Noah's Wife

by Lindsay Starck

thirty-four

  Mrs. McGinn refuses to go.

  What is the point, without her daughter?

  She lies alone on her bed, her face pressed into her pillow, weeping. She has been in this position since she returned from the river several hours ago, her daughter’s soggy note disintegrating under the pressure of her clenched fist.

  A sloth watches her from the armchair in the corner, his long curved claws dug deep into the upholstery. While Mrs. McGinn’s husband attempts to talk some sense into his wife, the zookeeper works at luring the sloth out of the room by waving potted houseplants under his nose. Neither of the men is having much luck.

  “Where did that damn animal even come from?” demands Mrs. McGinn’s husband. “I thought we were only in charge of the penguins. I thought that was all I agreed to.”

  “The sloth was reassigned,” explains the zookeeper through gritted teeth. “After the first wave left, people had to double, triple up on animals. Evelyn volunteered to take him.”

  The zookeeper’s jaw is set, his gaze black and resentful. He glares at the lumpy shape of Mrs. McGinn on top of her comforter. As he watches, she lifts her face and rests one cheek on the pillow so as to ease her breathing. Half of her makeup is caked to the pillowcase, and the little that is left on her face is pitted with tears. She has never looked more ugly, the zookeeper reflects. He feels a brief, warm rush of retribution. Good.

  It is not a pretty scene out there, after all, and it is easier to blame her for it than to blame himself. When he takes the time to think about it, he is forced to acknowledge the fact that it was both of them—she and he in concert—who brought this town to its knees. She claimed all the while that staying here and enduring the rain until it ended was the only way to lift the town up, to raise it to its former glory, while he simply stuck it out because he had never known anything else. Which of them, he asks himself now in disgust, was the most selfish?

  No wonder his fiancée didn’t want him.

  He can’t bear the thought but he also can’t stop thinking it, and so he distracts himself by hating Mrs. McGinn while he tries for what feels like the fortieth time to coax the sloth from the chair. There is a car full of primates waiting for them outside. Once he had realized that his peacocks were safe and dry, Mauro had volunteered to drive vanloads of animals up the hill to the church. Many of them are making the trek on their own, of course—the antelope marching single file, the wild boars lurching over rocks, the tortoise forcing a steady path up through a strong downward current with the water cutting in clear streams across his shell. It is the birds who tire halfway up the hill, retreating into bushes with sodden wings, who must be drawn out and collected and driven the rest of the way to the building, and it is the tanks full of reptiles that must be lifted from their windowsills and hurried down driveways in the rain. The zookeeper had assumed that they would have to leave some animals behind, but Mauro was insistent on getting them all out. He fished the koi out of an abandoned bathtub and dropped them into buckets. With the zookeeper’s help, he tranquilized Leesl’s cheetah and lugged the feline into the back of the van. Leesl’s other cats twined around their ankles, and when they saw that the front door was standing open they slunk into the front yard and paddled through the lawn to the road. Once there they turned their squashed faces to the sky and joined the sluggish parade of paws and wings and wheels as the townspeople and their animals made their way to higher ground, to the church standing somber in the downpour.

  “And once you’ve got all those animals there,” says Mrs. McGinn’s husband to the zookeeper with no small amount of scorn, “what exactly do you intend to do with them?”

  The zookeeper does not appreciate the question, as it is one that he has been asking himself all morning. Will the wolves lie down with the lambs? No, most likely not. He can only hope that Leesl has some sort of plan; Leesl who, as Mauro informed him, had the church ready and waiting hours ago for her neighbors’ arrival. The zookeeper has not had the opportunity yet to see the church himself. He has been too busy rounding up the last of his charges down here and cramming the remaining food and water supplies into the back of Mauro’s truck.

  There is the sound of a wet foot on the stairs, and before the zookeeper has time to react, Mrs. McGinn’s daughter swings around the corner and into the bedroom. She avoids his gaze, stepping lightly to her mother’s side.

  Mrs. McGinn raises her head at the sight of her. “Angela Rose?” she cries. The zookeeper sees the relief flood her splotchy face. Half a second later, the expression is replaced with one of righteous indignation. “Where on earth did you think you were going?” she demands.

