Sarah (29 page)

“Take his place?”

“He taught me everything that's required.”

Sarai's laugh cut him dead. “Whatever Abram taught you, my boy, I doubt you could ever take his place. Stop dreaming. Do as I do, and wait quietly for his return.”

THE summer passed, and the only news that arrived was that Abram's army had entered Sodom. But Lot was not there: The city had been emptied of both its people and its possessions. Abram was now pursuing the pillagers to the north, perhaps beyond Damascus.

Without any other information, time passed slowly, and uncertainty grew. In the autumn, the rumor spread that Abram's army had been defeated. It was possible that Abram himself was among the dead. When Hagar reported this rumor to her, Sarai silenced her.

“Nonsense! I don't believe a word of it.”

“That's what they're saying,” Hagar said gently, to excuse herself. “I wanted you to hear it from me.”

“Who's saying it?”

Hagar turned her head away, embarrassed. “Eliezer. And others.”

Sarai cried out in anger. “Where did they get this news? Has a messenger arrived? I haven't seen one.”

“It's what they're saying in Salem. And in other places.”

“Foolishness. Foolishness and spite! I know Abram is alive, I can feel it!”

Sarai did not add that hardly a night passed that she did not dream about him. About Abram, her love and her husband. The young Abram from Ur, the Abram she had married, the Abram she had known in Harran. The Abram who had brought her a cover in the night on the banks of the Euphrates, the Abram who searched high and low through Canaan because of his belief in his god. The Abram who had groaned with pleasure in her arms, who had said, “I want no other wife besides Sarai!” The Abram who didn't care that her womb was barren, who aroused her with his kisses. For now she would wake up night after night, filled with terror, knowing that she loved Abram as she had loved him the first day they met. That this love had never died, just faded perhaps. Yes, now she was full of forgiveness and desire for Abram. She was Abram's wife forever, despite her barren womb, despite Pharaoh, and despite God Most High, who sometimes took Abram's mind and heart far away from her. And so each morning she would reach dawn bathed in sweat, full of hope that she might see him again that very day, but horrified at the thought she might never again place her lips on his.

Hagar lowered her eyes in embarrassment.

Sarai took her chin and lifted her face. “I know where this rumor comes from. But Eliezer is taking his desires for reality. He ought to get used to being a nobody. They'll have to show me Abram's dead body before Eliezer becomes Abram's son and heir, and that's not going to happen tomorrow. You can tell him that from me, if you want to.”

THE messenger arrived when the hills around Hebron were covered in snow and ice. Abram was not only alive, but victorious.

“He's escorting Lot and his family back to Sodom, along with all the women of Sodom stolen by the kings of Shinar, Ellasar, Elam, and Goim. He's bringing food and gold back from Damascus. He's acclaimed everywhere he goes. People are saying that his invisible god has supported him like no other god. That's what's delaying him, but he'll be here within one moon.”

While all the wives and daughters and sisters who had waited so long danced around the fires in the cold night, intoxicated with joy, Sarai saw Eliezer's crestfallen expression. He was still questioning the messenger, arguing with him, trying to cast doubt on the news. And when he could not gainsay the truth, he grinned, in a way that seemed to express disappointment rather than relief.

Hagar was as shocked as everyone else. “You were right about Eliezer. Forgive me for doubting your judgment. I suppose that's what happens when a woman's bed is empty for too long. We're easily misled by a smile.” She gave a harsh, disappointed little laugh, and buried her face in Sarai's neck. “How I envy you,” she murmured, “for having such a handsome husband as Abram, a conqueror who'll soon be in your arms, full of impatience! In a few nights, all the tents in Hebron will be aquiver with lovemaking. Poor me! I'll just have to stop my ears and drink sage tea to send me to sleep!”

Sarai returned her hug, then moved away from her, pensively. She turned to look at her with a new expression on her face, tender and almost timid.

“What is it?” Hagar said, with a laugh of surprise.

“Nothing,” Sarai replied.

SARAI did not wait for Abram at the entrance of the encampment, among the other wives, but in her tent. When he pushed back the flap and discovered her not only without her veil, but completely naked, he began to tremble.

