Many Waters

by Madeleine L'engle

  "Wonderful." Then, acknowledging: "A little tired." It would be good to liedown on the soft linen spread over the skins. To sleep a little. To have something cool to drink. He stifled a yawn.

  "Come." Oholibamah held out her strong hands. To his surprise, he needed her help in getting up.

  When Yalith and Oholibamah needed ointments and unguents for Dennys's burned skin, Anah, or Mahlah, if she happened to be home, would take them across the oasis to the close cluster of houses and shops to meet Tiglah, Anah's sister.

  "I don't like it," Japheth said to his wife. "I don't like your going to such places."

  She bent toward him to kiss him. "We don't go in. I wouldn't take Yalith into such a place even if Mahlah--"

  Japheth gave a shout of anger and anguish. "What has happened to Mahlah!"

  Oholibamah said, softly, "We all have choices to make, dear one, and we do not all choose the same way."

  "Why can't I get what you need for you?"

  "Oh, love, it is a house for women. You would not be welcome."

  "I have seen men coming out. And nephilim."

  "Japheth. My own. Please don't argue. We'll be all right. Anah is tough."

  "And Mahlah?"

  Oholibamah put her arms around her husband, pressed her cheek against his. Did not answer.

  Mahlah went with Oholibamah and Yalith less and less frequently, because she was less and less often in the home tent. And when she was there, she came in late, after everybody else was asleep, then slept late herself, and managed to avoid confrontation with Matred.

  Matred, herself, allowed Mahlah to avoid her. She was waiting for her daughter to come to her and her husband with Ugiel, according to custom, but Ugiel did not come, and Mahlah did not speak, and Matred said nothing to Noah of Mahlah's betrothal to a nephil. Until the betrothal was made formal, and recognized by Mahlah's family, there would be no talk of marriage.

  Marriages were often casual affairs, no more than an agreement between the two sets of parents, with the bride's mother and father bringing her to the tent of the groom. Matred liked to have things done properly, not overdone, but well done. Yalith and Mahlah's two older sisters, Seerah and Hoglah, had been taken to their husbands' tents after Matred and Noah had prepared a feast, with plenty of Noah's good wine.

  Elisheba, Shem's wife, had come quietly to Noah's compound and Shem's tent, accompanied by her widowed father, and bearing several gold rings, and her teraphim, the small figures of her household gods. Anah, Matred said, had had a vulgar wedding, with crowds of people, many uninvited. There were musicians, dancers, and far too much wine, inferior, at that--who would dare compete with Noah's wine?--for far too many days. Such excesses were not only unnecessary, they were unseemly.

  Cleaning out the big tent with Yalith's help, Matred said, "I do not understand Mahlah."

  Yalith shook out a sleeping skin. "Neither do I. I wish she would come speak to you and Father, instead of avoiding you."

  Matred fiercely beat the dust out of one of the floor skins. "If your father knew what she's up to, he'd be furious. There's something on his mind, something he's not telling me about, or he'd have noticed her strange behavior. You think that this Ugh--"

  "Ugiel."

  "That nephil--you think he means to marry her?"

  "I don't know." Yalith scrubbed out one of the stone lamps with sand. "Mahlah thinks so."

  "Speak to her," Matred begged. "Try to make her see reason. All she needs is to come to us with her nephil and tell us that they are betrothed, and we will make all the arrangements for a wedding feast."

  "I'll try," Yalith said, "but I'm not sure she'll listen." Mahlah had always been closer to and more like the older sisters than Yalith, the youngest, the different one. "I'll try," she reassured her mother.

  The next day she went with Oholibamah and Anah to get a fresh supply of the ointment that softened Dennys's scabs. Perhaps Mahlah would be with the redheaded Tiglah, and Yalith could talk with her then.

  Anah walked slowly, with her usual undulating of hips. Yalith and Oholibamah walked on ahead.

  "Tiglah frightens me," Yalith whispered to Oholibamah. "I know she's Anah's sister, and she is probably the most beautiful woman on the oasis, but--"

  "Her beauty is for sale," Oholibamah stated flatly. "But there is no reason to be afraid of her."

  They turned onto the narrow path which ran between low white stone buildings. "I don't like coming here," Yalith murmured.

