The Red Tent (13 page)

My father, too, seemed refreshed by the sight of the river and by the task at hand. He declared we would make camp on the far side that night and gathered his oldest sons around him to assign them their duties.

Although the water was nowhere near as wide as it had been at the great river to the north, this river was deeper in the center and much faster. Leaves did not meander downstream, but rushed away as though chasing after swift prey. Our crossing had to be quick, as the sun was already beginning its descent.

Inna and Zilpah poured an offering to the river god as the first of the animals were herded into the water and guided across. The smaller animals had to be taken two by two and by the scruff of the neck, with a man on either side. The dogs worked until they were exhausted. We nearly lost one of them in the current, but Joseph grabbed him and became a momentary hero among his brothers.

All of the men grew weary. Even Judah staggered from the effort of guiding frightened animals while withstanding a current that dragged at him. The river was generous, and none of the animals was lost. By the time the sun was resting on the tops of the trees, only the ox, donkeys, women, and babies remained.

Reuben and Judah struggled with the terrified ox, who bellowed like an animal headed for slaughter. It took a long while for them to drag the beast across, and by then it was dusk. My mother and I were the last to be taken across, my hand in hers this time so that I would not be stolen by the current. When we reached the far shore, it was dark and only my father was left behind.

Jacob called across the water. “Reuben,” he said.

And my brother replied, “I am here.”

“See to the animals,” my father said. “Don’t bother with a tent. The night is warm enough. I will cross with the first light. Be ready to leave.”

My mother was not pleased by Jacob’s plan and told Reuben to call back to our father and offer to cross the river and spend the night with him. He would not permit it. “Tell your mother to sit on her fears. I am neither a child nor a doddering elder. I will sleep by myself under the sky, as I did in my youth when I traveled north. Be ready to leave in the morning,” said Jacob, and spoke no more.

The moon was still new, so the night was dark. The water would have sweetened the air had not the wet coats of the animals muddied its perfume with musk. They bleated in their sleep, unused to being wet in the chill of the night. I tried to stay awake to listen to the music of the rushing water, but this time the splashing lulled me into a deep sleep. Everyone slept heavily. If my father cried out, no one heard him.

Reuben was at the riverbank with Leah before sunrise to greet Jacob, but my father did not appear. The birds’ greeting of the day had stilled and the sun had begun to dry the dew, but there was no sign of him. At Leah’s signal, Reuben, Simon, and Judah plunged into the water to seek their father. They found him beaten and naked in the middle of a brushy clearing where the grass and bushes had been crushed and broken in a wide circle around him. Reuben ran back to us shouting for a robe to cover our father, and then he carried him back across the stream.

Uproar gave way to silence when Jacob was brought, senseless, lying in his son’s arms, his left leg hanging at an awkward angle as though it were no longer attached to his body. Inna rushed forward and ordered my father’s tent raised. Bilhah built a fire. The men stood by with empty hands. Reuben had no answers to their questions, and they fell silent.

Inna walked out of the tent and said, “Fever.” Rachel ran for her herb kit. Inna gestured for Reuben to follow her back inside, and a few moments later we heard the terrible, animal scream as he guided our father’s leg back into its place. The whimpering that followed was even worse.

Unnoticed and unneeded, I sat outside the tent, watching Inna’s resolute face and Rachel’s flushed cheeks as they walked in and out.

I saw my mother’s lips press into a thin line as she bent her head to hear their reports. I listened through the walls of the tent while my father screamed at a blue river demon and marshaled an army of angels to fight against a mighty enemy that rose from the waters. Zilpah muttered incantations to Gula, and Inna sang of ancient gods whose names I had never heard, Nintinugga, Ninisinna, Baba.

I heard my father weep and beg for mercy from his brother. I heard Jacob, the father of eleven sons, call out for his mother, “Ema, Ema,” like a lost child. I heard Inna hush him and encourage him to drink, as though he were a swaddling baby.

On that endless day, no one ate or worked. In the evening, I fell asleep in my place by the tent, my dreams shaped by my father’s cries and my mothers’ murmurs.

At dawn, I started awake and was greeted by the stillness. I jumped to my feet in terror, certain that my father was dead. Surely we would be captured by Esau and made into slaves. But as I began crying, Bilhah found me and held me.

“No, little one,” she said, stroking my matted hair. “He is well. He has recovered his sense, and he sleeps calmly now. Your mothers are sleeping, too, they are so weary from their labors.”

