In the Shadow of the Ark

by Anne Provoost

  Neelata gestured for me to sit down. A few lamps burned, but none of them shone on her face. The whites of her eyes showed how fast her glance was moving over my face.

  “Put has told them about the niche,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. There was no reproach in her voice, any more than there had been in mine. We were both filled with understanding for the child, who was playing with the seams in the canvas of the tent, running his finger along them as if they were long paths that should be traversed. He fiddled with the edges of the tent’s opening and with the cords that held back the curtain. He was attentive, but had no understanding of the situation he was in.

  “And Ham piles mistake on mistake.”

  “That is true,” she said.

  I knew Ham was there, because I could smell him. He sat behind the cane partition at the back of the tent, trying for all he was worth to stop wheezing.

  “Everything is lost,” I said. “My hope is dead, my courage gone.” I was not exaggerating. My father’s silk moths seemed to have nestled in my head, there was such a nervous beating of wings behind my eardrums.

  Neelata shook her head. “You still have the truss-boat. I have not given its existence away.” She nodded at one of her maids. She always managed to place her lamps so that her tent seemed like a palace. From a far corner, the heavily made-up servant handed me a small pouch of herbs on a saucer.

  “The Builder is full of sorrow,” said Neelata. Her eyes glittered. “Go to him. Take care of him. Tell him about the cave.”

  “But the water is surrounded by the dead.”

  “Tell him anyway. And do it quickly. The rain is approaching. Once it comes, the Builder will have no more need of your spring, and then it will be too late.”

  36

  The Builder’s Heart

  I walked home and chewed the herbs. I lay down and felt how, as time passed, the hammock sagged less and less under my weight. First I felt my courage returning. It came in a blast of wind. It made the planks in the wall shake. I spat out the remains of the herbs and rolled a fresh ball. The second mouthful fed my fighting spirit. I saw scenes of women struggling. They pulled one another’s hair and bit each other till they bled. Amongst them were women with bleeding backs, pregnant women, lame women. Neelata’s mother was there, she stood wailing at her ruler’s door. I chewed more of the herb, and although I became more and more ecstatic, I fell asleep.

  My father returned. The dark was already lifting, a soft light glowed through it, the sun was waiting behind the hills. The first thing he did when he got home was to put my mother outside so he would not have to react to her sighing and whistling. He fetched the bag where he kept his tools: everything he needed for his silkworms, his repair kit, and his woodworking gear. He is leaving, I thought, but I was wrong. He emptied the bag. He passed each object through his hands and considered if he still needed it. He found, for instance, some rabbit-fur boots that in the marshes were used to warm people who have been in the water too long.

  Here he did not have much use for them. He packed up his spools of silk. Those he could not throw out, they were the result of years of boiling and twining. As soon as he had enough of them, he would have it woven into a wrap such as he had seen around the bodies of women from the east, a wrap so soft it would once and for all be a remedy for my mother’s sores and pain. It would put an end to her constant suffering. He put the spools aside with care and took up the pieces of beeswax, kept to remove hair from a body but never used. He broke them up between his hands, they crumbled to the ground. Then he crushed the shells, the beads, the carefully carved bones we had carried with us all that time. The knife he used to keep his hair cropped close to his skull, the chisels for carving designs in wood, the file for his nails and his teeth, all of that he smashed between stones. Meanwhile he whispered the questions that filled his head to the point of exhaustion: What was this ship, an exercise in endurance? A proof of faith? A test of ability? What was the matter with the family who was building it, who set others to work to furnish that proof and so were able to produce a grandiose work of art, who then spat out the makers of that work of art as if they were bits of ash in bread? I could read the pain in his body, could see the blisters on his feet and the spots where his girdle had rubbed all day.

  “What is it you are doing?” I asked.

  “I destroy what I have,” he replied. “Belongings are misleading, they give you the feeling that you have a future and prospects.”

  “The dwarf is dead,” I said. “He hanged himself after Ham promised him a spot in your niche.”

  He looked up, a little surprised, he obviously had not heard this news yet. “Is that so?” he asked. And then again, more emphatically, “Is that really so?” He lowered the stone in his hand until it fell to the floor with a dry thump. He stood up and looked around.

  “What is it? What’s making you so excited?”

  “The dwarf is dead,” he said as if it were he who was bringing me the news.

  “What about it? Do you mean there is room in the niche again?” I asked. “The Builder knows about it, so you can forget about that niche.”

  “I mean that there is room in the Builder’s heart again.”

  He hung the rabbit-fur boots on his girdle and ordered me to put on my shell tunic. I did it up faster and tighter than usual; it did not hurt because I was still under the influence of the herbs. We left the house and went to the corral, for once without being irritated by the junk that always lay all over the paths. We led a sturdy donkey out of the corral. We harnessed it to a small cart on which we loaded my bathtub. We filled it with water that we warmed on the fires of the pitch vats. While my father was busy heating the water, I went with the donkey to the cave to get more water, ignoring the trail I was leaving in the hills.

  When it was light again outside, we stood before the Builder’s quarters and asked permission to enter. Never before had it been so easy to enter these quarters: There was no dwarf to stop us, and the herb-chewing boys who usually hung around outside the tent were at breakfast. My father entered first, I followed.

