Sinners and the Sea (31 page)

D
ays pass, and still there is no sign of the raven. I think the creature has gone from this ark for good, and I do not blame him. If he did not find any trees, why would he fly back to us rather than drop his sad body into the sea?

God, please let us off this ark before we lose any more of Your creatures.

Like the ravens, the doves have turned gray. They were silent during the long darkness and even after it, until Zilpha got them to coo again. After she retired to the second level of the ark to recover from her wounds, the birds grew listless. But she has returned to the deck, so they have returned to their songs.

“This one,” Zilpha says, pointing to a female with what looks like joy in her shiny black eyes.

“Her wings are not strong enough for this wind,” Noah says.

“You did not think I was strong enough to withstand the wind either,” Zilpha replies. With the scar on her face, she looks stronger, less delicate. I wonder if Noah can see this.

“The first dove to perch on my finger will go,” Noah says. He holds his finger out, and the shiny-eyed dove lands only long enough to push off of it before flying out into the new world.

She is strong enough to return, then to go again. The second time she comes back with an olive branch in her beak. The third time she does not come back.

“Slaughter a ewe,” Noah commands Japheth. “It will not be long now.”

CHAPTER 49

THE NEW WORLD

I
t has been eighty days since the dove was sent out from the ark for the last time. When the dove did not return, we rejoiced—quietly at first, as if we did not quite believe that she had found a place to rest the sole of her foot, then with a great feast. The feast ended only today, when we finished the third-to-last ewe. We have eaten through all but two of each clean animal.

Our ribs are tucked safely inside our skins. Our eyes no longer take up half our faces. But God has not let us off the ark. “God commands that we wait until the water returns to the sea,” Noah says.

Besides the occasional body floating below, the water is peaceful enough, but we can see that it is too high to stand in. Only the leaves on what must be the highest branches peek up out of the water. We wait while the earth drinks in a little more each day.

It is not easy. Almost all of the rainwater we collected during
the storm is gone. My throat is so parched that the mass grave of the sea is starting to beckon me:
Drink, let me coat your throat and flow through you. Drink of me and be sated.

Herai’s baby entered the world crying and has not stopped very long since. He is a sturdy, clear-eyed child. His cries are not cries of sadness or distress. They are ambitious cries, as if he is testing the strength of his voice and its power over us. It does not take a lot of effort to imagine his cries being those of a boy going eagerly into battle. Herai has named him Javan.

The one sound loud enough for Noah to hear without my help is little Javan’s crying. A milky film has gathered in Noah’s eyes. I often find him squinting through it at the boy.

“He’s a normal, healthy boy,” I tell Noah.

Still, Noah listens intently to Javan’s cries.

“He is not slow,” I say.

“I pray you are right. He is all we have.”

When he is not squinting down at little Javan, he is on deck. Each morning he asks the same question: “Tell me, wife, how far down the trees can you see?” I must lean close so he hears my answer. It is never the answer he wants.

• • •

T
he sun has returned. Not just the brightness that came back after the rains but the
heat.
It has dried every ounce of the rains and the flood from my body. I would be happier to see it if I were not as parched as the desert.

Ham takes his sleeping blanket and goes to Japheth. “May I have a few of your wooden spears, brother? Just enough to stretch this hide for a couple of cubits in each direction.” I often hear Ham asking Zilpha if she would like shade. She says she is no longer afraid of the sun, but I suppose Ham wishes to fashion a parasol for her in any case. “You can have my rations tonight and tomorrow.”

“I would rather have my spears.”

“What makes you think Father’s God has left anyone for you to kill?”

Japheth answers by looking long at Ham.

“Enough,” I say. “I will have your father give the most barren part of the new world to any son who stains the rest of my days with foolish malice.”

After Japheth sulks away, Ham turns to me, as he does more and more. “Mother, we do not need all of the ark now, do we? Surely we can break off a small piece of the deck wall.” The deck wall is already broken where the great she-beast rushed away into the sea. But we should not further dismember the ark when we do not know when—or if—God will allow us to come ashore.

