We have been lost to each other for so
long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust.
This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother to
daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men,
who had no way of knowing. That is why I became a footnote, my
story a brief detour between the well-known history of my father,
Jacob, and the celebrated chronicle of Joseph, my brother. On
those rare occasions when I was remembered, it was as a victim.
Near the beginning of your holy book, there is a passage that
seems to say I was ráped and continues with the bloody tale of
how my honor was avenged.
It's a wonder that any mother ever called a daughter Dinah
again. But some did. Maybe you guessed that there was more to me
than the voiceless cipher in the text. Maybe you heard it in the
music of my name: the first vowel high and clear, as when a
mother calls to her child at dusk; the second sound soft, for
whispering secrets on pillows.
Dee-nah.