The Sinners and the Sea

by Rebecca Kanner

  Before my father could ask anything further, Arrat said, “As for payment, I know you to be a fair man, Eben. I have saved your daughter’s life and, more important, her virtue. I ask not a lot.”

  “You know me to be more than fair, but I cannot afford anything more than fair now. If this man takes my daughter unharmed from this village, I will give you a quarter of my olives.”

  “Is your daughter’s life worth so little to you? I do you this favor at great risk to myself.”

  “A quarter of my olives is more than any sensible man would scorn, but I will let you rob me of half my harvest for my daughter’s safety. You will see to it that she goes unscathed through the mob, or I will burn my grove to the ground myself to keep you from it.”

  “Your daughter will be safe,” the trader said nervously.

  When my father was sure Arrat was gone, he muttered, “The trader cannot be trusted. Yet we must trust him.” He turned to me. “Pack a sack you can carry across your back. A man comes to take you for a wife.”

  • • •

  My father did not sleep that night. While the mob shouted back and forth over their fire, he stood near the door flap with his feet apart and chin thrust forward, daring fate to try to bring us down now. He seemed very strong to me, strengthened as a man would be in the last length of a journey, knowing he could soon set down his burden.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE POWER OF THE MARK I

  The next morning I was awakened by a booming voice. “Part so that I may pass through your wicked mass into the tent of the only righteous man among you!”

  “A man who harbors a demon is no more righteous than the demon itself,” said the gruff-voiced man who had first spoken to my father.

  “The God of Adam and those He entrusts with His power of sight are the only ones who can see demons. Any of you who claim to see a demon speaks false.”

  I noticed my father had not lit a lamp. Perhaps he thought that the light would have revealed my mark too harshly. I tried to peer with him out the tiny eyehole in the door flap, but he gently pushed me away. I stood in the near-dark, listening to the commotion as best I could, my heart hammering in my chest.

  “Who are you, old man? Can you expel the demon?”

  “I am a man of God.”

  “Let him through. He will do our work for us.” This was Arrat’s voice.

  “Do you promise to take her far from here, and never allow her to return?” someone asked.

  “I make no promises to any but the God of Adam.”

  “Well, if your God of Adam wanted to know if you were taking this woman forever from this place, what would be your answer?”

  “I answer to none but Him.”

  Arrat’s voice came again through the crowd. “Does this stranger look like a young man setting out to make a new camp? Does he look like he has come to be a bondsman? Let him take her, and we will never see her again.”

  A man with an unusually high voice said, “If he means to bring her forth from the tent, we will set upon her then.”

  “You will do nothing besides tremble in the sight of the One God or feel His wrath.”

  My father turned to me. “That is the voice of your husband. He has peacefully made his way through the neighbors and slowly draws near.”

  I did not know how to greet this news. I did not want to dwell where the mob might rush upon me with daggers and flames, yet neither did I want to try to pass through them without an army.

  “Hide behind the pots of lentils,” my father instructed. He peered back through the eyehole, so enraptured by the old man who came for me that he no longer seemed to hear the voices tangling around us.

  “Who among us is strong enough to tackle the demon?” asked a voice that quivered with old age.

  “What choice do we have, with our sons, women, and herds defenseless in the surrounding plots?” the gruff-voiced man replied. “How long do you mean for us to stand out here, doing nothing while the demon grows stronger?”

  “By what means does the demon grow stronger?” another man asked skeptically. Perhaps the man was one whom Arrat had swayed with promises of olives or other goods.

  I moved close behind my father again, trying to peer out the eyehole with him. I wanted to see the man who would be my husband, if my mark did not first send him rushing back in the direction from which he had come.

  “The strength of the soul taken from Mechem. It is hers now, to do whatever evil she can think of. She must be burned.”

  I shrank from the door flap. I did not think I had the courage for whatever was to come.

  “Let us see how the God-man fares,” the quivering voice interjected, “before we hazard our own souls.”

  “He will be sucked dry of all the life that still remains in his faded flesh,” someone else said. “The demon nightly turns the woman into one beast and then the next—a goat, an ox. Many of us have seen a lizard the size of a woman, running up the inside of the tent wall, feet sticky with blood, very likely the blood of a child. Perhaps the blood of the child who went missing only two moons ago.”

  “Do you see these abominations before or after you’ve filled your fifth cup of wine?” the skeptical man asked.

  Noah must have stopped and dismounted, because a man cried out, “Let us watch for the shadows in the tent, so we might know whether the old man will come out again.”

  “And if he does, whether his soul is still with him,” someone added.

  They went silent, but their silence was not a comfort to me. I was sure they had cast their gazes upon the tent so that they might find some evidence of evil.

  My father quickly stepped back from the door flap and looked at me, his brow lined with worry. He must have wondered what Arrat had told Noah. Did the trader conceal the size and darkness of my mark? My years? Most men would be angry to find a woman so long past her first blood.

  This time I obeyed when my father motioned me back behind our clay pots of lentils and dried fruits. He opened the door flap and said, “Welcome!”

