In the Shadow of the Ark (30 page)

“Worries are for the start of a journey. After a time, they are replaced by a healthy indifference.” His torch hissed as he extinguished it in the water. He took up his oars, he rowed away from me. I hung there as if I had been beaten senseless.

There were people who had told me that every life is a continuation of a previous one. Then why did I have the feeling that I had to start from nothing and still had to learn everything? After weeks of longing, I had finally reached my father, and he sent me back. The only thing he had done for me was to confirm what I suspected: that I was carrying a child, and that therefore my place was on the ark. I could not recall a loneliness, a physical pain like this. What had happened to the knowledge I had gleaned in my previous life?

My feet slipped off the knot and I slid down. I wrapped my legs around the end of the rope. The lump rubbed the salt from the spray into my skin and pressed on my already sensitive parts, but it held me. I hung there, helpless as an animal in a snare.

Climbing up the rope seemed the same as going down: It offered no prospects. Letting go would be the simplest — disappearing into the depths, following those many others into the sea. But when I contemplated letting go, it was as if inside me frightened little hands grasped around, and so I dangled, rejected by my father, on the outside of that ship.

I called out. Ham would have been looking for me for ages. He would forgive me and take me back. But it was Japheth who heard me, cross-eyed Japheth of all people. He did not sleep; he too had his nocturnal occupation. Perhaps that was lucky for me: He had the strongest arms and the most accommodating character. Without as much as a sigh or a groan, he pulled me up. He took me under the armpits and carefully lifted me over the railing. He was going to put me on my feet, but a cramp knocked my legs out from under me. Helpless as a fish I fell onto the deck.

I
did not say a word, I think I did not even moan. Japheth helped me stand up. Beaten, numb with cold, I went where I belonged: the dodoes’ pen. There I lay down in the clammy hay. Not for long, of course, for Japheth came into the pen and hiked up his skirts. He lay on top of me and opened his mouth as if he was screaming. I curled up to protect the life that was growing inside me, my hips twisting unwillingly, my ribs around me like armor. But Japheth was heavy and strong.

I did not think he meant me any harm. Rather, he was desperate and embarrassed. “I am so sorry, I can’t help it,” he said. “For the animals, abstinence comes naturally. The Unnameable has suspended their instinct for killing and mating. Why not for us? Why do we have to suffer a discomfort even the animals are spared? I hope I do not hurt you, and if I do, please forgive me.” He released me and brushed my hair out of my face. He arranged my clothes and helped me up from my awkward position. I had forgiven him even before his footsteps died out.

Soon after, he was back. He was talking to someone I could not see. “Lie down next to her and feel how beautiful she is,” he said.

“Yes,” the other replied. “I’ll lie next to her.”

“Do it now,” Japheth said, his voice high-pitched.

“Yes, yes, calm down. Keep your head, I won’t betray you.”

The other entered the pen. It was Shem, carrying his little monkey, much to the consternation of my fellow inmates. “Go now, will you?” he said to Japheth, who watched him sitting down next to me. Japheth disappeared up the gallery.

Shem wanted me to kneel down and bend over for him. He pressed my face into the hay, making breathing difficult.
Better this way,
I thought,
he won’t hurt me with his bony beads.
But thinking of the pain I avoided did nothing to lessen the real pain. With Shem too it did not take long. He must have had things to do still; the animals were waking up and bellowing for their food.

They were back a day later. They entered the dodoes’ pen by turns. They were touching in their apologies. They clearly underestimated my satisfaction. At least I was allowed to touch them; they did not, like Ham, force me to stay motionless. Being allowed to stroke did me good, even though their bodies left me cold. I knew where to touch a man, and how long it took before he threw back his head and offered his throat. Japheth exhausted me with his constant demands to use force, to treat him roughly. I thought his skin was probably too thick. But at least he looked at me, even if he did not say much. Shem, on the other hand, looked past me. There was a lot of disgust in his pleasure; perhaps he thought, like me, of the truss-boat he had destroyed. Of love, all he knew was the motions.

