Sarah: Women of Genesis: 1 (Women of Genesis (Forge)) (25 page)

“I don’t need lessons in child-rearing from
you,
” said Qira.

Well, you need them from
someone.
“Of course not, Qira,” said Sarai.

“And there you are, sounding weary and put-upon again.”

“I don’t think I sounded that way at all, except that I am, in fact, weary. But that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with getting little sleep last night.”

“Oh, and there you go with the other thing, telling me for only the ten thousandth time how
busy
you are while I, apparently, do nothing at all.”

Apparently. “Qira, it appears that whatever happens is going to be my fault, and whatever answer I give you will only make it worse. So before you accuse me of murder and declare a blood-feud between us, let’s have done with this conversation. You go to your tent and I’ll stay in mine, and we’ll both calm down and realize that neither of us is trying to harm the other.”

“Well, I know
I’m
not trying to harm
you.
”

You were the one with the slapping and kicking. But never mind. “I’ll explain to your girls that the lamb is not theirs, and that even if I had intended to give it to them, you’re the one with the final say.”

“Indeed I am,” said Qira.

“Yes, and so I will say.”

“I don’t need
you
to tell my daughters that I’m in charge. I already explained to them that Uncle Abram would no doubt take their little lamb and kill it and burn it up on that altar of his, so you couldn’t possibly give the lamb to anyone.”

“I’m sure they were happy to hear that tale.”

“They cried, but they obeyed,” said Qira.

“So everything’s all right.”

“Nothing’s all right,” said Qira. And she burst into tears.

All Sarai wanted was to lie down and sleep long enough that when she woke up, Qira would not be there. Instead, she moved over to sit beside Qira and hug her and pat her hand. To see us, thought Sarai, no one would imagine that I’m the younger sister.

“Lot hates me,” Qira wailed.

“I have it on very good authority that he loves you.”

“Do you think so?” said Qira. “Well, what kind of love is it when he hasn’t come near me since Ajiah was born?”

Sarai tried to conceal her disgust. She already knew through Abram that it was Qira who banned Lot from her bed after her fifth daughter was born. It had been the cause of great grief to Lot, and not just because he had no son yet. “Every day she lives in that city,” Abram had said, “she becomes more and more like the other women of Sodom. Except that her husband is not at all like the
men
of Sodom. He actually loves his wife, and she’s breaking his heart.” That was even before this last quarrel, when Lot decided that as long as he was going to live like a bachelor, there was no reason for him to do it in a city that he hated. He could be a bachelor out with his herds and live the life he was born for. Twice before, Sarai had tried to explain this to Qira, but when Sarai used words that were gentle enough not to provoke a rage, Qira did not understand what she was trying to say.

“Qira,” said Sarai, “I know how you can set everything right between you and Lot.”

“Oh, of course, all I have to do is treat his every whim like a commandment from God and bow down to him like a slave, the way you do with Abram.”

It took all Sarai’s strength of will not to make some cruel retort. But she knew that despite the obnoxious way that Qira had of expressing it, her misery was real, and even if she had caused most of it by her own choices, she was not yet ready to understand that. You have to speak to people in a language they can understand. “I believe, Qira, that you and Lot are at cross-purposes right now. I believe that he is quite sure that you don’t love him.”

“I don’t,” said Qira.

The words stunned her. “Then I don’t know what to say,” said Sarai.

“Well, how can I love a man so selfish that he turns me out of my home and takes my children off to make shepherdesses out of them and ignores me completely when I come to the desert to join him!”

“I believe,” said Sarai, “that he did those things because he already thought you hated him.”

“I didn’t hate him,” said Qira. “I thought he was boring and rude to my friends and utterly lacking in ambition. I thought he needed to dress better and let himself take part in the life of the city.”

Do you still not understand precisely what that would require of Lot, to become a man of Sodom?

“Perhaps he needed to hear an occasional word of love from you.”

“I gave him five girls, didn’t I? And if he had been a true husband to me, and helped me take my proper place in the city, he would have heard whatever words of love he wanted.”

The whole idea Qira had of marriage—that you were nice to your husband only to the degree that he obeyed you—appalled Sarai. Again, it took all her strength not to speak bluntly.

“Lot kept his promise to you—for all these years, you’ve lived in the city. But he never promised you that he would become a man of the city himself.”

“Well, I don’t see the distinction. Without a husband I can be proud of, I’m completely on my own in society. I do rather well, but still, it cripples me, and it’s not
that
many years until the girls will need husbands so I can have grandchildren.
Someone
needs to keep alive the blood of the true kings of Ur. He should be thinking of
that,
not of his own petty desires.”

To answer this completely idiotic statement would have been pointless—if Qira couldn’t see how unlikely it was that her daughters would ever bear children to men of Sodom, it was because she chose to be blind.

“You see, Qira? You have only to talk reasonably to him, and listen to his words when he answers you.”

“But he
doesn’t
answer me. He hasn’t spoken ten words to me since I came here!”

“I’m not talking about now,” said Sarai. “Back in Sodom, when you said these things to him, didn’t he answer you?”

“Oh, of course he did. He nattered on and on about things he would
never
do and how I was asking too much and on and on.”

“Qira, listen to yourself. You’re telling me that you didn’t listen to him.”

“I
did
listen. I just didn’t agree.”

“Well, he listened to you, too—and didn’t agree.”

“But he
didn’t
listen, or he would have understood just how impossible he was being!”

It was too maddening to continue. Qira simply could not see her own actions from Lot’s point of view.