  "I don't like it, either," Oholibamah said, "but there is no other way to get the salves for the Den. The last of his scabs will be off in a few days. Then we can forget the ointment. The herbal water the pelican brings will be enough."

  "Den is getting better," Yalith said. "That's one good thing."

  "Only one?" Oholibamah laughed.

  Yalith shuddered. "Everything seems to be changing. Mahlah avoids our parents. And my father keeps hearing the Voice in the vineyards, and whatever it says is upsetting him, but he won't tell us what El says."

  "What El says is good." Oholibamah smiled. "El said that Japheth was to marry. That is why I am here."

  "You wouldn't rather have waited?"

  "I love Japheth." Oholibamah's voice was tender. "I know we were both very young and unready for marriage. But we love each other. When the time comes, we will have children together."

  Yalith sighed. "I would like to love someone the way you love Japheth."

  "Be patient, little sister. Your time will come."

  They had reached the white house with the brightly beaded curtains at the entry, the house where Tiglah got the ointments they needed, and they stopped to wait for Anah, who made it very clear that she was doing them a great favor in being the go-between. The beads glittered and jangled, and Tiglah came out, followed by Mahlah--Tiglah with her head of radiant red hair, Mahlah with her cascade of black hair, the two girls startling foils for each other.

  "Where's Anah?" Tiglah asked.

  "She's coming." Oholibamah looked back down the path to where Anah was slowly following them.

  "Mahlah!" Yalith exclaimed. "I'm glad to see you. I need to talk to you."

  Mahlah raised her hands and pushed back a thick fall of black hair. "That's funny. I want to talk to you, too. Shall we go inside?"

  "No." Yalith drew back. "Please--"

  "I could have your hair brushed," Mahlah coaxed, "the way Tiglah's and mine is, so it would look more beautiful."

  "No," Yalith repeated.

  Mahlah shrugged. "We can sit over here then, while Anah and Oholibamah go with Tiglah to get the ointment." She led Yalith a little way down the path to a low wall. Yalith, with sudden and unexpected shock, saw that Mahlah's usually flat belly was softly rounding.

  "Mahlah," she urged. "Please, please, you and Ugiel please come to our parents and tell them that you're betrothed."

  Mahlah's little hands proudly touched the small roundness. "And will be married soon."

  "Then please come and tell them. Mother will need time to prepare a wedding feast."

  "No, she won't," Mahlah said. "That is not how things are done with the nephilim. I will have a nephil wedding."

  "But Mother--"

  Again Mahlah's little hands stroked her stomach. "I'm sorry, really, I'm sorry. But she had it her own way with our sisters. She'll probably have it her own way with you. So she'll just have to let me do it my way."

  "But why? Isn't the old way good enough for you?"

  Mahlah laughed. "Customs change. We have to move with the times." There was a slight hiss to her speech which Yalith had never heard before. She sounded more like Ugiel than like Mahlah. The sisters sat side by side on the wall, the silence between them becoming more and more uncomfortable, until at last Yalith broke it.

  "What did you want to see me about?"

  "Can't you guess?"

  "No."

  "Eblis."

  Yalith looked at her in surprise. "But why--"

  "He likes you," Mahlah said. "He s
ays he has offered to teach you."

  "No--"

  "Why not?"

  "I'm taking care of the Den. That's why we're here, to get salve for him."

  Again Mahlah sounded more like Ugiel than like Yalith's sister. "That's all very noble. But it needn't stop you from going out with Eblis. Don't you realize what an honor that is, to have Eblis interested in you?" She sounded strangely sibilant.

  "I know he does me much honor." Yalith's voice was low.

  "What's wrong, then?"

  "I have to stay with the Den," Yalith whispered.

  "I know you're taking good care of him. But Oholi is there, too, isn't she?"

  "She--she is Japheth's wife. She has to be in her own tent. She tells me what to do, but--"

  "Little sister," Mahlah said. "Don't be foolish."

  Yalith looked down at her long, straight toes. Blurted out, "I don't care about Eblis as much as I do about the Den and the Sand."

  "What!" Mahlah was scandalized.

  "You heard me."

  "But we don't know if they're even human!"

