Benia could not coax me to eat that night, and although I lay down beside him, I did not close my eyes. I stared into darkness and let the past wash over me as it would.
I remembered Reuben’s kindness and Judah’s beauty. I remembered Dan’s voice in song and the way Gad and Asher mimicked our grandfather until I collapsed in laughter. I remembered how Issa and Tali wept when Levi and Simon tormented them and said they were interchangeable in their mother’s eyes. I remembered how Judah once tickled me until I peed, but never told a soul. I remembered how Reuben used to carry me on his shoulders, from where I could touch the clouds.
Finally, I could lie still no longer and walked out into the night, where Joseph waited for me, pacing by the side of my tent. We walked away from the camp slowly, for there was no moon and darkness covered everything. After some distance Joseph flung himself onto the ground and told me what had happened.
“At first, he did not know me,” my brother said. “Daddy whimpered like a tired child, crying, ‘Joseph. Where is Joseph?’
“I said, ‘Here I am.’ But still he asked, ‘Where is my son Joseph? Why does he not come?’
“I put my mouth to his ear and said, ‘Joseph is here with his sons, just as you asked.’
“After many such exchanges he suddenly understood and grabbed at my face, my hands, my robes. Weeping, he repeated my name over and over and begged forgiveness of me and of my mother. He cursed the memory of Levi and Simon and Reuben, too. Then he wailed because he had not forgiven his firstborn.
“He named each of my brothers in turn, blessing them and cursing them, turning them into animals, sighing over their boyhood pranks, calling out to their mothers to wipe their bottoms.
“How horrid to grow old like that,” said Joseph, with pity and disgust in his voice. “I pray I die before the day comes when I do not know if my sons are infants or grandfathers.
“Jacob seemed to sleep, but after a moment he called out again, ‘Where is Joseph?’ as though he had not already kissed me.
“ ‘Here am I," I answered.
“ ‘Let me bless the boys,’ said Jacob. ‘Let me see them now.’
“My sons trembled at my side. The tent stank with his illness and his ranting had frightened them, but I told them that their grandfather wished to bless them, and I pushed them toward him, one on either side.
“He put his right hand on Efraem?
??s head and his left hand on Menashe’s. He blessed them in the name of Abram and Isaac, then sat up and roared, ‘Remember me!’ They shrank back and hid behind me.
“I told Jacob his grandsons’ names, but he did not hear me. He stared, sightless, at the roof of the tent, and spoke to Rachel, apologizing for abandoning her bones at the side of a road. He wept for his beloved, and begged her to let him die in peace. “He did not notice when I left with my sons.” As Joseph spoke, I felt an old heaviness return to my heart and recognized the weight I had carried during my years in Nakht-re’s house. The burden was not made of sorrow as I had thought. It was anger that rose out of me and found its lost voice. “What of me?” I said. “Did he mention me? Did he repent of what he did to me?
“Did he speak of the murder of Shechem? Did he weep for the innocent blood of Shalem and Hamor? Did he repent for the slaughter of his own honor?”
There was silence from the ground where Joseph lay. “He said nothing of you. Dinah is forgotten in the house of Jacob.”
His words should have laid me low, but they did not. I left Joseph on the ground and stumbled back to the camp by myself. I was suddenly exhausted and every step was an effort, but my eyes were dry.
After Joseph arrived, Jacob stopped eating and drinking. His death would come within hours, days at the most. So we waited.
I passed the time sitting at the door of my tent, spinning linen, studying the children of Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah. I saw my mothers’ smiles and gestures, and heard their laughter. Some of the connections were as clear as daylight. I recognized an exact copy of Bilhah in what had to be Dan’s daughter; another little girl wore my aunt Rachel’s hair. Leah’s sharp nose was evident everywhere.
On the second day of Jacob’s deathwatch, a girl approached, a basket of fresh bread in her hands. She introduced herself in the language of Egypt as Gera, the daughter of Benjamin and his Egyptian wife, Neset. Gera was curious to discover how a woman of my status sat and spun while the others who attended Zafenat Paneh-ah cooked and fetched and cleaned all day.
“I told my sisters that you must be nurse to the sons of the vizier, my uncle,” she said. “Is it so? Did I guess well?”
I smiled and said, “You made a good guess,” and asked her to sit down and tell me of her sisters and brothers. Gera accepted my invitation with a satisfied grin and began to lay out the warp and weft of her family.
“My sisters are still children,” said the girl, herself still a few years away from womanhood. “We have twins, Meuza and Naamah, who are too young even to spin. My father, Benjamin, had sons in Canaan as well by another wife who died. My brothers are called Bela, Becher, Ehi, and Ard, and they are good enough fellows, though I do not know them any better than the sons of my uncles, who are as numerous as our flocks and just as noisy,” she said, and winked at me as though we were old friends.
“You have many uncles?” I said.
“Eleven,” Gera said. “But the three oldest are dead.”
“Ah,” I nodded, bidding farewell to Reuben in my heart.
My niece settled in beside me, drawing a spindle from her apron and setting to work as she unraveled the skein of our family’s history. “The eldest was Reuben, son of Leah, my grandfather’s first wife. The scandal there is that Reuben was found lying with Bilhah, the youngest of Jacob’s wives. Jacob never forgave his firstborn, even after Bilhah died, even though Reuben gave him grandsons and more wealth than the rest of the brothers combined. They say my uncle wept for Jacob’s forgiveness when he died, but his father would not come to him.
“Simon and Levi, also born of Leah, were murdered in Tanis when I was a baby. No one knows the whole tale there, but among the women there is talk that the two of them tried to get the better of a trader in some small matter. For their victim they chose the most ruthless cutthroat in Egypt, who killed them for their greed.”