Time Quintet 04-Many Waters (14 page)

“I wish I did,” Sandy said. “It all seems to have been some kind of silly accident.”

“I doubt that,” Adnarel said.

Noah came again to visit Dennys. “I am told that you are nearly well.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Oholibamah says that you will soon be ready to be moved.”

Dennys felt a surge of panic. “Moved? Where?”

“To my father Lamech’s tent. To be reunited with your brother.”

The panic subsided. “I would like that. Is it far?”

“Half the oasis.”

The tent flap had been pegged open, and through it and through the roof hole Dennys could hear the stars. Could hear their chiming at him. “Will you take me?”

Noah pulled at his beard. “I do not go to my father’s tent.”

“I don’t understand.”

 “It is his place to come to me.”

“Why? Aren’t you the son?”

“He is old. He cannot care for his land as it should be cared for.”

“I’m sorry, Father Noah. but I still don’t see why you won’t help him.”

“I told you.” Noah’s voice was gruff. “I work long hours in the vineyard. There is not time for coddling the old man.”                                                       |-

“Is speaking to your father coddling, or whatever you call it? Sandy and I get mad at our father. He pays more attention to our sister and our little brother than he to us, because they’re the geniuses and we’re only—but  even when we’re mad at him, he’s still our father.”

“So?”

“When we get home, we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do to our father. He will probably be very angry with us.”

“Why?”

“Well, we sort of got in the middle of something he was working on.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Noah said.

“Neither do I, exactly,” Dennys admitted. “The thing is, we’re going to have to talk to our father when we get home. It would be a stupid thing if we tried to avoid him.”

“So why are you telling me this?”

“Well— really do think you should talk with your father.”

“Umph.”

“I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but it sounds to me as though all this argument about wells and stuff has gone on for so long it doesn’t make sense anymore. And he’s an old man, and you’re much younger, and you should be strong enough to back down.”

“Backing down is being strong?”

“It takes a lot of courage to say ‘I’m sorry.’ That’s what Sandy and I are going to have to say to our father when we get home.”

“Then why say it?” Noah growled.

“Because things won’t be right between us till we do.”

“You’re too young to be telling me what to do.” Noah was testy. “You would not even be alive now if we hadn’t taken you in.”

“That’s true, and I am more grateful than words can say.” The stars chimed at him again. “Father Noah, please go see your father, and make peace with him before he dies.”

Noah grunted. Rose. Walked out of the tent.

Dennys looked at the patch of velvet sky he could see through the open flap. The stars were brilliant. And silent.

Tiglah, the red-haired, rubbed the juice of some red berries on her lips, over her cheekbones. Took a stick of wood which she had shredded at one end to make a brush, and used it on her abundant curls. She had taken the worst of the tangles out with her fingers, and the brush was only to add sheen.

I am beautiful, truly beautiful, she thought. —My hair is as red as my nephit’s wings. We are beautiful together.

A mosquito shrilled near her ear, lit on her neck, and bit.

“Ouch!” she protested. “Why did you do that?”

The mosquito was gone, and a nephil, with wings like name, stood before her. “Because you are indeed truly beautiful. You are so beautiful I could eat you up.”

She burst into tears. “Rofocale, don’t bite me!”

The nephil laughed. “It was just a tiny bite. Tell me, little Tiglah, have you seen again the young giant your father and brother threw out of your tent?”

“No. I think the women from Noah’s tent are nursing him.”

“Your sister?”

Tiglah laughed. “I wouldn’t want to depend on Anah if I needed nursing. The younger ones. Oholibamah and Yalith. Anah is helpful when they need ointments, and—“

“How did he get into your tent in the first place?”

She pouted. “How would I know? I called for a unicorn, and suddenly this pate young giant was there, too. I was sorry they threw him out. I’d like to have had a chance to talk with him.”

“Tiglah, my beauty, you’ll do anything I ask, won’t you?”

“As long as you don’t ask me to do anything I don’t want to do.”

“I want you to get to know this young giant. Find out where he comes from, why he is here. Wilt you do that for me?”

“With pleasure.”

“Not too much pleasure,” Rofocale chided. “I want him to be attracted to you. I do not want you to be attracted to him. You are mine. Are you not?”

