“Domesticated animals, maybe,” says Ham. “These are wild.”
“But they’re in captivity,” says Nela. “It’s anyone’s guess what they might do in captivity.”
“Anyway,” says the second woman, who now stands beside Nela, a good head taller than her, “Nela knows about wild animals too. You saw how your father relied on her in getting the animals on board. If she hadn’t advised, it would have taken far longer.”
“She’s right,” says Shem. “Father needed Nela.”
Ham throws his hands up in the air and drops them to his side. Thud. “Ahii!” He hit his own thigh with his hammer, the idiot. “Look what you made me do. You’re ganging up on me. You always do that!”
“And you never listen to me anymore,” says Nela.
“I listen to you too much,” says Ham. “You never shut up.” He walks past her and goes up the ladder.
Shem goes past too. But he brushes Nela’s side as he goes. He didn’t have to do that; she wasn’t in his way. Nela lowers her face.
When the men are gone, the other woman looks at Nela. “What’s going on?”
Nela shakes her head. “We have work to do, Ada. Come on. I’ll show you which animals get the leaves and fruits. Then we can carry fish buckets next. We can alternate buckets and sacks all day, till we finish.”
“Don’t put me off, Ne’elatama’uk.”
“I hate it when you call me that. You sound like Mother Emzara when she’s being stern. How would you like it if I called you ’Adataneses?”
“I know what I saw.”
“You didn’t see anything, ’Adataneses,” says Nela.
“I saw Shem touch you.”
“Don’t say it that way. He just knocked into me as he passed.”
“It wasn’t a knock, and it wasn’t just in passing.”
Nela makes a loud sigh. “How are you getting along with Japheth?”
“What kind of question is that? He’s my husband.”
“Don’t be so prissy, Ada. ‘He’s my husband.’ These are not ordinary circumstances. This is not the ordinary way for people to live, locked on an ark with rain drumming above us night and day, all the time drum, drum. It’s driving us to desperation.”
“The Mighty Creator put us here.”
“He didn’t tell us how to survive it.”
“You’re in dangerous waters if you . . . do anything . . . with Shem.”
“Dangerous waters? Apt choice of words. We’re all in dangerous waters.”
“Think about Leba. She loves Shem. You’d destroy her.”
Nela reaches for Ada’s arm. “I love Leba. I wouldn’t hurt her. Ever.”
“Good. Besides, Ham might kill you if you did.”
“And be left without a wife? There are no others out there, remember. He wouldn’t do that to himself.”
“He could kill Shem, too. It would be within his right. Then he could take Leba as his wife.”
“He thinks Leba’s insipid.”
“Better an insipid wife than no wife at all.”
“Shem is nice to me, Ada. He talks nice. He treats me as though I’m interesting.”
“Is that why you wear your fancy dress all the time these days? Go back to your old shift. Don’t draw attention.”
“My old shift. I don’t even know where it is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I left it down here.”
“What?”
“It’s a long story. A stupid one. Anyway, it must have gotten kicked into an animal cage somehow. Help me look for it, would you? Would you do that one thing for me?”
“Of course. We’re family. Who combs your hair every morning, after all?”
Nela drops her head so that the crown of it presses into Ada’s shoulder. “Oh, Ada, I have never been so unhappy.”
Ada circles her arms around Nela. “I heard Noah talking a few nights ago. Just talking to the air. Having one side of a conversation. And then I realized he was talking to the Mighty Creator. And you know what?” She pats Nela on the back now. “It’ll be over soon. The rains will stop. It’ll be over.”
“Unless Noah is a madman and we are all condemned to end on this ark, nipping at each other. Drawing blood.”
“Courage, Nela. It won’t be that way. There’s sunshine ahead.”
“Or doom.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Night 39
I walk the deck in Nela’s shift, feeling guilty. She and Ada talked so sweetly to each other as they fed the animals today. Like sisters talk. Or like I imagine sisters talk. I’ve never had the pleasure of one, though Hurriya came close.
