The Sinners and the Sea

by Rebecca Kanner

  A naked man raises an arm toward us from where he lies on a raft not much wider than he is. I look closer and see that it is a hatch cover. I also see that he is naked not only of any covering but also of the flesh that holds a man’s skin off his bones. “Please help me,” he calls up to us.

  “How have you survived, brother?” Ham asks.

  “I jumped from my ship.”

  “What ship is that?”

  “The God’s Eye. The captain would have eaten me if I had stayed on board. I would rather be devoured by the sea.”

  Noah leans out over the wall of the deck to peer more closely at the man and his raft. “Where did you get the wood?”

  “He says he jumped from a ship,” I tell Noah, “because he was going to be eaten. He must have taken the wood with him.”

  “You believe him?” Japheth says to me. “Look with your eyes. He is no meal.”

  “How long ago was it you jumped?” Noah asks.

  “Long enough that I am colder than a man can survive for long.”

  “How big is the God’s Eye? How many men, and what weapons have they?” Ham asks.

  “Let me come aboard, and I will tell you everything you want to know and fight beside you when the God’s Eye attacks. I was the fiercest sellsword for leagues in all directions. I have lived all the way until twenty-seven years, and I know I have many more years left with which to serve you.” The man tries to stand but falls forward upon his raft. “I pledge myself to you.”

  “It is the God of Adam to whom you must pledge yourself.”

  If the man does as Noah commands, perhaps Noah will not stop me from taking him onto the ark.

  “I pledge myself to your gods above all the others. I swear my allegiance to them.”

  Close enough. I go to retrieve the rope before Japheth can stop me. But when I reach for it, the ark is smacked by a wave. Then we are hurtling along as if we have a rudder and a place to go.

  “Where are we going?” I cry. But Noah is not looking at where we are going. He is looking back. I do not know why God should wish to put us in one part of the sea instead of another. Is there any difference? The wave that pushes us is like a giant bull, charging ahead with a fly on its nose. We are the fly.

  I search the sea for the man who pledged himself to Noah. He is a spot in the distance behind us, struggling to hold on to his raft in the havoc created by the wave that steers the ark. His struggle is brief.

  I leave the rope on the deck floor and join my boys at the bow.

  “The sinners are not dead yet, and the sea will not go still until it has them,” Japheth says.

  My stomach burns and rises toward my throat. I know he is right. The God of Adam kept me from throwing down the rope. I fear He has displayed them one last time before He drowns them, as a warning to us.

  “After He has dealt with these sinners,” Japheth continues, “the sea will return to its place north of the desert, and we will be back on our land.”

  “Then where is it we are going?” Ham asks.

  “Yes, why would God put us back where He found us when the whole world is free for our use?” Zilpha says. I was so busy looking into the sea that I did not notice her.

  “You would not understand no matter how carefully I explained it,” Japheth replies.

  “I am the daughter of a prophet. You, on the other hand . . .” She looks at Noah.

  He is still gazing back at the sea where the sinners floated. Now no life is visible for as far we can see in all directions, yet the sea screams. It screams with the voices of those it has taken. A tear rolls down Noah’s cheek.

  I go to him, and put my lips against his cold, bony ear. “Husband, do not lose what is left of your command.” But he hears only the cries of the drowned sinners.

  Zilpha turns her gaze back to Japheth. “Your father thought God meant to give people a chance to repent. Mine would have known better.”

  Still, Noah says nothing, which causes me to hate him a little. I want to cry too, and to yell or break something. But I don’t. We cannot give up what little order remains.

  I take a step toward Zilpha. She is the only one I am not forced to look up at. “Kesh is dead. You would be an orphan but for Noah—a drowned one.”

  Japheth rarely laughs, but he does so now. Zilpha does not argue. She stares expressionlessly at me just long enough to make it seem my words have not affected her. Then she moves with much more haste than usual to the wall of the deck. She stands on her toes and tries to peer over. This causes Japheth to laugh even harder. Though Ham and Zilpha have said little and have never touched, she calls to him now, “Husband, can you help me?”

