No Woman So Fair (51 page)

A silence fell over the tent, and both Abraham and Sarah waited tensely for Ishmael's answer. They were both relieved when he looked up and managed to smile. “I hated you for sending us away. I couldn't help that. But I've gained a little wisdom in the years since.”

His comment took away the weight that had been on Sarah's heart for years. Ever since Ishmael had left, she had been afraid that he might return to seek vengeance. Now she saw that the big man had changed.

“I had bitterness in my heart over being cast off, but it was right to make us go. If I had stayed, I might have done something terrible.”

“It was one of the most difficult things I ever had to do,” Abraham said, “and I know it hurt you.”

Ishmael was silent for a time and then turned his head to one side. “A woman of my tribe was holding a block of wood while another was splitting it with a sharp ax. The ax missed and cut off her finger. She picked it up and held it to the stub and quickly they bound it together.” He smiled and said, “It grew back. It was not as flexible as the others, and there was always a white ring where the finger grew together. So she never quite forgot it, but at least she had her finger. I suppose,” he said, “I will always remember our disagreements. But it has become bearable. It was the right thing to do.”

Relief washed through Sarah, and she rose, saying, “I will go prepare a place for you, Ishmael.”

“No, don't do that.” Ishmael rose, his large frame filling the tent. “I came only to do what I have done.” He knelt before his father and said, “Please give me your blessing, Father.”

Abraham's hands trembled as he touched Ishmael's head, but he was happy to pray for him and bless him.

When Ishmael rose, he said, “Isaac is the son of promise. You did the right thing in sending me away. Good-bye, Father.” Ishmael turned to Sarah and said, “Good-bye, mistress.” Then he left the tent and walked purposefully away, disappearing into the gathering darkness.

Sarah found herself relieved but trembling. It had been a tense moment. “He's such a strange man!”

“Yes, and a violent man too. Some of that is still in him.”

“I'm glad Isaac is not like him. He has a natural gentle spirit.”

“Like you,” Abraham said, putting his arm around her.

She leaned against him and whispered, “God Most High has given us a precious gift in our son.”

“Yes, wife, and as long as I have Isaac, I will never doubt the Lord God!”

****

During the months after Ishmael's visit, Abraham and Sarah talked often of it. Their lives were filled with other things, though, and the memory of his return gradually faded. Their fear that Ishmael might come back for vengeance was now gone, and Abraham and Sarah turned their lives fully toward Isaac. Abraham spent all of his free time with him, pouring the lore and history of his people into him. Isaac in turn listened and asked questions, some of which Abraham could answer and others that he could not.

It was on a bright, sunny morning, when Abraham was walking toward a flock of sheep guarded by a single herder, that he became aware of a familiar sensation. He stopped abruptly on top of a small rise. The bleating of the sheep faded, and he knew he was in the presence of God. He waited, standing still, and after a time the voice spoke.

“Abraham!”

“Here I am,” Abraham replied, trembling. The voice no longer sounded warm and comforting as it almost always had in the past. Now it sounded harsh and demanding:

“Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

It was as if a bolt of lightning had burst upon him, striking him and sending burning pain throughout his entire body. Abraham cried out loudly, “O Lord God, not Isaac! You cannot ask me to give up Isaac!”

Abraham fell on his knees and began to cry out…but there was no answer. The only sound was the bleating of the sheep and in the distance the howling of a wild dog, but the voice Abraham longed for was not to be heard. His heart shattered, he wept before God, praying that he had heard wrong. “God, he is the son of promise. He is the one you sent us in our old age. Please, Lord, tell me that I need not do this terrible thing!”

The silence became profound, and Abraham, with tears streaming down his face, lay full-length on the dusty earth and begged the God whom he loved to speak to him again. But there was no answer, and finally Abraham the Hebrew rose to his feet. A longing for death overtook him, but he knew that would not happen. He turned and stumbled back to the camp like a blind man, knowing that God had asked him to sacrifice the most precious gift in all the world.

