Storm

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “Six hundred and one years of righteous servitude. And I hope to go on serving the Mighty Creator until I am at least a thousand years old.”

  “After all this, do you really want to live to be a thousand, husband of mine?”

  “After all this?” Noah’s voice rises. “After all this, I’d better! I’d better see a whole new world start over and go right this time. No more arrogance. No more wickedness. Praise to the Mighty Creator, every day, every night.” His voice shakes. “That at least—that at the very least.” He’s quiet a moment. “Don’t you want to live long with me to see it all?”

  “Oh, Noah, my husband, my dear one, don’t ask.”

  The shutters close. We sit with Bash’s body surrounding me and my body surrounding Pishon. We are an onion, protecting the center, tight and firm in the sun. But things are about to change. We have to make it off the ark with stealth.

  And then? It’s hard to even imagine what then.

  Mother Emzara’s words linger in my head: Don’t ask.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Day and Night 317

  This morning makes precisely one week since Noah last set the dove free and she came back with the olive branch. He opens the shutters and calls, “Find land, bird! Find a place where my family and I can go on serving the Mighty Creator,” and he sets the dove free again—just as he promised.

  I listen from above. I hear them all talking at the open window as they watch the dove fly out of sight. I hear a voice I don’t know, as well—it must be Puzur Amurri. Everyone wants to know the message of the dove.

  Gradually, though, as time passes, they go about their chores. They come back every now and then to check with Noah about whether the dove has returned. Each time he says no, I can hear a growing brightness in their responses.

  Around midday Ada says, “There’s so much driftwood lying all about down there, we can have a fish fry on the beach tonight! Oh, I mean, if we can leave the ark, that is.”

  “No beach fish fry,” says Noah.

  “Well, it was just an idea,” says Ada. But she can’t keep the singsong out of her voice. Hopes are rising.

  In the late afternoon Ham says, “That dove’s not coming back, Father.”

  “No, I don’t think she is.”

  “So we can finally leave the ark.”

  “No.”

  “Father! The dove is our signal. It’s time to leave the ark.”

  “No.”

  Ham shouts for his brothers. He stomps away shouting. Minutes later they gather by the open window again. I take inventory of the voices; all of them are there.

  “Father, we demand to leave the ark.” It’s Ham.

  “Don’t put it that way, Ham.” It’s Mother Emzara. “No one is making demands, Noah. We’re just listening to you. To your words. You said the dove is our signal. You said it yourself.”

  “The dove has clearly found a spot to perch and perhaps dirt to peck around in,” says Noah.

  “Exactly,” says Mother Emzara.

  “But that doesn’t mean it’s time to leave the ark. Dry ground is appearing, yes. But the ground has to be thoroughly dry before we can leave.”

  “Father!” It’s Japheth.

  “Hush, Japheth,” says Mother Emzara. Her voice is strained. “So when will the ground be dry enough, Noah?”

  “Two months, I think.”

  “Two months!” shouts Ham.

  “Maybe less. Maybe fifty days. The Mighty Creator will tell us.”

  A woman screams. She goes running around the top deck of the ark and screams and screams. It’s only when people try to calm her down that I find out it is Mother Emzara. So even she has reached the end of her rope.

  They have such a row now, I think the ark might shake and fall over on its side. Then the shutters slam and I hear no more.

  Bash and I have passed the day thus far listening to Noah’s crew, watching for the dove, feeding and playing with Pishon, and kissing each other. Now we just wait in silence.

  Night falls, and the dove hasn’t come back yet. “The dove is not coming back,” I say to Bash.

  “Doesn’t look like it.” He gathers his gear and gets ready to go over the side of the ark, to fish and get us water and seaweed. He moves like a happy man. It is remarkable how easily Bash can be happy.

  We don’t worry that the women might tell on us anymore. Ada and Leba never go out at night; the near drowning clearly frightened them off. But Nela goes out every night. She’s already out tonight—we saw her walking in the shallows. She doesn’t dare stray into the waves. Instead she dances at the very edge of the sea, all alone. She sings to the moon. I can’t hear her from here, of course, but I see her face turned upward, mouth open. Bash says she has moon fever.

