Sarah (27 page)

Eliezer of Damascus had grown as tall as Abram. He had shoulder-length curly hair, and the down of his first beard was on his chin. He embraced his adoptive father with all the effusiveness of a true son. Everyone saw Abram's eyes mist over.

That night, for the first time since they had left Canaan and set off for Egypt, Abram's laughter rang out over the music of the celebration. It was loud enough to be heard by Hagar, who was in the tent helping Sarai prepare for bed. She asked her mistress the name of the handsome boy who was making Abram so happy.

Sarai waited while Hagar removed her tunic and began to massage her back with a soft ointment. “His name is Eliezer of Damascus,” she at last replied with weary indifference. “Abram chose him to be the son I can't give him. He's pleasant enough; quite a charmer, in fact. But don't trust him. He's like a fruit that looks nice and juicy when you see it on a hot day and your throat is parched. As soon as you bite into it, you realize it's poison.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Perhaps I'm jealous. That was what my dear Sililli thought. Or perhaps I can tell good from evil whatever mask they put on to conceal their true natures.”

Their return was celebrated for seven days. Every morning, Abram and Melchizedek would join the elders in the big black-and-white tent. Abram told them about the country of the Nile and the questions Pharaoh had asked him about God Most High. In his turn, Melchizedek recounted how the rain had returned to Canaan as suddenly as it had disappeared. Rain such as they had never seen. It had come in summer, but not as a storm; it had been abundant, but not too heavy; it had watered the thirsty earth, but not drenched it. It had filled the wells and the springs all winter long, so that when spring had come, it had been as green as in the old days.

“In autumn,” Melchizedek said to Abram, with a calm smile, “when I saw the turn this rain was taking, I knew God Most High was taking care of you. I said, ‘Abram and his people are well. They will soon be back. Yhwh is preparing Canaan for them as a bride is prepared for her wedding night.'”

In the middle of one of these joyous conversations, Lot suddenly appeared. “I want to speak to Abram!” he declared, roughly.

They all feared another drunken rage. But although his face was red, his eyes bulging and his clothes disheveled, he was not drunk.

Abram invited him to sit down. “Speak, I'm listening.”

“What I have to say is simple. You've already brought us to the point of famine once. I don't want to have to suffer any more of your thoughtlessness. I want to take my flock and anyone who'll agree to go with me and settle in a land of my own. And don't tell me your god will stop me. I don't give a damn about your god.”

Melchizedek frowned. There were murmurs of disapproval.

But Abram replied with a gentleness that surprised everyone. “I understand. I agree with you. Listen, Lot. You're more than my nephew: You're my brother, as your father was. You and your father Haran have a place in my heart. There will be no quarrel between us.”

“Will you let me take some land for myself?” Lot asked, surprised.

“Yes. You've made the right decision. It makes a lot of sense. Not only am I letting you take land, but I propose that you choose whichever pastures seem to you the best for your flock and those who will be your family. If you go left, I'll go right. If you go right, I'll go left.”

Lot rose, even redder than when he had come in. He sized up the faces in front of him. “All right, then,” he said, defiantly. “I'll take the land in the bend of the Jordan, to the east of Salem.”

“But that's the richest in all Canaan!” Melchizedek cried, offended. “It gets water all year long, and it's as beautiful as a garden!”

Abram smiled and nodded. “That means it's a good choice,” he said.

Melchizedek was about to protest again, but Abram prevented him. He stood up and took Lot in his arms. “I'm happy that my brother will be able to live in such a rich land.”

“But think, Abram!” someone cried. “He's taking your best lands from you, and his flock is a fifth the size of yours.”

“I left the choice up to Lot,” Abram said, his arm still around his nephew's shoulders. “He's chosen, and I'm happy.”

In the evening, the houses of Salem and the numberless tents pitched around the city buzzed with Abram's generosity to his nephew Lot. Never before had they seen anyone give up his wealth with so much good humor. And as there was nothing to suggest that Abram was weak, his generosity had to be genuine. He became even more admirable in everyone's eyes.

The story soon reached Hagar's ears, and she immediately told her mistress. Sarai could not restrain a smile. She, too, was touched by Abram's generosity, but it was more than that. The fact that Abram had acted so impulsively, as he had once before, when he had carried her off from the temple of Ur, was something that made her feel a little less angry toward him.

The next day, Abram, Melchizedek, and many others stood by the side of the road to watch Lot leave Salem at the head of his flock and those who had decided to follow him. Sarai appeared. Lot stared at the red veil, as if his eyes might burn right through the cloth. The general feeling was that Sarai was finally going to assuage his torment and show her face to the nephew who worshiped her.

She approached him. “I've come to say good-bye.”

Lot said nothing. He hesitated. With his sad mouth and his drink-ravaged features, he was a pitiful sight. Around them, everyone was hanging breathlessly on Lot's reaction. Sarai waited for him to utter a word that would allow her to take him in her arms.

It was not to be. “Who's under that veil?” he sneered, with a harsh drunken laugh. “One of Pharaoh's handmaids?”

Sarai stepped back, her chest on fire, her cheeks burning with humiliation under the veil. She was about to deliver a stinging rebuke, but just then, she caught a glimpse of young Eliezer smiling broadly at Abram's side. How happy he was, sensing the quarrel to come!

She said nothing. She turned her back on Lot and the others and disappeared into her tent.

Everyone noticed that Abram had not lifted his hand to stop her, nor opened his mouth to call her back.

IN the days that followed, while his flock spread over the green pastures, Abram did again what he had done years earlier, before the drought. In the company of Eliezer, he went all over Canaan, from the hilltops to the valleys, from one altar to another, offering sacrifices and calling the name of Yhwh.

