The Sinners and the Sea

by Rebecca Kanner

  Jank pulls himself over the wall, and his feet land hardly a finger’s width from mine. I want to step back, but that will just bring Jank closer to the hatch. If he advanced to the second level of the ark, he could release all of the animals, kill Noah, and kill Ona. Or leave Ona alive for his pleasure but beat upon her stomach until he kills my grandchildren. I look around for my sons. Shem and Japheth are battling the skeletons with Herai’s help, and Ham and Zilpha still are not on deck.

  Jank has a sword in his belt but does not unsheath it. Instead, he takes hold of my throat. With his other hand, he pulls the cloth tied around his head away from his black and red eye socket. If my breath had not already come to a halt because of his hand on my neck it would come to one now. “My father tried to take both of my eyes when I saw what another man did to him in battle. But I killed him before he could blind me.” His hand loosens as he laughs. I see his sharpened canines and the space between them. “That you would think yourself capable of stopping me brings a certain joy into my heart, and I thank you for that.”

  Should I beg for my life to give my sons time to come to my aid? Or once I beg, will he finally have gotten what he wants and have no more need of me?

  “I am the matriarch of the new world. The God of Adam will never forgive you if you take my life. The only life He would have you take is your own.”

  “Demon woman, do you really think He would want all the peoples of the new world to come from you?” His hand tightens around my throat.

  “I know I am no demon and that no demon ever resided within me,” I choke. “My sons are argument enough that I am a woman and no more. They are too imperfect, too mortal, for me to be anything but human.”

  He drags me toward him, lifts me off my feet, and turns me to the right, so that out of the corner of my eye, I can partly see Shem struggling with two of Jank’s men. “Take a last look at your argu—”

  I sink my leftmost teeth into the side of his face. He screams, and shoves me to the deck floor.

  His scream reminds me of the boy he was when Noah and I first came upon him. He is still only a boy, except now he is a boy who cannot see. He thrashes his head about as if he can undo what has happened, then stumbles and falls backward. His head hits as hard as if it has fallen all the way from the sky.

  I pretend to hold Jank’s eye in my fist. I raise it up over my head. “This is all that remains of our enemy’s sight,” I cry loudly enough for Jank’s men to hear.

  It is as if I have taken their eyes as well. They begin to die beneath my children’s blades.

  • • •

  When the fighting is over, Herai and I stand Jank up. “Do not leave your work unfinished and my life in the hands of raiders,” he begs me. “Take what is left.”

  “I am sorry, I cannot.”

  His hands grope for our weapons. But we have set them down, hopefully forever. We heave his fat, struggling bulk over the deck wall.

  He falls onto the God’s Eye, on top of his dying men. On top of him fall torches—first one and then another, thrown by my oldest sons. The flames crackle loudly and are soon joined by the sounds of boards breaking and then howling. I do not know which screams are from the flames and which are from the men.

  The flames flare out into a huge sail. I step back from the deck wall. Those left on deck with me—Shem, Japheth, and Herai—step back as well. But the fire that touches the ark does not grasp it. When the wind catches the sail of flames and pushes Jank’s ship back in the direction it came, no flames are left with the ark.

  The ship leaves behind a smell more horrible than an animal sacrifice. But I cannot leave the deck; I cannot take my eyes from the blaze. With my children’s help, I have rid the world of Jank. There is no one left in the world to call me “demon woman.”

  Burning pieces of Jank’s ship rise into the air. They crackle, turn black, and disappear. Though I should not be able to feel the heat, I do. It burns hotter and hotter until the flames begin to reach for the sky. The smoke is like the long finger of Jank and his men coiling upward, beseeching: Let us in.

  Shem, Japheth, Herai, and I move closer together. We watch the fire consume the ship until there is nothing left.

  And then it is just us.

  CHAPTER 47

  THE SEA GOES STILL

  Zilpha’s perfect skin—baby-smooth, pale, untested by time or the slightest of facial expressions—was the skin I heard breaking apart when the battle first began. The hook hit the left side of her forehead, missed the hollow of her eye, and cut her cheek before slicing down her body and falling to the deck floor.

  When I first come upon her after the battle, she is sheltered by her husband. Herai has come down before me, and she is standing completely naked over Ham. She has given her blanket to him, and he presses it against the gash from which Zilpha is bleeding to death. He presses too gently.

  “Move.” I put my palms flat against the blanket and press firmly. “Like this,” I tell Ham and Herai. They put their hands on either side of mine. It is not enough. Blood wells up and soaks the blanket.

  “Should we change the covering?” Ham asks.

  “Do not move it, or we will lose her.” Zilpha’s eyes are closed, but I can feel her chest rising and falling jaggedly beneath my hands. “We will place another covering over this one. Get your father and brothers.”

  Herai extends one of her arms as far as she can along the bloody blanket while I pull my tunic over my head. I slide it onto the bloodied blanket.

  We wait.

  Shem is the first to arrive. He kneels by Zilpha’s head and places his hands upon my tunic so that his fingertips touch Herai’s. But it is not enough. The blood continues to flow from the little body.