  “Mama,” she says, brushing Mrs. McGinn’s curls away from her cheeks. “What are you still doing here? I don’t think we’ve got much time.”

  At this, Mrs. McGinn drops her head back down to the pillow, once more in despair. The zookeeper has never seen someone run through so many emotions in such a short amount of time. “I thought we could outlast it,” she groans. “I thought we would win.”

  Her daughter shakes her head. “The sandbag wall is halfway breached already,” she says. “And the river’s still rising. Come on, now.” She tugs at her mother’s elbow. “People are asking for you.”

  Mrs. McGinn moans again, shuddering. “The only reason people would be asking for me,” she says, “is to demand some kind of justice. I doomed them, Angela Rose. I doomed them to a watery grave. It’s better if I stay here.”

  Two spots of color appear high on her daughter’s cheeks. “Stop it, Mama,” she snaps. “If you say something like that again, we will leave you here. There’s been enough of us feeling sorry for ourselves as it is these past few weeks, and it isn’t doing anybody any good.” She raises her chin and gazes swiftly, severely at the zookeeper, who leans back. The girl turns again to her mother. “This isn’t anyone’s fault. The whole lot of us could have left years ago if we’d wanted to, but we didn’t, and now we’re here. It is what it is.”

  The zookeeper has never seen the town matriarch looking so meek. For a moment there is silence, and when she finally speaks her voice is humble and small. “I’m tired, Angie,” she says. “I’m so tired.”

  Mrs. McGinn’s daughter glances again at the zookeeper, instinctively looking to him for support. Although he would like to help her, he cannot come up with any words of consolation, anything that would change Mrs. McGinn’s mind. The truth is that he is tired, too. He is tired of worrying over his charges, tired of trying to improve the situation in this place only to find that his little world is spinning ever wildly out of his control. It is too hard, trying to take care of so much. There is a part of him that wants nothing more than to sit down in that velvet armchair and settle in forever, to wait with the sloth and Mrs. McGinn until the water rises up the stairwell, until the waves lap at his knees, his chest, his chin. For half a second he remembers the former town minister, believes that he could understand, now, the old man’s desire to let everything go.

  “Screw it, Angie,” he says dully. “What’s the point?”

  The plea in her eyes flips to fear—he can see it happen, can see how surprised she is that he will not back her up on this. Well, what did she expect? Things changed after she took off. There’s no changing them back.

  For a long minute everyone in the room is silent. There is only the sound of the rain in the trees outside the window, and then—suddenly—a car horn.

  “What is happening up in there?” comes Mauro’s voice from down in the street.

  “He’s waiting for us,” mutters the zookeeper.

  “Let him wait, Adam,” retorts Mrs. McGinn’s daughter. “Or better yet, why don’t you go down and join him? Take off, for all I care. I’m not going anywhere. If she’s staying”—with a curt nod at her mother’s prostrate form—“then I’m staying.” She drops down on the foot of the bed with a gesture as dramatic as her mother’s, one knee crossed over the other and her hands folded in her lap, at once stubborn and serene,
looking for all the world as if she is waiting to be served a cup of tea at her own baby shower.

  Mrs. McGinn’s husband explodes. “Are you kidding me?” he shouts. “What the hell is wrong with you people?” He storms out of the bedroom and down the flight of stairs. From the kitchen, they can hear the sound of pots and pans being pulled out of cupboards and flung to the floor; the shattering ceramic of three or four china plates. Finally the front door opens and slams, and once more all is quiet.

  The sloth, frightened by the noise, loosens his grip on the armchair, lifts himself up and over the back, and slides slowly down until he is huddled on the floor beneath it. From that position, the zookeeper knows, it will not be difficult to swoop down with a blanket, bundle the sloth into it, and transfer him into the van that is idling in the street. There is a quilt folded at the foot of the bed, but the zookeeper cannot bring himself to reach for it.

  “Well?” says Mrs. McGinn’s daughter. “Are you staying or going?”

  That is the question, isn’t it? reflects the zookeeper, crossing his burly arms over his chest and considering his fiancée with every last ounce of composure he possesses. This has always been a story of departures: who was leaving whom, and who was being left.

