Sarai

by Jill Eileen Smith

  He chuckled. “Ah, Sarai, you know I cannot promise such a thing. But I am here now.” He laid one arm across her shoulders and squeezed.

  Silence settled between them as Hagar served the meal. Sarai watched her move with lithe grace, glancing from the girl to Abram. Did he notice her? Yet he seemed unaware of the woman’s presence, his attention on the food. She sighed, the sound loud in her ears.

  Abram looked up from his plate to search her face. He swallowed and wiped the sticky meat from his hands with a linen towel Hagar quickly handed to him. Observant, she was. A good quality for an inferior wife. If indeed Abram would agree to take her as such. But Sarai must make her plan carefully. He had only just returned. She must give him the idea in small amounts.

  “Something troubles you, Sarai. Tell me.” He took a long swig from his cup.

  She looked down at her own plate, stirring the food with a golden-pronged utensil. “I have something I must tell you. I fear you will not like it.” She looked up then and met wariness in his eyes.

  “Whether I like it or not matters little. If it concerns you, I want to know.” He took her hand in his and patted it.

  She drew in a shaky breath and looked from their clasped hands to the concern in his dark eyes. One quick glance around her told her the servants, Hagar included, were far enough from where they sat not to overhear. And Eliezer and Lila had already moved from the campfire to Eliezer’s tent. She looked again at Abram’s comforting gaze.

  “While you were away . . .” She lowered her voice further and leaned in close to him. “I discovered . . . I am no longer . . . that is . . .” Her words came to a halt, and she choked on an unexpected sob.

  He tipped her chin up with a gentle hand. “Tell me.” He stroked her cheek with a finger. The action made her lip quiver, and she feared she would weep.

  She swallowed once, twice, then tried again. “The way of women no longer visits me, my lord. I will never bear the promised child.” The words came out rushed, and she released a sigh as she finished. The rest of her plan would wait. She must give him time to absorb this information.

  He cupped his palm to her cheek, then drew her close to his heart. “And you are quite sure of this?” His question hung between them, and she wondered if he would jump ahead of her plan and suggest another wife before she had the chance.

  “Yes, my lord.” Shame suddenly enveloped her. “I have failed you.”

  He rubbed circles over her back in silence for more heartbeats than she could count until she realized she had dampened his tunic with her tears.

  “Adonai has promised us a son, beloved. You must not think you have failed. His timing is just not ours.”

  “His timing is past for me. How can a woman bear a child when there is no life left within her?” She leaned away from him, searching his face for something, anything to indicate his thoughts. But his clear gaze told her another wife was the furthest thing from his mind.

  “Believe, dear one. Trust Adonai to keep His word. If He could create all of this”—his hand moved in an arc over the area now darkened with night, then pointed heavenward where the stars glowed down on them—“then He can do something so small as to give us a child, can He not?”

  Could He? She wrestled with the thought, testing and discarding it. “I do not know. Perhaps He has a different plan in mind.”

  He tilted his head to look into her eyes. “A different plan? What do you mean?”

  She glanced beyond him, spotting Hagar, then quickly looked back at him. “Eliezer is our heir. He might be all we were ever meant to have.”

  His gaze turned thoughtful, but a moment later he gave his head a stubborn shake. “No. I did not misunderstand the promise.” He stood and pulled her up with him. “Let us speak of this no more. When the time is right, you will bear a son, no matter how impossible that seems now.”

  She slipped her hand into his as he led her toward his tent. She would not argue with him. Now was not the time, though she knew she must say something soon. If she was going to raise a slave woman’s son, she must give her husband a slave woman to bear the child.

  Abram lay on the mat in his own tent several nights later, Sarai’s words still ringing in his ears. He sensed she had wanted to say more but was glad she held her tongue. He knew she carried the burden for the child far more than he did. It was a wife’s place to provide her husband an heir, and if she failed, it was also her place to offer him a maid as a wife to fulfill what she could not. Was Sarai contemplating such a thing? The thought carried a lack of faith, and he dismissed it as quickly as it came.

  But as his eyes grew heavy, Sarai’s worried look floated in his thoughts. If only he could reassure her. And yet her words had sparked his own sense of fear, his faith wobbling like a calf on newborn legs. A sigh lifted his chest, and he breathed deeply the familiar scents of the campfire and listened to the soft breeze rustling the leaves in the oaks nearby, lulling him deeper into sleep.

  Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.

  Abram heard the voice, but his limbs would not move, his eyelids weighted against an inescapable light. “O Sovereign Lord,” he said, though his voice sounded as if it came from a distance, “what can you give me since I remain childless, and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? You have given me no children, so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

  This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.

  The light grew shadowed, and Abram awoke. Had he slept at all? The presence remained, and he stood up and wrapped his cloak about him, sensing an urging to step out of his tent. He obeyed, standing in moonlight.

  Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. There was a pause, as though the voice wanted to be sure he looked from one end of the heavens to another, taking in every star. So shall your offspring be.

