The Sinners and the Sea

by Rebecca Kanner

  “Then the bow of the ark tipped toward the giant, and we were falling face-first into the sea. As we plunged, I gripped the hatch’s handle with my hands. The rest of my body lifted into the air.

  “I had never swum before. I had never even been in water up to my knees. The sea slapped my eyes harder than hands can slap. It entered my nose, mouth, and ears, and filled the inner passages of my body. I could not breathe; there was no room for air.

  “When the ark righted itself, water from the bow spread across the deck. The sea fell from my back, and if I’d had the strength, I would have stood up. But the water in my body did not go anywhere except deeper. My lungs were drowning inside me.

  “Footsteps splashed over the deck. Uncle Ham lifted me and pressed his fingers between my ribs until I gave up enough of the sea to gasp for air. Ham tried to open the hatch and push me down the ramp to the second level, but there was a sudden thwack upon the hull. We were thrown against the wall of the deck where the giant’s hand had hit it. He drew his hand back to strike again.

  “ ‘We mean you no harm,’ I called to him. But the waters and the wind were hurtling us toward him again, and Uncle Japheth gripped a spear that was drawn back as purposefully as the giant’s hand. The giant looked at him with bloodshot eyes and hit us, once more knocking us against the deck wall. Somehow Uncle Japheth kept hold of his spear.

  “ ‘You’ll get us killed,’ Ham yelled.

  “ ‘Is no one else man enough to defend the ark?’ Japheth yelled back. He was as enraged as the giant.

  “ ‘You cannot defend the ark with spears or swords or daggers,’ Noah said. ‘We must pray.’

  “I took my eyes off the giant to look up at the sky. Why do You pit the ark against the nephil? Do You mean to save only him or us?

  “When the giant drew his hand back again, the waters were crashing higher against his chest. He did not know how to swim; there had never been an opportunity to learn. Until the flood, water probably never reached waist-high upon any giant. His great chest was heaving with anger and exhaustion. This time, when he hit us, the sea caught his elbow. Instead of winding back his arm to strike, he reached over the wall of the deck. His fingers were wrinkled prunes of flesh, and they bled where the sea had torn his nails from his body. The fingers were coming down onto the deck. We rushed from their path. All but Uncle Japheth. He bent his knees deep and braced his spear against the deck.

  “Children, you see the lines on your own little palms? They crisscross and form triangles. The lines of the giant’s palm seemed to form a perfect target in the center. This was where Japheth jabbed the spear with all his might.

  “The giant’s lower lip fell so that his huge mouth lay open, yet no sound issued from his throat. A tear big enough to drown any one of you rolled from the outer edge of one eye. He raised his hand up, with the spear stuck through the palm.

  “Japheth kept hold of the spear and was lifted off the deck. He jerked his body around, trying to free the spear. Blood poured not just from the giant’s fingertips but from his palm as well. I yelled at Japheth to let go of the spear. When he didn’t, I grabbed his legs—no easy task, considering the force with which he kicked them. I was lifted from the calf-deep water on deck, almost ten cubits into the air. My weight was not enough to unhook Japheth’s fingers from the spear or the spear from the giant’s palm.

  “He drew his hand back, and Japheth and I dangled over the sea. It smacked up at my feet, then rose to my legs and then to my waist. My tunic tangled around my thighs.

  “ ‘Please,’ I called to the nephil.

  “My father, your great-grandfather, said that Nephilim do not see well, but the giant’s eyes met mine and gripped them despite the tossing of the sea. He lifted his hand higher and raised it above his head to get a better look at me. Japheth flailed his legs. ‘Let go so I can kick him!’ he screamed at me. If I let go, I would fall into the thrashing sea. But I could not keep hold of Japheth’s wet leg as he tried to shake me off.

  “I did not have far to fall. A wave rose up to meet me and carried me with it as it crashed down to rejoin the sea. The cold knocked the breath from my body and seized my heart. The deep pulled me near.”

  I do not tell them that the sea wanted me the way a man wants a woman—I could not rise, I could not breathe.

