The Red Tent

by Anita Diamant

  But Jacob did not smile. “I do not like the city or its king,” he said. “But I like even less an untrustworthy daughter and a lying wife.”

  “Say nothing you will regret,” replied Rachel. “My sister sets you against me and against your only daughter, who is beloved of your mother at Mamre. This is a good match. The king says they are fond, does he not? Have you forgotten your own fire, husband? Have you grown so old that you do not remember that longing?”

  Jacob’s face betrayed nothing. He looked long at Rachel, and she returned his gaze. “Give them your blessing, husband,” Rachel said. “Take the wagons laden with silver and linen and give Hamor the welcome due a king. You are the master here. There is no need to wait.”

  But Jacob stiffened at Rachel’s insistence. “When my sons return from their travels, I will decide.”

  Hamor could not recall ever being treated so badly. Even so, he was well disposed toward Jacob. “A good ally, I think,” he told Shalem the next day. “But an enemy to avoid. He is a proud man,”

  Hamor said. “He does not like to lose control of his family’s fate. Odd that he should not yet know how children stop serving their parents once they are grown. Even daughters.”

  But Shalem pressed his father to return as soon as possible. “I love the girl,” he said.

  Hamor grinned. “Fear not. The girl is yours. No father would want her back as she is now. Go back to your wife, and let me worry about the father.”

  Another week passed, and my husband and I grew to love each other in subtler ways, with caresses and endearments. My feet did not touch ground. My face ached from smiling.

  And then I received a special wedding gift: Bilhah came to see me. My aunt appeared at the palace gate asking for Dinah, wife of Shalem. She was taken first to Re-nefer, who plied her with questions about Jacob’s hesitancy over her husband’s offer. The queen asked about Leah and Rachel as well, and told Bilhah not to leave the palace without gifts for her daughter-in-law’s family. And then Re-nefer herself brought my aunt to me.

  My hug lifted my little aunt off the ground, and I covered her dark face with a dozen kisses. “You are glowing,” she said, when she stood back, holding my hands in hers. “You are happy.” She smiled. “It is wonderful that you should find such happiness. I will tell Leah and she will be reconciled.”

  “Is my mother angry?” I asked, bewildered.

  “Leah believes Rachel sold you into the hands of evil. She is like your father in her distrust of the city, and she is not pleased that you will make your bed within walls. Mostly, I think, she misses you. But I will tell her of the light in your eyes, of the smile on your lips, and of your womanly bearing now that you are a wife.

  “He is good to you, yes?” Bilhah asked, giving me the chance to praise my Shalem. I found myself bursting to tell someone the details of my happiness, and I spilled everything into Bilhah’s willing ear. She clapped her hands to hear me speak like a bride. “Oh, to love and be loved like this,” she sighed.

  Bilhah ate with me and peeked at Shalem. She agreed that he was beautiful but refused to meet him. “I cannot speak to him before my husband does,” she demurred. “But I have seen enough to bring back a good report of our daughter.”

  In the morning, she embraced me and left with Reuben, who had brought her. She carried the word of my happiness into my father’s tents, but her voice was drowned out by the shouts of my brothers, who called me harlot. And Jacob did nothing to stop their foul mouths.

  Simon and Levi had returned to our father after several days, defeated in a secret purpose. They had been in Ashkelon seeking trade not merely for the family’s goats and sheep, wool, and oil, but to speak with slave traders, whose business could yield far greater wealth than any hard-earned harvest of the earth. Simon and Levi wanted wealth and the power it would bring them, but they had no hope of inheriting those from Jacob. It was clear that Reuben would get their father’s birthright and the blessing would go to Joseph, so they were determined to carve out their own glory, however they could.

  But Levi and Simon discovered that the slavers wanted nothing but children. Business was bad. Too many traders had weakened the market, and now they were assured of a good price only for healthy youngsters. My brothers could get nothing at all in trade for the two old serving women they had from their wives’ dowries. They returned home thwarted and bitter.

