“You must talk Arabic more slowly for me,” said Sarai in a mix of Egyptian and Arabic. “I have never visited your homeland. I only know the few words I learned from spice merchants.”
“The desert Bedu is no merchant, only a trader,” Hagar said scornfully. “My father is a real merchant, with three fine ships.” She looked away as if to hide emotion. “If they were not all seized when I was captured. That is the only reason I can think of that my family has not ransomed me. The pirates ruined their fortune, and with nothing to pay ransom, the pirates could only profit from me by selling me into slavery here in Egypt.”
“How long have you been in bondage?”
Hagar looked at her oddly for a moment, then replied. “Six years.”
“Then you were a mere child when they took you!”
“I was a child until that day, but on that day I became old. I have lived since then with one foot in the grave.”
“Why? Is your health bad?”
Hagar looked at her in amazement. “I was once the daughter of a rich house, and you ask why I feel myself to be dead?”
“Rich or poor, orphan or daughter, you are still a daughter of God, still yourself.”
Hagar laughed derisively. “Which God? A weak one, if he protects me no better than this.”
“Ah. So you are the one mortal soul who should suffer nothing and lose nothing, while all the rest of us struggle on.”
“What have you lost, king’s daughter?”
“I am also a captive here,” said Sarai.
“Then where are the scars of your beatings? Why are your cheeks plump while those of the other captives are gaunt?”
“It pleases them to pretend that I am their guest. But I may not go when I wish, and my brother may or may not be killed by Pharaoh’s men. He may already be dead.”
“I’ve already lost brothers, sisters, parents, myself,” said Hagar. “I hope you don’t mind if I fail to cry for you.”
“I never asked you to cry for me. I merely tell you why I will not cry for you.”
“Good. I don’t want your tears.” Hagar looked away, angry.
“Do you speak to all of Pharaoh’s guests this way?”
“None but you ever tried to pry into my life, or to judge me.”
“I meant only to encourage you,” said Sarai. “For God does look over you, and if you live by his will, he will turn all things to good.”
“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t be afraid for your brother.”
Her words stung Sarai. “God is perfect, even if my faith is not.”
“You speak as if you expected me to believe in your God.”
“I expect nothing,” said Sarai. “But since the God of Abram is the only god that actually exists, you might as well believe in him, for it is he and he alone who hears the prayers of the righteous.” She meant what she said, but in a tiny corner of her mind she harbored the dread that Asherah had heard her.
“No god has ever heard my prayers.”
“Or you have never recognized God’s answers.”
“Oh, his answers are familiar to me,” said Hagar heatedly. “To every favor I beg, the answer is no. To every plea for understanding, his answer is confusion.”
Sarai laid her hand on the girl’s head, meaning only to stroke her hair. Hagar jerked her head away.
“If I had beaten you with a stick,” said Sarai, “you would have borne it without flinching. But the hand of friendship . . .”
“That was not the hand of friendship,” said Hagar. “That was the hand of pity.”
Sarai took a deep breath, to hold back the sharp answer she wanted to give. “You already know that I am your friend,” said Sarai.
“I do not.”
“It’s obvious you trust me, or you wouldn’t dare speak so boldly to me.”
Hagar almost blurted out a sharp answer, but Sarai’s words caught her, made her wait. “Why would I trust you?”
“Because you know that I am like you at least in one way—I am in dire need of a friend, and in this place the only hope of one is you.”
“How can a slave be a friend to a princess?”
“I’m no princess,” said Sarai.
“I’m supposed to trust you when you lie to me?”
“How could you know whether it’s a lie or not?” demanded Sarai.
“You gave away the truth when you spoke to Eshut, and then to me.”
“But I spoke to you both exactly the same.”
“Yes. That’s what gave you away.”
Sarai tried to imagine what she had said or done. She spoke to both of them with respect, not condescending to them in any way that she was aware of.
Hagar laughed at Sarai’s consternation. “You’re used to speaking to anyone, man or woman, as if they were your equal. That is an attitude that only those who are born of the noblest blood can have. Eshut must always put her inferiors in their place, because she is so keenly aware that there are people above her, so afraid that people will not give her the respect she wants. You know that no one is above you.”
“Or I know that no one is beneath me.”
Hagar shook her head. “Slaves must understand whose authority is greatest, so that we can know whose command takes precedence. You know from the start that you have authority. In this house, only Pharaoh’s queen and her daughters have such confidence.”
“You compare me to Pharaoh’s wife?”
“Actually, you’re more confident of your place than she is,” said Hagar.
“I wish I were,” said Sarai. “I wish I knew from one moment to the next what would happen to me and my . . . brother.” She stammered in fear for Abram. She was going to give him away. Milcah would never act as Hagar had seen. Her disguise had not lasted a whole day in court. She began to cry, half-stifled sobs that racked her body but hardly made a sound.
