the other end of the line.
‘Hallo Danny,’ said a woman’s voice faintly.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Gaby. Gaby Gusack.’ She didn’t normally call herself Gaby. But she made an exception for Danny – sometimes.
‘Oh, hi Gaby.’
Two memories swept over him in quick succession: the almost-forgotten fifteen-year-old girl with a crush on him from his days as a PhD student and the tall, supremely self-confident woman that he had worked with on a recent archaeological dig in Jerusalem.
‘Listen, I’m calling from the University of Cairo. I’m with Professor Akil Mansoor.’
‘The head of the Egyptian Antiquities Authority?’
‘That’s right. He’d like to speak to you.’
Daniel was familiar with some of Mansoor’s statements, as well as his deeds, and he hadn’t exactly warmed to him. But if Mansoor wanted to speak to him, then evidently there must be some matter of mutual interest, and Daniel had no desire to seem rude to anyone, let alone a fellow academic.
There was some movement at the other end and then a man’s voice came down the line.
‘This is Akil Mansoor. The reason I’m calling you is that we have found something out here that may be of interest to you and we’d like to fly you out here to take a look at it. It will all be at our expense of course, and first class, naturally.’
Daniel smiled at the attempt to bribe him with first-class travel. But he was intrigued and wanted to know more.
‘Can you give me some idea of what this is about?’
‘I would prefer to tell you when you get here. But I can promise you that it will be of considerable interest to you.’
Daniel felt awkward. ‘The problem is I have several lectures to give here and I also promised my nieces that I’d take them to Stonehenge as their birthday treat.’
‘It needn’t be a long visit. Possibly even just a day or two. We would be ready to reward you handsomely.’
‘It’s not a matter of money. It’s a matter of time. I mean, I can come, it’s just that it would be a lot easier if it were in a couple of weeks’ time.’
‘Unfortunately, time is of the essence. Besides, I think this is something you’d really be excited about if you saw it. I’d rather not say what it is over the phone, but I can tell you that it appears to be an artefact of considerable interest to Jewish history.’
Daniel sensed the excitement in Mansoor’s