  I believe You, Adonai. His heart warmed to a sense of deep approval. He stepped further from the tent so his gaze of the heavens was unhindered by the trees.

  I am Adonai, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.

  Thoughts of his foreign neighbors and their many fighting forces swept through him. “O Sovereign Adonai, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

  Bring Me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.

  Abram waited but a moment. “Yes, Lord. I will seek them at first light and bring them here to you.”

  No words came, but his heart sensed affirmation. He waited, feeling the breeze caress his face and lift the hair from his forehead. He would visit the flocks and choose the choicest animals for the sacrifice. Then he would see what God would do.

  The following afternoon, Abram had his servants tie the animals to the nearby trees while the birds remained caged in baskets on the ground. Dismissing his servants, he prepared the animals for sacrifice, arranging the halves of the heifer, goat, and ram to face each other with the birds whole beside them.

  Hours passed. Abram moved between and around the dead animals, driving off the eagles, hawks, and vultures that swooped low, determined to steal the flesh from the bones. Abram’s muscles ached from the butchering and the running, his movements slowing as the sun descended below the hills to the west. His body spent, he settled on the ground beneath one of the large oaks as a deep sleep fell over him. But even in sleep he sensed a thick, dreadful darkness holding him, pinning his limbs to the earth. His heart beat slow and heavy as though his blood forgot how to pump through his veins. Stillness held the air captive, and he sensed even in sleep that his breath had stopped.

  Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.

  The whispered words terrified him.

  But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great p
ossessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.

  A smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared before Abram’s vision, passing between the pieces of animal flesh.

  To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.

  The firepot rose and disappeared from his sight, taking the voice with it. The dreadful darkness lifted, and the night sounds returned. Abram awoke, the sign of Adonai’s covenant still clear in his mind’s eye. The covenant had been one-sided, not at all what Abram had expected. Adonai’s only requirement of Abram had been to offer the sacrifice. Adonai had walked between the pieces alone.

  Awe settled over him where he sat among the trees, unable to do more than lift his face toward the heavens. He would have a son, and his descendants would outnumber the stars. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again. Brilliant jewels of light covered the blackness so thoroughly he could count them no easier than he could the sea’s grains of sand.

  Oh, Adonai, You are so faithful, and I am so undeserving.

  He forced his limbs up from the ground and stretched, his gaze taking in the camp. He could not see far in the moonlight, but he had walked the length and breadth of the land months before. He looked to the starry night once more. “Thank you,” he whispered, knowing that though God had left him, He could still hear.

  Heart stirring with joy, he returned to the camp, washed the blood from his arms and legs, and went to find Sarai.

  25

  Sarai leaned on Abram’s arm as she walked with him in the fields the following week, the vision Abram had seen of Adonai still fresh in her thoughts. But the promises held little comfort for her, and it was time she told Abram what she needed to say, despite the pain such thoughts evoked.

  “If you look far enough, you can almost make out the edge of the sea.” Abram pointed westward toward the Great Sea, where merchant ships landed at Gaza and Joppa and brought goods toward Beersheba and Hebron, goods she could not help but appreciate. “Our descendants will inherit this land, Sarai. They will outnumber the stars in the heavens, the sands on the seashore.”

  “Your vision is clouded, my husband. Surely it is a mirage you see rather than the waters of the Great Sea.” She lifted a hand to her eyes and strained a look from the perch of the hill where they stood, but all she could see were grasslands and trees. The bluish haze in the distance could have been sky as easily as it was sea—impossible to tell from here.

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Whether my vision is clouded or clear, our descendants will possess all of this land one day.” He turned her to face him. “You will bear me a son and our son will bear more children, and from us there will come a great nation.”

  Sarai looked at him, moved by his sincerity, hating to force the truth on him but knowing she must. She pulled away from his embrace and walked a few steps nearer the edge of the cliff. Wind whipped her clothes, forcing her robe tight against her body and lifting her scarf away from her face. She turned back into the shelter of the overhanging terebinth tree.

  “My lord, there is something I have considered every day since your vision, and I think you should pay it heed as well.”

  He took her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips. “What troubles you, Sarai?”

  She looked beyond his scrutinizing gaze and worried her lower lip. At last she faced him and stiffened her back, determined to go through with her plan. “The promise Adonai made to you said nothing of me. It named only you, my husband. Since it is quite obvious that I am too old to possibly bear a child, it is my right and my duty to provide you an heir from another source.” She paused, drawing a deep breath for support. “I am giving you my maidservant Hagar the Egyptian.”

  Abram released his hold on her but did not move. “Have you heard nothing of what I have told you? Adonai promised us a son.”

  She shook her head. “No. He promised you a son. Why do you find this so hard to accept?”

  “I do not want another wife. You are all I need.”

  “She would be only a seed-bearer, a secondary wife. Any child born of her would be mine to claim.”

  He looked at her for the longest time, until at last he turned and strode to the edge of the cliff where she had just stood. The sight of him there, staff in hand, facing the wind as it pushed against him, made Sarai’s heart ache with her decision. Why couldn’t she have Abram’s faith? But she was right, whether he wanted to believe her or not. And somehow she must convince him of it.

