Slender Reeds: Jochebed’s Hope

by Texie Susan Gregory

  The families had gathered around Lili to care for her; the women baked extra bread, the men shouldered some of her husband’s work, even the children took turns caring for her sheep or standing guard as she stared at the river.

  Everyone helped except Shiphrah.

  When she arrived at the grieving village on the day of death, Shiphrah stitched Lili’s head wound and prepared a draught to calm her. She and Bedde sat with her throughout the night, keeping her quiet, allowing her body to heal and her mind to rest. Shiphrah finally insisted Jochebed lie down and sleep. Lili woke to see only Shiphrah and screamed until others came running and insisted Shiphrah leave. Lili had not spoken to Shiphrah since that awful night.

  “Shiphrah, I know this is not the usual way our people approach this, but nothing seems usual anymore.” Samuel pulled at the neck of his tunic as if it had suddenly become too tight. “You and Puah have no living male relatives, and so I do not know who to tell that … I mean to ask if, well, might you consider allowing, or consent to marriage between myself and—”

  Shiphrah heard her name being called and scanned the riverbank until she saw Miriam waving and running toward her.

  “Aunt Shiphrah, Mama sent for you to come help. It’s time for the baby. Hurry.”

  Awkwardly, Shiphrah dipped her head to Samuel in a quick apology and turned toward Miriam, who caught at her arm and began to pull.

  “Babies take a while to arrive, Miriam. We’ll be there in plenty of time.” Shiphrah had not been sure she wanted to hear what Samuel was about to ask her, but now she would have to wonder what he had been about to say.

  Breathless, Miriam panted. “I’ve been looking and looking for you.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t find you anywhere, and”—Miriam squinted at the sun—“it’s already been a long time.”

  “Shiphrah, go on with Miriam,” Samuel urged. “I’ll watch over Lili. We can talk later.”

  Jochebed clenched her teeth. This baby was coming with or without Shiphrah. This must be how Sarah felt. Jochebed wished she had listened more patiently to the old woman. She’d be glad to see even Old Sarah right now.

  Jochebed gasped. She had been through this before and knew the signs, knew the increasing frequency as it became one long breath-stopping pain. Just as she was about to give up hope of someone coming to help, the door swung open. Shiphrah limped in behind Miriam and calmly began to give instructions.

  “Miriam, take your brother outside. Either find someone to watch him and return here or find help for us. Hurry, dear. I need someone here as soon as possible.”

  Miriam obeyed, speaking softly, insistently to Aaron as she pulled him into her arms. She had not left when a figure appeared in the open doorway.

  “I’m here.” Lili spoke from the door, the hoarseness of her voice startling them.

  Shiphrah nodded, and together the two women pulled Jochebed to squat on the birthing stones. Lili stood behind her so Jochebed could grip both her hands. With one last groan, Jochebed bore down, pushing the baby’s head out, and Shiphrah caught the squirmy infant in her hands, easing him from his mother’s body. Jochebed saw Lili and Shiphrah stare at the child and guessed why they had both become so quiet. She waited, praying she was wrong. She had to be wrong.

  “Bedde.” Shiphrah’s voice cracked. “You have a son.”

  Lili buried her face in her hands.

  Shiphrah placed the freshly washed infant in his mother’s arms and began to clean away the remaining signs that a birth had occurred. Nearby, Lili sat watching her every move as if at any moment Shiphrah would lift the birthing knife and kill the newborn.

  Shiphrah said nothing, enduring the shame of distrust, the humiliation of doubt, grateful that for whatever reason, Lili had come to help Bedde. She guessed Lili had come more to protect Bedde than to assist with the birth. Lili would be livid if she knew of the question her brother Samuel had been about to ask.

  Venom slithered from Lili’s expressive eyes, and in spite of herself, Shiphrah stayed as far away from her as possible. It was not an easy task in the small room, and when she passed close to Lili, she saw her draw back as if avoiding a foul stench or a filthy carcass.

  Thankful that Jochebed seemed oblivious to the tension, Shiphrah bit the inside of her mouth and continued to straighten the room. She would scrub the birthing rags in the river and lug jars of clean water to the house before she left. Miriam, at seven, could care for the little family. She doubted Lili would stay to help once she believed Bedde was safe from “the Egyptian.”

