Sinners and the Sea (5 page)

“It is as I told you—we will never be rid of the demon unless we set fire to the vessel in which it resides,” the gruff-voiced man said.

I hoped to hear Arrat say something, but my hope was in vain. Perhaps he had given up swaying the mob and was only watching, thinking of the tale he would tell in the surrounding villages. I did not dare glance up to look for him.

Finally the ass brayed and rose from the ground, though not very far. I did not need to examine his teeth to know he was not young. He was too mangy to be a colt, yet he was the shortest ass I had ever seen.

“Strong, sturdy legs,” my father said with forced heartiness. He helped me sit sidesaddle on the animal, so that I was facing away from where Noah was securing his gifts in one of the saddlebags. The mob would have been able to see me had my father not stood in their way. He reached for my hand, and his eyes fastened upon mine. “Daughter,” he said quietly, “it will go well with you to make a show of devotion to the God your husband worships.”

“Yes, Father.”

“And always know”—his hand tightened upon mine—“it is not because you are unworthy that I have kept you hidden and have not given you a name. It is the people of this village who are unworthy of the sight of you and a name by which to speak of you.”

I feared I might weep with the mob’s eyes upon me. “You have always done the best for me and kept me safe,” I said. “But Father, can you now bestow a name upon me?”

He looked surprised. Had he never even considered a name for me?

Noah interrupted. “Girl, swing your leg around.”

I did as I was told, blood surging into my cheeks. The God of Adam must not have valued modesty as much as my father told me He did. Noah did not look at me or touch me other than to pull on my leg to check that I was well balanced on the riding blanket. It was my first contact with my new husband. I noticed his fingers were longer than any I had seen, and his nails had not been cut in many moons. His roughness did not bode well for the son-making to come.

He climbed on in front of me, as agile and quick as a much
younger man, and took the reins. He was shorter on the donkey than he had been standing up. On top of his head, occupying the greater part of my sight, was a shock of white hair as stiff as a patch of weeds.

I turned my face to the side and wrapped my arms around his waist. There was so much grime and dust on his tunic that it seemed to be made of a material I had never touched before. I glanced down at the hem and saw that it was even filthier than the rest of the garment, and badly frayed.

As my father wished us well, his voice trembled so slightly that only I, who had spent every day of my nineteen years with him, could have discerned it. His hand shook when he gave the donkey a slap on the flank to send us on our way. The smack had as much effect on the animal as poking him with a stick. After delivering a few more slaps to the donkey’s flank, my father turned and started back to his tent without bestowing a name upon me.

I watched him, and it seemed to me I was seeing him clearly for the first time. He was stooped, with thinning hair around a bald spot made dark by the sun. His hair had turned to gray. One hip was lower than the other, and he had a slight limp. Where his tunic ended I could see how skinny his calves were. My heart grew full for him. I was both relieved and more deeply saddened when he disappeared inside the tent.

Noah and I continued to sit on the donkey without saying anything while the villagers crept closer. When they were not more than ten cubits away, the donkey began walking. He walked toward them. I squeezed him tightly between my legs and was
ready to hold on to my new husband with all my strength if the villagers tried to pull me off. There were no fewer than thirty of them. They moved to form a wall that was two, sometimes three, people deep.

I had been planning to press my cheek against my husband’s back and close my eyes. I did neither. Though these men had lived near me my whole life, they had stayed far enough away that I did not recognize their faces. There were men with bulbous noses, long noses, hooked noses, noses with wiry hairs poking out. Men with sun-scorched faces, lips ripped into white flakes by years of taking in the wind that blew from the desert. Numerous wide, scared eyes burned red by sun and sand—or perhaps by the sight of me.

Noah and I moved slower upon the ass than we would have on our feet. Our slowness seemed to make the mob uncertain. The men in front of us stepped aside.

Even so, I half expected hands to grab me and pull me from the donkey. A couple of men lunged forward and reached for me. Noah kicked the first one in the leg, sending him backward. I hardened my gaze upon the second one, and he gasped and fell to the ground.