She raised her lips to his. His lips were as red as hers, although no berry juice had been rubbed on them.

“Mine,” Rotocale purred. “Mine, mine, mine.”

In the cool of the evening. Sandy sat on the low bench made by the root of the old fig tree. Higgaion was curled up at his feet, making little bubbles as he slept and dreamed.

A man with a full brown beard flecked with white, and with springing brown hair, strode toward him, turning in from the public path and toward Grandfather Lamech’s tent. He went up to boy and mammoth. Stared. “You are the Sand.”

“I am Sandy. Yes.”

“They told me that you look like one boy in two bodies. Now I believe them.”

“Who are you?” Sandy asked curiously.

“I am Noah. Your brother is in one of my tents, and my wife and daughters are taking good care of him.”

“Thank you,” Sandy said. “We’re very grateful.”

Noah continued to stare at him. “If I did not know that the Den is in one of my tents, I would think that you were he. How can this be?”

“We’re twins,” Sandy explained wearily.

“Twins. We have known nothing of twins before.” He paused and looked at Sandy, then at the tent. “Is my father in his tent?”

Sandy nodded. “He’s resting.” Then he added. “But I know he’d be happy to see you.” He wished he felt as certain as he sounded. Grandfather Lamech struck him as being a very stubborn person, with his natural stubbornness augmented by age.

Without speaking further, Noah went into the tent.

Noah!

Suddenly the name registered. Sandy had not heard Noah called by name. Lamech referred to him, when he spoke of him, as ‘my son.’ The women who came with the night-light called him Father.

Noah.

The galaxies seemed to swirl. Sandy had been convinced that he and Dennys had blown themselves somewhere far from home, at least out of their own solar system, and probably out of their own galaxy. If this Noah was the Noah of the story of Noah and the flood, they were still on their own planet. They had blown themselves in time, rather than in space. And to get home from time might be far more difficult than getting home from space, no matter how distant.

But it seemed to fit. Desert people. Nomads, with tents.  Cattle. Camels. People used to be smaller than end-of-twentieth-century people. Way back in pre-flood days it was logical that they would be a great deal smaller. Higgaion was small for a mammoth.

He put his head in his hands, suddenly dizzy.

Dennys sat with Japheth and Oholibamah, and with Yalith, on one of the desert rocks. The sky was still flushed with light. The first stars were trembling into being,

Japheth looked at Dennys in the last light. “You talked with my father.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” Yalith cried.

“Father has gone off somewhere,” Japheth said. “In the direction of Grandfather Lamech’s tent.”

Oholibamah looked up at the sky. “He will be happier now. All of us will be happier. Where there is an unreconciled quarrel, everybody suffers.”

Dennys looked troubled. “I’m not sure he really listened to me.”

“But you heard the stars,” Oholibamah said, “and you were obedient to their command.”

Japheth added, “That is all anybody can do. Now it is in El’s hands.”

Briefly, Dennys closed his eyes. —I hope Sandy doesn’t think I’m crazy. I hope
I
don’t think I’m crazy. Obeying stars, yet.

“I feel like running,” Oholibamah said, and jumped down and ran fleetly across the desert, Japheth following her.

“Come!” Yalith called, and leapt from the rock. Dennys, with his long legs, caught up with them easily, and suddenly he was holding hands with Yalith and Oholibamah, and the four of them twirled in a joyous dance. Moonlight and starlight bathed them. Dennys, leaping in the night, felt more alive than he had ever felt before.

Sandy and Higgaion sat up, startled, as they heard a roar from the tent. At first it seemed to be a roar of anger. Then laughter. Then there was absolute silence. Sandy could feel his heart beating faster. Higgaion’s ears were lifted in alarm. He raised his trunk.

“They wouldn’t hurt each other, would they—“ Sandy spoke aloud. Higgaion stared at him out of bright, beady eyes.

Then the tent flap was shoved aside, and Lamech and Noah pushed through with difficulty, because they had their arms about each other, and tears were streaming down their cheeks.

Lamech’s voice was so choked with emotion that the words were muffled. “This my son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.”