By dusk of the second night after his ordeal, my father was well enough to sit by the door of his tent for the evening meal. His leg was still painful and he could barely walk, but his eyes were clear and his hands were steady. I slept without fear again.

We stayed for two months by the river Jabbok, so that Jacob could heal. The women’s tents were set up, and the bondsmen’s too. Days took on an orderliness, with the men tending the herds while the women cooked. We built an oven with clay from the river, and it was good to have fresh bread again, moist and warm, instead of the dried stuff we had eaten on the road, which always tasted of dust. During the first days of Jacob’s illness, two sheep were slaughtered to make strengthening broths from their bones, so there was meat for a while. The rare treat made it seem like a festival.

But as my father recovered his health, his fear returned even greater than before and changed him. Jacob could speak of nothing else but his brother’s revenge, and he saw the nighttime attack and his struggle with the army of angels as portents of the battle to come. He grew suspicious of any attempt to calm him and sent gentle Reuben away. Instead, he came to depend upon Levi, who let Jacob number his worries endlessly and nodded grimly at our father’s direst predictions.

Among themselves, my mothers pondered the meaning of Jacob’s latest dream, so powerful that it had crossed over into this world. They debated Jacob’s worries and plans. Should he attack? Was it a mistake to send a messenger to Esau? Would it not have been wiser to appeal to his father, Isaac, for help? Perhaps the women should send a messenger to Rebecca, who was not only their mother-in-law, but their aunt as well? But they made no mention of the change in their husband’s manner. The confident man had become tentative and cautious. The affectionate father had turned demanding and even cold. Perhaps they thought it a symptom of his illness, or perhaps they simply did not see what I saw.

I grew to hate every mention of Esau, though after a time my fear gave way to boredom. My mothers did not even notice when I started avoiding their tents. They were too caught up in my father’s unfolding story and speculations about what lay ahead, and there was little for me to do. All our wool was spun, and the looms would not be unpacked, so my hands were often idle. No one called for me to fetch water or carry wool, and there was no garden to weed. I was near the end of childhood, and I was freer than I had ever been or would be again.

Joseph and I took to exploring the river. We walked its banks and watched the tiny fish that swarmed in its eddies. We hunted frogs, vivid green ones unlike any we’d ever seen. I picked wild herbs and salads. Joseph trapped grasshoppers to dip in honey. We bathed our feet in the cool, swift waters, and splashed each other until we were dripping. We dried ourselves in the sun, and our clothes smelled like the breeze and the water of the Jabbok.

One day we walked upstream and discovered a natural bridge over the river—a path of flat stones that made for an easy crossing. With no one to forbid it, we crossed to the far side, and we soon realized that we had found the very place where our father had been wounded. We recognized the clearing he had described—the circle of eighteen trees, the beaten-down grass, and the broken and bent bushes. We found a scorched place on the ground where a great fire had burned.

The hairs on my neck stood on end, and Joseph took my hand in his, which was damp with fear. Looking up, we heard nothing—no birdsong or whispering of leaves in the wind. The charred place gave off no smell, and even the sunlight seemed muted around us. The air seemed as dead as Ruti lying in the wadi.

I wanted to leave, but I could not move. Joseph told me later that he would have fled, too. But his feet were rooted in the earth. We lifted our eyes to the sky, wondering if our father’s fearful angels would return, but the heavens remained empty. We stood like stones, waiting for something to happen.

A loud crash from the circle of trees broke like thunder, and we shrieked, or at least we tried to cry out, but no sounds issued from our open mouths as a black boar ran out of the forest. He ran straight for us across the battered meadow. We screamed our silent scream again, nor was there any noise from the hooves of the beast, which moved at us with the speed of a gazelle. I thought we were about to die, and my eyes filled with pity for our mothers and I heard Leah sobbing behind me.

When I turned to find her, she was not there. Still, the spell had broken. My feet were free and I ran back toward the river, pulling Joseph with a strength greater than my own. Perhaps there were angels on my side, too, I thought as I reached the foot stones and found my way over. Joseph slipped off the first rock and cut his foot. This time his voice rang out in pain. The sound of his cry seemed to stop the boar in his tracks, and the animal fell, as though struck by a spear.

Joseph recovered his footing and scrambled back to the far shore, where I held out my hands to him, and we embraced, trembling, amid the sounds of the water, the rustling of leaves, and the terrified beating of our own hearts.

