Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis)

by Orson Scott Card

  Of course he paid more attention to Rachel than to anyone else—but so had Father, all her life. So had everyone. She barely noticed it; only when someone else muttered or laughed about it did she realize that a man too busy to talk to anyone else always had time to talk to her, and not “later,” when he had more time, but now. Aware of it, she tried not to abuse it, and more than once felt a little guilty when she realized that her urgent business had not really been all that urgent, after all. Still, she kept it in balance. Jacob was important to her. She was proud of him. Proud to have everyone know she belonged to him, at least by promise.

  But what did it mean to belong to him? For six of the seven years, nothing at all. Didn’t her life go on as it always had? Except that Leah was not so prickly and hard to get along with, except that her brothers Nahor and Terah were always in the camp now, and actually working, how was life different? Even having Bilhah in attendance was not a burden. She was an independent girl, never slavish. Instead of fawning over her the way her sisters-in-law, Asta and Deloch, made their servants do, Bilhah had duties of her own that had nothing to do with Rachel, and when they were together, it was more like fellow workers on a shared project than like mistress and handmaiden. Rachel wasn’t sure they were friends, but they got along well.

  Everything went well. Everything.

  So why did it all have to change?

  It began when Jacob announced that it had been six years since the agreement between him and Father for Rachel’s hand in marriage. For Jacob to announce the date was not unusual—he kept the calendar of the camp, for the obvious reason that he was better with reading the stars and keeping the count of days than the priests in the nearby towns. As Jacob said to her once, “They’re so impressed with their own knowledge of numbers and of the portents of stars that they forget it’s all supposed to mean something about how long and short the days are, and how high the sun is at zenith, and how far south of true west and east at setting and rising.”

  None of which mattered to Rachel in the least, so the other dates he announced only mattered when they changed the routine of the camp. It’s as if Jacob controlled the flow of time. When he said it was time for lambing, the lambs began to drop. When he announced that it was planting time for beans, the beans went into the ground. Leaves sprouted on limbs when he told them to. Even the locusts came when he said they would, and Rachel did not understand how he could know when they would be bad and when their coming would do little harm.

  “They have a cycle,” said Jacob. “Everything has a cycle, if you know what it is. Why should a man have to tell a woman that?”

  “They say we’re tied to the moon,” said Rachel, “but that’s nonsense. The time never comes on a woman at the exact same phase of the moon.”

  “A cycle of your own, and not perfect, either,” said Jacob. “Because the things of human beings are never as perfect as the exact cycles of heaven.”

  “Why not?” said Rachel. “Didn’t God make us too?”

  “He also made us free,” said Jacob. “So we don’t follow our cycles so faithfully.”

  “If it were up to me, I’d have no cycle at all.”

  She had meant it frivolously, as a joke, but it made Jacob’s face turn grave. “The cycle of women is the power of life. Creation by men is always slight. We make things that break. But women have the gift of God to make babies. That is as great as any priesthood, and no one has to ordain you to it, God fills the wombs of the women he chooses as his cocreators, and they bring forth fruit in their season, and their children grow up to have voices that can praise God.”

  “I think men have something to do with it,” said Rachel. “If I’m wrong, there are a lot of rams and bulls and cocks and stallions who strut about nothing.”

  “Yes, the man struts, but the woman is the earth in which the seed grows. So don’t speak ill of that cycle, painful and unclean as it may be. It’s the great cycle of life, and God put the calendar of that life in every woman’s body, as surely as he put it in the heavens.”

  It made her feel dreamy and wonderful to have him speak that way of the discomforts of her withdrawing days, when she was trapped in her tent, irritable and uncomfortable and untouchable, while Bilhah tended to her, bringing her meals and carrying away her rags for washing.

  She and Jacob could talk about anything, and he would find reasons why they should honor and praise and thank the Lord; and yet it was still about her, too, and whatever she said seemed to make him think she was more wonderful than before. It was exhilarating to have a man so gifted by God, so respected by all the people in the camp, look to her as if she were somehow even more worthy of honor than he was.