Ham came to get me as usual in the quiet hours. I refused to make another basket, and when he brought food for my father, I ate it myself. He asked me to put my anger aside. “Do as you used to. Tell me what you think,” but I could not tell him what
happened to me during the day. Even less could I tell him that my father had refused to take me on his papyrus boat. All I could do was sing. Songs from the past, rowing songs, hauling songs, songs for bringing in the nets. I sang them with gusto from the hutch:

As I sang, I painstakingly pulled every thread from Neelata’s cushion. I thought it was a shame, I did not want to do it, but my fingers kept going back to it. The pieces of thread flew around me and finished up in my nose and throat. Because the ship’s noises went on as normal, I sang even louder; I was hoping I could be heard as far as Put’s hiding place. Every once in a while I stopped to listen to the birds who were sharpening their beaks on the bars as if they were getting ready for a massacre. What I did was dangerous. But I could not stop it, my voice hummed on, even when I clenched my jaws and held my hand clamped with all my strength over my mouth.

I
t did not take Zaza long to work out that her sons were desperate. When she heard a female voice from the cages, she understood what was going on. She approached the Builder and said, “The days are long and there is time to bless the boys. Do not wait until something happens to them, do it now.”

The Builder was amenable. The bouts of fever had not recurred for quite a time, and he was satisfied with the progress of the journey. They agreed to meet that very evening in their living space. They would not play shovelboard or make music; their full attention would be on the blessing and the dialogue with their god. I knew exactly when it happened: They fed the animals much faster than usual and there was a nervousness in their movements that had not been there since the departure of the ark. They were, of course, worried: The words of the oracle still rang in their heads.

I was convinced Ham would be cursed: He stole food for me every day, he wasted water, he wandered about the ship while everybody slept. By going down that rope, I had betrayed him. Shamelessly, I had put his life and his child’s at risk and demeaned his love. He had been good to me. He had made mistakes, with my father as well as my mother, but never from ill
will. To me he appeared upright, the least deserving of the curse. Shem and Japheth had committed the real crimes. For that reason, I opened the dodoes’ pen that evening and left my hiding place. I stood by the door to their living space and listened. I was fairly sure I could hear everyone. They sang and prepared for the blessing. With both hands, I pushed the door handle and went in.

The shock I caused was palpable through the whole space. Zaza jumped up to try and stop me. Zedebab gave a yell, high and piercing, as if trying to chase away a bird of prey. Neelata quickly hid in a dark corner, Taneses following her. Shem and Japheth managed not to move a muscle in their faces and stand motionless, their arms folded. Immediately, when Ham saw me, he began beating his breast. Since he had been on the ark, he had taken to wearing a little cap with a white, orange, and blue design. He yanked it off his head, coughed into it, and put it back on. He rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers, as if he wanted to wipe away my image.

The only one to stay calm was the Builder. After studying me through his eyelashes, he said, “So it is you who has been doing all that singing lately?”

I said nothing, but nodded.

Japheth lowered his arms. He knelt before his father saying, “I hauled her on board. I am sorry, I do not deserve your blessing.”

Immediately, Shem too fell to his knees. “He thought she was one of the sirens we’ve heard tales about,” he said hurriedly. “He only recognized her when she was already on board, and had too much compassion to throw her back into the water, the best proof that he is a good man, so do not curse him.” The others had
sat down with their backs against the wall, as far as they could from the light.

The Builder looked at me again. He leaned toward me and said, more to his sons than to me, “Is this not the girl who showed us where the water was? She is with child!”

I replied, “The child was fathered by Ham, long before the flood. He has not failed you. He has kept his pact with you, which I cannot say of your other sons.” I gave him a small bow before I walked backward to the door. I carefully negotiated the threshold, but once I got to the gallery, I ran.

