Signs and Wonders by Bernard Evslin

again, and she bore him another son. Leah cried: “A son again! I am happy!” She named him Asher, meaning “happy.”
    Rachel hungered for a child of her own and sought out old wives, asking them for charms and potions. One old woman told her of the magic plant, mandrake, which has roots like little arms and legs and, when pulled out of the earth, makes a sound like a child crying. This plant, the old wife told her, made young wives fruitful—but it was very hard to find.
    Rachel spent long hours in the fields searching for the mandrake, but she did not find it.
    Now, Leah knew what her sister was doing and told Reuben to go to the field for mandrake.
    “Mandrake, Mother?” cried Reuben, laughing, for he was a merry lad. “Do you wish to be more fruitful than you are? How many brothers must I have?”
    “Do not jest,” said Leah. “Go.”
    The men were harvesting wheat. Reuben went with them as they harvested, and searched the ground where they had passed. Reuben was red-headed like Esau, and, like Esau, had a hunter’s eye. He spotted two mandrakes and pulled them, screaming thinly, from the ground. He took them home to his mother.
    Then Leah said to Zilpah, her handmaid: “Gossip with my sister’s maid, Bilhah. Let it drop that Reuben has found a mandrake.”
    Zilpah did so, and Bilhah ran to Rachel, crying, “Mistress, mistress, Reuben has found a mandrake!”
    Rachel went to Leah and said: “I have never asked you for anything, but I do now. Give me, I pray, the mandrake that your son has found.”
    “You do not ask,” said Leah. “You take. You took my husband. You shall not have my mandrake.”
    “Please.”
    “Beg and plead all you like. You shall not have it.”
    “I must have it. I’ll give you something you want.”
    “You have nothing I want.”
    “I have everything you want. I have Jacob. He is entirely mine, but I will let you have him for a little while if you give me the mandrake.”
    This was a bitter thing for Leah to hear. But she wanted Jacob so much that she listened.
    “Well,” said Rachel, “make up your mind. Your mandrake will hire my husband for three nights.”
    Two desires wrestled in Leah: to have Jacob, and to deny Rachel. But a thought came to her: “When he visits me, I conceive. If I bear thrice more—and she remains barren despite the mandrake—then he will know that no charm can make her ripe and may begin to love me, the mother of sons.”
    “Take the mandrake,” said Leah. “And see to it that you keep your part of the bargain.”
    Leah was visited by her husband that night, and she conceived. She bore a son and named him Issachar, meaning “hire.” Rachel remained barren.
    Jacob visited Leah again, according to agreement; again she conceived. And again she bore a son. “I am a despised bride,” she said. “But God has given me a rich dowry. Jacob will surely dwell with me now that I have given him six sons.” She named this one Zebulun, meaning “dwell.”
    Jacob visited Leah again on the third of the appointed nights. She conceived. The child she bore this time was a girl. Leah did not love this one; not because it was a girl but because it was beautiful and reminded her of Rachel. “God has judged me for bribing Rachel with the mandrake,” she said to herself. She named the girl Dinah, meaning “judged.”
    But Jacob’s love never swerved from Rachel, though she bore him no child. They cherished each other as in their first days together.
    Then God pitied Rachel and opened her womb. In wonder and joy she told Jacob that she had conceived, and he wept for happiness. She labored and bore a son—a beautiful child with skin like a sun-warmed apricot and his mother’s gem-green eyes. And Jacob who had sired ten sons now knew for the first time the wild protective strength of true fatherhood. His ten sons together counted for less to him than this last son who was Rachel’s.
    “God has taken away my reproach,” said Rachel. “A son of our own