Rebekah: Women of Genesis (12 page)

Rebekah wrote, “She’s not a leper.”

“Oh, good. I always wanted to marry a non-leper.”

Rebekah almost wrote a sharp retort, but she knew better and stayed her hand.

“I know what you were going to write. I’m deaf, so I can’t be too fussy.”

That
was
what she was going to write. But she had to pretend it wasn’t, so instead she wrote, “A link with Ezbaal’s family is a good thing, and . . .”

“And I had to agree to let her worship her own gods, because they had agreed to let
you.
”

She wrote: “It’s all my fault, I know . . .”

“It’s not your fault. It’s Pillel’s fault, with all his talk about making an enemy of Ezbaal. Suitors get rejected all the time, and it doesn’t make them enemies!”

She rolled her eyes. The answer to that one was very long and tedious to write, and Father already knew it by now.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

So she flung her arms around him and kissed him hard on the cheek.

“What was
that
about?”

She parted from the embrace and took his cheeks between her hands. “You are a wonderful father who saved me from a marriage that would have made me miserable.”

“You’re talking too fast for me to read your lips.”

“I love you.”

“Yes, well, you should. The sacrifices we make for our children. The things we give up, so that they can be happy.”

And with that she could leave his tent again, knowing that she’d be summoned back in no time.

Truth to tell, she was puzzled by this business of Akyas marrying Father with a veil on. For all her reassurances to Father, she had to agree with him that it was strange. If Ezbaal was retaliating for the fact that Rebekah had been kept veiled, it was petty and spiteful of him or else he had a mean sense of humor. And if he wasn’t, if there really was some reason to keep Akyas veiled, then it wasn’t right to keep it from Father. A man had a right to know whom he was marrying, didn’t he?

But when she said this to Milchah, one of the old servant women, she only laughed. “Foolish girl,” she said. “No man ever knew whom he was marrying, and no woman either.”

“You may not know what kind of spouse they’ll be, but at least you should know if they have a missing nose or something.”

“What difference does it make? Two days after the wedding, his bride might be set upon by a lion and be so badly mauled that she has no nose, and no ears either, and then what, does he send her away?”

“Some men would.”

“It takes a lot more than that to make a good man send away his wife.”

“There won’t be a lion.”

“Oh yes there will,” said Milchah. “Not the kind that growls. The lion of days, that nibbles at you and paws you every hour like a cat playing with its prey, but so gently that you don’t feel it until one day you look at your husband and he’s as sunburned and wrinkled as leather that got soaked in the rain, and you suddenly realize, I must look like that, too.”

“But that’s different. A husband and wife go down that road together.”

Milchah looked at her with a sudden intensity. “Not always,” she said.

“What does
that
mean?”

Milchah hesitated, then shook her head. “I’m an old woman, and I forget which stories are fit for children and which are not.”

“I’m not a child, and I can hear
anything.
”

“Compared to me everybody’s a child, and some stories are not worth hearing.”

“I’ll go through the camp telling lies about you,” said Rebekah.

“You’re such a baby,” said Milchah. It was an old game between them, which never changed, even after Rebekah took her place as mistress of the household.

“I’ll tell them that you always add too much salt to the pot because you’ve completely lost your sense of taste.”

“I’m not going to tell you anything important, foolish girl. But I did once hear a story about a bride who secretly taught her children to make offerings to a god that her husband hated, and one day he caught her and was so angry at the deception and the disobedience that he divorced her on the spot and drove her out of the camp.”

“If that’s a warning, you can be sure that’s
precisely
what I would have done if they had made me go ahead with my marriage to Ezbaal.”

“Make of it what you will,” said Milchah. “It’s time for my nap.”

“What? Have I made you angry? Really, not just playing?”

“I’m always annoyed when young fools only hear what they want to hear.”

“I heard you, Milchah, I always listen.”

“Would you
really
have defied your husband, knowing that you were bound to be caught someday, and then you’d never see your children again?”

Rebekah
hadn’t
thought through the story very well. “But . . . when Father sent Khaneah away, she got to take Belbai with her.”

Milchah gave a sharp laugh. “Your father was sending
Belbai
away, and besides, Belbai was
not
your father’s son. Do you think for a moment the head of a great house would let a disobedient wife take
his
children with her when he sent her away?”

“I never thought of that,” said Rebekah.

“That’s why God hasn’t let me die yet,” said Milchah. “So somebody can say something sensible to you now and then.”

“That’s why a woman shouldn’t marry a man who doesn’t worship the same god.”

“Oh, now you’re full of all kinds of wise rules, aren’t you?” said Milchah. “What if her father promised that she’d be obedient, but he didn’t tell
her?
”

“Father would never do that, so it won’t matter to me.”

“Yes, you’re lucky that your father understands just how important a religious difference can be,” said Milchah. But there was something nasty in her tone. Rebekah understood at once.

“Father came to his senses as soon as I reminded him of how important it is to raise my children in a house where only the God of Abraham is worshiped.”

“And he loves having you speak of the God of Abraham,” said Milchah, getting even nastier.

“But . . . that’s the only true God,” said Rebekah.

“But his
name
isn’t ‘the God of Abraham.’”

“I’ve never been told his true name,” said Rebekah.

“And still it doesn’t occur to you that maybe your father would rather you spoke of ‘the God of Bethuel’?”

“Father never said . . . he always—”

“All those stories of Uncle Abraham,” said Milchah. “And Lot. All the famous boys. And here’s Bethuel, trying to serve God as best he can, and even his own daughter says ‘God of Abraham.’”

