The Red Tent (9 page)

My world was filled with mothers and brothers, work and games, new moons and good food. The hills in the distance held my life in a bowl filled with everything I could possibly want.

I was a child when my father led us away from the land of the two rivers, south to the country of his birth. Young as I was, I knew why we were going. I could feel the hot wall of anger between my father and my grandfather. I could almost see the heat between them on the rare occasions they sat together.

Laban resented my father for his accomplishments with the herds, and for his sons who were so plentiful and so much more skillful than his own two boys. Laban hated the fact that he owed his success to the husband of his daughters. His mouth turned sour whenever Jacob’s name was mentioned.

As for my father, although he was the one who caused the flocks to multiply, the camp to fill with bondsmen, and the traders to make their way to our tents, he was never more than Laban’s servant. His wages were meager, but he was thrifty and clever with his little store of goods, and he had been careful with the breeding of his own small flock of brindled goats and gray sheep.

Jacob hated Laban’s sloth and the way he and his sons squandered his own good work. When the older boy, Kemuel, left his post guarding the rutting goats one spring, the best of them died from the battle between the strongest males. When Beor drank too much wine and slept, a hawk made off with a newborn kid Jacob had marked for sacrifice.

The worst was when Laban lost Jacob’s two best dogs—his smartest and his best loved. The old man had gone for a three-day trading journey to Carchemish and, without asking, had taken the dogs to tend a herd so small a boy could have managed on his own. While Laban was in town, he sold them both for a pittance, which he then lost in a game of chance.

The loss of his dogs put my father in a rage. The night Laban returned to camp, I heard their shouts and curses even as I fell asleep. Afterward, my father’s scowl was impenetrable. His fists did not unclench until he had sought out Leah and poured out the details of this latest grievance.

My mother and aunts had nothing but sympathy for Jacob. Their loyalty to Laban had never been strong, and as the years passed, they piled up reasons to despise him—laziness, deceitfulness, the arrogance of his thick-headed sons, and his treatment of Ruti, which only worsened as the years passed.

A few days after the fight about the dogs, Ruti came to my mother and threw herself on the ground. “I am lost,” she cried, a sad puddle of a woman in the dust. Her hair was loose and covered with ashes as though she had just buried her own mother.

Laban had lost more than his coins in that Carchemish game. He had gambled away Ruti as well, and now a trader had arrived to claim her as his slave. Laban sat in his tent and refused to come out and acknowledge what he had done to the mother of his sons, but the trader had his walking staff as a bond, and his overseer as a witness. Ruti put her forehead to the ground and begged Leah for help.

Leah listened and then turned to spit on her father’s name. “The backside of a donkey has more merit than Laban,” she said. “My father is a snake. He is the putrefied offal of a snake.”

She put down the jug of milk she was working into curd, and with heavy steps marched to the near pasture where my father was still brooding about his dogs. My mother was so deep in her thoughts she did not seem to notice that I followed her.

Leah’s cheeks turned red as she approached her husband. And then she did something extraordinary. Leah got down on her knees and, taking Jacob’s hand, kissed his fingers. Watching my mother submit like this was like seeing a sheep hunting a jackal or a man nursing a baby. My mother, who never wanted for words, nearly stuttered as she spoke.

“Husband, father of my children, beloved friend,” she said. “I come to plead a case without merit, for pure pity’s sake. Husband,” she said, “Jacob,” she whispered, “you know I place my life in your keeping only and that my father’s name is an abomination to me.

“Even so, I come to ask that you redeem my father’s woman from the slavery into which he has sold her. A man from Carchemish has come to claim Ruti, whom Laban staked in his game of chance as though she were an animal from the flock or a stranger among us, and not the mother of his sons.

“I ask you to treat her better than her own husband. I ask you to act as the father.”

Jacob frowned at his wife’s request, although in his heart he must have been pleased that she addressed him not only as her husband but as leader of her family as well. He stood above Leah, whose head was bowed, and looked down on her tenderly. “Wife,” he said, and took her hands to raise her up. “Leah.” Their eyes met and she smiled.

I was shocked. I had come to watch Ruti’s story unfold, but I discovered something else altogether. I saw the heat between my mother and her husband. I saw that Jacob could cause the glow of assent and happiness that I thought only I could summon from Leah.

My eyes opened for the first time upon the fact that my father was a man. I saw that he was not only tall but also broad-shouldered and narrow in the waist. Although by then he must have passed his fortieth summer, his back was straight and he still had most of his teeth and a clear eye. My father was handsome, I realized. My father was worthy of my mother.