  She tucked the scarf closer to her neck and wrapped both arms about her, though the breeze was far from chilly. Slowly, each step weighted with indecision and dread, she moved to his side and slipped her arm beneath his.

  “Adonai has kept me from having children,” she said, leaning close to his ear. When at last he looked at her, she offered him a reassuring smile. “Go, sleep with my maidservant. Perhaps I can build a family through her.”

  He held her gaze until she thought she might break under the strain of trying to assure him. “I love you, Sarai. I don’t want another.”

  His words thrilled her, but the truth remained. “And I you, my husband. Can’t you see how hard this is for me?”

  He nodded, at last seemingly satisfied. “Send her to my tent tonight.”

  Hagar sat at the grindstone, the rhythmic scraping of grain against stone droning in her ear. How strange life had become, how long ago her life as Pharaoh’s daughter. Sometimes at night when the wind blew a certain way, she could almost smell the waterfront along the Nile. Her sisters had probably married foreign princes by now, if they lived.

  A sigh worked through her, and she straightened, rolling the kinks from her shoulders. Wistful longing filled her for the briefest moment. She missed Nitianu and Osahar the most, and often prayed to Abram’s unseen God to keep them safe. They had been truer parents to her than Nabirye and Pharaoh had ever been. Emotion rose within her, but she shoved it down to a place deep within her as she always did—as she had done in her mother’s household and continued to do since coming to serve under Sarai in Abram’s camp. She could not go back. There was no use dwelling on what she could not change.

  She bent over the grindstone again but looked up at the sound of footsteps approaching, surprised to see her mistress coming toward her. Normally she was summoned, not approached. She laid the grindstone aside, brushed the flour from her hands, and stood, bowing low.

  “How may I serve you, my lady?”

  “You may rise and follow me to my tent. There we will speak.” Sarai abruptly turned, her steps hurried, and moved far from Hagar before her maid realized what had been said. She scrambled to catch up, keeping a respectful distance behind.

  At Sarai’s tent, her mistress lifted the flap and bid Hagar enter ahead of her. Hagar looked at Sarai, unused to such treatment, but hurried to obey.

  “Come, sit among the cushions. I brewed some herbs for tea. Let me pour you a cup.” Before Hagar could think to protest, Sarai busied herself in one corner of the spacious tent and returned to the area where Hagar still stood, dumbstruck.

  “Sit,” Sarai said again. “Here, tell me what you think of it.” She handed the clay cup to Hagar and motioned her to the cushions again, her smile congenial. She lowered herself to the plush ornamented cushions opposite Hagar and rested both hands on her knees.

  Hagar folded her legs beneath her and held the cup in both hands, putting it slowly to her lips. The brew tasted sharp yet sweet, a combination she had not enjoyed since her life in Egypt.

  “It is a taste of my homeland. Like the lotus blossom.”

  Sarai nodded. “The merchants brought the dried blossoms from Thebes. I thought you might find it to your liking.”

 
; Hagar sipped again, her gaze never leaving Sarai’s drawn face. The woman had something on her mind, and her features were tense, almost rigid. But Hagar held her tongue, unable to give voice to the questions filling her.

  “Hagar.”

  Hagar stiffened, waiting for whatever strange reprimand must be forthcoming.

  “Yes, my lady. How may I serve you?” She lowered her gaze to the mat at her feet, adopting her familiar servant expression.

  A sigh escaped Sarai’s lips, causing Hagar to look up again. “Hagar, it is not me you are to serve this night.”

  Sarai looked away, avoiding eye contact. Strange. A moment passed. Hagar’s hands shook at the tension in the room, sloshing the tea in her cup. Fearing she would spill it onto Sarai’s expensive cushions, she took a long drink, nearly burning her throat in her haste to be done with it.

  “Hagar, I want you to serve my husband this night.”

  “Of course, my lady, I will do whatever you wish.” She downed the last of the liquid and set the cup on the mat, clasping her hands in her lap to still their unease.

  Sarai shook her head. “I don’t think you understand my meaning.”

  Hagar looked up again. As she held the older woman’s steady gaze, something shifted inside of Hagar. She couldn’t possibly mean . . . “Perhaps you should help me to understand, my lady. How would you like me to serve the master?”

  Sarai kneaded the sash at her waist, looking down at it as though she could draw her response from the soft fabric. When she lifted her gaze again, there was a hardening in her dark eyes. “Adonai has promised to give my husband a son, and it is up to me as his wife to do the providing. But as we all know, God has kept me from bearing children.”

  Her gaze flitted beyond Hagar toward the tent’s door. The voices of women working nearby drifted through the closed flap, and a steady wind ruffled the walls of the tent. The breeze would be welcome right now, and Hagar almost opened her mouth to suggest lifting the sides of the tent to let it in, but she knew that to say such a thing would be utter foolishness. She sat perfectly still instead, waiting, ignoring the sweat trickling down her back.