  When they heard that Hamor had offered my father a king’s bride-price for me, they raised their voices against the marriage, sensing that their own positions would be diminished by such an alliance. Jacob’s house would be swallowed up in the dynasties of Shechem, and while Reuben might expect to become a prince, they and their sons would remain shepherds, poor cousins, nobodies. “We will be lower than Esau,” they muttered to each other and to the brothers over whom they still held sway: Zebulun, Issachar, and Naphtali, of Leah’s womb, and Zilpah’s Gad and Asher.

  When Jacob called all his sons to his tent to consider Hamor’s offer, Simon raised his fist and cried, “Revenge! My sister has been ravaged by an Egyptian dog!”

  Reuben spoke on behalf of Shalem. “Our sister did not cry out,” he said, “nor does the prince cast her aside.”

  Judah agreed. “The size of the bride-price is a compliment to our sister, to our father, and to all the house of Jacob. We will become princes ourselves. We would be fools not to take the gifts that the gods give us. What kind of idiot mistakes a blessing for a curse?”

  But Levi ripped his clothing as though mourning my death, and Simon warned, “This is a trap for the sons of Jacob. If we permit this marriage, the fleshpots of the city will consume my sons and my brothers’ sons. This marriage displeases the god of our father,” he said, challenging Jacob to disagree.

  Their voices grew loud and my brothers glared at one another across the lamps, but Jacob did not let his own thoughts be known. “The uncircumcised dog rapes my sister every day,” Simon thundered. “Am I to permit this desecration of our only sister, my own mother’s daughter?”

  At this, Joseph pulled a skeptical face and half-whispered to Reuben, “If my brother is so concerned about the shape of our brother-in-law’s penis, let our father demand his foreskin for a bride-price. Indeed, let all the men of Shechem become like us. Let them pile up their membranes as high as my father’s tent pole, so that their sons and ours will piss the same, and rut the same, and none will be able to tell us apart. And thus will the tribe of Jacob grow not merely in generations to come, but even tomorrow.”

  Jacob seized upon Joseph’s words, which had been spoken only in mockery of the brothers who had tortured him since infancy. But Jacob did not hear the edge in his son’s words. He said, “Abram took up the knife for those of his household who were not of his covenant. If the men of Shechem agree to this, none could say that our daughter was injured. If the men of the city make such sacrifice to the god of my fathers, we shall be remembered as makers of souls, as gatherers of men. Like the stars in the heavens, as it was told to our father Abram. Like the sands of the sea, was it foretold by my mother Rebecca. And now I will make it come to pass. I will do what Joseph says, for he has my heart.” Jacob spoke with such passion that there was no use in further speech.

  Levi’s face twisted in anger at Jacob’s decision, but Simon placed a hand on his brother’s arm and pulled him away into the night, far from the light of lamps and the ears of their brothers.

  When Hamor journeyed to Jacob’s tent the second time, Shalem accompanied him. Determined not to return to the city without my father’s blessing, he brought two donkeys laden with still more gifts. My beloved was confident as he left, but when he reached my father’s tent, the king’s party was again met with crossed arms, and not so much as a ladle of water was offered before the men began discussing terms.

  My father spoke first, and without ceremony. “You come for our daughter,” he said. “We will agree to the marriage, but I doubt if our terms will suit you, for they are severe.”

  H
amor replied, his earlier warmth for the man blasted by the insulting lack of hospitality. “My son loves the girl,” the king said. “He will do anything for her, and I will do what my son wishes. Name your terms, Jacob. Shechem will fulfill them so that your children and my children will bring forth new generations upon the land.”

  But when Jacob named the price for his daughter, Hamor paled. “What form of barbarity is this?” he asked. “Who do you think you are, shepherd, to demand the blood of my son’s manhood, and mine, and that of my kinsmen and subjects? You are mad from too much sun, too many years in the wilderness. Do you want the girl back, such as she is? You must think very little of this daughter to make such sport of her future.”

  But Shalem stepped forward and put his hand on his father’s arm. “I agree to the demands,” he said to Jacob’s face. “Here and now, if you like. I will honor the custom of my wife’s family, and I will order my slaves and their sons to follow me. I know my father speaks out of fear for me and in loyalty to his men, who would suffer. But for me, there is no question. I hear and obey.”

