by Angela Hunt
“Yes?”
How could she explain that she did not want to linger here for fear of seeing Shim’on again? It would not be proper to announce that her heart had been broken by the vizier’s brother. Though her master had known of her affection for Shim’on, a reference to it now might be interpreted as a request for pity or even imply that Zaphenath-paneah owed her something. He did not. She owed him everything.
Better to leave the past behind.
“My lord,” she asked, daring to look him in the eye, “may I ask what you believe about the afterlife? The other world?”
Zaphenath-paneah tilted his head; obviously, he had not expected that question. “Why do you ask?”
“I want to know, my lord, what will become of Lady Asenath if I do not remain here for the full seventy days. I am her handmaid, and if I am not here to see her safely into her tomb, will she suffer? I would not hurt her for the world, and yet part of me wants to leave this place, and soon.”
If he guessed at her reasons, he did not speak of them. Instead, the vizier lowered his head into his hands and kneaded his forehead as though his head ached with memories. “I believe,” he said, “that God Shaddai prepares a place for those who trust Him. I believe each individual is born with an immortal soul, similar to that part the Egyptians call the ka, that survives this life.” He lowered his hands. “I do not believe we need all the goods and foods the Egyptians place in their tombs, for treasures have little to do with life or with God.”
“So…my mistress?”
He eased into a weary smile. “If it sets your mind at ease, Mandisa, know that Asenath is already in the Otherworld, she has already passed from death to life. Before she died, she made her peace with God…and with me.” He lowered his voice to a gentler tone. “If you wish to leave my house, your mistress will not suffer.”
She sighed in relief. “Then I will leave you, Zaphenath-paneah. With gratitude, honor and respect, I and my son will bid you farewell.”
“Halima, I wanted to speak to you before I left.”
The slave girl’s eyes brimmed with tears as she clasped her floury hands. “Mandisa, you can’t really go.”
Mandisa lifted her head to look one final time at the vizier’s well-stocked kitchen. Jars of honey, dates and raisins lined the walls; the day’s catch of fresh fish lay neatly arranged on the table, ready for filleting. She and Adom would eat their fill today, for who could say when they would have another opportunity to eat like this?
Halima forced a wavering smile to her lips. “Let me at least prepare you a basket, Mandisa. Sometimes I think you are the only friend who cares for me.”
“Thank you, I’d be grateful,” Mandisa answered, sinking to a low stool away from the fire. “But I need you to do something else for me, too.”
The girl’s eyes went round with curiosity. “What?”
“Be a friend to Tizara. Though at first I disliked her as much as anyone else, Zaphenath-paneah has shown me that I must serve her out of devotion to him, not because of anything she has done. I have tried to help her in the past few weeks, but I haven’t done all I should. But she is much changed since the night she attempted to escape.”
“Me, help her? ” A note of alarm rang in Halima’s tone. “I can’t do that!”
“She is no longer what she once was.”
“I don’t care what she was, she is still beautiful. And look at me! I’m plain, I’m a lowly kitchen slave, and—” her flush deepened “—I’m fat! How could I even speak to her, and why would she listen to me?”
“You are a gentle and compassionate spirit,” Mandisa said. “And you know something of heartbreak, for I’ve seen you look at Tarik when you think no one else sees.”
Halima pressed her hand over her mouth.
“Please, Halima, succeed where I have failed. Serve our master by being a friend to Tizara, and God Shaddai will bless you for your efforts.”
“God Shaddai?” Halima lifted a brow. “The vizier’s invisible God? What could He possibly do for me?”
“More than you dream, Halima,” Mandisa answered, rising. She paused to squeeze the girl’s shoulders. “More than you can imagine.”
IDOGBE
And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
— Ezekiel 11:19–20
Chapter Thirty-Six
A s a scorching, arid wind blew across the drab valley of Hebron, Shim’on turned into the current, seeking its hot breath upon his face. He needed to be alone with his thoughts. For the first time in his life, the close quarters of the family compound made him feel as crowded as a hen in a cluster of chickens.
