Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis) (29 page)

“I do when I hear loud talking,” said Leah.

She was standing in the door of her tent. It was probably the first time Zilpah had been grateful to see her mistress.

They had not been talking loudly. But even whispers carried in the still dawn air, and Leah heard better than most.

“Forgive us if we woke you with our conversation,” said Reuel, suddenly careful. He also let go of Zilpah’s arm.

Zilpah made a point of rubbing it. Leah couldn’t see well, but she could see big movements.

“It’s so kind of you,” said Leah, “to help Zilpah find her way back in the darkness. Or did you also help her make water? I just wondered why you were so attentive to my handmaiden.”

“I asked her how you were doing,” said Reuel.

“So she’s spying on me? Oh, Reuel, you’re so wise to make sure you know
everything
that’s going on in camp. For instance, Zilpah and I are going to my father’s tent now, to suggest to him that it’s time he found a new steward. One who actually serves Father, instead of my worthless elder brothers.”

Reuel abruptly strode to Leah and took her by the arms—perhaps not as roughly as he had handled Zilpah, but then again, her words were a dire threat to the man, and Zilpah knew that men got stupider and more violent when they were afraid.

“If you were listening so carefully, Leah,” said Reuel, whispering right into Leah’s face, “then you must have heard me remind Zilpah that someday it will be Nahor who rules over you, not your father.”

Leah looked upward into his face, and Zilpah rather admired the way her face showed no fear.

“Father will find me a husband,” said Leah, “before Rachel is married. He would never shame me.”

“Your father will send
me
to find you a husband,” said Reuel.

“Not after he hears what Zilpah and I have to say,” said Leah.

“He’ll never hear it, because you’ll never say it.”

This had gone on long enough, Zilpah decided. Her mother had told her many times how to stop a man who was determined to get his own way by force. “When they’re angry, they don’t think with their heads,” Mother said. “You have to hit them where they’re thinking so their brain can take over.”

By the time Zilpah got close to them, she was already holding a fist-sized stone. She also had the neckline of her gown as open as she could make it.

She leaned in close to Leah, knowing that at that angle, Reuel could see down her dress. With his attention there, he wouldn’t notice much else. “Mistress,” she said urgently, “you’d better believe Reuel. He’s too clever and dangerous to let a couple of girls interfere with his plans. We need him as our friend.”

Leah looked at her with a face that could start a fire. But Zilpah met her with her sauciest I’m-just-teasing grin, and Leah changed her reply before it came out of her mouth. “You’re right,” Leah said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Do you two think I’m so stupid that I’ll believe this pretense?”

“We don’t think you’re stupid, Reuel,” said Zilpah, sliding between him and Leah. Her breasts pressed against Reuel’s belly. “But I hope there’s more than one way to be your friend.”

“If you think I’m going to fall for your false promises,” Reuel began.

But at that moment Zilpah swung the stone with all her
strength, smashing it into Reuel’s crotch. The man cried out in agony and collapsed.

Zilpah immediately grabbed Leah’s hand and began to pull her.

“I can’t go that fast!” said Leah.

“Yes you can,” said Zilpah. “Even pain like that only stops a man for a few moments. We need to get to your father.”

“What’ll you do when I fall down, drag me the rest of the way?”

Zilpah slowed down a little. Leah wasn’t running now. She could keep up without stumbling.

“I thought for a minute you really were going to seduce him,” said Leah.

“That old toad? He doesn’t even remember what women are for.”

“Doesn’t matter what he remembers,” said Leah. “After what you just did, I’m afraid he’s going to end up a eunuch.”

“That would take more than a stone,” said Zilpah.

“Father had better believe us,” said Leah. “Because if he doesn’t, Reuel’s going to have his vengeance.”

“That’s when he’ll become a eunuch,” said Zilpah.

The two girls laughed.

In the end, though, it didn’t matter whether Father believed them. He had his doubts, but when he sent a servant to fetch Reuel to hear his side of the story, Reuel was nowhere to be found. After a little searching, they learned that Reuel had left on horseback, with a few silver baubles and a bundle of fine clothing.

“I take that as a full confession on his part,” said Laban. “What he stole is worthless to me. I wouldn’t waste time trying to track him down to kill him. But the horse has value.”
Soon he had a half dozen riders out searching for Reuel, with strict instructions on how to deal with him.

“I just wonder how he managed to get astride a horse,” said Leah.

“I hope it trots all the way to wherever he’s going,” said Zilpah.

Within an hour, a couple of riders returned. They led the horse Reuel had taken. Most of the clothes and trinkets were with them also; they laid them out at Laban’s feet.

“As you said, sir, we left him wearing the very richest clothing.”

“Good,” said Laban. “The robbers on the road will take care of him for us, when they demand his silver and he has none to give them.”

Whether this was what happened or not, they never heard from Reuel again.

And a week later, Nahor and Terah had to sit in their father’s tent and watch as Laban made Jacob the steward of his camp, master of all his flocks and herds. “If you two boys want anything,” said Laban, “just ask Jacob. He’ll give to you according to what we can afford, and based on what you have earned.”

“Earned?” asked Terah feebly.

“Shut up, you fool,” said Nahor.

“Listen to your brother,” said Laban. “By ‘earned,’ I mean that the two of you are going to work as shepherds until you actually know something about the business of this camp. If you slack off, if you don’t work and learn, I will cut you off without an inheritance.”

So it was that Jacob became master in Laban’s house,
second only to Laban himself, and Laban’s two older sons began to learn the shepherds’ craft from their cousin.