“Patience. Water still hoards the ground. When it is gone, you can take the lumber from the animals’ cages.”

After watching Zilpha fight her way out of death’s grasp, it is difficult to imagine her having any need of a parasol. But I say nothing of this to Ham. He wants to provide for Zilpha, and he does not yet have land and herds.

• • •

T
he water continues to recede until one day I go up on deck to discover that all God has left of the flood is one stream bubbling through the valley below us. Any fear about leaving the ark is forgotten. I want to drink from that stream.

I return to the second level, where I find Noah squinting down at his grandson. Herai has left little Javan crying on her sleeping blankets while she helps Ham clean dung from the animal cages. Noah senses me next to him.

“Tell me, wife, how far down the trees can you see?”

I put my lips near his ear. “
All
the way.”

He turns to me. I do not wait for him to voice his question. “Below us is a valley with a clear running stream. It is surrounded by trees whose branches must be very strong to hold up their many fruits. The only thing missing from the valley is—”

“Us.”

We let everyone else leave the ark first. Ham wants to stay and help us down the ladder, but I do not know what good that will do. “Stand below with your arms out,” I tease him, “as that is the direction we will fall.” He climbs to the bottom and stands there looking up at us. His brothers stand with him. Surely they are eager to explore the new world, yet there they are.

Noah insists I go first. My grip has grown weak, and my hips and knees do not bend easily. I was a younger woman when I climbed in.

I do not quite believe it when my foot touches the earth. I put a little weight on it, press down to make sure the ground is solid. Then I put the other foot down.

“Finally, we are home,” I say.

Once Noah is on the ground beside me, I shoo away my sons and daughters-in-law. Ona is too unsteady with whatever is still growing inside her to refuse Shem’s help. Noah and I wait for what feels like a very long time until they are far enough away. Then we lean against each other and walk slowly down into the valley. He is sturdy, and my eyes and ears are keen. Together it seems we are half dying and half in the prime of our lives.

Midway down the mountain, I stop. “Husband, lift your foot.” He lifts first one foot and then the other so I can bend stiffly to free his gnarled feet from his sandals. Then I free my own. The grass is long and damp. It tickles.
It is wonderful.
Our sons are men now; they can take care of us. This land will be easy to prosper in. Our herds will grow very happy and fat while we relax in our tent.

“Our work is done, is it not, husband?”

“Almost.”

I ask what is left, but he does not answer.

After drinking from the stream, we recline together on opposite sides of an apricot tree. Our sons are chasing the animals from the ark. When all the others have run or been chased from the ark, they unlatch the larger beasts’ cages. Barking, howling, roaring, screaming, panting, and an earthshaking stampede echo through the valley. A little monkey flies from a nearby tree into a branch right above me, showering me with apricots. A pair of gazelles passes close enough that I feel a rush of air across my legs.

I am not afraid. God has brought me all this way; I am not going to die from falling apricots or a gazelle’s hoof. I put one of the apricots in my mouth. It is the sweetest, softest one I have ever eaten. “Husband, we are in paradise.”

He is silent, so I turn to him and say it again. When still he does not respond, I ask him if he is well.

“Yes. I was just hoping He would leave me a little sight with which to see it.”

• • •

I
t is quieter at night with the animals dispersed through the valley. Though Ona’s gasp is not loud, it wakes me. I get a lantern and hurry past the sleeping bodies of Zilpha, Herai, and little Javan.

I find her on all fours, with her legs spread apart. I gently touch her shoulder. “You are not alone, daughter.” I do not think she hears me. What looks like a large mass of dark fur is trying to get out of her.

Now my heart beats not only from fear but also from hope. The fur is hair—black hair with little wisps of purple.
The last giant.
A nephil has managed to sneak past the all-seeing eye of God.