He walked to a slope outside the camp, glad to be away from the tumult as his brothers and their families worked to disassemble nearly three decades of their lives. A myriad of scents and sounds reached him: a meowing wail from one of the children, the ammoniac odor of the donkeys’ pen, voices raised in argument.
Yosef had told them not to bring possessions, for whatever they needed could be found in Egypt, but still the women clung to sentimental objects. Re’uven’s wife bickered with her husband, refusing to abandon the cradle in which she had laid her sons. At the edge of the clearing, Asher’s and Dan’s wives struggled to fit a bundle of sheepskins onto the back of an already-overflowing wagon.
Shim’on sighed and crossed his arms. He had no wife to argue with him, and no sentimental attachments to this place or any other. His father felt fondness for Hebron because he grew up here and Avraham had sojourned in this fertile valley. Here Yaakov had tricked Esav out of the eldest brother’s rightful blessing, and from these pleasant pasturelands he had fled from Esav’s fierce and angry hand.
Shim’on studied the distant horizon. How was his uncle Esav faring now? He and his people had moved south and westward beyond Mount Hor, and had little contact with Yaakov. Both brothers had departed from the land El Shaddai deeded to Yitzhak’s descendants; only Yaakov had returned to claim it. But now Yaakov was preparing to leave his birthplace, knowing full well that he might never return. Shim’on supposed he understood why Yaakov would leave his beloved homeland in order to be with a more-beloved son, but when his eyes had filled with the glory of his long-lost favorite, how could they ever turn with approval upon the less-than-glorious sons he merely tolerated?
Mandisa was wrong. Shim’on lifted his gaze to the burning sun, welcoming its harsh heat on his face. Mandisa said I should confront my father, that I would hear a reassurance that he loved me. But even as passionate as she is, she could never understand the depth of the love Yaakov bore Rahel or comprehend the breadth of the indifference he exhibited toward Lea. Mandisa is a loving mother, she could never conceive the constancy of the hatred and blame my father holds toward me. For I caused Rahel’s death, and that he will never forget or forgive.
A sensation of intense desolation swept over him and he rubbed his chest, massaging the stab of guilt that throbbed in his breast. A hunger for Mandisa’s company gnawed at his heart, and he clenched his fist, fortifying himself against it. He was spending too much time alone; the solitude of his Egyptian captivity had affected him more than he realized.
He turned toward the camp. Though joyous activity buzzed throughout the compound, one tent stood silent in the desert heat. It had been Lea’s tent while she lived, and Dina lived inside now.
Shim’on strode toward the tent, absorbing the sounds and smells of home: the scents of dung-fires and cooking food, the sharp clop of an ax, the sharp tang of wood shavings. He was overdue for a visit with Dina; he had not spent a moment alone with his sister since his return. Had she missed him at all during his time away?
Lea’s tent was heavier and older than the others. Shim’on lifted the flap and frowned; the air inside smelled as if it
had been breathed too many times. Squinting through the darkness, he saw Dina standing by a pile of furs, tall and formidable, with a shiny smile that was the softest thing about her.
“Shim’on,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact.
She was a mature woman now, no longer a maiden. The dark hair that flew from her head in silky tangles had begun to gray at the temples. Her face was square and solid, the image of her mother’s, but for the first time Shim’on noticed a soft sag beneath the chin.
“Dina.” He made an effort to keep his greeting light. “How is my favorite sister today?”
“Your only sister,” she said, her smile as wry as ever. The gold in her eyes flickered as he moved toward her. “You are heavier. Did you eat too much at the Egyptian banquets?”
“I am not heavy. The others are too thin.” Shim’on dropped to a blanket. He waited until she sat across from him, then he spoke again. “I suppose you have heard that Yosef is alive and ruler of Egypt.”
Her face creased in a sudden smile. “I have always known he still lived.”
