In the Shadow of the Ark

by Anne Provoost

  Ham seemed tireless. I longed for him constantly, I wanted him next to me as he used to be under the silkworms’ breeding cage. I wanted to stroke his skin till his buttocks felt all silky. I wanted to see him throw back his head.

  But he had a pact with his father! Now and then he came to me with water, oil, and a sponge. (It was good water, it had come from my own spring. The water in the containers on deck was disappointing. It was brown and full of grit that irritated the skin.) I had to lie still like a cripple. As soon as I stretched my arms out to him, he pushed them away. I placed my foot against his, but he moved it aside.

  Because he was so implacable, because the pact with his father was apparently much more precious to him than our love, there grew, deep inside me, an ill-natured, tireless argument that was directed at my innermost being. To him I said nothing, because there was nothing I could express in comprehensible language. Being silent was hard for me. I wanted to hear myself say what I thought this journey would become, how I hoped to survive the isolation and the separation from my father. But what could I discuss with him?

  My silence made him affectionate. I turned around when he asked me to, held my arms exactly where he liked them, and kept smiling. His breathing was so much clearer now, his skin barely flaked at all in this moist environment. While he caressed me, stroked my hair, and straightened my dress, my feeling of desolation increased. I shot into my hutch and nursed my resentment. When he came to me again, a beaker full of goat’s milk in one hand, figs in the other, I kept what I wanted to say to myself.

  52

  The Encounter

  For fear of the snakes, I did not often venture out of my sleeping hutch. I had already been through this before in the marshes. A girl had once stepped into her boat before daybreak. In the hold lay a fat-bodied snake that instantly bit her foot. She fell and stayed down. We lifted her out of the boat. We tried to tell her to be still above all, to not move, and breathe as slowly as possible. But she screamed and flailed about. Her frenzy made her blood race through her body, and in no time the poison reached her heart. Moments later, her face turned black, and when we held her upright, blood streamed from her nose. The blood kept coming long after she died, it soaked through the rags we kept rinsing in the marsh. The water turning red around our boat had given me a deep fear of snakes. But as the weeks went by, my loneliness became too great. I climbed from my hutch and pushed my arm through the barred door of the pen. I could just reach the bolt that held it closed. It took me a while to get it open, but I managed: The builders had not reckoned with a long-armed dodo.

  I went up the passage. I heard the animals snorting, sometimes I felt the warmth of their breath, but I did not see them. Is it this long-lasting night that keeps them quiet, I wondered, and prepared to abstain although housed close with their own kind? Feeling my way along the walls, I found the gallery that led upward. I had been here, my grasp of the design saved me, although I had counted on at least some light from the gaps in the decking, and backwater, mud, and wind were the only things coming through. Because of the dirt on the ground, I wished for something on my feet. And for better eyes when nocturnal animals moved suddenly, frightening me excessively.

  I knew there was a chance I would be seen. But I was not afraid. My skin was dark; even if someone crossed my path, I could make myself invisible by keeping still. I would surely hear them coming; the voyagers on the ark moved through the hold like cattle. Above all, I was simply not afraid of discovery: I was leaving.

  By feel I found a rope ladder that led to the deck and climbed it. A rope as thick as my arm lay on the deck. It was fixed to the railing with a firm loop. I threw it over the side where it uncoiled, dancing down the bow, and then hung a few feet above the water. I slapped my hand in one of the water barrels, waited a little while, and slapped again. When I had done that long enough, I walked up and down near the bow, the skirts of my light-colored cloak flapping like flags.

  First I heard the soft sound of oars in the water. Then I saw my father’s little papyrus boat. Barely protected from the rain, he sat next to the shelter on the deck that had been designed to hold my mother’s body. He rowed cautiously, the way he would have stalked a wild boar in the reeds.

  When he was below the rope, I lowered myself along it. The rope was slippery from the rain, and the burning pain of the slide raced from my hands to my shoulders. Apart from a small lamp on the deck of the papyrus boat, there was no light. The rain caused a fine haze above the water. I must have looked like some unearthly being, the top of the rope indistinguishable because of the darkness, my hair and clothes wet through, floating a few feet above him like a tired bird, but my father was in no doubt that it was me. He pulled a strand of papyrus from his boat and held it in the flame of the lamp. The hold was lit up and I could see him: Bony and gaunt he looked, his eyes deep in their sockets. He was wearing a cap with flaps sticking out, made out of feathers and other debris he had found on the water. It protected him from the rain that kept coming down on him ceaselessly. On the deck lay his funnel and jug, and a few nets and hooks. The bow had discolored, but the outer skin had not turned black, which meant the reeds had not soaked up excessive amounts of water. My father held the burning strand as high up as he could and looked me over thoroughly.

  “You’re looking well,” he said. His other hand firmly held his barge pole. He controlled every movement of his vessel. No wave would take him by surprise, the trim of his boat was at all times in his hand. “Your legs are plump, your face is chubby. You’re doing well on that ship.”

  “Help me, Father. Get me away from here!”