  “I knocked into something solid, and small enough that my arms could encircle it. The giant’s littlest toe. I tried to travel up along the slant of his foot and climb the hair on his legs. But the sea would not let me, and the sea had become master of everything on earth.

  “You might not believe me, children, and I hope you will never know for yourselves, that the sea’s greatest weapon isn’t its violent crashing or its depth. It is the cold. My mind was losing its sway over my hands.

  “If you have ever been underwater for long, you know it’s as hard to keep your mouth closed as it is to swim through the center of the earth to the other side. Without my permission, my lips unlocked and my jaw stretched wide, seeking air and whatever warmth the air could provide. This time the water did not stop at my lungs. It filled every organ, every space, every passageway, even my veins. The God of Adam is going to let me drown, I thought.

  “I knew I was the least needed of all those God had put on the ark. Noah was the prophet of His word, and our sons and daughters-in-law were tasked with repopulating the world. I could clean and weave. But so could everyone else, even Noah and my sons, if they could bring forth the necessary humility. As for cooking, we had dried meats, dried fruits, and nuts—foods that needed little preparation. Perhaps my rations should have been divided among Noah and the children instead.

  “My body panicked, but my mind was done fighting. Please, keep my sons and daughters-in-law healthy, I said, and spare this giant.

  “Red descended through the swirling sea. The giant’s hand, the one without the spear in it, was coming closer. Then the giant lowered his head into the waters as well. He looked down at me, and our eyes met again. I was too cold to be afraid when he pinched me between his thumb and forefinger, cracking one of my ribs as a man would accidentally crack the shell of a small beetle he picked up, no matter how gentle he was.

  “The giant’s balance was unsteady. Giants are known for stumbling and sometimes taking out whole villages beneath their feet. Yet he was able to bring me toward his face. He began to choke, just as I was. Why has he lowered his head into the sea?

  “A current caught him and smacked him sideways. Without his feet on the ground, he could not regain his balance. Still he pushed me toward the surface. But the sea refused to let me leave. My giant struggled to his feet, his footfalls raising the deep. Sand swirled around us. The sea was growing taller, rising over my giant’s head, but he refused to fall. He lifted me up, and I broke the sea’s surface.

  “Air—there is nothing so delicious in the entire world.

  “The currents grasped him now. They jerked him first in one direction and then another. Still he kept me above the surface of the sea.

  “Ham, Shem, and Herai were pressed against the wall of the deck. Ham and Shem screamed, ‘Mother! Mother!’ My whole body choked on the sea and the cold, and I did not know if I was going to survive, yet I felt a speck of joy to hear my sons calling to me. Ham held one end of a rope and tossed the other end toward me. The wind knocked it back into the ark.

  “He tried again, and again the wind returned the rope to him. I leaned toward the ark, stretched my arms in front of me, and prayed. My giant heard my prayer. We began to move toward the ark. The faces of my family became clearer to me and all seemed to contain the same emotion: hope.

  “As we came within ten cubits, their expressions changed. Though they were happy that I was near, the giant’s arm came near as well, and it would smack against the hull in the next few breaths. My body was trapped in his fingers, but I leaned my head back to signal him to slow down. By this time, though, he had little say where we went. The water climbed higher in search of me. I suddenly kn
ew what the people who had made it to the tops of the trees felt: a breath of utter helplessness, followed by the wailing of a small wild part that refuses to give up.

  “The wailing unleashed itself into my limbs. My mind had taken hold of them again. Even before the water reached me, I began beating my arms as if I could push it back down. My head was not far from the hull, my feet not far from the sea. Both closed in on me. The giant did not let go of me as the sea rushed over my legs and mounted higher to suckle at my breasts. The side of my head knocked against the hull, and I felt what little warmth was left in my body bleed out of the gash in my ear. That gash turned into the scar you see now. My arms and legs stopped moving. As the water rose over my nose, I said good-bye to my family.

  “Then I was buoyed up and tossed skyward. The giant released me into the air. ‘Grab the rope,’ Uncle Ham called down to me. But my hands no longer worked. I was at the mercy of the sea, and the sea has no mercy.