  Hamor would have argued against his son’s offer, and Levi and Simon were poised to spit in his face. The air smelled like lightning, and daggers might have been drawn had Bilhah not appeared, with water and wine. Women with bread and oil followed, and Jacob nodded for them to serve. They ate a few mouthfuls in silence.

  The terms were agreed to that evening. Jacob accepted four laden donkeys for a bride-price. Shalem and Hamor would go under the knife in three days, as would the men of Shechem, noble and slave alike. All of the healthy men found within the walls of the city on that same morning would also accept the mark of Jacob upon them, and Hamor promised that every son born within the city from that time forth would be circumcised on the eighth day, as was the custom among the sons of Abram. Hamor also pledged that the god of Jacob would be worshiped in his temple, and the king went so far as to call him Elohim, the one god of the many gods.

  My father made me a handsome dowry. Eighteen sheep and eighteen goats, all of my clothing and jewelry, my spindle and grindstone, ten jars of new oil and six great bolts of wool. Jacob agreed to permit marriages between his children and those of Shechem, from that time forth.

  Hamor put his hand under Jacob’s thigh and Jacob touched the king as well, and my betrothal was sealed without a smile or satisfaction.

  That same night, Shalem slipped away from his father’s tent and back into our bed with the news. “You are a married woman now and not merely a ruined girl,” he whispered, waking me before the first light of morning.

  I kissed him and pushed him away. “Well then, now that I am wed and you may not put me aside, I may tell you that my head aches and I cannot receive my lord at this moment,” I said, gathering my robe about my shoulders, and feigning a great yawn even as I slipped my hand between my husband’s legs. “You know, my lord, that women only submit to the caresses of their husbands—they do not enjoy the rough use of their bodies.”

  Shalem laughed and pulled me down on the bed, and we made love with great tenderness that morning. It was a reunion after what had been our longest parting since that day he found me in the market and led me to his bed, which we had made ours.

  We slept late into the day, and only after we had eaten did he tell me my father’s demand. I grew cold and my stomach turned. In my mind’s eye, I saw my beloved in agonies of pain, saw the knife cut too deep, the wound fester, and Shalem dying in my arms. I burst into tears like a little child.

  Shalem made light of it all. “It is nothing,” he said. “A flesh wound. And I hear that afterward, my pleasure of you will be even greater than it is now. So prepare yourself, woman. I will be upon you night and day.”

  But I did not smile. I shivered with a cold that entered my bones and would not leave.

  Re-nefer tried to reassure me, too. She was not displeased at the bargain her husband had struck. “In Egypt,” she said, “they take boys for circumcision when their voices change. It is a merry enough time—they chase the boys and catch them, and afterward, they are petted and fed on every sweet and savory thing they ask for. Rest assured, they all survive.

  “We will have my guard do the deed,” she said. “Nehesi has dispatched many a foreskin. I can care for the pain, and you will help me, little midwife.” She rattled on and on about how easy it would be, and then whispered, with a knowing leer, “Do you not find the male member more attractive without its hood?” But I found nothing amusing about Shalem’s test, and I did not return my mother-in-law’s smile.

  The three days passed. I clung to my husband like a wild thing those nights, and tears ran down my face even as I reached greater pleasures than before. My husband licked the water from my cheeks and ran his salty tongue the length of my body. “I will tease you about this when our first son is born,” he whispered, as I lay on his chest, still shaking with cold.

  The appointed hour arrived. Shalem left me at dawn. I stayed in bed, pretending to sleep, watching him wash and dress through closed eyes. He leaned down to kiss me, but I did not turn my face up to meet his lips.

  I lay there alone, counting my hatred. I hated my father for asking such a terrible price. I hated my husband and his father for agreeing to pay it. I hated my mother-in-law for smoothing the way. I hated myself most for being the cause of it all.

  I lay on the bed, huddled beneath blankets, shivering with anger and fear and unrecognized foreboding, until he was brought back to me.

