“Don’t think about that.”
“Why not?”
Japheth moves so that he’s sitting beside Ada. He puts an arm around her shoulder. With his other hand he strokes her hair.
“Nela and Ham hardly talk to each other anymore,” says Ada.
“No one really wants to talk with Ham. He’s a grouch.”
“Leba and Shem avoid each other now too.”
“It will pass.”
“Probably. But Japheth, we mustn’t let that happen to us. If there’s going to be meaning in life after this ark, it’s going to have to come from somewhere. We’re going to have to stay together, stay strong.”
“Yes. Husband and wife are one flesh—that’s stronger by far than two.”
She cups his cheek in her hand and kisses him.
“We can’t, Ada.”
“Yes, we can.”
I put my hands over my ears, so I can’t distinguish their words anymore. I remember private words between Aban and me. I say them to myself often. It’s my way of keeping him. Words spoken like that are special.
In this moment I feel the scratch and poke of every stalk of straw around me. I’m jumpy. Shem is due down that ladder at any moment. If he catches Ada and Japheth . . .
I should scare them off somehow. But how?
And anyway, don’t they deserve this moment? It’s their way of stepping free of the cage that this ark has become. They know they are taking a risk. Maybe that’s part of why they’re doing it. We have to take risks or we might as well all be dead.
So I’ll think of other things.
I’ll think about the toasted kelp. That’s what I was eating when Ada and Japheth came down the ladder, what I was wondering about. We haven’t had greens for days. They must have run out. And lately we’ve had only the smallest amount of dried fruits. They must be rationing them. Well, that’s good. I want the dried fruits to last. It’s all right with me, all of this; I like kelp. The duikers accepted it immediately. Queen and The Male were picky the first day, but they eat it eagerly now too.
I think of Ada carefully picking kelp from the fishing nets. I think of her spreading it out flat and hanging it perfectly on ropes by the fire. I think of her watching to make sure it doesn’t burn, then stacking it for the men to carry to the animals. I am grateful to her.
Suddenly I am grateful to all of them. Noah and Mother Emzara, Shem and Ham and Nela and Leba, Japheth and Ada. They didn’t choose this. It was imposed on them. And they’re doing the best they can.
There’s honor in that.
I feel happy. Almost giddy. And hungry. Toasted kelp is good. As soon as Ada and Japheth leave, I’ll eat a lot of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Night 93
I’m feeding the lions their gruel of mashed fish in water and thinking about Queen and The Male. They didn’t follow me when I exited the cage tonight. This is new. I peer down at the lions from this little window up high and realize this is an opportunity. My mouth grows dry with fear. After weeks of watching for the right moment, it’s here.
“Help.”
I go back to our cage and crouch under the lower half of Bash that now sticks through the porthole and hug him around the waist and tug with all my might. The memory of holding on to Aban from behind, of hugging him just like that, when he was trying to catch and kill the doe that swam by our cedar—that memory comes back to me in a flash. I flinch.
Bash plops inside and sits there a moment, pulling on the tips of his thin beard. “I love it when you hug me.” He’s been saying this every night lately. I think he thinks it’s funny.
“Queen and The Male seem to want to stay in tonight,” I say. “So I’m ready.”
“Ready? For what?”
I force the words out: “The cats. Let’s try.”
His eyes light up and he stands. He’s so tall, I have to tilt my head back hard to look into his eyes. Once I reached my hand up as high as I could and I only managed to pull on the tips of that scraggly beard, that’s how tall he is. “Here I’ve been telling you all along that they need freedom too, and you’ve been ignoring me, but suddenly you have a change of heart?”
“Not a change of heart. I’ve always known you were right. I just couldn’t face it before.”
“Oh? So what’s that mean? Are you saying Queen and The Male are safe inside tonight, so you’re ready? It was them you were worried about? Not yourself?” He smirks.
