In the Shadow of the Ark (34 page)

“And now the child,” I said when I had finished. “Show me where he is.”

“Not so fast,” she replied with her eyes on the statues. “First we’ll see if this sacrifice bears fruit.”

H
am looked up when I came in. He had his hands in a basin full of fat that he was trying to spread over his skin with unfeeling fingers. “You are not supposed to come here,” he said and continued rubbing.

“I know,” I said. “There are so many things I’m not supposed to do.”

All that time he had mourned. I could tell from the hairs that lay all over the floor, like a fur he had shed.

I shut the door behind me and walked into his hut. But I did not get far. I moved my foot and collapsed. I fell flat on the floor and all I can remember is the boards.

Ham lifted me up, his arms under my armpits, put me down on his bed and covered me.

“When I started this journey, I was strong,” I said hoarsely. “But everything has been taken from me. I was not to be allowed onto this ship. There was no room for me, but see, my presence was immediately accepted by everybody. I understand why: I am here for the benefit of all of you.”

Ham briefly closed his eyes but said nothing. With his stumps wrapped in rags, he boiled water for me. Day and night I stayed
lying on his mat. I could no longer raise myself to drink, but he kept my lips moist. Every morning again I gave myself up for lost, but every morning again it was he who called me back to life.

He told me things I had heard his father tell: that he would bring me to a garden, a place free of cactuses, thistles, and rocks, in its center a tree that would enlarge the mind. I watched him preparing to go to sleep. He tried to clean his feet. When I saw how dirty the cloth was that he was using, I struggled up. I knelt before him and offered him my hair. He lifted me up and gently pushed me down beside him. With all the movement inside my belly, all I could do was lie against him at an angle, my leg over his to carry the weight. We pretended tenderness to forget the earlier violence between us. He lifted his arms, but his movement led to nothing. His hands were bandaged and the skin of his forearms was without sensation: He could only imitate a caress with his elbows. No longer could he scratch me with those serrated fingernails of his.

I did have my hands. Full of regret, I moved them over his neck and shoulders, and he did not push me away. Perhaps he no longer had the strength.

“See,” we said to each other. “The ark that was to save us is closing over us like a coffin.”

The animals no longer cried for food, some had lain down, others stood dumbly on their legs as if they had not learned how to collapse. Barely anything moved. And so we lay amongst the scrolls, the carpets, the mosaics, and the fabrics Ham had stacked
in his hut. He had barely left enough room for himself because he had been certain he would go on the truss-boat. Here I thought I would meet my end, after many wanderings, back with the pale-skinned boy. In a state of paralysis and lack of will, like my mother. We held each other. Together we listened to the splashing of the waves against the bow.

W
hen the ship had become so still that it was as if, in an unguarded moment, everyone had abandoned it, a call sounded over the water.

“Re Jana! Re Jana!”

At first, I thought I was dreaming. I opened my eyes and closed them again. But the call sounded again.

I got to my feet. The ship was rocking more than you would expect from a vessel in quiet waters, but perhaps it only seemed like that because I was so dizzy. I climbed the ladders, went on deck, and leaned on the storm-battered railing. For a while, I stood and wondered at the restlessness of the water. All carcasses and tree trunks, everything that floated, had sunk or been washed over the edge of the world. Now there was life in the water, and not just predator fish. From glitterings in the water and rapidly disappearing little cross currents, I recognized shoals of edible fish. Eels with toothed jaws swam around the keel and, slowly behind them, a string of flat fish, which, in the marsh country, we called alpoes, an excellent type of fish, white and flaky when cooked.

Again, my name echoed. I went to the side of the ship the sound came from and bent over the railing. Below me, close up
against the ark, I saw a whirling of water birds’ wings, among them many terns, my mother’s lucky bird. Dozens, maybe hundreds of birds circled around a floating object of which only the tip of the prow was visible. I recognized my father’s papyrus boat and its white shroud.

“Re Jana,” I heard again. “Throw down a rope and gather your strength to pull it up again.”

Of my father I could not see much, only his hands, which appeared from under the sun shelter now and then. He made rapid movements with a rope he was pulling from the water.

