Free 1997 - The Red Tent by Anita Diamant Page A

great steps, and her moon blood made trees grow everywhere she walked.
    “I loved to go to sleep when I was with child,” said Zilpah. “I traveled so far in my blankets those months.”
    But when her time came, the baby was slow to appear and Zilpah suffered. Her hips were too narrow, and labor lasted from sunset to sunset, for three days. Zilpah cried and wailed, sure that her daughter would die, or that she would be dead before she saw her girl, her Ashrat, for she had chosen her name already and told it to her sisters in case she did not survive.
    It went hard with Zilpah. On the evening of the third day of her labor, she was all but dead from the pains, which, strong as they were, did not seem to bring the baby any closer to this world. Finally, Inna resorted to an untried potion she had bought from a Canaanite trader. She reached her hand all the way up to the stubborn door of Zilpah’s womb and rubbed a strong, aromatic gum that did its work quickly, wrenching a shriek from Zilpah’s throat, which by then was so hoarse from her travail that she sounded less like a woman than an animal caught in the fire. Inna whispered a fragment of an incantation in the name of the ancient goddess of healing.
    “Gula, quicken the delivery Gula, I appeal to you, miserable and distraught Tortured by pain, your servant Be merciful and bear tbis prayer.”
    Soon, Zilpah was up on the bricks, with Leah standing behind her, supporting the birth of the child conceived in her name. Zilpah had no more tears by the time Inna directed her to push. She was ashen and cold. She was half dead, and there was no strength even to scream when the baby finally came, tearing her flesh front and back.
    It was not the hoped-for daughter, but a boy, long, thin, and black-haired. Leah hugged her sister and declared her lucky to have such a son, and lucky to be alive. Leah named him Gad for luck, and said, “May he bring you the moon and the stars and keep you safe in your old age.”
    But the rejoicing in the red tent was cut short because Zilpah cried out again. The pain had returned. “I am dying. I am dying,” she sobbed, weeping for the son who would never know his mother. “He will live as I did,” she wailed, “the orphan of a concubine, haunted by dreams of a cold, dead mother.
    “Unlucky one,” she whimpered. “Unlucky son of an unlucky mother.”
    Inna and Rachel crouched on either side of the despairing mother seeking the source of this new pain. Inna took Rachel’s hand and placed it on Zilpah’s belly, showing her a second child in the womb. “Don’t give up yet, little mother,” Inna said to Zilpah. “You will bear twins tonight. Didn’t you dream of that? Not much of a priestess, is she?” She grinned.
    The second baby came quickly, since Gad had opened the way.
     
    He fell out of his mother’s womb like ripe fruit, another boy, also dark but much smaller than the first.
    But his mother did not see him. A river of blood followed in his wake, and the light in Zilpah’s eyes went out. Time and again Inna and Rachel packed her womb with wool and herbs to staunch the bleeding. They wet her lips with water and strong, honeyed brews. They sang healing hymns and burned incense to keep her spirit from flying out of the tent. But Zilpah lay on the blanket, not dead but not alive either, for eight days and more. She was not aware of the circumcision of Gad or her second son, whom Leah named Asher, for the goddess Zilpah loved. Leah nursed the boys, and so did Bilhah and one of the bondswomen.
    After ten days Zilpah moaned and lifted her hands. “I dreamed two sons,” she croaked. “Is it so?” They brought the babies to her, dark and thriving. And Zilpah laughed. Zilpah’s laughter was a rare sound, but the names made her chuckle. “Gad and Asher. Luck and the goddess. It sounded like the name of a myth from the old days,” she said. “And I was Ninmah, the exalted lady, who birthed it all.” Zilpah ate and drank and