Forty Days: Neima's Ark, Book One (10 page)

And then I’m at the railing, clutching
the wood barrier so tight the flesh of my palms burns, but still
I’m falling, or maybe floating—certainly I’m not on solid ground
any longer, for there is no solid ground and the world is upside
down. The sky is below us, a thick liquid swirl that’s not blue or
black or gray, green or brown or white, but somehow all of these
colors at once. Mostly it’s just one dark mass that blends
seamlessly into the clouds and falling rain above it, so that there
seems to be no distinction between what is overhead and what is
beneath us. But I know, in the churning pit of my stomach, that
what’s below is not a cloudy sky but water, water that extends in
all directions, farther than the eye can see, water with no end and
no bottom, water that my mind rejects as impossible even as my eyes
insist it is there before me.

Japheth and Arisi approach
the railing beside me, but I barely register their presence, for
I’ve begun to make out the
things
in the water, tossing and turning on the endless
waves, adding the glints of colors within the blue-gray. I see
branches with a few bedraggled leaves still hanging on, entire tree
trunks, and even, at the end of one trunk, a mass of roots that
must have been torn forcibly from the ground. I see glints of straw
atop mud-brick slabs that must once have been roofs, or walls. I
see broken clay pots and wooden barrels, long, torn strips of
leather that might once have covered tents, and bloated masses of
fur that I fear are—were—animals, though I’m loathe to look too
close.

And then something drifts close to the
ark, something that looks like a tangled clump of long black
hair…and then, when the water tosses the dark strands to one side,
an unnaturally white, thick column that might be a neck…a neck
connecting to a shoulder and down a bloated arm to the monstrously
swollen, ravaged extremity that was once a hand and fingers. And
then I close my eyes.

I want to retch, to expel the mass of
fear and confusion and revulsion that has gathered inside me, but
my body won’t allow me that relief. Eyes still closed, I hear
Japheth say, in a voice so quiet it’s a wonder I can hear him over
the rain, “We’ve drifted far from our village. The homes and
possessions and—and bodies you see do not belong to anyone we
know.”

But what Japheth says
doesn’t matter, for whether I can see their bodies or not, I know
they’re all dead. Jorin. Derya. Old Hannah, whose house was the
first to collapse in the storm. All the women who used to gossip
about our family at the river. All the children who laughed and
danced in the first raindrops. Munzir, even. But most of all,
Jorin. Derya.
Derya
. When the last thing I said to her— The last thing she said
to me—

I snip off that train of thought and
immediately confront another, almost equally horrifying one: all
this—the storm, the flood, the death—means Noah’s one God is real.
Doesn’t it? How else could my grandfather have predicted this
disaster? But no…I can’t believe it. For how could one God cause so
much destruction? How could one God hold mastery over the clouds
and rain, wind and thunder, over the lives of every living creature
upon the earth, both animal and human? And if a God did create all
this, did control the world’s fate, why would he choose to destroy
it?

Evil
, something whispers within my mind. Noah said God wanted to
rid the world of evil, of man’s wickedness. Wickedness like that of
the bandits who attacked and stole from Grandfather, who left
Grandmother Nemzar violated and bleeding. But not all people are
wicked. Surely not those children who rejoiced in the falling rain,
who took pleasure in and gave thanks for the earth’s bounty. Surely
not Derya, who stood up for me so many times, and not mischievous
but kind, kind Jorin. And even those members of our village who
could be cruel, or petty, or power thirsty, like Munzir and his
followers…not even they deserved to die.

My eyes are open now, but
I stare into the gray expanse without seeing; the world is only a
reflection of my own dark, whirling thoughts. For if this vengeful
God does exist—and I’m still not sure he does, despite all the
evidence before me—why would he choose to save
our
family and no other? We are not
so pure, so different from those who have perished. I myself have
wished Noah dead, have wished that my mother were kinder, that Ham
had chosen a different wife and that Kenaan were not my
cousin…

But perhaps our family is not saved at
all. I look out at the rolling waves and wonder if this God might
be toying with us, tossing and turning us like those waves,
prolonging our suffering before we too are destroyed. After all,
how long can we survive in this watery world before our food runs
out, or the ark leaks, or some other disaster befalls
us?