Shim’on stretched out on the blanket, determined to humor her. “How could you know? None of us knew what happened to him.”
“You knew. Despite the story you told Father, I read the guilt in your eyes. And though I feared you had killed him, I knew God Shaddai would protect Yosef. He was too special to die so young.”
He stroked his beard. “Why did you think we would kill him?”
“You killed my Shekhem,” she replied, lifting one shoulder in a slight shrug. There was no rancor or blame in her voice, only the clear ring of truth. “And then you took my baby and left it in the wilderness. A heart hard enough to kill my husband and expose an innocent child would not hesitate to kill my brother.”
Her words cut him, spreading an infection of remorse, but he glared at her and refused to consider them further. “The stink of this tent has softened your senses. That boy treated you like a prostitute! And the child was nothing, an illegitimate brat born of a cursed union.”
“Shekhem made me an honorable proposal of marriage,” Dina answered, speaking with quiet emphasis. “And the innocent child was as much a descendant of Avraham as you are, Shim’on. You were wrong to take it from me.”
“Father did not stop me.”
“Father.” She repeated the word in a faintly contemptuous tone and waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Far too many times Father has done nothing while his sons committed evil. But I have prayed, Shim’on, I have agonized with the Spirit of God Shaddai. And for many years I have known that Yosef lives—just as I know my daughter lives, too.”
His shock yielded quickly to fury. “Sister, you are a fool!” He crawled to her side and grasped her shoulders, resisting the urge to shake her into gasping acknowledgment of the truth. That child couldn’t be alive; nothing could survive in the desert! Dina’s baby had been born shortly after Rahel’s death, and Yaakov had been so immersed in his grief that he had neither the time nor the willingness to consider his daughter’s daughter. Zilpa, Rahel’s maid, had been preoccupied with the care of newborn Binyamin, and Lea could not look at Dina or her child without weeping.
So Shim’on did what countless others have done throughout history. While Dina slept, he took the infant from her side, mounted a donkey and rode away from the camp. When he was certain no one had followed him, he turned toward the family burial grounds: the cave in the field of Machpelah, before the city of Mamre. Once he reached the cave Avraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite, he dismounted and placed the baby under the shade of a sprawling terebinth tree. There, at least, the child would experience a more merciful death than if he had left it on the sun-blasted rocks.
“Listen to me,” he begged Dina now, a raw and primitive grief tearing in his soul. “You never had a child.”
“As God lives, I did!”
“But it never should have been born. You must forget it. You have dwelt on the past too long. All day you sit here in this tent, never venturing forth unless the women insist you come out. You do nothing but make clothing for other people’s little ones, but you should have married and had your own family by now.”
“I had a family, Shim’on.” She lowered her hands to her lap as her shoulders sagged. “I had a husband and a daughter. I belonged to a city. Then you and Levi came through with your bloody blades and put an end to my life.
When I felt the movement of the baby within me I thought I still had a chance at happiness, but you stole that, too. Now I have nothing.”
Her stare drilled into him. Shim’on released her shoulders and clenched his fists, furious at his vulnerability wherever she was concerned. “And you blame me for this?” He shouldn’t care what she thought, for she was a woman, and a deranged one at that, but he couldn’t banish her words from his mind. “If you must blame someone, blame our father. He was the one who cared nothing for you. I am guilty of many things, but the crime of not loving is his alone!”
“Really? Tell me, Shim’on—who have you loved?”
He stood, ignoring her challenge as he paced in reckless anger. “Our father didn’t defend you when Shekhem and Hamor came calling. He didn’t care a niggling whit for the babe when it was born. He has never cared about you, or me, or any of us, because we did not spring from Rahel.”
“Our father may not have been perfect, Shim’on, but he never killed another man,” Dina answered with easy defiance. “He may not have shown you the love you deserve, but he did not hate you. He grieved over your wrongs, he mourned when you chose to pursue the lusts of your heart instead of following El Shaddai.”
