Rebekah: Women of Genesis (23 page)

Eliezer dipped again into his bag, taking out yet another necklace, which seemed every bit as fine as the gifts he brought for her, and laid it before Mother. Then a cup covered with hammered gold, crazed with an intricate pattern of inlaid silver, and inset with precious stones, which he set before Laban, who picked it up with awe.

Nothing for Father, of course. The bride-gift, when it was offered, would be for him.

Then Eliezer reached out his hand toward Rebekah. “It is not my hand that I offer you, mistress, but the hand of my master’s son Isaac. Will you take it?”

“Even if he had come without gold and jewels,” said Rebekah, “but adorned only with the simple faith in God that you have shown today, I would take the hand that is offered to me.” And she reached out and took his hand in both of hers, and bent over it, and kissed it. “It is not your hand I kiss,” she said, “but the hand of your master’s son Isaac, who will be my husband, and I will be his wife.”

Eliezer looked her in the eyes, and she could see how he focused on first her left, then her right eye, back and forth, as if he were searching for something in her face. Whether he found it or not she could not tell, but after a long while, he took back his hand and rose to his feet. “I have done the errand my master sent me on. Now, I will accept your generous offer of food and drink for me and my men.”

There was a feast that night, with singing and celebrating. Rebekah knew it was all in her honor, but it began to seem to her that the women were far too happy for her comfort. Were they celebrating the happiness of her wedding, or the fact that they would no longer be taking instructions from this child?

She knew that this was an absurd idea, but somewhere in the evening’s festivities she wanted someone to say some small thing about how much Rebekah would be missed.

Actually, she wanted people to weep and tear their clothes because she wouldn’t be with them anymore, but she knew that was out of the question. I’m being a selfish, petty child, she told herself. What is there to be sad about? I’m not dying, I’m going to be married, as noble a marriage as there can be, and I was chosen as Isaac’s bride, not by the calculations of men, but by the will of God. It’s what I was praying for only this evening. Everything is
perfect.

She was able to keep a good face on things until she saw two of the women burst into tears and throw their arms around Deborah. “Oh, you darling, how we’ll miss you!” “Nothing will be the same with you gone!” On and on.

In all her life, Rebekah had never been jealous of Deborah. And she did
not
begrudge her sweet nurse the generous affection of the women of the camp. It was simply . . . it was just that . . .

She murmured something to her mother about needing to see to something in her tent, and fled.

Not to her tent. If someone came looking for her, she did not want to be found. Instead she went by a roundabout way to the pen where Eliezer’s camels were resting. The faintest light of day was still in the sky. There would be moonlight tonight, so the celebration could go on for a while longer; but the cool breeze from the desert promised a chilly night.

The camels noticed her coming, but cared little. Tears may have flowed down her cheeks as she walked here, but now, looking at the lumpen faces of these beasts, she had to laugh. All it took, she realized, was thinking of something other than myself.

“Are you that eager to go?” asked Eliezer.

Only then did she see that Abraham’s steward was inside the pen, using a wooden comb to work something out of the hair on a camel’s flank.

“In fact I am,” said Rebekah. “But no, I didn’t think of leaving tonight.”

“They let you leave the feast? It’s your farewell, isn’t it?”

“I thought it was your welcome.”

Eliezer laughed.

The silence between them soon weighed too much to bear.

“I hope you know that I didn’t accept your proposal because of the jewelry.”

“There’d be nothing shameful if you had,” said Eliezer. “My master’s wealth and reputation will mean your children will grow up with every protection, every opportunity.”

Rebekah understood this. “I just wanted you to know my eyes were not dazzled.”

“So if it wasn’t the jewelry, what was it? I wasn’t a bad-looking man in my youth, but age has done its work on my face, so I know it wasn’t
my
beauty.”

“Just as I know it wasn’t mine.”

Eliezer laughed again. “I hope that doesn’t bother you. That you weren’t chosen for your beauty. You could have been, of course.”

“I wasn’t asking for flattery.”

“You weren’t getting any. The choice was God’s to make, unless he left it to me.”

“And if he had left it to you?” So much for not asking for flattery, she thought.

But he caught the playful spirit of her words. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen your cousins.”

“All the unmarried girls have pimples and goiters, except for the one-legged one and the leper twins.”

“Then Isaac is thrice-blessed, to have you be the choice.”

“I can read, you know,” she said.

Why did I say that? she wondered immediately. But at the moment it seemed very important to her that he know.

“I was a little surprised to see the holy writing being scratched in dirt, saying the most casual things. It . . . it’s foolish, I know, but seeing every word I said getting written down made me turn everything into a speech. Something fit to be written. Only I’m not much of a speaker.”

“It all sounded very elegant to me.”

“Everyone can hear in Abraham’s household. So I’m afraid your reading days are over.”

Hearing that filled her with dismay. Because she would miss Father? Yes, of course she’d miss him, but that wasn’t why she hated hearing that she would not read anymore. “I hoped I could read from the holy books.”

“That’s the birthright,” said Eliezer.

“I didn’t want to own them,” said Rebekah. “Just read.”

“Nobody reads them but my master and his son.”

“The words of God? Are kept secret?”

“They read aloud,” said Eliezer. “We hear the words.”

“Oh,” said Rebekah.

He got a contemplative look on his face. “Of course, the lady Sarah read them.”

“But I’m not the lady Sarah?”

“You’re the lady Rebekah,” said Eliezer.