For the first time, just as I was going away forever, I was wielding my gaze like a sharpened blade, pointing it at their throats.

“See the evil that pours from the creature’s eyes!” one man said, trying to incite someone braver than himself to grab me.

A man standing near me with a dagger said, “Let her go. We must turn now to purifying the tent.”

Though I did not know if my voice would be steady, the crowd’s fear gave me the courage to lean toward the man and whisper so
that only he and the men beside him could hear: “If anyone touches Eben, his tent, or his grove, I will impregnate all of your wives with demon children and give the children the same mark that burns upon my brow.”

The man stumbled back, tongue twisting around words he could not summon the breath to speak.

Most of those who had dared gaze at me quickly looked away. But a few could not help staring, eyes straining wider with fear, mouths hanging open,
watching watching watching
as if I might do something truly horrifying and amazing.

Which I did, by leaving the only person I loved, the only person who loved me.

As the village faded behind us until I could not make out a single tent, I knew that it was not me, nor even Arrat, my father, or Noah who had sent me on this journey. It was my mark and whatever power had placed it upon me.

CHAPTER 4

A JOURNEY DEEP INTO THE DESERT

I
hoped for a normal life like those of the wives in my father’s village. Cleaning, cooking, bearing children, gathering with the other wives to talk of . . . I did not know what they talked of, as I had never been near their gatherings.
I will know soon enough,
I told myself.
If I keep my mark hidden, I can be as happy as any woman.

The farther we traveled from the Nile, the more brutal the landscape became. There were no oxen pulling plows, no rivers to drink from, and few trees to provide shade from the sun or block the harsh, sand-filled winds. The land had not received a single raindrop in many moons. Dust swarmed up from the donkey’s hooves, even at the slow pace that seemed to be all the old animal was capable of.

I wondered why anyone would live so far from the Nile, but I knew I would appear bold if I asked. My father had already endured nineteen years of suspicion, which was nineteen years more than most men could have withstood. I would not give
Noah any reason to return me to the newly free man. I did not speak unless spoken to.

Noah moved his own tongue only to make demands: “Girl, get me apricots from the saddlebag.” “Girl, pick the burrs from the animal’s tail.” (Noah had never bothered to name the donkey over the hundred years he’d had him, and this did not give me much hope of receiving my own name from him.) “Girl, mend this tear in my tunic.”

I always responded, “Yes, my lord.”

Noah often snorted his approval, but he never looked at me. I was not sure whether this was because I was of little importance to him or because, as he had told my father, he didn’t care about the surfaces of things.

Though his eyes did not take to me, his hands were not the least bit inhibited. As the journey wore on, my hindquarters became ever more raw from the constant plodding of the donkey and from the things Noah did to me at night. The riding blanket was thin folded over on the donkey, and it was even thinner when Noah spread it on the ground and told me to lie down. The first night he got on top of me was as close to torture as I had ever come, and I hoped it would end as quickly as possible. Yet when it was over, I almost missed it. All the next day I felt the soreness and both dreaded and looked forward to the night.

We did not sleep much; Noah had a great hunger for sons. Also, he did not want to be away from his flock for long.

It was on the third day of our journey that we came upon the first field of bodies. Many of the men whose faces I could discern
had been branded with the X of the banished. And so I feared that we were near the town of Sorum, Land of Exiles, and wondered why Noah would live within even a few leagues of such a place.

None of the dead men Noah and I had come upon—marked or unmarked—wore sandals, and no weapons lay upon the ground besides part of a copper sword and a couple of broken spears. Gripping one of the spears was a hand with no body. Where some of the men’s mouths lay open, I saw no teeth.

“Thieves have robbed the dead,” Noah said. There were vultures sifting through the remains, but they were not the thieves Noah spoke of.