As four donkeys bearing riders crawled upward over a long, steep ridge, the wind ruffled up the dead grass and leaves that lay in a thicket to the east. The smell of the land rose with the earth's dissipating heat, whirling in streaky currents as the sky grew darker. The smoky haze that marked the end of a long hot summer made a blue-gray ceiling over the desert. There was the smell of cooler weather in the air, and behind them three rising lines of smoke, marking three camps or villages, reached upward into the air. The earth was thirsty for the rains that had not yet come, and the donkeys' hooves stirred up the powdery dust, which rose behind them as they crested the hills.

The four had traveled hard for two days, and now weariness made the third beast in the row stumble, and the young man astride called out, “Master, the beasts are exhausted! We've got to rest.”

Uzziel, who rode immediately behind the speaker, whispered, “Good, Rayel! He's going to walk the legs off these animals, and I'm starving.”

Abraham, who sat on the lead donkey, jumped at hearing the servants' voices behind him. He had spent much of the journey in lonely silence, focused on what lay ahead and barely aware of Uzziel's and Rayel's chatter. Only twice had he talked to them—once when they had stopped for a brief meal at noon, and another time when they had found water and allowed the thirsty animals to drink. Now he turned to them to address their concerns. His dark preoccupation lifted momentarily and he told them, “All right. We'll make camp over by that thicket.”

“Good,” Rayel grunted. “About time.” He slid off his donkey and led the animal forward until Abraham called a halt, saying, “This will do for the night. Gather wood for the fire.”

Rayel and Uzziel tied their animals up and began to move over the ground. Fortunately they found a fallen tree that would provide them with firewood, and as they began breaking off the dead branches, Uzziel said, in a voice tinged with discontent, “Why do we have to go so far just to make a sacrifice?”

“Because the master said so. That's why. You know his crazy ideas about God.”

Uzziel was unsatisfied. “Why couldn't we go a short walk from the camp and sacrifice at the usual spot? How far are we going?”

“I don't know. The master hasn't told me,” Rayel snapped. “Why don't you go tell him that it's time to stop fooling around and get down to business?”

Uzziel grinned, his teeth showing white against his dark face. “I'll let you do that.” He put another stick on top of the pile he held in his right arm and shook his head. “How long do you think we will travel before we return home?”

“He wouldn't even tell his own wife where he was going or when he would be back. You think he's going to tell us?”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I heard them talking. When we left she asked him right out, ‘Will you be back tomorrow?'”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. He just kissed her and got on his donkey and rode out.”

“He's been walking around in a daze, hasn't he? Everybody's noticed it.”

“Yes, and did you see his wife's face? She's worried sick about him.”

“Well, I've got problems of my own. I hope we get back soon.”

“I know what's the matter with you,” Rayel said, grinning. “You're afraid Dekaz will run off with your girl.”

“That clod couldn't run off with anybody!”

“Come on. Let's get back.”

The two hurried back and busied themselves making a fire and cooking the meat they had brought with them. It was tough and stringy, but the men ate it as if it were a feast. When the servants had filled their bellies, they both lay down and were soon fast asleep.

Isaac was sitting in front of the fire, feeding it small sticks. He picked up a long splinter, stuck it into the fire, then pulled it out, watching the tiny orange flame on the end consume the bit of wood. Then when it reached his fingers, he tossed it back into the fire. He looked across at his father, who was sitting slumped with his back against a tree, staring at nothing, it seemed. “Are you all right, Father?” Isaac asked softly.

Abraham stared, then nodded. “Yes, I'm all right.”

“You haven't said much since we left. I thought maybe you didn't feel well.” Isaac, always sensitive to the moods of his parents, had been one of the first to notice three days earlier that Abraham had fallen silent—had become almost mute. Isaac had questioned his mother, but she could not answer him, other than to say that she was worried about him.

