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

by Orson Scott Card

  You’ve done well today, my husband.

  That night, though, as she embraced Abram in the opulence of a captured enemy tent, she felt him trembling. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Lot is free, and all your men are safe.”

  “I don’t like killing,” said Abram. “So much blood was shed.”

  “You killed as few as possible,” said Sarai. “They came to kill and rob and enslave—there was not one whose death was not well deserved by law.”

  “Let justice come,” said Abram, “but not by my hand.”

  “And yet it was by your hand.”

  “Only because I have given my hand to God, to use as he sees fit.”

  The idea of giving his hand to God made her think of what he had said at the banquet, about how he didn’t want anyone to think Bera had made him a rich man. Abram gave his hand to God, and yet it was still Abram’s hand. If Bera had given his treasure to Abram, it would still have been Bera’s treasure in everyone’s mind—even though Bera had already lost the treasure, and Abram had taken it from someone else.

  If I could give a child to Abram, it would still be my child, because it would be my gift, even if the child came from someone else.

  The thought frightened her, because it meant surrendering to the barrenness of her body, admitting that she would never have a child. Still, what mattered was that Abram have seed in order to fulfill the promises of God. And if Sarai gave him another body, a body that belonged to her also, the body of her handmaiden, to receive his seed and bear him a child, then that child would come to him from Sarai as surely as if her own body had borne it.

  O God, is this the sacrifice that I must make? To forswear my own child-bearing as I give my husband his son? No, please, Lord. Let my own body bear the child of Abram’s promise. Don’t leave the gates of my womb locked forever. Let life grow within me!

  But she knew even as she prayed this silent prayer that she already had the answer when God gave her the thought of giving her handmaid to her husband to bear him a child. Now everything made sense to her—why God had placed her in the House of Women in Egypt, so she could meet Hagar and take her out of Egypt and bring her here to be her husband’s concubine. I was sent there only to bring Hagar’s young body to my husband.

  It was with a bitter heart that she made her vow to God, to obey him in this. For only despair could make her let another woman take this place within her husband’s arms.

  Chapter 17

  Abram did not answer. They had been at home in Mamre for a week before Sarai worked up the courage to say what she knew she had to say. All the rejoicing was over. The kings of the cities of Siddim had left, and Lot with them. Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre had gone home. Life was back to normal.

  And Abram came to her one morning and sitting there in the door of her tent, he said, “Why are you unhappy? The Lord gave us the victory. Not one of our men lost his life. Lot has returned to his family. Melchizedek left his blessing with us and went back to Salem. All is as it should be. And yet through it all, whenever I look at you I see something terrible in your eyes. And it isn’t the old sorrow that I always see. It’s a fresh pain, and it frightens you, and so it frightens me. But you have to tell me. I have to know. You can’t bear this alone, whatever it is.”

  His words came in a rush, or so it seemed to her; and yet it also seemed to her that it took him forever to say it, and after every sentence she thought a thousand sentences of her own, long explanations and longer pleadings, discourses, volumes, libraries were in her heart and yet she said nothing, she barely breathed until he was through and then, in the silence, she said, “Abram, you must lie with my handmaiden Hagar. She will bear you the son you have been promised.”

  He did not answer.

  The silence grew very long. So she found the courage to speak again. “It was to find her that we went to Egypt, and all we have been waiting for is for my heart to be ready to hear the Lord and do what must be done.”

  Still he did not answer.

  “That is what we’ve been waiting for,” said Sarai. “For me to humble myself, and to realize that a man does not have to bear children only through the body of his wife. Hagar’s body also belongs to me, and that is the body you must use to get your children from the Lord.”

  And still he said nothing.

  So she fell silent, and looked out over the camp, and beyond it, to the brown hills of autumn, to the thin skiff of dust being raised by the passing of a small flock of goats and the boy who was herding them with his long stick.

  Her heart leapt within her. He is silent because he will refuse the gift. It was enough that I offered. He will hold me in his arms and tell me that he would rather have no child at all than to break my heart by accepting this gift. He will tell me that the Lord forbids it, and so he will not do it. He will tell me that all the children of this camp are his children. He will comfort me and we will never speak of this again.

  O God, she cried silently. What am I thinking? In my heart I deny the gift. I make myself a liar by taking it back again, by hoping that he will say no. But that is not what I hope. I want him to say yes. I want the promise to be fulfilled. O Lord, let him take Hagar into his bed and let her give him a son that I can love and raise as my own.

  My own, but he will look like her, he will have her eyes, and I will hate him for that, I will hate him for her mouth, for every word he says, and I will hate myself for having stolen her son from her and for trying to raise him in a lie.

  O God, forgive me once again, for pretending to myself that the boy can be mine. No, he will be Hagar’s. Abram’s and Hagar’s, their son, not mine. She will be his mother. I will not steal her child from her.