  It was done in the king’s antechamber. Shalem was first, and then his father, Hamor. Nehesi said that neither king nor prince cried out. Ashnan’s little son followed, and wailed, but the little one did not suffer long, since he had a full breast to console him. The men of the household and the few poor souls who had not disappeared to the countryside outside the walls were not so lucky. They felt the knife keenly, and many screamed as though they were murdered. Their cries pierced the air throughout the morning, but ceased by noon.

  It turned into an unmercifully hot day. There was no breeze or cloud, and even within the thick walls of the palace the air was damp and heavy. The recovering men sweated through their clothing and soaked the beds where they slept.

  Hamor, who uttered no sound when he was cut, fainted in pain, and when he woke put a knife between his teeth to keep from screaming. My Shalem suffered too, though not as badly. He was younger and the salves seemed to ease him, but for him too, the only complete remedy was sleep. I dosed him with a sleeping draft, and whenever he roused, he was thick-headed and weary, slack-jawed and dazed. I bathed my beloved’s face as he slept his drugged sleep and washed his sweating back with the softest touch I could muster. I did my best not to weep so my face would be fresh when he awoke, but as the day wore on the tears came in spite of my efforts. By nightfall, I was exhausted, and I slept by my husband’s side swathed in blankets against the icy winds of my fears, even as Shalem slept naked in the heat.

  In the night, I woke once to feel Shalem caressing my cheek. Wrien he saw my eyes open, he managed a wincing smile and said, “Soon this will be nothing but a dream and our embraces will be sweeter than ever.” His eyes closed again, and I heard him snore for the first time. As I drifted into sleep, I thought how I would tease him about the noise he made in his sleep—like an old dog in the sun. To this day I am not sure that Shalem spoke those words to me, or if it was a dream to comfort me. The rest I know to be true.

  First, there was the sound of a woman screaming. Something terrible must have happened to that poor soul, I thought, trying to turn away from the keening, shrieking, shrilling cry, too dreadful for the real world, the noise of a nightmare.

  The wild, terrified scream came from a great distance, but its distress was so insistent and disturbing that I could not push it aside, and sought to awaken from my heavy sleep and escape the cries. They grew more and more frightening until I realized that my eyes were open and that the tormented soul I pitied was not dreamed or even distant. The screams were my own screams
, the unearthly sound was coming from my twisted mouth.

  I was covered in blood. My arms were coated with the thick, warm blood that ran from Shalem’s throat and coursed like a river down the bed and onto the floor. His blood coated my cheeks and stung my eyes and salted my lips. His blood soaked through the blankets and burned my breasts, streamed down my legs, coated my toes. I was drowning in my lover’s blood. I was screaming loud enough to summon the dead, and yet no one seemed to hear. No guards burst through the door. No servants rushed in. It seemed that I was the last person alive in the world.

  I heard no footsteps and had no warning before strong arms seized me, prying me loose from my beloved. They carried me off the bed trailing blood, screaming into the blackness of the night. It was Simon who lifted me and Levi who stopped up my mouth, and the two of them trussed me hand and foot like a sacrificial goat, loaded me on the back of donkey, and packed me off to my father’s tent before I could alarm any poor soul still left alive in the doomed city. My brothers’ knives worked until the dawn revealed the abomination wrought by the sons of Jacob. They murdered every man they found alive.

  But I knew nothing of that. I knew only that I wanted to die. Nothing but death could stop my horror. Nothing but death could give me peace from the vision of Shalem slashed, bleeding, dead in his startled sleep. Had someone not loosened the gag when I vomited, I would have had my wish. All the way back up the hillside to the tents of Jacob I screamed in silence. Oh gods. Oh heaven. Oh Mother. Why do I still live?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I WAS THE first they knew of it. My own mother saw me and shrieked at the sight of my bloodied body. She fell to the ground, keening over her murdered child, and the tents emptied to learn the cause of Leah’s grief. But Bilhah unbound me and helped me to stand, while Leah stared—first horrified, then relieved, and finally thunderstruck. She reached out her hands toward me but my face stopped her.