  “God of Adam, before you kill me, please, let me see my family one more time. And then I grasped the rope.

  “A rope burns without flames but burns nonetheless. I did not feel it at the time. I felt the wind and the cold, and the smacking of my body against the hull, and then the hands of my family pulling me over the deck wall. Fingers pressed into my aching ribs, and my stomach heaved and sent up pieces of the sea.

  “ ‘Japheth?’ I asked.

  “ ‘We pulled the fool from the sea, and now he sharpens another spear,’ Ham said.

  “For what? As soon as I wondered this, the giant must have pushed off the bottom of the sea. The surface of the water, already greatly chipped from the rain and heaving in the wind, now shattered. The giant’s hand reached toward us, trying to grasp the wall of the deck. Can the ark keep us and the giant from drowning? That was a question for which I did not have an answer. The side of the ark tipped toward the sea with each attempt the giant made. When he finally gripped the wall, his bloody fingertips touching the deck, Japheth rushed forward and stabbed the giant’s wrist.

  “First with a spear, then with a dagger, then with a sword.

  “The huge hand released the ark. Japheth tried to reclaim his weapons. ‘I command you, let them go,’ Grandpa Noah said. This time Japheth listened. My sons joined together to hoist the giant’s half-lame hand over the wall. The God of Adam must have helped them.

  “Now both of the giant’s hands were wounded. I peered over the wall with what little strength the sea had left me. I saw only waves crashing. When the waters stopped thrashing, I knew they had digested the giant. If they could bring down the nephil, I knew that not only he but all the world outside the ark had been murdered by the sea.

  “I lay down on the deck. The rain was like a stampede, and I wanted it to trample upon my head until I could not feel my heart. For a while I did not want to be awake to witness any more tragedies. I heard someone telling me to get up, then telling someone else to get me up. Then I heard nothing.

  “But children, I must wake now. There are animals to tend and water to bail. I just wanted you to know, in case I do not make it to the new world, of the great giant. He saved my life. He and all of his kind are gone now.

  “Or maybe not. The world is bigger than we can see all at once. Big enough, perhaps, to hide a giant.”

  CHAPTER 35

  LIFE ABOARD THE ARK

  When the sea is rough, you do not wake up in the morning and wonder what to do. You bail water, eat when your stomach allows, and most of all, hold on for dear life. That is, if you are lucky. Or blessed. Often there is no sleep to wake from. Just a long spell of darkness broken only by lightning.

  If there is a chance to catch your breath, that is all you do: breathe. There is no time to worry about the ship you have seen in the distance. Well, not usually. When you do think about it, you wonder if it was your imagination, driven by fear and by hope that the eight people on board the ark are not the only ones left in the world.

  When it is safe to feed the animals—some of which are injured from the force your sons must use to return them to their cages whenever they break out—you feel a flicker of sadness for them. You do not have the energy to feel it much. You are mildly grateful that when your oldest son corrals the animals too violently, your second-born—despite his bloodthirst—stops his older brother’s whip because he fears what the Lord will do if one of the creatures He has chosen to save is killed.

  You see in flashes. You forget how your husband walks or how your children’s expressions change. Only Zilpha seems the same: nearly motionless, calm.

  The one joy God has left in the world is being near Ona when she is on deck and lightning strikes. Her almond-colored eyes are slightly too big for her face, and this awkward, girlish feature makes it hard to look away. We are all in awe of her—all but Shem. Though he grabs at her when she’s nearby, he rarely looks at her. He may not even know that sometimes her eyes turn brown. Her lashes are the longest I have ever seen, shining and black because of the rain. She seems like a creature not altogether human—queen of an unearthly species that is more attractive than ours. One that is more beautiful when wet.

  The rest of us are as pleasing to look at as orphans left overnight in the rain. When we are belowdecks and the rain does not fall upon us, still we are wet. Our bones seem to be made of water; the sea tosses inside our heads. I think I am wet down to my very soul.

