Yet that’s what Reuel told her that morning. “You, Zilpah. You’ll be needed in Asta’s tent, to take care of the baby.”
Zilpah wasn’t one of those whiners who always wasted Reuel’s time with all their reasons why they should get a different assignment. Sometimes it worked—but the cost was that Reuel thought of them with scorn and kept using them for the most distasteful work. Which provoked more whining, so he simply assigned someone else to tell them their work, thus moving them even lower down the social scale of the camp.
Zilpah was perfectly happy to have Reuel telling her personally what work he had for her to do. And if on a particular day, it was a nasty job like tending to Terah’s and Asta’s nasty puking crying little girl, she would take the assignment with a smile. For all Zilpah knew, this might mean she was now a particularly trusted woman. Or it might mean Reuel was trying to humble her, in which case she would bear it cheerfully—he was going to rule over her for a long, long time. Unless she could make something happen. And it was a sure thing she would never improve her lot if people in camp looked on her as a complainer or, worse yet, a rebellious servant.
So at the time of day when she would ordinarily be laundering or carding or spinning or hauling water or hauling slops, she found herself inside Asta’s tent, trying to keep a smile on her face.
It began so well, with Asta glaring at her when she came through the tent door and saying, “What are you doing here?”
“Reuel sent me. To tend the baby today.”
“You! To tend my baby!”
“I only do what I’m told, Mistress.”
“You can tell him that …” But apparently Asta thought better of it and hissed out a long sigh. “Just because my husband is a younger son, Reuel goes out of his way to treat us with contempt.”
Zilpah knew she was being insulted—because to Asta, merely sending someone as lowborn as Zilpah to tend to the baby between visits from the wet nurse was regarded as “contempt.” But she was used to being treated that way, especially by Nahor’s and Terah’s wives. Nahor’s wife Deloch was even worse than Asta—at least Asta spoke directly to Zilpah, however rudely, instead of acting as if she thought Zilpah had been spawned by a troop of baboons and spoke an unlearnable animal tongue.
“I will do my best, Mistress,” said Zilpah.
“I’m sure you will,” said Asta dryly. “Because if I hear you neglected my little Lisset, just because she’s not a son, then you’ll wish Reuel had never sent you to this tent!”
I already wish it, thought Zilpah, but of course what she said was, “I will be with her every moment.”
“Don’t just set her down and walk away because she crawls fast as a roach.”
“Where is she?” asked Zilpah.
“In the inner room somewhere,” said Asta, clearly wishing not to be bothered. Zilpah went there immediately, expecting to find the baby being cared for by one of the old women or perhaps the wet nurse. But no, little Lisset was crawling over a low pile of rugs. Just as Zilpah entered, the baby slid off the pile and rolled onto her back, whereupon she burst into tears, loudly.
Asta charged into the room at once. “What did you do to her!” demanded Asta.
“In the dark I couldn’t even see her at first,” said Zilpah.
“So you stepped on her? What an oaf!”
“I never came near her. I saw her just as she slipped off the pile of rugs she was crawling on.”
And perhaps because Zilpah was still in the doorway and the room was dark and the baby was already calming down again, Asta apparently decided to stop being angry. “You just have to watch them every second,” said Asta.
Zilpah refrained from pointing out that Asta herself wasn’t very reliable at baby-tending.
Annoying as the baby was bound to be, it was nothing compared to having to keep smiling for Asta, so it was a relief when she finally was satisfied that Zilpah wasn’t going to let the baby smother or choke and left the inner room. Moments later, Asta was out of the tent entirely, and Zilpah could settle down to her long, tedious day, with only the wet nurse from time to time for company.
“Good morning, baby Lisset,” Zilpah said softly, in a voice that imitated the baby-voices she’d heard other women use with their little ones. “You’re going to spit on me when you grow up, so you might as well start today.”
The baby gazed at her like she was crazy and then started looking around frantically.
“Now you’re going to start crying and everybody’s going to think I was pinching you,” said Zilpah.
Sure enough, Lisset began to squall. And picking her up didn’t help. She was crying precisely because her mother wasn’t there, so this horrible stranger wasn’t likely to be much comfort.
If someone came into the tent to find out who was torturing the baby, Zilpah needed them to find her actively trying to comfort the creature rather than doing what she really wanted to do—curl up under a mound of blankets to block out the sound and sleep through the day.
“There, there, now, little whining lovely brat of a baby,” cooed Zilpah to the baby whom she now held at her shoulder. “Please don’t get me whipped.”
A man’s voice came from behind her. “Nobody’s going to whip you.”
She whirled around to see Terah standing in the doorway separating the inner room from the outer.
And right behind him was Nahor.
It took only a moment to realize that Reuel did not assign her this task because he suddenly thought she was the perfect one to tend a baby. Nahor and Terah must have been watching for Asta to leave, they had come so quickly to the tent where Zilpah was by herself.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Listen to the coldness,” said Terah to Nahor, chuckling. “She speaks to us as if she were the lady and we were the lowborn illegitimate children of some tribe of nomads who had enough coin to pay her mother.”