  I hope my favorite son knows better than to do as she asks. She has insulted all of us by disrespecting Noah. “Ham,” I say forcefully. But he gets behind her, puts his hands on her little waist, and lifts her so she can gaze over the deck wall.

  I feel as though someone has turned my weak stomach into a tight fist and set my skull on a cookfire.

  Japheth laughs harder still. I think he is laughing at me as well now. “And you are worse than she is,” I say. “You dare call Noah ‘old man’ in front of your mother and the God of all living creatures.”

  “Now that God has gotten rid of the prideful child’s own father, Noah is her father too,” Japheth says, “and her words were far worse than mine. Do not waste your nattering on me.”

  It is only because of his injury that I do not slap him. “If you do not respect your father and your mother, you are a sinner, and you belong in the sea with the rest of your kind.”

  I have never spoken so sharply to him. His eyes bulge, and I think I have wounded him. But I will not take back my words or the feeling behind them. I turn away from him.

  Behind us, where the sinners were, the God of Adam has turned the sea into a swirling blade. The remaining sinners are drawn under. Though they scream, surely they must also feel some relief.

  CHAPTER 43

  MANOSH

  Have mercy upon us.

  During the night, the wave broke apart, rushing away to either side of us. Now the sea rests. Is it digesting all it has consumed, or is God pausing while He decides what to do next?

  Noah’s crying roils my stomach. He is not crying out to God, he is just crying.

  Dry up the fountains of my husband’s eyes. Do not show us the fate of any more sinners. Please.

  But God is choosy when He sifts through our prayers. Or perhaps the man who approaches through the gray light is not a sinner. Even hunched, with his back to us, he looks huge. He floats on bodies even larger than his. Bodies swollen with death gas.

  As he comes closer, I see that he has tied planks to his arms with lengths of tunic. He is trying to row with both arms, but only the left plank moves with any force through the sea. I do not know what ties his right arm to his torso other than skin. It hangs lifelessly over the bodies of his raft, the plank dipping only a hand’s length into the sea. His raft moves in curves as his left arm rudders and rows, rudders and rows.

  When he is no more than thirty cubits away, he rows without ruddering and turns to face us.

  I recognize him, though he looks older than his six hundred years. His wet tunic reveals both his strength and his mortality. The muscles in his left arm bulge like a mercenary’s, but loose-hanging folds of flesh on his chest and neck are no longer hidden by his beard, which has been turned by the sea into one thin long rope that he has thrown over his shoulder.

  His bare feet are pressing against the cradles of his cousins’ necks. His back is bent. He is tired.

  Still, he comes closer, in small arcs made by the strokes of his left arm. After each stroke, he leaves the plank in the sea to maintain his course toward us. It seems to me as though he comes more quickly than these efforts could bring him. As though the bodies beneath him are rowing as well.

  They are faceup, the breadth of their shoulders making one side of the raft wider than the other. Their eyes are closed as if in concentrati
on.

  “Husband,” Zilpha says, “please lift me higher. I want him to see me above all else.”

  “I see you, daughter of the great prophet.” I know the prophet Manosh speaks of is not Noah.

  “He would kill his own cousins in order to float upon them?” Japheth says of Manosh as if he were not close enough to hear.

  “At least, dear Japheth,” Ham replies, “they are not his brothers.”

  Without taking his eyes off the sea, Shem says, “Bodies do not float until they are already drowned for a day.”

  A miracle—my sons are speaking to each other, however harshly, and Noah has stopped crying. For a couple of breaths, despite the approaching raft of bodies, all is well.

  Then Noah presses against the wall of the deck and leans out toward Manosh, as if this will keep his cousin from coming any closer. “You cannot come aboard,” he says. “Only me, my sons, and our wives will voyage to the new world.”

