“He only has two,” said Leah.
Father chuckled and left the tent.
It was only later, as Leah was busy working with Zilpah on the winter blanket she was hemming to give Rachel as a wedding gift, that it occurred to her what Father might be planning.
But it was absurd. Father couldn’t possibly think that Jacob would put up with a substitution of one sister for the other.
Nor would I allow it! Just because I’ve curbed my temper for the past few years doesn’t mean I don’t still have one.
It would solve half of Father’s problems, though. Jacob would be married to Laban’s daughter, right on schedule. Not the daughter he wanted, but a daughter’s a daughter, yes? And from the moment Jacob accepted the substitution, he would be Laban’s son-in-law, so Choraz wouldn’t raise a hand against him. It would all be accomplished—and Rachel wouldn’t have to marry right now, just as she wants.
At least that’s how Father might see it. He might even imagine that, with Leah having spent most mornings in Jacob’s dooryard for so many years, they might have fallen in love with each other.
Well, think again, Father. It’s all study and teaching in that dooryard. Not like the tender little idylls of love that Jacob and Rachel enact most days out in the hills.
And Rachel would never sit still for it, either. It’s one thing to delay the wedding and quite something else to have Jacob marry someone else. Just propose it, and Rachel will be out of her tent and drinking the wedding cup with Jacob as originally planned.
Then it dawned on her. No, no, Leah, you fool. That is Father’s plan.
“What are you smiling about?” asked Zilpah. “How crooked your hemming stitch is?”
“It’s not crooked, it’s straighter than yours,” said Leah.
“You’re not smiling because your stitches are straight, either,” said Zilpah.
“I was smiling because I think my father has figured out a way to make sure Rachel overcomes her fears and marries Jacob tomorrow.”
“Is she still upset over whatever nonsense it was that Hassaweh told her?”
“You know she is, Zilpah,” said Leah. “Since you’re the champion collector of gossip in the camp.”
“I’m glad my talents are appreciated,” said Zilpah. “But at least I have the virtue of telling the gossip only to you.”
“What do the people in the camp think is going to happen?”
“They think Laban is going to make sure his daughter keeps her promise to Jacob. Even though he spoils her terribly, they can’t imagine that he’d shame himself in front of the whole world by backing out of a wedding promise.”
“Father would never make Rachel do anything,” said Leah. “Or me, either.”
“Yes, well, remember that they all think of Laban as very strong and fierce when he’s angry. They think this is the sort of thing that will earn Rachel her father’s wrath for the first time in her life.”
“They certainly guessed wrong about that.”
“And yet you’re smiling because your father has figured out a way to get Rachel married after all.”
“That’s right,” said Leah. “The only question is whether I’m willing to play my part in the game.”
“Are you?”
“No,” said Leah.
“Then you’re free to tell me what the game is,” said Zilpah.
“There’s no game. Just a little seed of an idea in Father’s head. But I intend to pluck it out before it sprouts.”
“Can I watch?”
“If you can see through tent walls.”
“I’m left out of all the best gossip,” said Zilpah.
“Sorry to inconvenience you.”
Zilpah laughed. “You just hemmed the blanket to your apron.”
In consternation, Leah picked up the blanket’s edge. Her apron didn’t come with it. “You’re such a liar, Zilpah.”
“Oh, weren’t they sewn together? Foolish me.”
“Just remember, in the dark I sew much better than you.”
“Yes, but in the light you sew exactly the way you do in the dark.”
“Everyone has their own special abilities,” said Leah.
They went back to their work, content with their easy camaraderie.
As Leah worked, though, the thought kept preying on her. What if Father really does intend to try to get Jacob to marry me instead of Rachel? And what if Rachel really is so afraid of marriage that she goes along with it, for the sake of keeping the promise?
Would Jacob accept me?
Would I accept Jacob?
In all these years, she had never allowed herself to think of Jacob that way. If such thoughts arose, she stifled them as quickly as possible. He belonged to Rachel. God had brought him here for Rachel to marry, and for Leah to have the scriptures. There was a clear wall between the two roles of disciple and wife, and Leah was happy with the side of the wall she dwelt on.
But what if, what if, what if? What if Jacob said to Father, This must be the will of God? What if he said, in all these years I’ve come to see Leah as she really is. She’s become a true disciple. She is the wife that the keeper of the birthright of Abraham needs as his companion. She’ll help me to teach our children the law of God and all the stories of scripture. I welcome her as my wife. Rachel’s fears were sent to her by God, for truly I came here to be Leah’s husband. For Rachel can marry anyone, but only I have seen Leah’s true worth and only I am her proper helpmeet.
The story she was spinning out in her mind was so sweet to her that it filled her eyes with tears.
And then she forced herself to remember that none of this was possible, that neither Jacob nor Rachel would ever go along with such a thing, and hopes like this were vain.
Even admitting that she hoped to marry her sister’s husband filled her with shame, both for the disloyalty of it and how pathetic it was. Such a tragic figure I’ve already become. Yes, children, your great-aunt Leah was secretly in love with your grandfather Jacob, and she spent all her life wishing that he had loved her instead of Rachel. Could there be any more miserable life than that, to be pitied by every generation of her family, forever?
