Rebekah: Women of Genesis Read online

  “But my name isn’t ‘luhbuhnuh,’ it’s Laban.”

  Father was studying their faces, as usual, and saw Laban’s resistance.

  “We just write down the solid sounds,” Father said. “The ones that don’t change. The Egyptians do it foolishly, and so do the Babylonians and Sumerians—the priests have a separate picture for every possible sound. Bah, beh, bo, bee, boo, bim, ben, ban—a separate picture. So you have to learn hundreds and hundreds in order to write anything. But we use the same mark for all the ‘buh’ sounds. ‘Bah,’ ‘beh,’ ‘bo,’ ‘bee,’ ‘boo,’ we just make this mark. ‘Bim,’ ‘ben,’ ‘ban,’ we make the same mark but we add this one, for the sound of the nose. See? Look, I’ll show you.”

  Using just the marks from their names, he wrote them in several different combinations, then said the words. Sometimes the same two or three symbols stood for two or three or four different words at the same time. “But it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Because one word will make sense and the others won’t. So you always know which is which. And if you don’t, then you just add a word so we know which one you mean.”

  Rebekah’s head was reeling. She started making sounds with her lips and tongue and trying to count them. “Kuh buh muh tuh chuh nuh guh luh . . .”

  Father saw what she was doing and stopped her with a touch. “I’ll show you all of them that I remember. I learned this when I was a boy, you understand. I haven’t used it much since then. There was no one to write to, and nothing to read. I never taught it to you because it was so useless. I almost forgot that I had ever learned it.” He laughed bitterly. “It was for sacred writings. Tally sticks are enough for counting goats and sheep, which is all I’ve ever needed. Abraham had all the ancient writings. Once he had a son, I knew his boy would have the holy birthright and there was no more need for me to remember how to write. Was my son going to be a priest? I never thought of using writing for something else. For myself.”

  Rebekah heard him, but her mind also raced in its own direction. “But this means we can write anything,” she said. “If we can make the word with our mouths, we can write it down, once we know all the marks.”

  Father must have read enough from her lips to know what she was saying. “I’ll teach them all to you, all that I remember. This is a good idea, children. You can write to me to tell me what I need to know. It’s too hard to read lips. Too many sounds come from the back of the mouth. Everybody talks too fast. Or they shape their mouths so queerly when they’re trying to talk to me. But this way—you’ll give me my ears again!”

  Then he frowned. “But I don’t know if I should teach you, Rebekah.”

  “Why not?” she asked. Trying not to overshape the words. Trying not to say them too fast. Trying not to show how indignant she was at the idea of being left out.

  Father calmed her with a hand on her arm. “No, you’re right, Rebekah. It was always for the boys. Writing was part of the birthright. The keeper of the ancient writings had to know it. But now we’re going to use it so you can ask me what I want for dinner. Of course I must teach you, Rebekah.”

  They set to work learning the alphabet. At first Father could remember only about two-thirds of the letters. But by the time they had been writing messages to each other for several days, Father remembered them all, or at least remembered signs that worked well enough. And as long as they all remembered the same signs for each sound, what did it matter if they were exactly the same as the ones Abraham used on the sacred books? Uncle Abraham was far away and very old, if he wasn’t dead already.

  Of course the servants and freemen of the household saw what they were doing and how these marks allowed Bethuel to speak aloud the words that others were trying to say to him. When Laban saw this, he tried to close the others out by rubbing out the marks when he was done, or concealing them from view with his body. At first Rebekah followed his lead and tried to keep the secret from the other children and the women who were the first to try to learn. But then she remembered how she had felt when Father suggested that he might not teach her how to read and write the letters.

  Why should anyone be shut out of this? The next time Laban started trying to shield his writing from one of the servants, Rebekah challenged him and called the woman over to see what they were writing. “Don’t you see?” she said. “We’re not priests, trying to keep this a secret. This is for Father, so he can hear. It’s better if everyone in the household can speak to him, isn’t it? Every little child, every woman, every man. Because who knows when a bear might come into the camp, or a troop of bandits might be seen, and everyone ought to know how to come in and scratch a word in the dirt so Father has the warning.”

  Laban was still reluctant, though Rebekah could not think why. But after he saw that Rebekah was going to teach everyone in camp who wanted to learn, he gave up and joined in.

  For many of the servants it was only a novelty, and they quickly lost interest without learning more than a few marks. Some, like Deborah, tried to learn but never really understood; they ended up drawing pictures after all, and called it writing. But others, especially children, got caught up in the game of it, and soon many of them were making dirt scratches all over the campsite, so that you could hardly go anywhere without seeing something scrawled on the ground.

  Which included some nastiness, too. Ugly words and mean gossip. Rebekah didn’t like that, how people used these marks to be able to say cruel things that they would never have dared to say with their mouths so people would know who had said them. She was especially hurt at how often she found “Rebekah is ugly” and “Rebekah is stupid” among the words written in the dirt. Sometimes they were even scratched into stone so they couldn’t be erased.