  Zilpha writhes out of Ham’s hands and runs awkwardly—veering slightly one way and then the other—toward the rope. I wonder if it is the first time she has ever run. Japheth easily arrives at the rope first. He waits until she grasps it to bring his foot down on it. She turns to Ham. “Husband.”

  It is unsettling to see my youngest son, the one who always knows to do the right thing, not know what the right thing is. He does not move.

  “I cannot climb into the lumber I chopped from my own lands and dragged hundreds of leagues across the desert to bring you, cousin?” Manosh asks.

  “Lands you stole—”

  “What is the difference between stealing and conquering?”

  “—and lumber that was not yours to give.”

  “Yet you took it.”

  “God told me I must.”

  Manosh continues rowing toward us. He is only about ten cubits away. “He told me I must see that my little cousin is well.”

  “She is sheltered, fed, and does little work.”

  “Good. She must save herself for bearing sons.”

  Zilpha lets go of the rope. “I am a prophetess, sons or no.”

  Manosh takes hold of two large hooks lying beside him. He flinches as he raises his injured right arm to show them to us. “Throw me the rope, or I will do what I need to in order to climb aboard.”

  Though Ham looks long at the rope, he does not take hold of it, and soon Manosh’s hooks sound against the hull. He climbs. He has more strength than a young man. Perhaps even more than one of the Nephilim. I am certain that no man who can climb an ark with only one good arm will exist in the new world. God no longer trusts men enough to build them so powerful.

  His hooks are puncturing the hull loudly enough that even Noah must hear. “The ark—” I begin. But I do not have to warn Noah that Manosh’s hooks are damaging the hull.

  “Send down the rope,” Noah commands.

  Ham moves toward the rope, but I stop him. Noah may send someone to see if the ark needs patching, and I do not want anyone to discover Herai. “Not you, Ham—Shem can throw the rope over. You go to the first level and patch.”

  “My great beast!” Zilpha says. She runs, slightly less awkwardly this time, to the hatch and disappears. Japheth hurries after her.

  Manosh drags his body against the hull, struggling to bring his immense weight ever higher up the rope. The raft of his cousins does not linger below; it drifts away from the ark. Manosh cannot retreat.

  Ham does not go to patch the ark. He and Shem watch Manosh in silence. I do not know what they will do when he reaches the wall of the deck.

  The wind begins to blow. Soon it howls against the hull where Manosh climbs, so it seems as though it were coming from him. Whenever he looks up to work his hands higher up the rope, I stare into his open mouth as if I could will the air from his lungs. I back away from the wall as he nears the top.

  Behind me, I hear footsteps approaching. I turn around. Japheth is coming across the deck holding one arm across Zilpha’s chest, his knife at her throat. Zilpha does not struggle. The knife has been dulled by the blood and flesh upon it.

  “This is one of the three girls who must bear all the children of the new world,” I yell at Japheth. “Take your knife from her throat and let us hope you have not harmed her too greatly.”

  Ham takes a sword from Shem’s belt.

  “My knife is closer to her throat than your sword is to mine,” Japheth says.

  Ham hesitates, then sets the sword down. “The God you once feared will not look kindly upon you if you do not let go of my wife.”

  “You should have pretended to believe in Him earlier than this,” Japheth replies. “Your timing is not very convincing.”

  I move to stand by Ham. I do not want any more harm to come to Zilpha, but I am more concerned for my son. I hope I am strong enough to stop him from doing something foolish.

  Manosh hoists himself onto the deck wall. He swings his leg over, long toes pointed, searching for the floor. He breathes heavily through his mouth.

  “Stop,” Japheth says.

  Manosh looks at my son, my least favorite son, the one I did not love as much as the others. The one I have let lose an ear. Manosh looks at him and goes still.

  “Get back in the sea,” Japheth says.

