The Sinners and the Sea

by Rebecca Kanner

  Still I worried. What if the God of Adam did not keep up His vigil over Noah? Though I did not always like my husband—in fact, I rarely liked him—I could not help but love him. He had taken a marked woman for a wife and given her a home and three sons.

  I gathered together provisions for him while he readied the same donkey we had ridden across the delta eighteen years before. The animal was even lazier and more densely covered in flies. He had outlived many people of the town. He was over a hundred years old.

  “Perhaps you should seek out a younger animal,” I suggested.

  “The Lord will leave the animal here on earth for me to use as long as I live.”

  “If that is so, husband, I fear you do not have much longer.”

  “Hush.”

  One of the vultures circling above screeched. Is my sight warped by fear, or are they flying lower than usual? “Don’t go,” I said.

  “Be righteous, wife. See to the uprightness of our sons.”

  The donkey was on his feet but would not move. He might have guessed at the journey to come by the weight of the saddlebags. He hung his head as if praying.

  “Please, husband.”

  “The sooner I go, the sooner I return.”

  As if the animal understood Noah’s words, he began walking.

  • • •

  That evening Javan appeared at the tent’s door flap. “Where is he?”

  I did not reply at once.

  “Where’s Noah?” she asked.

  “On a mission from the God of Adam.”

  “He has gone to find a wife for Shem, hasn’t he? It is too late for Herai.”

  I was afraid that what Javan said was true. I did not wish for my sons to take wives and leave our tent.

  “She is more suited to Japheth, anyway,” Javan said. “He is a handsome one, with all those little points of light in his brown eyes. He should have a good woman by his side, and a mother-in-law who makes grown men tremble with fear. Otherwise, some man might think to have your son for himself.”

  Ham came up behind Javan and hit her lightly on the backside. Without looking, she grabbed his wrist, then turned around to twist his arm so that he fell to his knees.

  “Hello, beautiful,” Ham said. “Good to see you.”

  She released his wrist. “You will never know how good it is to see me,” she said, “because I am too old to show you.”

  “What is the rough spot that nearly cut my hand on your rump, if not a ground sore from all the time spent on your back?”

  He was flattering her. I doubted any man had wanted to climb on top of her since she fought for the three boys who were born all at once. She was too scarred.

  “Take a closer look,” she said, grabbing Ham’s head and pressing it toward her flank. “See how old it is.”

  “Please!” I rushed forward, thinking of Noah’s command to take care of the uprightness of our sons—a cruel task to have given me. It would have taken at least three of me to keep our boys out of trouble.

  Javan let go of Ham. As she often did, she went from jesting to serious in less than a breath. “I have come to tell you I’m gathering a dowry,” she told me. “Our families will make a lucky match.”

  “If Herai’s luck gets her Shem or Japheth for a husband,” Ham said, “I cannot think of anyone luckier. Except perhaps all those who have died of plague.”

  “Dip your tongue in dung,” Javan said. “Herai and I are lucky—her to be a virgin and me to be alive. If we merge my families’ luck with yours, the offspring will be more powerful than any who have come before.”

  “Herai is too good for either of my brothers.” He said it without his usual playfulness.

  “For Shem, perhaps,” Javan said. “She will marry Japheth.”

  “Japheth?” Ham said. “She would be better off marrying my father’s donkey. He is less haughty and attracts fewer flies.”

  “Japheth has the musk of a man,” Javan said. “It is fortunate that so far it has attracted only flies and not other men.”

  “The only man Japheth cares for is Father,” Ham said. “In fact, the only person he cares for at all is Father.”

  “Do not worry, son. Herai is not going to marry Japheth.”

  “You will change your mind when you see the dowry,” Javan said.

  “I am just a woman, and a nameless one at that,” I said, unable to keep the anger from my voice. “It is not my mind that matters.”

  Javan came to stand so close to me that the pink gash running the length of her face was not more than a hand’s width from my nose. “You can wait for a name,” she said, “or make one for yourself.”

