Noah

by Mark Morris

  “I can’t,” he moaned. “I won’t.” He looked up at the sky, as if directly addressing the Creator. “I cannot do this.”

  He began to stumble away just as Shem, his face equally bloody, followed by Naameh and Japheth, scrambled up out of the hatch and onto the roof.

  “Ila,” Shem shouted, and he ran to her, past his father, who he completely ignored. He reached Ila and his daughters and threw his arms around them. Naameh and Japheth rushed up to them, too, bypassing Noah, who was still stumbling, still weeping, his head down, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

  He disappeared back down into the Ark, like an animal seeking the sanctuary of its burrow. As he did, the gray-white clouds above the little knot of hugging, weeping, laughing people suddenly parted, and for the first time in weeks, months, sunlight streamed down, golden and warm, illuminating Shem and Ila and their babies as they clung together.

  Japheth stared up in wonder. He gazed at the blue sky breaking through the hazy cloud cover as if he had never seen anything so vibrant in his life. And then he spotted something else. A white speck against the blue. It seemed to be drifting toward them, getting closer.

  He felt a tingle of anticipation. After the raven had returned again with nothing in its claws, Japheth had made his way down to the avian deck. He had awakened another bird, and set it free.

  Could this be…? He shielded his eyes.

  Yes! Yes it is!

  “Mother!” he shouted, pointing. “Mother, look!”

  Naameh’s head snapped up, her face full of alarm. She glanced toward the hatch, as if afraid that Noah had come back, that he had had a change of heart. And then she saw that Japheth’s arm was raised above his head, that he was pointing straight up into the sky.

  “What is it?” she asked, shielding her eyes with her hand.

  “It’s my bird,” Japheth said. “My dove. It’s come back!”

  The white dove circled the Ark and then slowly wheeled toward them. Japheth extended his arm and the dove settled on it. It was holding something in its talons, which it gladly relinquished to Japheth.

  “What is it?” Ila asked.

  It was Naameh who answered.

  “An olive branch,” she said.

  * * *

  Gouged into the cliff face was a cave, which faced out across the vast ocean. Islands dotted the ocean, green and abundant, blossoming with new life. Above the cliff birds wheeled and let loose their raucous cries, their nests, full of eggs, abundant among the rocky crooks and crevices.

  Others had built their homes in the remains of the Ark itself, while below, deer and other animals grazed on the grass and scrub. The sky was clear and bright, a pure white sun beaming down from its zenith.

  The man who sat outside the cave, a warm breeze ruffling his long, dirty hair, was oblivious to the beauty around him. He was drinking rough wine that he had made on a simple wine press, using grapes from one of the many clusters of vines that had sprung up on the island.

  He drank and drank. He drank to forget. His thoughts were nothing but darkness, and his heart was heavy with shame and regret and sorrow.

  Once he had had a family. Once he had known love, and faith.

  But no longer. Now he had lost everything. Now there was only emptiness.

  * * *

  It took Ham a while to find his father. When he did, he felt nothing but disgust.

  Noah was lying unconscious on a muddy rock shelf inside a cave high up on the cliff face, naked, filthy and snoring. Empty wine jugs were scattered around him, many of them broken. Insects were crawling in his long gray hair and matted beard, and his scrawny, starved body was covered with dozens of small bruises and contusions, some of which looked to have become infected.

  So here he was. His once-mighty father. Reduced to this. For a few moments Ham stared, not moving, and then he heard the scuff of footsteps behind him and turned around.

  His brothers had followed him up the cliff. They stood, panting slightly, not speaking, staring silently down at the sprawled body of their father.

  Then Shem stepped forward, picked up a rough and filthy blanket that was lying in a crumpled heap just inside the cave entrance, and used it to cover his father’s nakedness. At the feel of the rough fabric, Noah stirred and groaned, opened his bleary eyes, raised his head.

  When he saw Shem and Japheth looking down at him, his eyes became filled with tears. Tears of shame, tears of gratitude, and most of all, tears of raw and simple love.

