I don’t know what the heck my boss was thinking. He’d do this little nod thing and his eyes would brighten and he’d tell the king where the Syrians would be. The king listened. The Syrians would set their ambush, but we didn’t show up. All we’re doing is teasing their anger. And then what?
When a commander of the Syrian army showed up at the king’s doorstep, saying he’d heard he could be healed in Israel, the king tore his clothes. I couldn’t blame him. Why would we want to help the man who burned our towns? Would The Name help someone successful in battle against us? I could barely stand seeing his gorgeous silks in tatters. I broke out in a cold sweat.
My boss, Elisha, stood a little straighter, the kind of straight that said he was going to say something we didn’t want to hear. “What’d you do that for? Send him to me, so he may know there’s a prophet in Israel.”
I followed him back home, feeling sorry for the king’s finery. What I wouldn’t give for that ripped silk and linen. My sack cloth scraped my shoulders. When Elisha handed the shift to me, he said, “This is good for mortifying the body, so you can hear God.” My skin never got used to the burlap scraping it. But he wore the softest blue cotton. He and God chatted all the time.
“He’s here,” I announced. Naaman’s retinue was something to see. Those fine horses, glistening in the sun, their ears forward and alert. I could feel their power. The chariots carved wood, with gold overlay. His robes were silk dyed purple and red. The mountains were pale blue in the distance.
“You talk to him,” Elisha said, his mouth full. A drop of yogurt sat on his lip.
“He wants to see you.” The back of my neck prickled. My legs felt like they were wrapped in brambles.
“Tell him to wash in the Jordan seven times and his flesh will be restored. You want to be a prophet, here’s your chance.” Elisha patted his mouth and reached for a peach.
“He wants to see you,” I repeated. My nose stung with the acid rising in my throat.
“Men like that don’t like to be kept waiting.” Elisha took a long swallow of wine.
Naaman’s skin was crusted over. Patches oozed blood and pus. He stank. My voice wavered. My throat felt like someone grabbed it or I was about to cry. My tongue felt fat.
Naaman’s voice sounded like the very trumpets we heard when they charged our armies. I shivered. “Your prophet doesn’t have the decency show his face and call on the Name? Does he know who I am? Are not the clear, fruitful rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel?”
He could slice off my head with one stroke. I stood mute, my throat closed.
He whirled his chariot around, those beautiful black horses, their mouths gaping, the gold glinting in the sun, his purple robes flying in the wind. He left me standing in dust.
“Not so easy being a prophet. Looks like you need to wash in the Jordan too.” Elisha handed me a handful of grapes.
“I’m good.” No way did I want to go near Naaman the fierce. What if it didn’t work? But Elisha and The Name never failed to make a miracle. I’ve seen some things—oil poured into vessels so a woman could pay her creditors; a child born to a barren couple; the child dead and then raised; poison stew made healthy, an iron ax floating to the surface of water.
When he returned, Naaman’s flesh was like a baby’s. He smelled like wind across water. “The Name, is a Name above all names. Blessed be He.” Naaman’s eyes glistened like water seeping from rocks.
My breath caught as he unpacked beautiful silk robes like his. I’ve never seen something so fine. Already I could feel the smooth cloth on my reddened skin. “Please accept these offerings,” he said.
“No, no.” Elisha held his palms up. His face lit up like the sun just topping the horizon. “Healing by the Name. There’s nothing to pay.”
What? Are you serious? All my life, I’ve wanted to wear silk. Think of the people we could help with silver. I thought this. I didn’t dare speak a word.
Naaman knelt, his head bowed. “Let me take some ground, so the Name will know to find me? I won’t sacrifice to any god, but the Name. But please pardon your servant.” I felt a thrill. This powerful man called himself a servant before Elisha, dressed in pale blue cotton. “May the Name pardon me, when my master leans on me, when he worships our god.” Naaman’s eyes were dropped. His voice quiet.
Elisha laid his hand on Naaman’s shoulder. “Peace be with you.”
Everything rattled. The horse’s harness. The wooden shafts. The wheels rolling. But when the chariots were a billow of dust in the distance, I ran. I ran so hard I lost my breath. Already I could feel the silk laid across my shoulders, and under my hands. When I caught up, he asked, “Is everything all right?” his eyes surprisingly kind.
Yes, yes. It’s fine. But two prophets we’re mentoring just arrived. They need some clothes. Our provisions are low.
“Take two talents and changes of clothes.” A couple servants carried them to my hovel. I ran my hand over the silk. I tried on one of the robes. Oh my goodness I felt like a proper prophet who could tell the king what he didn’t want to hear. I felt the confidence of the commander. My skin didn’t hurt.