  "We know that the nephilim are not," Yalith retorted.

  "They're more than human," Mahlah said proudly. "The two--what are they? twins?--they seem subhuman."

  "No," Yalith protested. "They're human, I know they are."

  "Giants human?"

  "Yes."

  "And you think if you start going out with giants, human or no, our parents wouldn't be upset?"

  "Everybody loves them..."

  "Yes? Anyhow, they're too young, much too young."

  "I know that." Yalith hung her head even lower. "But I think that, where they come from, years are counted differently than here. And I would be willing to wait."

  "For which one?" Mahlah demanded.

  A slow flush spread across Yalith's cheeks. She still thought of the twins as one person divided into two places. "I saw the Sand first, in Grandfather Lamech's tent, and I have helped bring the Den back to life when he was nearly dead."

  "That is not enough reason for this stupidity. Eblis can give you anything you want."

  "Even if I want the twins?"

  "Don't be a fool," Mahlah snapped, and jumped down from the wall as Anah and Oholibamah came toward them, Oholibamah carrying a small jar.

  "Well, Mahlah." Anah looked at her pointedly. "Are you getting ready to move into your own tent?"

  Mahlah smiled a secret smile and tossed her head so that the dark hair glinted in the light. "I will not have a tent. I will have a house, a house of white stones." She drew back as a snake uncoiled at her feet, spreading a jeweled hood. "Ugiel--" she gasped.

  For a moment of mirage, the snake seemed to uncoil upward, to raise great lavender wings, to quiver with white skin and amethyst eyes. Then the mirage was gone, and the snake undulated across the path and disappeared into a clump of scrubby palmettos.

  Yalith reached for Oholibamah's hand.

  Anah gave Mahlah a malicious smile. "Is he playing tricks with you?"

  Mahlah raised her head proudly. "Ugiel comes to me only when I am alone." She turned back to Yalith, asking in such a low voice that she excluded the others, "If it were not for the young giants, would you go with Eblis?"

  "I don't know," Yalith said. "I don't know."

  Mahlah spoke in a louder voice. "Tell our parents I'll be sure to let them know when I'm married."

  "Couldn't you bring yourself to tell them, beforehand?" Yalith begged.

  Mahlah shrugged. "We'll see. I have to go now." And she turned back to the low white house and shouldered her way through the tinkling curtain of beads.

  "Let's go," Anah said. "I have other things to do." And instead of dawdling as she had done on the way in, she strode off impatiently.

  Oholibamah spoke calmly. "It's really very good of Anah, and of Tiglah, too, to get the ointments for us."

  "They aren't doing it for nothing," Yalith said. "I gave them all my share of the figs, and the crop was good this year. And you gave them all your almonds."

  Oholibamah stated a known fact. "Anah and Tiglah don't know how to do something for nothing. That's how they are."

  "But Mahlah wasn't like that," Yalith protested. "She's changed. I don't know her anymore."

  She jumped as a rat scuttled across her toes. Again there was a flickering of height, of wings and brilliant eyes, and then there was only the sleek body of the rat. Yalith thought of the dragon/lizard Eblis, who could offer her more than she could dream. And then she thought of the twins, of Sandy bowing to her in her grandfather's tent, of Dennys sitting with her at night--Dennys, who was able to understand the language of the stars.

  And she knew she would never go with Eblis.

  She turned, to see tears in Oholibamah's eyes. "Oholi," she started in surprise.

  Oholibamah reached up to wipe away her tears, smiled her quick smiled. "This morning I saw my face reflected in the water jar. Oh, Yalith, little Yalith, I love my father, and now I don't know if he is my father, after all."

  Yalith took her sister-in-law's hand. "If you love him, he is your father, no matter what."

  Oholibamah nodded gratefully. "Thank you, little sister. I needed to hear that."

  "You are my brother's wife," Yalith continued, "and my friend. And if--well, if the nephilim are related to the seraphim, which my father believes, then you are like the seraphim."

  "Hurry up," Anah called, and beckoned to them imperiously.

  "We're coming," Oholibamah said. And they hurried toward the central section of the oasis, where Noah's vineyards were, and his grazing grounds, and his tents. And where Dennys was waiting for them.