  He struggled to raise himself to a sitting position.

  “Ham?” he said, his voice groggy with drink, and rough, as if his throat was filled with splinters.

  Shem glanced instinctively behind him, and Noah followed his gaze. Ham was still standing at the cave entrance, silhouetted by the bright blue sky behind him.

  Ham took the small satchel he was carrying and threw it down at Noah’s feet.

  Then he turned and left.

  He didn’t look back.

  * * *

  Later that day, Ila paused at the top of the hill, a wooden yoke across her shoulders. A large water bag was attached to each end. The yoke was heavy, but she was strong and full of energy. She raised her face to the warm, blue sky, took in a deep lungful of fresh air, and then allowed her gaze to roam lovingly over the landscape below.

  This was it, their new world, the one that Noah had promised them. The island was lush and green, and was growing larger by the day as the floodwaters receded from it.

  Directly below her, nestled in the shelter of the hill, Ila could see the camp. As always, it consisted of a number of small, domed tents around a central hearth, where the family congregated at the end of each long but satisfying day’s work, to cook and eat and talk.

  In the camp now, still so far away that they appeared insect-like, she saw Naameh tending to the twins, Japheth bobbing around her excitedly. Ila smiled. Japheth doted on his little nieces and loved to help feed and bathe and look after them whenever he could. He was a sweet boy, and Ila felt sure that he would make a wonderful uncle. One day, perhaps, if they were all lucky, he would make a wonderful husband and father, too.

  Though the camp was currently home to them all, it was only a temporary one. After many years of tents and travel, the family’s nomadic lifestyle was finally coming to an end. From now on they would be staying here, putting down roots. In time, Ila hoped, a community would develop.

  To this end, further along the shoreline, on a flat, solid piece of land edged with the expanding beach on one side and a new, fecund growth of trees and plants on the other, Shem was constructing the frame of a house using strong wooden beams salvaged from the Ark. Once the first house was built he planned to build another, and then another. Although the Ark had been damaged by the jagged and uneven cliff face with which it had collided, and was battered and decayed by months at sea, it would keep them supplied with wood for quite some time—at least until the new forests matured and spread.

  Ila was glad that the Ark would continue to be useful, that it would continue to make a contribution to their lives. It had taken Noah and Shem and the Watchers so long to build, and had withstood the greatest turmoil that the world had ever known, that it seemed sad to think of it merely falling to rack and ruin.

  Even so, wedged against the rocks, with the waves crashing against it, the vessel looked forlorn. Once teeming with life, it was empty now. The animals, birds, and reptiles that had once populated it had long since flown, slithered, crawled, galloped or lumbered away to find shelter and food, and to repopulate the land with their young. Some of the animals had perished, as is the natural way of things, but most had survived, as a result of which a thriving ecosystem was already starting to establish itself on the island they now called home.

  Resuming her journey, Ila trudged down the winding path of the hill. The saplings and hedgerows which bordered the path were growing taller by the day and soon, as the path dipped on its meandering route to the beach, they obscured her view of the camp.
She could still hear the gentle sigh of the waves, though—and, faintly, the thock of Shem’s hammer on wood. A little further on, she heard the soft crunch of approaching footsteps just around the bend of the path ahead.

  A moment later Ham came into view.

  The boy was taller now, his eyes more distant than they had once been. He was carrying a large and clearly well-packed knapsack over one shoulder, and as he saw Ila he came to a halt, a startled look crossing his face, and then something like shame as he cast his eyes downward.

  Ila was not surprised that it had come to this, though she felt sad all the same. She lifted the yolk from her shoulders and placed it carefully on the ground.

  “So you’re going?” she said.

  A little sullenly Ham nodded.

  “Without even a word?”

  His eyes flickered up to her face and he saw that she was smiling sadly. He curled his own lips upward in response.

  “What is there to say?” he said. “I don’t belong here.”