“What was that place?” my brother asked, but I could only shake my head. We looked back to the boar and the clearing and the ring of trees, but the beast had vanished and the scene now seemed ordinary and even beautiful: a bird flew across the horizon, chirping, and the trees swayed with the wind. I shuddered, and Joseph squeezed my hand. Without a word, we swore the day to secrecy.

But my brother was never the same. From that night forward, he began to dream with the power of our father’s dreams. At first, he spoke of his wondrous encounters with angels and demons, with dancing stars and talking beasts, to me only. Soon, his dreams were too big for my ears alone.

CHAPTER FOUR

J
OSEPH AND I returned to camp, afraid we would be questioned about our absence and worried about trying to keep what had happened from our keen-eyed mothers. But no one saw us come. All eyes were fixed upon a stranger who stood before Jacob. The man spoke in the clipped accents of the south, and the first words I heard from his mouth were “my father.” As I crept around to see the face of the messenger, I saw someone who could only be a kinsman.

It was Eliphaz, Esau’s oldest son and my cousin, who looked so much like Judah that I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from blurting it out loud. He was as ruddy and handsome as Judah, though taller—as tall as Reuben, in fact. He spoke with Reuben’s gestures, his head tilted to one side, his left arm wrapped around his waist, his right hand clenching and unclenching, as he brought us the news we had dreaded for so long.

“My father arrives before dusk,” said Eliphaz. “He comes with my brothers and with bondsmen and slaves, forty in all, including the women. My mother is among them,” he added, nodding toward my mothers, who smiled at the courtesy, in spite of themselves.

While Eliphaz spoke, my father’s face was a mask—unchanging and impassive. In his heart, however, he railed and wept. Shattered now were his careful plans for dividing our numbers so Esau could not destroy us in one attack. Useless, all those evenings spent directing my brothers as to which animals would be given as a peace offering and which animals should be hidden from Esau’s grasp. My mothers had not even begun to separate and prepare the goods my father wanted to present to his older brother in hopes of appeasing his terrible anger.

But now he was trapped, and he cursed himself for occupying his thoughts for too long with demons and angels, and clouding his purpose, for now our tents were in an indefensible position, with the river blocking escape behind us.

Jacob betrayed none of this to his nephew, however. He greeted Eliphaz with equal courtesy and thanked him for his message. He led him to his own tent, bade him rest, and called for food and drink. Leah went to prepare the meal. Rachel brought him barley beer, but the women did not rush so that Jacob could have time to think.

While Eliphaz rested, Jacob found my mother and told her to get the women dressed in their finest robes and to prepare offerings. He had Reuben gather his brothers, also in their finest attire, but he directed that they gird themselves with hidden daggers so that Esau could not massacre them without some cost to himself. All of this was done swiftly, so that when Eliphaz arose from his meal, we were all arrayed and ready to leave.

“It is not necessary, uncle,” Eliphaz said. “My father comes to you. Why not receive him here in comfort?”

But Jacob said no. “I must greet my brother in a manner fit for a man of his station. We go out to give him welcome.”

Leaving only the bondsmen and their wives behind, Jacob led us. Eliphaz walked at his side, followed by the animal offering—twelve strong goats and eighteen healthy sheep—shepherded by my brothers.

I saw Leah look back over her shoulder, and sadness and fear crossed her face like clouds across the sun, but she put away her sorrow quickly, and remade her countenance into a picture of serenity.

We walked for only a short time—not even long enough for our long robes to grow dusty—before my father put down his staff. Esau was in sight on the far side of a gently sloping valley. Jacob walked • out alone to greet his brother, and Esau did the same, as their retinues of grown sons followed at a little distance. From the hillside, I watched in terror as the two men came face to face. In an instant, my father was on the ground before his brother. For one awful moment I thought he had been felled by an unseen arrow or spear. But then he rose to his knees and bowed low, prostrating himself in the dust, again and again, seven times in all. It was the greeting of a slave to a master. My mother looked away in shame.

Apparently my uncle was also distressed by his brother’s display, for he leaned down and took Jacob by the arm, shaking his head from side to side. I was too far away to hear words, but we could see the two men talking to each other, first crouching near the ground, then standing.

