Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis) (38 page)

“But if you reach out and touch it, Wisdom will come in.”

“I’m so frightened, Leah,” said Rachel.

“Talk to Father.”

“What can he do? He’s given his word. I gave
my
word.”

“I just know … I know what I said. I know it’s from God. If you talk to Father, it will work out the way God wants it to.”

Rachel laughed miserably. “But I want it to work out the way
I
want it to.”

“Give the Lord a chance. Maybe you both want the same thing.”

“I don’t think so. Because I want to be fourteen again. I want to be fourteen forever.”

“Why fourteen?”

“Because it was after Jacob got here. After we became friends again. Before Choraz married … whoever. It was a good time.”

“There’ll be other good times, Rachel.”

“Did God tell you that?”

“No.”

“Then shut up, please,” said Rachel. But she hugged Leah as she said it, so Leah knew that she meant it in the nicest possible way.

“Please lead me back to camp, Rachel,” said Leah.

“I will.”

“And you’ll talk to Father?”

“I will.”

F
ather was more understanding than Rachel could ever have hoped. Perhaps because she had never faced his anger, she dreaded it more than anyone else in camp. Yet to her surprise, he wasn’t angry at all, or if he was he didn’t show it.

“Of course you’re afraid,” said Father. “Do you think I haven’t seen how your attitude has turned so glum these past weeks? It’s as if my happy little girl had been replaced by a leftover mourner from someone’s funeral.”

“But I love Jacob, Father. Except for you and Leah, I love him more than anyone else in the world!”

“Well, there’s the problem,” said Laban. “Your father and your sister shouldn’t come before your husband.”

“He’s not my husband yet.”

“No, he’s not.”

“He’s served the seven years,” said Rachel. “You should
let him stay, but not as a bondsman. I’ll still be promised to him. And in a few months or a year or …”

“Rachel, you know how quickly the days pass. How do you know you won’t feel the same in a year? Or in two years?”

“I won’t. I’ll be older and …”

“If you don’t keep your promise to him now, Rachel, how do you know he’ll keep his promise to you?”

“So you’re saying I have to marry him now or never?”

“Not at all,” said Father. “I’m saying that I’ll do my best to get you what you want—a postponement of your wedding, and yet Jacob would stay here, waiting for you, contented. But it might not be possible. Jacob may decide to reject what I offer him.”

“Do you think he will?”

“I offer him the best that God has given me. Only the schedule of delivery would be changed. If he rejects it, then he’s unworthy of you.”

“The Lord brought him here,” said Rachel. “And Leah promised me …”

“Promised you what?”

“The spirit of Wisdom whispered to her,” said Rachel. “That if I talked to you, everything would work out as the Lord desires.”

Father put his arm around her. “That’s a solemn promise. But beware—a promise like that says nothing about what
you
want, only what the Lord wants you to have.”

“But if the Lord didn’t want me to have Jacob as my husband, why would he have brought him here? Why would I have had my dream of him?”

“You have to decide for yourself, Rachel. Perhaps if you
refuse to keep the promise to marry him day after tomorrow, the Lord will take back the gift he offered you.”

“But doesn’t everything come from the Lord?” asked Rachel. “My dreams, Jacob—but my fear also. A warning—doesn’t that come from the Lord too, just like a promise?”

“I’m not a prophet,” said Laban. “I’m not even a scholar. You should speak to Jacob if you want answers to questions like that.”

“How can I tell him … myself? You have to tell me what God wants me to do.”

“God wants you to be happy. He wants you to make choices, and then live with the results of the choices you made. And if they were wrong choices, then you make the best of them.”

“So you’re saying I should keep the promise I made to Jacob,” said Rachel.

“No, I didn’t say—”

“But I was a child then, Father! What did I know about marriage? Nobody told me anything. Now I know … more than I wanted to ever know.”

“Marriage isn’t so awful,” said Father. “Your mother and I loved each other very much. It was marriage that gave us our wonderful children.”

“We’re not so wonderful, Papa. Choraz kills men in battle. Leah is half blind. Terah and Nahor—well, you know. And me—”

“Yes, what is your fatal flaw?”

“I’m a coward. And an oathbreaker.”

“Not a breaker of oaths. A delayer of weddings.”

Rachel laughed in spite of herself. “You make me sound not quite so awful as I deserve.”

“Why don’t we do this?” said Laban. “Let’s leave the preparations for the wedding in place. Say nothing to anyone. But you and Leah will sleep in this outer room of my tent on the eve of the wedding. If you decide on the very day that you want to go ahead, then you can do it, and no one needs to know that you ever thought of delaying the wedding.”

“But what if I can’t? Then it will come as a shock to Jacob and he’ll think I betrayed him.”

“What difference does it make
when
he finds out? I’ll propose a change in our agreement that lets you delay the wedding. He’s a poor man. What if I ask him to continue as steward of all my flocks and herds, in exchange for a portion of the increase? Half of the new lambs and calves and kids and foals, for each year until you marry him?”

“Half?” In the short run, that wouldn’t be a crippling cost, but if it went on for too many years, Jacob would end up with half of her brothers’ inheritance.

“If you keep delaying the wedding, then you’ll end up costing me a great deal,” said Father with a smile.

“I won’t delay so very long, Father. The Lord will help me get ready.”

“Well, wouldn’t it have been nice if he’d helped you get ready for
this
day.”

“What if Jacob won’t wait? He’s already spent seven years. I know from things he’s said to me that he doesn’t want to be like Abraham was, an old, old man before his sons were born.”

“There’s always that possibility,” said Laban. “What would you do then? If Jacob married someone else first, but then returned to marry you as his second wife?”