How I wished that he had come for me on a mule instead of an old donkey, so we could trot through the mess of bodies instead of slowly plodding through as if it did not smell of rotting meat, dried blood, and dung.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small movement and had the terrible thought that perhaps evil spirits were playing among the dead. When I turned my head to look closer, I realized that the movement I had seen was only the wiggling of countless little worms. They were eating the remaining flesh on what must have been a very large man, considering how many worms were able to make a meal of him.

I spoke my first words to my new husband other than “yes” and “my lord.” “My lord, why have they not been buried or burned? Whose land is this?”

“The devil’s.”

The donkey stopped. I looked around Noah’s shoulder to see
why. Not ten cubits ahead were four spears with bloodied heads spiked upon them. Three had X’s on their foreheads, and one looked as if he were smiling. Another spear had not been planted deep enough in the earth, and it lay on the ground in front of us with the head a couple of cubits away.

“Each generation is more wicked than the one before,” Noah said.

As if to prove Noah’s words, a boy no more than ten years old stepped out from behind the spears. He had one intensely green eye and one black and red eye socket.

“I will have your mule,” the boy said. He had a spear in his hand, likely one that had held a head not long before. When he spoke, I saw that he had no front teeth, and his canines had been sanded into sharp points.

Noah said, “This is no mule. It is the donkey that the Lord has given me.”

“I will eat it anyway,” the boy said, “and you too, if you do not dismount and run away as fast as your skinny legs can carry you.” Then he looked at me. His insolent expression did not move a hair’s width in any direction. He did not fear my mark.
Surely he is mad,
I thought.

“Let us go on foot, my lord husband,” I whispered, “and let the boy have this slow stubborn animal.” It was the first time I had called him husband, and I hoped this would make him consider my wishes more carefully.

Noah ignored me. “The God of Adam will have what is left of your life if you continue your wicked ways,” he told the boy.

The boy laughed and sounded like a boy when he did. An evil boy but a boy nonetheless. He leered at me and said, “Not before I have your wife.” There was something dark on the points of his canines, and I feared it was something of human origin. “Or is she your granddaughter?”

“She is my good and righteous wife. Young, so she will bear many sons.”

This caused the boy to laugh harder. I thought at first that he was laughing because I was not young. Most women had already had and lost more sons than I probably would have a chance to in the few years left me to bear. But then the boy said, “From your limp old twig?”

Noah tensed at the insult.

Please put away your pride,
I silently begged my husband,
and give this boy your donkey.

“Besides,” the boy said, “this woman is demon-marked, and the demon will dwell in anything that slithers forth from her belly.”

I tried to gaze at him as steadily as I had at the men in my father’s village. But he lunged closer, and I flinched. His laughter brought blood to my cheeks.

Satisfied, he turned to consider Noah. “You are the oldest man I have ever seen.” Now his voice seemed to hold as much awe as enmity. I hoped Noah would say something such as, “Yes, my child, I have lived many years. If you will let us pass, I will bestow a blessing of long life upon you.”

“I am older by more than four hundred years than anyone you have seen or will see again,” Noah replied.

Four hundred years? Certainly he exaggerates.

His words sounded like the same threat he had already issued, that the God of Adam would not leave the boy on earth much longer. Surely the boy would show us no mercy now.

Noah hit his heels against the donkey, and to my surprise, the animal began to plod forward, though even more slowly than before. When the donkey tried to steer a path around the boy and the speared heads, Noah yanked the rope attached to the animal’s muzzle so that he was forced to go straight.

The boy began laughing again, but this time there was a cry in his laugh. Not a sad cry but the cry of a boy gleefully summoning the worst of his spirit. He pointed the spear at us. I could see that the end came to a sharp, bloody point. “Tell your God of Adam that Jank sent you.”

I had not come across any weapons in the saddlebags when I’d opened them to pull out the provisions my father had given Noah. But I checked anyway. My hands shook as I sifted through some bread, dried fruit, and goat meat. Unlike all other men, Noah carried no weapon.

Yet he did not try to steer us around the boy. We continued straight toward him. I pulled my head back from where I peeked around Noah’s shoulder. My husband’s ancient form was not a very good shelter, but it was all that I had.