“
Perhaps…” It takes a
moment for me to realize the voice comes not from my thoughts, but
from Arisi beside me. “Perhaps…” she starts again, and it sounds as
though all the breath has been torn from her, the same way my own
voice sounds in my head. “…it is not the whole world. Perhaps there
is dry land just beyond our sight, with people and animals walking
upon it; perhaps the sun is even shining there.” Arisi’s words
would seem too full of false hope, too sickly sweet, like a meal
made entirely of honey, were it not for the quaver in her voice.
And besides, she’s right: the world extends far beyond what we can
see, and we have no way of knowing or predicting what exists
outside our small corner of existence. The trader with his stories
of animals too strange to imagine is proof enough of
that.

But all these impossible questions are
making my head spin. I suppose the world has always been a mystery
too vast to take in at once, but now, with such darkness and danger
above and below us, it seems that way more than ever. So I’m almost
relieved to hear the clomping, impatient footsteps of my father
coming to retrieve us. At least I think it’s Father—

—
until I turn to face
Uncle Ham, lugging a large wooden bucket in each hand. “As long as
you’re up here,” he says, “you can fetch some water.” I’m not sure
whether he’s addressing me or Japheth, but I know Japheth will want
both hands free to help Arisi down the ladder, so I grab one of the
buckets by its handle. Then I find myself staring dumbly at it,
wondering if Ham means for me to stand here waiting while it fills
with rain. It feels strange and difficult and somehow wrong to set
my mind to mundane tasks after what I’ve seen.

“
Over here,” Ham
continues, his voice rough and unsympathetic—or perhaps that’s only
an effect of the warping wind. He walks across the deck to a huge
wood barrel that seems somehow bolted to the floor and must hold
ten buckets’ worth of rainwater. Just one more example of Noah’s
foreknowledge of this disaster. It would make me sick, if I weren’t
already.

I fill my bucket and make my way back
inside the deck house and down the ladder, a difficult task on
wobbling legs. As soon as I’m within the ark, Father rushes forward
to take the bucket from me, but I shake my head—I won’t let him do
my work any longer. I head for the next ladder down to the lower
level, and I realize my mother, Aunt Zeda, and even Shai are
preparing to accompany me, along with most of the men. Noah,
Father, and Uncle Ham all shout instructions at once, and their
voices form one dizzying swirl:

“
Buckets and shovels for
cleaning are against the right-hand wall. Keep the water buckets
separate from the waste containers…”

“
Don’t approach the
flesh-eaters—Kenaan and Japheth can handle that…”

“
Just bring the refuse up
here and we’ll toss it over the side…”

“
Make sure to ration the
animal feed—
especially
the meat…”

The voices fade as I descend farther,
into a smell so thick and noxious it seems to hold weight. The
stench pounds against my body, trying to force me back up the
ladder, and the shaking in my legs and even my arms increases. I
barely make it to the floor before I drop the bucket, lean over,
and retch the last meager contents of my stomach.

Just one more thing for me to clean
up.

***

It’s darker down here,
where there are no windows—the water must be battering against the
walls right beside me, a thought that makes me shiver in my
still-damp shift—and my vision takes some time to adjust. My ears
too need a moment to recover from the onslaught of animal noises,
which gradually fades into an ever-present background that I can
almost shut out, if I’m determined enough. The smell,
though—there’s no shutting that out, and breathing through my mouth
is almost worse, for then I can
taste
the foul odor in the back of
my throat.

My water bucket is empty before I’ve
made it through a single row of cages, so I join my mother, Aunt
Zeda and Shai at the right-hand wall. Along with the others, I grab
a shovel and a smaller bucket, one of the ones designated for waste
material; then we spread out and set to the odious task of
collecting animal dung. I can tell Shai wants to follow me, but
Zeda grabs her arm and leads her in the opposite direction. It’s
just as well—if she asked me what I saw on deck, I’d have no idea
what to tell her.