The thought made her angry, and so the tears stopped.
“Well, I’m glad that little summer shower is over,” said Zilpah.
“What are you talking about?” said Leah.
“I’m not blind. I know tears falling on a blanket when I see them.”
“I was thinking about how much I’ll miss my sister after she’s married.”
“Oh, that’s such a lie,” said Zilpah.
“I really allow you far too much freedom in the way you talk to me.”
“It’s Jacob you’ll miss.”
That was so dead on the mark that Leah wondered for a moment if she had inadvertently spoken her thoughts out loud.
“For seven years you’ve listened to the scriptures in his dooryard every morning,” said Zilpah. “When that stops, it’s going to change your life a lot more than losing the sister who was always out in the hills somewhere petting the animals.”
Ah. So Leah’s heart had not been so transparent after all. “We’ve read all the books twice anyway,” said Leah. “It’s time to spend my mornings doing something else anyway.”
“Like repeating them from memory?”
“What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you been memorizing them?” asked Zilpah innocently.
“Not … memorizing them. But I think about them, yes.”
“And say them over to yourself. Over and over. Your lips even move when you sew.”
“I never really thought about it,” said Leah. “Perhaps I have memorized some passages.”
“I thought you were doing it on purpose,” said Zilpah. “So you could always have your own copy of the holy books with you even after Jacob leaves with Rachel.”
“I wish I had been doing that,” said Leah. “Now all I’ll have is a few passages, and those I probably remember all wrong.”
“I’d wager you have the whole thing in your head, every word.”
“No doubt. The problem is getting the words back out of my head in the right order.”
“Now, really, tell me,” said Zilpah. “What were you crying about?”
“I’m as bad as Rachel,” said Leah. “I don’t want things to change, and they’re going to. Everything’s going to be different, and I wish I had faith enough to trust what the Lord whispered to me—that everything was going to work out according to his plan.”
“Oh, you can be sure of that,” said Zilpah. “Since everything always works out according to the will of the … of the Lord.”
Leah knew she had been about to say, by habit, “the will of the gods.” Leah was never quite sure just how much of a believer Zilpah had become, even after years of studying the scripture alongside her and Bilhah. But she didn’t make an issue of it.
“What worries you,” Zilpah went on, “is whether you and the Lord will agree on what happens to be best for you.”
“Oh, I’m much more pessimistic than that,” said Leah. “I think the Lord is controlling what happens to Rachel and Jacob very, very carefully. But I don’t think it makes a bit of difference in his plans what happens to me. I think he already changed my life in the only way that matters, and so he’s done with me until it’s time for me to die.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re so content with the knowledge that you’re not the center of creation,” said Zilpah. “It would be so crowded if both of us tried to occupy that spot.”
“Oh, yes, God is building all his plans around you,” said Leah.
“Making me a slave in Laban’s house is all part of the plan,” said Zilpah. “So when a great desert prince carries me off to bear him sons, it will seem all the more miraculous, and everyone will say, It could only have been God’s will that Zilpah lived such a wonderful romantic love story.”
Leah laughed. Too enthusiastically apparently, because now Zilpah was acting hurt.
“Oh, don’t be offended,” said Leah. “The only reason I laughed was because I thought I was the only one who thought that way.”
“So we really are both in the center of creation,” said Zilpah sourly.
“Don’t worry. Since we’re both making up stories no one else will see, there’s plenty of room for both of us in the picture.”
“Not a chance,” said Zilpah. “I’m not sharing my imaginary desert prince with anybody.”
“Well, then, you’re selfish and you don’t deserve to have one.”
Zilpah laughed. “Oh, I hope we don’t get the life we deserve,” she said. “God wouldn’t be that cruel.”
CHAPTER 28
All morning, all afternoon of the wedding day, the air was filled with the smell of roasting meat for the feast and the sounds of frantic busyness and frolicking children. The boys and girls of the camp could sense the excitement of the adults, and with fewer duties to keep them busy, they acted out what everyone was feeling, going from games to japes to quarrels to tears in moments.
Only a few people realized that there was something seriously wrong with the wedding plans. And the three of them were sitting together in Laban’s tent, arguing and, in Rachel’s and Leah’s case, taking turns crying.
“It isn’t going to work,” said Leah. “Jacob will know it’s me the moment I walk out there.”
“No he won’t,” said Laban.
“What’s the point, anyway?” said Leah. “If Rachel wants to marry him, then let her marry him. If she doesn’t want to, then why go through a false ceremony?”
“It won’t be a false ceremony,” said Father. “Rachel will stand here in the tent and hear every word. She’ll make the oaths and covenants as surely as if she were out there, and if she decides to go through with the wedding night, then she’ll be truly married to Jacob.”
“Then let her go out and stand there with Jacob herself!”
Rachel wept again. “I can’t I can’t I can’t.”
“Well, if you can’t manage to stand there and say a few words,” said Leah, “you don’t deserve to marry him.”
