The Red Tent

Re-nefer’s servant Nehesi carries Dinah to the palace. He is the only man who survived Simon and Levi’s slaughter, as they even killed infants. Re-nefer blames herself for the slaughter because she brought Dinah and Shalem together. She hopes Dinah may be pregnant with her grandchild, so brings her to Egypt; Dinah is pregnant. Every night, she dreams of Shalem’s death and wakes screaming, until Nehesi makes her stop.

Dinah arrives in Thebes, and the city dazzles her. She and Re-nefer reach the home of Re-nefer’s brother-scribe, Nakht-re, who welcomes the women. Dinah is frightened by her first sighting of a cat, which Re-nefer says is a sign of the goddess Bastet. Dinah spends her days as a niece-servant, watching ships and experiencing nightmares. She is taken care of because of her pregnancy, and Herya, Nakht-re’s wife, gives her an idol of the goddess Taweret, who oversees childbirth and fertility.

Because Dinah has attended so many births, she thinks she knows what to expect, but when her labor begins, she is astonished by the pain. She calls for her birth mother, feeling her body has “become a battlefield, a sacrifice, a test” (224). Her midwife is a skilled woman named