  “Why do you want to leave the ark? Doesn’t Ham look after you properly?”

  “Ham loves his father better than me. I have thought hard: I too love my father best.”

  He bent his head and sighed. Then looked up to me again. “There is no room here for two people.”

  “The rope is hurting me. Help me.” There was a cramp in my foot that would not go away when I loosened the grip of my legs on the rope. It was my good luck that there was a knot in the rope that offered me some support. I felt it under my foot and stood on it, which made it easier but did not cure the cramp.

  He was not about to free me from my situation. He said, “I do not want you on board with me. What are we two together but a dead end, a lineage that is slowly dying out? It is a choice between my loneliness now or your child’s loneliness later. Just look at yourself. Your body is filling out despite the hardship you endure. Your life after the flood has already begun. You’re carrying a child.”

  “But Father,” I said nearly in tears. “I want to be with you. If you do not want me with you on your boat, then come with me on the ark. I am lonely. Ham will not let me near Neelata, and Put keeps himself hidden.”

  “If I am to survive, it will be by myself,” he replied. “Not with that animal-tamer who has elevated his own family above all others. Not with Shem, who broke his agreement. Not with Ham, who left me behind out of fear. And least of all with Japheth.” His voice was firm. After all the hardships he had suffered, I had expected him to be hoarse, but he sounded clear, like a singer or a poet.

  I was freezing cold. I could not believe that he had pointed out my condition to me, and for the rest, only allowed the drops that slid off my body to fall onto his deck. It was not worthy of a man who had spent a part of his life looking after a cripple. It was dishonest, it was scandalous, but when I wanted to tell him this, my voice had left my throat like a startled bat.

  “Don’t send me your baskets of food anymore,” he continued, unperturbed. “They tempt me, and I can’t resist picking them up. But they make me dependent. The day your supply stops, I starve. I know the rules of scarcity. The first is that you do not help each other. We cannot survive for each other. Help weakens you. Starving happens in solitude.”

  He should not steer his boat so close under me, I thought. If I fell, I would crash onto his deck and overturn his boat.

 
“Forget your grudge against the ark builders, Father. Use their ark.”

  “I must stay in my papyrus boat. That floating coffin you’re on is stable, but gives no certainty. I have said it from the start: To save mankind, you need a fleet, not a single vessel. What sort of god carries all his eggs in one basket?”

  I began to understand why he kept steering that boat of his so carefully below me. If he moved away, I could throw myself into the water. He saw that I was desperate enough even to defy the man-eating fish.

  “I really don’t need much room. I belong with you. Those others are strangers to me.”

  “Think of your child. You are no longer alone.”

  “I want it to be the way it was, live with Mother and you by the marshes, build rafts and catch fish.”

  “I know, my daughter. This is the time you do not want to go through. Just as unbearable as the thought that after our death life just goes on, is the knowledge that our lives just go on now that everything has been destroyed. You want this to be past, but you cannot jump, not into the past nor into the future. You must suffer every hour of this punishment.”

  “Why are you like this, Father? What has happened to you?”

  “Have you seen how powerful their god is? Have you seen a single one of our old gods? They have been swallowed up, Re Jana, now there is only the Unnameable. If I find myself on this papyrus boat, it is thanks to Him. Your being on the Ark is thanks to Him. Do nothing that displeases Him, we cannot stand up to Him. Forget what I have taught you and abide by His wishes.” His voice was as cold as the water that ran down my back. My strength diminished. It became ever harder to hang on.

  “But what will you eat, Father? What will you drink?”

  “Worries are for the start of a journey. After a time, they are replaced by a healthy indifference.” His torch hissed as he extinguished it in the water. He took up his oars, he rowed away from me. I hung there as if I had been beaten senseless.

  There were people who had told me that every life is a continuation of a previous one. Then why did I have the feeling that I had to start from nothing and still had to learn everything? After weeks of longing, I had finally reached my father, and he sent me back. The only thing he had done for me was to confirm what I suspected: that I was carrying a child, and that therefore my place was on the ark. I could not recall a loneliness, a physical pain like this. What had happened to the knowledge I had gleaned in my previous life?

  My feet slipped off the knot and I slid down. I wrapped my legs around the end of the rope. The lump rubbed the salt from the spray into my skin and pressed on my already sensitive parts, but it held me. I hung there, helpless as an animal in a snare.

  Climbing up the rope seemed the same as going down: It offered no prospects. Letting go would be the simplest — disappearing into the depths, following those many others into the sea. But when I contemplated letting go, it was as if inside me frightened little hands grasped around, and so I dangled, rejected by my father, on the outside of that ship.

  I called out. Ham would have been looking for me for ages. He would forgive me and take me back. But it was Japheth who heard me, cross-eyed Japheth of all people. He did not sleep; he too had his nocturnal occupation. Perhaps that was lucky for me: He had the strongest arms and the most accommodating character. Without as much as a sigh or a groan, he pulled me up. He took me under the armpits and carefully lifted me over the railing. He was going to put me on my feet, but a cramp knocked my legs out from under me. Helpless as a fish I fell onto the deck.

