The Red Tent (33 page)

“ ‘Here am I," I answered.

“ ‘Let me bless the boys,’ said Jacob. ‘Let me see them now.’

“My sons trembled at my side. The tent stank with his illness and his ranting had frightened them, but I told them that their grandfather wished to bless them, and I pushed them toward him, one on either side.

“He put his right hand on Efraem’s head and his left hand on Menashe’s. He blessed them in the name of Abram and Isaac, then sat up and roared, ‘Remember me!’ They shrank back and hid behind me.

“I told Jacob his grandsons’ names, but he did not hear me. He stared, sightless, at the roof of the tent, and spoke to Rachel, apologizing for abandoning her bones at the side of a road. He wept for his beloved, and begged her to let him die in peace. “He did not notice when I left with my sons.” As Joseph spoke, I felt an old heaviness return to my heart and recognized the weight I had carried during my years in Nakht-re’s house. The burden was not made of sorrow as I had thought. It was anger that rose out of me and found its lost voice. “What of me?” I said. “Did he mention me? Did he repent of what he did to me?

“Did he speak of the murder of Shechem? Did he weep for the innocent blood of Shalem and Hamor? Did he repent for the slaughter of his own honor?”

There was silence from the ground where Joseph lay. “He said nothing of you. Dinah is forgotten in the house of Jacob.”

His words should have laid me low, but they did not. I left Joseph on the ground and stumbled back to the camp by myself. I was suddenly exhausted and every step was an effort, but my eyes were dry.

After Joseph arrived, Jacob stopped eating and drinking. His death would come within hours, days at the most. So we waited.

I passed the time sitting at the door of my tent, spinning linen, studying the children of Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah. I saw my mothers’ smiles and gestures, and heard their laughter. Some of the connections were as clear as daylight. I recognized an exact copy of Bilhah in what had to be Dan’s daughter; another little girl wore my aunt Rachel’s hair. Leah’s sharp nose was evident everywhere.

On the second day of Jacob’s deathwatch, a girl approached, a basket of fresh bread in her hands. She introduced herself in the language of Egypt as Gera, the daughter of Benjamin and his Egyptian wife, Neset. Gera was curious to discover how a woman of my status sat and spun while the others who attended Zafenat Paneh-ah cooked and fetched and cleaned all day.

“I told my sisters that you must be nurse to the sons of the vizier, my uncle,” she said. “Is it so? Did I guess well?”

I smiled and said, “You made a good guess,” and asked her to sit down and tell me of her sisters and brothers. Gera accepted my invitation with a satisfied grin and began to lay out the warp and weft of her family.

“My sisters are still children,” said the girl, herself still a few years away from womanhood. “We have twins, Meuza and Naamah, who are too young even to spin. My father, Benjamin, had sons in Canaan as well by another wife who died. My brothers are called Bela, Becher, Ehi, and Ard, and they are good enough fellows, though I do not know them any better than the sons of my uncles, who are as numerous as our flocks and just as noisy,” she said, and winked at me as though we were old friends.

“You have many uncles?” I said.

“Eleven,” Gera said. “But the three oldest are dead.”

“Ah,” I nodded, bidding farewell to Reuben in my heart.

My niece settled in beside me, drawing a spindle from her apron and setting to work as she unraveled the skein of our family’s history. “The eldest was Reuben, son of Leah, my grandfather’s first wife. The scandal there is that Reuben was found lying with Bilhah, the youngest of Jacob’s wives. Jacob never forgave his firstborn, even after Bilhah died, even though Reuben gave him grandsons and more wealth than the rest of the brothers combined. They say my uncle wept for Jacob’s forgiveness when he died, but his father would not come to him.

“Simon and Levi, also born of Leah, were murdered in Tanis when I was a baby. No one knows the whole tale there, but among the women there is talk that the two of them tried to get the better of a trader in some small matter. For their victim they chose the most ruthless cutthroat in Egypt, who killed them for their greed.”

Gera looked up and saw Judah walking into Jacob’s tent. “Uncle Judah, son of Leah, has been clan leader for many years. He is a fair man and bears the burdens of the family well, though some of my cousins think he’s grown too cautious in his old age.”

Gera went on, teaching me the story of my brothers and their wives, pointing out their children, reciting the names of nieces and nephews, flesh of my flesh, with whom I would never exchange a word.