Jacob and Laban both knew who had been their benefactors in Reuel’s attempt to betray them. Zilpah didn’t know what this might mean for Leah, but for her it meant that both Jacob and Laban now treated her with more respect, greeting her by name and showing her other signs of favor. She had nicer clothing to wear—although the necklines were always to Leah’s specifications. The other servants in the camp no longer treated her with contempt, and the rude names were no longer said openly in Zilpah’s presence.

Zilpah’s mother was moved to a tent of her own, and her duties were lighter and included no indignities. If Mother knew that it was Zilpah’s courage and loyalty to Laban that had won her this new treatment, she never gave a sign of it. Instead, she acted as if these privileges were hers by right, and long overdue. “I always told you,” she said to Zilpah, “that one day they’d realize my true worth in this camp.”

Zilpah didn’t bother insisting on whose value was being recognized. Her mother was happy, and so was she.

A
t first Leah felt as though she was spending every day pretending to be someone else. She would catch herself becoming angry over some slight, and then stop herself, force herself to be silent. Often the best choice was simply to walk away, to go back and hide in her tent. There she would brood about the offense—someone assuming she was incapable of doing a task, or someone expecting her to know something that only people with good vision could possibly know.

Or someone praising Rachel’s beauty and then falling silent when they realized Leah could hear—didn’t they know that praise for Rachel was never an offense to Leah unless they showed so plainly that they thought Leah could not bear to hear it?

However it happened, whatever it was, Leah would hold her tongue and go back to her tent. There she would find that
Zilpah was little help. “You
should
be angry, mistress, they had no right!” Only Zilpah rarely understood what it was that had hurt her feelings, and often added her own inadvertent insults to the original hurt. But even at those times, Leah controlled herself, and instead of flying into a rage at Zilpah, she would ask her to run an errand, or tell her that she needed to sleep.

Zilpah wasn’t stupid. She knew that Leah was getting rid of her because she had given offense. For a while she even asked, “What did I say? Tell me so I won’t do it again!”

But Leah did not want to teach Zilpah how not to offend her. She wanted to teach herself how not to be offended.

She knew perfectly well what people were saying, because several women made it a point to be sure she overheard them: “There goes Leah, off to pout inside her tent again.” “Well, at least that’s better than her having a fit over nothing the way she usually does.”

And it
was
better. The camp was more peaceful. Of course, this realization led Leah to have the obvious childish, spiteful thought: Things would be even better if I were thoughtful enough to get sick and die.

But that kind of thinking led nowhere, she knew that. It had nothing to do with walking with the Lord.

So in her brooding, instead of going over and over again how unkind people were, she would try to find excuses for them. Sometimes there was no excuse—they had clearly meant to hurt her, and it had worked. But most of the time there was no intent to offend.

When someone thought she knew something that only people with good vision could know—who it was who was visiting the camp, for instance, or how the first buds were coming out on the trees—then wasn’t that a good thing?
Wasn’t it proof that they had forgotten that her vision was bad?

And when they made allowances that she didn’t need, and offered to help her to do things she was perfectly capable of doing, wasn’t that good, too? They were just trying to help, to make her life easier.

As she trained herself to think this way, she stopped feeling hurt and angry so often. She began to be able to say, “Thank you for offering to help, but this is a job I like to do myself.” Or she’d say, “It’s so silly, because I know most people
can
see it, but I just can’t make out things that far away.” At first they almost cowered, expecting her correction to turn into a rage. But gradually they realized that she wasn’t going to rage at them over such things, and then they responded more naturally, too.

It was with Zilpah that she practiced speaking kindly. It didn’t come naturally to her—of that she was ashamed, now that she recognized it. And Zilpah’s response was to ask her very specific questions about her malady. “Why can you see perfectly well what dress I’m carrying, but you can’t see the bruise on my forehead from the stone that stupid boy threw?”

Then Leah would explain that the dress was brightly colored, and she recognized the bold striped pattern. But the bruise was not so very different in color, and the edges were gradual. “To my eyes, it’s just a shadow, if I can see it at all.”

“So you can see colors but only if they’re really different?”

“If I get very, very close then I can see almost everything. But from farther away, everything is just different smears of color—in bright light, that is. When it’s dark, then I’m almost completely blind.”

Having somebody listen while she explained things was
nice—she remembered that she had had a few such conversations with Bilhah, too. And, like Bilhah, Zilpah took some care to remember what she had been told. She made fewer mistakes. She began to know when help was needed and when it wasn’t. And, perhaps most important, she began explaining to other people what Leah’s actual limitations were—and what they were not.

When Bilhah had tried to do this, Leah had furiously told her to stop. “I don’t want you gossiping about me! Can’t I have any privacy in this camp?” Now, though, Leah realized that the more people knew about her tenderness of sight, the better they’d understand her.

Of course, all this did not happen at once. There were still rages in the first few months, and now and then in the first few years. Times when someone’s deliberate offense hurt her so badly that she lost control and her temper flared.

Then she would weep bitterly afterward, ashamed before the Lord and before the people of the camp. They all knew she was trying to be different now, so when she lost her temper she was sure they all said, She’ll never change, she’s always going to be that way. But at least the poor dear is trying! It’s better than it was!

Her refuge was always the holy books. She came every morning, and even though it was hard to face Bilhah for the first few weeks, she would concentrate on the words themselves, playing them in her mind for as long as she could. The method was a good one: Bilhah reading a phrase, and then silently copying out the words on the new scroll. It gave Leah time to let the words sink in, to ponder them. She could think much faster than Bilhah could write, so it was as if each
phrase held its own sermon or story as it worked out in Leah’s mind.