  Noah is next. When I hear his staff hitting against the floor, I do not look up. I do not want to see his expression as his eyes fall upon Herai and then me. We are in danger of losing one daughter-in-law. He should be glad I did not throw Herai overboard. But I can no longer predict what he will do.

  He gets down on his knees and places his hands where Shem has made a place for them.

  Then Ham returns, alone. We all press our hands to Zilpha. Still, a small space—about two hands’ width—remains uncovered. We try to cover this space with our flesh, to extend an arm, a thigh, a cheek against it. Her blood is hot against the side of my face. She is alive. But I do not know how much longer she can bleed like this before her heart dries up and stops beating.

  Loud footsteps, angry heel-digging-into-the-floor footsteps, approach. Japheth drops down beside me. I lift my cheek, and he presses his hands down on Zilpha. As if this is what she’s been waiting for—bleeding for—the coverings beneath us gather no more blood.

  “Thank you, Mother,” Ham says.

  • • •

  She sleeps. It is not the sleep of the dead. Her heart beats, and whenever I place my hand beneath her nose, I feel her warm breath. I check on her wound daily, and Ham feeds her lentil soup. Though she does not open her eyes, she is healing with remarkable speed.

  • • •

  “The sky feels farther and farther away,” I tell Ham one morning when we are both on deck.

  “The water is slowly setting us down.”

  Very slowly, which is quickly enough for me. This ark has taken the meat from my bones and surely years from my life. And yet I am afraid to get off it. I will not go back to being the obedient wife I was on land.

  I am also afraid for Herai. Her belly has grown large, and her hands are always upon it. She stands away from Ham and me, holding it while she stares out into the sea. I think she wants to share her good news with her mother. It seems that the larger the life inside her grows, the more she misses Javan.

  • • •

  Noah shows no sign of being angry at me for not throwing Herai overboard. Perhaps whatever pride he had drowned along with the sinners. He squints at Herai’s belly the same way she watches the sea: hoping someone will come from it.

  Ona is so pregnant, s
he no longer looks it. She looks like something out of a tale that children tell to scare each other. A woman with a tumor that has taken over. I think Noah has given up on her ever giving birth and has fastened his faith upon Herai. It is for her that he has Japheth slaughter the first animal upon the ark. The time has come to feed the next generation.

  Japheth slaughters the goat with apprehension that unsteadies his knife. He is afraid too. Of what, I do not know. I would have expected only anger from him. Noah has told him he will keep Herai as his wife and care for her child as if it were his and not Shem’s.

  And yet Noah thinks Japheth’s fear is of God. “Son, do not worry,” he tells him, “God had us take seven pairs of all the clean animals because He intended that we eat six of them.”

  • • •

  One day, as I am going down the ramp from the deck, there is a great clunk. I crash to the floor of the second level.

  When I stand, I am overcome by a strange sensation. It is in my entire body. I am not shifting from side to side. I am not moving at all. Nothing is. Not even my stomach. I had forgotten how it feels to be completely still.

  For almost half a year, my hands have been poised to catch my weight against the wall or floor. Slowly, I let my fingers relax.

  I turn back toward the ramp and go up to the deck.

  Whatever we have hit must be large—much larger even than the ark and as dense as packed earth. Where is it that the God of Adam has brought us to through rain and darkness and floodwaters?

  Ham is on deck, as is Herai. She holds her belly as if it would fall were she to let go.

  “We have come to rest upon a mountain beneath the surface of the sea,” Ham tells me.

  “I do not see it.”

  “It is beneath us.”

  The wind is stronger than usual; my hair whips my face. “Well, I hope it stays there.”

  • • •

  We spend our days taking care of the animals—feeding them, cleaning their cages, and sometimes trying to walk the tame ones now that we believe we will be on land again soon. But really, what we are doing is waiting. Waiting for the water to recede and show us the new world.

  CHAPTER 48

  TWO BIRDS AND A BRANCH

  And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. Also he sent forth a dove . . .

  GENESIS 8:7–8

  We did not know we were surrounded by mountains until we saw them.

  “I knew,” Japheth says. “The water moves in clashing half circles.”

  Actually, the water moves little in any direction except down, revealing a shade of green on the mountaintops that I have never seen. When the wind blows, the small amount of sea that still covers the grass stirs it like a stew. It is so rich, my eyes almost get stuck in it.

  I wonder if this is a mirage or worse—if God has brought us to the edge of this paradise but will keep the waters from receding, so that it will forever be within sight but out of reach. I hope He is done punishing His creations. Despite my fear at leaving the ark, I must know what that lush grass feels like beneath my feet.

  • • •

  One day Zilpha opens her eyes. “Send out a dove,” she tells Noah.

  Because she has told him to do so, he cannot. I guess not all of his pride drowned with the sinners, and this comes as a relief. He has not been broken by the sea.

  “Doves cannot find their way home once they have journeyed a quarter of a league from their nests,” he says. He calls to a scrawny raven instead. There has been no carrion for the creature to eat. As with many of the birds, the raven’s feathers are dirty and frayed. They faded from black to gray within a few moons of our journey on the ark.