Noah hugged the old man roughly. “This is my father, my stubborn old father. We are two peas in a pod for stubbornness.” He looked at Sandy. “As you and the Den are two peas in a pod.”

“Hey,” Sandy said, “I’m glad you two have made up.”

“It was the Den,” Noah said. “He just kept at me and at me.”

Sandy looked surprised. At home, at school, Dennys seldom talked first. He followed Sandy’s lead, but seldom initiated anything. “Well. That’s good.”

“He is nearly healed now, too. Soon he will be able to come to you. My father—“ He paused. “I would be happy to have the Den stay, but my tent is crowded, and noisy.  And my father has invited you to stay with him.”

“That’s terrific,” Sandy said. “Thanks, Grandfather, thanks a lot. And Dennys can help me with the garden.”

“So we should celebrate,” Noah said, and handed his father a small wineskin. “There is not much of this, but it is my very best.”

“A little will suffice.” The old man held the wineskin to his lips, then smacked them in appreciation. “Indeed, your very best.” He handed the skin to Sandy, who took a small sip, barely managed to swallow it without making a face.

“El has talked with you, too?” Lamech asked his son.

“He has. When El spoke, I used to understand what was being said. Now it is all confusion. What does El say to you?”

Grandfather Lamech put his arm about his son’s shoulders. “El tells me these are end days.”

“End of what?” Noah asked.

“Of all that we know, I think,” the old man said. “It is not just a question of moving our tents to where there is more water and better pasture for your beasts. Sometimes I, too, feel that the words are all confusion. El talks of many waters, but there is no water anywhere around, except in the wells.”

Sandy, sitting next to the old man, with the mammoth lying nearby, shuddered. Grandfather Lamech, if he did not die first, and Noah and his family, and a good many animals, would be the only ones to escape drowning in the great flood.

I already know the story, he thought, and was glad that the night hid his deep flush of embarrassment. It did not seem right that he should know something that Grand-father Lamech and Noah did not know.

But what did he know? Vague memories of Sunday school. God, angry at the wickedness of the world, and sending a flood, but telling Noah to build an ark and bring the animals on. And then there were terrible rains, and finally a dove brought Noah a sprig of green, and the ark landed on Mount Ararat. Not much of a story unless you were part of it.

Was Grandfather Lamech in the story? He did not remember. Grandfather patted Sandy gently, his usual way of expressing affection, and went on talking. In his concern about the flood. Sandy lost track of the conversation. He heard Grandfather Lamech saying, “My grandfather, Enoch, was three hundred and sixty-five years, and then he was not.”

Sandy’s ears pricked up. “What do you mean, he was not?”

Grandfather Lamech said, “He walked with El. He was a man of warm heart. And El took him.”

It was a weird story. “El took him? How?”

“I was only a boy,” Grandfather Lamech said. “He—my Grandfather Enoch was walking through the lemon grove—the same lemon grove I will show you tomorrow—he was walking through the lemon grove with El—and then they were not there.”

If this was part of the story of Noah and the flood. Sandy did not remember it. “Is it customary,” he asked, “for someone just to be not?”

Grandfather Lamech laughed. “Oh, dear, not at all customary. But my Grandfather Enoch was not an ordinary man. He went away from us to be with El at a very young age. He was only three hundred and sixty-five years old.”

“That’s exactly a solar year,” Sandy said.

“A what?”

“A solar year. For starters, it takes our planet three hundred and sixty-five days to go around the sun.”

“Nonsense,” Noah said. “We don’t go around the sun. It goes around us.”

“Oh,” Sandy said. “Well. Never mind.”

Grandfather Lamech patted his knee. “It is all right.  Things may be different where you come from. Do you know El?”

“Well, yes, sort of, though we say God.”

Grandfather Lamech appeared not to have heard. “My Grandfather Enoch—how I do miss him. El talks with me, and sometimes I am able to understand, but I have never been able to walk with El in the cool of the evening, like two friends.”

“What do you think happened to him, then, to Grandfather Enoch?”

Lamech nodded and nodded, as though answering.  Finally he said, “El took him, and that is all I need to know.”

“Father,” Noah said. “you talk with El more than anyone I know.”

“Because my years are long, my son. It was not always so. I am glad indeed that you have come to me before I die.”