Meanwhile, Sarai asked Melchizedek for a wagon and some men to help her pitch her tent to the south of Salem. She had discovered a long valley covered with terebinth and flowering bay trees, bordered by cliffs and high ocher rocks down which cool streams cascaded.

Melchizedek told her it was a large space to be alone in, and asked her if it wouldn't be better to wait for Abram to return.

“I'm already alone,” she replied. “I've been alone for a long time now, in the tiny space of my own body. Abram is busy with his god. I suppose that's a good thing. If he wants to talk to me, tell him I'm in the plain of Hebron. He'll find me.”

He found her less than a moon later. He arrived one day at high noon, while Sarai was baking loaves of bread stuffed with fragrant herbs and cheese. He was alone, without Eliezer. Hagar and Sarai heard him before they saw him, for he was shouting her name all through the valley.

“Sarai! Sarai, where are you? Sarai!”

Hagar climbed a slope to get a better view. “Something serious may have happened,” she said, worried.

Sarai scanned the paths, the nearest copses, the banks of the streams that meandered through the pastures, but could see nothing.

“Sarai!” Abram's voice was still calling.

“He could be hurt,” Hagar said.

“Go to meet him,” Sarai ordered. “Follow the sound of his voice.”

As Hagar moved away, Sarai put on her red veil. She saw Abram emerge from a grove of olive trees on the road leading to the Jordan. Hagar cried out and went to him. Abram began gesticulating curiously, like an excited child. As soon as they were quite close, Sarai could see that Abram was neither wounded nor in pain. He was out of breath but smiling.

“Sarai! He spoke to me! Yhwh spoke to me!”

He burst out laughing, as joyful and exuberant as a young man. He clapped his hands, and turned full circle.

“He spoke to me! He called to me: ‘Abram!' Just like he did in Harran: ‘Abram!' ‘I'm here, God Most High,' I said, ‘I'm here!' I'd been waiting for him for so long. I'd been all over Canaan, calling his name!”

Again he was shouting, laughing, weeping, wild-eyed like Lot in his cups. He took hold of Hagar's waist and began to dance with her. She burst into a great, voluptuous laugh. Behind her veil, Sarai smiled. Drunk with his joy, Abram grew bolder. He left Hagar, took Sarai's hand, put his other hand around her waist, and whirled her around. Twice, three times, his forehead bathed in sweat, singing, pirouetting as if his dance were accompanied by flutes. Hagar was still roaring with laughter. Sarai's veil lifted, as did the bottom of her tunic. They danced until Abram tripped on a stone and fell headlong, pulling Sarai down with him.

Hagar helped her to her feet.

“That's enough,” Sarai said. “Stop behaving like a child, you're exhausted.”

“I haven't eaten or drunk anything since yesterday,” Abram laughed, puffing and blowing like an ox.

“Come and sit down. I'll give you something to drink.”

“I must tell you what He said!”

“It can wait until you've eaten and drunk. Hagar, bring cushions, water, and wine, please.”

She went to fetch the loaves she had been baking, along with grapes and pomegranates picked on the hill of Hebron, and ordered Hagar to stretch a canopy above Abram, to give him shade. Then she sat down and watched him eat heartily, happy and smiling beneath her veil.

When he had eaten his fill, Hagar brought a pitcher of lemon water and a clean cloth. He wiped his hands and face.

“I'm listening,” Sarai said at last.

“I wasn't very far from here. I'd even been thinking of coming to see you. And then the voice was everywhere. Like in Harran. Just like in Harran, you remember?”

“How can I remember, Abram? I didn't see your god, only you running, excited, like today.”

Abram frowned with disappointment, and looked closely at the veil that prevented him from seeing the expression on Sarai's face. He shook his head to dispel his annoyance. “It all happened very quickly. Yhwh said, ‘Lift your eyes, Abram! Look north and south, look east, look west to the sea. All the land you can see I give to you for the future, to you and your descendants. Your seed is like the dust of the world. Whoever can count the dust of the world will be able to count your seed. Arise, Abram! Fill this country, I give it to you!'”

Abram's eyes were shining. Then he gave a great laugh. Hagar laughed, too. But Sarai did not laugh.

She did not move.

Abram and Hagar fell silent, watching her chest swell.

“‘The dust of the world!'” she said, and her veil trembled in front of her mouth. “‘Your seed, the dust of the world!'” she said again, her voice louder this time.

Abram was already on his feet, guessing at the rage that was coming. “That's exactly what Yhwh said,” he said, as if to protect himself. “‘Your seed is like the dust of the world!'”

“Lies!” Sarai screamed, getting to her feet. “Lies!”

She picked up the pitcher of water and threw it at Abram. He deflected it with his arm, and it shattered at Hagar's feet. The handmaid sprang back to avoid it.

“Lies!” Sarai cried again, with all her might.

“Yhwh said so!” Abram retorted.

“How do I know? Who else heard it apart from you?”

“Don't blaspheme!”

“Don't lie! And don't mock me. How are you going to make your seed like the dust of the world? You can't even have a son. You have to stoop to making that snake Eliezer your heir—”

Abram kicked over the platter containing the remains of the meal. “Be quiet! You don't know what you're saying. You're full of bitterness and resentment. Do you know what you look like with that ridiculous veil over your face?”

“Oh, yes, I know, Abram, I know perfectly well! I'm invisible, just like your god. I don't exist, I'm a nobody! A sterile woman who's as dry as any desert! A woman who can be given and taken over and over again, without any life ever being born in her, without any mark, any wrinkle being left on her, ever! A nobody, do you hear! A nobody!”

She had screamed so loudly that the word echoed through the valley of Hebron.

She pressed the veil against her face. “You should be grateful for this veil, Abram. Because if your wife, who's a nobody, ever took this veil off, she'd be a constant reproach to you.”