  The old man lay on his mat, flat on his back. His wife, Zaza, lay next to him. His undershirt was whiter than his sons’, but just like theirs, the part he used to clean his ears after washing was stained yellow. His hair lay flat against his head from the lying down and from sweating. It was only now that I noticed how small his head was, as if time had shrunk it, and how thin his hair.

  We greeted him and said we had come to bathe him.

  He stared at us so long that I began to feel we should leave. But then Zaza nodded. She put the tips of her fingers in the small of his back and pushed until he moved. He stood up and held his arm out to my father. I supported him on the other side.

  My father carefully removed the old man’s clothes. I backed away when his undershirt came down. Again I saw, low on his abdomen, the blisters I had seen through the chink from the servants’ quarters. The wounds had dried, they were apparently healing. But only now did I notice that his foreskin had been removed. I tried not to look, but my father stared at it with distaste.

  “The dwarf did that,” said Zaza when she noticed his look. “He said it would prevent the ulcers coming back.”

  The Builder sat down meekly on the ground next to the tub. Zaza watched, nodding. “Wash him,” she said softly.

  His skin was as dry as a birch leaf but did not break or tear when I rubbed the sponge over it. The pores opened up. In this, the Builder resembled his son, Ham: His skin was as thirsty.

  When we had washed him, we helped him into the tub. He sat down, amazed. He laughed an unaccustomed, childlike laugh. My father moved the sponge in the water, from the thin shoulders along the bony vertebrae. I rinsed his feet, his ankles, his lower legs, and his knees.

  “We have water for you,” said my father.

  “That is good,” the Builder replied, a little smile of pleasure around his mouth. “That is what was still lacking. Good, drinkabl
e water for the journey. What a gift.”

  “My daughter, Re Jana, has found the spring you have lived next to all these years. If she goes elsewhere tomorrow, she will find clear water again.”

  “In the land where the Unnameable will lead us, water will flow abundantly,” the Builder replied. “We will have no need of diviners.”

  “You will need people who can steer a ship,” my father continued. “People who know about water. What you need is a boatswain of experience and understanding. How will you know where you are?”

  The Builder closed his eyes when my father let the water run over his face. He opened them again and said, “The migrating birds will help us. Doves always find their way back exactly.”

  “You know nothing of winds and currents. You do not know the difference between onshore and offshore winds.”

  “Winds are sent, they are much more than blind elements.”

  “There must be a rudder blade. You must not be helpless. You must help your god. What if you sight land but drift away?”

  “The Unnameable will steer us where we need to go,” the Builder said. “I understand what you are driving at. But I cannot make concessions. Many feel they are called, but few are chosen.”

  I did not rub as I washed, I patted. My father became more heavy-handed. He rubbed the sponge up and down roughly as he said, “Her spring is deep in the caves, in a place that would fill any of you with horror. If she is going to drown anyway, why should she give it away?”

  The Builder’s shoulder blades tightened. Where it was less worn, his skin became taut as a child’s. “She will because I will entrust myself to her,” he said hoarsely. “Because I will follow her to the deepest, most terrifying place, as I would my Unnameable God if He asked me to.” The old man’s voice was suddenly so forceful it startled me. He gripped the edge of the tub and pulled up his leg. He raised himself up precariously.

  My father took hold of him and prevented him slipping and falling. “Are you sure?” he asked as he draped a wide towel over his shoulders. “Even if it is a place from which many do not return?”

  The Builder looked at him sharply and said nothing. My father nodded thoughtfully. He untied the rabbit-fur boots from his girdle and slipped them onto the narrow, calloused feet.

  For the rest of the time, both men were silent. In my father’s head the plea he had prepared had given way to something else, and the Builder seemed to be mainly amazed at his skin and its sudden cleanliness. When I applied the salve that Zaza handed me to the swellings in his groin, he did not object.

  37

  Incident in the Cave

  Seven carefully chosen warriors accompanied us when we took the Builder to the spring. His sons stayed behind in the shipyard to make sure the people would not gain access to the ark at that unguarded moment. Neelata followed without having been asked to. She had her splendid horse with her. Although she had not yet quite recovered from her fall, she let Put ride it, and he sat tall and proud on its back until his tailbone hurt. Her maids came too, six women with combed hair and beautifully made-up eyes, who saw to it that nobody lacked for anything.

  The Builder and his wife were put into sedan chairs. Each was carried by two young warriors. When we got to the cave, it became clear that only five of us would enter: The warriors and the maids refused to move a step out of the sunlight once they realized that the spring lay behind a burial place.

  Neelata carefully arranged the blankets on the Builder’s and Zaza’s shoulders. To my father and me she gave more of the herbal mixture she had given me earlier. “Chew this,” she said. “It will give you the courage you’ll need.” Her hands trembled like leaves in the wind.

  “The dead do not inspire fear in me,” I said.

  “Chew it anyway,” she said huskily. “I want you braver than ever.” When she came close to me I could smell that she had a wad of the mixture in her mouth herself.