  Make one for myself? This had never occurred to me. I wanted a name almost as badly as I wanted the mark to disappear from my brow. And there was no one I would rather have as a daughter-in-law than Herai. But could I marry a son off without Noah’s blessing?

  “Perhaps you do not have the courage,” Javan said. She spat on the ground near my feet. “I will need some sustenance for my journey back into town.”

  I hurried to get Javan some dried goat meat—something she could take with her. I wished for her to leave before she filled me with any more silly ideas.

  “Good-bye,” I said as I placed the meat into her greedy hands.

  Half a moon later, I awakened to sounds of stamping and snorting. I got up and lifted the door flap. No fewer than five donkeys stood roped together in the road. My boys came up behind me. I stepped out of the tent, and they followed.

  Now I could see that they were not donkeys but mules. Herai was stroking the muzzle of the first one.

  “Herai’s dowry,” Javan announced.

  “Mother?” Shem said. I turned around to look at him. He was staring steadily at the ground, and I knew he was going to say something I did not want to hear. “I cannot marry Herai. I am already married.”

  “No,” I said as if I could keep it from being true. “No, you are not.”

  “A mistake, but it cannot be undone,” he said. Then he buried his head in his hands.

  This angered me as much as the fact that he had done something so stupid in the first place. I grabbed his hands and tore them from his face. It was trouble of his own making, and he would have to face it.

  “It was a mistake, indeed,” Javan said. “You have ruined Ona and must buy her from me now. She says she is with child.”

  Upon hearing this news, I did something I had never done before: I smacked my son hard across the face. “Your father has gone to fetch you a wife. How will you afford more than one?”

  “These mules . . .” Shem said. He started to cry.

  “Has she any family?” I asked Javan.

  “Ona’s mother is a whore with almond-colored eyes that she no longer bothers to ring with kohl. She is the one whose beauty stilled my sword when I traveled through town avenging the three boys born all at once. I could not waste the girl’s value on death. Yet her value was as fleeting as a shadow at dusk. There is not a drop of sweetness on her tongue, and she does not fear my fists. No man will suffer her insults more than once. Her daughter is even more beautiful and now even more worthless.”

  I turned again to Shem, and he stumbled back. “Your father will punish us both for this. Get the girl and bring her here for me to look at. We will bathe her and make sure she holds her tongue tighter than”—I was thinking of Javan and Ham—“some.”

  Javan turned her attention to Japheth and pointed toward Herai. “This girl is already clean, and she comes with five mules.”

  “What will we do with five mules?” Japheth asked. “And what will I do with a slow girl too old to bear me many sons?”

  “You will figure out what to do with a girl as quickly as any man does,” Javan said. “Though perhaps not as quickly as your brother.”

  “I do not want her,” Japheth said. “Even if her father were a good man—which he is not, for he laid with you—she would still be half evil.”

  “Then what is your brother
? Is he not also evil for impregnating one of my hardest-working whores? I admire the strength of his seed in overcoming the herbs the girl was given, but he has cost me enough goods to supply a small army.”

  “She is not your whore,” Shem said. But he did not say it with much conviction.

  “Then whose is she?” Javan asked.

  “If she is so hardworking, then how do you know the child is Shem’s?” I demanded.

  “Ona used to be hardworking. But for the past few moons, Shem has come to her almost every day, and she threatens to cut her face when I bring another man to her. Her face is even more valuable to me than her body. Men come from many leagues in all directions to see it.”

  Japheth sneered, and I feared Ham would say something cruel. But no one said anything; to the east, a spot on the horizon was slowly coming closer. So slowly that I knew it must be Noah on his donkey.

  “I will sell these mules in five days,” Javan threatened.

  No one responded. My boys and I were straining to see if Noah had anyone with him. I did not take my eyes off of him, even when I heard Javan hitting the mules’ flanks, followed by the heavy clomp-clomp-clomp of their hooves against the ground.

