Sarah (28 page)

“Yhwh has promised me offspring,” Abram cried, raising his arms to heaven, his eyes big with rage. “God Most High promised it, and it will come to pass. Everything He promises comes to pass!”

Sarai's derisive laugh was terrible to her. She leaped at Abram, gripped his hand, and placed it on her stomach. “Oh yes? How many years have you been spouting the same nonsense? My God Most High will work the miracle! Why hasn't he already done it? Why hasn't he made my belly swell, if he's so powerful? Your seed is supposed to populate this land, is it? And whose womb is it going to come from, this people of yours? Are you going to make every woman in Canaan pregnant, Abram? They already look on you as a demigod! Well, why not? You could claim I'm your sister again. Lot was right, everyone will learn to live with it.”

Abram growled, trying to pull his hand away from Sarai's.

She opened her fingers abruptly and hit him on the chest to push him away, then stood for a moment, catching her breath. “Why doesn't your god care about me?” she cried. “Can you answer me that? No . . . Yhwh has spoken to you. He has promised, and you dance and laugh. While I weep. And hide! I'm empty. Empty and sick of these beautiful promises! Stop listening only to the noise of your own folly, Abram. Stop seeing what nobody else sees and face the truth: My womb is barren. You haven't been able to fill it. Your god has no idea how to fill it, any more than you do. Even Pharaoh couldn't manage it!”

Abram's roar was so fierce that Hagar rushed forward, thinking he was going to murder Sarai. But all he did was push her, propelling her to the side of the tent. She collapsed against it, while he ran off as fast as his legs would carry him.

Solitude

S
arai had lost Sililli and Lot. And now it seemed as though she had lost Abram, too.

She had nobody left but Hagar. Hagar was sweet, attentive, and helpful, but she could not replace Sililli in Sarai's heart. Hagar knew nothing of the past. She had no memory of Ur and Sumer. She could not remind Sarai of those happy times when Abram was in her bed every night and she still hoped that Abram's god was capable of a miracle. Unlike Sililli, Hagar could not mock her or reprimand her or ply her with old wives' tales at the slightest excuse.

What made matters worse was that Hagar was bursting with youth. There was life in the graceful curve of her hips. It was obvious that she was quivering with desire, ready for a man's seed as a flower is ready to receive the honeybee. One night of love, and Hagar would be pregnant. She would suffer the beautiful pain of childbearing. Whenever she thought about it, Sarai preferred to be completely alone rather than have her handmaid constantly in front of her eyes.

And so, for moons on end, the only pleasures she had left, the only ones that still gave her a sense of well-being, were solitude and indifference.

Sometimes, at night, she was haunted by dreams in which she was still a woman, making love to Pharaoh, and about to reach a peak of pleasure. She would wake with a bitter taste in her mouth, her body aching, the desire already gone. She would press her fists to her mouth to stifle her pain and her rage. Why couldn't she weep until her body dissolved like a statue of salt and disappeared into the greedy earth? Even that was not granted to her. It was as Pharaoh had promised: “You, too, will have to live with the pain of our memory!”

Then one morning, when she woke up, Hagar had news for her.

“Abram has come to pitch his tents here. He's decided to settle in the plain of Hebron.”

She was telling the truth. The plain was filling with tents. The flocks spread as far as the eye could see. The blows of sledgehammers on the tent posts echoed through the air. A city of canvas was being born. By the time the sun had reached its zenith, the big tent with the black-and-white stripes had already been erected.

“Settling near you,” Hagar said, “is Abram's way of showing how much he cares about you. Would you like me to go down and welcome him on your behalf?”

Sarai made no reply. She did not even seem to have heard.

Abram could well fill the plain of Hebron with those he called his “people,” just as he called Eliezer of Damascus his son. What business was that of hers? In what way did that make good his god's unkept promise? Neither her desire for solitude nor her indifference were going to be swayed by it.