He came toward her like a shy young man, filled with wonder and barely able to breathe, and fell to his knees before her. He embraced her timidly and placed his brow and cheek against her belly.

Sarai dug her fingers into his hair. How silver it was! Gently, she touched the thick lines on his brow, his tanned shoulders. With time, his skin had become less fine, less firm, and, in the places where his tunic protected it from the sun, as white as milk.

She stood him up, undressed him, kissed the base of his neck, licked his little scars, his ribs and his muscular stomach. He smelled of grass and dust.

She, too, began to tremble when he lifted her and carried her to the bed. He opened her thighs, as if unveiling the most delicious of offerings.

They did not utter a word until pleasure swept through them like a breath and they became, once again, Abram and Sarai.

IT was already night.

“I made war,” Abram said. “I fought with the help of God Most High. But not a day went by that I didn't think of you. I felt your love in the strength of my arm and in my will to win.”

Sarai smiled, without interrupting.

“I thought of your tempers. The farther I was from Canaan, and the more victorious, the more I could see how right you had been. So when I was on my way back and Yhwh called me, the first words I said to him were ‘God Most High, I'm completely naked! The heir to my house is Eliezer of Damascus. You haven't given me a child. Someone who isn't my son is going to take everything I have!' ‘No!' he replied. ‘He will take nothing from you. He who will take everything is he who will come from your seed.'”

Abram paused. He was breathing hard with anxiety. Sarai huddled closer to him.

“‘He who will take everything is he who will come from your seed.' Those were the words of Yhwh. That's all I can tell you. And I don't understand how it can be.”

“I understand,” Sarai said gently, after a pause. “Your god will not change my womb. There's no point in waiting for that. But Eliezer is bad, even worse than you could imagine. Your death would have delighted him, everyone could see that.”

“So I've been told. But that doesn't matter. And driving away Eliezer won't give me a son.”

“Hagar will give you one.”

“Hagar? Your handmaid?”

“She's beautiful, and she's already given birth once.”

Abram stood motionless, silent, without daring to look at Sarai.

“I ask it of you,” Sarai insisted. “Abram cannot remain without an heir from his seed. Your god himself keeps saying it.”

“Will Hagar want it? I'm no longer a young man.”

“She's pining to have a man between her thighs, young or old. What's more, she admires you as much as you admire your god!”

Abram fell silent again, and looked for Sarai's eyes in the dim light. With the tips of his fingers, he stroked her lips gently. “You'll suffer,” he whispered. “It won't be your child.”

“I'll be strong.”

“I'll be giving pleasure to Hagar. You'll suffer.”

Sarai smiled to hide the mist in her eyes. “I will know what you knew when we were in Pharaoh's palace.”

Jealousy

B
ut Sarai was not as strong as she had thought.

It began the first night that Hagar spent in Abram's tent. As Sarai went to bed, she had the misfortune to recall the helix-shaped scar between Hagar's shoulders, and that made her think of Abram's lips touching the scar and covering it with little kisses.

The pain in her stomach, neck, and lower back was so strong that she could not get to sleep until dawn. At least she had the courage to stay in bed.

The next day, she avoided both Abram and Hagar. But when twilight came, her chest began to burn as if pierced with needles of bronze. As soon as night fell, she stood behind the flap of her tent and listened. She recognized Hagar's great sensual laugh, then her moans, and even Abram's breathing.

She went outside to recover her breath. Alas, the sounds of her husband's and her handmaid's lovemaking were even more audible. Unseen by anyone, she crouched like an old woman, put her hands over her ears, and shut her eyes as tight as she could. But that only made it worse. In her blindness, she saw Abram's body, Hagar's beautiful hips, her ravenous ecstasy. She saw in detail all the things she should not have seen.

She vomited like a drunk woman.

The following day, she decided to be sensible. Carrying bread, olives, a gourd full of milk, and a sheepskin, she left the encampment and climbed the hill of Qiryat-Arba. For two nights, she slept under the stars and dreamed of children's faces. When she returned to the encampment, she was smiling.

Hagar was smiling, too. At first, neither dared to look at the other. But then Sarai laughed and drew Hagar into her arms.