Hagar came to her, put an arm around her. “Mistress,” said Hagar. “You have nothing to fear from Pharaoh. He’s fascinated by the gods and kings of the east. He believes that the first Pharaohs who united Egypt were of the east, of the land between rivers. He believes that the blood of the Pharaohs runs thin and weak, and the gods have sent famine to the east in order to bring the strong blood of the desert peoples to reinvigorate Egypt. You are in no danger here. Pharaoh has brought you into his house so you might give him vigorous royal sons and daughters.”
At those words, Sarai burst into tears in earnest.
“Mistress, what did I say?”
“Sons and daughters,” said Sarai bitterly. “What have I ever asked of God, except sons and daughters?”
“But you’re not married, Mistress, how . . .” And then Hagar understood. “Abram is not your brother.”
“Tell no one,” said Sarai. “God told him he must pretend I am his sister.”
“I will keep your secret,” said Hagar. “But if you are Abram’s wife, then you are Sarai, the priestess of Asherah who renounced her vow.”
“I was never her priestess, I never made a vow.”
“But you are the one they say this of.”
Sarai nodded.
“Your god is right. For marriage to Milcah, the desert maiden, Pharaoh would pay your brother a handsome brideprice. But Pharaoh would kill ten thousand husbands to have as his wife the daughter of the ancient kings of Ur-of-the-South.”
“My husband’s future is in your hands.”
“As my future is in yours,” said Hagar.
So it would be a bargain. “How can I hold your future?”
“When you leave here and go home to the east, take me with you.”
“But you belong to Pharaoh.”
“I do not ask you to steal me,” said Hagar. “He’ll ask you what gift you want to take with you. I beg you, ask for me.”
“But I live in the desert, where life is hard and we lack for water, for almost everything.”
“What do I care? I own nothing, not even my body. I have spent my childhood wishing I could die. But
if I lived as your servant, my captivity would be bearable.”
Sarai tried to figure out why Hagar might feel this way. And then gave up, for there was never a way to know why others felt as they felt or did what they did. “As long as you want, you will always have a place at my side.”
“But you must ask for me, as a gift.”
“I will ask,” said Sarai. “When the time is right. I won’t leave without asking, as long as you don’t—”
“Don’t what? This is not a bargain, not a trade. I will never tell your secrets.”
Sarai blushed at having been caught in such a false judgment. “It’s the same with me,” she said. “Even if someone else guesses my secret as you did, I’ll ask for you as my handmaiden. But on the day when the desert life is so hard that you wish you were still a slave in Egypt, remember that this was your own choice.”
They clasped hands. Sarai wondered as she gazed into the eyes of this bold Arab girl: Might this child be a part of God’s plan?
Or was Sarai merely part of Hagar’s plan?
Chapter 9
For a woman who was used to being deeply involved in all the concerns of a large household, the sheer inactivity of Pharaoh’s house was mind-numbing. No one came to her to make decisions. She could not even see any real work being done close by. Hagar helped her bathe that first day, teaching her the use of bathing tools that she had never seen before, and then it took two hours to do up her hair to Hagar’s satisfaction. There were more hours spent searching for Egyptian clothes that Sarai was willing to wear, until at last she insisted that her own clothing be brought from the camp. Hagar looked at even her lightest frock in distaste, but when Sarai wore it she didn’t feel naked as she did in the Egyptian linens. She ate supper, she went to bed, she tried to sleep, and for hours she drifted back and forth between fretting about Abram and dreaming about him.
Then, the next morning, Hagar was ready to start it all over again.
“Bathe again?”
“Every day,” said Hagar.
“But I’ve gone nowhere, done nothing since I bathed yesterday. I’ve done no work.”
Hagar looked faintly ill. “You expect to move through Pharaoh’s house unwashed? What if he sees you?”
“I won’t do it. It would take hours to do my hair again.”
“Not so long a time as yesterday, Mistress. I’ve done your hair once, and now I understand it better.”
“There’s nothing to understand. I’ll bathe again when there’s some reason to. Water is precious!”
“Begging your pardon, Mistress, but here it’s not.”
“That’s still no reason to waste it!”
“You might as well use the water, Mistress. If you don’t, it either dries up in the heat of the day or it flows back into the Nile.”
“Forget the bath, and tell me where I’m to go.”
“Go?”
“The work of the house,” Sarai said. “I’m good with a needle, I’m excellent at cakes, sweet or hearty, and if I’m not up to the standards of the house I can always work the distaff.”
Hagar looked baffled. “You’re not a servant, Mistress. You’re a guest.”
“I should hope that I may still do something useful. What I don’t know, I’ll learn.”
“But . . . there is no work in this house. Except handmaid’s work—and whose hair would you put up? Mine?”