“Not only them, but yes, I worry about them. They could be an extra complication.” I don’t tell Bash that I believe Queen would fight for me if it came to that—and that I won’t take that risk for her. He’d think I was crazy. Maybe I am. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter why, I’m just ready. Let’s do it.”
“Who first?”
“The tigers.”
“Really? I thought you were growing fond of those lions you hand-feed. You treat them like babies.”
“I am fond of them. Sort of. But it’s the tigers I fear the most. The lions are still weak, I think, and maybe they have a sense of loyalty. The tigers, though, they have no reason to like me. So let’s do them. Get it over with.”
“A brave decision. I like you, Sheba. I like you a lot.” He hums as he unties the rope from the huge ring in the floor of our cage and pulls the other end, the dangling end, back up through the porthole. He loops it over and over and then puts it on one arm. He goes out of the cage. I’m at his heels. But he quick shuts the swinging door in my face and holds it there.
“Wait a minute. Wait one minute! You’re not doing it alone.”
“Yes I am. You’re safe inside here.”
“But together we’re better. We can stay back to back, alert for anything.”
“You’ll only make me more vulnerable, because I’ll worry about you.”
“We always work together!”
“This is different, Sheba.”
“What right do you have to decide it’s different?”
“Have you ever seen a wild cat kill anything?” He reaches a hand through the poles and sweeps it across the side of my neck. “One swipe. Right here. That’s all it would take, and you’d bleed out in minutes. But me? A tiger couldn’t reach my throat.”
“They can reach your legs.”
“Just sit down and watch, Sheba. You can shout at me if there’s something I should know. Do it! Sit!”
He rolls a rock back in place.
“Don’t. Please. What if you need help?”
He drops the other rock back in place. “I told you. You’re no help.”
“I can always get out anyway.”
“Only if you’re a moron. If the tigers get me, what? Do you think you’d fare better?”
I swallow with difficulty. “Let’s just forget about it, forget I said anything.”
“You know we can’t. I understand why you need to do what you can for the tigers. You told me about Amare, Barak, Talas.”
“They were my brothers, Bash—not yours. This is a huge mistake.”
“Huge, huh? Maybe giant?” He gives that toothy smile. “How much do you value being able to get out of your cage every night?”
I stare at him. He’s right. He thinks right. I sit. “But let out only one.”
“You know the pairs need each other. We already talked about that.”
“Please, Bash.”
“I love that, too—when you beg me—it’s nice. Not quite as nice as hugging, but nice.” He squats and puts his face to the poles. “If I die, it’s been interesting knowing you these past couple of months. Thank you for the privilege. If I live, you have to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Agree first.”
“Why?”
“Because the idea might scare you at first. But if you promise, I know you’ll keep your promise.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re a stand-up kind of woman.”
“When do I have to do this?”
“I don’t know yet. I h
ave to pick the time, Sheba. I’ll pick the right time.”
“Will I be sorry I agreed?”
“No. I promise you that.”
“Then I agree. Because you’re a stand-up kind of man.”
He makes a little click with his tongue and walks to the tiger cage. He unravels a few loops of rope. He slaps it on the floor hard, many times. The noise is loud. I wonder if the sleepers up on the top deck hear. But I know they won’t come down. After what happened when Japheth came down that night, they never come to investigate noise. They don’t even come down when Bash and I let out the rhinos and water oxen together—and that’s a rumble that could wake the dead.
Bash unlocks the swinging door in the lattice cage. Then he uses the blackened stick on the floor in front of that cage to prop open the door. He’s smart—it’s so long, it holds the door up high. I should have thought of that before. And oh, I bet that’s what he was going to do with the long stick that first night we let out the camels. I want to ask him about that, but I keep forgetting.
He steps off to the side. Far off.
A tiger face appears. He moves forward in a crouch. He looks at Bash and roars. Bash doesn’t flinch. The tiger slowly stands tall. The female comes up behind him. They look strong and healthy. The male roars again, louder than before. The female echoes him. The both have enormous fangs. I was so wrong to do the tigers first. We should start with the lions—they’re sick.