Father told us to stay
away from the meat-eaters, but when I make out the tiger’s telltale
growl amid the din, it somehow draws me closer. That feral sound
seems to encapsulate everything I’ve just witnessed up above: a
world turned dark and dangerous, savage and incomprehensible. So I
follow the low rumble till I’m standing only a hand’s breadth
before the tiger’s cage, its amber eyes aimed right at mine, two
dim flames in the dusky air. Though still massive, the creature now
seems more bones than muscle as it paces slowly, deliberately back
and forth, back and forth, letting out that desperate snarl all the
while.
Why?
its
eyes ask me.
Why?
its rumble of a voice demands. But it’s answers I want, not
more questions, so I just shake my head and walk away.

Soon I reach the young
lions, and I wonder whether Father wants me to stay away from them
as well. Probably, but after all I’ve seen today, two baby animals
just don’t seem like much of a threat. Besides, I’m not sure the
poor things can even
move
. They’re lying on their sides,
letting out little mewls of discomfort, and their cage floor reeks
with the sticky remnants of vomit. As I open the door and step
inside—the lions don’t even seem to register my presence—I realize
the vomit really is only remnants, residue…as though the creatures
have
eaten
it and
licked the floor nearly clean. No wonder they’re so
miserable.

As I continue through the cages, I
find that many of the animals have eaten their own vomit, their
droppings, or both. I’m torn between a kind of relief—it’s less
mess for us to deal with—and worry. The animals must be so hungry,
and I’m afraid their eating habits might make them sicker, or at
least prolong the discomfort caused by the rocking ark. I’m amazed
to realize that I myself must actually be adjusting to the constant
movement—standing and walking and working is making me feel better,
not worse.

I make two trips back up the ladder
with full buckets of animal waste, and on the second I take the
refuse up to the deck myself, along with an empty water bucket. I
want to fill an entire bucket just for the elephants, whom I
haven’t seen yet—they’re fenced all the way in that back corner,
after all.

When I’ve nearly made it
back to the elephants, I start to worry that they won’t remember
me, or worse, that they’ll somehow blame me for trapping them in
this miserable place.
I’m trapped
too,
I remind myself. Still, I’m relieved
when I hear a welcoming trumpet call and see two gray trunks waving
in my direction. Once I’m close enough, Enise and Bilal tickle my
face as I dump the water in their trough, and then they quickly
abandon me to slurp the water up their trunks and spill it into
their mouths. They drink greedily, almost desperately, and don’t
waste a single drop by throwing it on their backs or into my face
as they did before. In moments the trough is empty again, and this
makes me as sad as anything I’ve seen today. I know my reaction’s
illogical, perhaps unforgivable—so many people dead, including my
best friend, and I’m worried about two elephants—but I can’t help
the way I feel.

Setting down the empty bucket, I take
Bilal’s trunk in my hands and examine the newly cracked, dry edges.
“Your name doesn’t fit so well anymore, does it?” I ask, and both
Bilal and Enise turn their wondering full-moon eyes toward
me.

I look away, unable to bear their
gazes, and something just outside the elephants’ pen catches my
attention. I stoop down to pick it up: a piece of wood Japheth must
have left behind when he built this fence. It’s bigger than the
remnants I usually carve, but if I attempted to recreate these
elephants out of wood, it would be the perfect size—

No. What am I thinking? I cast the
wood piece down and rub both Enise and Bilal on their broad
foreheads. It’s getting darker, and I’ll have to leave them soon. I
have no desire to maneuver past tigers and wolves and jackals in
pitch blackness, even if the animals are caged. I give Enise one
last pat and turn to go, but a trunk pokes me between the shoulder
blades. No, wait—a trunk wouldn’t have such a sharp
edge.