Sarah Read online

  ONE day, when Hagar was in the seventh moon of her pregnancy, she made a disgusted face and pushed away the dish that Sarai had just brought her.

  “It isn’t properly cooked!” she cried. “And you haven’t used the right spices. This isn’t suitable for a woman in my state.”

  Sarai was taken aback. She looked at her for a moment, speechless, then flew into a rage. “How dare you talk to me like that?”

  “All I’m saying is that the meat is badly cooked,” Hagar said, in an offhand manner. “It’s not your fault. These things happen.”

  “Just because I look after you, do you think I’ve become your handmaid?”

  Hagar smiled. “Don’t lose your temper! It’s only right that you should look after me. I’m carrying Abram’s child.”

  Sarai slapped her hard across the face. “Who do you think you are?”

  Hagar squealed, and rolled her eyes in terror. One hand on her cheek, the other holding her belly, she called for help.

  “You aren’t Abram’s wife,” Sarai screamed, ignoring her cries, quite carried away with anger. “You’re nothing but a womb carrying his seed. That and nothing else! A borrowed womb. You’re my handmaid, a handmaid who happens to be pregnant. What rights do you imagine that gives you? Especially over me, Sarai, Abram’s wife?”

  A number of women ran in and tried to grab hold of Sarai’s arms, for fear she would hit Hagar again.

  Sarai pulled herself free. “Don’t be stupid. I’m not going to kill her!”

  She immediately went to speak to Abram.

  “I was the one who put Hagar in your bed, but now that she’s pregnant, she thinks she’s your wife. I can’t stand it anymore.”

  Abram’s face creased with sadness. He took Sarai by the shoulders and pulled her to him. “I warned you that you’d suffer.”

  “I’m not suffering.” Sarai lied. “It’s just that Hagar never shows me any respect. The two of us can’t be in the same place anymore—it’s impossible.”

  Abram took a deep breath and sat down. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to choose between Hagar and Sarai.”

  Abram smiled joylessly. “I made that choice a long time ago. You’re my wife, she’s your handmaid. You can do what you like with your handmaid.”

  “In that case, I want her away from here.”

  HAGAR left the plain of Hebron that very evening, in tears, a bundle of her belongings over her shoulder. Pregnant as she was, she was about to face the open road.

  For three days, Sarai had to live with the shame of her own jealousy. The shame of her hardness and intransigence. And the shame of her barren womb. She thought she would die of shame.

  Yet nothing could persuade her to run after Hagar and bring her back. Not even Abram’s face, gray with sorrow. Not even the thought that Eliezer of Damascus, who was living outside the camp now, somewhere on the plain, must be delighted to be Abram’s heir again.

  On the morning of the fourth day, Sarai heard shouts of joy, especially from the women. Her mouth went dry. She had recognized Hagar’s voice.

  She rushed out of her tent, uncertain whether to vent her anger or bestow her forgiveness. But Abram was already running to meet her handmaid.

  Halfway between laughter and tears, Hagar was the center of attention. Sarai saw her clinging to Abram’s neck. “Come and lie down!” she heard Abram say, as gentle as a lamb. “You can tell us what happened, but first come and lie down and eat something.”

  Nobody dared look Sarai in the face. She approached, tight-lipped, swallowing her shame, anger, and jealousy, to hear Hagar’s story.

  “It was the day before yesterday, in the evening,” Hagar began, with a contrite expression but with joy in her eyes. “I was thirsty, and I stopped at the spring on the road to Shour. I was terrified that I would soon have to cross the desert. Suddenly, a presence approached me. I say ‘a presence’ because it was someone who was like a man but wasn’t. He had no face, but he had a body and a voice. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. And I said, ‘I’m fleeing my mistress Sarai, who drove me away! I’m going to die in the desert with a child inside me!’ And he said, even closer to my ear, ‘No, go back where you came from. You will bring a son into the world, and you will call him Ishmael. Yhwh has heard your lament; he knows how your mistress has humiliated you. Your son will be a wild, untamable horse; he will rise up against everyone and everyone will be against him. He will be a living challenge to his brothers.’ That’s what he said.”