But the tigers are already out on the deck. They face Bash.
Bash snaps the rope. He snaps and snaps.
The tigers look around, eyes shining pure white. Then the male takes off, in a burst of speed. He’s gone, down the deck, out of sight. The female’s gone too.
Bash quick jumps into their cage and pulls down the swinging door. “No point worrying while they romp, right?” he calls over to me.
I hug myself. He’s safe. Good. I stare across at him. He doesn’t look back at me. And in that instant I understand: He doesn’t have a plan for what’s next!
We hear scuffles from the end of the deck, but no cries of pain. Then a tiger comes loping along back toward us. It’s the male. He’s so light on his paws, it seems he’s bouncing. Out of nowhere comes the female. She pounces on him, and they roll, tangled together. A second later she’s up and he’s chasing her. Into the dark of the other end of the ark.
This is what we wanted. Like Bash said, even the most dangerous predators deserve this. But I’d give anything to go back and start the evening over—to never mention the cats. There can be no good way to end it all.
After a long while the tigers come back. They look through the lattice into their own cage. They roar at Bash. He roars back. They answer. He answers.
I can’t stand it. The tigers want to go back inside. That’s their den now. But Bash is pinned in there. There’s no way he can get out and prop that door on the blackened stick without turning his back on them for at least a moment. And a moment is all it would take. I put my head between my knees and try to block out the sounds of their roars.
Queen comes and sits by me, pressing against my side. The roaring has woken everyone. “What can we do, Queen?” Then I sit up straight. “Bash!”
The tigers jump around and stare at me.
“Next time they go off, come back in here. But leave their door propped open.”
“I thought of that. But it’s not enough. We can’t leave their cage standing open. And if I tried to cross the floor to close it, they’d attack. I have to get them inside here, while I’m still inside too.”
“No, you don’t. I have an idea.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re here, beside me.”
“Tell me now.”
“When you’re beside me, Bash.”
“You’re annoying, did you know that?”
I kneel and push the rocks of my cage out from their gullies.
The tigers stand in the corridor in front of their cage and watch.
“Go away,” I say. “Run down the deck. All the way to the other end. Go salivate over all the animals that you could eat if only you could get inside their cages. Dream of slaughter. Scat!”
And they go.
Bash quick lifts the swinging door of the tiger cage and props it with the blackened stick and leaps across the deck.
The tigers race back. But the swinging door slams down behind Bash just in time; he’s safe.
The tigers stand in front of us and pant. They look tired. But I don’t trust in that. The male walks back and forth a few times. The female goes into their cage. The male follows. Their door stands open—propped on that stick.
“Your secret plan?” asks Bash.
“Queen.” I smooth her back. The Male joins me. We pet Queen together—The Male and me. We pick insects and bits of straw from her hair. “Please, Queen. Go out there. Close their door. You unpropped our door off the rock before. I saw you. You can unprop the tigers’ door off that stick. And if they come at you, you can leap and climb high. You’re fast and strong. Will you do this?”
“This is the plan? Oh, Sheba, she doesn’t understand you.”
“Have faith.”
“You’re crazy,” says Bash.
“It’s your turn to just watch.” I push the swinging door up a bit.
The tigers jump to their feet. Their eyes gleam.
“Queen?”
She doesn’t move.
“Bash, hold the door for us.”
Bash takes my place.
I give Queen a little push toward the door. She pushes back at me. I push harder.
The Male goes out. Just like that. Bash drops our door. A tiger bursts from the cage. The Male climbs high and chatters down at the tiger, then he goes flying off, down the deck. Both tigers follow at a run. Queen bangs herself against the door. It swings just enough. Out she goes, off into the dark.
I squeeze my fists in front of my face. Bash picks me up and holds me to his chest. And I realize I’m whimpering. What have I done?
The tigers chase Queen and The Male for so long, I think it will never end. But finally the tigers go back into their cage. They’ve given up.