  Who was writing such things? Who hated her? She looked at all the other children with suspicion for a while, wondering who it was who despised her but was too cowardly to say it to her face.

  Maybe it was all of them.

  And why just children? Could it be that this was what everyone thought in the whole camp?

  Rebekah did not speak of these things to Father or even to Laban. Nor did she rub out the offending words, lest someone take satisfaction from knowing it bothered her. Still, it was not as if she could keep them secret from Father. After all, he was not confined to his tent, and now that so many people could write messages to him, he was out and about the camp more than he had been in many months. This was a blessing, the greatest blessing of all, Rebekah thought, because people could see that he was still the ruler of this house, the master of all things. But it also meant that he was bound to see the cruel words about Rebekah, too.

  One day Rebekah found out just how seriously he had taken it when she heard someone crying out in pain and ran from the kitchen fires to see what was happening. Deborah met her, frantic with worry. “He’s beating people! Make him stop, Rebekah!”

  “Who?”

  “Uncle Bethuel! Don’t let him beat me, Rebekah. I’ve been very good!”

  Deborah wrung her hands as Rebekah led her toward the cries. “Deborah, Father won’t beat you.” Deborah always took other people’s beatings as if they were only a prelude to her own, though Father had never beaten Deborah and, in fact, rarely beat anyone. Whatever had happened must have been terrible.

  A servant boy named Belbai lay naked and writhing on the ground as Father towered over him, thwacking him so harshly with his staff that each blow drew blood and Rebekah was certain that some bone was bound to break, if it hadn’t already. “Father, what are you doing!” she cried. But of course he didn’t hear her. So she ran to him and caught at his arm and clung so he could not strike again . . . clung until Father stood there, his chest heaving with anger and exertion, as she wrote her question into the dirt. “What did he do? You never beat children.”

  “You tell her what you did!” Father roared at Belbai.

  Belbai, who was panting and sobbing in pain, could not speak.

  Rebekah saw Khaneah, Belbai’s mother, standing helplessly nearby. She dared not interfere with her son’s punishment, and yet clearly it was unbearable for her not to be able to go to the boy. So Rebekah beckoned to her, and stopped Father when he raised his staff to drive her off. In a moment the woman was on her knees, cradling her son’s head and shoulders in her lap.

  Rebekah wrote in the dirt: “Will you kill him? Break his bones?”

  “Yes!” cried Father. But even as he said the words, he stepped back, showing that he would not kill him, would not break his body.

  “Forgive me,” Belbai whimpered. “I never meant it.”

  “Never meant what?” asked Rebekah.

  “Don’t you speak to him!” roared Bethuel. “I won’t have you speak to him! I’ll tear off his ears before I let him hear your voice!”

  That was when Laban arrived at a run from the bean fields, having been told of the commotion by one of the children. He demanded to know the cause, and Belbai, encouraged by the way his mother’s arms enfolded him, finally said, “I was the one writing against Rebekah.”

  It was Belbai? Why him, of all people?

  “You!” cried Laban. He seemed to explode with fury, and he stomped hard on the boy’s ribs.

  Belbai cried out and Khaneah shrieked, but no one raised a hand to stop him. Except Rebekah. “It was nothing but words,” she cried. “He’s been punished more than enough for words.”

  “I should have known it was him,” Laban said. And he started to gush out an explanation, but Father stopped him and made him write it. Laban spoke slowly, writing each word as he said it.

  “Last summer he saw Rebekah walk by and he said, ‘A rich man is going to pay a lot to get that pretty one in bed.’”

  Bethuel’s eyes grew wide with rage, but it was not his anger that made Laban hesitate—it was Rebekah’s presence that stopped him.

  “Go away, Rebekah,” Laban said.

  “Not a chance,” she said.

  “I don’t want you to hear this!”

  “I should have heard whatever it is months ago.” Then she wrote on the ground, so Father would know what she was saying: “I will hear this.”

  Father seized Laban’s shoulder and pointed to the ground. Enough talking, write.

  Laban resumed his account. After the phrase “get that pretty one in bed,” Laban wrote, and said aloud: “If some lucky boy doesn’t get there first.”

  Khaneah wailed in grief and Belbai hid his head in his arms. They both knew that he had said the unsayable, and what it would mean to them. Even Rebekah understood now. This was not just words.

  Bethuel was furious, not least at Laban himself. “Why didn’t you tell me at the time!” he roared.

  Laban wrote, “That was before writing. I warned him that if he ever said such a thing again, I would tell Pillel and he and his mother would be sent away. He must have started writing bad things about Rebekah as soon as he learned how. Out of spite.”

  “I never meant them,” cried Belbai. “I was angry at Laban.”

  “What did he say?” demanded Father.

  Laban wrote down Belbai’s words.

  Father turned to Belbai with contempt. “Laban showed you and your mother mercy, and you were angry with him? Fool. And because you were angry at Laban, you wrote words to torment my daughter? Meanness on top of foolishness.”

