Ark(54)

“Then why did you marry Sin-Iddim?”

Her hands froze. Her entire being went still and stiff, but she still didn’t look at him. “Because Father would only have killed you as a way of punishing me. It was unjust.”

“If I meant nothing to you—if what we had meant nothing, you wouldn’t have cared what happened to me.” He ducked his head, trying to catch her eye. “And if you meant nothing to me, I wouldn’t have risked my life for you, and I wouldn’t have brought you all the way here.”

“That may be true, but if you truly cared, you would have done something when I begged you for comfort!” Aresia’s voice snapped like the lash of a whip, hard as stone, cold as ice, sharp as a blade.

“I should have—” Japheth started, but couldn’t finish. He tried again. “I have faced many hardships, as you know. I have seen the face of Nergal coming to take me to the underworld, and yet I lived.”

“What is your point, Japheth?”

“That day in Ur . . . those hours in the hands of Mesh-te, the priest—they were the darkest of my entire life. They . . . he broke me, Aresia.” Japheth’s voice cracked, and he swallowed hard before continuing. What Mesh-te did, how he did it . . . and the fact that it was merely because of the name of God on the necklace . . .”

“You never told me what happened to you.”

He shook his head. “I . . .” He shook his head again. “A priest of Ereshkigal took me prisoner in Uruk. He saw that necklace, and decided to punish me just for wearing it. He brought me to his temple and hauled in a prostitute from the temple of Inanna, and he gave me herbs that . . . forced me into an arousal I did not want and could not control. I was bound to a chair, unable to move. He forced that prostitute, who was no more than a girl . . . he forced her to mount me. To show me how one is meant to worship Inanna, he said. And as she . . . performed her duties in front of the priest—he . . .” Japheth stopped, unable to continue.

Aresia was pale and horrified. “Japheth, I had no idea—”

Japheth’s face twisted in a grimace. “There is more, but I will not speak of it.” He choked on his breath, on the knot in his throat. “Those are terrible memories that will always be part of me.”

“Just as a part of me will never leave Sin-Iddim’s bed chamber.”

Japheth nodded and set aside the basket he’d partially woven. “I didn’t mean to abandon you, Aresia. I am broken far more than I thought—I don’t know how to—”

“We can comfort each other, Japheth,” Aresia said, her voice soft, quiet, tremulous, hopeful. “Just be near me. It doesn’t have to be . . . that, just—all I need is to know that—to know I’m not—not alone.”

He shifted so he was sitting beside her, the ark behind them blocking out the reddish rays of the setting sun. Wrapped his arm around her, and pulled her close. “You’re not alone, Aresia.”

She was stiff for a moment, and then she relaxed, shifting downward to rest her head on Japheth’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

The evening shadows grew long, and they remained thus, clinging to each other as the stars emerged from the darkness in a spray of luminous silver, until Aresia’s head nodded, and she drifted downward onto Japheth’s lap, and he continued to hold her as she slept.



In the darkness, in the deep drowning blackness of the night, away from the house and the ark both, in the waist-high grass sat a woman. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her delicate arms wrapped around her shins. Her hair was loose, tangled in long strands around her face. She inhaled deeply, attempting to gain control of her breathing, to tamp down the pain, but the inhalation became a shudder, and a fresh wave of tears seeped from her eyes and onto her chin.

In the distance, she could see the profile of the ark outlined by the starlight. Between the wavering stalks of grass, a flame flickered. It was but a small candle, its light casting a dull orange glow easily seen against the vast infinity of the dark sky. Yet the feeble illumination was sufficient to cast shadows upon the side of the ark, like cave paintings come to life. The shadows twisted upon the walls of the ark, telling a story.

The woman, utterly alone in the wide emptiness of the fourth watch of the night, could not look away from the story unfolding on the walls of the heaven-sized vessel. She could not look away but, equally, she could not stand the pain watching.

On the wall of the ark, a hand reached up, fingers trembling. Another hand, larger and masculine, joined the first, and the fingers tangled together. A spine arched, and a knee bent. A moan quavered, long and high and then muffled, as if lips were pressed against a shoulder. A shoulder lifted, and then the shadows rolled, coiled, and shifted, and now a pair of profiles were cast upon the wall, male shoulders and a spine and hips, flexing, and beneath him long, feminine legs lifted, wrapped around those hard hips. A hand reached up, and another moan echoed, joined soon after by a low rumble. All this, told in the flickering and jumping of shadows.

Neses watched, unable to stop herself.

Elohim, she prayed, the plea clanging in her mind like a scream, take this from me. Take this love away. Strip it from my heart, so I no longer feel this pain. Have I not suffered enough, my Lord? Have I not yet endured enough, El Shaddai?

She heard no voice, felt no answer. The heavens were silent, and the cracks in her heart widened, deepened, and her tears ran like a river.