He paid no attention to them at all, though Leah had not been quiet. Instead he began gathering up the cloth that marked the dooryard, signifying to the rest of the camp that privacy was no longer desired here. Leah watched him, growing angrier and more hurt by the moment that he could treat her so despitefully.
“Am I nothing to you?” she said.
He ignored her.
“You disdain me as if I didn’t exist.”
Jacob chuckled. “God be with you, daughter of my brother Laban,” he said.
“Now you laugh at me.”
“May the Lord fill your heart with peace.”
“Don’t ignore me like this!”
Bilhah extended a hand, but did not quite touch Leah. “He’s not ignoring you, he’s praying for you.”
Jacob finished folding up the lightweight cloth. “May the spirit of Wisdom help you hear what has been spoken to your heart.”
Then he went off, no doubt to return the cloth to wherever it was kept, as if Leah didn’t exist, as if he hadn’t lashed out at her and wounded her to the heart by his contempt for her.
“Rejoice, Leah,” said Bilhah. “The spirit of Wisdom spoke to you today. Let the words rest gently in your heart, and think no more about the injuries done to you.”
“And now you mock me too, by talking to me like a baby,” said Leah. “I have no one in this camp who thinks of me as having any worth at all.”
Bilhah got up.
“I haven’t dismissed you,” said Leah.
“I’m a free girl,” said Bilhah. “You can ask your father to drive me away from his camp, and see if he does. But I don’t come and go at your command.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“Do you have any friends who aren’t hired or enslaved?” asked Bilhah.
“My sister Rachel!”
“Then go and tell her what happened here today, and see what she thinks.”
That was the vilest mockery of all, because, first of all, Rachel wasn’t in camp by this time of day, so there was no way that Leah could go to her without help, and second, because Bilhah knew perfectly well that Rachel was the person in camp who treated Leah the very worst. It made Leah ashamed that she had ever thought of Bilhah as her friend. They were all against her, every one. They had no compassion. They all thought that because she couldn’t see with her eyes, she didn’t understand anything, she was stupid, her ideas counted for nothing. But she was clever, she knew she was. She had not misunderstood the holy words of God. She knew what she was meant to do.
If they loved her, if they even had as much compassion for her as they would certainly have had to a lost lamb, then the moment she told them that the spirit of Wisdom had whispered that these words were for her, they would have smeared clay on her eyes and brought her water to wash them with, so she could see like Enoch saw.
And if Jacob was right and the “seeing” Enoch was supposed to do was the vision of a seer rather than mere eyesight, would that be so awful, to let Leah receive a gift like that from God?
Now here she was in the dooryard, displayed to everyone’s eyes. They could see her, but she couldn’t see them. They could all be watching her and she’d never even know it. The only time she knew she was alone was in the dark, because then nobody could see. And in the dark, she could hear things they didn’t hear, she could tell where smells were coming from, she could know things just by the feel of them. In the dark, she would have the advantage over any of them.
But it wasn’t dark, it was broad day, and she had been shamed.
CHAPTER 12
Leah rose to her feet and, remembering where her own tent was relative to Jacob’s, she began making her slow progress through the camp.
As she walked, she remembered the words that had stood out as if they had been written in the air in shining gold, or burned with fire into her heart: “So walk with me.” She had been invited by God to walk with him, as Enoch had done, as Enoch’s wife had done. And yet in the camp of Padan-aram, her father’s own household, she had to walk alone.
Walk with me, the Lord had said. But even God’s words were a mockery. How could she walk with him? Where was his arm, so she could lean on him and he could guide her through the blur? Even God’s promises were not kept.
She wept bitterly.
“Mistress,” murmured a voice from not far off. Leah ignored it. “Mistress,” said the voice again. “May I walk with you to your tent?”
She knew the voice now—there was no one in the camp whose voice she did not know, if they spoke enough words. It was Zilpah, the one who had such an awful reputation.
Ordinarily, Leah would have thanked her and refused. But then she thought: Wisdom told me that God was saying “walk with me” to me, and then I wept because he wasn’t walking with me. Well, maybe this is how his word will be fulfilled. Maybe he has sent someone to walk with her in his place.
So she reached out her hand, and Zilpah tucked it under her arm and walked so close to her their thighs, not just their dresses, brushed together at every step. “Are you sad?”
“What does it look like?” said Leah. “I thought I was the one with tender eyes.”
“You could be crying for joy. Or the tears could mean your eyes hurt.”
“Crying for joy,” said Leah scornfully. “What do I have to be joyful about?”
“I’m always happy,” said Zilpah.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Leah. “Nobody’s always happy.”
“I am.”
“You have nothing to be happy about,” said Leah. The girl was fatherless! She had no hope of a decent marriage.
“True,” said Zilpah, “but I have dreams that make me happy. And besides, I don’t have to have a reason. Being sad or angry won’t make my situation any better, so I might as well be happy.”
“You can’t just decide to be happy.”
“Why not? You decide to be angry whenever you want.”
“I don’t decide,” said Leah, letting go of her arm.