  Jochebed could not look away from her son. Such thick eyelashes, such long fingers, just like Amram’s. A lump grew in her throat, and her mouth quivered. This child, perhaps the last gift from her husband, might never know his father’s smile, the strength of his father’s arms.

  Kissing the tiny head, she sniffed his delicate baby scent. Was there any other smell so soft and pure as that of a newborn? Even the Egyptians with their endless array of perfumes could not compare with this elusive richness.

  She stroked his skin, wrinkled from birth, softer than a warm southern breeze. His little mouth pursed as if returning her kisses, and Jochebed fell in love.

  It was foolish. She knew that—and dangerous, she acknowledged. It was asking for a broken heart, she admitted to herself.

  He nestled in her arms, completely vulnerable, totally helpless, and in his guileless power, her defenses crumbled.

  Somehow she would think of a way to save this little one. He must not suffer the fate of so many other babies. Jochebed shuddered. The jagged teeth of a crocodile must not tear his tender skin. Never could she leave him by the river’s edge as Pharaoh ordered.

  How evil could one person be? How could the slaughter of innocents please anyone? Rip her heart out, and still she’d fight before sacrificing this precious child to Egypt with its frog and crocodile gods.

  Determination dug past fear, trenching into a fierce protectiveness. This infant boy would live, no matter what it took, no matter what it cost, no matter what she must sacrifice.

  Jochebed set her mind to find a way, knowing she faced this alone. Mother was dead and Amram sent to another country. Lili seemed to be suffocating in grief. Miriam, yet a child, and Shiphrah—she didn’t know what to think about Shiphrah—how Egyptian was she? Would she alert the soldiers of another male birth?

  There had been so many losses. She could trust no one with the life of her child, not even God. He had already taken so much from her.

  A scratching on the door alerted Jochebed to hide her infant. Having just finished nursing him, she hoped he would sleep and not draw attention.

  Lili cracked the door open, trying to avoid its squeak, and slipped inside. Jochebed greeted her cautiously. Was this a good day or a bad day? Sometimes Lili seemed lost, drowning in grief. Other times she was subdued but able to manage tending her sheep and caring for her husband.

  Lili handed her a fish wrapped in sodden papyrus leaves. “Benjamin caught two this morning. He wanted you to have one.” Lili searched the room. “Where is your baby, Bedde? Is he sleeping, or can I see him?”

  Jochebed took her son from his hiding place. “Do you want to hold him, Lili?”

  “No. Yes.” She reached out and then backed away. “I can’t, not yet.”

  Jochebed lifted him to her shoulder and began to pat his back.

  “Bedde.” Lili examined her fingers. “I don’t know what to think about Shiphrah. Do you trust her completely?”

  Jochebed busied herself with the baby and pretended not to hear. She wanted to say, “No. Yes. I can’t, not yet.” She said nothing.

  “I’ve heard that after everything else she’s done, now she is throwing herself at Samuel.” Lili fumed. “She’s trying to trick him into marrying her.”

  “Tell me you are not listening to Sarah. You know how she twists everything she hears or imagines she’s heard. I never realized Shiphrah liked Samuel. I always suspected…”

  “Sarah heard them talkin
g about it, and Sarah says she’s not really one of us. She’s one of those who—who took my baby away.” Lili chewed her thumbnail. “Bedde, sometimes I think, ‘She’s Shiphrah and I’ve known her forever. She would never hurt me.’ Other times I think, ‘What do we really know about her? She’s Egyptian. She went to their temples. She limps. Can we trust her? How do we know who to trust?’”

  Once she heard the necessary burp, Jochebed tucked her son into his hiding place and turned back to Lili. What could she say? Jochebed wished for her mother’s wisdom in situations like this. What would Mama have done?

  She sighed and tried to sift through her own ambivalence. “Lili, your hurt, your loss is beyond words, beyond my understanding. I lost a child, but it was different. I never held him in my arms, never saw his face. I don’t know how you bear such pain.” Jochebed reached for Lili’s hands. How cold they felt.

