The Sinners and the Sea

by Rebecca Kanner

  “Tell me, wife, how far down the trees can you see?”

  I put my lips near his ear. “All the way.”

  He turns to me. I do not wait for him to voice his question. “Below us is a valley with a clear running stream. It is surrounded by trees whose branches must be very strong to hold up their many fruits. The only thing missing from the valley is—”

  “Us.”

  We let everyone else leave the ark first. Ham wants to stay and help us down the ladder, but I do not know what good that will do. “Stand below with your arms out,” I tease him, “as that is the direction we will fall.” He climbs to the bottom and stands there looking up at us. His brothers stand with him. Surely they are eager to explore the new world, yet there they are.

  Noah insists I go first. My grip has grown weak, and my hips and knees do not bend easily. I was a younger woman when I climbed in.

  I do not quite believe it when my foot touches the earth. I put a little weight on it, press down to make sure the ground is solid. Then I put the other foot down.

  “Finally, we are home,” I say.

  Once Noah is on the ground beside me, I shoo away my sons and daughters-in-law. Ona is too unsteady with whatever is still growing inside her to refuse Shem’s help. Noah and I wait for what feels like a very long time until they are far enough away. Then we lean against each other and walk slowly down into the valley. He is sturdy, and my eyes and ears are keen. Together it seems we are half dying and half in the prime of our lives.

  Midway down the mountain, I stop. “Husband, lift your foot.” He lifts first one foot and then the other so I can bend stiffly to free his gnarled feet from his sandals. Then I free my own. The grass is long and damp. It tickles. It is wonderful. Our sons are men now; they can take care of us. This land will be easy to prosper in. Our herds will grow very happy and fat while we relax in our tent.

  “Our work is done, is it not, husband?”

  “Almost.”

  I ask what is left, but he does not answer.

  After drinking from the stream, we recline together on opposite sides of an apricot tree. Our sons are chasing the animals from the ark. When all the others have run or been chased from the ark, they unlatch the larger beasts’ cages. Barking, howling, roaring, screaming, panting, and an earthshaking stampede echo through the valley. A little monkey flies from a nearby tree into a branch right above me, showering me with apricots. A pair of gazelles passes close enough that I feel a rush of air across my legs.

  I am not afraid. God has brought me all this way; I am not going to die from falling apricots or a gazelle’s hoof. I put one of the apricots in my mouth. It is the sweetest, softest one I have ever eaten. “Husband, we are in paradise.”

  He is silent, so I turn to him and say it again. When still he does not respond, I ask him if he is well.

  “Yes. I was just hoping He would leave me a little sight with which to see it.”

  • • •

  It is quieter at night with the animals dispersed through the valley. Though Ona’s gasp is not loud, it wakes me. I get a lantern and hurry past the sleeping bodies of Zilpha, Herai, and little Javan.

  I find her on all fours, with her legs spread apart. I gently touch her shoulder. “You are not alone, daughter.” I do not think she hears me. What looks like a large mass of dark fur is trying to get out of her.

  Now my heart beats not only from fear but also from hope. The fur is hair—black hair with little wisps of purple. The last giant. A nephil has managed to sneak past the all-seeing eye of God.

  We will need to cut Ona open in order to save her and the giant. I get my knife and hold it over the fire we leave burning night and day.

  My gentlest son is also the one with the steadiest hand. He does not want to hurt anyone, and this stills his knife. So I choose my words carefully when I wake him. “Your brother’s wife is dying. Only you can save her.”

  I place the handle of the knife in Ham’s hand. He curses and then stands.

  Ona has not been able to lie on her back in many moons; the weight inside her is too great. She groans as I force her down on her side. But then I think of her heart and everything else that is inside her besides the child. In this position, it might spill out. “We must put her on her back.”

  Ham helps me lift and push her stomach so it is sitting on top of her. She gasps for air as the weight crushes down upon her.

  “This will be quick,” I promise.