  Noah wasted no time with idle talk. “I have come for your righteous and pure daughter.”

  “Besides the wine stain upon her forehead, she is a true beauty, the finest for leagues in all direc—”

  “I care not about the surface of things so much as what is beneath them,” Noah said. “Arrat has told me that yours is a righteous family who worships the God of Adam. You have proven your devotion to Him by killing the magician who sought to practice secret arts in your tent.”

  “We worship the God of Adam with each breath,” my father lied. “My daughter is obedient to all of His laws.”

  Noah snorted his approval. He made this sound again when my father presented him with olives, nuts, apricots, bread, cheese, dried goat meat, and water to take on the journey. My father thought it best to give these things to the old man before calling me to come out from behind our stores.

  “And before you leave, for your mule—”

  “Donkey,” Noah corrected. He said this without shame.

  My father raced to cover his presumptuousness. “One beast is as the next,” he said quickly.

  “No. God created them all, one unlike the other, so that each may serve us in a different way.”

  “Of course you speak true,” my father said. “You are righteous and wise beyond your years.” Noah neither spoke nor snorted, so my father continued. “For your donkey, as much hay as you would like.”

  “Thank you,” Noah said. “My donkey is much diminished from our travel.”

  I remained hidden while Noah and my father went outside to gather the rations.

  “Have you slain the demon yet?” someone cried out.

  “Where is the blood?” asked another man.

  “The demon is too great for his god,” the gruff-voiced man said.

  Soon so many voices rang out that no one would have been able to hear Noah if he had replied. It sounded as though at least twenty men were gathered. One old man could not pos
sibly protect me from them.

  If I am to journey soon to the afterlife, let me go with dignity. I will bite out my tongue to keep from crying and screaming, for I will not dishonor my father with a shameful death.

  When Noah and my father returned to the tent, there was no shortage of silence between them.

  “Well!” my father finally said. It was time for him to call me out from my hiding place.

  “The girl?” Noah said impatiently.

  “Yes,” my father said. “Yes.” But he could not bring himself to summon me.

  I could not bear to burden him a moment longer. I rose and stepped around our clay pots to reveal myself.

  The wrinkled old man—my new husband—peered at me from under his bushy eyebrows. He did not wince. He must be nearsighted, I thought. The stain upon my brow does not steal his gaze from my eyes.

  My father looked at me with great anxiety. “My dutiful, devoted daughter!”

  Noah snorted. There was an awkward silence in the space where my father normally would have invited a guest to a meal. The shouts of the mob must have persuaded him it was best for Noah and me to try to journey forth before we lost our chance.

  It did not seem that Noah would have accepted a meal, in any case. Seeing that my father was going to say nothing more, he told him, “The girl and I must go at once, unless we can try to make a son here.”

  My father sucked in his breath. Noah did not take back his question but instead let it grow bolder in the silence. Perhaps he is deaf to the cries of the mob, I thought. If so, I envied him. I could not keep their cries from my ears:

  “See now what strange light emanates from the goatskin.”

  “A dark stain spreads along the edge of the tent!”

  “Perhaps it is the blood of Mechem!”

  At last my father said, “My humble hut is unworthy of you. Forgive me that I have no lodging fine enough to accommodate a man of so great a stature in the eyes of God.”

  Noah seemed to take this at face value. “Come, girl,” he said to me.

  My legs trembled, and I did not trust them to hold me.

  He must have known that I did not follow. Before stepping from the tent, he turned back. His voice did not boom so greatly now. “Child,” he said, “I know what it is like to be called to an impossible task. But you must bear up righteously beneath your burden and put one foot in front of the other, over and over again, until you cannot any longer.”

  What task did he speak of? Escaping the mob with my life?

  Without waiting for a response from me, he turned and left the tent.

  I took a deep breath and then stepped into the daylight. The mob went silent.

  As though I were dawdling, Noah said, “I have a flock to tend.” I assumed the flock Noah had to tend was made up of goats. I wondered how many animals he had and whether he was wealthy. If he were, why did he ride only a donkey instead of a mule? He continued, “And I do not grow any younger.”

  Once we were fully in the light of day, I thought he might not be getting much older either. I had never seen a man of so many years. His beard was so long and scraggly that I imagined he had been tugging on it for most of his life. His skin was so wrinkled and thin, I wondered how it managed to hold his flesh and blood inside it.

  If one or both of us somehow did not die, I would spend my future with this strange and ancient man. While this might be more desirable than death, I did not anticipate it with any eagerness.

  This became all the more true when I saw the donkey on which I would travel across the desert. He was sitting on the ground amid a swarm of flies, chewing his tongue.

  “The beast does not want the demon on his back,” someone cried out. Others joined their voices to his.

  Noah poked at the ass’s belly with a stick, but the donkey did not seem to notice this any more than Noah appeared to notice the mob. I willed the animal to rise and take us away as quickly as possible. As if in answer, the ass laid his head upon the ground.

  If this is one of the creatures the God of Adam has made to serve us, I think I will worship other gods.

