In her eighth month, Rachel began to sicken. Her skin paled and her hair fell out. She could barely stand without falling into a faint. Fear swallowed her hope, and she called for Inna, who prescribed strong broths made from the bones of rams and bulls. She told Rachel to rest, and came to visit her friend as often as she could.
Inna came to deliver Rachel. The baby’s feet were down and there was bleeding long before he appeared. Inna’s efforts to turn the child caused Rachel terrible pain, and she cried out so pitifully that all the children of the camp burst into tears at the sound. Jacob sat on the bamah, staring at the face of the goddess, wondering whether he ought to make some offering to her, even though he had promised to worship his father’s god only. He tore at the grass and held his head until he could stand the sounds of her screams no longer, and he went off to the high pasture until Rachel was delivered.
It was two days before Reuben was sent to bring him back. Two terrible days in which Leah and Zilpah and Bilhah each bade Rachel goodbye, it seemed so certain that she would die.
But Inna did not give up. She gave Rachel every herb and every medicine in her pouches. She tried combinations that no herb weaver had used. She muttered secret prayers, though she was not initiated into the mysteries of magic words and incantations.
Rachel did not give up, but fought for a heart’s desire denied for fifteen years. She battled like an animal, her eyes rolling, sweat pouring from her. Even after three days and three nights, she did not call for death to release her from the torment. “She was mighty to behold,” said Zilpah.
Finally, Inna got the baby to turn. But the effort seemed to break something within Rachel, whose body was seized by a shudder that would not let go. Her eyes rolled up into her head and her neck tightened so that she faced backward. It was as though demons had taken possession of her body. Even Inna gasped.
Then it was over. Rachel’s body was released from death’s grasp, the baby’s head appeared, and Rachel found the last of her strength to push him out.
He was small, with a big thatch of hair. A baby like all babies, wrinkled, homely, and perfect. Best of all, he was Rachel’s. The tent fell silent as every woman wept grateful tears. Without a word, Inna cut the cord, and Bilhah caught the afterbirth. Leah cleaned Rachel, and Zilpah washed the baby. They sighed and wiped their eyes. Rachel would live to see her baby grow.
Rachel recovered slowly, but she could not give suck. Three days after Joseph’s birth, her breasts grew hard and hot. Warm compresses eased her pain, but the milk dried up. Leah, who was nursing me at the time, took Joseph to her breast as well. Rachel’s old anger at Leah flared at that, but it vanished when she discovered that Joseph was a fretful baby who screamed and squirmed until he lay in his own mother’s arms.
PART TWO
MY STORY
CHAPTER ONE
I AM NOT CERTAIN whether my earliest memories are truly mine, because when I bring them to mind, I feel my mothers’ breath on every word. But I do remember the taste of the water from our well, bright and cold against my milk teeth. And I’m sure that I was caught up by strong arms every time I stumbled, for I do not recall a time in my early life when I was alone or afraid.
Like every beloved child, I knew that I was the most important person in my mother’s world. And most important not only to my mother, Leah, but to my mother-aunties as well. Although they adored their sons, I was the one they dressed up and dandled when the boys were wrestling in the dirt. I was the one who continued going to the red tent with them, long after I was weaned.
As a baby, Joseph was my constant companion, first my milk-brother and later my truest friend. At eight months he stood up and walked over to me in my favorite spot at the front of my mother’s tent. Though many months older, I was still unsteady on my feet, probably because my aunties liked to carry me. Joseph held out both his hands to me, and I stood up. My mother said that in return for showing me how to walk, I taught him to speak
. Joseph liked to tell people that his first word was “Dinah,” though Rachel assured me it was the word for Mamma, “Ema.”
No one thought Rachel would bear another child after the awful time she had had with Joseph, so he and I received the treatment given to the final fruit of a chief wife. According to the custom of the old days, the youngest child inherited a mother’s blessing, and one way or another, fathers usually followed suit. But Joseph and I were petted and spoiled also because we were the babies—our mothers’ last-born, and our father’s joy. We were also our older brothers’ victims.
Age made two separate tribes among the children of Jacob. Reuben, Simon, Levi, and Judah were nearly men by the time I knew their names. They were often gone, tending to the herds with our father, and as a group, they had little use for us small ones. Reuben was, by nature, kind to children, but we avoided Simon and Levi, who laughed at us and teased Tali and Issa, the twins. “How do you know which of you is which?” Levi taunted. Simon was even worse: “If one of you dies, our mother won’t mourn since she’ll have one exactly the same.” That always made Tali cry.