  Ham moves the blade deftly over Ona’s belly, and her flesh falls open behind it. The bloody giant appears and rolls wetly off to one side. I see that he did not escape God’s eye. To keep the giant from growing too powerful, God has given him a clubfoot.

  But it is not God’s eye that I am marveling at. I am remembering what my father told me about the Nephilim not being able to see well, and how that gave me hope that I might be loved by one of them. Now I see my father was wrong: If one of the Nephilim sought out Ona, the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, then surely they can see. And yet one fought the floodwaters to save me, despite the mark upon my brow.

  “We will take care of Ona while you wash him,” Ham says. I notice Herai and Zilpha have joined us, bringing blankets and a small amount of water with which to tend Ona. They stare in shock at the little giant.

  The baby wears a matted tunic of blood and is as big as a six-year-old; I cannot carry him. I go to get some water. While I wash him, I gaze into his eyes. They are Ona’s eyes, except they are not yet ringed with long black lashes. If she does not survive, I will try to live long enough to raise this child myself.

  CHAPTER 50

  SHAHAR

  Ona does live. Though her body is slow to mend, and even sewn together, her skin does not fit her very tightly, she is full of joy. She sings to her child, Elam. She makes up songs about his father, a great giant who, she sings, must have been unlike any man she has ever known.

  I did not see you that night, my love, but I see you now, see you in our son’s strong arms and sweet face, and always in my dreams . . .

  I do not acknowledge Shem’s scowls while she sings. Or Japheth’s. One of the comforts of getting older is that I can pretend I do not notice anything unpleasant until I do not need to pretend. My eyes and ears can hold only so much, and they are full of bright-colored birds and trees so fat with fruit that their branches threaten to break.

  The raven has surprised us all by returning. The dove as well. Her feathers are as white as they were before the flood, as white as the occasional cloud that floats by in the sky. “We must make her a nest,” Zilpha told Ham. The dove quickly filled it. Doves usually have only one or two hatchlings, but she has produced three. They coo day and night. If I were in mourning over something, their cooing might sound like a lament. But I am not in mourning. And so it seems to me that we are all quite happy. All except Noah.

  Our sons have erected a sleeping tent for Noah and me, which Ham and Zilpha will share with us until she gets her woman’s blood. But more often than not, Noah spends the night outside, under stars whose light is the last thing left in this world that he can see. His donkey has survived the journey to the new world and sometimes is with him.

  One night I find Noah leaning against the trunk of the apricot tree, his donkey resting nearby.

  “Husband,” I say into his ear, “you must sleep.”

  “It is hard for me to sleep without the sounds of the sea or the sinners.”

  “If you listen, there are crickets, frogs, and doves singing, croaking, and cooing all night.”

  “Not loudly enough for me to hear them.”

  “I will rub your feet until you drift away.”

  “Can you rub away all I have done in order to bring us here?”

  I pull back to look at him. He is slumped against the tree as though he might fall backward if it were to disappear. His eyelids are heavy. I do not know whether he speaks of how he did not stop Manosh’s beast from trampling sinners, or how he had Japheth lure the slave w
oman off the ark to her death, or of how he refused Manosh a place upon the ark.

  “You have only done what God has asked of you.”

  “Perhaps if I had not lost faith in the sinners, God would not have given up on them.”

  He does not want to be comforted. He keeps the sinners close to him with his sadness. There is nothing for him to do in the new world but mourn.

  • • •

  I see him early one morning on the peak of the smallest mountain. He stands tall, waving his arms out to either side, making his tunic billow in the wind. He seems more alive than he has been since crying out to the sinners one last time before God drowned them.

  I hurry up to him as fast as I can, which is not very fast. Long before I reach the peak, he has dropped his arms to his sides and his head to his chest.

  Panting, I come to stand beside him. His eyes are closed. “What is it?” I ask.

  “I thought I had found a village of sinners who had survived. I heard their shouts, screams, and copper swords clashing. Women were laughing in the flesh tents. I saw their dark mass below me. I shouted at them as I used to, so loudly that I used up all the air in my lungs.” He breathes as if catching the air before it can escape again. “Wife, do you know what I thought?”