I couldn’t hear everything they said, but I heard the disappointment in Nela’s voice at the end of the day when they hadn’t managed to spy the shift anywhere. Nela wants it back. She needs it.
But I need it too.
I didn’t have a clear reason for wanting the shift before. It was more a murky pressure, a kind of primitive urge to reclaim my human status. As though a piece of clothing could actually do that. But now I need it because of the huge stranger who looked in our porthole. I don’t want him to see me naked. It’s not like being naked with the animals—they know no better. That stranger is human.
I think of him now as the Head, since that’s all I’ve seen of him. He appeared out of nowhere and seemed to know everything that was going on. He had to have been watching that night for who knows how long.
He spied on me.
Aban spied on me—when I was treed by the boar. He waited till he had a proper opportunity, then he saved me from the beast. But that was different. Aban knew me. His intentions were good.
The Head is a stranger; who knows what his intentions in spying are? A chill runs up my spine all the way to the top of my head. He said he was a thief. So that means he’s a thief and a spy. That’s not much to recommend him.
I’m also a thief, though. I stole Nela’s shift.
But if I hadn’t stolen it, Ham and Shem would have surely found it the next day, and then Nela would have had some explaining to do. And from the sound of it, I expect Ham might have been hard to satisfy. Nela would have suffered consequences.
Worse consequences than just losing her shift.
I don’t like this me I’ve become—this person who justifies her actions even when she knows they’re wrong. Being a stowaway, having to sneak all the time, it’s changing me. And maybe living with the animals is changing me. And maybe thinking there’s no future is changing me. Because I’m definitely different. I feel sluggish. And worried. I alternate between being ravenous and being nauseated. And half the time I’m either exhausted or light-headed. And I feel lumpy. Fat breasts, fat belly.
Whatever, all this thinking is making me blue now. I don’t want to think. I want to wear this shift and not worry about who it belongs to really. I want to walk this deck in the peace of nighttime. I have to work on my second plan, the one about plants. Alone.
Only I’m not alone. I heard the rocks scrape on the deck. I heard the swinging door open and flop shut. Twice. Of course. Queen and The Male can go free whenever they want. And they’ve chosen to follow me now.
I am on an odd mission. But I realize that Queen won’t consider it odd at all. That’s funny. I laugh at the irony. And, as I should have expected by now, Queen and The Male take my laughter as their cue to go flying from pole to pole up and down the deck.
My mission is to collect feces. I look for dry bits in the bottoms of cages, close enough to the poles that I can snatch them quickly without risk of alarming the creatures inside. Each time I find some, I gather it, tote it back to our cage, and shove it inside to wait for me. I will break it up later and inspect it for seeds.
But unlike Queen, I will not eat the seeds. I’ll plant them, in the leftover excrement. That’s why any animal’s feces are valuable, not just the herbivores’. Besides, the carnivores eat fish, and some of those fish had eaten sea plants, so almost all feces hold seeds. Who knows wh
at will grow? Even the sea plants might find purchase there.
If the worst is to happen, this will all be futile. So what? I have nothing better to do.
But if Mother Emzara and Ada are right, the rain will stop someday, the sun will come out, the rain will dry up, and land will reappear.
Barren.
Unless someone saves the plants. That’s what I intend to do. It’s my second plan. I’m good with plants. I always have been. Maybe that’s why I’m on this ark in the first place. Maybe I’m part of the overall design.
Plants are needed. The food supply for all the herbivores will run out soon. They will die without food. So then the carnivores will have no food. And they will die. And humans, whether meat eaters or not, will then all die. So there’s no point to anything without plants.
I am on my knees reaching into a cage when I hear clack on the stairs. I freeze.