  The zookeeper has half a mind to walk out that door, just to spite her. Isn’t it his turn?

  Outside one car door slams shut, and then another. The zookeeper waits to hear the sound of the engine roaring into gear and then growling away into the distance. He does not care that he is not in the car, that he is not heading up to the church to eat canned vegetables and stale Communion wafers along with the rest of them. He knows that the townspeople, accustomed to the long winters around here, have supplies stockpiled in storage units and basements—but even if they manage to get all those cans and boxes to the church, how much time will that buy them? Five, six days? If they get hungry enough, they will start clamoring to kill the animals. The zookeeper knows it, and he would rather not be there to watch it happen.

  What he hears instead of the car is the sound, again, of footsteps on the stairs. This time there is not just one pair, but several, and the whole house shudders with their stomping. In a few seconds Mrs. McGinn’s husband reappears in the room, this time with Mauro and another man close at his heels. The zookeeper recognizes the town tailor; he had planned on going to the man when it came time for his wedding.

  “Evelyn,” rumbles Mrs. McGinn’s husband, “I brought reinforcements. I know you may not care whether you live or die, but I’m telling you that right now the choice isn’t yours to make. Angela Rose won’t leave without you and I won’t either—but rather than hanging around in this bedroom like a goddamn fool, I’m taking you with me. Whether you like it or not.”

  Mrs. McGinn’s daughter starts to say something, but her stepfather cuts her short. “Stop it, Angie,” he snaps. “There’s a lot of people counting on your mother. And on you, for that matter. You’d do well to think twice before you let them down again.”

  Mrs. McGinn’s daughter rises halfway off the bed, the color draining from her face. Before she can respond, Mrs. McGinn’s husband strides forward, lifts the edge of the comforter, and yanks it toward the end of the bed. Mrs. McGinn comes sliding down with it, her mouth gaping. Mauro and the tailor hurry around to opposite sides of the head of the bed, where, apologizing profusely to Mrs. McGinn all the while, they grab the other corners of the quilt and raise them high. The plan is absurd, but somehow it works: the three men heave the blanket off the bed and carry it down the stairs as they would carry a hammock, the center sinking inward with Mrs. McGinn’s weight, her smeared face peeping over the patchwork in childlike confusion. She is too baffled to protest, and by the time she makes up her mind to try to struggle off, they have already arrived outside and pitched the entire load—Mrs. McGinn included—into the backseat of the van. Mrs. McGinn’s daughter runs after them, howling, while the zookeeper brings up the rear with the sloth swaddled in his arms. There is a brief scuffle in the street, but before anyone fully realizes what has happened, they are all in the car, careening out of the town and up the hill.

  How ridiculous, the zookeeper says to himself. In the van he finds himself seated next to Mrs. McGinn’s daughter, the familiar scent of her lavender soap making him dizzy. When the tires sink into the mud and the van is stalled, momentarily, in the road, she buries her face in his sleeve and begins to cry.

  They make it to the church just in time. The wall around the river does not hold. Within an hour of their departure, the remaining sandbags crumble and tumble into the river, displacing the water that rises in waves from the bottom of the banks to the top of the shore. And even now the rain continues to fall. The clouds break; the sky splits apart and pours down. The fountains of the great deep are broken up, and the windows of heaven are opened.

  The water rushes up porches. Front doors buckle and fall inward, opening the way for the river to roll through the entryways, upending kitchen tables and chairs and leaving pots and pans bobbing on the surface. The furniture is splintered and submerged. The books are all buried; the insides of cars are flooded; cans of food and boxes of cereal are taken up and swept through the streets of the town. The water uproots the mailboxes and carries them away.

  Leesl greets them at the church door and closes it behind them, lets them know in her glad and soft-spoken way that they are the last to arrive and that everyone is now accounted for. She hands them plastic bowls of soup and directs them into the nave, assuring them that there are stacks of blankets in the closets and plenty of non-perishable foods downstairs. Mrs. McGinn, supported on both sides by Mauro and her husband, makes it to the first row of pews before her knees give out and she folds down into it. Her neighbors watch her, disturbed. The zookeeper looks for anger in their faces, looks for blame, resentment, dislike. But he doesn’t find it. They are only weary, and shocked. They do not have the energy to point fingers, nor the courage to ask what will come next.

  thirty-five

  When Dr. Yu’s father attempts to pull a handkerchief from a candlestick, the whole thing goes up in flames.