  “You are tired, good husband. You should rest.”

  “I thought, This time I can save them.”

  He opens his eyes and gazes to where he saw the sinners. The milky film in his eyes has stretched across the brown of both irises. “But the village was only a shadow cast by a cloud. The sun burned through it.”

  “Do not be sad, husband—”

  “Yet if I look hard enough, I still see them there.” His pupils shift slightly behind the white film.

  I move to stand beside him. I squint until I see them too.

  There is Javan, talking with her hired boys near one of her flesh tents. Outside other tents, whores are calling at passersby—cajoling, flattering, and insulting them. There is screaming, shouting, and laughter. Pain, elation, anticipation.

  I take Noah’s hand as best I can with the stiffness that has spread from my hips and knees to my whole body. Together we stand on the mountain peak and watch the sinners.

  • • •

  Often he is quiet, and I know he is thinking of them.

  • • •

  “Get!” Ham yells, and hurtles a rock into the sky. The vultures have been circling above me for many days now.

  “Careful, son. There are only two.”

  “And only one of you.”

  I feel like a vine so twisted that it is being cut by its own thorns. “Walk me to Herai,” I say. I am giving the next generation my blessing, and I have left Herai for last.

  Herai is caring for the boys while Ona tends the cookfire. The birds’ shadows loop around ours as Ham brings me to the Mothers’ Tent. He lifts the door flap, and I walk in. Elam lies beside Herai on the blanket, pulling at one of her ears. The purple in his dark hair is shining in the sunlight coming through the tent window. If my fingers were still agile, I would tickle his belly, as I did my sons’.

  “Daughter,” I say, “I have come to give you my blessing. And ask you a question.”

  Her smile broadens. Little Javan is at her breast, but she offers me her arm anyway as I lower myself down beside her. “Mwahfah,” she says.

  I brush the bottom of Javan’s tiny foot with my hand, which causes him to scrunch and unscrunch his toes. Herai marvels at this before returning her gaze to mine.

  “There is something I have wondered for as long as I have known your mother.”

  Both of Herai’s hands are holding her son. I press my palm as best I can to the back of one of them. “How did she get the X upon her forehead?”

  Herai’s smile falls away. She sets Javan down, and for once he does not cry. He looks into his mother’s face, confused at being taken from her breast while he is still hungry. She does not pick him up again.

  “Do not be troubled, daughter. I already know your mother killed as many men as any mercenary. What could be worse?”

  Herai’s hands remain at her sides.

  “Unburden your shame. I will not be around so much longer, and then you will have lost your chance.”

  “Mwee,” she says.

  I had never considered this. If Herai had not been slow, Javan never would have been exiled, and Herai would not be here now. Just as I would not be here if not for my mark.

  “What a blessing we were born as we were,” I say.

  Herai looks puzzled. I am about to explain what I mean, but I fall asleep. I do this often now without meaning to. I dream of my father. He is not more than ten cubits away. I am a little girl again, and he holds his arms out to me.

  Each time I dream, I get a couple of cubits closer.

  When I wake, I am leaning against Herai. I think I have given her my blessing, but I cannot be sure. I straighten up, beckon her to place her head under my misshapen hand, and I bless her.

  • • •

  That night I wake suddenly and see that Noah is not beside me on his sleeping blankets.

  There is a full moon, but I do not need its light to show me where he is. I go to the apricot tree and lower myself beside him. Though he says nothing, I am certain he knows I am here.

  We sit silently in the moonlight until I thank him.

  “For what?” he asks.

  “My life and those of our children and grandchildren. If it were not for you, God would have started over.”

  He turns and squints at me for a few breaths. Then he reaches his hand out and touches my leg. He has never mastered the gentle touch, but it is nice to feel his skin against mine. “The mission the Lord sent me on is over and done, and now I do not know what to do with myself. You are one of the only comforts left to me. I will be sad when you are gone. I have been thinking of planting a vineyard so I can do something besides wait for the Lord to bring me from this world.”