  I look at my shift, lying on the roof. I scrubbed all the fish juice out of it today, then spread it in the sun. It’s stiff and dry as a bone now. I didn’t know why I washed it. It’s simpler going naked, given that Pishon likes to eat every few hours. No, I had no idea why I washed it. But now I do. I jump to my feet. “Bash!”

  Bash hesitates. He was just about to go down the rope. “What, my Sheba?”

  “I want to have moon fever with Nela.”

  He looks at me. “What about Pishon?”

  “He’s sleeping. He won’t wake for a few hours. I could dance with her and you could hold him and go for a walk.” I’m pulling my shift on as I talk.

  “How will you get down there?”

  “You’ll have to carry me. Us.” I shake out the loincloth. What a pity I didn’t wash it today too.

  “I can’t safely carry you and Pishon at the same time.”

  “I’ll tie him to me with your loincloth. So I’ll carry him, and you’ll carry me.”

  “You’ve been planning this.”

  “No, I haven’t.” I’ve made a sling of the loincloth, and Pishon now hangs tight at my chest. “But it sounds like I have because it’s all so obvious. It will work.” I smile at him.

  “And if she turns on you?”

  “She won’t.”

  “And if the men come out?”

  “The men have to know Nela does this. I mean, they can’t all be complete morons. So they’re ignoring it. There’s no reason for them to stop ignoring it tonight.”

  “I don’t like the idea, Sheba.”

  “I can see that.” I walk to him. “Should I climb on facing your chest? Like we did when you first brought me up here?”

  He sighs. Loudly. But he scoops me up, and down we go.

  When we get to the bottom, I feel disoriented. Rock underfoot. What an amazing thing to feel rock underfoot again. I unwind Pishon from my chest and hand him to Bash, and I turn toward where Nela disappeared. I pick my way carefully. My feet are unused to dealing with uneven surfaces anymore. But it all comes back quickly and I’m running now. I’m running and running, farther than the length of the ark—and I don’t have to turn around and run back—I can just keep running! What a marvel this is, to be able to run!

  Nela turns and she sees me. She stops still, her hands in the air. Then she smiles and waves her arms.

  I run up to her. But I stop short. Her face changes; my heart changes; a rush of uncertainty shimmers between us. “I came to dance with you,” I breathe.

  “You had your baby. Is he . . .” She presses her lips together. “Is he alive?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s with his father now.”

  “You said his father died.”

  “The father that shows in his face, yes, he died. Before I got on the ark. But he has another father now.”

  “The giant.”

  “His name is . . . Og.” I don’t think she’d respond well to my nickname for him.

  “He saved Leba.”

  “I know. I watched from the ark roof.”

  “You didn’t tell me about him.”

  “Do you think I should have?”

  “I would have worried less about you if you had.”

  “I’m so
rry, then. I was trying to protect him.”

  “Protect a giant from us?”

  “He’s a good man, Nela.”

  “He’s a giant. He’ll father a race of giants.”

  “He’s a good man. He’ll raise good children.”

  “You’re in love with him,” says Nela. “What can you know?”

  “You’re in love with Ham. Still, you know him.” I hold my arms out to her. “Can we dance?”

  Nela wrings her hands. But then she takes mine. We hug hard. Then we dance and sing to the light of the moon.

  I hear Pishon’s cry and suddenly my shift is flooded with milk. I pull it off as Bash appears in the night and hands me our babe. I sit and nurse him.

  Nela retreats, but she watches. In her eyes I see hunger; she wants a child.

  “You’re lucky you don’t have to listen to Noah.” Nela addresses her words to me. She won’t look at Bash. Her lips press together hard. “Ham says he’s insane to keep us on board so long.”

