Sarah (22 page)

Lot's laughter was terrible to hear. “Abram isn't my father! He doesn't even want to be my father; he didn't adopt me. And you say you're like my mother. But what mother ever looked like you?”

“Lot!”

“You are the woman I loved for years like a mother, yes. But who could think you as a mother now? Nobody—not even me.”

“What do you mean?”

Lot plunged his hand in the river and sprinkled water on his face and chest, as if he were burning hot despite the shade of the trees. “They're like blind people,” he said. “But you can't be blind. Not you.”

Lot seized Sarai's hands. When she tried to break away, he held them tighter, kissed them, and lifted them gently and respectfully to his brow.

“I've always loved you, Sarai. With all my heart, with all the love I'm capable of. I love you so much I was even happy when you had to become my mother. Fortunately for me—or unfortunately—apart from Abram, I'm the only man who knows how soft your skin is, how firm and warm your body. You used to hug me. A long time ago—though I remember it as if it were only yesterday—we even slept in the same bed for a few nights. I woke up with the smell of your breasts in my nostrils.”

“Lot!”

“Every day since I was a child I've been looking at your face. And every day it's the same perfect face.”

Sarai abruptly took her hands away from Lot's hands. Now it was she who avoided his gaze.

“How can they not see it?” Lot went on. “I was a child, then a boy. Now I'm a man. Time has done its work on me. It's molded my body. But on you, Sarai, it hasn't put a single wrinkle. The women who were young when I was a child now have heavy hips, and their bellies are soft from bearing children. They have wrinkles around their eyes and mouths, their brows and necks are lined. I look at you and see none of that. Your skin is more beautiful than the skin of the girls who want me to caress them behind the bushes. Time has no effect on you, and that's the truth.”

“Be quiet,” Sarai implored.

“You can ask me anything,” Lot said in a low voice, looking down, “except not to love you as a man loves a woman.”

ONE night soon after, when Abram had joined her in her bed and they were lying side by side in the darkness, still numb from their caresses, Sarai told Abram how Lot had surprised her on the riverbank.

“If Lot's passion surprises you,” Abram laughed, “you must be the only one. When Lord Melchizedek asked him why he didn't seem very eager to make offerings on the altar of God Most High, he replied that he'd only be certain that Yhwh existed if He appeared to him looking like you!”

They both laughed.

“When Lot was still a young boy,” Sarai said, “and we were walking from Harran, he was enthusiastic about your god. He wanted me to keep telling him over and over what you said about Him. Now he's a man, and he says he can't love me as a mother or an aunt because time has no effect on me. Is that what you think, too? That time no longer has any effect on me?”

For a moment, Abram remained silent and still. Then, in a warm, joyful voice, he agreed.

“But isn't that a curse?” Sarai asked under her breath. “A punishment sent by your god?”

Abram sat up, letting the cover slide off their bodies. In a long kiss, he ran his lips from Sarai's neck to the hollow between her thighs.

“My flesh, my fingers, my heart, and my mouth drink their fill of happiness at your beauty, night after night. It's true: The seasons pass and Sarai's beauty doesn't fade. On the contrary. The days move us closer to death as the donkey moves the wheel to raise water from the well. But my wife, Sarai, is as fresh tonight as she was the first time I undressed her.”

“And doesn't that frighten you?”

“Why should it frighten me?”

“Aren't you afraid that others are as aroused by it as Lot is, but with less affection and less reason? Aren't you afraid that your wife may become a source of envy, resentment, and hatred?”

Abram laughed confidently. “There isn't a man in Canaan who isn't mad with desire for you. How could I not be aware of it? There isn't a man or a woman who doesn't envy Abram and Sarai. But not one of them will dare to do what my nephew Lot dared. Because they know. They know what Melchizedek saw in you as soon as we arrived in Salem: Yhwh wants you to be beautiful, and not just for me. Your beauty is a beacon for Canaan, an offering from Him to the people of Abram. You may not be able to give birth, but Yhwh makes your beauty the seed of our eternal happiness. God Most High is holding back the effects of time on you because you are a messenger of all the beautiful things he will accomplish. Who among Abram's people would dare to sully this messenger?”

Sarai would have liked to protest. To say that she did not feel that way at all, that all she felt was the weight of the time that never passed and the endless desire to have children. She would have liked to say that such thoughts were merely a man's imagination, that Abram's god had not announced or promised anything of the sort, only a people and a fertile seed. But Abram covered her in caresses, reducing her to silence and once again drawing from her the pleasure that was his fulfilment.

Later, in the darkness, Abram's breath against her shoulder as he slept, Sarai was overcome with sadness. She bit her lips and pressed her eyelids to stop her tears. How she would have preferred her belly to grow round and her face to crease with wrinkles! What could she do with this beauty, which was as dry as grassland cracked by heat? How could a sterile beauty be preferable to the cry of life and the laughter of a child?

Filled with anger and fear, plagued by questions she could not answer, she found it impossible to get to sleep. For the first time since they had left Harran, Sarai was seized with intense doubt.

