Abraham and Sarah (20 page)

Lot and Urim entered wholeheartedly into the rites and festivities, but Abram saw a dark, disturbing side to the festivals. He declined the invitations.

Abram always enjoyed sitting in the diwan of the chief steward, and took every chance offered to talk with Amenemhet in his private apartment. Now more than ever he dared not tell Pharaoh about Sarai. Though he spent nights of torture and days of despair, he could not bring himself to broach the subject lest Pharaoh decide that maat had somehow been disturbed by them and order them both killed.

During this time, Abram grew in favor to the point of Pharaoh suggesting, “Let us build a temple for your God here among our temples so you will feel more at home among us. Lot can be the priest.”

At first Abram would have welcomed this interest. He had talked much of his God and the intimate relationship he had enjoyed with Him. Being most interested in the gods and knowing of no man among his acquaintance who had heard of a God actually speaking and guiding him, Pharaoh was impressed.
“Lot can spend time with the priests in my temple. They can teach him, so he can become the high priest of a temple to your God.”

Abram had tried to explain that his God didn’t need a temple. The whole world was His. To try to coax him into dwelling in a temple would be futile. “Elohim created us and He wants to help us and guide us.”

Pharaoh was fascinated by such statements, and he insisted he wanted to know more. “Have your nephew Lot visit with Senwosret-ankh, the high priest of Memphis. Perhaps he will find a way in which we can add your God to our gods.”

Abram was surprised by the pharaoh’s interest in his God, but he was bewildered by Amenemhet’s insistence on adding him to his own gods. He knew that in Egypt every city and village had a special god, and at times they fought each other by attacking the rival god. Those who worshiped the fish would never eat fish, but their enemies would eat fish just to spite them. It was obvious Pharaoh didn’t understand. To him, it was merely a matter of joining Abram’s God with Re, the sun god or Apis, the bull.

In the end both Lot and Abram visited the high priest to learn more of the ways of the Egyptians. Lot was interested until he discovered that to be a priest belonging to the higher orders, a man had to have his head shaved and every bit of hair removed from his body with an annoying waxing method and, most difficult of all, to be circumcised. Lot lost all interest in the religion of the Egyptians, but Abram went often to talk with the high priest.

Abram saw much that was foolish superstition, but he always came away impressed by the personal devotion of the priests. They were set apart, special vessels with rules and traditions that constantly reminded them of their relationship with their god.

“Lot,” Abram said after one such visit, “since Elohim is so much greater than these gods of the Egyptians, don’t you think it would be fitting for us to show our dedication in some more visible way?”

Lot thought for a moment, then replied, “If you’re thinking we should shave our heads, that’s not such a bad idea. That would get rid of any fleas or lice and might be cool in the desert, but circumcision is out. I’d never do it.” He got up and started for the door but turned back. “And if you’re thinking of asking Elohim about it, don’t do it.”

That had been just what Abram had been pondering. Lot’s strong opinion made him dismiss the idea. Perhaps the gods of Egypt were more particular, or
was it that the priests of Egypt were more devoted to their gods? The latter thought bothered him. He hated to think that a worshiper of an ibis-headed god would be more devoted to his god than he was to his God.

The year was divided into three sections of four months each. In late summer there was the rising of the dog star, Sirius, that heralded the four months of flood when the Nile rose and overflowed its banks on its way to what was called the seven mouths of the Nile in the delta. These months had passed, and to everyone’s satisfaction the Nile had risen. The next four months called the going out, when the water receded, had also gone by.

They were already in the time of sowing and harvest, and still Abram had not been able to bring up the problem of Sarai to Pharaoh. The very idea of mentioning the awkward situation became more difficult with each passing day.

Pharaoh was a proud man. He had boasted often that he and his good friend Abram were to be linked by marriage as soon as the time was appropriate. More than that, the pharaoh had been generous beyond any imagining. He had welcomed Abram and elevated him to the position of special friend. What Abram had done would seem cruel and deliberately heartless.

Abram was appalled at how much time had passed without his being able to rescue Sarai. He had prayed and agonized before his God, making rash promises and resolutions, but nothing happened. Then quite suddenly, everything changed, and it became necessary for Abram to act.

There was a crisis of such magnitude that Abram’s anxiety reached fevered heights. News had come through Mara that the royal recorder had recorded no births among Pharaoh’s wives or concubines. In all that time no royal cat had birthed kittens, and the great bulls had given only dead seed to the sacred cows.

It was even whispered that when the priests of Taweret applied their most effective magic, nothing happened. Taweret was the goddess of pregnant women. She was unbelievably ugly, with the head of a hippopotamus, lion’s paws, a crocodile tail, and the body of a woman.

“Pharaoh thinks it is a curse on all the Egyptians,” Mara said, “and it’s rumored that he’s going to break the spell by taking Sarai as a full wife, not just a concubine. A foreigner from Ur might break the spell.”

Her words plunged Abram into torment. His first impulse was to rush to the palace, confess everything, and throw himself on the pharaoh’s mercy. He
paced back and forth in the pillared entryway, trying to think of just what he would say. Each time he was about to settle on an explanation, he would see that in Pharaoh’s eyes there was no excuse. Amenemhet had sought to honor him by marrying his sister and had shown his friendship in a thousand other ways. To confess to such deception would not only destroy the friendship but would also make Pharaoh look foolish before his people.

Then a terrible thought presented itself. Perhaps the very plague Pharaoh was trying to avert had been caused by his taking Sarai into his harem. If he confessed to Pharaoh that Sarai was his wife and was barren, Pharaoh had every right to declare her the cause of the trouble. She would be mercilessly tormented and perhaps even killed.