When Abram sent her three young handmaids as extra help, she turned them away. “You can go back where you came from,” she said, simply. “Hagar gives me all the help I need.”

Abram next sent baskets of fruit, lambs for roasting, birds, rugs for the winter. Sarai refused these gifts as she had refused the handmaids. But this time, Abram ignored her refusal and ordered the gifts to be taken back and deposited outside her tent.

Unrolling the rugs at the foot of Sarai's bed, Hagar sighed with envy. “You've taught me a lesson. This is a good way to make sure your husband treats you well!”

Sarai found this annoying. She became less open with Hagar. She got into the habit, when twilight approached, of climbing to the top of the hill of Qiryat-Arba, beneath the white cliffs that looked out over the plain.

Here, her solitude was truly complete. It was a peaceful spot where, on spring days, the streams flowed in cascades and the sun released the scents of the sage and rosemary bushes. From here, if she was curious enough to do so, Sarai could follow what was going on in the camp. Occasionally, she would make out a figure walking faster, and going farther, than anyone else. She had no doubt it was Abram.

Most often, though, she would turn away her eyes to watch the flight of birds or the slow movement of the sun's shadow across the plain.

ONE day Hagar had another piece of news.

“They say war is threatening the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. That's where your nephew Lot lives. They say the people of Sodom have become so rich that the kings of the surrounding areas are jealous of them and want to seize their wealth.”

“How do you know?”

“I met Eliezer when I went to look for new goatskins for the milk. He's a man now. Even though he's still young, he sits at Abram's side in the black-and-white tent, and is learning to be a chief.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Yes. But the women down there assured me it's true. They say he's a fast learner, and he loves it.”

“I don't doubt it,” Sarai said.

“He's good-looking, too. The girls laugh behind his back and squabble so that he'll notice them. He's like a young ram all proud of his new horns.” She laughed, with a pretense at mockery, but her voice betrayed her excitement. “I know you don't like him,” she continued. “I don't return his glances, but I can sense that he likes me. And the less I look at him, the more he likes me.”

“Of course he likes you! What man doesn't like you?”

They both laughed.

“Eliezer is a deceiver,” Sarai said, in a more serious tone. “Don't be misled. Don't think he's going to lead Abram's people one day. It'll never happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because he'll never be worthy.”

Hagar threw her a sidelong glance, and continued with her work in silence, a sullen expression on her face.

Sarai approached her and stroked the back of her neck, then placed her head on her shoulder. “Don't think these are the words of a bitter woman. I'm not bitter. Even though I keep away from everybody and don't want to be in any man's arms, including my husband's. It's true I envy you. But my wish is to see your belly grow big with child. When that day arrives, I'll hold your hand. In the meantime, keep away from Eliezer. As soon as he's had you, he'll forget you.”

But after she had said this, Sarai asked herself, “Is it true I'm not a bitter woman? If my face got older like a normal face, wouldn't I see that it had that same sad, thin-lipped look that all wives have when they've stopped expecting any pleasure or any pleasant surprises from their husbands?”

She preferred not to answer her own questions. But she noticed that Hagar was going down to the plain more and more frequently, on one pretext or another. Hardly a day went by that she did not have something to attend to in Abram's camp. When she came back, she would be unusually taciturn and would say nothing about who she had met or who she had talked to. Sarai had no doubt that, in spite of her advice, she was still seeing Eliezer.

Sarai shrugged it off. After all, Hagar was enough of a woman to choose a man to give her pleasure and share her destiny.

ONE afternoon, there was great agitation in Abram's camp. Sarai saw people running in all directions. It seemed to go on for so long that she became worried, fearing that something bad had happened. She had already put on her red veil and was about to go down to see for herself when Hagar arrived, out of breath.

“It's war! Abram is leaving for the war! Your nephew Lot has been taken prisoner in Sodom, and he's going to rescue him!”