  “Please hear my heart when I say this, dear friend.” She paused. “Shiphrah suffers with every step she takes. Her Egyptian father maimed her, you know that, but she suffers in other ways, too.”

  Lili started to pull away, but Jochebed held her hands tightly.

  “She loves this little family of hers, and if someone will care for her and accept them, how can we stand in her way? She feels she doesn’t fit in anywhere, neither with us nor with them. Yet she lives with us, worshipping our God, living with our suspicions.” Jochebed released Lili’s hands. “I trust her as much as I can, and I pray each day it will increase.” She looked steadily into Lili’s eyes. “She never left your side when you were hurt, Lili. She stayed until you were out of danger.”

  Agitated, Lili shook her head and backed toward the door. “I don’t know, Bedde. Trusting her seems too hard, too impossible.”

  “Walk with me to get water, while both Aaron and the baby are sleeping. Lili, if you would just talk with Shiphrah about your feelings, maybe…”

  “Maybe someday, Bedde. Don’t push me.” Lili crossed her arms. “You couldn’t know what I have gone through because of her tricks.”

  “Her tricks? Shiphrah?”

  “She convinced me to ask the Egyptian gods for a baby and wear a charm, an Egyptian charm, knowing I would become pregnant and knowing Pharaoh wanted the baby boys … gone.”

  Jochebed paled. “You wore an idol? You asked an idol for a baby?”

  “Yes, and it worked.” Lili jutted her chin forward.

  “Lili, you know that’s just stone or clay. How could you do that? You know they’re not real.” Jochebed shook her head in disbelief. “And that doesn’t sound like something Shiphrah would do. Where did you really get such an idea?” Jochebed grunted as she raised the water jar to her shoulder.

  “From your mother.”

  The clay jar shattered as it hit the ground, and a startled wail pierced the air.

  Chapter 29

  Shiphrah!”

  Shiphrah looked up in surprise. Unbelievable. Was Sarah actually speaking to her, the half-breed girl? Would wonders never cease?

  Sarah panted as she caught up to Shiphrah. “Well, she wasn’t quite so good as everyone thought, now was she?”

  She who? What was the woman talking about? Shiphrah searched her mind, wondering if she’d missed something.

  “Don’t look at me as if I’m daft. You know what I’m talking about, don’t deny it. Elisheba, she was just like all the rest of us, maybe worse.”

  “Elish—”

  “Oh yes, Elisheba. I would never dream of stooping so low as to tell a young, impressionable girl like Lili that an Egyptian idol would get her pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “Your precious Mama Elisheba did, not that I’d ever speak bad of the dead.”

  “Sarah, that’s not—”

  “Don’t you utter my name! I mind my own business, never criticize, but I heard Lili tell Jochebed it was her mother that brought this evil from Pharaoh, the murder of infants, onto our heads.”

  Shiphrah took a step back as Sarah taunted her. “It won’t be a secret long, not that I’d ever say anything. Guess this will bring Jochebed to her senses about that mother of hers. She wasn’t perfect after all.”

  “Sarah, no, it wasn’t like that. You don’t understand. I—”

  “I understand all too well.” Sarah shoved past Shiphrah.

  “This last birth was harder than the others. I thought it was supposed to become easier, Shiphrah. Maybe it was because neither my mother nor Amram…” Jochebed swallowed.

  Shiphrah studied the darkness under Bedde’s eyes. “Must you go to town today?”

  “It’s quota day. I can’t risk another beating.”

  “Then I’m going with you. We can carry the weight of the sling between us.”

  “I’ll be fine, Shiphrah. The walk will hurt your leg. I’d rather go alone.”

  “Bedde, I need to talk to you, tell you something … difficult. And you look beyond tired. Don’t argue.”

  Lifting the sling of grass mats and baskets, they began the familiar walk to Pi-Ramses.

  “Sooo…” Jochebed glanced at Shiphrah. “What did you need to tell me?”

  Shiphrah bit her tongue. She dreaded the next few minutes.

  “Sarah, well, really it was Lili, but Sarah told me, and if she told me—well, you know she avoids speaking to me, so if she said it to me, there’s no telling who else she told, probably Deborah for sure, and I know she still thinks—”

  “What are we talking about? I’ve never heard you sound so scattered.”