In the days since then, Sarai had come to see that Hagar was right. When Sarai pitched in at any task, horrified servants backed away in fear, complaining that she’d get them beaten if anyone caught her doing their work. At last she found herself pacing her room like a lion in a pit. “What do the women of the house do all day?” she demanded.
“They visit each other, which you could certainly do.”
“I don’t know any of them.”
“You can be introduced.”
“I would have to lie to them.”
“You have to lie to everyone.”
“Each time I tell it, it becomes less convincing.”
“If you won’t visit, and you can’t work, I suppose you’ll have to lie on your bed and sleep.”
“I’ve lain there long enough without sleeping,” said Sarai. “I’ll at least walk somewhere.”
“I thought you were a captive.”
“As long as they have Abram separated from me, I dare not go far. But I can walk by the river.”
Which is what she was doing when a horn was sounded from the roof of the house. Sarai turned to face upriver, back toward the house, to see if there was some raid on the flocks by marauders or a lion. Of course there was no such thing. The horn had sounded in greeting—a barge was coming down the river, a throne in the center of it, and on the throne a splendid-looking man wearing the double crown of Egypt. It was Pharaoh.
“They’ll be looking for you, Mistress.”
“Why?” said Sarai. “I’m sure Pharaoh will keep them busy enough.”
Hagar smiled knowingly. “I’m sure Pharaoh is here to keep you busy.”
“Enough of that, I beg you.”
“Why do you deny the very reason for a woman’s life?”
“The reason for a woman’s life,” said Sarai, “is the same as the reason for a man’s—so that she might have joy.”
“Then most people have no reason to live,” said Hagar.
“Most people try to find joy where joy is not to be found,” said Sarai, thinking of her sister. Though Qira no doubt thought she was joyful. If you believe you have joy, Sarai wondered, then how can you be wrong? Certainly many people managed to be miserable in the midst of a life that others envied, and their misery was real enough. Didn’t most of the household think she was a woman who should be happy, having every luxury they knew of, and the love of her husband? Why did she allow the one great lack of her life to blind her to the many great bounties?
As Hagar had predicted, a runner soon came to seek her—came straight toward her, without hesitation, which proved, if she had needed proof, that someone was always watching where she went. “If Great Lady Mistress will return to meet the god,” said the girl.
“I told you,” said Hagar.
With sick dread Sarai went to meet the man who held her life, and her husband’s life, in his hands.
The regalia of the Pharaoh gave an overwhelming impression, but the man beneath the double crown did not. Sarai tried to be fair—what man could measure up to the majesty surrounding the king of Egypt?—but then realized that she knew dozens of men, including her husband and her father, whose personal dignity would easily match the costume and the pomp. As to Pharaoh being a god, no man could equal such a claim, and in Sarai’s opinion calling a man a god did not elevate the man, it only diminished the idea of godhood. If this weak-chinned, flaccid, narrow-faced, cheery-looking fellow was a god, then why were gods worth worshiping?
But Sarai could not blame this man for the pretensions surrounding Pharaoh. He had inherited all of it, the stories and the costumes and the ludicrous claims. When Pharaoh was strong, with military might and political skill, no one would dare to question his claim to divinity. But this man . . . Sarai could see at once the contempt that powerful men in Egypt would feel for him. As long as it was in their interest to keep the office of Pharaoh strong, then they would tolerate a weak man on the throne. And, of course, it was quite possible that Pharaoh’s physical appearance was deceiving. He might be an extremely clever man.
For that matter, though, he might be merely a figurehead, occupying the office while others wielded the power. Sarai thought back to Sehtipibre, the man who, according to Eshut, managed the kingdom of Egypt for Pharaoh, while Eshut herself managed his household. Two loyal stewards in such offices would naturally confer with each other. But it might just as easily be the case that they conspired with each other to keep the reins of power in their own hands.
Suddenly the life of a pastoral household seemed very simple and clean to Sarai, while here, where the palace was kept free of dirt,
nothing was simple and there might be many a dirty secret hiding in plain sight. She felt sorry for Pharaoh. He had once been a little child in a king’s house, as she had been. The formalities of royalty came easily enough to one who grew up with them. But because her own father was without power, Sarai did not have to grow up suspicious of everyone and unsure whether anything said to her was true. She had learned much about political maneuvering from her father, with his tales of past political struggles in Ur-of-Sumeria and his analysis of the politics of Ur-of-the-North. But the worst that she ever saw for herself was the idle flattery that is the cheap coin spent by everyone who speaks to a king, even one who is in exile. Since her father had no power, no one was trying to steal it; since he was already off his throne, no one was trying to topple him from it. Pharaoh, though—from boyhood on, whom had he ever been able to trust?
Sarah: Women of Genesis: 1 (Women of Genesis (Forge)) Page 9