1997 - The Red Tent (39 page)

“You are the only aunt of their mothers’ blood, and our mothers would wish for you to see their grandaughters. After all, you are the only daughter, the one they loved.”

My brother could talk the wings off a bird, and he talked until the sun rose and Benia and I were exhausted. Although we never said yes, there was no saying no to Zafenat Paneh-ah, the king’s vizier, just as there had been no saying no to Joseph, son of Rachel, grandson of Rebecca.

We left with him in the morning. At the river, we were met by a barque of surpassing luxury, filled with chairs and beds, painted plates and cups, sweet wine and fresh beer. There were flowers and fruit everywhere. Benia was stunned at the riches, and neither of us could look into the faces of the naked slaves who waited upon us with the same servility they showed Zafenat and his two sons and their noble retinue.

The lads were old enough to grow their hair, and they were good boys, curious about their father’s guests but polite enough not to ask questions. Benia delighted them by carving little creatures out of wood, and naming each one. He caught me watching him, and his plaintive smile told me that he had done the same for his own sons, dead long ago.

As-naat did not come with us, and Joseph never spoke a word of his wife. My brother was attended by a youthful guard, all of them as beautiful as he had been in his youth, and I often saw him staring at his handsome companions wistfully. He and I barely spoke on the voyage north. We took our meals separately, and no one suspected that the carpenter’s wife had anything to say to the powerful vizier.

When we did exchange words—to say good morning or to comment about the children—we never spoke in our mother tongue. That might have drawn attention to his foreign birth, which was a sore point among many in the king’s service.

Joseph kept to himself at the prow of the barque under a gleaming awning, wrapped in his dark cloak. Had I been alone, I might have sat like him, reliving the journey that had brought me to the house of Nakht-re, where I became a mother, remembering, too, the loss of my son. Had it not been for Benia, I would have thought of the impending meeting with my brothers and opened the old wounds in my heart.

But Benia was always nearby, and my husband was captivated by the sights of a journey that was, for him, like the gift of an extra life. He directed my eyes at the sails in the wind, or when the air was still, at the harmony of the rowers’ oars. Nothing escaped his attention, and he pointed to horizons and trees, birds in flight, men plowing the fields, wildflowers, a stand of papyrus that looked like a field of copper in the setting sun. When we came upon a herd of water horses, his excitement was matched only by that of Joseph’s boys, who crowded by his side to watch the children of Taweret splash and roar in the reeds.

On the third day of the journey, I set aside my spinning and sat quietly, watching the water lap against the shore, my mind as calm and wordless as the surface of the river. I inhaled the loamy smell of the river and listened to the sound of the water on the hull, which was like a constant breeze. I trailed my fingers through the water, watching them grow wrinkled and white.

“You are smiling!” said Benia when he came upon me.

“When I was a child, I was told that I would only find contentment beside a river,” I told him. “But it was a false” prophecy. The water soothes my heart and settles my thoughts, and it is true that I feel at home by the water, but I found my joy in dry hills, where the fountain is distant and the dust is thick.” Benia squeezed my hand, and we watched Egypt pass, emerald green, while the sun sparked the water into countless points of light.

In the mornings and at sunset when the barque docked for the night, Menashe and Efraem would jump into the water. The servants watched for crocodiles and snakes, but my husband could not resist the boys’ invitation to join them. He removed his loincloth and jumped in with a roar that was answered by childish squeals. I laughed to see my husband dive under the surface and shoot up again, like a heron, like a boy. When I told Benia of a dream in which I was a fish, he grinned and promised to make it so. ‘

So one night, under a full moon, Benia put his finger to his lips and led me down to the water’s edge. Silently, he motioned for me to lie back in his arms, where he held me effortlessly, as though I were as light as a baby and he as strong as ten men. With his hands, he coaxed and reassured me until I put my head back and unclenched my hands and lay as though on a bed. When I relaxed, my husband released me so that I felt only his fingertips on my back, while the river held me and the moonlight turned the water silver.

Every night I grew bolder. I learned to float without the support of my husband’s hands, and then to move on my back, facing the waning moon. He showed me how to stay on the surface and swim like a dog, kicking and kneading the water for dear life. I laughed and swallowed water. It was the first time I had frolicked like a child since my son was a baby.

