She flattered my father, whom she called wise as well as kind.
She declared herself his servant.
I was one of many witnesses to Inna’s speech. Levi and Simon stayed close, curious to learn what the midwife wanted. Leah and Bilhah had quickened their pace to discover why their friend had appeared among them. Even Zilpah roused herself and drew near.
Rachel turned her face to Jacob, her eyebrows posing the question, her hands clasped at her chest. Her husband smiled into her face. “Your friend is welcome. She will be your maidservant in my eyes. She is yours, as though she were part of your dowry. There is nothing more to say.”
Rachel kissed Jacob’s hand and placed it for a moment upon her heart. Then she led Inna and her donkey back to our animals, where the women could talk more freely.
“Sister!” Rachel said to the midwife. “What is this about?”
Inna dropped her voice and began by telling a sorry tale about a deformed stillbirth—a tiny head, twisted limbs—born to a girl made pregnant at her first blood. “Too young,” said Inna, with an angry mouth. “Far too young.” The father was a stranger, a wild-haired man of many years, who wore only a loincloth and brought his wife to Inna’s hut. When the baby and mother both died, he accused the midwife of causing his misfortune by casting spells upon them.
Inna, who had spent three terrible days working to save the mother, could not hold her tongue. Exhausted and sorrowful, she called the man a monster and accused him of being the girl’s father as well as her husband. Then she spit in his face.
Enraged, the stranger reached for her throat and would have killed her had it not been for neighbors who were drawn by her screams and pulled him away. Inna showed us the black bruises on her throat. The man demanded restitution from Inna’s father, but Inna had no father, nor had she brother or husband. She had lived alone after her mother’s death.
Having kept her family’s hut, she did not want for shelter, and midwifery kept her in gram and oil and even wool for trade. Since she was a burden to no one, none had troubled about her. But now the angry stranger demanded to know why the townspeople tolerated such an “abomination.”
“A woman alone is a danger,” he screamed into the faces of Inna’s neighbors. “Where are your judges?” he hissed. “Who are your elders?”
At that Inna grew frightened. The most powerful man of her mud village had hated her since she had turned down a marriage offer on behalf of his half-wit son. She feared that he would incite the men against her, and perhaps even enslave her. “Idiots. All of them,” she said, and spat into the dust.
“My thoughts turned to you for refuge,” she said, addressing all the women of my family, who walked nearby, listening to her every word. “Rachel knows I have always wanted to see more of the world than these dusty hills, and since Jacob treats his wives better than most, I came to see your departure as a gift from the gods,” she continued. “And sisters, I must tell you, I am tired of eating my evening meal alone. I wish to see a baby I delivered as he grows into manhood. I wish to celebrate the new moon among friends. I want to know that my bones will be planted well after my death.” Looking around at us, she smiled broadly. “So here I am.”
The women smiled back at her, happy to have such a healer among them. Although Rachel was skilled, Inna was famous for her polden hands, and beloved for her stories.
Zilpah saw Inna’s appearance as a good omen. The midwife’s presence lifted her spirits so much that later my aunt began to sing. It was nothing exalted, only a children’s song about a fly who bothered a rabbit, who ate the insect but was eaten by a dog, who was in turn eaten by a jackal, who was hunted by a lion, who was killed by a boastful man, who was snatched by An and Enlil, the sky gods, and placed in the heavens to teach him a lesson.
It was a simple song known to every child and thus to every adult who had been a child. By the last verse, all of my mothers and the bondswomen and their children were singing. Even my brothers had joined in, with Simon and Levi making a contest of it, outshouting each other. When the song ended everyone clapped hands and laughed. It was sweet to be free of Laban’s shadow. It was sweet to be at the beginning of a new life.
That was the first time I heard women’s voices and men’s voices raised in song together, and throughout the journey the boundaries between the men’s lives and the women’s relaxed. We joined the men in the work of watering the herd, they helped us unpack for the evening meal. We listened to them sing herding songs, addressed to the night sky and filled with tales of the constellations. They heard our spinning songs, which we sang as we walked and worked wool with small spindles. We applauded one another and laughed together. It was time out of life. It was like a dream.