  “You see how well trained they are,” she called. I glanced around to look for Herai and was sorry to see her leaving with her mother. Though perhaps it was best that she did not stay to witness Noah’s fury when I told him of Shem’s new wife. If I were going to insist that Noah allow one of our sons to marry Herai, this was not a good way to begin.

  Shem alternated putting his head in his hands with looking up in despair. Perhaps that made it seem to him as if Noah were approaching at a decent pace. I no longer had the heart to deny him this indulgence. I secured my head scarf and started walking out to meet Noah. Japheth and Ham followed.

  From the slight angle at which I approached, I could see a little leg behind Noah’s. “The good Lord has provided,” Noah said. His voice contained the same certainty as when he had set out on his journey.

  “Provided what?” Ham asked him.

  “First son’s wife.”

  The little leg belonged to a little girl. She was short, or perhaps she looked that way because she was hunched over. And unless her dowry were small enough to fit in a saddlebag, there wasn’t one.

  “How old?” Ham asked.

  The girl did not wait for Noah to answer. “Twelve!” she said. Her voice was not that of a girl. As they got closer, I could see that her face wasn’t either. She was perhaps the oldest woman I had ever seen.

  “Husband,” I said. “I must speak with you.”

  “Speak.”

  “Alone, please, husband.”

  “When we are home,” he said.

  What felt like a whole moon later, yet before the donkey came to a stop, the little woman started to struggle down from the animal’s back. She did not look like she had enjoyed many meals lately. Her skin was slack not only from age but also from the lack of flesh inside it. “Let me help you, Father,” she said to Noah.

  But for him, it was no great distance to the ground, and he stepped off easily. He was tired and hungry and seemed to have forgotten that I wanted to talk to him.

  After I prepared a stew, we squatted around the cookfire to eat it. My sons and I stared at the little woman crouched next to Shem. Her name was Leah. She ate large amounts and somehow managed to smile as she did so.

  “Let us retire before the sun does,” Noah said. “First wife and I are tired from our travels.”

  Seeing that I was not going to be alone with Noah, I asked him, “Husband, where will Leah sleep?”

  “On Shem’s sleeping blanket.”

  “Where will Shem sleep?”

  “He will sleep on his blankets as well.”

  “Father,” Shem said, “I must speak to you.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “I do not think it can wait.”

  “Son, cannot you see that I am tired?”

  • • •

  I left the cookfire burning bright and tied the window’s goatskin covering off to the side; I didn’t want to leave Shem and Leah in the dark together. On my sleeping blanket, I did not shut my eyes. I kept raising myself upon my elbow to peer over Ham and Japheth at Shem.

  Shem was on his side facing me, with Leah behind him. Her withered hand was draped, unmoving, over Shem’s neck. Shem stared back at me with horror-filled eyes.

  “Mother,” Ham said, “I cannot sleep with your goat’s breath hanging over my head like a stink cloud.”

  Japheth slammed his palm on the ground and sat up. “Father! Father, wake up! Shem has impregnated a whore and now lies next to another woman!”

  Noah stirred and opened one eye.

  “I am sorry, Father!” Shem said. “I do not know how it happened.”

  Ham laughed.

  Noah opened his other eye. Both were wide with fear as he sat up. “Be quiet, or God will hear you!” He seemed more scared than angry. I would have thought I’d be happy to know that he was capable of feeling something besides anger and righteousness, but the fear in his voice rushed into my heart. He glanced around as if someone might be sneaking up on us. “Middle son will marry Leah. We will not speak of any of this again.”

  “Husband,” I said quietly, “there is much to discuss.”

  I looked back at Leah. She was sitting up behind Shem, but at Noah’s words, she rose and stepped over Shem. I held Shem’s gaze so that he would not glance upward as she crossed over him.

  “Husband,” Leah said in greeting as she lowered herself down behind Japheth, bracing her hand against his shoulder. He didn’t respond. Perhaps he was thinking that five mules would not have been such a horrible dowry.

  Noah laid his head down again, said, “Sleep well,” and closed his eyes.