“I'm happy,” she whispered in her ear. “But I can't help it, I'm jealous.”

“You have no need to be now,” Hagar sighed. “Abram left this morning to travel through Canaan calling the name of Yhwh and making offerings on all the altars he built for him.”

And the jealousy did, in fact, stop.

Sarai waited impatiently for the new moon, and was the first to congratulate Hagar when she announced that no blood had flowed between her thighs.

From that day, Sarai stopped thinking of Hagar only as her handmaid. She smothered her with tender loving care, like a mother with her daughter. Hagar started to like this treatment. Although her belly was still only a little swollen, she stopped grinding grain to make flour, left the care of the tent to other handmaids, and refrained from carrying even the smallest object. The women spent long afternoons with her, brought her honey cakes and scented unguents, and showered her with compliments, just as they would have done if Hagar had been Abram's real wife.

She was truly radiant. Sarai noticed that her lips were becoming plumper. Her cheeks grew bigger and even her eyes seemed more luminous and more tender. She moved slowly, as if dancing, and laughed in a deep voice, pushing her shoulders back and thrusting her breasts forward. She slept at all hours of the day as if she were alone in the world, and called for food when she woke. In every way, she was a woman sated with the joy of bearing a child.

Seeing her like that, her body fuller and her joy richer with every passing day, Sarai once again became overcome with envy.

Prudently, she kept her distance, taking every opportunity to work as far as possible from her tent. At night, she slept in Abram's arms, as if that could protect her—and perhaps upset Hagar a little, too.

But one evening at the height of summer, Sarai entered her tent, the flap of which had been lifted to let the air circulate, and discovered Abram kneeling before her handmaid. Hagar's tunic was up around her neck, and Abram was tenderly feeling her bare belly with his hands.

The sight took Sarai's breath away, and she leaped back out of sight. But she could not stop herself watching as Abram leaned down and placed his cheek and ear against Hagar's belly, so taut with life, and his white hair spread over her breasts.

She heard Abram's affectionate whisper. A whisper that hit her full in the chest.

She heard Hagar's chuckles as Abram kissed her round belly, her cooing as she offered her body to Abram's rapt contemplation.

Her head bursting, Sarai fled, consumed by jealousy, knowing that it would never end. That she was no longer strong enough to bear it.

ONE day, when Hagar was in the seventh moon of her pregnancy, she made a disgusted face and pushed away the dish that Sarai had just brought her.

“It isn't properly cooked!” she cried. “And you haven't used the right spices. This isn't suitable for a woman in my state.”

Sarai was taken aback. She looked at her for a moment, speechless, then flew into a rage. “How dare you talk to me like that?”

“All I'm saying is that the meat is badly cooked,” Hagar said, in an offhand manner. “It's not your fault. These things happen.”

“Just because I look after you, do you think I've become your handmaid?”

Hagar smiled. “Don't lose your temper! It's only right that you should look after me. I'm carrying Abram's child.”

Sarai slapped her hard across the face. “Who do you think you are?”

Hagar squealed, and rolled her eyes in terror. One hand on her cheek, the other holding her belly, she called for help.

“You aren't Abram's wife,” Sarai screamed, ignoring her cries, quite carried away with anger. “You're nothing but a womb carrying his seed. That and nothing else! A borrowed womb. You're my handmaid, a handmaid who happens to be pregnant. What rights do you imagine that gives you? Especially over me, Sarai, Abram's wife?”

A number of women ran in and tried to grab hold of Sarai's arms, for fear she would hit Hagar again.

Sarai pulled herself free. “Don't be stupid. I'm not going to kill her!”

She immediately went to speak to Abram.

“I was the one who put Hagar in your bed, but now that she's pregnant, she thinks she's your wife. I can't stand it anymore.”

Abram's face creased with sadness. He took Sarai by the shoulders and pulled her to him. “I warned you that you'd suffer.”

“I'm not suffering.” Sarai lied. “It's just that Hagar never shows me any respect. The two of us can't be in the same place anymore—it's impossible.”

Abram took a deep breath and sat down. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to choose between Hagar and Sarai.”