Reuben had three sons with a wife named Zillah. His second wife, Attar, bore him two girls, Bina and Efrat.

Simon had five sons by the odious lalutu, whom Gera remembered as an awful scold with bad breath. He had another son by a Shechemite woman, but that one walked into a flooded wadi and drowned. “My mother says he killed himself” said Gera in a whisper.

“That man over there is called Merari,” she said. “The miracle in him is that he is a good fellow despite the fact that he was born to Levi and Inbu. His brothers are as bad as their father was.”

A slack-jawed man shuffled up to Gera, who handed him a bit of bread and sent him away. “That was Shela,” she explained, “Judah’s son by Shua. He is feeble-minded, but sweet. My uncle had a second wife named Tamar, who gave him Peretz and Zerach, and my best friend, Dafna. She is the beauty of my family in this generation.

“Over there is Hesia,” she said, nodding to a woman nearly my own age. “Wife to Issachar, son of Leah. Hesia is the mother of three sons and Tola, who has taken up the midwife’s life. If Dafna is heir to Rachel’s beauty, Tola has her golden hands.”

“Who is Rachel?” I asked, hoping to hear more of my aunt.

“That is your master’s mother,” she said, surprised at my ignorance. “Though I suppose there is no reason for you to know her name. Rachel was the second wife, Jacob’s beloved, the beauty. She died giving birth to Benjamin, my father.”

I nodded, and patted her hand, seeing the shape of Rachel’s fingers there. “Go on, dear,” I said. “Tell me more. I like the sound of your family’s names.”

“Dan was the only son of Bilhah,” Gera said. “She was Jacob’s third wife, Rachel’s handmaid and the one who lay with Reuben. Dan has three daughters by Timna, named Edna, Tirza, and Berit. All of them are kindhearted women; they are the ones who tend to Jacob.

“Zilpah was the fourth wife, handmaiden to Leah, and she bore twins. The first was Gad, who loved his wife, Serah Imnah, with a great love. But she died giving birth to her fourth child, her first daughter, Serah, who is gifted with song,” said Gera.

“Asher, Gad’s twin brother, married Oreet,” she continued. “Their eldest was a daughter, Areli, who gave birth to a daughter last week, the newest soul in the family, whose name is Nina.

“Leah’s Naphtali fathered six children upon Yedida, whose daughters are Elisheva and Vaniah. And of course, you know the sons of Joseph better than anyone,” Gera said. “He has no daughters?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I replied.

Gera caught sight of two young women and, pointing at me, nodded her head emphatically. “Those are two of the daughters of Zebulun, son of Leah. Their mother, Ahavah, produced six girls who are their own little tribe. I like it when they include me in their circle. It’s a merry group.

“Liora, Mahalat, Giah, Yara, Noadya, and Yael,” she said, counting out their names on her fingers. “They have the best gossip. It was they who told me the story of the Shechemite woman’s son who killed himself. He went mad,” she said, lowering her voice, “when he learned the terrible circumstances of his birth.”

“What could have caused him such despair?” I asked.

“It’s an ugly tale,” she replied coyly, leaning in to whet my interest.

“Those often make for the best stories,” I answered.

“Very well,” Gera said, setting down her spinning and looking me straight in the eye. “According to Auntie Ahavah’s story, Leah had one daughter who lived. She must have been a great beauty, for she was taken in marriage by a Shechemite nobleman, a prince, in fact. The son of King Hamor!

“The king brought Jacob a handsome bride-price with his own hands, but it wasn’t enough for Simon and Levi. They claimed that their sister had been kidnapped and raped, and that the family honor was demeaned. They put up such a noise that the king, bowing to his son’s great passion for Leah’s daughter, doubled the bride-price.

“Still my uncles were not satisfied. They claimed it was a plot of the Canaanites to take what was Jacob’s and make it Hamor’s. So Levi and Simon tried to undo the marriage by demanding that the Shechemites give up their foreskins and become Jacobites.

“Now comes the part of this story that makes me think it is nothing more than a tale that girls tell each other. The prince submitted to the knife! He and his father and all the men in the city! My cousins say this is impossible, because men are not capable of such love.

“In the story, though, the prince agreed. He and the men of the city were circumcised.” Gera lowered her voice, setting a dark tone for the sorrowful ending.

