Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis) (27 page)

“You’re my guest. I can determine how my servants work, and where, and with whom.”

“Indeed you can,” said Jacob. “But there is nothing more important to me than the word of God. I have put myself into your service in order to earn the right to marry your daughter. That means that my time does not belong to me. For seven
years I won’t be able to copy these books. That’s a perilously long time. They fade. The papyrus cracks.”

“Papyrus,” snorted Father. “Clay is better! In a fire, clay only gets harder! The impressions of the stylus never fade!”

“But to carry all the books I have, if they were written on clay,” said Jacob, “it would take two carts.”

“What are two carts?” said Father expansively.

“Two more than I have,” said Jacob. “So I need to keep the copy work going. Bilhah is already trained.”

“But as I said, Leah doesn’t want her doing it, so …”

“So you’ll put the selfish whim of an angry girl before keeping the word of God alive for another generation?”

There it was. Proof that Jacob hated her. Leah’s eyes stung.

“I’ll put the peace and good order of my house ahead of anything else,” said Father.

“Very well,” said Jacob. “Then I’ll have to ask Bilhah what she wants.”

“What?” said Father angrily.

“She’s a free girl,” said Jacob. “It’s one of the reasons I love and admire you so much, Father Laban. The orphaned relative of a low servant of yours, and when the servant runs away, you keep the orphan. Your generosity is legendary. But she already tried to leave your service once. I brought her back, but not to be treated as a bondservant. If you won’t allow her to help with the copying while she’s in your care, then I will offer her my protection, in order to let her keep on with this work.”

“You’d take away the handmaiden I intended to give my daughter to follow her into marriage?”

“Bilhah is not yours to give,” said Jacob. “She’s free to choose. But I’d rather she stayed in your protection. If she’s in
mine, where would I have for her to sleep, except the outer chamber of my tent?”

Leah understood Jacob’s game now. And he criticized her and Rachel for always getting their way.

“I see that you mean to force this issue,” said Father coldly.

“I mean to protect the words of God by copying them,” said Jacob. “I would not be worthy of my birthright if I made any other choice.”

“What about Leah, then?”

“I hope she’ll keep coming to me to learn from the holy books,” said Jacob. “She’s already learned much from them.”

“She won’t come back, if Bilhah’s there.”

“Yes she will,” said Jacob.

“No I won’t,” whispered Leah softly.

It was Zilpah’s turn to elbow her for making noise. This would not have been a good moment for them to be discovered.

“You don’t know Leah.”

“I know the Spirit of God,” said Jacob. “She has tasted from the cup of Wisdom. She’ll be back for another sip, and then another.”

“You don’t know how proud and stubborn she is.”

“I know exactly how proud and stubborn she is,” said Jacob. “It’s her only sin. But the Wisdom of the Lord has already spoken to her and invited her to walk with God. She is good at heart. She’ll repent of her stubbornness and her pride, and with a broken heart she will come back to the word of the Lord.”

Father said nothing for a moment. Then: “Is this a prophecy?”

“If you mean, did God tell me this, then no. But I saw how
her face lit up with joy when she felt the Wisdom of the Lord in her heart. Of course the Enemy at once tried to twist the experience and make it mean something else, tried to distract her with anger and confusion. But she knows. She has
tasted
it. She’s a good girl, Laban. Her heart is pure and she seeks to serve God. She’ll master her anger and she’ll forget her jealousy and she’ll come to me again for another taste.”

“And you think she’ll sit down beside Bilhah, when she knows you deliberately let Bilhah continue copying and reading against my will?”

“Against Leah’s will, you mean,” said Jacob.

“My request then, for Leah’s sake.”

“She will sit down next to Bilhah and speak kindly to her, because she knows that Bilhah did her no wrong, and you can’t hear the word of God if there’s injustice in your heart.”

“Then God must have few indeed to hear him these days,” said Laban.

“That is the truth,” said Jacob.

“You seem to have made a particular study of Leah,” said Laban.

“She seeks the word of the Lord,” said Jacob. “It makes us kin to each other. It makes us friends.”

“Could it make you more than that?” asked Laban.

“What do you mean?” asked Jacob.

“You don’t already know? I thought you knew everything.” But Laban laughed when he said it.

“Are you suggesting that I …”

“Rachel has no interest in the holy books. Has she?”

“Not yet,” said Jacob.

“The words of our covenant were that you would work for me seven years to marry my daughter.”

“Rachel,” said Jacob.

“But the
word
was ‘daughter.’”

Zilpah’s elbow again. But Leah didn’t need prodding to realize what Father was offering. It was humiliating, that he should try to pressure Jacob into marrying her when he obviously didn’t love her. And yet even as she knew that Jacob would refuse, and that Father was wrong to do it, she felt a momentary thrill as she imagined what her life might be like if Jacob were to say, Yes, I never thought of it, but yes, Leah is the one who loves the holy books,
she
is the one I should love and marry at the end of my seven years.

Jacob made no answer.

“I just thought,” said Father, “not
instead
of Rachel, but … a man can have two wives.”

“No,” said Jacob. “Not me. My father had only one wife—Rebekah was enough for him. I want a marriage like that. A love like that. Even when my father was blind in his old age, he looked at her with such love—and Mother, the way she felt about him.”

“Your grandfather had three wives,” said Father. “It did him no harm.”

“No harm?” Jacob laughed. “Hagar and her boy Ishmael were the most dangerous thing that ever happened in my father’s life. Jealousy between women—your daughters already have a rivalry every bit as sharp as my father’s with Ishmael.”

“Or yours with Esau.”

“So far neither of your daughters has threatened to kill the other, thank the Lord,” said Jacob.