Shem comes down the ladder. He goes to our cage. “Wake up, bonobos.” He puts his hands on two poles and leans forward so his face presses between them. “I can’t see you in there, but I know you’re listening. You don’t talk—but you sure do listen. You’re a lot smarter than anyone else guesses. I bet you think you’ve got us all figured out. Well, I have you figured out: I know what you did.”
He is dangerously close to the swinging door. If he leans on it, it might move just the slightest. He’ll realize it’s not locked in place. And where are Queen and The Male? Please, please don’t let them come swinging back now. Let them stay in the dark in some far corner of the ark, silent. Please.
“You got out of this cage, didn’t you? You stole the snake skin, just like you put it up there in the first place.” Now Shem walks just that little bit to his right and stumbles over one of the rocks. Oh no! “What?” He pulls on the poles there. The door lifts. He drops it immediately and turns around, looking warily into the dark. “Where are you? You’re out there, I know it. Where are you?” He leans back against the poles of the cage and raises his arms high. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. It’s just like I suspected. I’m right!” He clasps his hands together as though in victory. “I’m right! Wait till I tell Ham. That insufferable ass. And Nela. She’ll be happy to know I understand animals too!”
Something nips my hand. I yelp and pull my arm out of the cage. And I’ve given myself away! I curl forward in a heap on the floor.
“Who’s there?” Shem comes toward me slowly. “Nela? Nela, is that you? It is. I know that shift.”
I pull the neck of the shift up and draw my head inside it as much as I can—a trick I learned from watching the tortoises. “Stop there!”
“Why? What’s the matter, Nela? You sound so odd.”
“Leave me alone.”
“There’s no one here but us.” He takes another step.
“Stop! Go away.”
“Why are you talking like that? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“I don’t feel like myself,” I practically growl.
“Did you see?” His voice has changed. It’s light and easy, as though he’s trying to soothe a distraught child. “The bonobos’ cage is unlocked. They got out. They’re the ones who took down the snake skin. And probably threw it up there in the first place. I was right, Nela.” He pauses. “I was right.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, we have to find a better way to secure their cage. As soon as I get them inside it again, I’ll take care of that.”
“Don’t!”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t lock them in.”
“Why not?”
“I want them out.”
“Why? They’re indecent, Nela. It’s not safe for you to be around them.” He takes another step closer.
“Get away! Go!”
“Yes! Get away from my wife.” Ham has come down the ladder. Quietly. As quietly as Screamer. I didn’t know he had it in him, to be a sneak. He seems so blustery. This sneaky side of him is worse, though. I am lost. He will throw me overboard.
Ham stomps across the deck toward Shem. “Go! Now!”
“I was just—”
“Get out of here. Now! Now, now, now!” Ham shouts as he follows Shem to the ladder.
Shem stands at the foot of the ladder, holding on with one hand. “Don’t be harsh with her.”
“Who are you to tell me what to do? She’s my wife! The Mighty Creator gives me rights.”
“But she did no—”
“Enough!”
Shem nods. He goes up the ladder.
I try to close the neck of my shift over my head. It won’t go all the way. My fists sit with a span of hair between them. Dirty, wild hair. Wavy hair, not curly like Nela’s. Don’t let Ham come any closer. Please, please.
“Why are you on the floor?”
I could answer. I could say that I’m on the floor because I can’t stand. It would be the truth. Right now I’m trembling too hard to stand. And my bladder just gave way. Pee runs over my feet, hot and pungent. But it’s better to stay silent. A husband has to recognize a wife’s voice, right? I could fool Shem. I couldn’t fool Ham.
“You’re shaming me. Do you realize that? What have I done to deserve such shame?”
I’m sitting on my heels with my forehead pressed against the floor. This is the pose I assume when I get light-headed. I can shrink no smaller than this.
“You were alone with my brother.”
It wasn’t by choice.
“Did you defile yourself?”
Defile?
“A woman doesn’t lie with her husband’s brother.”
He could see very well that Shem and I weren’t mating. He could see that.
“I could beat you, you know. It’s within my rights.”
