Abraham and Sarah (10 page)

They waited some days outside Damascus until Eliazer and his large family could join them. They were happy days blighted only by the news that continued to come out of the country beyond the Jordan. Abram listened to all the reports, but refused to be discouraged. Instead he grew impatient and anxious to be back on the trail.

They left Damascus on a bright, sunny day and headed out past the western gate onto the road called the King’s Highway that would take them to the foot of Mount Hermon. They couldn’t move as fast as the traders who were unencumbered with families, flocks of sheep, baby lambs, goats, and herds of
camels. At times they pitched their tents and camped in one place for five days before moving on. “It is necessary to move at least every ten days,” the saying went among shepherds, “or the grazing land is all eaten away.”

At the foot of Mount Hermon were both water and adequate pasture, and they decided to stay camped there until the new moon.

Everyone agreed it was good to be out of the wagons and camping. Lot’s wife, Mara, was especially relieved. She liked the bustle of an orderly routine carried on in settled conditions. Each night the goat’s milk was heated and poured into a special goatskin that had been used so often for this purpose that the skin contained enough of the curdled milk to curdle the new batch. It was then covered and kept warm. In the morning it would have become yogurt, which they ate with sweet dates and bread.

At other times the women would rise long before dawn and put the yogurt into a leben skin and rock back and forth until all the liquid was drawn out, leaving soft, butterlike balls. This delicious leben was most prized. Mara loved to wake early enough to listen as her servants stirred up the fire, baked the bread, and set up the tripod with its goatskin bag for making the day’s leben. In the same way she looked forward to sunset. Then the herders rounded up their animals, and her servants rolled out the sleeping mats and gathered dung patties to hold the fire during the night.

Mara could picture the same procedure going on in Sarai’s tent; the only difference was that Sarai would be up managing and directing the whole procedure. Sarai often made telling remarks about women who lay in bed until the sun was up.

On the third night in the new campsite, Mara was chilly, so she sat by her small fire of dried nettles and enjoyed the night sounds. She had put her girls to bed and was waiting for her husband. As on most evenings, he sat with some of the men around a fire discussing the happenings of the day. Mara had noted that Abram, too, was with the men, but she also knew that on occasion, he spent the entire evening with Sarai. That irritated her. It made her brood and ponder the source of Sarai’s apparent charm.

Though Sarai wasn’t young, she was still astonishingly beautiful. Her name meant “contention,” and Mara thought it suited her well. She was willful, selfish, and outspoken. Sarai didn’t contradict Abram in front of others, but they all could tell when she was displeased and they could just imagine what she said to him when she got him alone.

Mara never mentioned it to anyone, but she was smugly pleased that Sarai was cursed with barrenness. She would never have said it herself, but she enjoyed hearing others speculate as to what great wickedness Sarai had been involved in that she had been cursed with barrenness. Though Mara had borne no sons, her two daughters were at least something. Surely sons would follow.

The stars hadn’t come out yet, but the wind had come up. One of the loose tent pieces flapped annoyingly while the poles creaked and groaned. Mara could hear the bleating of the sheep as they were driven into the enclosure formed by the tethered donkeys and kneeling camels, then much jostling as the ewes searched for their hungry lambs. Finally all was quiet, so quiet that she could hear the laughter of the men gathered around Eliazer’s campfire.

She wondered what they talked about. She knew Lot’s conversation always turned to the profit he intended to make. Since leaving Damascus, he had become more interested in the animals they owned. She had heard him say that both camels and sheep double themselves in three years. “Of course,” he had added, “the male lambs will be sold or killed for food. The females we’ll keep for breeding.” She knew that the young male camels were always sold and only a few kept to carry the baggage.

What he didn’t discuss was how heavily he counted on inheriting all his uncle’s wealth. Since Abram had no children, Lot considered it was more or less understood between them that he would be his uncle’s heir. Mara had taken for granted that he had agreed to go on this venture for whatever gain might be in it for them.

Mara jabbed the fire with a sturdy oak branch. They had plenty of dried nettles for the fire, and her girls had found truffles, which she considered a great delicacy. She hadn’t shared them with anyone, not even Sarai. Especially not with Sarai. Sarai had everything. One didn’t need to give her more.

Mara did have to reluctantly concede that Sarai genuinely loved her husband. She would defend his ideas, gloat over his success, and follow him on the most uncomfortable adventures. Such behavior was all the more amazing, since it was totally contrary to her spoiled nature.

Mara stood up and dusted off her robe. She looked around and then tiptoed to the far side of her tent. She strained to see the neighboring tents. She wanted to see if Sarai was up waiting for her husband. As far as she could tell, the tent was dark. Sarai wasn’t waiting up.

Mara wouldn’t go to sleep until Lot returned. It was their custom. Even in
Haran, women waited until the men came home. The men might be hungry, or more likely looking for some wifely attention before going to sleep. Then there was the news. Mara never wanted to miss that. Sarai obviously wasn’t curious. She could wait.

Mara had noticed that in most things Sarai seemed to get her way. She should have been divorced and disgraced for having no children, but instead she seemed only to get her husband’s added attention and concern.

That Sarai had a tent of her own further infuriated Mara. She didn’t have to share her tent with anyone, and Abram didn’t seem to mind. “You can’t always win, Sarai,” Mara sputtered to herself, jabbing all the time at the fire. “It’s not natural. I’m just waiting … waiting to see you brought down and humbled.”

