Rebekah: Women of Genesis (31 page)

It was as perfect as life ever gets, except that they had no son.

They were in Abraham’s camp to celebrate the circumcision of Keturah’s sixth baby boy, Shuach, when the peaceful course of her life as Isaac’s wife began to turn. She and Isaac were used to these events—it was Keturah’s sixth son, after all, and they left for Kirjath-arba expecting the usual festivities. But to their surprise, a large group of tents and several holding pens for camels and other animals had been erected in a place of honor, so near to Abraham’s tent that it was obvious many servants’ tents had had to be moved to make room. Isaac, Rebekah, and their party stopped on the first high ground that gave them a view of the changes. Deborah and two handmaids—new girls, the original ones all having married or returned to Haran—and the few men needed to bring the lambs that would be Isaac’s share of the sacrifice, his gift to the baby, and his contribution to the feast, all waited patiently while Rebekah waited for Isaac to say something.

Which, of course, he did not do for the longest time.

Finally, as she so often did, Rebekah offered her best thought. “Is it Ishmael?”

“He’s never come to a circumcision of one of Father’s sons since . . .”

He let the sentence dangle unfinished.

“Since your own,” Rebekah said.

Isaac’s silence was his yes.

So she would meet the famous Ishmael and see the brothers together with their father. She knew at once, though, that nothing about this would go well for Isaac. Ishmael had come with style—his tents were new and clean and bright-colored, and from the number of animals he had brought, his gifts would make Isaac’s look paltry.

Rebekah tried to put a good face on it. “If he came with so many in his group, I’m glad he brought enough animals to help feed them!”

“Ishmael would never want to use up any animals that are part of my inheritance,” said Isaac.

There was no obvious tone of sarcasm, but Rebekah had not lived with this man all these years without knowing that this was about as openly nasty as he usually got. And if he was this snide—for Isaac—upon first seeing that Ishmael had come for the circumcision, what would happen through the rest of the day?

“I wonder if he brought his wife, or any of his sons.”

“I’m sure he did,” said Isaac, “since I don’t have any.”

It was the first time Isaac had ever reproached her for her barrenness, and it stung. “You have a wife,” said Rebekah, a little acidly.

“That’s where I’ll have the victory,” said Isaac, and he turned to her and smiled. It was a warm smile, but there was sadness in his eyes. Then he walked on down the path, and Rebekah followed him.

Thank you for trying to make me feel better, she said to him silently. But today I would rather have a face like a locust if it would put one child in my arms.

Once they got to camp, things were worse than Rebekah had anticipated. What was roasting over the fires was not kid or lamb or calf, but deer—Ishmael had gone hunting and brought venison for the feast. She would have known it by the smell even if she hadn’t seen the spitted carcasses, and she thought of offering to cook the lambs they brought for the feast in the way she had learned as a child, so that it would smell and taste like venison. But she thought better of it at once. It was not Isaac’s way to try to match his brother; rather he would declare himself the loser immediately and praise Ishmael’s gifts without giving a sign that it even troubled him that his own were small by comparison. And the worst thing would be to make it look as though Isaac were trying to imitate Ishmael.

Besides, Isaac would immediately tell everyone that the reason his lambs tasted like venison was because Rebekah was so clever, deflecting all praise to her. There was nothing she could do to help. This would play out however it played out, with Ishmael doing whatever he came to do, and then they would go home to Lahai-roi and forget about it.

It didn’t take long, once they got to the camp, to meet Ishmael. He was a bold, loud man—much more like Father, Rebekah thought, than like Ezbaal—and nothing like Isaac or Abraham. He hailed Isaac from several rods off and strode briskly toward them, calling out Isaac’s name and opening his arms for a hearty embrace. Isaac greeted him with seeming cheerfulness and matched his energy in the hug. Of the two of them, Isaac was the taller, so it shouldn’t have seemed that Isaac was getting swallowed up by Ishmael, but that was how it looked. There was something large about Ishmael, something in the way he carried himself, as if all the air for six spans around him turned when he turned, and moved with him when he walked.