  “Sarah heard Lili tell you about the amulet.”

  Jochebed stiffened. “Shiphrah, no!”

  “She said it was Mama Elisheba’s idea.” Her voice trembled. “No one will believe her, Jochebed. Everyone knows Mama Elisheba would never … I hate that I brought Lili that horrible thing.”

  The women walked in heavy silence. As they approached the town, the crowds increased and beggars lined the roads.

  Jochebed turned to Shiphrah. “I remember something Mama said. Everyone knows how lonesome Sarah is and how she likes to talk. Maybe no one will believe her because they know what she’s really like. Even her own children stay away from her except to provide her food.”

  “People believe what they want to, Bedde, and they mix up their stories so no one knows what is the truth. Remember how they accused your father of murder when he died trying to save that Egyptian baby?”

  Jochebed nodded. “I know it was an Egyptian child he saved, but I’ve never understood why it mattered to Deborah.”

  “You probably never will.”

  Leaving the mats with the overseer, Jochebed and Shiphrah began walking home. They walked quietly, past the despair lining the road.

  “Do you ever wonder what their stories are, how they came to be beggars?” Bedde rubbed a hand over her still-soft belly. “Once they were someone’s sweet baby, and now … Who abandons their old ones to the street? I’m glad Mother never had to suffer like they do.”

  Shiphrah nodded. “So many beggars … Wait, Bedde. I stepped on something sharp.” Holding on to a low tree limb, she balanced herself and tried to dislodge the pointed stone by rubbing her toes against her other leg.

  “I’ll never understand why most Egyptians carry their sandals outside and wear them inside. When I have sandals, I wear them outside.”

  “Well…”

  “Tell me while we walk, Shiphrah. Maybe talking will keep me awake. I’m so tired I’ll have to hold my eyes open soon. Let’s go.”

  From against the tree trunk, a figure draped in rags moved, and out of the torn cloth a hand appeared. Shiphrah stopped midstep. Such stubby fingers with one missing, just like…

  “Bedde, wait.” She stepped forward, her heart pounding. “Ati?”

  The dingy huddle did not respond. Taking a deep breath and holding it against the odor, Shiphrah moved closer and parted the stained rags covering its face. The person cringing from her must not have bathed in months or eaten in days. Hair sprouted from scabbed pa
tches on the beggar’s scalp, and the toothless mouth hung open. But the hands, caked with dirt, were familiar and loved.

  “Ati.”

  The eyes moved behind lids crusted shut but did not open.

  “What are you doing here? Never mind, I’m taking you home with me.”

  “Huh?”

  Wide-eyed, Shiphrah turned to Jochebed. “Bedde, it’s Ati! I thought she was dead. Remember me telling you about Ati? This is … I have to take her … Help me think! How can we carry her home?”

  “Maybe if I promise him extra baskets for next week, the overseer will let me reuse the sling.” Bedde turned back the way they had come.

  Shiphrah crouched beside her old nursemaid. Oily hair, rank with aged sweat, framed the precious, square face. She touched the curved shoulder. “I’ll take care of you, Ati.”

  Jochebed emerged from the crowd and unrolled the woven sling.

  “I hope he didn’t think I meant more baskets every week.”

  Together she and Shiphrah pushed and pulled until Ati lay in the middle. Carrying it between them, they started back to the village.

  By the time they arrived at Jochebed’s home, lamplight streamed through the cracked door. Puah looked up as the door squeaked open.

  “Thank goodness you’re back. Where have you been? I’ve been so worried about … What is—”

  “Aunt Puah, it’s Ati,” Shiphrah interrupted. “We found her by the road.”

  The sling opened as they lowered it to the dirt floor.

  Puah glanced at the bundle of rags and then studied the two women. Jochebed swayed on her feet, looking ready to collapse at any moment, and Shiphrah’s face was drawn and gray.

  Putting an arm around Jochebed, Puah led her to a mat. “Lie down.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue.”

  Jochebed didn’t.

  Taking Shiphrah’s elbow, Puah pushed her down on another mat and held her there as she tried to rise. “No, Puah, I need to take care of—”