"Anita Diamante - The Red Tent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Diamante Anita)

But the other reason women wanted daughters was to keep their memories alive. Sons did not hear their
mothers' stories after weaning. So I was the one. My mother and my mother-aunties told me endless
stories about themselves. No matter what their hands were doing— holding babies, cooking, spinning,
weaving—they filled my ears.

In the ruddy shade of the red tent, the menstrual tent, they ran their fingers through my curls,
repeating the escapades of their youths, the sagas of their childbirths. Their stories were like
offerings of hope and strength poured out before the Queen of Heaven, only these gifts were not for any
god or goddess—but for me.

I can still feel how my mothers loved me. I have cherished their love always. It sustained me. It kept
me alive. Even after I left them, and even now, so long after their deaths, I am comforted by their
memory.

I carried my mothers' tales into the next generation, but the stories of my life were forbidden to me,
and that silence nearly killed the heart in me. I did not die but lived long enough for other stories to
fill up my days and nights. I watched babies open their eyes upon a new world. I found cause for
laughter and gratitude. I was loved.

And now you come to me—women with hands and feet as soft as a queen's, with more cooking pots than you
need, so safe in childbed and so free with your tongues. You come hungry for the story that was lost.
You crave words to fill the great silence that swallowed me, and my mothers, and my grandmothers before
them.

I wish I had more to tell of my grandmothers. It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why,
I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing.

I am so grateful that you have come. I will pour out everything inside me so you may leave this table
satisfied and fortified. Blessings on your eyes. Blessings on your children. Blessings on the ground
beneath you. My heart is a ladle of sweet water, brimming over.

Selah.

PART ONE

MY MOTHERS' STORIES

CHAPTER ONE

THEIR STORIES BEGAN with the day that my father appeared. Rachel came running into camp, knees flying,
bellowing like a calf separated from its mother. But before anyone could scold her for acting like a
wild boy, she launched into a breathless yarn about a stranger at the well, her words spilling out like
water into sand.

A wild man without sandals. Matted hair. Dirty face. He kissed her on the mouth, a cousin, son of their
aunt, who had watered sheep and goats for her and told off the ruffians at the well.

"What are you babbling?" demanded her father, Laban. "Who is come to the well? Who attends him? How many
bags does he carry?"