Sinners and the Sea (20 page)

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“N
o!” I cried when Japheth cornered a dove on the deck near the bow of the ark and poised a small blade over its wings. I could not bear to see another pair of wings on the deck floor.

“Then how will I keep her on the ark?”

“The world will be covered in water. Where else will she go?” I did not know if even the tops of the trees would be covered. But if they were not, the bird would be better off in them than in an ark with Japheth.

He did not lower the blade.

“The God of Adam wants the animals exactly as they are. Do not anger Him any further,” I said.

Japheth glared at me. I did not look away. After what felt like a long time but was likely no longer than the blink of an eye, he released the bird. She flew past me, the tip of one feather flapping against my cheek.

I walked toward Japheth and held my hand out for the little blade. When he did not give it to me, I reached for it. It slashed the tip of my finger as he yanked it away.

“Son!” I cried in surprise. “What has happened to make you so cruel?”

He laughed. His laugh was as far from happy as the earth is from
the stars. Then he turned and walked away, which was merciful. I did not want to see his face for a while.

Ham came up beside me and took my hand in his own. “You got off much easier than most of the animals.” He gently squeezed my finger to stop the bleeding. “Japheth is an animal worse than any other.”

Ham’s hatred of his brother had begun to weigh upon his brow. It hurt me to see it. “No,” I said, “he is not. Perhaps if you had gone into town more . . .”

“The whores are not murderers, and at least the thugs and mercenaries murder people for some gain—spoils of food and riches.”

“Noah has instructed him—”

“Cannot you see I am upset enough, Mother, without having to think of Father’s madness as well?”

“We are doing what we need to in preparation for the flood.”

“Noah’s God is saving the wrong people.”

My heart dropped into my belly. I took my hand from his. Ham had a sharp tongue, but it had never truly cut me before.

“I am sorry, Mother,” he said. “I did not mean it.”

“If He saves you and your brothers, I will worship Him gratefully in this life and the next.”

I stepped forward and embraced him. He let me. Then we returned to our tasks. I cleaned the animals Japheth had slaughtered and prepared the meat for our voyage. Ham fed the animals, stroking the coats of those who would still allow it.

CHAPTER 30

A QUESTION, A DEAL

T
he animals were not the only ones I mourned. I missed Herai. I missed her nearly as much as I missed my father. When we had only one more day before the flood was to come upon us, I decided I must see Javan.

Ham tried to talk me out of leaving the ark, but he relented when he saw it was futile. Though it was night, he rubbed desert dust from his sandals over my forehead to cover my mark, then helped secure my head scarf. But at the last instant, when we had lowered the rope ladder and I had climbed over the wall of the deck and taken hold, he said, “No.
No!
Do not go.”

I loosened my grip on the rope, and instead of using the rungs, I began to slide. I ignored the burning in my palms. Ham tried to pull the rope ladder back into the ark, but it was too late. When I reached the bottom, I let go and fell to the ground. In case anyone who had made camp around us had heard me, I quickly moved away from the ark.

“The demon woman!” a boy shouted. Luckily, children screamed “demon woman” so often that no one believed them anymore.

“Shut your brat up,” someone yelled toward the boy’s camp.

I hurried toward a clan with no tent and lost myself among them.

In town there were people enough that even if the boy had come looking for me, he would have little chance of finding me.

One of Javan’s brutes guarded her tent.

“She asked to see me,” I lied.

“Go rut yourself.”

“You will be in mortal danger if she finds out I was here and you did not summon her.”

He hesitated for only a breath before calling into the tent, “A dusty hag comes to see Jav—”

Javan appeared. She laughed. “Then you are a demon woman. It is the only way you could have made it here alive.” She beckoned me inside.

I did not wait to be offered refreshment or a place to squat. “There is not much time left before the flood comes. It will be upon us tomorrow.”

She raised an eyebrow. She still didn’t believe in the flood. “Then do not delay. Say what it is you’ve come for.”

“I have come to ask you a question.”

“Why should I answer it?”

“For Herai. If you bring her to the ark tomorrow, I will throw down the rope.”

“What will she do on the ark when the rains do not come?”