  Zilpha gazes through Manosh as if she does not see him. He is a sight. He balances atop the deck wall, the loose flesh of his neck shaking as if the ark still tossed in the storm. He gasps for air. He must see what I see when I look at my son: a hunger for others’ terror. A desperation for it that might make killing the daughter of a prophet the easiest way to become what he has always wanted to be: a feared man.

  But I do not know if Japheth is willing to risk God’s wrath by killing Zilpha. Manosh does not chance it. He lets go of the wall. There is a splash, and the sound belongs not so much to Manosh as to Zilpha.

  Japheth lowers the knife, and Zilpha steps forward. As she goes to the wall, I see no cuts upon her.

  “Husband,” she commands.

  Ham picks her up. The sea is rippling lightly, and she watches until it goes still.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  Ham might assume she is speaking to him, but I know it is not Ham she is thanking. A great man was willing to die for his belief in her bloodline. How can we not believe a little ourselves?

  CHAPTER 44

  THE POWER OF THE MARK II

  When my family has returned into the ark, still I stay near the deck wall. I gaze at the water below, the water into which Manosh has disappeared along with Javan, her brutes, the people of Sorum, the traders I served goat stew and lentils, and everyone from the village where I was born. The flames of those who once called for me to be brought from my father’s tent have been put out for good.

  Can we truly be the last ones left? I turn in a circle, looking across the water, straining to see to the ends of the earth. It seems the ark is the only raft that has made it through the storm. My mark has brought me shame, humiliation, hatred, and, I realize, life. Each event that I had thought was a horrible consequence of being marked—the villagers calling for my blood and Noah coming to take me to the last town on earth I wanted to live in—was bringing me another step closer to salvation. Salvation hidden in a cloak of near-ruin.

  The mark has saved me.

  The mark has saved me.

  And not only has it saved me, it has given me three boys who did not drown when all the other mothers’ sons did. It has made me mother of all those who will come after me.

  I reach up and tear the scarf from my head. I hold it over the sea, and then I am done holding it. It floats from my fingertips to the water below.

  • • •

  The next time Noah sounds the horn two short and one long blast, I wait so that I will be the last one to walk into the gathering place. Then I walk carefully, head tilted to the right so they can all see my mark. If anyone says anything about it or looks too long, I will tell them, “This is why each one of you is here. It is our raft. All but Noah
owes his life to this mark.”

  “Mother,” Shem says without looking at me. He says it more to Noah than to me. My sons and Zilpha are waiting with their bowls in their hands, eager for Noah to notice that I am nearing so he will dole out rations. They do not even notice that I do not wear my head scarf.

  Once Noah has given everyone a portion of lentils and dried lamb, we squat and stare over our bowls at one another. Shem’s eyes come to rest upon the mark, but it is almost as if he does not see it. For a moment I wonder if somehow my head scarf floated up out of the water and fastened itself back over my brow.

  Japheth does not dare look too long at it. He glances at it and then quickly away.

  Noah does not notice. Ham smiles and then goes back to eating. Zilpha is the only one who speaks. “You have never needed to hide it from me.”

  Later, when I go to see Herai, she touches it. When she takes back her hand, her eyes remain upon my brow. It feels good to have someone gaze upon the mark with simple, innocent curiosity, then smile, as if thanking me for the chance to see something new.

  But for all except Herai, the mark is not the true object of curiosity aboard the ark. Zilpha is.

  CHAPTER 45

  PROPHETESS

  Even Noah is a little bit afraid of Zilpha. He squints his old eyes at her as if there is something he must figure out. Japheth pretends to be unaffected by Manosh’s sacrifice, but he does not ever turn his back to Zilpha, though the flesh upon his knife was not hers. He killed the mammoth—both of them, really, since one of any beast is worthless to the new world.

  My boys labor to get the grieving female on deck so that she will be easier to dispose of than the male, who had to be cut into pieces and thrown overboard. We had salt enough to save part of one flank. I do not know if I can bring myself to eat it.

  With the female at the edge of the deck, quietly waiting to die, Japheth seems suddenly unsure.