Later, after she was
raped by Shechem, I was the one Dina sought out for comfort.
That first
time I comforted her, though, she was around four, and I was around 12. Simeon
had accidently hit her with a rock above her left eye. The women stopped the bleeding with some shepherds-purse.
Then they passed her around like a loaf of bread, each one trying her own trick
to soothe her: something sweet, a rocking motion, a rattling noise, even a
breast. But still she wailed her heartbreaking tones.
The other boys were not about, but even then, I knew she was special, and I watched her closely. I noticed an almost imperceptible curling of her lips and a glimmer in her eyes, a smile – Dina’s smile - masked by her tears. Our eyes met, and Dina recognized my detection. She immediately reached out her arms to me, buried her head against skinny boy’s chest and went silent.
I was the first one she told how Shechem had raped her. But Shechem said he loved her, and Father was going to give her to him as a bride. Simeon, always the hot-head, wanted to attack at once.
But Father said, “You will make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; my numbers are few,”
“What if there
were a way to rid ourselves of them all at once?” I said, and I convinced
Father of the plan.
So Shechem and his father, Hamor, and all the men of the
city, agreed to be circumcised before the marriage took place, and on the third
day, when they were sore, we came upon the city unawares, and killed all the
males.
Afterwards,
before I even cleaned myself of the blood, I went straight to Dina.
“Did it work just
as I said?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“They’re all
dead?”
“Yes, it was a
slaughter”“And Shechem, too?”
“Yes.”
“Did he suffer?”
“No, it was
fast.”
“Good,” she said.
“But he raped
you," I said.
“Yes,” she said, "he raped me.”
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