“Well, Qira, what can I say? It looks to me as though you won’t be going back to Sodom until you convince your husband that you intend things to be different between you.”

“Oh, indeed I do! No more of his foolish refusal to take part in society! No more of his—”

“It’s that kind of talk that got you here to this camp, with your house closed up and your daughters playing with sheep,” said Sarai. “
Keep
talking that way and you’ll find yourself growing old and dying in a camp somewhere.”

“So that’s it. I have to lie to my husband and pretend I don’t wish him to become a better man, and if I’m a convincing enough liar, he’ll return me to my home, is that it?”

“I said nothing about lying,” said Sarai. “I merely suggest that you refrain from insisting he change. Give him the freedom to be himself, and he’ll give you the same freedom. Isn’t that what you want? All you have to do is give him the same thing.”

“Men
have
freedom. They don’t get it from women.” But this time Qira’s response was half-hearted, a mere reflex, parroting the ideas of the women of Sodom. Even as she spoke, she seemed to be contemplating what Sarai had said.

“Surely there’s some way,” Sarai said, “for you and Lot to share the city
and
the camp. A season of one, a season of the other, each of you rejoicing that you can make the other happy.”

Qira sighed and rose to her feet. “I can see that you have nothing to suggest except that I become the kind of brainless please-your-husband-no-matter-what-it-costs-you kind of wife that
you
are.”

Sarai held very still until Qira left the tent.

When she finally unclenched her hands, Sarai found that two of her fingernails had cut into her palms. Blood seeped from the shallow wounds.

Well, it would be worth the pain if this conversation led to Qira making amends with Lot. For she
had
listened, at the end. It was what she had always done in childhood—if someone made a suggestion that she intended to follow, she had to lash out and insult the person whose idea she was planning to use. That way she could maintain the illusion that she had come up with the idea herself.

It was an illusion that only Qira herself believed. Indeed, it was quite likely that the only person in the camp who did not see through Qira’s pretenses was Qira herself.

Hurry home, Abram. It’s time to find a way to get Qira out of this camp before someone kills her.

Chapter 15

Abram came to her tent that night, but Sarai could see that it was conversation he wanted more than affection. Emboldened by Sarai’s agreement, Bethuel and Eliezer had apparently laid before him their desire for a separation of the camps, and Abram was dismayed. “Before you say more,” said Sarai, “I must tell you that Eliezer came to me already to see what I thought. I already told him that I think it’s the right thing to do, and for more reasons than the quarrels between herdsmen loyal to different masters.”

Abram looked glum. “So I’m alone in wanting Lot to stay with me.”

“My love, you’re so happy to be with Lot during your daily work that it would be a cruel wife indeed who did not wish you to keep your brother beside you.”

“And yet you lend your voice to the forces of division.”

“You and Lot are together during the day, doing the labor that you love, roaming this beautiful land, talking with men who know the beasts as well as you do, caring for animals that you understand better than people. You have the wind and the sun and the stars, the bleating and lowing and braying—of animals and of people.”

Abram chuckled. “You almost make it into a song.”

“The joy that you know in the field with Lot is not matched by any pleasure here in the camp.”

Abram gave that a little thought before he answered. “Lot speaks little of Qira. But I know that he was not happy when she followed him to the camp. It shocked me, in fact—that he left her in the city in the first place, and that he wasn’t relieved to have her prove her love for him by coming.”

“If he really wanted her to stay in the city,” said Sarai, “he would not have closed up the house that provided her position in society.”

“Yes, well, there you are. I think he doesn’t know how to feel about her. But . . . I know she causes ill feeling. I hear about it from Eliezer and Bethuel—in fact, Bethuel told me that the one thing Lot’s herdsmen and mine agree on is that my wife is the queen of women, and Lot’s wife is . . . not.”

“She’s in a constant rage here,” said Sarai. “I think her fury is completely unjustified, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s decided to feel this way.”

“Decided?”

“It’s her choice to dwell on these feelings and not make the best of it. It’s her choice to lash out at everyone. She sprays insults like a dog shaking off water—no one around her stays dry.”

Abram chuckled again. “She’s always had a temper.”

“Everyone has a temper,” said Sarai. “But Qira was never taught to control hers. If my mother had lived, she might have raised Qira differently. But then sometimes I think that it is Qira’s deepest nature to behave as she does. Whatever she wants is the only thing that matters, and the desires of others are either obstacles or steppingstones. She’s always been that way. She won’t change, Abram.”

“Lot does love her, though,” said Abram. “So she can’t be entirely awful.”

“Yes she can,” said Sarai. “My own sister, so this is disloyal of me, but then, Lot is my brother now, too, isn’t he? And who knows Qira better than the sister who had to grow up dealing with her? She knows how to be charming—how to make alliances in order to achieve her goals. But she also knows how to punish those who don’t give in to her charms. As long as Lot did what she wanted, she was lovely to him, and so he loved her.”

“Lot said to me a few days ago, ‘How could my wife and yours come from the same house?’ Qira sees nothing, Sarai, and you see everything.”

“Qira sees as much as I do. The difference is that I care about the people around me.”

“Harsh,” said Abram.

“I’ve put the best face on it up to now, Abram, because I could bear my sister’s petulance and nastiness for the sake of your happiness with your brother. In truth, I’ve been happy with Lot here, too—I’m used to Qira and I can shed her cruelties without noticing them. But she’s growing impatient. She’s not content merely to insult me and criticize me. She’s accusing me now of plotting against her. Even though everyone detests her, when she accuses me openly it weakens my place in the camp.”