  Hagar fell silent. She was radiant. Nobody dared to breathe a word, or ask a question. Abram nodded his white head as if he were sobbing.

  Hagar saw Sarai’s grim face behind the other women. She stopped smiling, and drew Abram’s hand onto her belly. “It’s the truth, you must believe me. The man who spoke in the name of your god asked me to take my place again beside you. He said, ‘Do not worry if your mistress humiliates you again. You will have to bear it.’ So I came back as quickly as I could so that you could welcome your son, lift him in your hands as soon as he comes out of me.”

  “Lies!” Sarai thought. “She’s the one who humiliates me. I’m her mistress, and she treats me like a handmaid. Who would believe it? And now Abram’s god speaks to her! More lies. A fable she’s invented to seduce Abram. Oh, yes!”

  But she kept silent. She was not going to drive Hagar away a second time. That would only make her seem even harsher and more hateful in everyone’s eyes.

  His eyes moist with tears, Abram stroked Hagar’s belly. “I believe you, Hagar! I believe you! I know the way God Most High makes His will known. Rest, take care of yourself, and give birth to my son.” He turned and looked for Sarai. “Don’t forget that Sarai is your mistress. I would never have gone with you to have a son if she hadn’t wanted it. Don’t take advantage of your own happiness to make her feel weak and jealous.”

  Sarai walked away before he had even finished the sentence.

  NEVER again did Sarai demonstrate her jealousy. But jealousy consumed her as if she were a dry stem.

  When Hagar felt the first labor pains, it was Sarai who sent for the midwives, prepared the linen and the calming unguents, heated the water with herbs, and made sure that everything was going well. Then she went and hid deep inside her tent and stopped her ears in order not to hear Hagar’s cries or those of the newborn.

  The next day, however, she came forward and kissed Abram’s son, Ishmael, on the brow. For as long as she could, she smiled at Abram’s great joy as he lifted the newborn in the air and called Yhwh’s name. Then she left the encampment. For hours, she walked straight ahead, lifting her tunic to let the wind on the plain cool the furnace of jealousy that was consuming her.

  As for Abram, he displayed his delight throughout Canaan. Everywhere he went, he thanked his god for the son Hagar had given him. But he returned quite soon. He no longer spent hours in the black-and-white tent engaged in discussion, but would sit and watch Hagar as she offered her nipples to Ishmael’s mouth, which she did endlessly. And then he would start to laugh. It was a laugh such as Sarai had never heard from him before, a laugh that soon burst forth at the slightest opportunity.

  As soon as he could, Abram began to play with his son. For hours on end, while Hagar looked on tenderly, Abram and Ishmael would hug each other and roll on the rugs or in the dry grass, in a cacophony of cries and gurgles. They would imagine birds in the clouds, play with the insects, and burst into laughter at the slightest thing.

  Sickened by all this laughter, exhausted by the spectacle of all this joy, Sarai stopped sleeping. She got into the habit of leaving her tent in the middle of the night and wandering like a ghost. Sometimes, in the cool, dark air, the furnace of her jealousy would subside.

  Fiercely proud as ever, she did her best to conceal how much she was suffering. She would force herself to take Ishmael in her arms, to cradle him, to breathe in his sweet childish odor. Tenderly, her eyes half-closed, she would let his tiny head nestle against her
neck until he fell asleep. Then she would hide away again, shaking feverishly, her cheeks not even refreshed by tears.

  She held out as long as she could, almost longer than she could bear. There came to be something strange, almost transparent about her beauty. Though her skin did not crease, it became a little rougher, a little thicker. It was as if it were charred from within and horribly irritable. She could no longer stand being touched, even by Abram.

  IN the second winter after his birth, Ishmael began to walk, to break pots and laugh out loud, to stammer his first words. One day he bumped into Sarai’s legs. She bent down, as so often, to take him in her arms. With a frown, Ishmael pushed her hands away. He stared at her as if she were a stranger. Then he cried out like a hungry, frightened little animal, and ran screaming to Hagar’s arms.