Of course Ham knew which passages and ladders I usually used. He came after me. He shouted at me through the passages. I did not slow. I raced up onto the deck. There I stood at the railing, almost in the same spot where Japheth had hauled me back on board.

I heard Ham come panting up the ladder. I dragged myself onto the railing and squatted because there was nothing to hang on to.

“Re Jana,” Ham begged from the darkness. He did not dare come closer for fear that I would jump. “What has happened? Tell me! Is it what I think? Did you hold Shem and Japheth in your arms the way you used to hold me?”

I looked at the foaming water below. It was black and dirty. The rain ran inside my collar down my back.

“Is it true what you said? Are you carrying my child?”

I gathered my courage to let go of the railing.

Ham did not approach to stop me. He just said, “Even if it is someone else’s child, it doesn’t make any difference. Stay with us. You are the true chosen one.”

H
am went back the way he had come and informed the others that I had thrown myself into the sea. He did his best to make the news sound tragic, so the others would observe true sorrow, and it worked. The blessing was canceled. Nor did the Builder pronounce a curse, not even on the snakes he knew lived amongst them.

And I disappeared into the bowels of the ship once more. For the second time, I became invisible, dead to them. From the deck cabin, I snuck into Neelata’s hut and sat down amongst the embroidered cushions and the chest full of her mother’s clothes. Near the loom and the heaps of yarn and wool I waited for her.

She must have expected me, she was not in the least perturbed when she saw me. She put her arms around me and held me close.

“Where is Put?” was the first thing I asked.

“He is on the ship,” she said. “I tied him onto the dromedary with my own hands. Every day, I put out food for him. He comes to get it, but keeps hidden in the darkness. The child needs to get used to things, give him time.” She put a blanket around my shoulders.

“How clean you are!” she said when she felt my skin. She was dirty. She spread fodder and mucked out, but was not given water
to wash. She pushed me down, I could sit properly once more in these soft surroundings of hers. She put her hand on my stomach to feel the bulge. “How odd,” she said. “Our time stands still, but yours just goes on.” She combed my hair. She put her left hand on the hair roots, stroking with her right.

She let me comb her hair. Then she even allowed me to rub her with oil. I recognized her scent which, before the flood, I had found so often on Ham. How long was it since I had groomed anyone, how long since my hands last rubbed oil into skin?

“What did you think of the flood?” she asked. “Was it not magnificent? I so enjoyed the cleansing, the thought that, far away, my mother and her brother, with all their belongings, drowned! I had never expected this, I thought I wanted to save the earth, but seeing the destruction gave me pleasure.” For a few moments, I understood her exactly. How manageable everything seemed suddenly, how easy and clear it seemed to know that the only things you had to take into account were inside this ship. This understanding made me, very briefly, laugh, the first time in a very long while.

For days on end, I did not leave her hut. Hour after hour she talked to me, and gradually I managed to do what my father had told me to do: I no longer jumped, not into the past, not into the future. I sat out every day of my punishment with painless patience. We had to be so quiet that we learned to communicate with gestures. She made me put on her mother’s dresses, forbidden on the ark. She had a little hidden compartment in her hut where she kept black pearls.

“Ham’s father wouldn’t allow it,” she said. “Nothing that
might seduce the boys! But I couldn’t possibly leave them behind. The world may perish, but not this.” She hung the pearls around my neck and on my ears. She adorned me with the peacock feathers she had gathered on her rounds.

We talked through half the night. We persuaded each other that there are things worse than loneliness. Unsteady love, for instance, or a love that is not recognized. We listed the things we missed: shells the size of a fist, pebbles under our feet, the scent of the sun on a tent, pomegranates in the bowls next to our beds. We told each other what we were afraid of: that love would grow too big for a heart, that love would burst because the heart gives out. We talked about Put, about the smell of cakes and milk that always hung around him, about the beetles and the shiny pebbles he played with, about the small stains on his teeth.