And then the unthinkable happened. Esau threw his arms around my father. My brothers immediately put their hands on the daggers hidden in their girdles. But Esau had moved not to harm his brother but to kiss him. He gathered our father to his bosom in a long embrace, and when at last they let go of each other, Esau pushed Jacob on the shoulder, a gesture of boys at play. Then he ran his hand through our father’s hair, and at that, both men laughed the same hearty laugh that proved they had shared their mother’s womb, even though one was dark and one was fair, one was slender and one was stocky.

My father said something to his brother, and again Esau held him to his chest, but this time when they parted, there was no laughter. Reuben later said that their cheeks were wet with tears as they turned to walk back toward us, their arms hung around each other’s shoulders.

I was amazed. Esau, the red-faced bloodthirsty avenger, weeping in my father’s arms? How could this man be the monster who haunted my dreams and chased the song from my brothers’^ lips?

My mothers exchanged glances of disbelief, but Inna’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Your father was such a fool,” she said weeks later in Succoth as we retold the story of that day. “To fear such a baby-faced sweetling? To give us all nightmares over such a lamb as that?”

My father led Esau back to where we stood, and Jacob presented gifts to his brother. Our uncle dutifully declined them three times, and then dutifully accepted his brother’s offerings, praising each one in the most flattering terms. The ceremony of the gifts took a long time, and I wanted only to get a closer look at the cousins who stood behind Esau, especially at the women, who wore necklaces and dozens of bracelets on their arms and ankles.

After he had accepted the animals, the wool, the foodstuffs, and Jacob’s second-best herding dog, Esau turned to his brother and asked, in what sounded like my father’s own voice, “Who are these fine men?”

So Jacob presented his sons, who bowed low before their uncle, as they had been instructed. “Here is Reuben, my firstborn, son of Leah, who stands there.” My mother bowed her head very low, less to show respect I think than to keep Esau from noticing her mismatched eyes before he had counted all of her sons.

“And here are more of Leah’s children: Simon and Levi. This is Judah,” my father said, clapping his fourth son on the shoulder. “You can see how your image was never far from my mind.” Judah and Esau smiled at each other with the same smile.

“Zebulun is also Leah’s son, and there are her twins Naphtali and Issachar.”

Esau bowed to my mother and said, “Leah is the mother of myriads.” And Leah blushed with pride.

Next, my father presented Joseph. “This is the youngest, the only son of my Rachel,” he said, flaunting his fondness for my aunt. Esau nodded and looked at the favorite son and stared at Rachel’s undi-minished beauty. She stared back at him, still thunderstruck by the events of the day.

Next Jacob called out the name of Dan. “This is the son of Rachel’s handmaid Bilhah. And here are Gad and Asher, borne to me by Leah’s girl, Zilpah.”

It was the first time I had heard the distinctions between my brothers, or my aunties, made so clear or public. I saw the sons of the lesser wives whom the world called “handmaids,” and I saw how their heads dropped to be so named.

But Esau knew what it was to be second, and he approached the lesser sons just as he had my other brothers, going to Dan, Gad, and Asher, taking their hands in greeting. The sons of Bilhah and Zilpah stood taller, and I was proud to have such an uncle.

Now it was my father’s turn to ask about the sons of Esau, who named them each with pride: “You have met Eliphaz already, my firstborn by Adath, who stands there,” he said, pointing to a small, plump woman who wore a head covering made of hammered copper disks.

“And here is Reuel,” said Esau, putting his arm around a thin, dark man with a full beard. “He is the son of Basemath,” nodding at a sweet-faced woman who held a baby on her hip.

“My little boys are Jeush, Jalam, and Korah. They stand with Basemath there, but they are the sons of Oholibama, my youngest wife,” Esau said. “She died last spring, in childbirth.”

There was much craning of necks as introductions were made, but soon we were able to get a closer look as everyone began the short walk back to Jacob’s riverside camp. My older brothers eyed their grown cousins, but did not speak. The women drew together and began the slow process of acquaintance. We found Esau’s daughters among them, including Adath’s two youngest. Indeed, Adath had borne many girls, some of whom were grown and mothers themselves, but Libbe and Amat were still with her. They were not much older than I, but they ignored me because I still wore a child’s dress, and they were women.

Basemath was a kind stepmother to all of Oholibama’s children, and especially to the baby girl, Iti, who had cost Oholibama her life. Basemath had lost so many babies, both boys and girls, she could barely number them. She had only the one son, Reuel, and one living daughter, Tabea, who was just my height. Tabea and I fell into step beside each other but kept quiet, not daring to disturb the solemn silence that fell upon the procession.