We will need to cut Ona open in order to save her and the giant. I get my knife and hold it over the fire we leave burning night and day.

My gentlest son is also the one with the steadiest hand. He does not want to hurt anyone, and this stills his knife. So I choose my
words carefully when I wake him. “Your brother’s wife is dying. Only you can save her.”

I place the handle of the knife in Ham’s hand. He curses and then stands.

Ona has not been able to lie on her back in many moons; the weight inside her is too great. She groans as I force her down on her side. But then I think of her heart and everything else that is inside her besides the child. In this position, it might spill out. “We must put her on her back.”

Ham helps me lift and push her stomach so it is sitting on top of her. She gasps for air as the weight crushes down upon her.

“This will be quick,” I promise.

Ham moves the blade deftly over Ona’s belly, and her flesh falls open behind it. The bloody giant appears and rolls wetly off to one side. I see that he did not escape God’s eye. To keep the giant from growing too powerful, God has given him a clubfoot.

But it is not God’s eye that I am marveling at. I am remembering what my father told me about the Nephilim not being able to see well, and how that gave me hope that I might be loved by one of them. Now I see my father was wrong: If one of the Nephilim sought out Ona, the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, then surely they
can
see. And yet one fought the floodwaters to save me, despite the mark upon my brow.

“We will take care of Ona while you wash him,” Ham says. I notice Herai and Zilpha have joined us, bringing blankets and a small amount of water with which to tend Ona. They stare in shock at the little giant.

The baby wears a matted tunic of blood and is as big as a six-year-old; I cannot carry him. I go to get some water. While I wash him, I gaze into his eyes. They are Ona’s eyes, except they are not yet ringed with long black lashes. If she does not survive, I will try to live long enough to raise this child myself.

CHAPTER 50

SHAHAR

O
na does live. Though her body is slow to mend, and even sewn together, her skin does not fit her very tightly, she is full of joy. She sings to her child, Elam. She makes up songs about his father, a great giant who, she sings, must have been unlike any man she has ever known.

I did not see you that night, my love, but I see you now, see you in our son’s strong arms and sweet face, and always in my dreams . . .

I do not acknowledge Shem’s scowls while she sings. Or Japheth’s. One of the comforts of getting older is that I can pretend I do not notice anything unpleasant until I do not need to pretend. My eyes and ears can hold only so much, and they are full of bright-colored birds and trees so fat with fruit that their branches threaten to break.

The raven has surprised us all by returning. The dove as well. Her feathers are as white as they were before the flood, as white as
the occasional cloud that floats by in the sky. “We must make her a nest,” Zilpha told Ham. The dove quickly filled it. Doves usually have only one or two hatchlings, but she has produced three. They coo day and night. If I were in mourning over something, their cooing might sound like a lament. But I am not in mourning. And so it seems to me that we are all quite happy. All except Noah.

Our sons have erected a sleeping tent for Noah and me, which Ham and Zilpha will share with us until she gets her woman’s blood. But more often than not, Noah spends the night outside, under stars whose light is the last thing left in this world that he can see. His donkey has survived the journey to the new world and sometimes is with him.

One night I find Noah leaning against the trunk of the apricot tree, his donkey resting nearby.

“Husband,” I say into his ear, “you must sleep.”

“It is hard for me to sleep without the sounds of the sea or the sinners.”

“If you listen, there are crickets, frogs, and doves singing, croaking, and cooing all night.”

“Not loudly enough for me to hear them.”

“I will rub your feet until you drift away.”

“Can you rub away all I have done in order to bring us here?”

I pull back to look at him. He is slumped against the tree as though he might fall backward if it were to disappear. His eyelids are heavy. I do not know whether he speaks of how he did not stop Manosh’s beast from trampling sinners, or how he had Japheth
lure the slave woman off the ark to her death, or of how he refused Manosh a place upon the ark.

“You have only done what God has asked of you.”

“Perhaps if I had not lost faith in the sinners, God would not have given up on them.”