Zilpah had heard worse. She was busy calculating. Was holding the baby a protection for her? Or did she need to set down the baby to try to fight them off? If she screamed, would someone come to help her? Or was everything so perfectly arranged that no one would be in earshot.
“Oh, sit down and relax,” said Nahor impatiently. “Nobody’s going to lay a hand on you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
It was precisely what she had been thinking, but telling her to relax only made her all the more tense.
“If we wanted you,” said Terah, laughing, “we’d have taken you without any subterfuge. That would simply be our right.”
As it would be my right to claw out your eyes like any cornered animal, thought Zilpah.
“We want to talk to you,” said Nahor. “And we didn’t want anyone to know we had talked.”
“Except Reuel,” said Zilpah.
“Reuel can think what he wants,” said Terah. Still that nasty smile didn’t leave his face.
So apparently they had implied to Reuel that they had decided to form a little troop to force Zilpah to fulfil all her teasing of the men in camp. And Reuel had gone along. Not that he had a choice. But he could have warned her!
“We’re used to women who wash themselves occasionally,” said Terah.
And since that category didn’t include either of their wives, Zilpah could only conclude that well-washed women was at least one of the pleasures of the city that they couldn’t keep away from.
“We want you to tell us,” said Nahor, “about Jacob.”
“What do you think I know?” she asked. “You were there when he dined with your father, just as I was.”
“And placed far enough away that we heard almost nothing, whenever they spoke quietly,” said Nahor.
“You were right in their laps,” said Terah.
“Not to mention washing his feet,” said Nahor.
“If it was just his feet you washed,” said Terah.
“Reuel was there. Ask him.”
“We’re asking you,” said Nahor. “Not just for what you’ve already see
n, but for what you might see in the future. Reuel is going to assign you to attend to Rachel, so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to learn what Jacob is planning.”
“He’s planning to marry Rachel,” said Zilpah. “Surely someone already told you that.”
Terah reached out and casually slapped her. Not hard, but it was humiliating, and something that Laban would not have tolerated if he had been there. So this was what camp life would be like when Laban died.
“He’s a younger son,” said Terah. “And he earned his brother’s hatred. Why? Because he stole his birthright. You don’t think we’ve heard stories? They fly like birds across the miles. There’s a reason his name is Jacob, ‘supplanter.’ He steals things that belong to others.”
“How can marrying Rachel deprive you of your inheritance? He’s entering into service with your father, not getting adopted by him.”
“Yes, very humble of him,” said Nahor. “But he’s full of tricks, this one. We know friends of his brother Esau’s. And we want to make sure he doesn’t take us by surprise.”
“Rachel’s so besotted with him,” said Terah, “that I think if he wanted her to, she’d poison us.”
Which just showed how little they knew their own sister. Rachel liked Jacob, but she wasn’t possessed by him. If anything, it was the other way around.
“So you want me to watch them and see if they’re plotting something?” asked Zilpah. “What if they’re not? Or what if they are, but they never show a sign of it in front of me?”
“You’re not the only friend we have,” said Nahor.
Good thing, thought Zilpah, because if I were, the total of your friends would be zero.
“Just watch, that’s all,” said Terah. “And if you get a chance, you might, you know, earn his trust yourself.”
“His trust?” she asked.
“His intimate trust,” Terah explained.
“He doesn’t look at me that way.”
“Do you think we’re stupid?” said Nahor. “Every man looks at you that way. You make it impossible for them to do anything else.”
“Then Jacob does the impossible,” said Zilpah.
“If the opportunity arises,” said Nahor.
“No man can wait seven years without finding some woman,” said Terah. “Unless there’s something wrong with him.”
“And when he looks for a woman,” said Nahor, “and you’re right there, let’s not have any foolishness about your virtue being saved for your husband.”
“The best you can hope for is to be some man’s concubine,” said Terah.
“We can promise you decent treatment, if you serve us in this,” said Nahor.
And, therefore, the opposite of decent treatment if she refused.
“I am your humble and obedient servant in all things,” said Zilpah.
“You are still a virgin, aren’t you?” said Nahor.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Terah. “Do you expect her to tell you the truth, either way?”
“I am,” whispered Zilpah.
“You see?” said Terah.
“All I’m saying is, keep it that way,” said Nahor. “A man like this Jacob, who casts his eye on children like Rachel, he may only want virgins.”
“Yes,” said Zilpah. “I plan to keep it that way.” I plan to give my virginity only to the man who takes me away from this camp and out of your power.
“Well, good, then,” said Nahor. “That’s all we wanted.”
“Not quite all,” said Terah.
He leaned close to her. She shuddered, thinking he meant to kiss her, with his own baby on her shoulder, drooling on her neck.
“When you want to tell us something, go to Reuel and tell him you miss my baby and want to tend her again. Just try to do it on a day when one of us is in camp. Reuel will get word to us.”
“That’s just stupid,” said Zilpah.
Terah stiffened, and Nahor frowned.
“If I ask, then Reuel will know that I’m a spy, not a woman you make use of. Unless you want him to know.”
“She’s right,” said Nahor. “It only makes sense if we ask for her to tend the baby—so he’ll think we’re in the mood to have use of her.”
