Isaac’s eyes gazed up at his father, the knife raised above him. The predawn haze had already melted from them, and now a wet and living blue shone in their depths. And for Abraham the sky had become a stillness dense and warm as blood, stretched taut to the point of ringing.
His own hand seemed a stranger’s to him. The knife — a clot of blind light, heavy, sharp.
The Voice came from the joints, from the aching vertebrae, from the trembling in the knees.
“Raise it. Bring it down. Be precise.”
In answer — thoughts, many thoughts. Too many.
“He is testing you. This is a trial. You must pass it.”
“If He is the Same One Who appeared to me under the oak at Mamre…”
“Mamre was long ago. The shade under the oak, thick and cool. Flat cakes, butter, curds. He ate. The hands — living hands, callused. The throat moved as He swallowed.”
“He laughed. The sound was hoarse, real. He laughed with His eyes.”
“An executioner can laugh too. His belly also shakes with laughter.”
“No. He looked straight at me. The way Isaac looks now.”
“But He cannot want this.”
“And if He can?”
“Then Mamre is a lie. That laughter is a lie. That shade is a deception. And in Isaac’s dying cry Sarah will suffocate. A mother will not survive the death of her only son.”
Isaac’s blue gaze — no fear in it, only a question.
At last:
“I cannot betray that laughter. That hoarse, human sound.”
The chapter goes on in the book.