Sarah: Women of Genesis: 1 (Women of Genesis (Forge)) (34 page)

Indeed, she prayed for death already. Not immediate death. Just for priority. Let me die first, O Lord, if thou lovest me. My life has been good. Let my life end well, asleep in the arms of my husband. And then let my body be lowered into a deep cave and laid out with respect, whole and unbroken, to await his coming to join me.

It was all she had to look forward to. But it was enough. Her life had been interesting in her youth, but in her old age she did not want it to be interesting. She wanted it to drift on, day after day, unchanging.

Excitement was much overrated by the young.

Abram went one day into his tent to work with his books and to pray. It made her feel good to see him go there, for on days when he prayed he often came and spoke to her, not about the business of the camp, but about God or the stars or the history of tribes and nations or the words of ancient prophets. He was happiest then, and spoke to her of things he spoke of to no one else. That was when Sarai was happiest. Even happier than when Abram so joyfully worked with his son beside him, teaching him the ways of a herdmaster—for despite her pleasure at how glad he was to have a son, there was always just that little twinge of sadness. There was no sadness when Abram sat and talked with her, filled with understanding and peace and the love of God.

But today, as she worked the distaff, waiting for him to emerge, she felt something strange. She kept looking to see if someone was coming. Several times she arose—not as easy a task as it used to be, though she was still hale for her age—and walked out beyond the tents, to scan the horizon in all directions.

“What does my mistress look for?” Eliezer asked her.

“I feel as though someone is coming,” she said. “Or as if someone just arrived.”

“No one but runners from the distant camps,” said Eliezer. “And a wagon with a load of melons from Hebron.”

“It isn’t melons I’m looking for,” said Sarai. She laughed as if it were nothing, but she was still uneasy. She could see that Eliezer was worried by her words, and seemed extra vigilant, as if he feared some enemy might be presaged by her warning. She wanted to tell him, No, Eliezer, you need fear no enemy. It’s a friend that I’m looking for, or a kinsman. But since she couldn’t be sure that her feeling meant anything at all, how could she be sure that it meant something good? No, she was just growing feeble-minded. She’d seen it happen to many a woman who had outlived her mind.

Only she knew she was not feeble-minded. Something was happening, and she wanted to run into Abram’s tent and beg him to ask the Lord what it was.

Instead, not long after noon, the door of Abram’s tent parted. But he did not emerge. He stood there, in the darkness inside, only his hand protruding from the gap in the cloth. As if he were reaching for something, or someone.

Sarai arose and walked across the yard between the tents and, not knowing why she did it, or what he would think when she did it, she reached out and took hold of his hand. “Abram,” she said. “Abram, are you all right?”

“I’m not Abram,” he said.

But she knew his hand. She knew his voice. What could he mean?

“I am not Abram,” he said again. “God has visited me, and he gave me another name.”

“Come out, then,” she said, “and tell me who you are.”

“No,” he said.

“Then let me come in,” she said. “Let me see you.”

“First,” he said, “I must tell you the name that God has given you.”

She felt a thrill run through her. God had spoken to Abram and mentioned her? God knows me? God has given me a new name?

“You are no longer Sarai,” said Abram. “God has named you in Hebrew this time. Sarah.”

She was vaguely disappointed. The word
sarah,
“princess,” was close enough to her Sumerian name that more than one Hebrew had thought Sarai was a title and not a name. And why princess instead of queen? It was a name for a daughter, not for a wife. Yet . . . she did not know what this new name might mean. And Abram also had a new name.

“May I come in?” asked Sarai.

“What is your name?” asked Abram.

She understood. He wanted her to call herself by the new name, to show that she accepted it.

“Sarah,” she said.

“The Lord has been in this tent today,” said Abram. “Enter the place where the Lord has been.” He drew her inside.

She came in and saw nothing changed about the tent. But Abram was changed, she could see that. His face glowed, or so it seemed. She could not take her eyes from his face.

“My name,” he said to her, “is no longer Abram.”
Abram
meant “exalted father.” What new name could the Lord have given him?

“My name is Abraham,” he said.

Father of multitudes.

Another disappointment, though Sarai—no, Sarah—tried to stifle the feeling. Still, it hurt that God named her
princess
—a daughter, albeit of a king—and named her husband
father of multitudes.
The difference between them could not have been plainer.

It was as if he saw into her heart. “No, Sarah, you don’t understand. You are named princess because you are the beloved daughter of the king of heaven. And I am named father of multitudes because Ishmael and his children will not be my only descendants.”

She closed her eyes. He was going to take Hagar as a wife after all. He was going to have more children by her.

“The Lord came to me and made a covenant with me. Not just a prophecy, but a solemn vow. A covenant, not just with me, but with all my seed after me. Giving us this land as an everlasting inheritance as long as we keep our part of the covenant. And you, Sarah, you will also be the mother of nations.”

“Me!” She couldn’t keep a derisive laugh from escaping with the word.

“Yes, I laughed too,” said Abraham. “It was such a strange thought, at our age.”

My age, you mean.

“And I prayed to him that Ishmael would live righteously before God, for obviously he is the only one through whom the covenant can be fulfilled. But the Lord said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name Isaac. And I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.”

“God came to you?” said Sarah. “To promise you that
I
would bear a son?” Immediately she thought of what such a thing would mean to Hagar. “But what about Ishmael?”

“He confirmed great blessings on Ishmael. That he would be the father of twelve kings. But Sarah, he said that you would be a mother of nations, that great kings would be your descendants. This very covenant will be passed down through your son, Isaac, and he’ll be born at this time next year.”