Zilpah laughed.
“And now you laugh at me, you nasty little …”
“Go ahead and say it,” said Zilpah, chuckling. “I know the word. I’ve heard it before.”
“I don’t know what word you mean,” said Leah.
Zilpah laughed even louder.
“I don’t need your scorn,” said Leah, walking away.
But the servant girl stayed with her. “When I said that you decide to be angry whenever you want, this is what I meant. You could have laughed at me and said, ‘Be careful or I might decide to get angry at you.’”
“I could have but I didn’t.”
“No, because you decided to get angry. But if you had decided to enjoy the silly thing I said, then you would have been deciding to be happy.”
“But I wasn’t happy.”
“And that was your decision.” Zilpah laughed again. “You must enjoy being miserable, since you choose it all the time.”
And with that, Zilpah was gone, dancing away, her feet scuffing lightly on the dirt of the path.
Leah should have been furious with her for such an outrageous—and uninvited—judgment of her.
But she remembered that when she had thought of God’s words—so walk with me—that was the moment Zilpah appeared. Did that mean that whatever Zilpah said to her came from God? But that was ludicrous. God couldn’t speak to her from the mouth of a …
God couldn’t? What was she thinking? There was nothing God couldn’t do. He could use a fatherless bondservant as his messenger, if it pleased him to do so.
Was it possible that she chose to be angry?
No, that was stupid. The anger just came. Unbidden. Unwanted. Why would she choose such a terrible feeling?
Zilpah’s coming had nothing to do with the words of God. The Lord’s message to her had been in the book, not in a servant’s mouth.
But Zilpah still had to be near. So Leah called to her. “Zilpah! Zilpah, I need you!”
“
Zilpah’s not here anymore,” said Bilhah.
“Go away,” said Leah.
“I’m sorry I spoke so disrespectfully to you,” said Bilhah. “I was angry.”
“You had no right to be angry.”
“I see that now,” said Bilhah. “You needed something—you called to Zilpah. Please let me do whatever it is you wanted her to do.”
Leah’s first thought was to say, No, you hate me and I don’t have to associate with people who hate me.
Then she thought, I don’t have to be angry.
And in just the moment it took her to think of it, the first hot spark of anger faded.
“I’m not angry now,” Leah said, a little surprised.
“Thank you,” said Bilhah. “Let me serve you.”
“I need a basin of water,” said Leah. “I’m going to wash my eyes.”
“I’ll bring it to you. In your tent?”
“Outside. Where there’s clay.”
“Won’t any dirt do to make a kind of mud?”
“Clay, the Lord said.”
“Let me bring that to you, then, from the potmaking shed.”
Leah almost snapped at her, can’t you just do what I asked? But she realized that it would be much faster if Bilhah fetched both the water and the clay. “Yes, please,” said Leah.
Was this what Zilpah meant? To choose not to be angry?
It was certainly true that by not acting angry, Leah was going to get both water and clay much faster. But that was different from not being angry.
I’m not angry, though. I acted as if I weren’t angry, and now I’m not angry.
But that’s just being a hypocrite.
Or maybe that’s what it means to be kind—to treat someone well even when they make you angry.
Am I unkind?
The thought was an uncomfortable one. She wouldn’t think it any more.
Having decided that, it was inevitable that she kept remembering recent moments when she had been angry, and had said things that were definitely unkind. To people who probably didn’t deserve it.
Like Jacob. Maybe he really was just trying to tell what he thought, and not telling her that she didn’t have any right to understand the scriptures her own way. Maybe she had just made herself look like a fool in front of him.
Bilhah returned with a basin and a small basket of clay.
“I’ll bet they told you to make sure I didn’t try to make any pots,” said Leah.
“No, they didn’t,” said Bilhah.
“I know they did,” said Leah, anger once again bubbling to the surface. “They think I’m ridiculous down at the pot-making shed. The women there thought it was so funny the time I tried to make a pot.”
“There wasn’t anyone there,” said Bilhah. “I just took the clay, so nobody said anything because nobody even knew.”
Leah found herself growing even angrier because Bilhah had made her look ridiculous for having been so sure the women talked hatefully about her. But she stopped herself long enough to realize that there was no reason to be angry. Leah was getting angry because Bilhah had said that no one ridiculed her at the potmaking shed, yet they couldn’t have mocked her because they weren’t even there. So instead of getting angrier, Leah should have gotten less angry.
And now I am less angry, just by thinking that I should be.
“I’m sorry,” said Leah.
“For what?”
“I really do get angry over nothing, don’t I,” said Leah.
“Never over nothing,” said Bilhah.
“But small things.”
“Don’t we all, sometimes?”
“I do it all the time,” said Leah, with awe.
Bilhah said nothing.
“And you’re silent now because you’re afraid that anything you say will set me off.”
Still she said nothing.
“Give me the clay,” Leah said. “Let me dilute it in water and smear it on my eyes.”
“I can do that for you.”
“The Lord told Enoch to do it himself,” said Leah. “So I’ll do it, too.”