  But please, Lord, do not make me give up my place beside Abram!

  A strange new peace came into her heart. As if a kind voice said to her, You have given all that I ask. The child will be Hagar’s, but I will not take Abram from you. She did not hear the voice, she did not know the words, but she felt the peace that could only come from having heard that voice, and understood those words, and so she knew they had been spoken, and by whom.

  “Abram,” she whispered. “Now I truly mean it. Lie with Hagar.”

  She turned to face him.

  Tears streaked the dust on his cheeks. “I know what that cost you, my love,” he whispered, “but I will never do that.”

  “You will if the Lord tells you to,” said Sarai. “It is God who has restrained me from bearing. Go to her as a husband, and get children from her. I would never say it if God had not given it to me.”

  “Have you spoken of this to Hagar?”

  “No,” said Sarai.

  “She has to agree, freely. Work we can command from a servant, but not this.”

  “I couldn’t ask her till now,” said Sarai.

  “How could you ask me without asking her first?”

  “Because until a few moments ago I hoped you would say no,” said Sarai.

  “And you no longer hope I’ll say that?”

  “I want you to have a child,” said Sarai, “more than I want it to be mine.”

  Abram leaned to her, put an arm around her shoulder, kissed her cheek. “You ask Hagar,” he said, “and I will ask the Lord.”

  He got up and walked to his tent.

  Sarai went nowhere at all. She just sat there. Sure enough, Hagar, who had been waiting not far away, saw that Sarai was alone, that she was doing nothing, not even spinning with the distaff that was always at her hand.

  “Mistress,” said Hagar, “are you ill?”

  Sick at heart, said Sarai silently. But with her lips she smiled. With her hand she beckoned, then patted the cushion beside her, where only moments ago Abram had been sitting. Such a coincidence would never have mattered to her, but now, knowing that her husband’s warmth was still on the fabric, she cringed as Hagar sat on it.

  Hagar, still so young of body, so beautiful. I’m an old woman, and Abram will find her so sweet that he will never want me again. O Lo
rd, must I do this?

  And having decided to do it, must I keep deciding to do it each step of the way? Will I ever stop wishing for thy word in my heart to tell me that I need not do it after all?

  “Hagar,” said Sarai, “you know that I have borne my husband no children.”

  “Mistress,” said Hagar, “you will bear him a child someday.”

  Sarai laughed mirthlessly. “Hagar, this is a good time for you to listen instead of trying to reassure me.”

  “I’m listening, Mistress.”

  “The body I was born with has grown old. Too old to bear a child, I fear. The Lord has shown me another way to give my husband the son who will inherit all that God has given him and through whom God will fulfil all his promises.”

  “How will it be done?” asked Hagar. Sarai knew that Hagar expected some kind of magic. In fact, now that Sarai looked at her, she could see that Hagar was steeling herself for something terrible. She was afraid.

  “Girl,” said Sarai, “why are you afraid?”

  “I’ve known for years that it would come to this,” said Hagar. “Mistress, I will submit to your will.”

  “Submit to what?” said Sarai. “I haven’t even asked you yet.”

  “The sacrifice,” said Hagar. “So Asherah will let you have a child.”

  It took a moment for Sarai to realize that Hagar meant a human sacrifice, and thought that she would be the victim. “Are you out of your mind, child?” said Sarai. “Have you lived with us all this time and yet you still think that Abram would ever, ever sacrifice a human being? Asherah is nothing but statues and empty words. The true God does not ask for human blood! You know that. We’ve taught you that.”

  Hagar searched Sarai’s face, trying to see if there was some lie in what she was saying. And when she found no lie, she burst into tears and clung to Sarai in relief, in gratitude.

  “What were you thinking,” said Sarai. “What were you thinking of us.”

  “You were so long without a child, Mistress,” said Hagar. “It had to be Asherah punishing you.”

  Sarai petted her hair. “You poor confused child.”

  At that moment, Sarai looked up to see Abram standing in the door of his tent, looking at them, appalled. It took a moment, but then she realized how it must look to him. He must think Sarai had asked Hagar to lie with him, and that at the thought of it, Hagar had burst into tears and was clinging to Sarai to plead with her not to require her to do it.

  For a moment she thought, Serves him right!

  But she knew at once how unjust it was for her to think that. This wasn’t his idea, after all.

  So she shook her head, so he’d realize that it wasn’t what he was thinking, and then with her fingers she made a little dismissing gesture. Go inside your tent. Pray to God. Leave me to my business with this girl.

  He understood. Maybe not all of it, but at least the part about going away—or maybe he understood nothing at all, but it didn’t matter the reason. He went inside the tent, and Sarai got back to the task of giving her husband to her handmaiden.

  “Hagar,” said Sarai, “Do you want to hear what I was actually going to ask you?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “I have asked my husband to lie with you and get you with child for me.”