“If you’re trying to make me feel bad, you’re doing a good job of it.”

“Don’t feel bad, Rebekah, everyone does it. And now that your father’s deaf, he never has to hear it. Maybe he thinks of
that
as a blessing. But now, please, don’t you have something to do to prepare for the wedding?”

“I’ve given everybody their tasks.”

“Well, give yourself one and go do it, because I need a nap.”

The conversation with Milchah made Rebekah all the gladder that she had obeyed the will of God and refused to marry Ezbaal. And she wondered again what Father was getting himself into with this marriage. What if Akyas had children? Father had given her permission to worship her gods as long as she did it in private, but she could imagine Akyas defying him and insisting on taking her children with her to town for the festivals of Ba’al and Asherah. Akyas had a sharp tongue, and she knew her own mind.
That
would be interesting, watching the two of them go at it, head to head.

Rebekah thought back to the way Akyas had acted the one time they conversed, during that supper in her tent. She was a sharp one. She kept her face hidden, but she saw everything and understood many things that couldn’t be seen. And wasn’t she the one who had come up with the trap that Rebekah almost fell into?—You can worship the God of Abraham, all right, but not a word was said about her children. Sly. Clever. Stubborn. It made Rebekah admire her strength, but also it made her afraid for Father. Akyas could be a difficult woman. Why was Father so worried about her
face?
It was a lot more useful to know how Akyas conducted herself in an argument.

Milchah was right. The lion of days would ruin beauty, but not right away. What about the bear of quarrels? There was nothing gradual about
that
beast. Father had a mighty roar, and when he was furious he could stay his hand but not his tongue.

Of course, it would be hard to sustain an argument with him now, when all Akyas’s words would have to be scratched into the dirt.

What am I worrying about? Why should they argue? Akyas was married before, wasn’t she? She knew what could go wrong in a marriage, and she would be on her guard to make sure it didn’t happen again. Hadn’t she said as much, that night in Rebekah’s tent?

Still, Rebekah couldn’t stop worrying about Milchah’s warning during all the days of preparation for the wedding. Father had taken a great deal more thought and care about finding a spouse for Rebekah than Rebekah had taken about finding a spouse for
him.

Finally, on the night before the wedding, with all the preparations done, Rebekah found that she could not sleep for worrying about Father and Akyas. She lay awake looking up into the darkness above her bed, and it occurred to her that on the night before the wedding, she was hardly likely to be the only one awake. In fact, in the stillness of night she could hear men’s laughter in the distance—Laban would be there, no doubt, and Ezbaal, too, celebrating with Father and commiserating with him on his loss of bachelorhood. Not to mention making ribald jokes, or so the women said the men did whenever they were alone together.

But what were the bride and her women doing?

The thought came into Rebekah’s head that the person most certain to be awake was the bride-to-be.

Akyas. Rebekah’s stepmother-to-be, who would certainly expect to rule over the women in Father’s household. Tomorrow, as soon as the words were said and the earthen bowls were dashed back upon the earth, Rebekah would lose her place.

She should be either worried or relieved, but she was not aware of either feeling in her heart. She had done her duty when there was no one else to do it. Now it would belong to another woman, and Rebekah could easily return to her proper role as child of the house. As simple as that.

What an absurd thought, she realized. Nothing would be simple. She had no idea what it was like, to be daughter of a house ruled by a wife. Would she be pampered or scolded? Rebekah tried to think back on what Akyas had said and done during their all-too-brief supper together. That conversation was all about what kind of wife Rebekah would make, and the only other attitude of Akyas’s was a bit of cynicism about marriage. There was nothing in what Rebekah remembered of that night to guide her in how Akyas might regard a stepdaughter who had once ruled in a wife’s place.

And yet Rebekah
still
felt no fear. This woman would have the power to make her life miserable, and yet she felt nothing but peace at the thought of having her come into the family. That was very odd. Surely she should feel
something.

Should I have called upon her? Akyas was in seclusion, Ezbaal’s man had announced, and would not see anyone until the wedding. Instructions had been given by intermediaries. It was hardly a circumstance conducive to making visits to the tent of her temporary hermitage. And yet Rebekah knew that whether or not she should have called upon Akyas before, she certainly should do so now.

At this hour?

Why not? It wasn’t that late.

Rebekah rose quietly, so as not to waken Deborah—who slept heavily in any case, gently snoring in her corner near the doorway. Covering herself with a simple robe, Rebekah slipped out into the cool air of a summer evening in the high grasslands.

No sooner did she begin to make her way toward Akyas’s tent, however, than she felt a sudden dread. What could she do that was more foolish than to defy the bride’s seclusion and waken her at some awful hour of the night?

Rebekah turned back to the tent, wondering what she could have been thinking even to consider such a course of action, when all of a sudden the fear left her and she again thought: But that’s absurd. It isn’t that late, and Akyas will be up, and why shouldn’t the daughter of the household come to her to welcome her in advance? It would be a gracious thing to offer, anyway, and if Akyas didn’t want her to come in, she had only to refuse to admit her at the door.

Rebekah turned again and strode boldly toward the tent of Ezbaal’s women. At once the dread and doubt returned to her, but she paid it no heed, refusing to let foolish fear stop her from the right course of action. Soon she arrived at the tent door, and yes, a light flickered dimly within. Not wishing to clap her hands at this quiet hour—for who knew how many people would think it was
their
tent into which someone desired entry?—Rebekah merely snapped her fingers several times.