He gathered Sarah in his arms.

She wanted to be happy for him. She wanted to be happy for herself. But instead, all she felt was a great wracking misery, and she sank to the carpet and wept.

“I understand,” said Abraham. “It’s too wonderful to bear, isn’t it?”

Wonderful? thought Sarah bitterly. How many times have I heard such promises before? Oh, now it was more specific. Now at least she’d have a date to mark the bitterness of disappointment. Abram, she wanted to say—no, Abraham—Abraham, your love for me has misled you. You think this will make me glad. But it only wounds me anew.

She said nothing of her real feelings to Abraham, however. She let him hold her there on the floor of his tent. Then he arose. “I won’t let the sun set without making sure that every man in my household takes on him the mark of the covenant.”

“A mark?” she asked.

“A cut in the flesh,” he said, “where it won’t grow back, marking us all as fathers of children consecrated to the worship of God. Today every man of us will bear that cut, and every new manchild born to my house will receive the mark of the covenant when he reaches his eighth day, so that his whole life he will see in his own flesh that he belongs to God, and so will all who come after him.”

By sunset, every man in the camp had received the cut. Sarah stood with the other women, watching from a distance as the men came, their faces full of misgivings as they arrived, their walk speaking of considerable discomfort as they went away. At first some of the women had been terrified—they had seen the castration of too many rams and bulls not to fear what was being done to their husbands or sons. But Abraham reassured them that after the pain subsided, their manly functions would not be impaired. “The Lord means to make a great nation of us,” said Abraham. “He wouldn’t require us to do anything that interfered with conceiving children.”

To Sarah’s relief, he said nothing to the others about the promise God had made concerning her. The last thing she needed was to have everyone else watching as, once again, the promised day passed by. She knew that like all God’s promises, this one depended on her worthiness before the Lord. And since she didn’t know what had made her unworthy during all the years when she might have borne children, it was hard to imagine that she’d be able to repent of it now. This promise, like all the others pertaining to her, would be rescinded. Only this time, because she never believed it, she wouldn’t be half so disappointed.

Most of the men who had been circumcised were miserable all night, and few of them were worth much at their tasks the next day. Abraham, though, insisted on traveling to the other camps to cut the mark into the men there. He was in as much pain as anyone, so if he insisted on going, Eliezer had to get a party of men together to give him safe escort. At least Abraham didn’t insist on walking. They mounted donkeys for this journey—no one wanted to be astride a horse if it should break into a trot.

Days later, it was finished, and life was back to normal. The women, of course, were full of talk, as the mothers talked about what the cutting had done to their sons, and then the wives began discussing, with some crude humor, how it affected their husbands.

Only Hagar and Sarah remained aloof from these discussions, Sarah because it would be undignified to speak of the master of the house in such a way, Hagar because there was no man’s mark that she would see. She had no husband, and Ishmael, at thirteen, was much too old ever to allow his mother to see how he had been injured. She had too much pride to make a point of looking at one of the little children, though she was bound to see eventually. Once again it struck Sarah how much Hagar had lost by accepting Abraham’s son within her body. She couldn’t marry someone else, and therefore could have no more children. Ishmael was everything to her. But now that he was old enough to learn a man’s duties, he was more and more often away from her tent for days on end. Hagar had a son, yes, but he was no longer a baby. For the first time Sarah realized that despite the great joy that child-bearing could bring a woman, it was a great disappointment, too. For the years when a boychild was close to his mother were not that many, and then he became a man among men, and the mother was alone again.

I’m sorry for all this has cost you, Hagar. But surely it’s better than it would have been if you had stayed in Egypt. You can’t hate me for this.

If Hagar felt any pain, she never mentioned it to Sarah—nor to anyone else, as far as Sarah knew. Hagar could laugh and jest as well as anyone, but what went on inside her heart no one knew or ever had known.

Chapter 20

Abraham had never stopped lying with Sarah in her tent from time to time—but the times had become rarer over the years, and more often than not they would lie together and talk until one of them fell asleep. Now that he had the Lord’s promise to inspire him, though, Abraham became, if not youthful, then at least persistent in his efforts.

But he was too old. The time for this had passed. “A younger woman would waken your desire,” said Sarah.

“A younger woman has no promise of a son to be named Isaac,” said Abraham impatiently.

“Abraham, if the Lord wants you to have a son, then he’ll simply have to do something about this.”

“None of the other men has had any problems like this after receiving the mark of the covenant,” said Abraham.

“Abraham, you’re not a young man, and my old body shows few signs of the girl that used to waken you,” said Sarah. “It has nothing to do with the knife.”

Abraham muttered and went to sleep, then came back the next night, and the next. He had never spent
every
night with her even when they were younger, but he made sure not to travel to any of the other camps.

But when three and a half months had passed after the day of the covenant, even Abraham had to admit that it simply wasn’t going to happen. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “How could I have misunderstood the Lord’s promise? It’s not as if I wasn’t listening closely.”

She comforted him for his embarrassment, but because she had not really believed in the promise, her own disappointment wasn’t all that grave.

He slept beside her that night, enfolding her in his arms the way he did as a young husband, and she found that she enjoyed his company more now that he had given up on conceiving the promised child. “Love outlasts desire, I’m glad to say,” she said. “It’s just as well, you know. Can you imagine me chasing after a toddler at my age? Or getting milk to flow from these old breasts?”