Chapter 8

Hagar led her to a room not far away, one with windows overlooking a lush garden. The smell of the blooms reached even into the room, though the windows were so deep that only the sun’s light and very little of its heat made it through. If there had been such a room in her father’s house in Ur-of-the-North, that is where he would have brought his visitors, for such constant extravagance with water would have spoken more of his wealth and power than any other display he might have made. Yet here in the house of Pharaoh’s women, this room was no doubt quite an ordinary one. Or was it? It was hard to know whether she was being treated with honor or disdain. Quite probably both—outward respect and secret contempt.

All that mattered to Sarai was what this might imply with regard to Abram. If this was an opulent room, did that mean Abram would be treated well? Or did the favor extend only to her, so that his life was in danger if he resisted whatever Pharaoh might want of her?

“Do you have any idea what any of this means?” Sarai asked the servant girl.

Hagar looked at her blankly.

“Is my accent so bad you can’t understand me?”

“I can understand you,” said Hagar—in heavily accented Egyptian.

“So you’re not a native of Egypt,” said Sarai. “What language do you speak, then, from birth?” She tried Amorite first, and the girl seemed pleased enough.

“If Mistress wishes to speak the tongue of the desert thieves, it’s all one to me,” said Hagar. Her tone was sweet, but the barb was obvious. Had the girl sized her up and decided Sarai wasn’t dangerous?

In Hebrew, Sarai said, “Is this a good room or an ordinary one?”

The girl paused a moment before she got what was said. “That is for Mistress to judge.”

One more language to try. In the Arabic of spice traders from the south, Sarai said, “Is this your tongue?”

Hagar’s eyes widened, and suddenly a torrent of words poured forth. Sarai was not fluent in Arabic, and though it was close to Hebrew and Amorite, there were enough differences that she only caught a few phrases—enough to know that Hagar was asking her if she had come only recently from Arabia and did she know anything of Hagar’s father. A boatmaker? A sailor?

“You must talk Arabic more slowly for me,” said Sarai in a mix of Egyptian and Arabic. “I have never visited your homeland. I only know the few words I learned from spice merchants.”

“The desert Bedu is no merchant, only a trader,” Hagar said scornfully. “My father is a real merchant, with three fine ships.” She looked away as if to hide emotion. “If they were not all seized when I was captured. That is the only reason I can think of that my family has not ransomed me. The pirates ruined their fortune, and with nothing to pay ransom, the pirates could only profit from me by selling me into slavery here in Egypt.”

“How long have you been in bondage?”

Hagar looked at her oddly for a moment, then replied. “Six years.”

“Then you were a mere child when they took you!”

“I was a child until that day, but on that day I became old. I have lived since then with one foot in the grave.”

“Why? Is your health bad?”

Hagar looked at her in amazement. “I was once the daughter of a rich house, and you ask why I feel myself to be dead?”

“Rich or poor, orphan or daughter, you are still a daughter of God, still yourself.”

Hagar laughed derisively. “Which God? A weak one, if he protects me no better than this.”

“Ah. So you are the one mortal soul who should suffer nothing and lose nothing, while all the rest of us struggle on.”

“What have you lost, king’s daughter?”

“I am also a captive here,” said Sarai.

“Then where are the scars of your beatings? Why are your cheeks plump while those of the other captives are gaunt?”

“It pleases them to pretend that I am their guest. But I may not go when I wish, and my brother may or may not be killed by Pharaoh’s men. He may already be dead.”

“I’ve already lost brothers, sisters, parents, myself,” said Hagar. “I hope you don’t mind if I fail to cry for you.”

“I never asked you to cry for me. I merely tell you why I will not cry for you.”

“Good. I don’t want your tears.” Hagar looked away, angry.

“Do you speak to all of Pharaoh’s guests this way?”

“None but you ever tried to pry into my life, or to judge me.”

“I meant only to encourage you,” said Sarai. “For God does look over you, and if you live by his will, he will turn all things to good.”

“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t be afraid for your brother.”

Her words stung Sarai. “God is perfect, even if my faith is not.”

“You speak as if you expected me to believe in your God.”

“I expect nothing,” said Sarai. “But since the God of Abram is the only god that actually exists, you might as well believe in him, for it is he and he alone who hears the prayers of the righteous.” She meant what she said, but in a tiny corner of her mind she harbored the dread that Asherah had heard her.

“No god has ever heard my prayers.”

“Or you have never recognized God’s answers.”

“Oh, his answers are familiar to me,” said Hagar heatedly. “To every favor I beg, the answer is no. To every plea for understanding, his answer is confusion.”

Sarai laid her hand on the girl’s head, meaning only to stroke her hair. Hagar jerked her head away.

“If I had beaten you with a stick,” said Sarai, “you would have borne it without flinching. But the hand of friendship . . .”