  Ila wanted to argue with him, to tell him that he would always belong, but she knew there was no point.

  “Where will you go?” she asked.

  He shrugged.

  “You’ve seen your father?” Ila asked.

  Ham nodded.

  “Where?”

  “On the rocks above the Ark.” He hesitated.

  Then abruptly he blurted out, “For what it’s worth, sister… I’m glad it begins again with you. Maybe we’ll learn to be kind.” Then, almost embarrassed, he gave her a hug, picked up his knapsack and pushed past her without another word.

  Ila turned to watch him go, her throat tight and her eyes filling with tears. She wanted to call out to him, to tell him to come back, or at least say goodbye, but she couldn’t speak. He rounded a bend in the path and disappeared.

  She knew she would never see him again.

  * * *

  Ila took Noah some bread and dried fruit and a bottle of water. He grunted his thanks and sat half in and half out of the cave, his knees hunched up under his chin, gnawing at the food. Although he was dressed now, his clothes were filthy and torn. Ila sat silently beside him for several minutes, watching the birds wheel and swoop in the brilliant blue sky.

  Finally she spoke.

  “Ham’s gone.”

  Noah paused as he chewed. Then he nodded. He still hadn’t looked her in the eye.

  “Will he come back?” Ila asked.

  Noah’s voice was flat. “Some things cannot be unbroken.”

  After a moment’s hesitation Ila reached out and touched his arm. He flinched.

  “Your family needs you,” she said softly.

  Noah’s face became blank, as if he had heard a distant sound that he couldn’t quite identify. Finally he shook his head.

  “The Creator needed me. Called me. And I betrayed him.”

  “Did you?” Ila said challengingly.

  Noah nodded. “On the Ark—”

  “Is that what He tells you?” she interrupted.

  Noah sniggered. Then abruptly the humor slid from his face and he looked lost, bereft. “He doesn’t speak to me anymore.”

  “Do you speak to Him?”

  Noah looked suddenly afraid, as if the very notion was liable to bring a swift and terrible retribution down upon him, and gave a quick shake of the head.

  For a few moments there was silence. Noah finished the last of his food and water while Ila listened to the gentle sighing of the sea. Finally she tightened her grip on his arm and pulled him around to face her. Noah looked startled. When he finally met her eyes with his own, he saw a quiet, steely conviction there.

  “To a child, a parent is like the Creator,” she said. “All powerful, all knowing. You were like that to me. You could be so hard, but also so kind. I thought you knew everything.

  “But now that I have the girls I see how little I know. And how much I learn from them. Maybe it is the same with Him?

  “You said there is wickedness in all our hearts,” she continued. “And I think you are right. But I also think there is goodness, too. When everything you believed told you to take the lives of my girls, you showed mercy. You showed love.

  “He chose you, Father. He chose you. And you chose mercy. Don’t you think He sees that? Don’t you think that mercy earns us another chance?”

  Noah looked at her wonderingly. “Another chance?”

  “To take care of paradise,” Ila said, nodding. “We can do better this time. I know we can. But we need your help.”

  Noah raised his filthy hands and rubbed hard at his face, as if attempting to get his thoughts moving. “My help?” he said, his voice muffled.

  “Yes,” Ila said. She took his hands. “Be a father to Shem and Japheth. Be a grandfather to my girls. Teach them how justice and mercy walk hand in hand. Teach them what it means to be a righteous man.”

  He looked at her, startled. “But I am not righteous. I am… wicked.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  Noah peered up at the sky. “In His eyes I believe I am.”

  “But how do you know for sure, if you do not ask?” Ila said.

  Noah looked appalled. “I have no right to ask!”

  “You are Adam’s son,” she said firmly. “Methuselah’s son. Your father’s son. You have every right.”

  “But I cannot bear to hear the answer.”

  “Ask,” Ila implored him. “Ask if you did right. Ask if He forgives you. If He forgives all of us. Ask if there is hope.”