What kind of rights are those? What kind of law gives a man a right to use it for his own purposes, so he can be brutal on a whim?
Ham stomps around. “I could. I very well could. You deserve to be beaten and left on this smelly floor all night.” The more he stomps, the more violently his voice booms. “But I won’t.” He stops. “I love you, Nela.” His voice shakes. “In spite of the way I’ve acted. For I know I’ve acted badly. I hate this whole thing. This being on the ark. This living together with Father in charge of us all, all the time looking over our shoulders, barking orders. It’s him I’m angry at.”
Thank you. Thank you, everything that is holy and good.
“All right, Nela. I don’t know what you have and haven’t done. But the Mighty Creator does. So I’ll leave it to him. He wreaks justice far better than I could.”
His Mighty Creator or one of mine? His sounds far too cold.
Ham’s footsteps clack slowly, going away. Then they stop and come back, louder, faster. “Yes. That’s what I’ll do. But . . .” He stomps around again. “It’s so much worse that you chose Shem to test me with. Shem, that self-righteous prig! Japheth I could laugh at, but Shem! It hurts. You can’t guess how bad it hurts. I won’t put up with any more humiliation. You’ve tested me, Nela.” He stops and shakes his head. “So you need a test too. Let’s see what becomes of you. Let’s see if this knowledge of animals you are so proud of can help you now.”
I hear him walk away again. I dare to turn my head and watch him leave.
He passes the lion cage. He stoops and pulls the rocks out of the gullies there.
I see what he does. I see it and I know this is death. I have to scream. I have to make him know who I am. It’s better to be flung into the freezing seas and drown than to be eaten alive. I have to scream, but no voice comes. I choke on my own fear.
He pulls the door up just high enough to rest on a rock and races for the ladder. “Wake up, beasts!” he shouts. He disappears up the ladder and slams the hatch shut.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Still Night 39
I feel along the floor for the rocks that block the door to the cage in front of me. The creature within it nipped me. That’s nothing compared to what a lion will do. There are other creatures in this cage too, I’m sure. Bu
t there’s no lattice here. No lattice is good.
Noise comes from behind me. I struggle with the second rock. My fingers can’t get under it. The noise comes closer now. The skin above my nails is scraped away. The rock finally comes out of the gully. I lift the swinging door and go inside. It swings shut.
I spin around. There’s nothing behind me. Nothing peering in through the poles. What did I hear?
I look around this cage, but I keep glancing back at the lion cage. There’s no activity over there. There’s not much here, either. The sounds of sleep come from several animals nearby, but I can’t make them out. They aren’t large, anyway. They form mounds here and there.
I look back at the lion cage. Still nothing.
The only ones awake in this cage are a pair of mongooses. One comes toward me. I prepare to kick. He stops and stares. Then he bites his own leg. There’s hardly any hair left there. He gnaws at himself. He’s the nipper, for sure. The other mongoose paces in a tight circle. That one’s missing patches of hair too. The poor things—they’re a mess.
I look back at the lions. Nothing, nothing.
The mongooses keep doing what they’re doing. Mindlessly. I like mongooses, actually. Where I live—where I lived—mongooses simply roamed free. We didn’t use them as guards against cobras, like travelers told us some people do. But we liked them anyway. They seemed eager and smart. And cheerful, in a way. They were always poking around energetically, hopeful, as though food was just about to appear.
These mongooses are anything but. They are pathetic. But at least I don’t sense them as an imminent danger. I’m not a snake.
Maybe my single arm reaching in through the poles before seemed snakelike. I pull my knees against my chest and wrap my arms around them. I am a roundish mass, nothing like a snake. I watch the lion cage. It is so very silent.
Queen and The Male go flying past. Then Queen comes back. She looks through the poles inquisitively. I didn’t think about those two before. But they’ll be all right. No lion could leap high enough to get them.
Besides, they can always go back in our cage.
That’s where I want to be. In my nest. Safe.
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