Enchantment by Orson Scott Card Read Free Book Online Page B

but they all depended on it. “Women’s intuition” wasn’t intuition at all, it was heightened observation, unconscious registration of subtle clues. Ruthie knew that her mother-in-law didn’t want the marriage, and knew that somehow she had just given fuel to that cause; Ruthie knew this, but didn’t realize that she knew it. She simply felt uncomfortable, on edge, and she noticed more when she was conversing with her future mother-in-law. Esther didn’t need to be told any of this. She knew, because she had trained herself to know these things. It was a school at least as rigorous as any university, but there was no diploma, no extra title to add to her name. She simply knew things, and, unlike most women, knew exactly why and how she knew.
    “Ruthie, you know you aren’t planning on having a lot of children,” said Esther. At once she softened the remark with a more general observation. “American girls don’t want so many children these days.”
    “You only had the one,” said Ruthie, still smiling, but definitely on the defensive, with a remark like that.
    Esther let her own ancient sorrow rise to the surface a little; her eyes watered. “Not for lack of desire,” she said. The emotion was real enough; choosing to show it at this moment, however, was entirely artificial. And it worked.
    “Of course you wanted to fulfil your traditional role as a Jewish wife and mother,” said Ruthie. “That’s the religion of scarcity. You feel the obligation to produce sons to become rabbis, and daughters to give birth to more sons in the next generation.”
    “Oh, is that all it is?” asked Esther.
    “Of course there’s the biological imperative toward reproduction,” said Ruthie.
    “Such big words,” murmured Esther. Piotr wasn’t entirely unobservant. He caught the irony in Esther’s voice and grew more alert to what Ruthie was saying.
    “But in the feminine Judaism, in the loving Bible, you have only as many children as you need. Like Eve, with only two sons, and bearing a third only when one of the first two died. She was free, not cursed at all—the curse was from the other Bible.”
    “Other Bible?” asked Piotr.
    “Two Bibles, conflated, one hidden inside the other,” said Ruthie. “The Bible of scarcity is the book with the curses in it. Adam earns his living by the sweat of his face; Eve bears children in sorrow and is ruled over by her husband. A zero-sum game where it’s all right to drive the original inhabitants out of Canaan and keep their land, where if a man can’t pronounce the word
shibboleth
it’s all right to kill him because he’s an outsider. That’s the Bible of killing and hatred and a jealous God who wants all idol-worshipers killed—struck by lightning at Elijah’s bidding or slaughtered by the swords of the Levites when Moses gave the command.”
    “You’re quite the scholar,” said Piotr.
    “Not me,” said Ruthie. “But my class in Feminist Judaism this semester really opened my eyes.”
    “Ah,” said Piotr.
    “A woman’s value doesn’t come from childbearing and obedience. It comes from her boldly making decisions—like Eve’s decision to eat the fruit and
know
something. It was Adam who followed
her
; she was the rebel, he was the follower. And yet what is it called, ‘the Fall of
Adam
’!”
    “That’s what the Christians call it, anyway,” said Piotr. His bemusement was growing.
    “It’s the Bible of scarcity that makes Jews think they have the right to displace the Palestinians. In the feminine Bible, the lamb lies down with the lion.”
    “Lions are always glad when lambs act like that,” said Piotr. “Saves all that energy wasted in hunting and chasing.”
    “Now you’re teasing me,” said Ruthie, reverting from feminist lecturer to sweet little thing when the latter seemed like the best way to win. And sure enough, Piotr at once began to backpedal.
    “Of course, I know you didn’t mean it that way, I was joking,” he