  My father tied the rabbit-fur boots firmly onto the Builder’s feet. I supported Zaza. As I knew the way, we went first. Slowly we inched our way in. Neelata came last, her face gray with fear. My father and I each had a torch. That made going into the cave a new sensation; for the first time I could see the recesses and chambers clearly. Despite the light, walking was not easy: With a torch in one hand, an old woman by the other, and a jug hanging from my shoulder by a rope, my balance was precarious. Zaza did not shrink from the human remains. She stepped over them as if they were crumbling stones. But Neelata was terrified. I heard her chewing with lots of saliva that she swallowed hurriedly.

  We left the first cave and went on through the others. Here the skeletons were in better order, thigh bones with thigh bones, skulls with skulls, the wild animals had not ravaged those. We passed narrow passages. We clambered through the opening that was barely wide enough for a body to pass. Zaza got through it easily, she was so gaunt she barely filled the cleft. The Builder’s body was much stiffer, it obviously hurt in many spots. But he did not give up. He let us haul him through the passage. His mouth was wide open from the exertion, his body was rigid as a plank, but he did not ask to be taken back. We passed the well Neelata had fallen into and the stack of bones I had pulled down to rescue her.

  Thanks to the torch, the spring did not seem as far as usual. Because we let the men go ahead, they got there first. The Builder dipped his hands in the water and laughed loudly. My father sat him down on the ledge of the basin. Zaza immediately hastened her steps. She sat down next to him on the ledge. She too plunged her hand into the water. For a while, they sat there, smiling delightedly, like two lovers in the sun. My father and I watched from a distance. Neelata waited in the darkness.

  “You see? He has solved the problem,” we heard the Builder say. “Even after his death, the dwarf looks after us.” The fur of his boots had become matted because of the dampness. They pulled the blanket around their shoulders solicitously, but kept one hand free so they could hold each other.

  We took our time. My father was breathing quite calmly. He played the sputtering torch over the walls of the cave as he said, “Here is your water, in this cave of the dead.”

  “The ways of the Unnameable are inscrutable,” the Builder replied.

  “Now that you have water, the calamity can proceed.”

  “This generous gesture of two strangers hastens what must happen.”

  “Our hope is that our generous gesture will delay what must happen. If all those people must be punished, is it not fair that they be warned?”

  The Builder put both hands on the ledge and gripped it tightly. He bent forward a little, cleared his throat, and spoke emphatically, as if addressing children. “The calamity itself is the warning,” he said.

  “Then your god is acting rashly.”

  “What He does is well considered; He has given it long, deep thought.”

  “How should I imagine this Unnameable god of yours? Like an eternally raging hurricane? But who can possibly stay angry for the length of time this plan is taking?”

  “He is disappointed rather than angry.”

  “If disappointment drives him, he must make clear what he expects. His directives should be unambiguous, there should be no doubt about what his wishes are. Only then can he justify punishment.”

  “Many things are so obvious they do not need rules.”

  “Those with that sort of understanding are rare. Many live in ignorance. And what is learned now will soon be forgotten again. What makes you confident your god will not do the same thing all over again in five hundred years, to your children and your children’s children? That he will not destroy your cities again and will not butcher your descendants?”

  “The Unnameable does not bear malice. He has only become tired of humankind. I have long discussions with Him, and I assure you, He does not act rashly. His spirit will not quarrel with us for eternity. Believe me, after this, there will be clear rules, commandments, and prohibitions that are so plain they will not need explanations.”

 
My father shook his head. “I do not ask for rules. I ask for judgment, the understanding that makes it possible to deviate from the rules if the need arises.”

  “That understanding too will come. With the passing of time. And with mankind’s maturing.”

  “Is this then the time of beginning, the time of mistakes and trials? To me it sounds more like the endtime. It seems to me that soon everything will be finished.”

  “Let us say that a new time is coming.”

  “A new time for whom? For a handful of candidates? That is reprehensible.”

  “It is the crime that is reprehensible, not the punishment.”

  “How can there be a question of crime for a people that does not have a system of justice yet? You prohibit the taking of a life, and so you’ve come to this state of disarray. If you do not kill when it is necessary, do not raise the ax against the criminal or the sword against the murderer, you replace revenge with fighting, with perpetual feuding, with the slaying and murdering under cover of darkness because the light of day will not tolerate it. That is what your Unnameable is now railing against: against that furtive killing of men in their sleep. Give this people a system of justice, give them a few executioners, and they would not become depraved. No god would find it necessary to destroy them. Whoever does not apply justice in punishment causes blood feuds. Whoever does not permit punishment forces it underground. Talk your god around, appeal to his reason.” My father’s voice sounded hollow in the cave. He stood looking and talking straight ahead, as if he was not talking to anyone in particular. But then his stance changed. He turned to the Builder. The Builder wanted to reply, but my father said, as if he had only just remembered, “Or is the Unnameable destroying us for your benefit? So that you will be able to live in a better world?”

  The Builder’s words stuck in his throat. He looked at the rock walls glittering with water and at the mosses in spots where there was a little light. Suddenly he started sobbing. His body sagged against Zaza’s. Zaza gently patted his hand.