Most of the singing took place just before sleep or early in the morning while we were still fresh. By afternoon, everyone was hungry and footsore. It took the women several days to get accustomed to wearing sandals from sunup to sunset—at home we stayed barefoot in and around the tents. Inna relieved our blisters and soothed our aches by massaging our feet with oil perfumed with thyme.
There was nothing wrong with our appetites, though. The long days left everyone ferociously hungry, and it was good that my brothers could supplement the simple bread and porridge of the road with birds and hares they hunted along the way. The meat tasted strange but wonderful the way Inna prepared it, with a bright yellow spice she got in trade.
There was little conversation during the evening meal. The men were in their circle, the women among themselves. By the time the moon rose, everyone was asleep—the women and babies crowded inside one large tent, the men and boys on blankets under the stars. At dawn, after a hurried meal of cold bread, olives, and cheese, we began again. After a few days of this, I could barely remember my old life, rooted in one place.
Every morning brought a new wonder. The first day, Inna joined us. The second day, late in the afternoon, we came upon a great river.
My father had said we would cross the great water, but I had given no thought to the meaning of his words. When we came to the top of a hill overlooking the river valley, I was amazed. I had never seen so much water in one place, nor had any of us except Jacob and Inna. The river was not very wide where we forded it, or “him” as Zilpah would have me say. Even so, it was twenty times wider than the streams I had known. He lay across the valley like a sparkling path, the setting sun catching fire on the way.
We came to a crossing where the bottom was packed with pebbles and the ford was wide. The ground on either bank had been beaten smooth by many caravans, and my father decided we would stop there until morning. The animals were led to water, and we made camp, but before the meal, my father and my mothers gathered by the banks of the Euphrates and poured a libation of wine into the great river.
We were not the only ones at the ford. Up and down the banks, traders had stopped to eat and sleep. My brothers wandered and stared at the new faces and strange clothes. “A camel,” Joseph shouted, and our brothers chased after him to get a closer look at the spindly-legged beast. I could not go with them, but I did not regret being left behind. It gave me a chance to go down to the river, which drew me like a storyteller.
I stood by the water’s edge until the last trace of daylight had drained from the sky, and later, after the evening meal, I returned to savor the smell of the river, which was as heady to me as incense, heavy and dark and utterly different from the sweet, thin aroma of well water. My mother, Leah, would have said I smelled the rotting no grasses of the marsh and the mingled presence of so many animals and men, but I recognized the scent of this water the way I knew the perfume of my mother’s body.
I sat by the river even after the others went to sleep. I dangled my feet in the water until they were wrinkled and soft and whiter than I had ever seen them. In the moonlight, I watched as leaves made their way slowly downstream and out of sight. I was lulled by the slow rush of the water against the shallow banks, and was nearly asleep
when voices roused me. Turning to look upstream, I saw two shapes moving about in the middle of the river. For a moment I thought they might be river demons or water beasts come to drag me to a watery grave. I had no idea that people could move through the water like that—I had never seen swimming. But soon I realized they were merely men, the Egyptians who owned the camel, speaking to one another in their strange, purring language. Though their laughter was quiet, the water carried the sound as though they were whispering directly in my ears. I did not go to my blanket until they had left the water and returned the river to continue his peaceful journey through the night, undisturbed.
In the morning, my father and my brothers walked into the river without even pausing, lifting their robes to keep dry. My mothers hung their sandals upon their girdles and giggled about showing so much of their legs. Zilpah hummed a river song as we crossed. The twins rushed ahead, splashing each other thoughtlessly.
But I was afraid. Even though I had fallen in love with the river, I could see that at his deepest point, the water lapped against my father’s waist. That meant I would be submerged to my neck and I would be swallowed. I thought about taking my mother’s hand, like a baby, but she was balancing a bundle on her head. All of my mothers’ hands were busy, and I was too proud to ask Joseph for his.
I had no time to be afraid. The pack animals were at my back, forcing me ahead, so I entered the river and felt the water rise to my ankles and calves. The current felt like a caress on my knees and in thighs. In an instant, my belly and chest were covered, and I giggled. There was nothing to fear! The water held no threat, only an embrace I had no wish to break, I stood to one side as -the ox passed, and then the rest of the animals. I moved my arms through the water, feeling them float on the surface, watching the waves and wake that followed my gesture. Here was magic, I thought. Here was something holy.