  The moon set, its path whiter than the desert sands dwindling into shadow. The stars moved in their joyous dance across the sky. The horizon was dark with that deep darkness which comes just before the dawn.

  A vulture flew down, seemingly out of nowhere, stretching its naked neck, settling its dark feathers.

  --Vultures are underestimated. Without us, disease would wipe out all life. We clean up garbage, feces, dead bodies of man and beast. We are not appreciated.

  No sound was heard and yet the words seemed scratched upon the air.

  A scarab beetle burrowed up out of the sand and blinked at the vulture.--It is true. You help keep the world clean. I appreciate you.

  And it disappeared beneath the sand.

  A crocodile crawled across the desert, lumbering along clumsily, far from its native waters. It was followed by the dragon/lizard, who stretched his leather wings, showing off. A dark, hooded snake slithered past them both.

  A small, brown, armored creature, not much bigger than the scarab beetle, skittered along beside the snake.--We are invulnerable. We have survived the fire of the volcanoes, the earthquakes that pushed the continents apart and raised the mountain ranges. We are immortal. We cover the planet.

  A bat, brighter than gold, swooped low over the cockroach.--You are proud, and you can survive fire and ice, but I could eat you if I had to. I hope I never have to.

  And the golden bat soared high, a bright flash against the dark.

  A tiny mimicry of a crocodile, with a blunt nose, a skink scrabbled along beside the crocodile and the dragon/lizard.--I am small, and swift, and my flesh is not edible and causes damage to the brain. I am the way that I am. That is how I am made.

  On the skink's back, a flea tried to dig through the armored flesh.--I, too, am the way that I am.

  A shrill whine cut across the clear air. A mosquito droned.--I, too. I, too. I will feast on your blood.

  A small, slimy worm wriggled across the sand, leaving a thin trail. A slug's viscous path followed.--I am not like the snail, needing a house. I am sufficient unto myself.

  A red ant crawled along the dragon/lizard's wing, and held tight as it tried to shake the biting insect off. A rat, sleek and well filled, wriggled its nose and whiskers and looked at the vulture's naked neck.--I, too, eat the filth off the streets. I eat flesh. I prefer living flesh, but I wi
ll take what I can get. I, too, help keep the world clean.

  No sound was heard. Like negative light, the words cracked the desert night.

  The twelve oddly assorted creatures began to position themselves into a circle.

  The nephilim.

  Oholibamah lay in Japheth's arms on a large, flat stone a short walk into the desert. So intent were they in each other that they did not notice the lion pacing past them, the pelican flying high in the sky, the scarab beetle coming out of the sand.

  "My beloved," Japheth whispered into the pearly shell of Oholibamah's ear. "My mother spoke to me about it long ago. If you have nephil blood, it explains some of your healing power."

  "But I don't know--it isn't certain--"

  Japheth covered her mouth with his. Then pulled back just enough to say, "You are my wife, and we are one, and that is all that matters."

  And they were one. And it was good.

  Yalith left the tent and went outside to wait for dawn. She had spent over an hour working at Dennys's scabs, carefully pulling off those which were loose enough. Most of the oozing sores had healed. More and more of Dennys's care was given over to her, as Oholibamah could trust her to do what the boy needed. Oholibamah, after all, had duties in her own tent.

  Matred prepared meals for the boy, soups, and mashed fruits which were soft enough for him to swallow.

  "But what do we do with him when he is well?" Noah asked his wife.

  "He is our guest," Matred said. "We ask him what we can do to help him."

  "He wants to go home," Yalith said.

  "Yes, but where is home?" her mother asked.

  Now Yalith crossed one of her father's vineyards, went to the small grove that the women used, and relieved herself, then walked on until she came to where the desert lapped whitely against the oasis. She picked up a handful of the fine sand and rubbed it against her palms, between her fingers, to clean them.

  The moon had set, and the dawn stars were low on the horizon. She would take a long nap the next day during the heat of the sun. Often, the best sleeping was done then.

  In the coolness just before morning she liked to go sit on one of the great exposed rocks and rest, and listen to the slow song of the setting stars. Lamech, her grandfather, had taught her how to listen to the stars. Only Yalith and Japheth, of Noah and Matred's children, could understand the celestial language.