“That would be terrible! What if it was someone like …
Asta? Or even Hassaweh? As the first wife! She’d think she had a right to rule over me.”

“Where do you get these ideas?” said Father. “The husband rules both wives equally. What matters is which wife the husband loves best. And how could that be anyone but you?”

“No,” said Rachel. “No other wife. I’d rather never marry him than have to share him with another.”

“Sarah shared Abraham with her handmaiden, Hagar.”

“Oh, don’t remind me of
that
story. Hagar ended up being thrown out of the camp and set to wander and die in the wilderness! If the angel hadn’t saved her—”

“My example was badly chosen,” said Father. “Never mind. I’ll make my offer to him. If he refuses and says he’ll go off and marry someone else, what should I tell him?”

“Tell him that he has the right to do that. But I’ll never marry anyone else. I’ll stay here forever in your camp, with Leah. She and I will be old spinsters together, and we’ll tell our brothers’ grandchildren about the prophet from the desert who was
almost
our husband. I mean
my
husband.”

“That might be the exact choice you’re making, Rachel, my dear. Between Jacob and never marrying at all.”

“You think he’ll be that angry?”

“Rachel, please, think about it. The story of Jacob’s service to win the hand of Laban’s beautiful daughter is already a legend. How quickly will the story spread that Laban doesn’t keep his word? What man will come to bargain with me for either of my daughters then?”

“You don’t mean that this will hurt
Leah!
”

Father shook his head. “Rachel, your sister is very beautiful, but her eyes are no good. And even though you know and I know how sweet-tempered she’s become, the stories of her
shrewishness are still out there. If no one came to ask for her hand after you fail to marry Jacob, it will be the same number as came to court her for the past three years.”

Rachel was already emotional, so tears came easily to her eyes. “Poor Leah! She’d be such a wonderful wife!”

“If the Lord wants her to be married, she will be,” said Father. “But I’m not a prophet. I have no miracles in me. I’m not going to go out and bribe some miserable greedy fellow to marry her for pride’s sake. She wouldn’t have such a man anyway, and then I’d be famous as the man who had
two
daughters who refused to marry according to their father’s bargain.”

“You’re angry with me.”

“I’m just being honest. But I wouldn’t have you marry against your will, just to keep me from being embarrassed in the neighborhood. My embarrassment will last a little while, but an unhappy marriage is the rest of your life.”

Father stood up and headed for the door. “Stay here until your eyes don’t look so weepy. And be content. Until the very last moment, you don’t have to go ahead with the wedding if you don’t want to.”

“I think you’re counting on my changing my mind and marrying him after all,” said Rachel. “Will you be very angry if I don’t?”

“I’m not counting on anything, my little gazelle. I’m opening every wall of the tent and seeing which way the wind blows.”

As soon as he left the tent, Rachel wanted to run after him. I’ve made a terrible mistake! I’ll go through with the wedding!

Because the worst thing she could think of would be the look of stricken disappointment on Jacob’s face. Other men
might be angry, but he would only be hurt. He would turn away from her. It
wouldn’t
go on as it had before.

Well, I have that choice. I’ll go through with it. As Father said, no one will ever know that I even thought of delaying the wedding.

L
eah sat in her tent and listened to her father carefully. When he was through telling her, she could only shake her head.

“Father, that’s not even a plan. It’s a desperate excuse for Rachel’s fearfulness.”

“If you had seen how unhappy she was—”

“Father, I
did
see. That’s why I tried so hard to get her to talk to you.”

“Well, she did, and this is where things stand.”

“Do you think that Jacob is the kind of man you can put off the bargain by paying him in cattle and sheep? I’ll tell you what Jacob will think: If I do what Laban suggests, then in half the stories I’ll be the fool who got tricked out of his wedding day, and in the other half, I’ll be a man who married Laban’s daughter in order to get half his flocks and herds.”

“I knew your hearing was unusually acute, Leah, but I
never knew you could hear a man’s thoughts before he even thought them.”

“Father, Jacob will come forward tomorrow expecting to marry your daughter. Instead you’re going to come out and renegotiate the bargain. At what point in the ceremony do you intend to do that? And how will he spend the rest of his day? His wedding
night?
Are you
trying
to turn the house of Abraham into our enemies?”

“Well what would you have me do?”

“Go to him now. Talk to him. Tell him about Rachel’s fears. Tell him what you told her. Tell him everything.”

“How will that help our problem, Leah? It won’t make Rachel any happier about getting married,
and
she’ll be angry with me for breaking my promise
not
to speak to Jacob in advance. And Jacob will
still
be a man who has no one in his bed on his wedding night. Finding out you’re being treated like a fool the day before your wedding isn’t all that much better than finding out at the wedding. Especially since Rachel might change her mind and go ahead with it and leave Jacob none the wiser.”

“That’s your mistake, Father. You think you can fool a prophet of God.”

Father buried his face in his hands. “I’m not going to force Rachel to marry against her will.”

“Be honest with Jacob,” said Leah. “He deserves nothing less.”

“I wish I didn’t see my miserable sons behind this whole problem,” said Father.

That came as a complete surprise to Leah. “What do you mean?”

“Why did Choraz come home when he did? I think Nahor
or Terah or both of them sent him a message to get here and prevent the wedding.”

“Why would they even care?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I set Jacob as overseer of all my household—above them. No doubt they remember the stories of how Jacob tricked Esau out of his birthright. So when he marries my daughter Rachel, and given that my sons are idiots, naturally they’ll think Jacob is out to steal their inheritance.”