Zedebab and Neelata came out of their hut. Shem, Japheth, and Ham shuffled onto the deck. They had all heard the call.

“He wants a rope,” I said. “We have to pull.” It was impossible to suppress the joy in my voice. He was alive, this man, he was safe and sound.

Shem and Japheth threw out a rope and laboriously hauled it back up. Its end reached the deck, and with a smack, my father’s heavy fyke-net fell on board. Fish thrashed about on the boards. The voyagers looked at it with amazement.

I saw the revulsion in their eyes and said, “They are very good when you roast them. They are not warm-blooded. Your Unnameable god allows their consumption.” Again I looked over the railing at the papyrus boat at the bow. My father waved. “Go on, you know what to do,” he called.

I cut off the heads, removed the guts, and baked them over a low fire. Nobody wondered if the fish tasted good. Myself, I had never thought I would be eating alpo this way, without the tart fruits and the bread that should go with it. But the voyagers
licked their bowls clean. It did not even occur to them to ask the Builder’s permission. The broth I prepared was taken to him. Shem and Japheth threw the net and the rope overboard again. “Perhaps there’s more to come,” they said. They laughed for the first time in a long while.

When the fyke came up again it was even heavier than before. Zedebab and Neelata ran forward to help the men.

Soon we saw what made it so heavy. Squeezed in, his legs pulled up, his face weather-beaten, and his hair stiff with salt, crouched my father. Shem, Japheth, Zedebab, and Neelata abruptly stopped moving. So disconcerted were they, they had only enough strength left to stop him plummeting back.

My father peered through the net. When he saw me, the corners of his mouth turned up briefly. “Re Jana, my child,” he said. Then he looked at the others on deck. I do not know if he was aware of how relations had changed. Swollen and dirty I was, but so were the others. In any case, he could see I was amongst them, which was probably the most important thing for him.

“It was becoming so quiet on the ark,” he called after he had a good look at everybody. “I hardly heard a sound. And no more movement on deck, that could only be a bad sign.” Once more he pulled up the corners of his mouth. It was not a smile, rather the grimace of someone trying to remember a smile. I was concerned about the way those four were holding onto the rope. Shem’s grip seemed solid, but his hands were shaking.

“Looks like you got a little hungry!” my father continued. “I thought to myself, let me give them some of my leftovers. I’ve served quite a few on this journey, I’ve had lots of guests, all the
birds who had had enough of swimming. Just after we set out, I even had three mallard ducks: I gave each one of them a name, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, ha-ha-ha. They didn’t live long. My bread I couldn’t spare them, and fish they didn’t like. I’ve got an albatross too, but I chase it away from the roof, it has to swim, it takes up too much space.” His voice sounded shrill over the deck. A strange odor came from him, some small fish hung around him where they had stayed behind in the mesh of the net. He was not very comfortable, with his knees pressed up against his throat, but as if this did not bother him in the slightest, he continued, “Of course, you need a bit of cleverness to survive in such circumstances. What use is rightmindedness without cleverness?”

I could see that Shem too was now shaking all over. “You’ve still got plenty to say for yourself, boat builder,” he said calmly. “We’re grateful for the fish, but we have not invited you.”

My father looked through the mesh, his grin becoming wider and wider. The flies he had brought with him buzzed around him; he seemed to be so used to them he did not shoo them off even when they settled in the corners of his eyes. “We could cooperate,” he said. “I’ll take care of the supplies. That way we all get something: You have things to eat again, and I get some company. Because it’s all taking a long time, and I’m getting pretty bored!” His language was even blunter than it used to be. His isolation had made him forget his manners. I ought to have been embarrassed, but my heart rejoiced, I had to make an effort not to burst into laughter. I had not experienced so much cheerfulness in a long time.

But Shem saw it differently. With his free hand, he gripped
my neck and pushed me down to the railing. “This,” he shouted, “is what has become of us because we did not throw her overboard. She is the evil from the old world. Her life we’ll spare because women will be needed. But she is not amongst the chosen. We will recognize her by the color of her skin, her and all her offspring.”

