He was fourteen years old when I was born, and he left when I was four and he was eighteen. I remember the day that he was sent away. The days before had been a big party for me, as I was getting to be a “big boy” who ate table food instead of mother’s milk. But when the party was over, Ishmael and Hagar had to leave, and I cried when I saw them leaving our camp, for while no one told me so, I knew that they were leaving forever.
Other than the sight of Ishmael leaving, sick and carried over his mother’s shoulder, I have a just a couple of other memories with any real clarity.
I remember Ishmael taking me for a walk along the banks of a muddy river. I remember holding his hand, and watching the swaying of reeds in the breezes that rushed through the wadi. Then I remember him looking me in the eyes and telling me that he was the firstborn, not me, and that he would inherit Abrham’s house, not me. What that really meant to me as a child who was barely old enough to walk I am not sure, but I did sense even then that what he was saying was of pivotal importance for my life.
I also remember crawling up to Ishmael one day as he crouched behind his mother’s tent, playing in the dirt. He had constructed some structure resembling an altar, and he was sacrificing a fat grasshopper on the altar. For whatever reason I still remember the sight of the grasshopper, its big eyes glistening as if in pain, its body burning on the altar.
I remember, too, fetching arrows for Ishmael when he would practice his archery. My mother tells me that she saw him shooting arrows at me, just to my left or to my right, when I toddled out into the field to fetch the arrows, as though he were sporting to see how close he could dare land an arrow without accidentally shooting me. My mother Sarah must have been enraged by Ishmael’s foolishness, for even in telling me of it years later, she seemed angry enough to strangle him. For my part though, all I remember is fetching the arrows.