  Hagar nodded. “Of course,” she said.

  “Just like that?” asked Sarai. “You don’t need to think about it?”

  Hagar pulled away a little, so she could look at Sarai. “Mistress,” said Hagar, “your husband is the only master I’ve ever heard of who did not lie with every servant girl who wasn’t actually deformed or sick. I wondered at first what was wrong with me that he never came to me, until I found out from the other women that he didn’t lie with any of them. And then I thought, perhaps he has the curse on him, so he can’t lie with anyone. But some things you said . . . well, you kept thinking that perhaps you might be with child this month, or the next, and you wouldn’t have thought such a thing if . . . I simply didn’t understand. But if you want him to lie with me, then of course I will. And if you want me to bear a child, I’ll do it. I am yours. The child will be yours.”

  “All right, then,” said Sarai. “Now we have only to wait for Abram to get his answer from . . . no, wait.” She had just understood what Hagar’s words really meant. “No, you don’t understand yet. The child you bear will not be a servant in this house. The child you bear will be Abram’s son.”

  Now it was Hagar’s turn to stare at her in silence, trying to understand. “You mean . . . a son who inherits?”

  “That is the only kind of son that Abram will ever have.”

  Hagar’s eyes grew wide, and she sat very still, staring at nothing.

  “I will still be Abram’s wife,” said Sarai, wanting that to be very clear.

  “Of course,” said Hagar. And then, “This was your idea?”

  “It was given me by God. I think.”

  Hagar nodded. “Yes, I’ll do it.” She turned to Sarai and searched her face as she said, “Mistress, will you hate me if I bear him a child?”

  “I will rejoice for you,” said Sarai. “And I will rejoice for my husband. And I will rejoice for the child, and for the land of Canaan that will be blessed by him.”

  “But you will also hate me,” said Hagar.

  “I will never hate you for obeying me, for serving me as I ask you to.”

  “You will,” said Hagar.

  “I will not,” said Sarai. “Please don’t accuse me of being an oathbreaker.”

  “You have to hate me for it,” said Hagar, sounding as if she were desperate to make sense of this thing that was happening. “You have to.”

  “Why do I have to, when I say I will not?”

  “Because I would hate you for it, if I were in your place. To have another woman bear a child for my husband, when my own body could not? How could any woman endure that, Mistress?”

  “A woman can endure it,” said Sarai, “for love.”

  When she said it, she meant it. But later, she realized it was not true. She had loved Abram all along, and yet never thought of this solution to her barrenness. It was only for faith that she did this, to offer a way for God’s promises to come true.

  Abram got his answer from the Lord. He went into Sarai’s own tent with Hagar, and lay with her. Two weeks he lay with her every night, while Sarai went with Eliezer to visit Qira and Lot in Sodom. It was the nicest visit that Sarai had ever had with her sister. Not that Qira was not as awful as usual—she was in her finest form. But it all washed over Sarai like a gentle breeze with no sting in it. Qira had no power to cause her pain, now that she knew what pain was. Instead, Qira was a kind of antidote, for she carried Sarai back so many years, to a time when they were girls in Father’s house, before either of them had married, before Sarai had met the man from the desert who promised to come back and marry her. They promised me to a goddess then, but now I belong to God. He is using me as he sees fit. It is hard to bear, but I have this much more than I would ever have had, serving Asherah: I have known the love of a man. And such a man. He will love Hagar now, as a man must love the mother of his child. I have lost everything. But I have everything, because my husband will have a son at last, and his joy will be my joy.

  After three weeks, Eliezer took Sarai back to Mamre. Life returned to normal. No one spoke to her of what had passed between her husband and her maidservant. Everyone acted as if nothing had happened at all.

  But no one was fooled. Everything had changed. What had once been real was now a play, everyone acting an old part, going through the motions, saying the speeches, but knowing that no one was, any longer, what they still pretended to be.

  And the pretense finally ended when Hagar said to her one night, “Mistress, five days have passed since it should have been my time.”

  That was when Sarai’s last hope died. “I’m so glad,” she said to Hagar. “Let’s go tell Abram.” She held the girl’s hand as they crossed the continent bet
ween the tents.

  Chapter 18

  The first time, Sarai did not think it amounted to anything. Hagar was feeling ill in the morning, as women often did when they were with child. So when Hagar’s voice awoke her, croaking, “Sarai, Sarai,” all she could think was, Something’s wrong with the baby she’s carrying.

  “Bring me a jar,” whispered Hagar.

  Sarai rose from the carpets she slept on and hurried to fetch an empty jar and carry it to Hagar, who promptly vomited into it. When, exhausted, Hagar collapsed back onto her pillows, Sarai took the foul jar outside and left it for one of the women to empty it and clean it later.