"After a wedding, there is a feast!" Laban roared. He swept his robes to the side and motioned for people to sit on their mats and start their meal. The children began immediately, having no concept of sadness. The other guests ate with more trepidation, starting slowly ... until Laban's air of revelry poisoned the entire space and people garrulously began celebrating.
The feasting tent had no wall panels, only a pointed ceiling, as guests overflowed the space, sitting on rugs and mats all the way down to the river. The air was rich with the smell of roast lamb with mint and spicy goat stew. There were bowls of every kind of fruit: figs roasted over the fire, sticky sweet dates, green grapes, and red-black wild cherries the color of often-kissed lips.
People feasted after funerals, too. Rachel remembered the banquet after Ummī's burial—how they had eaten and eaten, drowning themselves in the thick, syrupy medicine of grief. She found no peace—guests kissed her forehead with their wet lips, asked if she was well, and shared trivial blessings. Rachel had fled with a slab of warm bread and lamb and had eaten alone inside her tent until her stomach was sick.
She felt that urge rising again as she forced mouthful after mouthful she couldn't even taste down her throat. No matter how much she ate, she still felt cold. Bread and meat, yogurt and spices, olives and dates, mouthful after mouthful. She willed herself to look either down at her food or straight ahead, across the sea of moving figures and flickering lamps, but never to the right, where she knew Jacob was sitting. She should have been by his side.
If this were her wedding, she would be seated in the center of the rug, with Jacob on her right and Leah on her left. She would be reclining on wool-stuffed pillows, resplendent and carefree like a queen. Instead, she was seated on Leah's left and tasked with serving her for the evening: making sure her pitcher of spiced wine was constantly refilled and her plate teeming with food. The bride should always recline at her wedding feast, content to let others cater to her needs.
"Rachel, I'm sorry. Please talk to me,"Leah whispered next to her.
"I can't,"Rachel hissed back under her breath.
"Tell me you hate me, tell me anything ..."
"Not now. Leave me alone. Let's just get this over with."
Leah's chin wavered. "Jacob loves you, Rachel. This will not come between the two of you. I promise."
Rachel wondered how long Leah would let herself believe that before she realized it was a lie.
Leah had been with a man before; she confessed as much last night. She knew what places to kiss, how to press her body against his the way the mountaintops held the sky. She had given a man pleasure before, felt him lose himself under the spell of her touch. But Rachel would be married to a stranger once the scandal died down ... or die an old maid.
Rachel's one consolation was that Leah looked miserable. She couldn't bring herself to recline and she didn't touch her wine, probably not trusting it after their father's deceit. Rachel didn't blame her; she was learning very quickly that no one could be trusted, even the ones she loved most. Rachel watched Leah's eyes constantly sweeping farther beyond the boundaries of the feast—looking for Levi, she realized.
Leah's disappointment grew more visible as the moon rose, casting their celebration into silver-blue darkness. Soon, the light would disappear completely. Along the riverbank, she saw crowds of men drinking and laughing, their faces half illuminated by torches, half disappearing in the gloaming night. Under the tent, Eli and Achan's father, Benjamin, was laughing at something a spice merchant, Hakim, said to him. At the next rug over, Rachel saw Laban shaking the hand of a man wearing many gold bangles in the Sumerian style.
Rachel felt embarrassed and ashamed. Was he already trying to barter her virginity like a prize to the highest bidder? The torture had begun; she could spend her life alone, watching Leah and Jacob inevitably grow closer and closer over time, or she could marry another man, one she could not love, and go someplace far away from Laban's camp. She would become someone else's prisoner, instead of her father's. Maybe there would be a shred of relief in that.
She did not rise to fill Leah's cup or put extra pillows behind her back. Instead, she watched them. Jacob and Leah. Their bodies did not touch, but there was nothing she could do if—when—they did. For the first time, she understood what life for Leah must have been like, being known as"Rachel's older sister" instead of simply as Leah. Now, Rachel was the shamed one. The one people would whisper about. No man would want to marry her.
Suddenly, beneath the table, she felt a hand on hers. Leah. Rachel jerked away, as though a spark were lit between them.
"Laban!"Jacob stood up, his voice thick with wine and his hands clenched by his sides. Rachel bent forward to see how much he had consumed. Unlike Leah's, Jacob's cup had not been neglected. The cup was empty, and the pitcher was on its side, also empty. Leah was startled and pulled at the hem of his robe, whispering for him to stop. Heads turned and stared. The slaves standing at the edges of the tent grew nervous, leaning in to whisper to one another. Rachel grabbed Leah's cup of wine and took a sip, closing her eyes.
"Jacob, you've had too much to drink,"Laban said, his voice cloying and his teeth pressed together. "Sit down and enjoy your feast with your new bride."
"What do you plan to do with Rachel?"Jacob demanded, staggering toward Laban and raising a fist."I have a right to know that, at least."
"Now isn't the time, Jacob."Laban's voice was curt and polite so as not to upset his guests, but Rachel heard the threat behind his words. She nudged Leah with her elbow, motioning for her to stop this. As his wife, she was the only one who could. But before she could rise, Jacob continued.
"I want to take Rachel as my second wife."
****
Will Rachel agree to being Jacob's second wife?
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SIN and HONEY: Seven Years of Longing
RomanceSo Jacob served seven years, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. —Gen.29.20 Rachel was destined to love at first sight. Leah's only crime was falling for the wrong man. In Taryn Scarlett's richly lyrical novell...