  And then it was the end of the sixth year of her betrothal, and now everything was changed.

  Because each thing that happened was now happening for the last time. Shearing, lambing, bringing the flocks in, taking the flocks out, she could not help but say to herself, I do this for the last time this year. Next spring, next summer, next autumn I will not be coming out with the sheep, because a good wife of a powerful man does not come out and work with her hands. Does not let herself be familiar with the servants, the shepherds; they see her face, they show respect, but she doesn’t take the lambs out of the shepherds’ arms and minister to them herself. Nor does she bend over to harvest the beans, or carry a jar of water up from the well because everyone else is busy.

  It put a touch of sadness into everything she did. But more than that, she began to be filled with dread. For she did not know yet what she would be doing instead, or whether she’d be good at it, or enjoy it. Because she had never seen her mother doing the things that the mistress of the camp should do, the only married women she knew at all well were Deloch and Asta, Nahor’s and Terah’s wives. But they were the wives of sons, not of lords of a camp, and they were not particularly good men at that—she loved her brothers, but she knew they were lazy, among several unvirtues. So their wives could hardly show Rachel what she was going to be.

  When she spoke of this to Bilhah, once, the answer was quick—and a bit impertinent, but that was Bilhah’s way. “I don’t think you have to worry right away about assuming the duties of the mistress of a great camp.”

  “What do you mean? Jacob is a prince, a priest, the keeper of the books.”

  “He also is your father’s overseer, and not the lord of anything, or the prince of anything. Where are his men? Who is owed bread at his table?”

  “Jacob won’t continue as Father’s overseer,” said Rachel. “He’s only serving Father for my sake.”

  “Fine,” said Bilhah. “But please tell me where he’ll go, once you’re married?”

  In all her daydreaming and contemplation up in the hills for more than six years of betrothal, Rachel had never thought of that problem. Jacob couldn’t go home—the threats of Esau were well-known. He had no herds of his own. For all that Rachel could see, Jacob owned nothing but his clothing and the holy books.

  “He can’t stay here,” said Rachel. “And why would he? He serves Father to earn me, and once he …”

  “Once he has you,” said Bilhah helpfully.

  Has me, thought Rachel. Once he possesses me … “Well, then, I suppose I’m his … flock.”

  Bilhah tried, but she couldn’t help but laugh at that. An easy laugh. Rachel wanted to tell her to stop it, but then Bilhah wouldn’t know if it was her mistress telling her not to laugh, or her friend.

  “He can’t shear you,” said Bilhah. “Lovely as your hair might be—and it is very nice hair—it doesn’t grow fast enough.”

  “It can’t be woven into cloth,” said Rachel, playing the game with her.

  “Well, it can, but it unravels so fast.”

  “And I wouldn’t want to trust my life to a rope twisted out of my own hair.”

  “But if you put it in the stew along with lentils and greens,” suggested Bilhah.

  “Stringy,” said Rachel.

  “But flavorful.”

&nbs
p; When the jesting was over, though, Rachel had to face the fact that she had no idea what Jacob was planning, once they were married. Where would they go? Into some other man’s service? Who but Laban would treat Jacob as the prophet, as the keeper of the Holy Books? Or was Jacob planning to go back to Beersheba and confront Esau, demand his inheritance?

  If he does, how long will Esau let him live? Am I marrying this great and good man, letting him take me away from the world I’ve known, only to become a widow in another land?

  And what if Esau claims brother-right? Suppose he has someone murder Jacob, and then claims me as his bride? Father can’t even come reclaim me—the bride-price was paid, and I would belong to Jacob’s family, then.

  My life only makes sense as Jacob’s wife, not as his widow. And even as his wife, what are we, who are we, where are we? In this camp, Jacob will be the husband of the daughter of the lord of the camp. Anywhere else, and he’s a man with no property and a pretty wife.