She dribbled water onto the clay and kneaded the dampest part of it, then dribbled on a little more water until here fingers were covered with a thick, gloppy mixture.
Then she closed her eyes and smeared the wet clay so it completely covered her closed eyelids, right up to the eyebrows and down onto the cheeks.
“Have I covered everything?” asked Leah. “Is there any skin showing?”
“Left eye,” said Bilhah. “Upper eyelid, near the outside corner.”
Leah daubed again.
“That’s it.”
Leah sat there for a moment. “I wonder how long before I should wash it off.”
“The book of Enoch didn’t say.”
“The Lord just said, smear clay on your eyes and wash them, and you’ll be able to see.”
“That doesn’t sound like there’s any waiting time at all.”
“Do you think I already waited too long?”
“If it mattered, the Lord would have said,” Bilhah reassured her. “I don’t think the Lord plays tricks on people.”
Leah almost answered, You think not? Well, just look at my life!
But this wouldn’t be a good time to say bitter things about the way the Lord had treated her. What if even thinking such a negative thought drove away the Lord’s promise to her? No, no, as Bilhah said, he wouldn’t have given her this promise just to punish her.
She washed it off, and again asked Bilhah to check that it was done completely.
Then Leah opened up her eyes.
Nothing was changed. Bilhah was still nothing but a nearby blur. Faroff things were completely invisible.
“I shouldn’t have waited before I washed,” said Leah.
“We can try it again.”
“Maybe I only get one try,” said Leah. And now tears began to flow. “Maybe I already proved that I’m not worthy.”
“Try again,” said Bilhah. “It can’t hurt.”
Leah tried again, and this time washed immediately. But to no avail.
She cried in earnest now. “I’m a wicked girl,” she said, “and God is showing me just what I deserve.”
“I think you’re not wicked,” said Bilhah. “I think the Lord loves you as much as he loves anybody.”
“As much as he loves the girl whose father was crushed against a wall in Byblos?” said Leah.
“At least that much,” said Bilhah.
“As much as a fatherless girl who has nothing to offer a husband except her own body?” asked Leah.
“Maybe a little more than that one,” said Bilhah.
“As much as a beautiful shepherd girl that dreams of a prince coming to her and kissing her at the well, and the dream comes true, and now he has made himself a bondservant in order to earn the right to marry her? Does God love me as much as that?”
Bilhah had no answer.
“I want to be alone now,” said Leah. “I’m not angry. I’m just very sad.”
“Please let me stay with you,” said Bilhah. “Please let me be your friend.”
“You are my friend,” said Leah. “You keep coming back to me after I drive you away. You keep forgiving me after I’m wicked.” And then, because she couldn’t help but say what was in her heart, she added, “You must love me more than God does.”
“Nobody loves you more than God,” said Bilhah, her voice sounding just a little shocked.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Leah. “Please. Go.”
“Don’t sit outside here, Leah. Let me help you back inside your tent.”
“Just take away the basin and the clay,” said Leah. “I can find my way inside from here. I’m not helpless at everything.”
Leah got up as Bilhah gathered up the basin and the basket and started off toward the potmaking shed. But as Leah made her way around to the door of the tent, she heard Bilhah stop and then return.
“What is it?” Leah asked.
> “I just thought,” said Bilhah. “The thought just came into my mind, and it was so clear I just had to, I just had to come and say it.”
“Say it then,” said Leah. “I won’t be angry.”
“Are you sure that the thing about Enoch smearing clay on his eyes was the part that Wisdom told you was meant for you? That’s all. I just wondered.”
Leah felt her temper flare up. And she was so sad, she wanted to lash out, to scream her disappointment and grief. But she had given Bilhah permission to say it. And the moment’s pause in which she thought of that was enough to remove the desire from her heart.
“I don’t remember,” said Leah honestly. “Maybe all that the Lord ever meant me to hear as his message to me was … Walk with me.”
“But I say that to you every day,” said Bilhah. “Walk with me.”
“And I say the same to you,” said Leah. “It isn’t much of a message from God, is it? Just something ordinary that we do every day.”
“I guess what matters is that it’s God saying it,” said Bilhah.
“Maybe so,” said Leah. Then she went inside the tent and Bilhah did not follow.
Maybe so, she murmured to herself again, but she did not believe it. She did not believe that Wisdom had whispered anything at all. What she heard was her own intense desire to know that God noticed her. But God did not notice her. She was as overlooked by God as she had been ignored by Father and Jacob when she and Rachel were presented. God, like Jacob, sees only Rachel, and loves only Rachel, and why not? I’m an angry, selfish, wicked blind girl. Which part of that would make me a woman to desire, or a child that God could love?
PART VII
BROTHERS
CHAPTER 13
The last assignment Zilpah wanted was to tend babies. They were filthy and demanding and when you were done, the best you could say was that you hadn’t actually killed it, and no one thanked you for it.
Why should she be given such work, when there were plenty of old women in the camp who weren’t good for anything else? It’s not as if she could wetnurse a baby, and why else would a young woman be wasted on such work?
Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis) Page 15