What if Abram was wrong? What if he was misled by his wish to love his god and achieve great things? What if, in thinking he could hear an invisible and intangible god, he was the victim of his own imagination or a demon's scheming? In all honesty, what use was the power of a god who could not even make the bridal blood flow between her thighs?

A Child of Drought

S
oon after that night, the happiness they had known in Canaan began to disintegrate. The number of people coming to swell Abram's tribe suddenly increased. Most were from the north, some even from the cities, artisans rather than shepherds.

“Where we come from, the harvests have been bad,” they all said. “The rains haven't fallen, the fields are barren, the rivers have run dry.”

Abram would welcome them without hesitation. Soon, there was not a single patch of land in the whole of Canaan that was not being used for livestock. In the autumn, the tents were not taken down. The grass in the pastures was short and hard. When they gathered in the big black-and-white tent, there was the first sign of unease from those who had been with Abram from the beginning.

“Aren't you afraid?” they asked Abram.

“Afraid of what?”

“That there are too many of us in the land of Canaan now?”

“God Most High gave me this land and no other,” Abram replied, “and He did not put any limits on my people.”

Abram might not want any limits, the others thought, but a bad season might well set them. But they said nothing. Just as Sarai said nothing. Abram had become so sure of himself, so confident, that he repelled doubts and questions as easily as a bronze shield repels arrows. He also began to share Sarai's bed less often.

“Even the greatest of beauties can tire a husband,” Sarai told Sililli, bitterly. “He doesn't need to make love with me anymore; he's quite happy now just thinking about it.”

“Men never get tired of those things!” Sililli joked. “They may not be able anymore, but as long as they can get their shaft up, they're always ready and willing!”

Sarai shook her head, unsmiling. “Abram knows my face and my body will be the same tomorrow as they are today. There's nothing he can get from me that he hasn't already had. Why should he be in any hurry?”

She did not say what she was really thinking. There was no need: Sililli was thinking the same thing.

Lot could also see her distress. Since his declaration of love, he had avoided doing anything that might provoke Sarai's anger. But he stayed beside her, affectionate and silent. They often spent whole evenings together, listening to singing and music in the encampment, or to tales and legends recounted by passing merchants or the old men of a newly arrived clan.

Sarai would sometimes let her gaze linger on Lot's handsome face. She would give a start whenever he burst out laughing at a joke told by one of the storytellers. His loyalty, his attentiveness, his constant presence made her feel a curious mixture of joy, tenderness, and remorse.

“There are lots of girls who'd like to see you,” she would say to him. “Why don't you go to them? That's where you belong.”

She did not dare add, “You'll have to take a wife sooner or later.”

Lot would look at her, with an expression at once serious and calm, and shake his head. “This is where I belong,” he would reply. “This is all I want.”

Sometimes, then, Sarai would open her arms to him. She would clasp him to her, kiss his neck, and let him kiss her, as if he were still a child.

“You're going to drive him mad,” Sililli would say, whenever she caught them.

“If we can't be mother and son,” Sarai would reply, blushing, “we can at least be sister and brother!”

“Sister and brother!” Sililli would retort, seriously angry. “When the cows come home! I love Lot as much as you do, and I tell you that what the two of you are doing to him, you with your beauty and Abram with his indifference, is really cruel. You ought to force him to take a wife and a herd and go and make children in the Negev Desert!”

Sililli was right. Sarai would feel a coldness in her chest, and her back would tighten with fear: The sins committed by her and Abram were accumulating.

One night, she had a bad dream she did not dare tell anyone about, least of all Sililli. She saw herself emerging from the river where Lot had surprised her. Lot was not there. She was surrounded by a large number of children, both boys and girls. Strange children with round bellies, as if they were pregnant, and empty faces. Completely empty: no mouths, no noses, no eyes or eyebrows. And all exactly alike, despite the absence of features. But Sarai was not afraid. She walked across the pastures, accompanied by this swarm of children. Everything in Canaan seemed as beautiful as ever. Extravagant flowers had grown in the freshly plowed fields. Flowers on big stems, with vast yellow corollas. Sarai and the children ran toward them, shouting with joy, eager to pick them. But as they drew nearer, they noticed that the stems were covered in hard thorns that made it impossible to take hold of them. The flowers themselves turned out to be balls of fire, like incandescent suns. They burned everyone's eyes, they burned the fields, they dried up the trees. Sarai began to cry out in terror. She wanted to warn Abram, Melchizedek, and all the elders of the tribe: “Careful, the flowers are going to destroy you, they're going to transform Canaan into a desert!” But the children calmed her tenderly, happily showing their big bellies and saying, “It isn't serious, it isn't serious! Look how big our bellies are. We're going to give birth to all your sins, and you can eat them when the fields are empty.”

“ABRAM is playing at being a father,” Lot said, with a scornful laugh.

It was a few days later, and Sarai had resolved that she would try to persuade Lot to leave her and take a wife.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Among the newcomers from Damascus, there's a young boy who never leaves him, who's always dogging his steps. Or else it's Abram who never leaves him, whichever you prefer.”

“How old is he?”