  “It is as I told you—we will never be rid of the demon unless we set fire to the vessel in which it resides,” the gruff-voiced man said.

  I hoped to hear Arrat say something, but my hope was in vain. Perhaps he had given up swaying the mob and was only watching, thinking of the tale he would tell in the surrounding villages. I did not dare glance up to look for him.

  Finally the ass brayed and rose from the ground, though not very far. I did not need to examine his teeth to know he was not young. He was too mangy to be a colt, yet he was the shortest ass I had ever seen.

  “Strong, sturdy legs,” my father said with forced heartiness. He helped me sit sidesaddle on the animal, so that I was facing away from where Noah was securing his gifts in one of the saddlebags. The mob would have been able to see me had my father not stood in their way. He reached for my hand, and his eyes fastened upon mine. “Daughter,” he said quietly, “it will go well with you to make a show of devotion to the God your husband worships.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “And always know”—his hand tightened upon mine—“it is not because you are unworthy that I have kept you hidden and have not given you a name. It is the people of this village who are unworthy of the sight of you and a name by which to speak of you.”

  I feared I might weep with the mob’s eyes upon me. “You have always done the best for me and kept me safe,” I said. “But Father, can you now bestow a name upon me?”

  He looked surprised. Had he never even considered a name for me?

  Noah interrupted. “Girl, swing your leg around.”

  I did as I was told, blood surging into my cheeks. The God of Adam must not have valued modesty as much as my father told me He did. Noah did not look at me or touch me other than to pull on my leg to check that I was well balanced on the riding blanket. It was my first contact with my new husband. I noticed his fingers were longer than any I had seen, and his nails had not been cut in many moons. His roughness did not bode well for the son-making to come.

  He climbed on in front of me, as agile and quick as a much younger man, and took the reins. He was shorter on the donkey than he had been standing up. On top of his head, occupying the greater part of my sight, was a shock of white hair as stiff as a patch of weeds.

  I turned my face to the side and wrapped my arms around his waist. There was so much grime and dust on his tunic that it seemed to be made of a material I had never touched before. I glanced down at the hem and saw that it was even filthier than the rest of the garment, and badly frayed.

  As my father wished us well, his voice trembled so slightly that only I, who had spent every day of my nineteen years with him, could have discerned it. His hand shook when he gave the donkey a slap on the flank to send us on our way. The smack had as much effect on the animal as poking him with a stick. After delivering a few more slaps to the donkey’s flank, my father turned and started back to his tent without bestowing a name upon me.

  I watched him, and it seemed to me I was seeing him clearly for the first time. He was stooped, with thinning hair around a bald spot made dark by the sun. His hair had turned to gray. One hip was lower than the other, and he had a slight limp. Where his tunic ended I could see how skinny his calves were. My heart grew full for him. I was both relieved and more deeply saddened when he disappeared inside the tent.

  Noah and I continued to sit on the donkey without saying anything while the villagers crept closer. When they were not more than ten cubits away, the donkey began walking. He walked toward them. I squeezed him tightly between my legs and was ready to hold on to my new husband with all my strength if the villagers tried to pull me off. There were no fewer than thirty of them. They moved to form a wall that was two, sometimes three, people deep.

  I had been planning to press my cheek against my husband’s back and close my eyes. I did neither. Though these men had lived near me my whole
life, they had stayed far enough away that I did not recognize their faces. There were men with bulbous noses, long noses, hooked noses, noses with wiry hairs poking out. Men with sun-scorched faces, lips ripped into white flakes by years of taking in the wind that blew from the desert. Numerous wide, scared eyes burned red by sun and sand—or perhaps by the sight of me.

  Noah and I moved slower upon the ass than we would have on our feet. Our slowness seemed to make the mob uncertain. The men in front of us stepped aside.

  Even so, I half expected hands to grab me and pull me from the donkey. A couple of men lunged forward and reached for me. Noah kicked the first one in the leg, sending him backward. I hardened my gaze upon the second one, and he gasped and fell to the ground.

  For the first time, just as I was going away forever, I was wielding my gaze like a sharpened blade, pointing it at their throats.

  “See the evil that pours from the creature’s eyes!” one man said, trying to incite someone braver than himself to grab me.

  A man standing near me with a dagger said, “Let her go. We must turn now to purifying the tent.”

  Though I did not know if my voice would be steady, the crowd’s fear gave me the courage to lean toward the man and whisper so that only he and the men beside him could hear: “If anyone touches Eben, his tent, or his grove, I will impregnate all of your wives with demon children and give the children the same mark that burns upon my brow.”

  The man stumbled back, tongue twisting around words he could not summon the breath to speak.

  Most of those who had dared gaze at me quickly looked away. But a few could not help staring, eyes straining wider with fear, mouths hanging open, watching watching watching as if I might do something truly horrifying and amazing.

  Which I did, by leaving the only person I loved, the only person who loved me.

  As the village faded behind us until I could not make out a single tent, I knew that it was not me, nor even Arrat, my father, or Noah who had sent me on this journey. It was my mark and whatever power had placed it upon me.

  CHAPTER 4