  I am surprised that he will miss me, though it is true we have grown close in the new world. All I say is, “You are sad already.”

  “Not all the way. I have been thinking of a name for you.”

  A name. My heart beats harder. “Please, husband, do not hesitate. Tell me the name you would bestow upon me.”

  He is lost in thought. “Perhaps you were blessed not to have one before now. You did not have to fashion yourself to fit your name, like those of us who have had them our whole lives.”

  I did not think my blood was young enough to find its way to my cheeks, but suddenly my face is hot. “I did have names, they were just never my own. I was daughter, wife, then mother.”

  “You were. You were all of those things, my good wife.”

  I do not wish to taint the new world with old hurts. But I also do not wish to bite my tongue. “I needed something people could call me instead of ‘demon woman,’ ” I say more harshly than I mean to.

  We are silent, letting the night sift through my words. When it has taken the sharpness from them, Noah says, “God gives some a great burden to overcome. Only a righteous woman could have borne up under the weight of the mark that you have carried upon your brow for all the years of your life without complaint.”

  “I did not think you knew how heavily it weighed upon me.”

  “You have been tested, and the Lord has found you worthy.”

  It does not seem possible to me that the Lord was testing me or that He found me worthy. But neither does most of what has happened in the last year. Perhaps the God of Adam has been with me even when I did not know it.

  “Of what am I worthy, husband?”

  “Being the matriarch of all mankind. And now you need a name worthy of you. One by which you can be remembered.”

  I turn to look at his wrinkled face, which seems to be lined not only by age but by six hundred years’ worth of sadness. Does he know of the vultures’ shadows that loop around my feet when I walk in the sun? How they grow bigger, closer, so that I sometimes thi
nk I feel feathers against my cheeks?

  His hand presses on my leg. “Tell me, what should we call you?”

  The sun has begun to peek up over the mountaintops, and without taking his hand from my leg, Noah turns his head to drink in its light. And I know what my name should be. I have traveled all this way from my father’s tent, and from one world to the next, in search of a name, and I could not have found one any sooner than this instant.

  “You can see only light and darkness. Dawn is both, as well as a new beginning.”

  Noah considers for a breath, then snorts. “Yes. This is a new dawn. Not for everyone”—the sinners are never far from his mind—“but for you, for our children, and for theirs.”

  “So, then, what is my name?

  “Shahar. It will come to mean dawn in the new world.”

  “Is that the name you thought of for me?”

  “I wanted to call you Shifra, which will come to mean beauty and brightness. Yet now I think that Shahar is your true God-given name.”

  “God has spoken to you about it?”

  “Well, no,” he admits. “It is actually I who think it a fitting name for you.”

  “That is good enough for me.”

  He is astonished when I kiss each of his hands and his forehead.

  I laugh and rise, creaking, to my feet. Soon I will be reunited with my father. But first I want to hear my sons and daughters call me by my name. I hurry to bring them the good news.

  I have a name. I am Shahar.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to the following people who’ve helped me on this journey: all of my teachers at Talmud Torah Day School, especially Earl Schwartz; Rabbi Allen of Beth Jacob Congregation, who had his hands full preparing me for my Bat Mitzvah; Jerod Santek, Brian Malloy, and the rest of the Loft staff; family friends Rolla Breitman and Pete and Sue Stein; those personal friends whose encouragement has kept me going, Dawn Frederick, Diane Grace, Amber McKenzie, Margie Newman, Becky Novotny, Richard Nystrom, Tanya Pedersen-Barr, Karen Seashore, and Jessica Warren Rugani; my spiritual mentor, Lynn Nelvik-Levitt; the tireless members of my writing group, Sandy Steffenson and Richard Thompson; agent extraordinaire Carolyn Jenks, and all of the good people at the Jenks Agency who’ve worked on this project, especially assistant agent Jacob Seifert; my editor, Becky Nesbitt, along with the other lovely people at Howard Books; Scott Hamilton, without whom I couldn’t have done it; my mother; my brother, who knows how hard, and also how rewarding it can be to chase a dream; and my father.