Outside, I heard Elisha’s voice. “Where have you been?”
I dropped the cloak on my bed and stepped out.
“Nowhere.” My throat went tight, yet again.
I don’t know what I was thinking that I could pull a fast one on my bald old boss.
“But I saw where you went, how Naaman turned to greet you, gave you those garments and silver. Is it a time to accept orchards and vineyards sheep and oxen?” He quoted Solomon, A time to be rich. A time to be poor. A time to build up. A time to cast down. Listen to the times. We’re at war. It’s not a time to rely on anything but the goodness and beneficence of the Lord. Naaman’s leprosy will settle on you.”
I saw it like a murmuration of birds whirling up from the Jordan, swooping here and swooping there until it landed on me, and I turned white as snow. My joints began to ache. As the days went on, I looked more like a lizard. What happened to the clothes and talents? We gave them to the families who lost their homes in the Syrian raids.
My name was taken out of the story. Gahezi. My name is Gahezi. I’m still here. But still my eyes were opened like they’d never been opened before.
Remember I said my boss had that glint in his eye when he told the king where Syrians were going to ambush us? Well, his telling came back to bite us. We woke up one morning, surrounded by an army of chariots and horses. If Naaman’s horses and chariots were fearsome, these were terrifying. But still beautiful. Fearsome as a storm, with its wall rolling across the sky. Was this the end? Was Elisha’s power a match for this?
“Elisha. Elisha. What are we going to do? Look at that army. We are surrounded.” My voice wailed like a babe’s.
He patted my shoulder. “Don’t you see? We have our own army.” He heard the terror in my eyes. “Lord open his eyes, so he can see.” He might as well have said, “Peace be still, his voice was so quiet.”
The mountain range was full of chariots and horses glowing white hot, flames whipping off their manes and tails. The chariots were on fire but not burning up. Tthey were bright as the sun angled into the sky. My eyes hurt. My ears rang with neighing, otherworldly neighing.
When the Syrians charged our town, Elisha prayed, “Lord strike them with blindness.” The soldiers and horses looked like fish circling, confused by sharks. Their shouts were full of terror, just like mine had been. Elisha spoke, “Whoa. Whoa” to the captain’s horses. They stopped, nostrils flaring, eyes white rimmed.
“I’ll take you where you need to go,” he said. He climbed into the chariot. He drove them right to the center of our country. Right to the king’s doorstep.
“Should we strike them?” The king asked. He was wearing the clothes I took from Naaman. They looked good on him.
“No set bread and water before them,” Elisha said. “Treat them like honored guests.”
And so the king made a big feast. The bread. The wine. The figs and olives and lamb. Then he sent them away. We had some peace.
My name is Gehazi. My name was put back in the story when I told the king about the miracles Elisha had done. The Shunammite woman made a place on her roof for us to stay. Elisha asked what could we do for her? I said she needed a son. You’d think he’d see her husband was old and there were no children. So Elisha told her she’d have a son in a year. Gehazi. My name is Gehazi. But gorgeous silk and silver I could barely carry meant more to me than The Name. The Shunammite woman walked into the king’s court just as we were talking. She came to ask for her land back. Because Elisha sent her away because of the famine.
I was one of the lepers who crept into their camp because we’d either die of starvation or die by the Syrians’ sword. But they had fled because they heard what I’d seen when Elisha patted my shoulder–Chariots and horses of fire from the Name. We gathered food and clothes and even their horses. Everyone ate. Elisha patted my shoulder. I could feel the warmth of his hand spread from my shoulder through my body. The leprosy fled. I shrugged on a silk robe I’d picked off the ground when the Syrians fled.
One day I was dressed to speak to the king, telling him how Elisha raised a boy from the dead, dead from sunstroke, a good woman’s only son, when she walked into the court. I couldn’t believe my eyes. She’d been gone for years like Naomi who brought us Ruth, David’s great-grandmother. She was seeking an audience so her land could be returned.
“Yes, yes I am the woman whose son was raised. He was dead as long as it took to run to Mount Carmel and back to my home.” The king marveled. My heart lifted up to see her son, grown and handsome, to remember the frantic run to lay Elisha’s staff on his face. The quiet when Elisha laid his body down on the son. Elisha getting up and walking around. And the seven times the boy sneezed as he came back to his mother. Of course, the king ordered her land be returned to her.
Before I close my story, I want to tell you I went to the Jordan to wash after Naaman left, after my skin turned white. I saw a bright figure, shining as those chariots of fire, but mild too, joy and sadness on his face. I saw him lean into a man’s arms, the man wild like Elisha who dipped the shining man in the Jordan river. I saw him walk out of that water and walk away from all of us into the wilderness.
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