The Red Tent

by Anita Diamant

If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows the details of her mother’s life—without flinching or whining—the stronger the daughter.

But the other reason women wanted daughters was to keep their memories alive.

In the red tent we knew that death was the shadow of birth, the price women pay for the honor of giving life. Thus, our sorrow was measured.

Like every beloved child, I knew that I was the most important person in my mother’s world.

One of my great secrets was knowing I had the power to make her smile.

“Remember this moment, when your mother’s body heals every trouble of your soul.”

I could only be what I was. And I was a woman.

When they heard that Hamor had offered my father a king’s bride-price for me, they raised their voices against the marriage, sensing that their own positions would be diminished by such an alliance. Jacob’s house would be

swallowed up in the dynasties of Shechem, and while Reuben might expect to become a prince, they and their sons would remain shepherds, poor cousins, nobodies.

“Jacob, your sons have done murder,” I said, in a voice I did not recognize as my own. “You have lied and connived, and your sons have murdered righteous men, striking them down in weakness of your own invention. You have despoiled the bodies of the dead and plundered their burying places, so their shadows will haunt you forever. You and your sons have raised up a generation of widows and orphans who will never forgive you. “Jacob,” I said, in a voice that echoed like thunder, “Jacob,” I hissed, in the voice of the serpent who sheds life and still lives, “Jacob,” I howled, and the moon vanished. “Jacob shall never know peace again. He will lose what he treasures and repudiate those he should embrace. He will never again find rest, and his prayers will not find the favor of his father’s god. “Jacob knows my words are true. Look at me, for I wear the blood of the righteous men of Shechem. Their blood stains your hands and your head, and you will never be clean again. “You are unclean and you are cursed,” I said, spitting into the face of the man who had been my father. Then I turned my back upon him, and he was dead to me.

Why had no one told me that my body would become a battlefield, a sacrifice, a test? Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers?

Just as there is no warning for childbirth, there is no preparation for the sight of a first child.

There should be a song for women to sing at this moment, or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that moment.

time is a mother’s enemy.

Sometimes it is easier for the poor, I thought. Even those without family live in such close quarters to their neighbors that the cries of a laboring mother bring out other women like geese responding to the call of a leader in flight. But the rich are surrounded by servants too fearful of their mistresses to act as sisters.

Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah. Inna, Re-nefer, and Meryt. Even poor Ruti and arrogant Rebecca were arrayed to meet me. Although I had never seen them, I recognized Adah and Sarai as well. Strong, brave, wonderstruck, kind, gifted, broken, loyal, foolish, talented, weak: each one welcoming me in her way.

Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life’s pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.

Egypt loved the lotus because it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. Thus can something as insignificant as a name—two syllables, one high, one sweet—summon up the innumerable smiles and tears, sighs and dreams of a human life.