“Never mind then,” said Father. “I just thought—you
seemed to care about Leah, that’s all. A father wants his daughter to marry a man who cares about her.”

“I do care about her,” said Jacob.

“As the sister of your wife-to-be,” said Father.

“As a daughter of God,” said Jacob. “God loves her and longs for her to turn her heart to him and serve him. She longs to serve God, if once she can get control of herself and change her jealous heart. I’m the keeper of the holy books. I love her for loving the word of God.”

“Jacob, my brother, my son-to-be,” said Father, “that is a great gift in my beloved daughter’s life. You will yet be a blessing to both my girls. You have my blessing when it comes to Bilhah copying. Her mornings are yours, and you needn’t take her into your protection, she has mine. As for Leah, well, she’ll be angry and heartbroken, but since you have so much confidence that she’ll overcome these things, I will trust in your judgment on this.”

“I could not ask any more of my beloved brother and father,” said Jacob.

“I place both my daughters’ happiness in your hands.”

And with that, both men and the lamp left the outer room.

Leah and Zilpah waited only a few moments before they made their way through the dark tent to the front entrance. Father might come back quickly, and they had to be gone before he came into his inner chamber to sleep.

Leah could hear Father and Jacob still talking, and led Zilpah out into the darkness in another direction. But after only a few paces, Leah was lost in the dark—there were few sounds to guide her now. So Zilpah took over, picking her way by the light of a thin moon, until at last, still wordless, they entered Leah’s tent.

A lamp already burned there. “I left it here for you,” said Zilpah. “I don’t want you to be sorry that I’m your handmaiden now.”

“Thank you,” said Leah.

“I think Jacob was a fool to turn you down,” said Zilpah.

“He’s not a fool,” said Leah, trying not to be sharp with the girl. After all, Zilpah was obviously trying to be loyal to her. “Every word he said was true.”

Zilpah started to speak—or at least took in a breath as if she meant to speak. But instead she held her silence. Perhaps she saw something in Leah’s face that stilled her.

“I need to be alone,” said Leah.

“You haven’t had supper,” said Zilpah.

“Could you go and fetch it for me?” asked Leah. “Bring it to me in a bowl and leave it just outside my inner room. You can sleep in the outer room tonight. Please?”

“Of course, mistress,” said Zilpah.

In a moment she was gone.

Leah walked quickly into her inner chamber and knelt on the carpets there. “O Lord,” she said. “Let Jacob’s words be true. Let me be the good girl he told my father I am. Help me not to be jealous. Help me to be worthy of the Wisdom you gave me.”

She couldn’t help herself. As she spoke the words softly, tears flowed down her cheeks. But they were not the hot tears of anger. They were tears of shame and sorrow. “I’ve been so selfish,” she said. “But I’m angry. Help me not to be angry. I’m sad, and I don’t want to be sad. I’m
lonely
and I don’t want to be alone.”

Then her grief at all she had realized tonight got the better of her, and she could not speak. Once again she wept, lying on
carpet, alone in an inner chamber. But this time the tears were different. This time her tears were offered up to God. To God and to Jacob, who had asked for them, who had believed in her when nobody else did, not even herself.

“Father,” she whispered. “Lord God my father. Help me know how to walk with you.”

B
ilhah was beginning to produce the same kind of small, fine handwriting that she saw on the scrolls. Instead of laboriously drawing each character, the letters seemed to flow directly out of her hand.

Her back grew tired, though, so every little while when the brush ran out of ink, she dipped it into the water, set it aside, and then got up and stretched and walked around.

It was on one such morning, when Jacob was already gone to see Rachel—or, rather, to tend to the animals that Rachel merely happened to be watching over—that Leah and Zilpah came into the dooryard.

Immediately Bilhah was filled with dread. What sort of confrontation were they planning? There was the scroll she was copying—the sayings of Noah—on the low table. Though she could not imagine what they might do to it, the scroll was her responsibility. She strode swiftly toward it, meaning to get
between Leah and Zilpah and the writing table, when to her surprise Leah sank to her knees.

“Is Jacob here?” asked Leah.

Bilhah glanced at Zilpah, who was neither smirking nor simpering. Zilpah’s dress was not low-necked; or perhaps it was, but she wore another cloth around her neck that completely concealed her bosom. Leah might prefer Zilpah to Bilhah for a handmaiden, but she had never had to tell
Bilhah
to dress more modestly.

“He’s not here,” said Bilhah. “He left me to copy this scroll till noon.”

Leah lowered her head. “Sister Bilhah,” she said.

The familiar address was baffling. Was Leah mocking her?

“I’ve come to ask your forgiveness for my treatment of you.”

Bilhah’s heart sank. Was Leah now going to demand that Bilhah give up the copying and come back to be her handmaiden?

“There’s nothing to forgive,” said Bilhah.

“That’s what I told her,” said Zilpah quietly.

Leah stiffened, and Zilpah looked out over the dooryard fence, as if she had spotted some bird or lizard doing something endlessly fascinating.

Leah went on. “I accused you wrongly. And I tried to stop you from doing this work. I see now that the work you do for Jacob is the most important work in this camp, and for me to try to stop you is the same as if I tried to stop God.”

Bilhah tried to see if Leah was being sarcastic, but with her head downturned there was no way to read her face.

“If my copying were that important,” said Bilhah, “they would have someone important doing it.”

Leah shook her head and lifted her face. “It’s the work that makes the worker important, not the other way around.”

What could Bilhah do, except respond as if Leah meant every word? “If forgiveness from me is needed, then I forgive you freely. I hope you will also forgive me for having …”

She was not altogether sure what Leah might expect her to apologize for, so she hesitated. She would have thought of something, but Leah removed the necessity.