“I don’t mind being your pretty girl. I just don’t want some man to see me and think of me as his pretty girl. I don’t want someone else to get angry and get sent away like Belbai.”

“Then always stay in this tent with me!”

“If only I could.”

“Just like during a storm, when the sand is blowing everywhere, you stay in here with me and nobody has to cry.”

One of Rebekah’s favorite memories was the first big sandstorm she remembered. It had begun terribly, with everyone running around the camp in a panic, tying things down, getting animals into the shelter of caves and tents. A dozen sheep crowded into the tent with Rebekah and Deborah, but from that moment on the memory was a good one, of Deborah singing louder and louder to outshout the wind outside, the feel of her arms around Rebekah triumphing over the horrible sound of a million grains of sand pelting against the tent walls. When the storm was over it took two hours for the men to dig out their tent entrance, but through it all Rebekah had never been afraid because Deborah had her arms around her and kept singing songs and saying, “God knows where you are, God knows where you are.”

Maybe that was an exceptionally strong sandstorm, or maybe she was simply old enough not to have to hide in a tent, but there had been no more storms that drove her inside. Nowadays Rebekah just put on her veil, tied it at her neck, and helped the others get the animals to shelter and staked out long cloths over the beans and vegetables. The veil kept the sand out of her eyes without keeping her from seeing what she was doing, until the job was done and she could go inside a tent with the others.

She thought of all the women wearing veils during a windstorm and how no one could tell who was who until the veils came off. Women in veils were not beautiful or ugly. They were simply invisible, indistinguishable.

O God, she prayed at once, Is this what I should do? Thou gavest me the burden of prettiness, but may I not bear that burden in privacy by wearing a veil?

She wasn’t sure what kind of answer God would give. At least she got no warning not to do it, and in moments she had Deborah helping her search for her veil.

“Is there a storm coming?” asked Deborah.

“I’m keeping storms away,” said Rebekah. And now she had the veil in her hands, then over her head and tied at her neck. “Look, am I pretty?”

“Silly, of course you are,” said Deborah.

“I mean, can anybody see whether I’m pretty?”

“Take off the veil so I can see.”

“I mean with the veil on.”