When Isaac and his father had said good-bye to Sarah, she had put her hand on her son's head. He was almost as tall as she was now, though he was lean. She had kissed him and turned to Abraham, saying, “Be careful of Isaac. He's not a hardy boy.”

Isaac thought about the drawn expression that had crossed his father's face when she had said these words. In a husky voice he had simply replied, “I'll do my best, Sarah.” Isaac had noticed that the lines of his face had seemed more marked, and his eyes appeared almost empty, not bright as usual. Now Isaac studied him in the quietness and by the light of their campfire. The only sounds were the popping of the burning wood and the scurrying of dry leaves across the hard surface of the earth.

“Are we going far?” Isaac finally asked.

Abraham seemed not to hear him for a moment, and then he shook his shoulders and cleared his throat. “About another day. We're going to Mount Moriah.”

“And we're going to make an offering to God there?”

Again the long silence was punctuated by a deep sigh from Abraham. “Yes,” he whispered. “We're going there to make an offering to God Most High.”

Isaac considered this and focused his attention on his father. His father was much older than his friends' fathers, but that had never bothered the lad. Even though Abraham was now more than a century old, he was still a strong man and could do more work than any of the older men in the tribe without growing weary. But in the last few days he seemed to Isaac to have aged suddenly, in a way the boy could not understand. Whereas a few days ago he was still standing erect, now his shoulders were slumped, his back bent, his lips drawn together in an expression of pain or sadness.

Abraham became aware of the boy's gaze fixed on him and passed a hand across his face. He got to his feet stiffly, went over to the water bag and took a drink of water, then replaced the bag onto the branch of a stunted tree. He stood for a moment, gazing off in the direction they were to take in the morning, almost gasping for breath—as if he could feel the mass of Mount Moriah pressing down on him. Then suddenly he turned and came and sat down beside Isaac. He put his arm around the boy and hugged him hard.

Surprised, Isaac faced his father. The hug was not an unusual gesture, for Abraham was given to such things. Isaac was well accustomed to having both of his parents touch him on the head or squeeze his arm or hug him with an arm around the shoulder. He leaned against his father, still wondering about the silence that had enveloped him, then asked, “Will we build an altar out of stone when we get to Mount Moriah?”

“Yes, son, we will.”

“How did you know to do that? Did your father build altars?”

“No, he never did. But my grandfather did.”

“Tell me some more about Grandfather Nahor.”

Abraham began to speak of his grandfather, which he did often, telling Isaac as many things as he could remember that the old man had poured into him. He spoke for a long time about Nahor's search for the Eternal One and how glad he had been to find out that he had a grandfather who, like himself, was eager to know God.

Isaac listened until Abraham paused; then he reached out and put two more sticks on the fire. The flames jumped up with the added fuel, and the sharp, acrid smell of smoke began to arise afresh. “Is the Eternal One kind, Father?”

Abraham recoiled at the question, and Isaac felt it. He turned to look at his father and waited for a reply. It came slowly, after some thought.

“The Eternal One is different from men,” Abraham began. “He's not a man as we are. He has no body. He is everywhere. And He created all things, Isaac.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, every grain of sand on the desert. Every animal that walks or flies or swims. And, of course, every human being on the face of the earth.”

Isaac pondered this briefly, then said, “I wish I could hear Him speak to me as He spoke to you and to Grandfather Nahor. Do you think He ever will?”

“Yes, I think He will someday. You must wait and pray and seek His face.”

“Tell me again about the first time He ever spoke to you.”

Abraham told the story again to his son, as he had done many times in the past. He had thought about it for so many years that it was indelibly fixed in his mind, yet somehow it was still fresh at each new telling. Finally he stopped and looked at Isaac. The boy sat staring into the fire but was listening with rapt attention.
He loves to hear about God
, Abraham thought, and a searing pain tore anew at his heart.
How can I do what you have commanded, O God?