Yet I found no consolation in this discovery. As they moved back to the tents, Leah and Jacob walked side by side, their heads nearly touching as she whispered the ransom that Jacob could collect from among his wives to redeem Ruti: honey and herbs, a stack of copper bangles, a bolt of linen and three of wool. He listened silently, nodding from time to time. There was no room for -me between them, no need for me. My mother’s eyes were full of Jacob. I did not matter to her the way she mattered to me. I wanted to cry, but I realized that I was too old for that. I would be a woman soon and I would have to learn how to live with a divided heart.

Miserable, I followed as my parents entered the circle of tents. Leah fell silent and resumed her place behind her husband. She fetched a jug of her strongest beer to help Jacob soften the trader’s resolve. But the man had seen that though she was worn out and homely, Laban’s woman was neither harelipped nor lame, as her price had led him to believe. And he was shrewd enough to notice that his presence had caused a stir. He smelled his advantage, which meant it took all of the women’s treasures and one of Jacob’s pups before the trader forgave the debt and left without Ruti. Soon, all the women of the camp knew what had happened, and for weeks afterward, Jacob ate like a prince.

Laban never spoke of how Jacob ransomed his wife. He only became fouler in his use of Ruti, whose eyes seemed permanently blackened after that. Her sons, following their father’s pattern, showed their mother no respect. They carried no water for her cooking pot and brought her no game from their hunts. She crept around her men in silent service.

Among the women, Ruti spoke only of my mother’s kindness. She became Leah’s shadow, kissing her hands and her hem, sitting as close to her savior as she could. The ragged woman’s presence did not please Leah, who occasionally lost patience with her. “Go to your tent,” she said when Ruti got underfoot. But Leah always regretted rebuking Ruti, who cringed at a single cross word from my mother. After she sent her away, Leah sought her out and sat down beside the poor, wasted soul and let herself be kissed and thanked, again and again.

CHAPTER TWO

I
N THE DAYS following Ruti’s redemption, Jacob began to plan our departure in earnest. During his nights with Leah and during his nights with Rachel, he spoke of his longing to leave Laban’s tents and return to the land of his father. Jacob told Bilhah that his restlessness consumed his peace and that he slept badly. Jacob found Zilpah on a night when sleeplessness chased them both, separately, to the whispering comfort of the great terebinth that stood by the altar. Even on still, airless nights, breezes hid among the broad flat leaves of Zilpah’s tree. Jacob told his fourth wife that his god had appeared to him and said that it was time to leave the land of the two rivers. It was time to take his wives and his sons and the wealth that he had built up with his hands.

Jacob told Zilpah that his dreams had become ferocious. Night after night, fiery voices called him back to Canaan, to the land of his father. Fierce as his dreams were, they were joyful, too. Rebecca shone like the sun and Isaac smiled a blessing. Even his brother no longer threatened, but appeared as a huge, ruddy bull that welcomed Jacob to ride upon his wide back. And it seemed Jacob had no need to fear his brother anymore, for traders from Canaan had brought news that Esau had become a prosperous herdsman with many sons of his own, and a reputation for generosity.

In their day alone in the red tent, Jacob’s wives spoke among themselves about their husband’s dreams and plans. Rachel’s eyes shone at the prospect of moving to the south. She was the most traveled among them, having attended at births throughout the hills, to Carchemish and once to the city of Haran itself. “Oh, to see great mountains, and a real city,” she said. “Marketplaces filled with fine goods and fruits whose names we do not even know! We will meet faces from the four corners. We will hear the music of silver timbrels and golden flutes.”

Leah was not so eager to discover the new worlds beyond the valley that had given her life. “I am content with the faces I see around me here,” she said, “but I would dearly love to be free of Laban’s stench. We will go, of course. But I will leave with regret.” Bilhah nodded. “I will grieve to leave Adah’s bones. I will miss seeing the sun rise on the place where I gave birth to my son. I will mourn the passing of our youth. But I am ready. And our sons are wild to be gone from here.”

Bilhah gave voice to a truth that had gone unspoken. There was not enough room for so many sons to make their way in Haran, where every hillock had been claimed for many generations. There was no land in the country of their mothers. If the family did not leave together, the women would soon break their hearts watching as their sons turned against each other or disappeared in search of their own paths.

Zilpah’s breath grew louder and more uneven as her sisters turned their faces to the future. “I cannot go,” she burst out. “I cannot leave the holy tree, which is the source of my power. Or the bamah, which is soaked in my offerings. How will the gods know where I am if I am not here to serve them? Who will protect me? Sisters, we will be beset by demons.”

She was wide-eyed. “This tree, this place, this is where she is, my little goddess, Nanshe.” The sisters sat up to hear Zilpah speak the name of her own deity, something done only on a deathbed. Their sister felt herself at the end of hope, and her voice was choked with tears as she said, “You too, sisters. All of your named gods abide here. This is the place where we are known, where we know how to serve. It will be death to leave. I know it.”