  “He’s not insane,” I say. “You know better than that, Nela. You explained to everyone why he couldn’t open the window shutters once the sun came out. You thought about the birds—you. You think about the animals. You know why Noah can’t empty the ark yet.”

  Nela tilts her head. “Well. Really . . . as I think about it, really . . . There’s mud on this island of a mountain peak, but no plants, no trees. It will take time for whatever seeds are still in the earth to grow again. So there’s nothing for the herbivores to eat. Maybe the island the dove went to has plants already. But those animals that can’t swim will die of starvation if they’re let out here. And the predators will eat them all, and then they’ll die too.”

  “See? You understand Noah.”

  “If we let the animals out now, we’ll have fed them and watered them all these many months for nothing!” Nela claps her hands together. “That’s a maddening thought!”

  “You can go tell Ham now. And the others.”

  “Fifty more days,” says Nela slowly. “Will the water go down far enough for all these islands to be joined by then?”

  I shrug and look at Bash.

  He shrugs. “We’ll see.”

  “No!” Nela points. “It’s them!”

  I lean over Pishon to protect him and twist my neck to see behind. But it’s not Ham and Shem and Japheth. It’s Queen and The Male.

  The Male circles Nela at a distance, walking on two legs and looking her up and down.

  But Queen goes straight to Nela and holds out her hands.

  Nela pulls back in fright.

  Queen moves forward insistently.

  “Oh,” I say, in a burst of clarity. “She wants to take my place.” They must have been watching for a while. “She wants to dance!”

  “Dance?” says Nela weakly. “Look at those big teeth.”

  “I’ve never seen them hurt anyone. Or even try.” And then I remember the little shrike that landed on my head and how Queen tried to grab it. “Unless they wanted to eat it. But Queen doesn’t want to eat you,” I add hastily. “She just wants to dance.”

  Nela shakes her head. Then she laughs.

  And she dances with Queen on the muddy shore.

  “I wonder,” I say quietly to Bash, “do you think Queen and The Male saw the rope dangling by their porthole and climbed up to see me and Pishon, and when we weren’t there, they came exploring?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Looking for us?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe they heard us or saw us out here? So they came to find us?”

  “Maybe, Sheba. Or maybe they just saw the rope and remembered how much fun it was to run on the rocks and came upon us by accident.”

  That’s all right too. Whatever Queen and The Male know, whatever goes on in their heads, all of it is fine with me. “Thank you for carrying me down here. I loved dancing with Nela.”

  “We won’t be able to stay with Noah’s family after he lets all the animals loose, Sheba. He won’t acknowledge us. We’re not his people.”

  My eyelids go heavy as bone. “I know.”

  They are still dancing, Queen and Nela. The Male jumps in place, whooping, all by himself. It’s as though his sounds are their music.

  “It all feels so ridiculously beautiful, Bash. I’m sad.” Bash puts his arm around me, and I nestle against him. “I miss the company of women. I miss my mother and my friend Hurriya. And I will miss Nela.”

  “Then I guess we’ll just have to make you a daughter.”

  I smile. “What a lovely thought.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Night 355

  I sit cross-legged on the roof and look at the patterns of the stars. The days are shorter now, the nights longer. I think they must be of equal length, or just about. That means a year ago Aban saw me at the festival of the equinox. He said I was holding hands with a brother on each side. My breath goes ragged for a moment. The memory of Aban brushes back and forth through my day, every day. Now it coats me. There is so much to grieve over.

  But then I look down at my lap where Pishon sleeps, and I envision in my head my Bash, who stands fishing somewhere out of sight, and my chest swells with new breath. There is so much to be grateful for.

  What a difference a year makes.

  Pssst.

  The noise is snakelike. But there couldn’t be a snake up here on the roof of the ark. Still, I snatch Pishon to my chest and peer around warily through the dark.

  “Pssst, pssst. Come to the edge of the roof. Come!”