Then it was time for introductions, and Ishmael did indeed have three of his sons with him—the second oldest, Nebajoth, who was a grown man, and the two youngest, Naphish and Kedemah, who looked to be in their middle teens, with only boys’ beards. “I didn’t really plan to bring them, but then I didn’t plan to come, either,” said Ishmael, his voice carrying, Rebekah was sure, into every corner of the camp and probably throughout the surrounding hills. “But these lads were with me across Jordan visiting with cousin Moab when the runner came with word that Father had yet another son, and all of a sudden I realized—here’s Father having more sons, when Malchuth and I have had all that we’re going to have and feeling content with them. And I said, ‘Let’s go visit Father and beg him to stop before he passes me up and I have to take another wife just to stay ahead!’”

Oh, how he laughed at his own joke—and so contagious was his laughter that so did everyone else, including Isaac. Including Rebekah, though she stopped at once when she realized what she was laughing at. For Ishmael had, indeed, managed to make the first thing he said to Isaac a barely-disguised sneer at the man who was not even in this supposed competition to see who could have the most sons.

Rebekah wanted to say, We’ll have a son in the Lord’s good time, and unlike your sons, our son will have the birthright and the covenant of Abraham. But that, of course, would be a vile thing to say, so she kept it to herself, trusting that anyone with any sense would think it anyway.

Apparently Ishmael had not brought his wife or any of his daughters, or if he had, they were not out and about. And Keturah was still in confinement, so that Rebekah was spared the personal humiliation of having to be compared to women who had borne children—for she knew Ishmael would not shrink from using her barrenness as another reproach to his brother.

“I wish I had known you were coming, Brother,” said Isaac. “All I have are the small gifts I brought to honor the baby. My hands are empty when I greet my elder brother.”

Those were loaded words. It might even be taken as an affront, calling Ishmael the elder brother when it was Isaac who had the legal status of firstborn son. But after only the barest moment of hesitation, Ishmael beamed and hugged Isaac again. “I need no other gift than to see my brother and know that he’s glad to see me.”

Then Ishmael turned to Rebekah. “By Ba’al’s left nostril, is this what you married?”

It was an appalling statement that left Rebekah completely confused. Here in Abraham’s own camp, he swore by Ba’al. But then, he did it in a way that was more mocking than real. And how was she to take his impersonal reference to her?

“This is my wife, who was given to me by God,” said Isaac, putting his arm across Rebekah’s shoulders.

“God has a good eye for women,” said Ishmael.

Did he mean it as flattery, and was simply inept at it? Or was it a calculated blasphemous insult? Rebekah had no idea what was intended, and so had no idea how to respond.

Except, as Mother had shown her, it was never wrong to be courteous. Affixing Ishmael with her best imitation of Mother’s killer smile, Rebekah approached him and raised a hand in greeting. “I grew up hearing the name of Ishmael in my father’s house. I’m honored at last to meet a legendary man.”

“Gossips, that’s all they are, the people who spread those tales. Do you know that I’ve already heard tales about
you?
”

Here it comes, thought Rebekah. “I hope some of them, at least, are kind.”

“Oh, they all are. The stories I’ve heard compare you with Sarah—Isaac’s mother, you know, the runaway priestess and all that.”

There it was, the comparison with a woman who, for many years, was thought to be as barren as sand.

“I’m honored that anyone might think I resemble Abraham’s wife.” There, let him chew on that for a moment—a public reminder that Sarah was Abraham’s wife, and Ishmael’s mother was never more than a concubine. Not even that much, really. Sarah’s servant, and no more.

“I hear Sarah was beautiful when she was young,” said Ishmael, seemingly undaunted. “There’s even a story that you’re
so
beautiful that when Isaac took you to Gerar and he did that same business that Father did with Sarah in Egypt—you know, saying you’re his sister, and then all of Gerar is cursed until King Abimelech finds out that you’re married and so on and so on.”