There was silence as the others stared. Bilhah spoke first. “Every place has its holy names, its trees and high places,” she said, in the calm voice a mother takes to a frightened child. “There will be gods where we go.” But Zilpah would not meet Bilhah’s eyes, and only shook her head from side to side. “No,” she whispered.

Leah spoke next. “Zilpah, we are your protection. Your family, your sisters, are the only surety against hunger, against cold, against madness. Sometimes I wonder if the gods are dreams and stories to while away cold nights and dark thoughts.” Eeah grabbed her sister by the shoulders. “Better to put your trust in my hands and Jacob’s than in stories made out of wind and fear.”

Zilpah shrank under her sister’s hands and turned away. “No,” she said.

Rachel listened to Eeah’s sensible blasphemy in wonder and spoke, picking words for thoughts she discovered only as she gave them voice. “We can never answer your fear with proof, Zilpah. The gods are always silent. I know that women in travail find strength and comfort in the names of their gods. I have seen them struggle beyond all hope at the sound of an incantation. I have seen life spared at the last moment, for no other reason than that hope.

“But I know too that gods do not protect even the kindest, most pious women from heartbreak or death. So Bilhah is right. We will take Nanshe with us,” she said, naming Zilpah’s beloved goddess of dreams and singers. “We will take Gula, too,” naming the goddess of healing, to whom Rachel made offerings. And then, as the idea grew in her mind, Rachel blurted, “We will take all of the teraphim from our tents and carry them into Canaan with our husband and our children.

“They will do us no harm, surely,” said Rachel, speaking faster and faster as the plan formed in her mind. “If they are in our keeping, they will do Laban no good,” she added slyly. Bilhah and Leah laughed nervously at the idea of Laban stripped of his sacred figures. The old man consulted the statues when he had any choice to make, stroking his favorites absentmindedly, for hours at a time. Leah said they soothed him the way a full breast soothed a cranky baby.

To leave with the teraphim was to incite Laban’s wrath. Even so, Rachel had some claim to them. In the old days, when the family had lived in the city of Ur, it was the unquestioned right of the youngest daughter to inherit all the holy things. Those ways were no longer held in universal respect, and Kemuel could claim the teraphim as part of an older son’s birthright with just as much authority.

The sisters sat in silence, considering Rachel’s bold idea. Finally Rachel spoke. “I will take the teraphim and they will be a source of power for us. They will be a sign of our birthright. Our father will suffer as he has made others suffer. I will not speak of this again.”

Zilpah wiped her eyes. Leah cleared her throat. Bilhah stood up. It had been decided.

I barely took a breath. I was afraid that if they remembered me, I would be sent out of the tent. I sat still between my mother’s right hand and Bilhah’s left hand, amazed at what I had heard.

Rachel was loyal to Gula, the healer. Bilhah’s grain offerings were made to Uttu, the weaver. Leah had a special feeling for Ninkasi, the brewer of beer, who used a brewing vat made of clear lapis lazuli and a ladle made of silver and gold. I thought of the gods and goddesses as aunts and uncles who were bigger than my parents and able to live inside the ground or above the earth as they liked. I imagined them deathless, odorless, forever happy, strong, and interested in everything that happened to me. I was frightened to hear Leah, the wisest of women, wondering if these powerful friends might be nothing but stories told to calm the nightmares of children.

I shuddered. My mother put her hand on my cheek to feel for fever, but I was cool to her touch. Later that night I awoke screaming and sweating in a terror of falling, but she came to me and lay down beside me, and the warmth of her body comforted me. Secure in the knowledge of her love, I began to cross over into sleep, then I roused for a moment thinking I heard Rachel’s voice saying, “Remember this moment, when your mother’s body heals every trouble of your soul.” I looked around but my auntie was nowhere nearby.

It must have been a dream.

Three days later, Leah walked to the rocky pasture in the west to tell Jacob that his wives were ready to go with him to the land of his birth. I followed after her, carrying some bread and beer for my father. I was not entirely pleased at being pressed into service on such a warm day.

As I came over the rise that separated our camp from the grazing, I was stopped by a scene of perfect wonder. Many of the ewes were heavy with lambs and barely moved in the gathering heat. The rising sun summoned the clover’s scent. Only the bees made a sound under the brazen blue banner of sky.

I stopped as my mother walked ahead. The world seemed so perfect, so complete, and yet so impermanent that I nearly wept. I would have to tell Zilpah about this feeling, and ask if she knew a song for it. But then I realized that something in the universe had shifted. Something important had changed. I searched the horizon; the sky was still clear, the clover still pungent, the bees buzzed.

I noticed that my mother and my father were not alone. Leah stood facing her husband. By her side was Rachel.