  I won’t go near the edge with Pishon in my arms. I pick up my shift, which has become his blanket, and roll him tight in it. I place him in the very center of the roof and shove buckets around him as a barrier, though he’s never turned over yet. Then I crawl naked to the edge and peer down, my heart trilling against my ribs.

  “Pssst. Come! Don’t make me shout!”

  “I’m here.” I swallow. “Mother Emzara.”

  “Don’t call me that! How dare you!”

  “I know no other name for you.”

  “You should know no name for me at all. You should not be here. You are not here, in truth! Hush!”

  My cheeks go hot. “So you are talking to no one, then?”

  “I’m talking to someone with the value of no one. Someone brainless, who throws things down on the roof with crashes and clunks, and cries out her passion, and yelled in childbirth like an utter fool—someone who would have been discovered by everyone if I hadn’t constantly found pretexts to send them all to lower decks or set them to noisy tasks. Someone I would never speak to—never, never—except time is running out and this someone hasn’t disappeared yet, this someone has survived against all odds—so I have no choice. I am talking against my will to an unwanted noisy someone, a no one. You need to learn to hush, woman! Hush!”

  I press my lips together. There’s nothing I can say in response anyway.

  “He doesn’t sleep.”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “Hush, I said! I won’t say his name to you. You don’t know us. You don’t deserve to hear his name. You are thwarting the plan of the Mighty Creator. He can’t allow that. So I can’t allow that.”

  A knot forms between my eyes—a tiny point of pain.

  “He never sleeps. This whole time, this entire year, he has not had one wink of sleep.” She pauses. “Sooo . . .” Her voice has changed to a raspy whisper. “So do you really think anyone could be on this ark without him knowing?”

  The knot grows larger. I massage it with my fingertips.

  “You can’t think that. You can’t be as brainless as your actions imply. No one that brainless could have survived as you have done. And with a baby . . .”

  “Bash hel—”

  “Hush!” I hear her make a humph. “So, one who cannot be so brainless, imagine this. Close your eyes and imagine.”

  I lie on my stomach and grip the lip of the roof tight and close my eyes.

  “You build
an ark. People think you are crazy. They laugh at you. They throw things at you. You send your sons out to gather animals. People laugh at them, too. People throw things at them. But they are dutiful sons. They do what you ask.

  “Yet they doubt. And you know it. You are no one’s fool. You know the heavy cost of all this to your sons. The danger from the wild animals. The humiliation in front of neighbors and strangers. The weakening of the bond between son and father. Are you imagining this? Don’t! Don’t say a word!”

  I rap my knuckles hard on the roof in response.

  “The animals are wild-eyed. You chose the best behaved, of course—you gave your sons strict instructions. The most nearly docile animals, the ones that would have a chance of surviving such an experience. But the animals were healthy then. Not like the puny, sickly things they have been reduced to. They were strong and vigorous. You looked in their eyes and you ached for them. You couldn’t explain it to them. Dumb creatures. Helpless. Locked up like that—and by you! You! Imagine that.”

  I take a deep breath and it comes out in a series of coughs. My throat is thick.

  “But it gets much worse. You spend so long, day and night, so very long getting supplies on board. Your sons and their wives do your bidding, but each day their loyalty erodes a little more. Even your own wife, even she has niggling doubts, may the Mighty Creator forgive her soul. And you know all this.

  “But you believe. You are obedient to the Master of All. You do as you are told. You never hesitate, though your actions cost so dearly, though love—love of every kind—is at stake. You are a model of piety.”

  My eyes hurt now. They would fall from my head.

  “Then you are all inside, tucked inside—every person, every animal, itchy with confusion—when the rains start. And they don’t just start; heaven explodes. It goes on and on. At first your heart lightens. This is just as the Mighty Creator said. All is happening as it should. You are not a fool. Your sons are not fools. The dumb animals cannot understand, but they will be saved, so it is right, everything is right, everything is happening as it should.

  “Except then the people come. They stand outside the ark in water up to their knees. They beg to be let in. Imagine! Imagine all those people begging. Doomed.