Abraham and Sarah (37 page)

By that time Abraham had regained some of his composure. He remembered the recent trouble of the cheese maker, and he decided to proceed cautiously. “I’ve not told my sister,” he said.

“The king is understandably impatient,” the messenger said. “I’ll come tomorrow and escort your sister to the palace. You can draw up the agreement later.” The messenger rose from the cushions and bowed.

Abraham reached out to detain him. “Is it not the custom in your country,” he asked, “as it was in mine, to draw up the agreement first?”

The messenger smiled as he straightened the folds on his long, full sleeves. “Of course, that is the usual procedure. However, the king is so eager for this alliance, he is willing to meet any demands you might have. So there is no need to wait.”

As Abraham led the man to the gate he felt as though cold, dark fingers of fear were strangling him.

As soon as the man was gone, Abraham hurried to the women’s quarters to find Sarah. She was in the courtyard, questioning the six young serving girls the king had sent. Sarah had just found out that they had been given her from the king as a wedding gift. She was puzzled. When she saw Abraham’s troubled expression, she quickly called Hagar and asked her to take the young women and find a place for them to sleep.

When they were gone, she faced Abraham. “What is this all about?” she asked with a dangerous edge to her voice.

“My dear, we’ll find a solution,” he said, trying to take Sarah in his arms.

“A solution to what?” Sarah backed away and stood tense and suspicious.

“There has been a slight misunderstanding and …”

“What kind of misunderstanding?” Sarah insisted.

“It’s the same thing that happened in Egypt. I let the king believe you were my sister, and now he has his heart set on taking you into his harem.” Abraham blurted out the words and then turned as though to leave.

Sarah sprang after him and grabbed his arm. “And did you tell him?”

“Sarah, I wanted to tell him, but I remembered Urim. If he wants you, he can take you by force.”

“You think … ?” Sarah was instantly apprehensive. “But what if I’m pregnant?” she urged.

“If I should even suggest you might be pregnant, it would unravel the whole tale. Where’s your husband? Whose wife are you? If you are Abraham’s wife, why did he say you were his sister?”

“And you think if we tell him I’m your wife, he may kill you and take me.”

“That happened to Warda. Urim could have been killed.”

Sarah’s face clouded. She grasped Abraham’s arm and clung to him. For a moment she struggled to regain her composure and then tilted her head back and looked at him. “When they come tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll go with them. There’s nothing else to do.”

She dropped her head to hide tears. Touched by her feeling, Abraham tilted her chin so he could look in her eyes. “We must take courage.” he said. “If the Elohim helped me rescue all the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, surely he’ll help me rescue you.”

“Don’t depend on the Elohim,” she retorted with some of her old
bravado. “I might never get home if we wait for Him.” She turned and went into her courtyard to pack a few of her things. With a heavy heart Abraham stood looking after her.

The next day when the escort came, Sarah was ready. She had given instructions to the serving women and threatened the cooks lest they slacken off. Last of all she had called Ishmael to her. She tousled his hair and spoke with a catch in her voice. “You must be brave now,” she said. “When I come back, we’ll go out to see the young lambs and find birds’ nests in the tamarisk trees.”

“Where are you going?” he said, standing very straight and twisting the cord of his slingshot round and round his finger. His eyes were troubled and anxious.

For a moment she held him tight. When she released him, she managed to say, “Be a good boy, my love, and I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

At the last when the carrying chair was brought, she was calm, regal, and resigned. She was prepared to accept anything if it would keep Abraham out of trouble. There was one moment of anxiety as she stepped into the chair. She happened to look back and saw Hagar standing between Abraham and Ishmael. There was a look of satisfaction on her face that troubled Sarah.

However, once she was settled in the chair, Abraham came and paced back and forth, deciding on solutions and then changing his mind, mounting a pinnacle of hope and then plunging into total despair. He lingered by the carrying chair, saying words of encouragement, making promises, and raising last-minute questions. When everything was ready, he closed the curtains on Sarah’s beloved face and backed away.

He followed the small procession out the gate and stood looking down the narrow, dusty road that wove in and out between the stone houses. When the wedding procession disappeared around a bend, he ran to the roof. He could see only the waving banners and faintly hear the wedding songs as they approached the palace gates. The banners disappeared and the songs ceased, and he realized that Sarah would be locked away from all outside contact within the women’s quarters of the palace.

He went over and over the situation in his mind, blaming himself for cowardice, fearing for what might happen to her, and realizing that if Sarah was pregnant, the king would undoubtedly claim the child as his own. It was too hopeless, too complex, and too impossible. He had come so close to happiness,
to having the most important part of the promise fulfilled, and now by his own cowardice he had spoiled everything.

Surely the Elohim was disappointed in him. How could he ask to be rescued a second time for the same bit of foolishness? On the other hand, why did the Elohim allow such things to happen? He buried his head in his hands and sank into utter despair.

When Sarah passed through the huge wooden gates leading into the court of the women, she entered a very different world. It was a world of barefoot slaves, dark-eyed, heavily jeweled women, and children running and jumping, with everyone shouting and talking at once. When they saw Sarah, all movement stopped. No one spoke and even the children gathered in little clusters to point and stare. All eyes focused on her. One or two women whispered and smirked as their eyes followed her every movement.