The two women had made a kind of peace years earlier. They did not work together or consult with each other. They did not sit next to each other in the red tent, or address each other directly. And they were never in their husband’s presence at the same time. Yet now the three stood, in plain sight, talking like old friends. The women had their backs to me.

The conversation ended as I approached. My mother and aunt turned away from Jacob and, upon seeing me, replaced their solemn expressions with the false smiles that adults show children from whom they wish to hide something. I did not return their smiles. I knew they had been talking of leaving. I placed my father’s food and drink at his feet and had turned to follow Leah and Rachel back to the tents when Jacob my father spoke.

“Dinah,” he said. It was the first time I remember hearing my name in his mouth. “Thank you, girl. May you always be a comfort to your mothers.” I looked into his face, and he smiled a real smile at me. But I did not know how to smile at my father or answer him, so I turned to run after my mother and Rachel, who had already begun the walk back to the tents. I slipped my hand into Leah’s and peeked back to look at Jacob once more, but he had already turned away from me.

Jacob began to negotiate for our departure that evening. As night fell, and for many nights afterward, the women lay down on their beds with the sounds of men’s voices loud in their ears. Laban was perfectly willing to see Jacob gone with his daughters and the grandsons who ate too much and respected him too little. But the old man hated to think that Jacob might leave a rich man.

During the long nights of shouting, Laban sat between his sons, Kemuel and Beor. The three of them drank beer and wine and yawned into Jacob’s face, and ended their conversations before anything could be settled.

Jacob sat between his oldest sons, Reuben and Simon, and touched no drink stronger than barley beer. Behind him stood Levi and Judah. The seven younger boys stood outside the tent, straining to hear what was said. Joseph told me what he overheard, and I repeated everything to my mothers. But I did not tell Joseph about the whispered conversations among the women. I did not report their hoarding of hard bread, or how they had taken to sewing herbs into the hems of their garments. I knew better than to breathe of Rachel’s plan to carry off the teraphim.

Night after night, Laban argued that he owed Jacob nothing more than the meager dowries he’d bestowed upon Leah and Rachel, which would have left my father without so much as the tents over our heads. Then, in a great show of generosity, he offered twenty head of sheep, and twenty goats—one of each kind for every year of Jacob’s service, which had enriched Laban beyond his dreams.

Jacob, for his part, claimed the right of any overseer, which would have given him a tenth of the herds, and the pick of them, too. He demanded his wives’ personal property, which amounted to a good pile of grindstones and spindles, looms and jugs, jewelry and cheeses. He reminded Laban that his tents, his flocks, and the bondsmen in his debt had come to him through the work of Jacob’s hands. He threatened to seek justice from the tribunal at Haran, but that only made Laban sneer. He had gambled and drunk deeply with the town fathers for many years and had no doubt whose side they would take.

Late one night, after weeks of fruitless talk, Jacob found the words that moved Laban’s heart. The husband of Leah and Rachel, the father of the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah, fixed Laban with his eye and threatened that the god of his fathers would not look kindly on one who swindled the anointed of his tribe. Jacob said that his god had come to him in a dream and spoken to him and told him to go with his wives and his sons and his flocks in abundance. Jacob’s god had said that anyone who tried to thwart him would suffer in his body, in his flocks, and in his sons.

This troubled the old man, who shivered before the power of any god. When Jacob invoked the god of his fathers, the smirk dropped from Laban’s lips. Jacob’s success with the flocks, the health of his eleven sons, the loyalty of the bondsmen to him, and even the prowess of his dogs—all this signaled that Jacob was blessed by heaven. Laban remembered all the years of excellent sacrifice that Jacob had made to his god, and the old man reckoned that El must be well pleased by so much devotion.

The next day, Laban shut himself up with his household gods and was not seen until evening, when he called for Jacob. From the moment Jacob faced his father-in-law, he could see that the advantage had shifted. He began to bargain in earnest.

“My father,” he said, false honey on his tongue, “because you have been good to me, I wish to take only the animals that are brindled and spotted—the ones whose wool and hides will bring me less at market. You will maintain the purebloods of the herds. I will go out from your house poor but grateful.”

Laban sensed a trick in Jacob’s offer but he couldn’t divine the benefit. Everyone knew that the darker animals did not produce wool that spun white, or skins that tanned evenly. What Laban did not know was that the “poorer” beasts were hardier and healthier than the animals that yielded the fancy wool and the pretty skins. The brindled ewes dropped twins more often than not, and most of their offspring were females, which meant more cheese. The hair of his mottled goats was especially oily, which made for a stronger rope. But these were Jacob’s secrets, which he had learned during his years with the herds. This was knowledge that Laban’s laziness had cost him.