By the end of the journey north, I could duck my head underwater and even swim side by side with Benia. Whispering on our pallet afterward, I told him about the first time I ever saw anyone swimming, at the river on our way out of Haran. “They were Egyptians,” I said, remembering their voices. “I wonder if they were comparing the water of that river with this just as I am tonight.”

We turned to each other and made love as silently as fishes and slept like children rocking on the bosom of the great river, source and fulfillment.

At Tanis we left the river and began the journey into the hills where the sons of Jacob lived. In Egypt, farmers and even tanners were held in higher esteem than shepherds, whose work was considered the lowest and most odious of occupations. The official purpose of Za-fenat Paneh-ah’s journey was to conduct a census of the flocks and to select the finest animals for the king’s table. In fact, this was a task beneath his station, the sort of thing usually assigned to a middle-ranked scribe. Still, it served my brother as an excuse to visit the relations he had not seen for ten years, since he granted them refuge from the famine in Canaan.

Traveling in Zafenat Paneh-ah’s caravan was nothing like the journeys of my childhood. My brother was carried on a litter by his military bearers and his sons rode donkeys behind. Benia and I, who walked, were surrounded by servants who offered cool beer or fruit if we so much as raised a hand to shade our eyes. At night, we rested on thick pallets under pure white tents.

Luxury was not the only difference. This journey was very quiet, almost hushed. Joseph sat alone, his brow knit, his knuckles white on the arms of his chair. I was uneasy too, but there was no way for me to speak to Benia without being overheard.

Only the sons of Joseph were carefree. Menashe and Efraem dubbed their donkeys Huppim and Muppim and invented stories about them. They tossed a ball back and forth between them, and laughed and complained that their backsides were black and blue from riding. Had it not been for them, I might have forgotten how to smile.

After four days, we came upon the camp where the sons of Jacob lived. I was shocked by the size of it. I had imagined a gathering like the one in Shechem, with a dozen tents and half as many cooking fires. But here was a whole village; scores of women with covered hair scurried back and forth, carrying water jugs and firewood. Babies’ cries rose up from the murmur of my mother tongue being spoken, shouted, and crooned in accents both familiar and unfamiliar. But it was the smells that brought me to tears: onions frying in olive oil, the musky dust of the herds mixing with the perfume of baking bread. Only Benia’s hand kept me from faltering.

A delegation of the tribe’s leaders walked forward to meet the vizier, their kinsman. Joseph faced them with his sons at his sides, flanked by his handsome guards. Behind them stood servants, bearers, and slave girls, and off to one side, a carpenter and his wife. Joseph’s face was nearly white with anxiety, but he showed his teeth in a large, false smile.

The sons of Jacob stood before us, but I recognized none of these old men. The eldest among them, his face deeply lined and hidden by dirty gray hair, spoke slowly, awkwardly, in the language of Egypt. He delivered formal greetings to Zafenat Paneh-ah, their protector and savior, the one who had brought them to the land in peace and fed them.

It was only when he switched to the speech of his birth that I recognized the speaker. “In the name of our father, Jacob, I welcome you, brother, to our humble tents,” said Judah, who had been so beautiful in youth. “Daddy is near the end,” he said. “He is not always in his own mind and thrashes on the bed, calling for Rachel and Leah. He wakes out of a dream and curses one son, but in another hour blesses the same man with lavish praise and promises.

“But he has been waiting for you, Joseph. You and your sons.”

As Judah spoke, I began to recognize some of the men behind him. There was Dan, with his mother’s black, mosslike hair, his skin still unlined and his eyes calm as Bilhah’s. It was no longer difficult to distinguish Naphtali from Issachar, for Tali was lame and Issachar stooped. Zebulun still resembled Judah, though he looked far less worn down by life. Several of the younger men, my nephews I guessed, recalled Jacob as he had been in his youth. But I could not guess whose sons they were or which might be Benjamin.

Joseph listened to Judah without once meeting his brother’s eyes, which were fixed upon him. Even when Judah was finished speaking, Joseph did not reply or lift his head.