“Stop it!” shouted Ham. With his bandaged hands he pushed Shem. “She has nothing to do with evil.” It made Shem push me even harder against the railing. The pain meant nothing to me. I was mainly glad that Shem kept holding onto the rope.

“This man, who is her father, has saved our lives,” Ham went on.

“That’s exactly why,” Shem replied dryly. “Did you think I would haul him on board so we could listen to his smart cracks day after day? God knows how much longer we’ll be on the way. Let him circle us like a guard. Let him supply us with fresh fish from down there.”

Ham gave his brother a long, cold look. “Being chosen does not give you the right to be heartless,” he said.

“Well then, let’s call our father!” called Shem.

The fate of a man in a fyke-net hanging off the railing of the ark did seem something only the Builder was fit to decide, so when the suggestion was made, everyone nodded, including Ham. And so it was that, a few moments later, the old man with his characteristic odor of wine and ointment appeared on deck. He looked at the remains on the deck, the fish heads in the sun, the mushy guts spread over them. His sores must have dried completely, because he walked upright and did not seem bothered
by chafing from any items of clothing. A sigh of relief escaped me: If he felt well, he would be in a generous mood, and if he was in a generous mood he would allow my father a place on board. But the Builder did not walk toward my father. He took me by the elbow and led me away from the railing.

“Do not hold it against Shem,” he said. “The boy is trying to earn his blessing. He has been waiting for it such a long time.” There were whitish spots around his neck, and his lips too were almost white. The thin fingers around my wrist did not shake. I looked at them as if they were my real lifeline, as if everything depended more on this grip than on the one that held the rope. “You belong with us now, Re Jana, my girl,” he continued. “Your child is now my child.” The fingers curled around my arm like vines, then let go. I looked at his green eyes, his spotty skin, his gray hair. How well he looked, my countless hours of caring had not been in vain. But, of course, he feared a second, healthier patriarch on the ark. Over my shoulder, he nodded at Shem and Japheth. Slowly, they lowered my father. Over the edge of the railing I could see how the albatross, the terns, the gulls beat their wings to let him pass.

“He is a great man,” said the Builder. “A great progeny will be his.” Far below us, on the surface of the water, I heard the sound of oars. With splashing strokes my father rowed away from us. And while my father rowed away, the Builder blessed Shem. He blessed Japheth. And he blessed Ham. They bowed down to the ground before their father. Their eyes shone with relief.

I
put a couple of fish in a dish and returned to my hut via the ladders. There Taneses was busy with her alabaster calves and bull; she had a lamp that she nervously screened every time she heard someone approaching. I set down the bowl in front of her and said, “Our offering has made your gods favorably disposed toward us. See: fresh food. Now show me where Put is hiding.”

When she smelled the fish, she got up willingly. She was not excessively hungry, I suspected she had eaten the dove. She gave me a look of understanding and stood by the door.

“Everybody is out on deck,” I said when I saw her hesitate to go up the corridor. “The men are receiving their blessing, so we have nothing to worry about.” To my surprise I saw, as we walked through the ark, that there were cages standing open. Animals walked into one another’s spaces, pushed against each other and jumped on each other in the galleries. The air had a sour smell, which made it hard to breathe.

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked Taneses, but she was equally surprised at what was happening. We did not try to shut the gratings, there would never have been an end to it. We were on our way to the reptile cages when suddenly, with a long, plaintive sound of scraping planks, the ship stopped rocking.

Anything that had not been bolted down shifted, things fell and rolled away from us, animals braced themselves, Taneses and I fell against each other.

“My good gods, help!” wailed Taneses, because, again, it was as if the world was ending, but the shock was so brief that she too realized quickly that we had run aground.

“We’re there,” she said in a shaky voice. “The ordeal is over.” She hugged and embraced me. I threw my arms around her too, I could not help it.

“I’ll take you to the child before the others come this way,” she said. We went past the lizards, the iguanas, and the tree frogs. I quickly glanced into every cage in the hope of spotting Put. But that was not where I should have looked for him. Taneses pointed to the shaft through which the air came in.