It was late in the afternoon when we reached our tents. A messenger had been sent to tell the bondswomen to begin the evening meal, and we were greeted by the smell of baking bread and cooking meat. Still, there was much to be done before we could have the kind of feast called for by an occasion as great as the reconciliation of the sons of Isaac.

The women fell to work, and Tabea was sent to help me collect wild onions along the river. We nodded our heads like dutiful daughters, but as soon as we faced away from our elders, I nearly laughed out loud. A wish had been granted. We could be alone.

Tabea and I walked with great purpose toward the onion patch that I had picked bare the first day we had come to the Jabbok, and we found enough new shoots to fill her basket. But we decided that our mothers did not need to know how quickly we had finished, and we took advantage of our freedom, putting our feet into the water and pouring out the handful of stories that compose the memory of childhood.

When I admired the copper bangles on her wrist, she told me her mother’s life story. How Esau had been smitten by the lovely young Basemath when he saw her in the marketplace near Mamre, where our grandmother Rebecca lived. For a bride-price, he had offered Basemath’s father, in addition to the usual number of sheep and goats, no fewer than forty copper bangles, “so that her wrists and ankles should announce her beauty,” he said. Esau loved Basemath, but she suffered at the hands of his first wife, Adath, who was jealous. Not even the stillbirths of Basemath’s babies had softened Adath’s heart. When I asked how they could celebrate the new moon together with so much anger in the house, Tabea said the women of her family did not mark the moon’s death and rebirth together. “That’s another thing the Grandmother hates about the wives of Esau,” Tabea said. “You know our grandmother?” I asked. “You know Rebecca?” “Yes,” said my cousin. “I saw her twice, at barley harvests. The Grandmother smiles at me, though she does not speak to my mother, nor Adath, nor did she take notice of Oholibama when she was alive. “The Grandmother says hateful things about my mother, and that is wrong.” My cousin knit her brow and her eyes filled with tears. “But I love the Grandmother’s tent. It is so beautiful there, and even though she is the oldest woman I ever saw, her beauty is not erased.” Tabea giggled and said, “The Grandmother tells me that I look like her, even though it is clear that I resemble my mother in every way.” Tabea did seem a copy of Basemath, with her thin nose and glossy, dark hair, her fragile wrists and ankles. But when I met Rebecca, I remembered my cousin’s words and saw what the Grandmother meant. It was Tabea’s eyes that Rebecca could claim as her own, for my cousin’s eyes were black and direct as arrows, where Basemath’s were brown and always downcast.

I told Tabea about the red tent and how my mothers celebrated the new moon with cakes and songs and stories, leaving ill will outside for the duration of the darkness. And how I, the only daughter, had been permitted inside with them throughout my childhood, although it was against custom for anyone past weaning and not yet a woman to enter. At this, we both looked down upon our chests and pulled our tunics tight to compare what was happening to our bodies. Although neither of us was ready to suckle, it seemed that I would reach womanhood first. Tabea sighed and I shrugged and then we laughed until our eyes filled with tears, which made us laugh even more until we were rolling on the ground.

When we caught our breath, we spoke of our brothers. Tabea said ^he did not know Eliphaz well, but that Reuel was kind. Of the little boys, she hated Jeush, who pulled her hair at every turn and kicked her shins whenever he was sent to help her in the garden. I told her how Simon and Levi made Joseph and my other brothers abandon our games, and how they treated me like their personal servant whose only duty it was to keep their wine cups filled. I even told her how I spit into their cups when I had the chance. I spoke of Reuben’s kindness, and Judah’s beauty, and how Joseph and I had been nursed together.

I was shocked when Tabea said she wanted no children. “I have seen rny mother cradle too many dead babes,” she said. “And I heard Oholibama scream for three days before she gave up her life for Iti. I am not willing to suffer like that.” Tabea said she wanted no part of marriage but would rather serve at Mamre and change her name to Deborah. Or else, she said, she would sing at the altar of a great temple like the one in Shechem. “There I would become one of the consecrated women who weave for the gods and wear clean robes always. Then I will sleep alone unless I choose to take a consort at the barley festival.”

I did not understand her desires. Indeed, I did not fully understand her words, since I knew nothing about temples or the women who serve there. For my part, I told Tabea I hoped for ten strong children like those my mother had borne, though I wanted five girls at least. It was the first time I had said these things aloud, and perhaps the first time I had even given them thought. But I spoke from my heart.