Finally Judah spoke again. “These must be your boys. What names did you give them?”

“Menashe is the older and this is Efraem,” Joseph replied, placing his hands upon their heads in turn. Hearing their names, the boys looked up to their father, their faces shining with curiosity about what was being said in the strange-sounding tongue they had never before heard from their father’s mouth.

“They barely understand why we are here,” Joseph said. “I do not know myself.”

Anger flashed across Judah’s face, but it quickly changed to defeat. “There is no undoing the wrongs of the past,” he said. “Still, it is good of you to give the old man a peaceful death. He lived in torment from the moment we called you dead, and he never recovered even after he learned you were still alive.

“Come,” said Judah. “Let us go and see if our father is awake. Or will you eat and drink first?”

“No,” Joseph answered. “Better to do it.”

Taking his sons by the hand, Joseph followed Judah to the tent where Jacob lay dying. I stood with the rest of Zafenat Paneh-ah’s servants and retainers, watching as they disappeared into the dusty village.

I was fixed to the earth, trembling, furious that not one of them knew me. But I was relieved, too. Benia led me gently to where the servants were setting up tents for the evening, and we waited there.

There was barely time to number my feelings before Joseph reappeared, with Menashe and Efraem, their eyes fixed on the ground in fear. My brother strode past me and into his tent without a word.

Benia could not coax me to eat that night, and although I lay down beside him, I did not close my eyes. I stared into darkness and let the past wash over me as it would.

I remembered Reuben’s kindness and Judah’s beauty. I remembered Dan’s voice in song and the way Gad and Asher mimicked our grandfather until I collapsed in laughter. I remembered how Issa and Tali wept when Levi and Simon tormented them and said they were interchangeable in their mother’s eyes. I remembered how Judah once tickled me until I peed, but never told a soul. I remembered how Reuben used to carry me on his shoulders, from where I could touch the clouds.

Finally, I could lie still no longer and walked out into the night, where Joseph waited for me, pacing by the side of my tent. We walked away from the camp slowly, for there was no moon and darkness covered everything. After some distance Joseph flung himself onto the ground and told me what had happened.

“At first, he did not know me,” my brother said. “Daddy whimpered like a tired child, crying, ‘Joseph. Where is Joseph?’

“I said, ‘Here I am.’ But still he asked, ‘Where is my son Joseph? Why does he not come?’

“I put my mouth to his ear and said, ‘Joseph is here with his sons, just as you asked.’

“After many such exchanges he suddenly understood and grabbed at my face, my hands, my robes. Weeping, he repeated my name over and over and begged forgiveness of me and of my mother. He cursed the memory of Levi and Simon and Reuben, too. Then he wailed because he had not forgiven his firstborn.

“He named each of my brothers in turn, blessing them and cursing them, turning them into animals, sighing over their boyhood pranks, calling out to their mothers to wipe their bottoms.

“How horrid to grow old like that,” said Joseph, with pity and disgust in his voice. “I pray I die before the day comes when I do not know if my sons are infants or grandfathers.

“Jacob seemed to sleep, but after a moment he called out again, ‘Where is Joseph?’ as though he had not already kissed me.

“ ‘Here am I," I answered.

“ ‘Let me bless the boys,’ said Jacob. ‘Let me see them now.’

“My sons trembled at my side. The tent stank with his illness and his ranting had frightened them, but I told them that their grandfather wished to bless them, and I pushed them toward him, one on either side.

“He put his right hand on Efraem’s head and his left hand on Menashe’s. He blessed them in the name of Abram and Isaac, then sat up and roared, ‘Remember me!’ They shrank back and hid behind me.

“I told Jacob his grandsons’ names, but he did not hear me. He stared, sightless, at the roof of the tent, and spoke to Rachel, apologizing for abandoning her bones at the side of a road. He wept for his beloved, and begged her to let him die in peace. “He did not notice when I left with my sons.” As Joseph spoke, I felt an old heaviness return to my heart and recognized the weight I had carried during my years in Nakht-re’s house. The burden was not made of sorrow as I had thought. It was anger that rose out of me and found its lost voice. “What of me?” I said. “Did he mention me? Did he repent of what he did to me?