“Be wife to Japheth. We will need Shem’s wife as well.”

Her eyes gleamed. Though surely she didn’t want me to know it, I could see that the thought of Herai finally marrying one of my sons brought her great happiness. “Ask your question.”

“Before I came to Sorum—perhaps nineteen years before but maybe less—were there ever any here who looked like me? Either branded with an X or not?”

“What are you asking?”

“I am asking of my mother.”

Javan looked at me. I did not know if the pity in her eyes meant that my mother had not come to Sorum or that she had. “Not a one,” she said.

I did not ask if she spoke true. She was a murderer, but she was not a liar.

CHAPTER 31

THE SLAVE WOMAN

J
avan’s brutes saw me back to the ark. Ham threw down the rope ladder, and shortly after climbing it, I was fast asleep on my blanket.

I was awakened by the tap of Noah’s staff against my leg. He stood over me. “The slave woman cannot come to the new world,” he said quietly. “You must tell her to leave and see that she does.”

For an instant I was filled with fear. I thought he somehow knew of the promise I had made Javan, and was speaking of Herai. My confusion quickly cleared. Still, I did not like Noah’s words. I sat up. “Husband, the woman is no trouble. She eats little and never speaks.”

He lowered himself to my ear, perhaps hoping to speak softly enough that God would not hear. “I do not like it either. She seems a good slave, without sin.” He quickly added, “But the God of Adam comprehends things we cannot. There is a reason, even if we cannot see it.”

I thought of the woman’s mark and how it could only be by some miracle that both she and I had survived. Should not we honor this miracle? “She is a hardworking and obedient woman.”

“God has commanded that I can take only you, my sons, and their wives.”

I started to shake. “Does He have to know? There is much hiding space in the ark.”

“Do not blaspheme, wife.”

“I am sorry,” I said, lowering my head to give the impression that I was ashamed. I waited a few breaths, then said, “Ham can take both Zilpha and the slave woman as wives. The new world will need slaves even more than the old one. How will we harvest the whole world without help?”

“Our blood and the blood of our sons cannot run through the veins of slaves.”

“Then where will slaves come from?”

He did not answer. He said only, “Someone else will carry out this task.”

CHAPTER 32

LAST LIGHT

B
lack clouds hovered in the distance, casting night below. Townspeople pulled up their tent stakes and rushed south, away from the sea. But black clouds rose up from that horizon as well. People searched frantically for a patch of blue in the sky, turning round and round and round.

The wind and the clouds had come for us from all directions, pressing the darkness closer until only a small circle of light was left. A shallow coat of water, littered with the things it had destroyed and the lives it had taken, rushed up over the desert through the town. Bowls, sandals, empty sacks, feathers, goatskins, and even a lifeless infant were visible upon the ground. The darkness that surrounded us was rain.

The frenzy began. People fought to move to the middle of what light remained. Some were trampled. A little girl tripped over them, and—beneath the feet of her neighbors—joined her body to the
mass grave piling up upon the road. No one stopped to pillage teeth or jewels.

Wind struck from one direction and then another. It seemed to me that all the winds of the world were competing to take what was left of our lives. Objects began to hit the hull—blankets, tent poles, even a ram’s horn that traveled up the deck wall and flew close to my eye.

“Where are my second cousins?” Zilpha asked.

Despite the pounding of the rain upon the deck, the howling of the wind, the crying of the sinners, and the softness of Zilpha’s voice, I heard her. She had been on her sleeping blanket, but now she hurried onto the deck, and her slave hurried after her. I noticed she did not have her parasol. Perhaps the screams of the sinners had woken them.

I had been waiting for everyone to go below so I could stand near the rope ladder, ready to throw it down to Javan when she brought Herai and Ona. But I had to make sure Zilpha returned safely to the belly of the ark. Japheth was also on deck, eager to use his spear on anyone who tried to climb the hull.

“We must get belowdecks,” I yelled. Japheth gave no sign that he had heard me.

“Manosh was here only a few days ago,” Zilpha said. “Surely Noah told him the flood was almost upon us.”

“Almost” encompasses a few days and a moon. “Yes,” I said. “But we must get below.”

“They will come,” she said. “Of this I am sure.”