“It’s not the words,” said Rachel. “It’s lying with him. And if I say the words, then I have to … lie with him.”
“That’s just the point,” said Laban. “The ceremony is necessary, but it’s not the actual wedding. You’re not married until you lie together as husband and wife. And then you are married, whether you said the words or not.”
“So every harlot in Byblos had a hundred husbands,” said Leah.
“I won’t hear indecency from my daughter,” said Laban sternly. “And I said as husband and wife, if you’ll recall.”
“What’s the point?” Leah asked again.
“You’re trying not to understand. It’s the public ceremony where a refusal to go ahead with the wedding would cause a scandal. So we’ll have that ceremony—no scandal! What happens in Jacob’s tent tonight—”
“What won’t happen,” said Rachel miserably.
“Is private. And quiet. No scandal. No public spectacle.”
“Father, there’s going to be a scandal, no matter what you do,” said Leah.
Rachel cried again.
“It postpones the decision,” said Laban.
“I’m not going to change my mind,” said Rachel. “Especially if it was my sister who actually went through the ceremony.”
“Oh,” said Laban. “It bothers you that someone else would stand up with Jacob? Even though she’s actually standing in for you?”
Leah shook her head. “Rachel, what is it, you don’t want him, but you also don’t want him ever to marry anyone else?”
“I do want to marry him. Someday.”
Laban sighed noisily. “So now we begin the whole conversation again, for the third time.”
“Oh, do it then!” cried Rachel. “I want to die.”
“Why not just swallow hard,” said Leah, “put on the dress, and go out there and marry the man?”
“I can’t I can’t I can’t.”
* * *
The piper changed from a jig to a more stately tune as the door to Laban’s tent parted, and Laban came out.
But Laban was alone.
He walked to Jacob, who was already standing under the canopy that had been erected in Laban’s dooryard. The jar of wine stood on a low table, with a rough clay cup for the bride and groom to share. Two small statues also stood on the table—one representing God and the other the great angel of his presence. Jacob looked askance at what some might take to be idols, though Laban had assured him many times over the years that they were nothing of the kind.
Laban had no intention of discussing the statues again now. “A moment’s word with you, Jacob,” said Laban.
Jacob stepped with him toward the door of the tent. “Is she afraid?” Jacob asked. “Let me talk to her.”
“She is afraid, but your talking to her would only make her more nervous. You know how it is—the most important day in her life, and she absolutely knows she’s going to do it all wrong and embarrass her. She’s really very shy. It’s part of the reason she’s more at home with the flocks than in the camp.”
“I know,” said Jacob.
“If she’s going to get through this, she has to feel that no one’s staring at her.”
“Everybody stares at the bride,” said Jacob.
“That’s why she begged me to let her use a thick, heavy veil. Like the one your mother used to wear.”
Jacob smiled and shook his head. “If it makes her feel better to pretend that she’s Rebekah in the old story, I don’t mind.”
“She’s been crying all morning,” said Laban. “She’s hoarse. Can’t be helped.”
“Would you please assure her that if she doesn’t want to, she doesn’t have to lie with me tonight? As long as she comes to my tent, the marriage will be complete in everyone’s eyes, and we can take as long as she needs to overcome her fear.”
“That’s very
gracious of you,” said Laban. “I’ll tell her you said that.”
Laban returned to the tent.
A few minutes later, he emerged again, this time with the bride on his arm. A veil of white wool covered her head, but it must have been transparent from the inside, because she walked surefootedly until she stood beside her husband to be.
Laban himself performed the ceremony, since he was the priest of his household, as well as its master. He poured the wine into the cup and then prayed over it, asking the blessing of God upon his daughter and this good man that the Lord had brought to her. He slipped the cup under the veil for the bride to drink, and then gave it to Jacob, who drained the rest of the wine.
Then she walked three times around him, not led by anyone, showing that she chose of her own free will to make this man the center of her life. If she trembled and stepped with exaggerated care, that was only to be expected—rumor had it that the poor girl had been crying all week in fear of this very ceremony. Or of something, if the cruder rumors were to be believed.
“The cup that seals our marriage,” said Jacob, “will never serve wine to any lips but ours.” He dashed the cup to the ground, and it broke into shards, which he then ground into the earth with his sandaled foot, until the pieces were too small, too mingled with the dirt, for anyone to attempt to reassemble them.
When all the words were said, all the rituals acted out, Jacob turned to her and softly said, “That wasn’t so bad, was it, Rachel? Now can’t you let us see your lovely face?”
“Please no,” she whispered. “Please.”
She stumbled. Laban at once sprang to her side. “I told you,” he whispered to Jacob. “She’s so frightened she can hardly stand up. Everyone looking at her—that’s what frightens her most.”
“Then won’t it be hard for her to be shown to the guests at the feast?” asked Jacob quietly.
“Maybe she’ll work up the courage to come let you show her off at the feast. But if not, then she’ll come to your tent tonight.”
Jacob chuckled. To his bride he said, “Whatever you want, my love.” And to Laban, he added, “I hope your wine is good and strong, so the guests will think they saw both a bride and groom at the feast.”
Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis) Page 29