“Can he really think we’re so desperate as to want to soil ourselves with this unwashed she-goat?” asked Terah.
“That’s what we’re counting on,” said Nahor. “If anyone in the camp suspects that she’s anything more than that to us, that she’s actually in our confidence, then he’ll make sure she’s nowhere near him and Rachel, and we’ll have to find someone else.”
“All right,” said Terah. “Besides, maybe one day she’ll get caught in the rain and the dirt will get washed away and who knows? Maybe she’ll be worth the trouble of peeling off all those rags.”
To have them talk of her like this made her feel unclean in so many ways. She had always disliked them. Now she truly hated them, and feared them, too. This was the kind of men they were, the kind who enlist spies in their father’s own camp.
“He’s a clever one, this Jacob,” Nahor said. “You have to listen carefully because his plans might be well disguised. And men like him are suspicious, expecting other people to have secrets of their own.”
She almost laughed. They knew nothing of Jacob, with his almost childlike lack of deceit. They were describing themselves. Not that they were clever. But they thought they were. They suspected Jacob, not because of stories they heard, but because of what they knew they themselves would do.
In fact, it occurred to her for the first time that maybe the much-vaunted closeness between Nahor and his younger brother Terah wasn’t really more of the same. Love between brothers as a mask for something darker—Terah plotting that when Laban died, there would be only one son to inherit; and Nahor keeping him close so that he could act first, when the time came. Maybe Choraz had guessed this about his brothers, and that’s why he had begged his father to send him into service with a prince who made war instead of only tending sheep. So he’d be far away—or, if he came home, so he’d be trained as a warrior to fight and defend himself.
Once she knew that besides being drunkards and wastrels, they were also sly conspirators, she had to believe them capable of almost anything. The things they suspected Jacob of were a list of the kinds of things they thought of doing themselves.
So when Terah added, “The thing to watch for most is if he seems to be plotting against our father,” Zilpah’s blood ran cold.
“I’ll watch indeed,” she thought. I’ll watch you, and warn your father or Jacob or Rachel or someone if I think you’re actually readying yourselves to carry out such a plot as these you think Jacob capable of.
At least this one good thing: Neither of them kissed her before leaving. Nor did they insult her intelligence by trying to pay her in city money. She could never spend it, after all—and if she tried, everyone would wonder how she got it. No, all they could offer her by way of enticement was a promise of good treatment later, and since their idea of good treatment was bound to be different from hers, they were promising her essentially nothing.
This was such a precarious situation—so much could go wrong—that for the first time in years she desperately wanted an ally. A protector. Not since she had first realized that her mother was as powerless as she was had she allowed herself to wish there were somewhere she could run for safety, for comfort, for advice.
Who? Could she tell Laban? If he believed her—and there was small chance of that, her word against his sons, with the two of them united as witnesses against her!—what could he do? What would he do even if he could?
Rachel? She was powerless herself, compared to her brothers. Not till Jacob was fully and truly her husband would he be able to act on her behalf.
Jacob himself?
Now, that would be a gamble, wouldn’t it? He seemed smart enough, but would he have the cleverness to hear her warning and bide his time, doing nothing that would indicate he had learned of the brothers’ plot
ting from her? She knew enough about the ways of powerful people to know that most such folk wouldn’t spare a thought for keeping her from harm. If Jacob confronted them with what she had said, it would end her life in this camp—either she would be expelled or so mistreated she’d have to run away.
But Jacob didn’t seem to be a confronter. He was a protector. Hadn’t he gone after Bilhah, to protect her, to bring her back? And Bilhah was a nothing, a stranger, not even beautiful.
Did she dare to trust Jacob?
Did she dare not to?
CHAPTER 14
Bilhah brought the comb to Leah’s inner room, expecting to prepare her hair before they went to study with Jacob this morning. But Leah was still lying in bed. “My eyes hurt from yesterday’s reading,” she said.
“That’s why you should stop trying to read for yourself,” said Bilhah. “I was taught to read so you wouldn’t have to.”
“I like to see the words with my own eyes.”
“They’re written so small,” said Bilhah. “They’re not easy even for me.”
Leah sighed. “I don’t want to go today.”
“But Jacob is waiting,” said Bilhah.
Leah rolled over, turning her back to Bilhah. “Go and tell him not to wait,” said Leah.
Bilhah couldn’t understand why Leah was acting this way. “What about the word of God?”
“It will still be there tomorrow, won’t it? The books won’t vanish in the night, will they? Can’t anybody ever just do what I ask, for once?”
For once? People do what you ask all the time. Or rather, they do what you demand—and wish that you would ask, so they could do it freely.
But Bilhah said nothing. It wouldn’t do to provoke an argument with Leah. When Leah was in a good mood, she was sweet and they could almost be friends. But when she was feeling sorry for herself, she would say the nastiest things and then, later, not even realize that she had been hurtful. Maybe, thought Bilhah, it was because Leah couldn’t see the expressions on people’s faces. If they didn’t tell her in words what they were feeling, maybe she simply didn’t know they were hurt or irritated by the things she said.
Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis) Page 16