  There are men who would kill him for a wife like me, if he has no coterie of armed men at his command. She remembered the story of Abraham and Sarah in Egypt—though she had also heard the story as if it happened to Isaac and Rebekah. The Lord protected them, drying up the wombs of the women of Egypt—or Abimelech—she would have to ask Jacob which was true.

  For the first time, she wondered what it was like for the women of Egypt. They had not taken another man’s wife into their household. And suddenly the Lord dried them up like raisins, taking away their very reason for life. The Lord had protected Abraham and Sarah, yes, but who was protecting these women? Who would replace the children they hadn’t borne?

  Perhaps the Lord, in his mercy, gave each of these women another year before they passed the age of bearing, so they lost no child by their temporary barrenness.

  And it would have been a blessing, for the women who would die in their next childbirth. Being barren gave them extra months, or an extra year, of life. So for some it was merciful, and for others tragic.

  Is there anything God can do in this world that is truly a blessing for everyone? A blessing for one man can be a cursing for another.

  She thought of Nahor and Terah. What was Jacob to them? To Father, Jacob’s coming was a blessing—his flocks and herds, now under Jacob’s wise and energetic management, had expanded greatly, and his well-trained fighting men were able to protect them in farflung meadows and camps. For Father, a blessing. But for Nahor and Terah, Jacob’s coming pointed up to Father just how wasteful and meaningless their lives were, how faithless they were to their wives. Everyone in camp knew of the time when Father railed at Nahor, “Jacob isn’t even married, and yet he is perfectly faithful to Rachel, while you, who have a woman you can cover whenever you want, you can’t keep yourself from sneaking off to the whores of Haran!”

  Naturally, Nahor had denied everything, but Deloch was sullen for days, because Father’s accusation was true. The worst thing, though, was that Father had no idea how such a comparison made Nahor and Terah hate Jacob. Why can’t you be like my future son-in-law! Father said to them, and so Nahor and Terah grew angrier and angrier at Jacob.

  So Jacob’s coming was a blessing to Father, but a curse to Nahor and Terah.

  Or was it?

  Fearful of losing their inheritance, hadn’t they come home? Hadn’t they abandoned their friends in the city? Weren’t they present in the lives of their children now? It was so funny and so sad when Terah didn’t know which babies were his and which were Nahor’s.

  They were angry at Father and they hated Jacob for forcing them to do the work of their father’s camp—but it made them into true shepherds, so that when Father died, they would know enough about the work of the camp to govern it, instead of turning everything over to a steward.

  So Jacob’s coming had made Nahor and Terah into better men. A blessing—though they hadn’t wanted it.

  What about me? thought Rachel. A blessing, to have this good man in my life. Surely God loves me to send me this husband.

  And yet … everything I love about my life is going to be taken from me when this year ends. All my certainties will be replaced by uncertainty. If Jacob died today, it would break my heart—but it would not change my life for long. After we’re married, though, if he dies, then as the widow of a poor man am I not also destroyed?

  What a selfish thought. She was disgusted with herself for thinking it.

  Why not think of Jacob? When he marries me, what dowry does he get? He might hope Father will give him herds and flocks of his own—and Father might, he’s not an ungenerous man. But no dowry is owed. Jacob is entitled to nothing, he can count on nothing. For all these years, this man of such proud heritage has served as a bondsman in Father’s household. A prince, bowed down … for my sake!

  Am I a blessing in his life? He thinks I am. But in truth we’re a mixed blessing to each other, bad along with good, sacrifices along with benefits.

  So why do we do it?

  She asked this aloud one time, when she and Leah were sitting together shelling beans into their aprons. “Why do we do it?”

  “Do what?” asked Leah. “Or am I supposed to guess?”