“That was not the hand of friendship,” said Hagar. “That was the hand of pity.”

Sarai took a deep breath, to hold back the sharp answer she wanted to give. “You already know that I am your friend,” said Sarai.

“I do not.”

“It’s obvious you trust me, or you wouldn’t dare speak so boldly to me.”

Hagar almost blurted out a sharp answer, but Sarai’s words caught her, made her wait. “Why would I trust you?”

“Because you know that I am like you at least in one way—I am in dire need of a friend, and in this place the only hope of one is you.”

“How can a slave be a friend to a princess?”

“I’m no princess,” said Sarai.

“I’m supposed to trust you when you lie to me?”

“How could you know whether it’s a lie or not?” demanded Sarai.

“You gave away the truth when you spoke to Eshut, and then to me.”

“But I spoke to you both exactly the same.”

“Yes. That’s what gave you away.”

Sarai tried to imagine what she had said or done. She spoke to both of them with respect, not condescending to them in any way that she was aware of.

Hagar laughed at Sarai’s consternation. “You’re used to speaking to anyone, man or woman, as if they were your equal. That is an attitude that only those who are born of the noblest blood can have. Eshut must always put her inferiors in their place, because she is so keenly aware that there are people above her, so afraid that people will not give her the respect she wants. You know that no one is above you.”

“Or I know that no one is beneath me.”

Hagar shook her head. “Slaves must understand whose authority is greatest, so that we can know whose command takes precedence. You know from the start that you have authority. In this house, only Pharaoh’s queen and her daughters have such confidence.”

“You compare me to Pharaoh’s wife?”

“Actually, you’re more confident of your place than she is,” said Hagar.

“I wish I were,” said Sarai. “I wish I knew from one moment to the next what would happen to me and my . . . brother.” She stammered in fear for Abram. She was going to give him away. Milcah would never act as Hagar had seen. Her disguise had not lasted a whole day in court. She began to cry, half-stifled sobs that racked her body but hardly made a sound.

Hagar came to her, put an arm around her. “Mistress,” said Hagar. “You have nothing to fear from Pharaoh. He’s fascinated by the gods and kings of the east. He believes that the first Pharaohs who united Egypt were of the east, of the land between rivers. He believes that the blood of the Pharaohs runs thin and weak, and the gods have sent famine to the east in order to bring the strong blood of the desert peoples to reinvigorate Egypt. You are in no danger here. Pharaoh has brought you into his house so you might give him vigorous royal sons and daughters.”

At those words, Sarai burst into tears in earnest.

“Mistress, what did I say?”

“Sons and daughters,” said Sarai bitterly. “What have I ever asked of God, except sons and daughters?”

“But you’re not married, Mistress, how . . .” And then Hagar understood. “Abram is not your brother.”

“Tell no one,” said Sarai. “God told him he must pretend I am his sister.”

“I will keep your secret,” said Hagar. “But if you are Abram’s wife, then you are Sarai, the priestess of Asherah who renounced her vow.”

“I was never her priestess, I never made a vow.”

“But you are the one they say this of.”

Sarai nodded.

“Your god is right. For marriage to Milcah, the desert maiden, Pharaoh would pay your brother a handsome brideprice. But Pharaoh would kill ten thousand husbands to have as his wife the daughter of the ancient kings of Ur-of-the-South.”

“My husband’s future is in your hands.”

“As my future is in yours,” said Hagar.

So it would be a bargain. “How can I hold your future?”

“When you leave here and go home to the east, take me with you.”

“But you belong to Pharaoh.”

“I do not ask you to steal me,” said Hagar. “He’ll ask you what gift you want to take with you. I beg you, ask for me.”

“But I live in the desert, where life is hard and we lack for water, for almost everything.”

“What do I care? I own nothing, not even my body. I have spent my childhood wishing I could die. But if I lived as your servant, my captivity would be bearable.”

Sarai tried to figure out why Hagar might feel this way. And then gave up, for there was never a way to know why others felt as they felt or did what they did. “As long as you want, you will always have a place at my side.”

“But you must ask for me, as a gift.”

“I will ask,” said Sarai. “When the time is right. I won’t leave without asking, as long as you don’t—”

“Don’t what? This is not a bargain, not a trade. I will never tell your secrets.”

Sarai blushed at having been caught in such a false judgment. “It’s the same with me,” she said. “Even if someone else guesses my secret as you did, I’ll ask for you as my handmaiden. But on the day when the desert life is so hard that you wish you were still a slave in Egypt, remember that this was your own choice.”

They clasped hands. Sarai wondered as she gazed into the eyes of this bold Arab girl: Might this child be a part of God’s plan?

Or was Sarai merely part of Hagar’s plan?