“Two nights after the cutting, while the men of the city groaned in pain, Levi and Simon stole into the city and slaughtered the prince, the king, and all the men they found within its gates.

“They took the livestock and the women of the city too, which is how Simon came to have a Shechemite wife. When their son learned about his father’s villainy, he drowned himself.”

My eyes had been fixed upon my spindle as she recounted the tale. “And what of the sister?” I asked. “The one who was loved by the prince?”

“That is a mystery,” said Gera. “I think she died of grief. Serah made up a song about her being gathered by the Queen of Heaven and turned into a falling star.”

“Is her name remembered?” I asked softly.

“Dinah,” she said. “I like the sound of it, don’t you? Someday, if I am delivered of a daughter, I will call her Dinah.”

Gera said nothing more about Leah’s daughter, and prattled on about feuds and love affairs among her cousins. She chatted until late in the afternoon before thinking to ask about me, and by then I could excuse myself, for it was time for the evening meal.

Jacob died that night. I heard one woman sobbing and wondered who among his daughters-in-law wept for the old man. Benia folded me in his arms, but I felt neither grief nor anger.

Gera had given me peace. The story of Dinah was too terrible to be forgotten. As long as the memory of Jacob lived, my name would be remembered. The past had done its worst to me, and I had nothing to fear of the future. I left the house of Jacob better comforted than Joseph.

In the morning, Judah prepared to take Jacob’s body to lie with his fathers in Canaan. Joseph watched as they lifted his bones onto his gold-covered litter, which he gave for the funeral voyage.

Before Judah left to put his father into the ground, he and Joseph embraced for the last time. I turned away from the sight, but before I reached my tent I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to face Judah, whose expression was a map of uncertainty and shame.

He held out a fist to me. “It was our mother’s,” he said, struggling to speak. “When she died, she called me to her and said to give this to her daughter. I thought she was out of her mind,” said Judah. “But she foresaw our meeting. Our mother never forgot you, and although Jacob forbade it, she spoke of you every day until she died.

“Take this from our mother, Leah. And may you know peace,” he said, pressing something in my hand before walking away, his head hung low.

I looked down to see Rachel’s lapis ring, Jacob’s first gift to her. At first I thought to call Judah back and ask him why my mother had sent me the token of Jacob’s love for her sister. But of course, he would have no way of knowing.

It was good to see the river again. After the heat of the hills, the embrace of the Nile was sweet and cool. And at night in Benia’s arms, I told him all that I had heard from Gera and showed him the ring. I puzzled over its meaning and prayed for a dream to explain the mystery, but it was Benia who gave me the answer. Holding my hand to the light and peering at it with eyes practiced at seeing beauty, he said, “Perhaps your mother meant it as a token that she had forgiven her sister. Maybe it was a sign that she died with an undivided heart, and wished the same for you.”

My husband’s words found their mark, and I recalled something that Zilpah had told me when I was a child in the red tent, and far too young to understand her meaning. “We are all born of the same mother,” she said. After a lifetime, I knew that to be true.

Although the journey was uneventful and my hands were idle, I was exhausted by the trip home. I longed to return to my own house, to see Shif-re and Kiya’s baby, who had been bom during my absence. I was terribly restless during the three days’ stop in Memphis, but kept my impatience to myself because of Benia. He returned from the marketplace every evening, overflowing with the beauty he had seen. He exclaimed at the silkiness of the olive wood, the pure black of the ebony, the aromatic cedars. He brought back scraps of pine and taught Joseph’s sons to carve. He bought me a gift too, a pitcher in the shape of a grinning Taweret that made me smile every time I looked at her.

The vizier’s barque trailed a barge laden with fine timbers when we sailed out of Memphis for the last part of the journey to Thebes. Joseph and I said goodbye in the darkness of the last night. There was no need for sorrow at our parting, he said lightly. “This is only a farewell. If As-naat bears again, we will call for you.”

But I knew we would not meet again. “Joseph,” I said, “it is out of our hands.

“Be well,” I whispered, touching his cheek with a hand that bore his mother’s ring. “I will think of you.”

“I will think of you, too,” he replied softly.

In the morning Benia and I eagerly turned to the west. Once home, we resumed the order of our days. Kiya’s new son was good-natured, and he learned to crow happily when his mother handed him to me on nights she went to attend at a birth. I rarely accompanied her past sunset, though, for I was growing old.