  Noah’s wife had been half expecting it to happen. She is sitting stiffly, perched on one of the battered lawn chairs he and Noah have arranged for spectators on one side of the gazebo, holding her breath as he shouts his abracadabra. The audience gasps at the sight of the fire and she gasps with them, but unlike the people who clap and cheer as he leaps to put it out, she is certain that this effect was not intended. From her position near the aisle she can see Noah standing off to one side with a look of dismay. By the time he makes up his mind to take a few steps forward onto the makeshift stage, Dr. Yu’s father has already doused the flaming handkerchief in a bucket of water that was meant to be turned into wine.

  The show has been disastrous so far, and they are only thirty minutes in. During the first demonstration with the hat, Noah dropped one of the eggs that he palmed. Meanwhile the flowers that were made to disappear did not reappear when they should have, and when Dr. Yu’s father attempted to show the audience that the rope they had seen him cut was still in one piece, the two ends fell apart in his hands. Even his quick-change went awry. He stepped into the cabinet in his tuxedo and should have emerged in his wizard’s gear within seconds—but instead it took him six or seven minutes and when he finally stumbled out he was red-faced and panting and only partly successful. His hat and his shoes were in place but his bow tie and coattails poked out from underneath a skewed cape.

  Fortunately, the audience members do not seem to mind. The children gape at the colors and the lights while their parents slap their knees and laugh at what is quickly devolving into a comedy routine. While a few of the spectators grow bored and wander away to other parts of the pier, new people amble in every few minutes.

  Noah’s wife is here because Noah asked her to come and because it did not occur to her to refuse. How familiar it is, she realizes with a deep ache in her chest, to sit within a rapt crowd and gaze up at
her husband. She misses the old Noah: his charisma, his drive, his extraordinary certainty that his path had been chosen for him and that as long as he followed it, all would be well. This man whom she sees standing now on that makeshift stage, this man who looks and sounds like her husband but lacks all of his grace and power—he is a lesser version of himself. As she watches the colored scarves flying, she finds herself resenting her husband for being up on that platform, standing behind the curtain that he rigged up with a system of pulleys and ropes. What is she supposed to do when he has made himself a stranger to her? And if he is no longer the Noah that he was, what does that mean for her, his wife, whose sole purpose for so long has been him?

  She wishes that she had been able to express something like this to Dr. Yu, something of this profound sense of loss, rather than saying what she did about Dr. Yu’s father. She glances across the aisle, sees the rigid figure of her best friend seated three rows in front of her. The two of them have not exchanged a word since their heated encounter last night. After leaving the kitchen, Noah’s wife retreated to the guest room and lay down on the bed, dizzy and short of breath, the loneliest she has been since her mother died.

  They make an odd pair, the minister and the magician. Noah towers over Dr. Yu’s father, his dark beard thick and untrimmed, an old charcoal-gray blazer hanging loosely over his gaunt frame. The floodlights Dr. Yu’s father attached to the gazebo cast stark and angled shadows across his features. Visibly embarrassed by his own show thus far and determined to succeed at something marvelous before the intermission, Dr. Yu’s father instructs Noah to retrieve the aluminum pan from their trunk of props. Noah’s wife watches the magician flash the pan at the audience to prove to them that it is solid; she watches him pour a small amount of kerosene into it, senses the people around her instinctively draw back when he drops a match into the oil to ignite it. He claps the lid over the sudden flame and for a long moment he pauses, holds it there, gazing out over the dusky harbor with an expression of triumph. When he flings the lid from the pan, the fire is gone but a bird has appeared—a slender white dove that goes winging over the heads of the spectators, soaring three or four times around the gazebo before darting toward a patch of trees and vanishing from sight. The audience cheers while Dr. Yu’s father takes a quick bow and signals for the curtain to fall.