“Can you forget—” Shim’on boldly met her eyes “—how our mother wept into her pillow each night our father stayed with Rahel?”
“No,” Dina admitted. “But can you not see what has happened since Rahel’s death?”
“See what?” he yelled, choking on his own words. “I see an old man who adored Yosef and tethered Binyamin to his side like a dog.”
“No, Shim’on.” An almost imperceptible note of pleading filled Dina’s face as she leaned forward, her gaze boring into him. “Open your eyes, Shim’on the Destroyer. Open your heart.”
Shim’on found himself shrinking from the brightness of her watchful smile. Somehow she had gained the upper hand.
“Our mother named her firstborn Re’uven, ‘God has seen my misery,’” Dina went on, her voice full of strength and confidence. “You she called Shim’on, ‘the Lord hears that I am not loved.’”
“What are you prattling about?” Shim’on growled. “I know what my name means.”
“Our mother called her third son Levi, ‘my husband will now be attached to me,’” Dina continued. “And Yehuda means, ‘I will praise the Lord.’”
“So?”
“Don’t you see?” Dina tipped her head back and offered him a sudden, arresting smile. “Our mother came to accept who and what she was. When she stopped striving against our father and God, her grief and jealousy ceased. But by that time you and the others had grown up and moved out to the fields. And when Rahel died, our father came to depend upon Lea. He loved her, too, not as passionately as he adored Rahel, but in a stronger, more practical way.”
Dina’s solid features softened. “When Mother died, Father mourned for her in private, then commanded that she be buried in the Cave of Machpelah with Avraham and Sarah, Yitzhak and Rebekah. In the tomb of our forefathers, she waits now for the husband who came to love her long after you left her tent. Our mother was honored, Shim’on. She was loved.”
Shim’on looked away, his mind reeling with perplexing emotions. Had he spent a lifetime hating Yaakov for his mother’s sake when Yaakov had come to love Lea after all? The loneliness and confusion of over forty years melded in one upsurge of devouring yearning—for what? For his mother? Or for the safety of his familiar bitterness? Out of regret, fear and shame he had built a fortress to defend himself against his father, but now, in one moment, Dina had breached the wall.<
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“This is nothing but foolishness,” Shim’on replied, more shaken than he wanted to admit. “Your good sense has left you, Dina, if you ever had any at all.”
“I did not think you would understand,” Dina whispered. “Don’t you see? I don’t hate you for what you did to my baby. I don’t even hate you for killing Shekhem. God Shaddai, the Eternal One, has given me peace in knowing that He controls my ways.”
“What kind of God would tell you to sit in your room and pout all day?”
She met his accusing eyes without flinching. “I am not pouting, I am praying. But until your stony heart changes, Shim’on, you will not understand the difference.”
Restless and irritable, Shim’on stormed out of Dina’s tent and walked toward the shed where his brothers had penned the donkeys. After fitting one of the creatures with a bridle, he mounted and kicked the miserable animal’s bony sides, hurrying it toward the Cave of Machpelah and the terebinth tree.
Above him, a vulture scrolled the hot updrafts, searching for yet another victim of the famine. The gray bones of desiccated trees had begun to show; the dry and dusty world around him was as stark and bleak as a battlefield. Billows of brown powder drifted from what should have been oases, shadows of whisper-thin clouds moved like stalking gray cats over the lifeless countryside.
Above the horizon, the blurred and bloodred sun baked the earth and everything on it with merciless heat. How could a baby survive in the wilderness? Dina had always been a dreamer, she was like Yosef in that respect. Her conviction that Yosef still lived—if she had honestly held one—had been based on nothing more than wishful thinking. But her child could not have survived the desert’s heat, the threat of jackals or the nighttime cold.
Sweating and cursing the sun, Shim’on rode for a short time, then glanced around for a familiar landmark. The land to the north was as flat as stretched cloth, marred only by the hot sun and whining wind. There were no terebinth trees in sight, no recognizable trails, no wadis to mark Shim’on’s progress into the countryside.