I thought I saw longing in the way Judah watched our games. He was far too old to play with us, but as the youngest of the older brothers he was the least among them and suffered for it. Judah often carried me on his back and called me Ahatti, little sister. I thought of him as my champion among the big boys.
At first, Zebulun was the leader of us younger ones, and he might have been a bully had we not adored him and obeyed him willingly. Dan was his lieutenant—loyal and sweet as you’d expect of Bilhah’s child. Gad and Asher were wild, headstrong, and difficult playmates, but they were such wonderful mimics—mocking Laban’s lumbering walk and drink-slurred speech with such wicked accuracy—we forgave them anything in exchange for a performance. Naphtali, who was never called anything but Tali, and Issachar, or Issa, tried to lord it over me and Joseph because they were nearly two years older. They would call us babies, but a minute later they would join us on the ground, tossing a pebble into the air to see how many other stones we could pick up with the same hand. It was our favorite game until I could pick up ten stones to their five. Then my brothers declared it a game fit only for girls and never played again.
By our sixth year, Joseph and I had taken charge of the younger band, because we were the best at making up stories. Our brothers carried us from the well to my mother’s tent and bowed low before me, their queen. They would pretend to die when Joseph, their king, pointed a finger at them. We sent them out to do battle with demons, and to bring us great riches. They crowned our heads with garlands of weeds and kissed our hands.
I remember the day that game ended. Tali and Issa were doing my bidding, piling up little stones as an altar in my honor. Dan and Zebulun were fanning us with leaves. Gad and Asher were dancing before us.
Then our older brothers happened by. Reuben and Judah smiled and walked on, but Simon and Levi stopped and laughed. “Look at how the babes lead the bigger boys by the nose! Wait until we tell our father that Zebulun and Dan are donkeys for the bare-behinds. He’ll make them wait another two years before letting them come up to the high pasture with us.” They did not stop mocking until Joseph and I were alone, abandoned by our playmates, who suddenly saw themselves with their brothers’ cold eyes.
After that, Zebulun and Dan refused to do any more spinning for our mothers, and after much begging they were permitted to follow their older brothers into the hills. The two sets of twins—when they weren’t pulling weeds from the garden or helping at the loom—played by themselves, and the four of them became a tribe of their own, dedicated to hunting games and wrestling matches.
Joseph and I turned more and more to each other, but it wasn’t as much fun with just the two of us. Neither of us bent a knee to the other for the sake of a story, and Joseph had to contend with the taunts of our brothers, who abused him for playing with me at all. There were very few girls in our camp—the women joked that Jacob had poisoned the well against them. I tried to make friends with the few daughters of bondswomen, but I was either too old or too young for their games, and so by the time I could carry a water jar from the well, I started to think of myself as a member of my mother’s circle.
Not that children were often left to their games. As soon as we were old enough to carry a few sticks of wood, we were put to work pulling weeds and insects from the garden, carrying water, carding wool, and spinning. I do not remember a time before my hand held a spindle. I remember being scolded for my clumsiness, for getting burrs in my wool, and for the unevenness of my string.
Leah was the best mother but she was not the best teacher. Skills came to her so easily that she could not understand how even a small child could fail to grasp something so simple as the turning of string. She lost patience with me often. “How is it that a daughter of Leah could have such unlucky fingers?” she said one day, looking at the tangle I had made of my work.
I hated her for those words. For the first time in my life, I hated my mother. My face grew hot as tears came to my eyes, and I threw a whole day’s spinning into the dirt. It was a terrible act of waste and disrespect, and I think neither of us could believe that I had done it. In an instant, the sharp slap of her palm against my cheek cracked the air. I was far more shocked than hurt. Although my mother cuffed my brothers from time to time, it was the first time she had ever struck me.
I stood there for a long moment watching her face twist in pain over what she had done. Without a word I turned and ran to find Bilhah’s lap, where I wept and moaned about the terrible wrong that had been done to me. I told my aunt everything that lay heavy upon my heart. I wept over my useless fingers, which would never get the wool to twist evenly or the spindle to drop and turn smoothly. I was afraid that I had shamed my mother by being so awkward. And I was ashamed of the hatred I suddenly felt toward the one I loved so completely.
Bilhah stroked my hair until I stopped crying and fed me a piece of bread dipped in sweet wine. “Now I will show you the secret of the spindle,” she said, putting a finger to my lips. “This is something your grandmother taught me, and now it is my turn to show you.”