  Sarai turned away as if the child had hit her.

  This time, jealousy set her whole body ablaze. It was completely intolerable.

  At twilight, Sarai climbed the hill of Qiryat-Arba. It was cold, almost freezing. But her flesh was burning as if firebrands were being applied to it. She saw again the look Ishmael had given her, and thought of all she had endured, season after season. She could not bear it anymore.

  By the side of the road, she heard a stream gushing. Without thinking, she ran into the icy water. The stream was not very deep, but the current beat against her lower back while she splashed her belly and face with handfuls of water.

  It occurred to her that she could stay here like this, in the freezing cold, until her body finally yielded. She wanted her beauty to shatter, she wanted age to carry her away like a forgotten fruit, a branch broken by winter.

  Yes! That was what she should do. Remain in the stream until her flesh finally yielded! The current could wear away the hardest rocks, so why couldn’t it destroy Sarai’s useless beauty?

  Shivering, she looked up at the night sky, which was filled with stars. Those thousands of stars that the great gods of Ur—or so they had told her when she was a child—had immobilized one by one. She remembered the poem she had learned when she was a Sacred Handmaid, ignorant and avid for life:

  When the gods made man,

  They toiled and toiled:

  Huge was their task,

  Infinite their labor . . .

  It was then that the cry burst from her mouth, in a scream that made everything around her shake.

  “Yhwh! Abram’s God Most High, help me! I can’t bear it any longer. I can’t bear my barren womb, my fierce jealousy, I can’t bear it any longer. The trial has lasted too long. Yhwh! You speak to Hagar! You pity her and help her, and for me, nothing! Nothing for so long. You hear my handmaid’s lament, but me, the wife of the man you singled out, me, Abram’s wife, you ignore! Oh, how heavy your silence is! Oh, Yhwh, what’s the point of being only Abram’s god? How can you give birth to his people without putting life in my body? How can you make a beginning if Sarai is dry? How can you promise a people and a nation to my husband while my life cannot engender life? If you are as powerful as Abram says you are, then you know. You know why I did wrong in Ur, so long ago, with the kassaptu’s herbs. Oh, Yhwh, it was for love of Abram! If you cannot forgive a sin committed through innocence and love, what is the point of creating such hope in Abram’s heart? Oh, Yhwh, help me!”

  EPILOGUE

  Yes, that was what I cried.

  I remember it very well. My face turned to heaven, my arms raised, my body full of pain, I screamed like a lioness howling at the moon: “Help me, Yhwh! Help me!”

  Addressing Abram’s God Most High without shame. Not really believing he would hear me, needing to scream more than anything.

  I was still Sarai.

  Everything was still hard for me.

  Today, as I wait calmly for the moment when Yhwh will take my breath from me, the memory of it makes me smile. Because it happened: Yhwh heard me!

  That freezing stream is not far from here. From where I am sitting, outside the cave that will be my tomb, I can see the bushes of mint on its banks. That night, there were only stones and darkness. I stayed so long in the water I could have died. But Yhwh didn’t want that.

  In the first light of day, I went to see Abram.

  “I can’t help it, husband,” I said. “My jealousy is too strong. But I don’t want to cause you shame or spoil the happiness your son gives you. Let me pitch my tent up there, under the terebinth trees, away from your camp.”

  I didn’t tell him I had called the name of Yhwh until I was out of breath. Because then I would also have had to tell him how I had stayed in the frozen stream, and what was the point? They all thought I was mad already. Why embarrass him even more than I already had?

  Abram listened to me in silence. Now that Ishmael could jump onto his knees, he didn’t really care whether I was near or far. He kissed me and let me leave.

  In my solitary tent, away from everyone, without even a handmaid to keep me company, I finally slept. I slept for two or three days on end, waking only to drink a little milk.

  That sleep was as good as a caress. It calmed me. I could even laugh at myself. Why keep struggling, why keep going back endlessly over something that had been over and done with for ages? Why so many tears, so many dramas, now that a child had been born and Abram finally had his offspring? Wasn’t that what I’d wanted? True, Hagar was the child’s mother, but did that really matter? Soon Ishmael would grow, and everywhere, and for all time, forever, he would be known as “Abram’s son.” Nobody would care whose womb he had sprung from.