  Still, when Noah launches him from a finger, the bird lifts into the air and flaps his wings upon the wind harder and harder until eventually he disappears.

  “Bring us something of a tree, bird,” Noah mutters.

  After this, Noah spends much of his time on deck, squinting into the distance. The raven is an unclean animal, so we brought only one pair. If this raven does not return, there will be no more ravens.

  • • •

  Days pass, and still there is no sign of the raven. I think the creature has gone from this ark for good, and I do not blame him. If he did not find any trees, why would he fly back to us rather than drop his sad body into the sea?

  God, please let us off this ark before we lose any more of Your creatures.

  Like the ravens, the doves have turned gray. They were silent during the long darkness and even after it, until Zilpha got them to coo again. After she retired to the second level of the ark to recover from her wounds, the birds grew listless. But she has returned to the deck, so they have returned to their songs.

  “This one,” Zilpha says, pointing to a female with what looks like joy in her shiny black eyes.

  “Her wings are not strong enough for this wind,” Noah says.

  “You did not think I was strong enough to withstand the wind either,” Zilpha replies. With the scar on her face, she looks stronger, less delicate. I wonder if Noah can see this.

  “The first dove to perch on my finger will go,” Noah says. He holds his finger out, and the shiny-eyed dove lands only long enough to push off of it before flying out into the new world.

  She is strong enough to return, then to go again. The second time she comes back with an olive branch in her beak. The third time she does not come back.

  “Slaughter a ewe,” Noah commands Japheth. “It will not be long now.”

  CHAPTER 49

  THE NEW WORLD

  It has been eighty days since the dove was sent out from the ark for the last time. When the dove did not return, we rejoiced—quietly at first, as if we did not quite believe that she had found a place to rest the sole of her foot, then with a great feast. The feast ended only today, when we finished the third-to-last ewe. We have eaten through all but two of each clean animal.

  Our ribs are tucked safely inside our skins. Our eyes no longer take up half our faces. But God has not let us off the ark. “God commands that we wait until the water returns to the sea,” Noah says.

  Besides the occasional body floating below, the water is peaceful enough, but we can see that it is too high to stand in. Only the leaves on what must be the highest branches peek up out of the water. We wait while the earth drinks in a little more each day.

  It is not easy. Almost all of the rainwater we collected during the storm is gone. My throat is so parched that the mass grave of the sea is starting to beckon me: Drink, let me coat your throat and flow through you. Drink of me and be sated.

  Herai’s baby entered the world crying and has not stopped very long since. He is a sturdy, clear-eyed child. His cries are not cries of sadness or distress. They are ambitious cries, as if he is testing the strength of his voice and its power over us. It does not take a lot of effort to imagine his cries being those of a boy going eagerly into battle. Herai has named him Javan.

  The one sound loud enough for Noah to hear without my help is little Javan’s crying. A milky film has gathered in Noah’s eyes. I often find him squinting through it at the boy.

  “He’s a normal, healthy boy,” I tell Noah.

  Still, Noah listens intently to Javan’s cries.

  “He is not slow,” I say.

  “I pray you are right. He is all we have.”

  When he is not squinting down at little Javan, he is on deck. Each morning he asks the same question: “Tell me, wife, how far down the trees can you see?” I must lean close so he hears my answer. It is never the answer he wants.

  • • •

  The sun has returned. Not just the brightness that came back after the rains but the heat. It has dried every ounce of the rains and the flood from my body. I would be happier to see it if I were not as parched as the desert.

  Ham takes his sleeping blanket and goes to Japheth. “May I have a few of your wooden spears, brother? Just enough to st
retch this hide for a couple of cubits in each direction.” I often hear Ham asking Zilpha if she would like shade. She says she is no longer afraid of the sun, but I suppose Ham wishes to fashion a parasol for her in any case. “You can have my rations tonight and tomorrow.”

  “I would rather have my spears.”

  “What makes you think Father’s God has left anyone for you to kill?”

  Japheth answers by looking long at Ham.

  “Enough,” I say. “I will have your father give the most barren part of the new world to any son who stains the rest of my days with foolish malice.”

  After Japheth sulks away, Ham turns to me, as he does more and more. “Mother, we do not need all of the ark now, do we? Surely we can break off a small piece of the deck wall.” The deck wall is already broken where the great she-beast rushed away into the sea. But we should not further dismember the ark when we do not know when—or if—God will allow us to come ashore.

  “Patience. Water still hoards the ground. When it is gone, you can take the lumber from the animals’ cages.”

  After watching Zilpha fight her way out of death’s grasp, it is difficult to imagine her having any need of a parasol. But I say nothing of this to Ham. He wants to provide for Zilpha, and he does not yet have land and herds.

  • • •

  The water continues to recede until one day I go up on deck to discover that all God has left of the flood is one stream bubbling through the valley below us. Any fear about leaving the ark is forgotten. I want to drink from that stream.

  I return to the second level, where I find Noah squinting down at his grandson. Herai has left little Javan crying on her sleeping blankets while she helps Ham clean dung from the animal cages. Noah senses me next to him.