“But he has no army” was Sarai's immediate response. “No weapons, either, nothing but sticks! He doesn't even know how to fight!”

At the same moment, horns echoed through the encampment, and cries of alarm rang out over the plain. A column had formed at the edge of the camp, led by Abram. Wives and children could be heard screaming.

“Are they leaving already?” Sarai exclaimed, incredulously. “Abram's gone mad.”

“Your nephew has to be rescued before they kill him,” Hagar replied, in a reproachful tone.

Sarai barely listened to her. She was looking at the column heading off along the road that led to the Jordan. Such a thin column! She tried to make out Abram at the head, wondering how he was dressed and armed for fighting. She supposed he had taken his short bronze sword. His companions must be even less well equipped than him. She could see they were carrying staffs over their shoulders, and the pikes they used for leading the mules and the oxen.

What madness!

She thought of running to Abram and saying: “You can't go and fight like this! You're going to your ruin. The conquerors of Sodom and Gomorrah are powerful. They'll slaughter you, you and all the people with you!”

But Abram would not listen to her. After such a long silence, what right did she have to tell him what he should and should not do?

Then she thought of Lot. Hagar was right. Lot was in danger. It was only fair that Abram should go to his rescue. “Lot has been waiting for Abram's love for so long,” she thought. “I mustn't stand in their way. But tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, I'm going to hear that they're both dead.”

Her chest was tight with anxiety, and the small of her back prickled with a fear she had not felt for a very long time.

Having been away from him for so long, she felt a sudden desire to see Abram's face. She would have liked to kiss his lips before he left. Pass her hand over his clothes, his eyelids, his brow. Smile at him so that he should not go off to fight with his wife's coldness in his heart.

But he was much too far away by now. The column was disappearing to the east of Hebron.

“What have I done?” Sarai cried, to Hagar's surprise.

She hurried out of the tent and ran up the steep slope to the top of the hill of Qiryat-Arba, from where the whole of the plain of Hebron could be seen, as far as the mountains and rivers of Canaan.

When she got there, what she saw amazed her. From south, west, and east, other columns were flooding in to join Abram. They were coming from everywhere. From the valleys, from the mountains, from the villages in the middle of the pastures, from the shores of the Salt Sea! They were like tributaries feeding a great river, swelling it and swelling it as it flowed northward.

Hagar joined her, out of breath. Laughing with relief, Sarai pointed at the cloud of dust raised by Abram's army. “Look! They may not be well equipped but at least there'll be a lot of them. Thousands!”

That evening, Sarai folded her tent, left the hill where she had stayed for so long alone, and descended to the plain to join the others.

She discovered that since the first day he had settled in Hebron, Abram had forbidden any tent to be erected in the space next to his. Without hesitation, she pitched her tent there. For the first time in many moons, she discarded her red veil.

Everyone was able to ascertain that time had still had no effect on Sarai's body and face. Nobody made any comment; they all behaved as if this miracle were natural.

The only person to show any surprise was Eliezer of Damascus. Having been too young to know Sarai before she was veiled, he was curious to see her face. Confronted with his stepmother's beauty, he was quite taken aback.

“You are even more beautiful than I remembered,” he said, in his most wheedling voice. “I was only a child then, of course. Abram has often spoken to me of your beauty. I had no idea how true his words were. I'm happy to see you back among us. I'm sure my father would be mad with joy. If you need the least thing, call on me. Use me, consider me your loving son. It will be my greatest happiness.”

Sarai did not reply, but continued to look fixedly at him.

Eliezer did not seem embarrassed. “I wanted to accompany my father, Abram, to war,” he resumed, with a touch of annoyance. “My place was beside him, and not a day goes by that I don't regret not being there.”

“In that case, what are you doing here?” Sarai asked, raising an eyebrow ironically.

“It was my father's wish!” Eliezer exclaimed, with all the sincerity he could muster. “He wanted me to stay while he was gone, in case I needed to take his place.”