An old woman led her across the courtyard to a door on the far wall. The woman indicated that the rooms were to be hers. Stepping through the door, Sarah was surprised to find herself in a dark room with one window through which a shaft of sunlight poured. She could see the hard-packed mud floor, a large incense burner in one dark corner, and two big jars set in a clay frame in the other. Lifting the lids, she found that one contained water and the other grain to be ground for her portion of bread. A smaller jar contained oil.

One maid immediately began to measure out the grain; another went out to borrow grindstones; a third went to complain that they had no oven and no fire pot.

Sarah went to the doorway and looked out into the courtyard. A fountain played in the middle of a worn flagstone terrace. It was summer and several fig trees gave off a bit of shade. A large grapevine with dusty gray leaves grew over a trellis. Clay pigeon houses were attached to the far wall, and several peacocks dragged their lovely spotted tails across the yard.

All these things Sarah noticed at first glance. After that she looked closely at the women. They were all either pregnant or very fat. Some of them could barely walk, and others sat under the shade trees fanning themselves, too enormous to move.

An old woman sat motionless on a platform that sported a striped awning and had large armrests with banks of straw-filled cushions. Sarah noticed that
her deep-set, birdlike eyes were focused on her; then slowly and with great effort, she raised her hand and motioned for Sarah to come to her.

The woman was wrinkled; her skin, like tough leather, hung from her slight frame in folds resembling an old familiar cloak. Her mouth opened and closed convulsively as though she were trying to say something. “You are the new wife,” she said at last with great effort. “The king will not be pleased when he sees how thin you are.”

Sarah stiffened. She supposed she did look thin and poorly fed to these women who obviously were so proud of their size. “Who are you and why is everyone so large?” Sarah countered.

The old woman stuffed a few summer figs in her mouth. Only when she had finished chewing and swallowing did she answer. “I’m the king’s mother,” she wheezed. “How does it happen you didn’t know this?”

“No one told me.”

“Why should you have to be told?” the old woman scolded. “Everyone knows I’m the king’s mother.”

Sarah could see she was going to get into trouble if she tried to explain, and so she went back to her rooms where the fragrant odor of baked bread greeted her. “Why are all these women so big?” she asked one of the maids.

“Don’t you understand?” the girl said, looking at Sarah’s trim figure critically. “Only women of great wealth and leisure can eat and enjoy themselves. Most men want such women for wives. The rounder they are, the more desirable. A richer dowry is given.”

Sarah went back to the doorway and watched the women. Their jewelry was dazzling, their perfume suffocating, and their hair glistened with oil and fragrant herbs, but they were almost helpless, trapped in layers of fat. None of them moved, but instead constantly ordered the maids to do even the slightest errands.

Sarah looked down at her trim, firm body and wondered, Perhaps the king will send me back because I’m too thin. How awful it would be to depend on others to do everything! To never make your own bread or throw the shuttle on a loom or nurse a young lamb back to life. How sad their lives must be!

In the days that followed, Sarah discovered that the king preferred women who could bring him some advantage. She was of interest because she had been in the harem of Pharaoh. That gave her great status, even though her slimness was out of fashion.

She also discovered that he prided himself on having all of his wives pregnant as often as possible. As long as he could father children, he didn’t fear getting old. “The king has so many children he can’t even count them,” one wife told Sarah.

Another wife confided, “If you think there are a lot of children here, you should see the reports from the king’s trips into the neighboring villages. Most of the children he leaves to be raised by their mothers’ families. Of course, he pays the families well. It is considered quite an honor to have borne the king a child.”

Before two weeks had passed, Sarah had seen the king several times, and he had mentioned her brother. He had even asked her outright if she was really Abraham’s sister.

She had told him she was and then had worried about it. What would he do? Why did he want to know?

The king had set the date given by his astrologers for the celebration of their marriage. He had personally arranged for entertainment and a great feast to be held in the public square. He had planned special gifts for Abraham and his family and friends. As each day passed his plans grew more elaborate, and Sarah grew more disturbed.

She had hoped that Abraham would have thought of some means to rescue her by this time. The memory of Hagar standing beside Abraham haunted her. More and more she began to fear that the two of them were together. Perhaps they were so happy, they didn’t care whether the king of Gerar did marry her. Fear had grown to enormous proportions as the day before the final celebration dawned. She had given up all hope of rescue. She had done everything she knew to do, and nothing had persuaded the king to give her up. She had prayed to Abraham’s God and still nothing changed.

Just when all hope was gone, something peculiar happened. King Abimelech had a dream.

It was on a night when the king had received news that both frightened and puzzled him. His chief eunuch had brought word that none of his wives had conceived during the past weeks. That news was followed by a report that two of his wives had miscarried. “It’s as though some god or evil djinn has closed their wombs,” a wise old midwife reported.

The king pondered all this. Certainly it was a message. Some evil was afoot. Some god had suffered an affront, or he himself had lost his virility. If such news got out, his subjects would lose respect for him.