  He began to weep. His tears cut clean tracks through the dirt on his face. As if responding to his grief, the wind picked up, and the waves began to crash with increasing fervor against the rocks below.

  * * *

  Ham walked across an empty plain, through the soil of which new shoots were already pushing their way toward the light. The island was larger than he had thought—perhaps larger than any of them had thought—and it was getting larger all the time.

  He paused a moment, realizing that his footsteps were the first to ever press into this new, moist ground. He thought of his father, and of the stories that he used to tell around the fire.

  So who am I in your stories, Father? Ham thought. Adam leaving Eden? Cain entering Nod?

  He stared out at the horizon. A brand new world was unfurling before him. A new beginning.

  He walked on.

  * * *

  Naameh was on her knees, clearing stones from a patch of rich soil that she had earmarked for her new herb garden. She was so engrossed in her task that she didn’t realize that someone had knelt down next to her until she saw a hand reach out beside hers.

  She glanced to her right, startled.

  Noah! It was her husband, Noah. He had come home!

  Then her face set. She stared at him. But when he turned to look at her, she saw only shame and regret and a desire for forgiveness in his eyes.

  “We begin again,” he said softly. “Together.”

  It was more of a question—even a plea—than a statement.

  She stared into his face for a moment longer. Her eyes softened.

  And then she reached out her arms and embraced him.

  * * *

  Naameh, Shem, Ila, and Japheth sat round the campfire, bathing in its warmth as the evening began to draw in around them. Ila was jiggling her baby daughters on her lap and making them giggle.

  As the entrance flap of the main tent was pushed aside with a dry, heavy rippling sound, she turned. They all turned.

  Almost tentatively Noah emerged from within. He had bathed and changed his clothes and trimmed his beard and hair. As he glanced around at his family, as if seeking their approval, Ila smiled and nodded encouragingly.

  He looked much older, and thinner, and considerably more scarred than he had when the Ark had set off on its mammoth voyage, months before. However, Ila was pleased to see that despite the toll his experiences had taken on him, his spirit did not seem entirely broken. Beneath the obvious desir
e to be accepted back into the fold, she thought she could still detect the shadow of the fierce patriarch in his eyes, and something else, too. Something that, perhaps, he had not so much acquired as rediscovered.

  Maybe it was her imagination, but there appeared to be a warmth, a serenity about Noah that Ila had not seen in a long time. She had grown so used to how tortured and distant and callous his great burden had made him that she had forgotten how kind and caring and generous he once had been. But now those qualities seemed to have re-emerged. She could read it in his demeanor, in the lines of his face. It was as if his hard edges had been sanded away.

  It was as if he had finally found peace.

  As he approached them, she realized that he was holding something in his hands, something wrapped in cloth. He folded the edges of the cloth back almost reverently, revealing the snakeskin. Casting the cloth aside, he slowly, hesitantly, began to wind the snakeskin around his arm. As he did, it seemed to come alive, to respond to his touch.

  Ila, Shem and Japheth all gasped. They watched in wonder as the snakeskin first began to glow, as if with its own inner life, and then to undulate as it slithered up and around his arm of its own accord. Ila glanced at Naameh and saw that there were tears in her eyes—tears of joy, and also of relief. She turned back to Noah, and then she stood up slowly, holding her babies out to him.

  Noah looked momentarily overwhelmed by the gesture, and then a smile spread across his face. He took the girls gently. He stared into their faces, enraptured, as though they were the greatest miracle he had ever seen.

  “The Creator made Adam in His image, and blessed him, and put the world in his care,” he murmured. “That birthright was passed down to us… to my father, Lamech. Then to me and my sons, Shem, Japheth… and Ham.”

  He kissed the girls gently on their foreheads, one after the other. They smiled, giggled.

  “And that birthright is now passed to you, our grandchildren. This will be your work. Your responsibility.”

  The snakeskin that was wrapped around his arm, still glowing, still writhing sinuously, seemed to mimic Noah’s actions, flickering out to touch the forehead of first one twin, and then the other.