“Put me down, Bash.”
He sets me down.
Queen and The Male hang high on the poles of the cage next to the tigers’. I find the stick that Bash gave me for spearing the fish in the lion cage. “Queen,” I call. “It’s up to you now, my friend. Let’s play.” I hold that stick in one hand and shake it at her.
She looks at me. She’s got to be exhausted. She’s got to be in no mood to play mimic. But still I shake that stick. “Come on, Queen. Play.” She might know that word. I say it when we’re playing. I ask her to play. “Play, play, play.”
Queen goes hand over hand to the tigers’ cage. The male tiger immediately stands. Alert. How can he be so alert after all that running?
Queen drops onto the floor and grabs the black stick. The door drops shut. There’s silence from the tigers’ cage. Queen dances around the floor, shaking the stick.
I lift our door, but Bash is already past me. He leaps and skids across the deck and shoves the rocks into place.
I hold the door while Queen and The Male and Bash all come back inside our cage.
Bash goes right to our porthole. “Give me a push.”
I want to talk. I want to hold him; I want to celebrate that we’re all still alive. But his head is already outside. I push on his bottom and he’s gone. An instant later his face appears again. “Maybe the tigers don’t need nights out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Night 170
I’m munching on toasted kelp. In the past three months, I’ve come to love it. Now and then kelp holds little surprises: tiny dried shrimp, crabs, snails, sea stars, worms. And creatures so infinitesimal I can’t tell what they are. But all of them give a little moment of chewing extra hard and then a nice burst of flavor. Sometimes when I find a particularly tasty batch, I save some for Bash. He smiles as he eats
it, and that makes me laugh.
I look at my withering garden and I hum. I should be sad, I know, for I have no idea whatsoever of how to solve the problem of dying plants. For months, all through the winter, in fact, I have assiduously buried seeds in dung—all kinds of dung, elephant, rhino, hippo, zebra, dung from every kind of animal on this ark—but nothing works better than anything else. Without sun, the plants are doomed.
But I’m not sad. An optimism wells deep inside me. I feel strong and excited. I feel as though the world still holds so many secrets, and at least some of them have to be good. Some of them have to be fabulous. “Just wait, little seeds still underneath there,” I whisper. “There will be good things ahead if you just wait.”
It’s time for the nightly routine to start—but that routine is much simpler now. Shem and Ham stopped making nightly visits long ago. Only Nela still comes. I’m sitting out in the open, but I’m not terribly worried about Nela taking me by surprise. Screamer is in my lap, and he’s an early warning signal. He leaps away at the slightest noise. So I’ll have time to dive into the straw.
I stuff another kelp leaf into my mouth and crunch away. Is there anything that can substitute for sunlight?
If I were free to walk about the deck in daylight, I could scoop each new seedling up in my hands and hold it to the sunlight for a long while each day. But I’m not free. I can’t bring the plants to the sunlight. So I have to find a way to bring the sunlight to them. To capture it.
There’s still another month to go till spring, I’m sure. I’m confident I’ll find something by the start of growing season. Day by day, things are coming together. I sense it. I am calm. And almost content.
“Ah!”
Screamer goes dashing off into the next cage. There, perched on a top step of the ladder, is Nela, staring at me openmouthed. “Who are you? You wicked thing!”
I am too stunned to speak. Then she’s gone, shouting as she goes.
My skin tingles all over. They’ll be here in a moment. Maybe all of them. Maybe Noah, spewing his rules like vomit. I have but one choice. I go to the porthole and yank on Bash’s rope till it’s taut. I grab on to it and climb. The rope is ice-cold. Though it’s sunny by day, it’s still really cold, and this night could chill anyone. My wool shift—Nela’s wool shift—protects my torso, but my hands and arms and calves and ankles all rub against that rope. I climb. I have to climb. I have to keep going. I’m dragging myself up that rope, leaving a thin streak of blood from each hand as I go.
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