“Come now,” I said, moving toward the hatch.

“My parasol is missing. Has someone brought it up here as a shield from the rain? It is meant for sun. Rain will ruin it.”

“As it will ruin us. I do not know where your parasol is. But gopher wood will shelter you better than your parasol.” I looked up at the black clouds, hoping her eyes would follow mine.

Though she did not glance up, she did not argue. She and her slave followed me below. I worried for the slave. Had Noah changed his mind about telling her to leave the ark?

Japheth would not follow us belowdecks to the gathering place, but his voice soon came down the hatch. “I see the parasol! It has blown from the ark and drifts along the ground.”

“Do not concern yourself,” I said loudly. “We can make another.”

“That one is mine, given to me by my father,” Zilpha called up to Japheth. “Please get it for me, brother.”

“Send the slave,” Japheth said. “And hurry! I will take up the ladder when she reaches the ground and wait to send it back down when she has the parasol. I will make certain no one climbs aboard.”

“No, Zilpha,” I said. “You will lose your parasol
and
your slave if you send her.”

“I cannot throw away the years the parasol will add to my life. Go,” she told her slave. “The spirits of my father and grandfather will watch over you.”

Slaves are trained with quick hands and whips to neither smile nor frown. The slave woman’s face showed nothing as she went to retrieve the parasol.

I started to follow, but Noah stopped me. “Wife. Let us all pray
together”—he must have sensed my restlessness—“briefly, as soon as Japheth returns.”

Noah, our sons, Zilpha, and I waited for Japheth on the second level, where the lesser beasts were caged. A little piece of gray light streamed through the window, so I could see that when Japheth returned, he was alone.

“Let us take a few breaths to praise God that we are all here,” Noah said, closing his eyes.

“Where is my slave?” Zilpha interrupted.

“She fell and was trampled,” Japheth said, “and your parasol along with her.” There was satisfaction pulling at the edges of his mouth. It caused a knife to twist in my belly. Zilpha surely saw it too, with her almost perfect eyes that had seen the sun only once.

She turned from Japheth to Noah. Spots of red flared in her pale cheeks. Other than that, I would not have been able to tell that she was angry. The apricots and cream had not fully left her voice. “I suppose I will have to get used to people dying,” she said, the words floating from her lips and hovering over us, “since I am going to live for seven hundred years.
With or without the parasol.
” She turned to Noah, whose eyes were closed and whose lips moved with silent prayers. “More years than you have lived, dear Father. My children, grandchildren, their grandchildren, and all of you”—she looked at each of us in turn—“will die while I live.”

As she walked off toward the animal cages there was a violent
Thwack!
Someone hit the hull.
Whack thwack thwack!

I ran toward the hatch. “Wife,” Noah called. This time I did not stop. My sons followed.

From the deck, my sons and I watched the horde crashing against the hull. I prayed that my father had died peacefully of old age, so he would not have to die in this storm. People were trying to climb over one another. Men even stepped upon children in their attempt to be at the top of the mob. Hooks with ropes attached were thrown on deck. Most hit the hull and fell down, but a few made it over the deck wall. My sons threw them off, all but one, which Shem would not let go of. The people holding the rope below were fighting, hitting, and kicking, and then there was a breath in which no one held the rope. Shem pulled it on board. Then he moved a few cubits to the right and lowered it again.

“What are you doing?” Japheth yelled.

“We need wives.”

“Shem, you already have a wife,” I told him. “We must watch for her.”

He did not seem to hear me. He gazed at a girl trying to claw her way up the ark while dodging the objects hitting the hull. A piece of a clay pot sliced her cheek open. I did not know why this caused my heart to ache. Around us, people were trampling and fighting one another. All of them were going to die. But as the blood gushed from the girl’s cheek, I wished I could bandage her wound.

Shem struggled to bring the rope to her. He quickly realized it was better to use the wind than to fight it. The rope whipped diagonally against the hull while Shem tried to position it so it
would be within the girl’s reach, if the wind did not change. He waited until it hit the girl in the head. “Hold tight!” he called. She had come out of her daze enough to wrap her hands around the rope when a boy knocked her out of the way and took hold of it.