  In the old days, those words would have been nasty and Rachel would have fallen silent. But now Leah spoke them with a laugh, as if she enjoyed Rachel’s habit of speaking as if everyone already knew what she had been thinking before she spoke.

  “Marry,” said Rachel. “It’s so awful, how marriage changes things.”

  “It’s about babies,” said Leah. “Or didn’t you hear of that?”

  “It isn’t marriage that makes the babies,” said Rachel. “Or do the beasts have weddings we don’t see?”

  “Beasts rut in the fields,” said Leah. “Humans marry.”

  “But why?” said Rachel. “Why can’t we just … make the babies but stay at home with our parents? Why do I have to go off with Jacob and live as a stranger somewhere? It must have been awful for Rebekah.”

  “Not awful,” said Leah. “Just hard.”

  “Oh, yes, as if you know.” Rachel knew that in years past, her scornful tone would have caused a fight. Leah was so much better a sister and friend since she had taken to reading the holy books. So Rachel was able to speak more freely—almost like when they were little.

  “You don’t know either,” said Leah—keeping her temper.

  “I just thought—I just don’t want to leave home.”

  “Well, first, what makes you think you’re leaving? Where’s Jacob going to go, anyway?”

  “How can he stay? Is Father going to let me be married to the steward?”

  Leah laughed. “He won’t be steward, silly girl. He’ll be Father’s son. Sons inherit. Sons rule in their father’s name.”

  “Nahor and Terah will hate that.”

  “Yes,” said Leah. “It’s a good thing neither one of them is a man of action, don’t you think?”

  “Jacob won’t want to make enemies of them. He’ll leave.”

  “As soon as he can, he’ll leave,” Leah said. “But he can’t leave when he has nothing. How would you live?”

  “It’s frightening,” said Rachel.

  “But forget this idea about doing without marriage,” said Leah. “It would never work.”

  “Why not?” said Rachel.

  “Well, for one thing, if Father and Mother hadn’t married, and we were just living with Mother, then when she died, where would we have gone?”

  “With her father,” said Rachel.

  “But you’ve eliminated all fathers, haven’t you?” said Leah. “And Mother’s mother died in bearing Aunt Mirya. So our mother would have been an orphan.”

  “I know we need to marry,” said Rachel. “I know it. I just wish …”

  “You don’t have to marry if you don’t want to,” said Leah. “Father’s promise doesn’t truly bind you. You’re still young.”

  “Most girls my age are already married.”

  “My age, too,” said Leah. “Do
es that make it the right time?”

  “Maybe I’m just the wrong girl.”

  “Jacob thinks you’re the only one.”

  “All he knows about me is my stupid pretty face.”

  “You’ve had plenty of chances to show him what else you are.”

  “It’s the only thing he loves about me.”

  “If you think that, then you don’t know Jacob.”

  “I don’t know him.” Only when she said it did she realize it was true.

  “He knows you and he loves you,” said Leah. “He marries the whole woman, not just the face.”

  “Why doesn’t he marry you?” said Rachel. “You’re the one filled with thoughts of God. You’re the one who can read and write.”

  Leah said nothing.

  Rachel realized what she had just said. “Oh, Leah, I never thought—do you love him? Do you wish you were marrying him?”

  Leah laughed. “He knows you and loves you. He knows me and thinks very little of me, dear sister. When I marry, I want to marry a man who doesn’t think I’m weak and foolish and vain and malicious.”

  “He doesn’t think those things of you!”

  “Jacob’s not a man to lie, and those were his words.”

  “When did you have such a quarrel?”

  “He didn’t spout them all in a single list,” said Leah. “But over the years, he’s used those words, not to refer to me, of course, but the lesson was clear enough: You’re like this, Leah, you’re like that, now stop it.”

  “So he cares about you.”

  “The Lord knows how weak and unworthy I am. He brought Jacob here to love you, but to correct me. I only hope I’ve learned all that I can learn, before Jacob takes away not only you, but the Holy books as well.”