  53

  Japheth

  I did not say a word, I think I did not even moan. Japheth helped me stand up. Beaten, numb with cold, I went where I belonged: the dodoes’ pen. There I lay down in the clammy hay. Not for long, of course, for Japheth came into the pen and hiked up his skirts. He lay on top of me and opened his mouth as if he was screaming. I curled up to protect the life that was growing inside me, my hips twisting unwillingly, my ribs around me like armor. But Japheth was heavy and strong.

  I did not think he meant me any harm. Rather, he was desperate and embarrassed. “I am so sorry, I can’t help it,” he said. “For the animals, abstinence comes naturally. The Unnameable has suspended their instinct for killing and mating. Why not for us? Why do we have to suffer a discomfort even the animals are spared? I hope I do not hurt you, and if I do, please forgive me.” He released me and brushed my hair out of my face. He arranged my clothes and helped me up from my awkward position. I had forgiven him even before his footsteps died out.

  Soon after, he was back. He was talking to someone I could not see. “Lie down next to her and feel how beautiful she is,” he said.

  “Yes,” the other replied. “I’ll lie next to her.”

  “Do it now,” Japheth said, his voice high-pitched.

  “Yes, yes, calm down. Keep your head, I won’t betray you.”

  The other entered the pen. It was Shem, carrying his little monkey, much to the consternation of my fellow inmates. “Go now, will you?” he said to Japheth, who watched him sitting down next to me. Japheth disappeared up the gallery.

  Shem wanted me to kneel down and bend over for him. He pressed my face into the hay, making breathing difficult. Better this way, I thought, he won’t hurt me with his bony beads. But thinking of the pain I avoided did nothing to lessen the real pain. With Shem too it did not take long. He must have had things to do still; the animals were waking up and bellowing for their food.

  They were back a day later. They entered the dodoes’ pen by turns. They were touching in their apologies. They clearly underestimated my satisfaction. At least I was allowed to touch them; they did not, like Ham, force me to stay motionless. Being allowed to stroke did me good, even though their bodies left me cold. I knew where to touch a man, and how long it took before he threw back his head and offered his throat. Japheth exhausted me with his constant demands to use force, to treat him roughly. I thought his skin was probably too thick. But at least he looked at me, even if he did not say much. Shem, on the other hand, looked past me. There was a lot of disgust in his pleasure; perhaps he thought, like me, of the truss-boat he had destroyed. Of love, all he knew was the motions.

  Ham came to get me as usual in the quiet hours. I refused to make another basket, and when he brought food for my father, I ate it myself. He asked me to put my anger aside. “Do as you used to. Tell me what you think,” but I could not tell him what happened to me during the day. Even less could I tell him that my father had refused to take me on his papyrus boat. All I could do was sing. Songs from the past, rowing songs, hauling songs, songs for bringing in the nets. I sang them with gusto from the hutch:

  Where heads the little boat

  warping on the water,

  racing like a fire,

  and who is at the helm?

  How much costs a net,

  how much a sheet, a candle?

  How much a garth of thorns and stones?

  How much the eyes amongst the reeds

  through which you gaze at me?

  As I sang, I painstakingly pulled every thread from Neelata’s cushion. I thought it was a shame, I did not want to do it, but my fingers kept going back to it. The pieces of thread flew around me and finished up in my nose and throat. Because the ship’s noises went on as normal, I sang even louder; I was hoping I could be heard as far as Put’s hiding place. Every once in a while I stopped to listen to the birds who were sharpening their beaks on the bars as if they were getting ready for a massacre. What I did was dangerous. But I could not stop it, my voice hummed on, even when I clenched my jaws and held my hand clamped with all my strength over my mouth.

  54

  The Builder’s Blessing

  It did not take Zaza long to work out that her sons were desperate. When she heard a female voice from the cages, she understood what was going on. She approached the Builder and said, “The days are long and there is time to bless the boys. Do not wait until something happens to them, do it no
w.”

  The Builder was amenable. The bouts of fever had not recurred for quite a time, and he was satisfied with the progress of the journey. They agreed to meet that very evening in their living space. They would not play shovelboard or make music; their full attention would be on the blessing and the dialogue with their god. I knew exactly when it happened: They fed the animals much faster than usual and there was a nervousness in their movements that had not been there since the departure of the ark. They were, of course, worried: The words of the oracle still rang in their heads.

  I was convinced Ham would be cursed: He stole food for me every day, he wasted water, he wandered about the ship while everybody slept. By going down that rope, I had betrayed him. Shamelessly, I had put his life and his child’s at risk and demeaned his love. He had been good to me. He had made mistakes, with my father as well as my mother, but never from ill will. To me he appeared upright, the least deserving of the curse. Shem and Japheth had committed the real crimes. For that reason, I opened the dodoes’ pen that evening and left my hiding place. I stood by the door to their living space and listened. I was fairly sure I could hear everyone. They sang and prepared for the blessing. With both hands, I pushed the door handle and went in.