  • • •

  After Japheth slaughtered the eighth ram that came to the ark, Noah had him take the beast’s horn. Its sound is the only one that can be heard throughout the ark over the bleating, braying, screaming, and roaring. Noah blows it to call us to the gathering place, on the second level near the lighter beasts, in a corner where a wall half the width of the ark has been erected to create a room that is open on one side. We burn incense to cover the smell of wounded and infected animals, urine, and dung.

  “Not you,” Noah tells Ona one day after sounding the horn. I can see in the dim light from the oil we are burning that her wide eyes are not as wide as they were when our journey began. She’s exhausted, yet still too remarkable to look away from. I suspect that Noah does not want to struggle for our attention. “You will lie on your blankets, so my grandson can take his afternoon nap in a restful belly.”

  No one actually knows whether it is afternoon or midnight. Herai’s moon cycle is our only source by which to tell time. She was bleeding when she boarded the ark, so we will know when one moon has passed.

  Ona’s moons have deserted her. She should have given birth at least two moons before boarding the ark, yet her belly continues to grow. She cannot balance for more than a few steps before reaching for the bars of a cage or one of us—usually Herai—to keep from tumbling to the floor.

  Through the smoke that rises from the oil we are burning, I watch her shuffle away with her hand on the lowest part of her back.

  Ona prefers Herai’s company to all of ours, but Herai is falling into a trance of sorrow. She has stopped pressing against the wall of the deck, eyes trained on the waters below, waiting for lightning to illuminate the people floating upon the sea. There are no more people floating upon the sea. I wonder if I really saw a ship in the distance. No one has mentioned it, and I will not be the first.

  Before Noah begins on whatever it is he wants to tell us, I move to squat next to Herai. My hips pop, and my knees feel like they have swollen to the size of my head. To steady myself, I gently place a hand upon Herai’s leg. Shem pinches his nose. As if he smells any better.

  “Animals—human or otherwise—do not give off a pleasing smell when wet,” I say.

  Noah’s brow furrows. “We are not animals.”

  “Some of us are not,” Ham says. He turns to look up at Japheth, who is standing because he cannot squat with a sword in his belt.

  I let go of Herai and move between Ham and Japheth. Ham pretends to choke on the smell of me. “Mother!”

  I am tired but cannot sleep, starving but too nauseated to eat anything more th
an a few nuts here or there. Every last shard of me aches more deeply with each breath. The gash across my ear, where the side of my head knocked against the hull while the nephil held me, throbs day and night. “How do you expect me to smell when I alone must shovel all of the lighter beasts’ dung?”

  “What sons has the God of Adam saved, who let their mother break her back while they play in the rain?” Noah demands.

  “Father,” Japheth says, “I guard the ark at every—” He was going to say “position of the sun.” But there is no sun.

  “You will shovel no more dung,” Noah says to me. “Ham and Shem, you will help your mother.”

  Ham likes to feed the animals but does not like to deal with what results. Still, I know that if I had asked him for help, he would have taken the shovel from my hand and bent his own back. I hadn’t wanted to trouble him. As he lowers his head in shame—something I have never seen him do—I regret my words.

  We are silent while we wait for Noah to tell us whatever is important enough that no one has been left on deck to guard the ark.

  “We must protect the ark at every breath,” he says.

  “Good idea,” Ham mutters.

  “Neither the sea nor the sinners are done with us.” Noah quickly adds, “God is protecting the ark, but sometimes He does so using our flesh. We must always be ready.”

  Maybe the ark in the distance was not just my imagination. But Noah is nearly blind. How could he have seen it?

  “And we must keep watch for my second cousins,” Zilpha says. “I do not know why they did not come back to board the ark before the flood came, but I can feel that they are still alive. Have you ropes in place for them to climb aboard?” She has not gone on deck since bringing the mammoth to help save Javan and Herai. She does not clean up dung, and she does not help me prepare and serve dried meat and fruit. She is still, except when she feeds and pets the animals. But because she helped save Herai’s life, I do not think there is anything she could do that I would not forgive her for.