“Eleven or twelve. The same age I was when you became my mother.” Lot smiled, and his face creased like a peach that had fallen in the sand. He shrugged his shoulders. “A good-looking boy with very curly hair, a big mouth, and a long nose the women will like. He's crafty, too, and cheats at games. I've been watching him. He knows just how to win Abram over. He's more affectionate than I ever was.”

“Why does he hang around Abram?” Sililli asked. “Doesn't he have a father or a mother?”

“He has everything he needs. And now he has all Abram's attention.”

“Point him out to me,” Sarai said.

The boy's name was Eliezer, and he was exactly as Lot had described him: handsome, lively, affectionate, and endearing. And yet, from the moment she set eyes on him, Sarai disliked him. She really did not understand why. Was it the way he tilted his head to one side when he smiled? Was it his rather heavy lids that made his eyes into slits?

“Could it be you're jealous?” Sililli asked, with her usual frankness. “You have every reason to be. All the same, the boy is good news. Abram has finally noticed how tired he was of not being a father. He's discovering the joys of fatherhood with this Eliezer. Who could blame him? Wanting to be king of a great people without knowing what it is to be a father, your husband was starting to worry me.”

“Well, I can't see anything in this boy to delight me!” Sarai replied, dryly.

She took the first opportunity to ask Abram about him. “Who is this boy who's never out of your sight?”

Abram's smile was radiant. “Eliezer? The son of a muleteer from Damascus.”

“Why do you like him so much?”

“He's the most adorable child in Canaan. He's not only pleasant-looking. He's intelligent, brave, and obedient. And he's a quick learner.”

“But he already has a father, Abram. Does he need two?”

Abram's smile faded. For the first time in all their married life, Sarai had the feeling that he was forgetting his love for her.

They stood looking at each other in silence, both dreading the wounding words that might emerge from their mouths. Sarai knew that for several moons now, she had been right. Her beauty was no longer enough. Was the sin of it weighing more heavily on her than on Abram?

“I've known for a long time that it was bound to happen,” she said, as gently as she could. “Nobody could have been better than you, having a sterile wife.”

Abram remained silent. He waited, a severe expression in his eyes, sure she was about to add something.

“We've both always thought of Lot as our son,” she went on. “Not only in our hearts, but in reality, he has been our son for years. Why prefer an unknown boy who has his own father and mother, when you could adopt Lot and make him the heir I can't give you?”

“Lot is my brother's son,” Abram replied, coldly. “He already has a place beside me, now and in the future.” He turned and left the tent.

Night had only just fallen. Once more, he spent it far from Sarai's arms.

THE following winter, the wind blew but the rain did not fall. The earth became so hard that it was almost impossible to dig furrows. In the spring, the rain still did not fall, and the seeds dried in the soil without germinating. At the first shimmer of warm air above the pastures in summer, the thought on everyone's mind was drought.

Sarai, like many, spent each day dreading the next. She recalled her bad dream. Sometimes, it seemed to her that the land of Canaan was becoming like her: beautiful and barren.

She would have liked to be able to confide in Abram, question him again. “Aren't you wrong about the meaning of this beauty that clings to me? By forcing this beauty on me, isn't your god trying to tell you that my sin is greater than you think? Must I go away before the barrenness of my womb spreads to the pastures of Canaan?”

But whenever she spoke of these torments, Sililli would give a cry of horror and urge her to keep silent.

“What pride, my child, to think that the rain falls or doesn't fall because of you! Even in Ur, where you lords were quite capable of thinking you were the cat's whiskers, it took more than one sin for the gods to stop the rain! And I'll tell you something: This nonsense isn't going to get your husband back between your thighs!”

During all this time, Abram seemed the most heedless of them all. Not a day went by that he did not set off across the pastures with Eliezer. They would sleep in the open air, or cast nets on the seashore. He would teach the boy to weave baskets or mats out of bulrushes, to carve horn and train mules.

Seeing them, Sarai would feel a lump in her throat, and her saliva would turn acid, as if she were chewing green lemons. She would try to see reason, to listen to Sililli's advice: “It's all right. It's as it should be. Love this child as Abram loves him, and you'll be happy again. What else can you expect?” But however hard she tried, she still did not like Eliezer.

Then a day arrived when Melchizedek came to the black-and-white tent.

“Abram, the seeds are no longer germinating, the grass in the pastures is drying up, there's less water in the rivers and wells. Our reserves are not large. Nobody can remember a drought here in the land of milk and honey in living memory. But the soil of Canaan has so many people on it now, it can no longer feed us all.”

“God Most High gave us this land. Why would He cause a drought?”

“Who could know the answer better than you, since He speaks only to you?”

Abram frowned and said nothing.

Melchizedek placed a hand on his arm. “Abram,” he said, affectionately, “I need your help. We don't have your confidence. We need to be reassured and to know the will of Yhwh. Remember, I greeted you before the walls of Salem with the words ‘Abram is my dearest friend.'”

Abram clasped him in his arms. “If Yhwh has a wish in this trial, He will tell me.”

He ordered young heifers, rams, and lambs to be offered up, and went off with Eliezer to call on Yhwh in all the places where he had built altars in Canaan. But after one moon had passed, he had to admit the truth.

“God Most High is not speaking to me. We must wait; nothing happens without a reason.”