  Yes, I thought about all that with a smile, trying to make myself see reason. Knowing full well, alas, that I was unlikely to succeed. That was the way I was. I’d been carrying my burden for such a long time, and yet I’d never been able to get used to it.

  Then, one morning, when I had gone down to the river to wash linen, I discovered some little dark blotches on my hands. Irregular, like marks on the bark of a tree. In the evening, I looked at them again. They seemed darker. The next day, as soon as I woke up, I lifted my hands in the dim light and examined them carefully. The blotches were there, quite visible. Even more visible than the day before!

  In the days that followed, the muscles of my arms and thighs began to shrink. My whole body was being transformed! After careful inspection, I discovered an unusually deep crease on my stomach. The next day, there was another crease. And the day after that. Yes, my stomach was becoming crumpled! I examined my breasts, and found them less high, less round. Not flaccid like a goat’s udder, nothing like that, but less firm than before. I lifted them to feel the weight and they spread over my palms. Where once they had been convex, now they were concave. I ran and filled a wide-brimmed bowl with water to examine my face in the reflection. Wrinkles! Wrinkles under my eyes, above my cheekbones, on the edges of my nostrils, dozens of tiny wrinkles around my lips! And my cheeks were less taut, my neck more lax . . .

  My face was becoming the face of a woman of my age. I was getting older.

  I leaped in the air and screamed with joy. I started dancing, clucking with happiness like a young girl after her first kiss. At last, at last I was getting older! It was over, that youthful beauty that had clung to my limbs and had covered me with a false veneer for so long!

  For one moon at least I examined myself constantly, looking at my reflection in the water, counting my wrinkles, measuring the drooping of my breasts, the creases in my stomach. Each time, it became clearer that it really was happening. I was drunk with happiness.

  If anyone down in Abram’s camp had seen me, they would have thought, “Look at Sarai, all alone on her slope, consumed with jealousy—she’s finally lost her mind completely!”

  I didn’t care if I looked like a madwoman. Time had at last returned to me. Just as a newborn baby is laid in its cradle, I was being laid in my true body. And with that body, my torment could finally cease: There was no way now that I could ever have a child. For the first time since meeting the kassaptu in the Lower City, it was normal an
d natural for the blood not to flow between my thighs.

  What a relief!

  “Perhaps Yhwh heard you after all,” I said to myself. “He heard your lament. As he can’t change your womb, he’s finally shattering the miracle of your beauty and soothing you with the sweetness of old age.”

  That was what I thought! I went so far as to stand upright with my palms open, as I had seen Abram do when he thanked Yhwh, and for the first time pray to him and name him my God Most High. What pride!

  Some time later, Abram climbed up to see me, his face solemn and anxious. I thought perhaps something was wrong with Hagar or Ishmael. Or perhaps he was going to ask me to move even farther away. I was prepared for that. Prepared, too, for his surprise when he saw me.

  It didn’t happen. He stopped, frowned a little more, glanced with just a touch of puzzlement at my neck and my brow, but didn’t say a word. Didn’t ask any questions. But then, how could a man like Abram, who already had dark shadows under his eyes, slack cheeks, and a slightly bent back, be surprised by anything?

  I sat him down, made sure he was comfortable, and brought him food and drink. At last he looked directly at me.

  “I’m listening, husband,” I said.

  “Yhwh spoke to me this morning. He said, ‘I am making a covenant with you. You will be responsible for our covenant, and so will your children after you, and their children, too. The foreskins of all the males will be circumcised, and of all the male children when they are eight days old, as a sign of the covenant between you and me. My covenant will be written in your flesh.’”

  Abram stopped, eyebrows raised, as if expecting me to say something. But I kept my mouth shut. On the subject of Abram’s offspring, I had already said more than I should.

  He smiled, for the first time since he had arrived. “God Most High is giving himself to us,” he said, as if afraid I had not understood.

  I smiled, too, thinking of my wrinkles.