Ark(56)

“My father has not spoken of it, yet.”

“Look to the east, Japheth!” I shouted, suddenly angry. “The storm gathers! Have you not felt the earth shaking under your feet? You feel it, do you not? The coming of the rains? The approach of a storm such as this earth has never seen . . . I feel it, Japheth. You feel it too, or you would not work at so driving a pace.”

“Yes, I see it. I feel it.”

“And do you believe the flood will come?” I demanded.

He sighed. “Yes, I do.”

“Then surely you must wonder at my place in all of this. ‘You, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives.’ Those are the words your father spoke to me, the words Elohim spoke to him.”

I rose to my knees, reaching for Japheth, anger turning to fear, to terror, to desperation. “Am I your wife? Do I have a place on this ark? Or am I fated to drown when the waters come?”

He growled, backing away from me, his fingers raking through his hair yet again. “I—do—not—know, gods damn it!” he shouted. “What do you want me to say, Aresia? You want to hear that my father will deny you a place? That Shem has told me as much? That Sedele and Ne’eletama whisper of it at night? Is that the truth you wish to know? What am I supposed to say? We are just now learning how to love each other, and I—I cannot stop this. I feel the truth of it—of course I do! The storms in the east, they are no normal storms. The rumbling in the earth, the rains that approach? They are from El Shaddai, and I cannot stop them. What am I to do? I don’t know—I don’t know!”

“Make an offering to El, then, on my behalf. Pray to Him. Ask your father.” I reached for Japheth, and this time he allowed me to grab hold of his arms. “I do not want to die, Japheth. I want to live. I want . . . I want to love you.”

He exhaled wearily, lying back onto the grass. “I will speak to my father in the morning.”

I lay down beside him, my heart beating wildly.

There was a grinding snarl, and the earth shivered beneath us, the ground itself expanding and pushing skyward so forcefully that the ark swayed on its creaking support frame, and in the distance an onager hee-hawed anxiously, its braying echoed by the blattering of a frightened goat and the worried squawking of chickens. The wind howled fiercely, battering and blowing in the darkness.

I did not sleep, all that night. Nor any night thereafter.



I found myself wandering farther and farther from the house and the ark, as work on the vessel slowed to completion. Supplies were laid in: stores of food in improbable quantity, barrels of water and barrels of wine, candles and rush torches by the hundreds—the result of work Zara, Sedele, Neses, and Ne’eletama had been doing for well over a year, if not more.

There were cages in the lower level meant for smaller animals like cats and rodents and birds and bugs and monkeys, giant stalls in the mid level, with half of the uppermost deck nearest the ceiling partitioned into bedrooms and storerooms, and the other half filled with more stalls, these not so large as the ones on the middle level, which was the largest open space in the vessel. Running the entire perimeter of the ark, just beneath the ceiling was an opening one cubit high, allowing in light and air; on one side of the vessel was a doorway in the very center of the boat, leading to the middle level. The doorway was tall enough and wide enough to allow the largest animals through, although the door itself was so large and unwieldy that I was unsure how even all four men working together would be able to close and seal it.

I had yet to see a single animal, aside from those that were part of Noah’s flocks. The wind continued to howl as with the voice of an animal, and the earth rumbled and shook, yet over our heads the skies remained blue and clear. In the east, however, the black clouds roiled and menaced, thunder quaking and grumbling, rain blowing in sheets visible from miles away.

On the morning the ark was finished, I departed before dawn, bringing with me a wineskin and a rind of cheese. Noah and all his family were bustling about with renewed fervor, ferrying back and forth from the house to the ark, now emptying the long, low-roofed structure of personal belongings. Even Japheth was distracted and did not notice me as I walked away.

Across the now-fallow western field I went, stepping over the furrows of brown, sun-dried soil. The field gave way to the waist-high grass, the high northern hills before me. An hour or more I walked, until I reached the hills, and then up into them I hiked, until I reached an outcropping of rock some hundreds of feet above the earth. I sat upon a rock, ate the cheese, drank from the wineskin, and stared out at the land.

From this vantage point, I could see for many, many miles, all of Noah’s fields now fallow—the northern field, the western, the eastern, and the southern, with the long low house in the center of them all and the ark beside it, dwarfing the little house. Beyond laid green rolling hills and then more squares of farmland. I could see a thin brown line snaking its way between them—the highway leading to Bad-Tibira.

I had not thought of Father in months, nor Sin-Iddim, or any of my brothers. If this flood happened, they would all die. They would be swept away. They would have no clue what was coming. Their lives would continue as they ever had; my brothers, perhaps, would be in the city beyond the palace, whoring and dicing, as was their practice. Father would be in his throne room, hearing complaints, deciding cases, or conspiring with his generals. The people in the palace would be scurrying to and fro importantly, and in the city life would be bustling onward, people loving, hating, lying together, arguing, selling, buying, trading, children crying, old ones dying. They would be praying to Inanna and Enlil and Ereshkigal and the hundreds and thousands of other gods, their prayers rising up to the deaf heavens.