“Not the daughter of a king.”

“I’ve said too much,” said Eliezer. “I’ve told you that you may not do something, when it may be that you can do it. I have no authority.”

It was Rebekah’s turn to laugh.

“You find that amusing?” Oh, he was quick to take umbrage—he could laugh at her, but didn’t like being laughed at.

“You have your master’s trust,” said Rebekah. “That looks like authority to me.”

“I meant authority over the birthright,” he said. “But you knew that.”

“Yes.”

Silence again. Except for the normal noises of camels getting settled in a strange place at night. And the distant sound of singing from the people gathered around the fire.

“So,” said Eliezer at last. “If it wasn’t the jewelry that made you accept, what was it?”

“Your eloquence?” she answered playfully.

“You accepted the jewelry without question, and wore it at once. I don’t know why I dared to offer it, but you wore it. You decided then. At the well. Before you knew my name or the name of my master.”

“I knew who you were.”

This made him stand upright and look at her in real surprise.

“No, no, I simply figured it out. From what you said after I told you who I was. That you had been led by God to the house of your master’s brother. I know the stewards of all my father’s brothers. If a new one had been chosen, I would have known. So it had to be my grandfather, Nahor, and his only living brother is Abraham. I doubted he was looking for a bride for himself, but even if he had been, I knew I would say yes.”

Eliezer looked at her with puzzlement. “You could have anyone, I would think.”

“I said no to Ezbaal,” she said. She was a little ashamed of bragging about it, but she didn’t want him to think she hadn’t had suitors.

He looked suitably impressed. “I’m not surprised that he asked. I’m quite surprised your father said no.”

“My father said yes. Or would have. But I said no. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the journey, if you want to hear it. I guess stories of the doings at Bethuel’s camp don’t get told far and wide like the stories of Abraham.”

“My master is very old. Few people come to tell him stories now. He falls asleep often, so it’s hard for him to follow a tale.”

Silence again.

“Are you going to tell me, or not?” asked Eliezer.

“Tell you what?”

“Why you said yes so quickly. Why you wore the jewelry without waiting to see what your father would say.”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you already? Because I was also guided by the Lord.”

“You took no journey.”

“Didn’t I? I passed through the trackless wilderness of a proposal from a great man who happens to worship Ba’al, but whose offer was not to be refused. How do you think I emerged on the other side, unless God helped me? And then, for the past year, I have waited for God to show me why he spared me from an idolatrous house. Finally, this afternoon, I prayed to the Lord that it was time to bring me a true husband. If I was going to get one. The moment I finished praying, the thought came into my mind that I should go fetch water.”

“But you fetch water often.”

“Usually I take a turn every day or so.”

“So it wasn’t unusual for you to think of that.”

“Eliezer, I might pour water for any stranger who asked me, too, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a sign from God when I did it for you.”

He smiled and nodded. “True enough. But I had already been on the road for a week before you prayed.”

“And when you said your prayer, I had already been walking toward the well for several minutes.”

He laughed out loud. “You’re a sharp one,” he said. “Ah, yes. You don’t talk like a girl your age.”

“I’m older than I look.”

“What, thirty? Forty?”

“That would be telling.”

“You speak with . . . authority.”

“Do I? My father entrusted me to watch over the work of the women of the camp for many years.”

“Instead of your mother?”

“Another long story,” she said.

“Then it will be an entertaining journey back to Kirjath-arba.”

At that moment Rebekah became aware of approaching footsteps. She turned to see Mother only a few paces away.

“So you find the camels better company than your family?” asked Mother, only halfway joking.

“I got lost on the way back to the fire,” Rebekah answered. “I was making sure the beasts were ready to resume their journey tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” said Mother, and she gave one barking laugh. “My, but you
are
peremptory. Did you think this was all the farewell we’d give our daughter? This is your welcoming feast, Eliezer, and a celebration of the betrothal. It will take at least a month to prepare a proper sendoff for our daughter. There are clothes to make, good-byes to be said. Of course, you’re welcome to go home to your master and return in a month to bring her back. As for now, Rebekah, you’ve been missed at the fire, and if the party is ever to end, you have to be there to receive everyone’s congratulations.”

“Forgive me for delaying everyone’s sleep,” said Rebekah, trying hard to keep any sarcasm from entering her voice. “I’ve never been betrothed before, so I didn’t know my duties.”

“Don’t get snippy with me, young lady,” said Mother—again with that joking-but-still-serious tone. “Or we
will
let you go off tomorrow with this . . . this kidnapper.” Mother shot him a smile of dazzling intensity. Rebekah had never seen a man who was able to resist that particular smile. And, sure enough, Eliezer was no exception. Whatever he might have been thinking and feeling, he immediately broke out into a smile of his own.

It would be so useful to have that smile, thought Rebekah. But whenever
she
wanted to get someone to do what she wanted, she always got too serious for smiling, and launched into explanations designed to persuade them. Which sometimes worked but often didn’t, and life would certainly be simpler if you could make other people turn into grinning dolts by flashing them a particular smile.

Soon they were back at the fire, and now Rebekah found herself the center of everything. Nobody was talking about missing her yet, but now she understood why. Like Mother, they assumed that there would be at least a month, probably more, before Rebekah left. In fact, that was probably the normal thing, and it was only Rebekah’s ignorance of weddings that kept her from realizing that this feast tonight could not possibly be a farewell for her.