“I’ve never been to Gerar,” said Rebekah.

“Oh, I didn’t say I believed the stories. Though now that I see you, the part about your being beautiful enough that someone might kill for you—I believe
that.
”

This was going too far. Whether he meant it that way or not, his last statement could be taken as a threat against Isaac, and Rebekah wouldn’t have it. She turned to her husband. “Shouldn’t we go to your father, Isaac, and let him know that we’re here?”

Ishmael would not be so easily deterred. “Look how she deflects praise—beautiful
and
modest.”

For once Isaac answered for her. “She’s a virtuous woman.”

Ishmael turned and muttered something to his sons, who tried to contain their laughter. Though few heard the words he said, it was obvious that whatever joke he made had been in response to Isaac’s calling her virtuous. There was no way not to be insulted.

Except that Rebekah had heard his joke. She had spent years learning to hear even muttered remarks, so she could write them down for Father. If she were to keep this from becoming a quarrel—or a sign of cowardice when Isaac did not turn it into a quarrel—she would have to respond to the insult directly.

So she faced the onlooking crowd and said, loudly, “I think you might not have heard my brother-in-law say, ‘That explains why she’s barren.’”

The shocked silence grew, if possible, even deeper. Ishmael blushed to have his words openly repeated—it was, truly, a churlish thing to say—and the smiles disappeared from his sons’ faces.

Until Rebekah laughed. “You silly man,” she said, as if he had only said something playful, rather than an insult designed to diminish her and her husband in everyone’s eyes. “Don’t you know that the Lord takes his time when he’s about the business of creating the next generation to have the birthright? It does no good to try to hasten the Lord. I’m sure there’s a story about that floating around somewhere.”

She knew perfectly well there was—the story of how Sarah, despairing of ever having a child, gave her handmaid Hagar to Abraham to have a child on her behalf. The son born from that union was Ishmael. His existence was owed entirely to Sarah’s trying to “hasten the Lord.”

He understood her perfectly, of course, and nodded at her for having landed a blow in their little war of words.

“Well, I can see I’m going to enjoy visiting here a lot more often than before,” said Ishmael. “Finally there’s someone I can joke with who answers me gibe for gibe.”

Rebekah could not resist deflating his patronizing attitude. “What gibe?” she asked innocently—so innocently that everyone laughed.

Apparently, that exchange had been enough to satisfy Ishmael’s need to shame Isaac—or perhaps Rebekah’s retorts had been bold enough to make him think twice before insulting her again. Whatever the cause, Ishmael became affable and stopped making barbed remarks. But the damage had been done. Isaac was enveloped in a cloud of deadly silence, and everyone knew he had been shamed, even if most of them weren’t quite sure how it had been done.

And there was more to come, though this time not directly from Ishmael’s mouth. With all of Keturah’s other sons, Isaac had performed the actual circumcision under Abraham’s direction, since the old man’s hand wasn’t steady enough to perform such a delicate operation safely. This time, however, Ishmael asked—publicly—for the privilege of circumcising his youngest half-brother. “It was at my birth,” said Ishmael, “that circumcision was first commanded as a mark of the covenant. And I’ve circumcised all my own sons, and all my servants, too—I’d like to think I have a deft hand with the sacred blade.”

Rebekah murmured to Isaac, “And to think that all these years
you’ve
been doing it with an ax.”

She didn’t know whether Ishmael heard her or not, but he turned to her and flashed her a huge grin. She regretted at once that she had not kept her sarcasm to herself. It only made Isaac look bad, to have someone murmuring snide remarks into his ear.

Worse, though, was the fact that Uncle Abraham had noticed her whispering, even though there was no possibility that he had heard her. “What did you say?” he demanded. “I didn’t hear you, Rebekah. What did you say?”