Abram smiled joylessly. “I made that choice a long time ago. You're my wife, she's your handmaid. You can do what you like with your handmaid.”

“In that case, I want her away from here.”

HAGAR left the plain of Hebron that very evening, in tears, a bundle of her belongings over her shoulder. Pregnant as she was, she was about to face the open road.

For three days, Sarai had to live with the shame of her own jealousy. The shame of her hardness and intransigence. And the shame of her barren womb. She thought she would die of shame.

Yet nothing could persuade her to run after Hagar and bring her back. Not even Abram's face, gray with sorrow. Not even the thought that Eliezer of Damascus, who was living outside the camp now, somewhere on the plain, must be delighted to be Abram's heir again.

On the morning of the fourth day, Sarai heard shouts of joy, especially from the women. Her mouth went dry. She had recognized Hagar's voice.

She rushed out of her tent, uncertain whether to vent her anger or bestow her forgiveness. But Abram was already running to meet her handmaid.

Halfway between laughter and tears, Hagar was the center of attention. Sarai saw her clinging to Abram's neck. “Come and lie down!” she heard Abram say, as gentle as a lamb. “You can tell us what happened, but first come and lie down and eat something.”

Nobody dared look Sarai in the face. She approached, tight-lipped, swallowing her shame, anger, and jealousy, to hear Hagar's story.

“It was the day before yesterday, in the evening,” Hagar began, with a contrite expression but with joy in her eyes. “I was thirsty, and I stopped at the spring on the road to Shour. I was terrified that I would soon have to cross the desert. Suddenly, a presence approached me. I say ‘a presence' because it was someone who was like a man but wasn't. He had no face, but he had a body and a voice. ‘What are you doing here?' he asked. And I said, ‘I'm fleeing my mistress Sarai, who drove me away! I'm going to die in the desert with a child inside me!' And he said, even closer to my ear, ‘No, go back where you came from. You will bring a son into the world, and you will call him Ishmael. Yhwh has heard your lament; he knows how your mistress has humiliated you. Your son will be a wild, untamable horse; he will rise up against everyone and everyone will be against him. He will be a living challenge to his brothers.' That's what he said.”

Hagar fell silent. She was radiant. Nobody dared to breathe a word, or ask a question. Abram nodded his white head as if he were sobbing.

Hagar saw Sarai's grim face behind the other women. She stopped smiling, and drew Abram's hand onto her belly. “It's the truth, you must believe me. The man who spoke in the name of your god asked me to take my place again beside you. He said, ‘Do not worry if your mistress humiliates you again. You will have to bear it.' So I came back as quickly as I could so that you could welcome your son, lift him in your hands as soon as he comes out of me.”

“Lies!” Sarai thought. “She's the one who humiliates me. I'm her mistress, and she treats me like a handmaid. Who would believe it? And now Abram's god speaks to her! More lies. A fable she's invented to seduce Abram. Oh, yes!”

But she kept silent. She was not going to drive Hagar away a second time. That would only make her seem even harsher and more hateful in everyone's eyes.

His eyes moist with tears, Abram stroked Hagar's belly. “I believe you, Hagar! I believe you! I know the way God Most High makes His will known. Rest, take care of yourself, and give birth to my son.” He turned and looked for Sarai. “Don't forget that Sarai is your mistress. I would never have gone with you to have a son if she hadn't wanted it. Don't take advantage of your own happiness to make her feel weak and jealous.”

Sarai walked away before he had even finished the sentence.

NEVER again did Sarai demonstrate her jealousy. But jealousy consumed her as if she were a dry stem.

When Hagar felt the first labor pains, it was Sarai who sent for the midwives, prepared the linen and the calming unguents, heated the water with herbs, and made sure that everything was going well. Then she went and hid deep inside her tent and stopped her ears in order not to hear Hagar's cries or those of the newborn.

The next day, however, she came forward and kissed Abram's son, Ishmael, on the brow. For as long as she could, she smiled at Abram's great joy as he lifted the newborn in the air and called Yhwh's name. Then she left the encampment. For hours, she walked straight ahead, lifting her tunic to let the wind on the plain cool the furnace of jealousy that was consuming her.