Usually the men went to Abram’s tent, but on that night Eliazer had planned a special celebration in honor of his benefactor. Many of the men of the tribe and others who wanted to share in the festivities sat around the fire enjoying Eliazer’s hospitality. There was to be no talk of business. Instead stories were told and humorous happenings remembered. There was a feeling of well-being and expectancy.

The men usually ate together, and tonight Eliazer had ordered spits erected and lambs roasted to a succulent brown. To everyone’s surprise, he was lavish with the dried dates and figs and passed the skins filled with date wine again and again. “It’s time to celebrate. We may soon be coming to the place that Abram’s God has promised him.”

The men looked at each other, and the air grew vibrant with excitement. Finally Urim, who could wait no longer, spoke, “Are we then nearing our goal?” The ribs he had been eagerly gnawing dropped to his lap unnoticed.

All eyes turned to Abram. He sat as usual in the seat of honor on banked cushions with a tasseled canopy slung overhead, held in place by four lances that had been driven into the ground on each side. He had been talking to his nephew Lot and hadn’t followed the discussion, but now with the cheese maker’s question repeated, he was suddenly alert. “You must understand,” he said, “I can’t say with any certainty where we are going.”

For a moment the words hung on the evening air in all their mystery and obtuseness. Abram was always answering like this, and yet there was such a
sureness about the going itself that none of them doubted for a moment that he knew exactly where they were headed.

“But,” Lot interjected, “we are following the trade route our people have always followed. Surely you can tell us now where this land is that you are to be given.”

Abram took a drink of fresh camel’s milk from the gourd that hung from his belt. “There’s nothing like fresh, warm milk enjoyed under a full moon,” he said as though oblivious of the questions.

“But, my lord,” Eliazer said hesitantly, “the little bird that rests in your bosom.”

“My wife, Sarai, you mean. Among ourselves we can speak frankly. We are family, are we not?”

“Well then, your wife, Sarai, has mentioned to some of the women that we are going to Shechem. The big, fruitful valley beyond the mountains of Gilboa.”

Abram looked down into his cup and smiled. “So someone has plowed with my heifer, as the saying goes, and you think you have discovered something.”

The men looked away in embarrassment. Very rarely did they give away the source of their information, particularly if it had come through their wives. However, they were all so anxious to discover what this man who walked among them like a god was thinking that they scrambled to get any bit of information possible. “We meant no harm,” one of them mumbled.

“Of course you meant no harm,” Abram said as he handed his gourd for the serving lad to wipe with the tail of his short robe before he carefully fastened it back on his belt. “You want to know and I want to know. I’ve only this impression, this vision that comes into my mind of the fertile valley … the fig trees, pomegranates, nuts, and grain for bread … and grass for more flocks than we can imagine. A veritable garden.”

“And,” Lot urged him on, “you are to be given this land?”

“That my God has spoken I know. He wanted to save me from the trouble that was coming with the Elamites and also from the evils of the new religions and their idols.”

“The land … what about the land you are to be given?” Lot was growing increasingly anxious.

“I only know He is leading me to a place that is to belong to me and my
descendants, and that my people are to be a great nation. These things I know, but the details weren’t given.” He got to his feet and walked out through the midst of them.

When he was gone, one of the men spoke, “Do you think it’s true that he really doesn’t know where he is going?”

“I think he knows a lot more than he is telling us,” another man ventured. “He’s certainly convinced it’s going to be some wonderful place.”

“Well, I’m counting on Abram’s hadh, or luck as we say. He’s already wealthy beyond belief. I think we can trust his instincts for success,” Lot announced as if to assure himself. “You’ll see, this God of his has promised to bless him, and if we are there, we’ll get some of it too.”

“But the famine. What about the famine?” one of them said.

Lot turned back and spoke almost fiercely, “You can be sure the famine isn’t where we’re going. Abram’s God promised blessings.” With that he said good night to Eliazer and left.

The men thanked Eliazer for his hospitality and then quietly disappeared into the star-studded night. The vicious dogs that were trained to prowl all night around the camp growled, baring their teeth until each man spoke, and then knowing the voice, they went on their way.

The night air was fragrant with the odor of wood smoke and pine. Here on the lower slopes of Hermon were pine forests and, in places, jutting rocks, caves, and bubbling streams. If it weren’t such rugged country, it would be a delightful place to stay.

As Abram approached his tent, he had a feeling of well-being. Their grain bags were full, the leather satchels were stuffed with the most succulent dates, and since they had gathered the pine cones on Hermon, they had a good supply of pine nuts. He saw that Sarai had already gone to bed and was undoubtedly asleep. He could decide in the morning whether to tell her how the secret he had entrusted to her had suddenly come out in the meeting.

He smiled as he pictured her hair loose and flowing, her lashes thick and feathery like a young girl’s. Her mouth still had the fullness of passion, and when she was awake, it either curved into a smile or, if puzzled or irritated, formed into a most provocative pout.

If he scolded her for her indiscretion in telling his secrets, he could just
imagine how she would look at him with her whole expression gone suddenly serious. Tears might pool in her eyes and she’d say she was sorry. It had all happened before and he could never stay upset with her for long. Ever since they had been children, playing together in his father’s sunny courtyard beside the house in Ur, he had not been able to keep a secret from her.