  “But everybody knows how beautiful she is!” cried Belbai.

  When his words had been written, Father spat upon them. “All my daughter knew was the words you wrote. I saw how they stung her, and how she held up her head in pride so no one could see she was ashamed.”

  Deborah listened to all this wide-eyed. “All this drawing, Rebekah, it was about you? Bad pictures of you?”

  Rebekah had no chance to explain, for at that moment Khaneah, weeping, began slapping her son’s face, so that it was from her that he cowered now. “This good man found me whoring for bread and took me into his house and took away my shame!” she cried. “But you are still the son of a whore!” She rose and forced him to his feet, though he was still bent over with pain. She shoved him away from her. “Out of the camp! Out of the camp! You have no place here!”

  Then she ran to Bethuel and threw herself prostrate before him, and with her lips against his feet, she cried out, “You were merciful to me and my son, and we have repaid you with shame! We are the lowest swine who live in their own filth! We deserve to die, we deserve to die.”

  Laban started to write her words, but Father stopped him. “I know what she’s saying.”

  At first Rebekah thought, How can he know? Does he hear through his feet? And then she realized: She is saying the only thing she can say. She is thanking him for not slaying her son for his disloyalty and ingratitude, for slandering his daughter and speaking of her as if she were any man’s woman, a harlot. She is begging for mercy.

  Father spoke to Laban. “Have Pillel give her three days’ provisions, and let her take her clothing, and her son’s clothing, and coppers for a room.”

  Laban was outraged. “Coppers!” he wrote. “If he touched Rebekah, would he get silver?”

  Father slapped his son lightly across the face. “I will not have you face me down. I forgive you because you spoke in anger, on your sister’s behalf. But if you had told me at the beginning, we would not have come to this day, and your sister would not have seen or heard any of this. So do not condemn me for showing mercy to Khaneah and her son, when you depend on my mercy as well.” He reached down and took the woman by the hand and lifted her up. “If she returns to harlotry that is her choice, but let God never reproach me that she did it because I sent her away penniless.”

  Weeping, she clung to his hand and kissed it until he drew away from her. As soon as his back was to her, several of the servant women threw stones that landed at her feet. The message was clear. It was time for her to go.

  Laban spoke to her. “Wait there, by that cedar tree, until I come to you with the coppers my father is giving to you because he loves God, and not because you deserve anything but stones from us.”

  Still weeping, she nodded, and shambled over to her son. Roughly she dragged him along behind her, heading for the cedar.

  Rebekah saw no more, because Father took her by the hand and, gently but irresistibly, led her to his tent. Rebekah wanted to wait until she could calm Deborah down, for her nurse was still agitated, on the edge of crying. “Laban, explain it to Deborah,” she called. She could see Laban forcing himself to calm down so he could soothe the poor woman, and then Father had her inside the tent.

  He spoke to her haltingly, filled with shame. “That a daughter of mine should have suffered such things. Heard such things, and in my own house, and from the son of a whore.”

  Rebekah wrote in the patch of dirt they always kept open inside his tent: “She was not a whore in your household.”

  Father embraced her. “You are a child of mercy. But how will I ever erase his words from your memory? You remember everything, and so this ugliness will be inside you forever, poor child, poor child.”

  Rebekah let him hold her for a moment longer, until her question was about to burst from her. She pulled away from him, took the stick, and wrote:

  “Am I really beautiful?”

  Father chuckled, then embraced her again, so that her face was held against his belly as it shook with laughter. “I suppose you don’t want to forget everything he said, do you!”

  “You never told me,” she wrote.

  “What good does it do for a woman to know she’s beautiful?” asked Father. “Did she cause it to happen? What if you got the pox, or some injury that marred your face? If you never knew you were beautiful, you would not grieve at the loss of that beauty.”

  “Did you command everyone else not to tell me?” she wrote.

  “It was not their place to tell you,” said Father.

  A boy had been beaten and he and his mother had been sent away because he had said something about Rebekah’s beauty. Any servant girl could be pretty and she would know it because everyone would talk about it. But Rebekah was the daughter of Bethuel, so no one could tell her, no one could speak about her.

  All these years, and I have not lived in the same world as everyone else. There are things people don’t tell me, because of who my father is. It’s like being blind. When it comes to things I can’t see myself, I only know what people tell me.

  Just like Father, in his deafness. Laban and I worked hard to make sure he was told everything. But nobody told me, and I wasn’t even deaf or blind or anything. My whole future will be different than I thought it would be. Men will want to marry me, and not just for my dowry. Maybe a man will want me out of love.

  For a moment she felt herself dazzled by the future. Beautiful! I might be mistress of a great house! I might marry a prince, a king!

  And then she remembered Belbai, bleeding, staggering, his mother supporting him as she led him away. Belbai could easily have died today. For her. For his desire for her, for his anger at being forbidden even to speak of her. His mother was ruined again, after having once been saved. Father had been generous to Khaneah, but it did not change the fact that she once again was without protection.