With that thought, Abram fled to the roof of his house and stood for a time looking out over the trees in the direction of the palace. Tears blinded his eyes as he pounded the mud wall of the parapet with his fist in frustration. Sarai was there in the palace right now, and he was totally helpless to go to her aid. By now she probably realized the danger she was in. His poor, willful, fascinating little wife would be depending on him to extricate her from this problem. She would imagine he could pray and a miracle would take place.

To pray. That was one of the problems. He was no longer so sure that the great Creator God would hear a man like him who had acted so deceitfully. Nor was he sure that his God had any power to help him here in Egypt in the presence of so many gods.

He knelt on the hot tiles of the roof and bowed his head to the floor. He wept and groaned but could find no words to voice his prayer. It was the worst crisis of his life, and he was helpless—a foreigner in a foreign country.

Finally in desperation he poured out his heart; he uttered his complaints. The famine in the land he’d been promised. His embarrassment before his family and people. The lack of guidance or direction. Sarai’s barrenness that had caused all the trouble with the pharaoh. Where was the child he’d been promised?

Only after he had exhausted his frustration was he able to think of his faults and failings. “Sarai trusted me, and I have done nothing to help her. I lied to Pharaoh Amenemhet, and he has been my friend. I have even doubted in my heart that You are the Creator God, a God above the gods of these Egyptians. When I saw their good land, their happy children, I envied them and doubted Your promises to me.”

At last Abram was quiet. The turmoil subsided, and he voiced the prayer of his heart: “Oh my God, have mercy upon me. If You love me, forgive my foolishness and rescue Sarai.”

That was all he prayed, but in the prayer was a challenge. Only his God could help him now.

Later that evening Abram called Lot and suggested that his wife, Mara, and Urim’s wife, Safra, might go the next day to the palace and see if they could visit Sarai or at least gather some news. “Safra can take some of her cheese as a gift to Sarai and the women attending her, and Mara can take ointment and fine woolens for the queen mother. I doubt they will let them see Sarai, but we must try. It’s important to know where Sarai is and what is happening to her. It’s also important to find out just what Pharaoh’s plans are and how soon he intends to take Sarai as his wife.”

Lot agreed that it would be well to try. “I’ll talk to Mara, and we can tell Urim tomorrow. I doubt that they can get much news. It really looks hopeless. Whatever happens, we don’t want to offend Pharaoh.”

Abram did not answer him, and Lot backed from the room and hurried home to tell Mara.

U
rim, the cheese maker, had been amazingly successful in Egypt. Pharaoh liked the pungent smoked goat cheese that was famous in and around Haran but was not made in the delta. Once Pharaoh Amenemhet had proclaimed it his favorite, Urim was assured of basking in his special favor.

Urim had efficiently managed to set up the whole process so he no longer did the work himself. Instead he bought slaves, obtained a modest villa, and proceeded to adjust to a life of leisure such as he had never even imagined.

While Lot, Eliazer, and Abram refused to have their heads shaved, Urim reveled in the daily lathering and massage that went with the process. He found it pleasant to doff his scratchy woolen robes for the fine, pleated, linen kirtle that fastened under one arm, and gradually he added gold armbands and a neck piece of coral.

His plump little wife, Safra, found it almost impossible to squeeze into any of the clothes the queen had sent for the women to wear. She noticed that none of the Egyptian women were big boned or fat, and she began to feel awkward and ill at ease anyplace but in her own home.

“Why don’t you go and make friends?” Urim asked Safra when he found her sitting with her servants, grinding grain or working the looms. “We’re rich now. It isn’t like before. You can stop all this drudgery and enjoy being in Egypt.”

“You think I am going to the parties with this?” She pulled at her coarsely woven billowing robe in disgust.

“Don’t go in that. There are plenty who will come and make garments, beautiful garments.”

Safra looked down at her hands and then her feet. “It’s not just my clothes,” she said in a voice so low she could barely be heard.

“What is it? Why can’t you change and enjoy things? This is what I’ve wanted, why I came along.”

“You haven’t seen these women.” Safra almost wept. “Their hands aren’t
rough from shucking corn, washing clothes, and grinding. Their feet aren’t calloused and ugly, and they don’t cover their hair with scarves.”

For the first time since they had arrived in Egypt, Urim looked at his wife critically. He saw that she was right. No matter how sophisticated and wise he had become in the ways of the Egyptians, Safra would give away his true origins. She was a woman he had been proud of because she could manage things. She made tasty dishes with a special touch even his mother hadn’t been able to accomplish. She had kept his small household running efficiently, and she had borne him sons. As a servant, she would have been priceless, but as a wife of the exalted cheese maker of the pharaoh, she was lacking. That is, she was lacking unless he could in some way get her to change.

Urim had made the acquaintance of serving girls in the pharaoh’s kitchens and some of the wenches who sang and danced for men in the local beer gardens. One girl named Warda seemed to take a special interest in him, and he wondered if perhaps she would help solve the problem of Safra.

In the end he decided to ask Warda for help, and he would give her permission to buy whatever was necessary to transform Safra. She came willingly and brought a sewing woman, a hairdresser, and several old women carrying baskets of ointments, lotions, and cosmetics. Urim wondered at the extent of expense and trumpery necessary to transform one woman.

Safra had agreed, but when she saw Warda and the women who followed her carrying baskets on their heads and two donkeys loaded with mysterious baggage, she first grew fearful and then rebellious. The bathing, harsh scrubbing with a luffa, and rinsing and rearranging of her hair were barely acceptable, but when Warda insisted that all body hair be removed with the sticky wax that pulled and hurt, she refused. Safra sat in the steamy tiled bathing room on a low stool totally naked for the first time in her life. She folded her arms over her ample breasts for a little covering and demanded her familiar clothes immediately.