  I stared at him until he opened one eye. “Good night, husband,” I said. “We will speak tomorrow.”

  • • •

  In the morning we were all more exhausted than we had been the night before. This was when Noah announced that the world was ending.

  “The people have not heeded my words,” he said. “They have neither changed their ways nor repented of their sins.”

  We were crouched around the cookfire, eating millet porridge and barley cakes. As his words were no great revelation to us, we continued to slurp and chew. Noah must have realized he needed to speak more plainly. “The Lord has seen man’s wickedness on earth and has decided to destroy him.”

  Was this what Noah had been speaking of the night before he went to find a wife for Shem, when he had leaned his head back against the date tree, raised his face to the heavens, and said, “Then it is settled”? Perhaps he truly had gone mad.

  “Which man?” Shem asked anxiously.

  “All men, my son. The sky will rain down on us with all God’s fury for forty days and forty nights. We must make an ark of gopher wood, covered inside and out with pitch, so that we alone may be spared.”

  “You need some rest, my good husband,” I said. “You have had a long journey and are overtired.”

  “We cannot rest. There is not time.”

  No one moved except Leah, who set down her bowl.

  “Where will we go?” Japheth finally asked.

  “Wherever the Lord chooses for us to go.”

  “How big is this ark?”

  “Three hundred cubits long, fifty across, and thirty high.”

  Ham laughed. No one else joined in.

  “How will we carry it to the sea?” Japheth asked.

  “God will gather up all of the seas into His arms and rain them down over the whole Earth.”

  In the silence that followed, I aged many years. Finally, Ham said, “I think I will take my chances here on land, Father.”

  “There will be no land other than that below the great depths of the sea.”

  “Husband, what of our land and our herd?”

  “After the sea washes away everyone else, we will have all the land in the
world.”

  All the land in the world.

  “How big is the world?” Japheth asked.

  I had never wondered before, though now that Japheth asked, I needed to know. I felt I could not breathe until I did.

  Noah would neither lie nor admit that he did not know. We sat in silence until he said, “First son, bring your wife to me.” He turned to Ham. “In my travels, I have found a wife for you as well. She will arrive within a few days.”

  Leah had looked shocked about the end of the world, but as Noah spoke, her thin lips pulled taut around a toothless grin. I feared who Noah had chosen for Ham.

  “She needn’t,” Ham told Noah. “I will find my own wife.”

  “It is already done,” Noah said.

  • • •

  Shem wasted no time in setting off for town. I doubted he would hasten back. Even Japheth did not hurry to help his father. Out of the corners of my eyes, I watched Noah squatting in the dirt, drawing with a stick. He was drawing the ark that we did not have tools or timber to build. Leah lay nearby. She had fallen asleep on the patch of ground where she’d eaten.

  “I need a better wife,” Japheth said quietly.

  “We will speak to your father after he has gotten some rest,” I said.

  I went in to clean the tent. As I swept around the sleeping blankets, Ham came to stand beside me. “Mother,” he said, gesturing toward where Noah squatted outside the tent, “I think we have lost him.”

  I hoped it was only Noah we had lost. I could withstand losing a husband but not a son.

  That night Shem did not return. After Noah, Japheth, Leah, Ham, and I laid our heads down on our sleeping blankets, I felt a hand upon my shoulder. I recognized the inadvertent roughness of the touch. “Yes, husband?”

  “First son.”

  “He must be having trouble finding his wife.”

  “He must repent, or we cannot take him with us.”

  “He said he was sorry.”

  “Yet where is he now?”

  “Finding—”

  “He must repent.”

  Noah rolled away. My heart started to race, and I could not force my eyes to close.

  In the middle of the night, I heard shuffling, and I rejoiced that Shem had returned. Thank you, God of Adam and all other gods! But the shuffling moved off the sleeping blankets, and I knew it was not Shem that I heard. Pot covers were lifted and set down upon the ground. A couple of nuts were dropped, and dried fruit was sifted through. I did not move or speak.