Storm

by Donna Jo Napoli

  And then comes the jerk, jerk, jerk of the rope. Each jerk knocks me against the side of the ark. I look up. Bash is climbing down. Fast. He doesn’t see me. “Hey! Don’t knock me off!”

  He looks down. “Sheba? What are you doing?”

  “Nela saw me.”

  “All right. Stay there. Hold tight.” He comes down moving even faster.

  And a jerk of the rope slams me so hard against the side of the ark that the skin on my knuckles splits open. I pull my hand back instinctively, but I can’t hold on with just one hand! I’m slipping. Falling. Splash!

  The cold shocks me. This frigid water smacks like solid ground. I am broken. I spit blood. I have to find the rope—Bash’s or Queen’s—a rope, any rope. But I’m flailing about and there’s nothing.

  Splash!

  Bash’s arm circles me. He swims with the other. He’s got hold of something now, I know because he’s lifting me higher. “Put your arms around my neck, Sheba. From the front.”

  I try. I watch my arms move upward and I can’t even feel them moving. I cling to him. He climbs. Then stops.

  “Don’t stop, Bash.”

  “Hush.”

  And I can hear them above us now. Queen and The Male are screaming in alarm. Shem’s voice comes loud. “If there really was a girl, she’s not here now. So she must have jumped out the porthole. She’s dead.”

  “But look at the rope.” It’s Nela. “This is one of the cages with those ropes that held the ark in place as you all built it. She could have gone down the rope.”

  “There’s no one there,” says Shem. “Look, if you don’t believe me. Look for yourself.”

  “All right, you’re right. I see no one. But the side of the ark curves. Maybe she’s hanging below the bulge. Pull in the rope.”

  “What difference does it make?” It’s Ham. “Father will only throw her back into the sea anyway.”

  “It makes a difference. You have to see her. She’s wearing my shift, Ham. You have to see it on her.”

  “Nela, that was ages ago. I don’t care anymore.”

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “You have to know I didn’t lie.”

  “I know you didn’t lie.”

  “You have to love me again.”

  “I love you, Nela.”

  “Pull up the rope. Please.”

  “I’ll do it,” says Shem. He groans loudly. “It’s heavy!”

  “She’s hanging from it. I knew it. She’s there, Ham.”

  Bash reaches out a hand, feeling, feeling for the other rope. He’s holding on with one hand now—just one hand with me around his neck. But he’s strong. He can do it. He has to do it.

  “Hold tight,” he says into my hair.

  And we swing through the air to the other rope.

  “It’s not heavy, you weakling!”

  The first rope disappears upward.

  “Look. Nothing’s there.”

  “Something was there,” says Shem. “It was heavy before.”

  “Then she fell,” says Ham. “She’s gone. It’s over.”

  “I knew those dumb apes couldn’t talk,” says Shem.

  “Sure you did,” says Ham.

  I hear no more human voices. But Queen and The Male continue making little shrieks.

  I bury my head in the hollow of Bash’s throat and think only of hanging on. He climbs. He climbs and climbs and then he’s standing. I don’t understand. He walks several steps and he stops.

  “Look around, Sheba.”

  My eyes are clenched tight. We are swaying. We are out in the open. I don’t understand anything. I press my head deeper into him.

  “I’ll keep holding you. I promise. I’ll hold you as long as you want me to. But look around.”

  I open my eyes. There is nothing above but the heavens. Stars glitter everywhere. So many stars, I could never count them. I could pass my whole life counting and never count them all. Then I look outward. In every direction all I see is water. The world is a vast puddle. Beneath us are wood planks. “Are we on the top of the ark?”

  “The very top. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  I shiver and nestle against him. “When I asked you where you slept, you said you had a safe place above. I thought you mean some secret spot on the top deck.”

  “The roof is better than some rodent hole on the top deck. And it is safe. Sort of. I was lucky to climb onto this roof before the ark floated away. I like it here. Not the kind of accommodation I was used to before, as king. But at least I’m not underwater.”

  King? Did I understand him right?

  “Your mouth is bleeding. Let me see. Open up.” I obey, like a child. He puts in a finger and pushes around the inside of my cheeks and lifts my lips away from my gums and pulls on my tongue. “That’s what I thought. Your teeth cut into the inside of your lip. You’ll be fine. Sore for a while, but fine.”

  “So are you a healer, too? Quite a combination, king and healer.”

  His mouth twists in amusement. “I’m not a healer. And I was a king. And I’ll tell you all about it later. When you’ve recovered some.”

  Recovered, oh, yes, I want to recover. “Where’s your compartment?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “How did you stay dry during the rains?”

  “I didn’t, really.”

  “Poor you.”

  “It wasn’t that bad. And I’ve made a tent since then. Of sharkskin. It warms up fast in there, just from my body heat.”

  “Can we go there?”

  “Of course, my Sheba.”

  “Let me down.”

  Bash puts me down.

  I stand on unsteady feet, then stumble against Bash.

  He steadies me. “The sway of the ark in the sea is exaggerated the higher up you go. You’ll get used to it.”

  I pull away from him. It takes all my effort not to land on my knees. “Listen to me, Bash. I hurt everywhere. My hands and mouth bleed. And I am now banished from the home that I made on this ark, miserable that it was. I need you now. I need your help, your friendship. You know that. But you need to know as well: I am not your Sheba.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Your husband.”

  “How did you know I have a husband?”

  “That’s how women get with child.”

  My hands go to my belly. It’s rounded. I knew there was a child in there. I never really let myself think about it, but I knew it. What else could it be? There isn’t enough food on this ark to make me fat. And this feeling of elation I’ve had the past few days. I knew it.

  A child. I am with child.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Day 180

  Bash picks up the bucket. It is full of ice from frozen seawater. He turns it upside down and sets it on the floor—the ark roof. Then he takes off his loincloth, hands it to me, and sits bare-bottomed on the upside-down bucket. I wince watching him. He does this every morning, so I’m used to it, but I can’t help wincing. Warming the bucket just enough to make the ice inside it melt a little is probably the most important chore of the day, and the most unpleasant. I should take turns with him. But he won’t let me. He says my bottom needs protection. Then he laughs and says his is warmer anyway.

  My bottom needs protection. I don’t know if he’s talking about the child within me or about me. But I accept his words as a gift.

  I take the loincloth now, and while he sits on the bucket, I hold it inside my shift, between my thighs. At least this way, when he gets off the bucket, his loincloth will be warmed up.

  After a while he stands, and I give it back to him. “Thank you, your Sheba,” he says as he winds it around himself. That’s what he calls me, now that I told him I wasn’t his Sheba. But he doesn’t say it mean. I can’t really tell what he thinks when he says it; his tone doesn’t give him away. But his thoughts aren’t mean, I’m sure of that.

  I bend and hold the bucket in place while he kicks it.
The ice detaches from the bucket bottom and sides and slips—clunk—onto the ark roof. He removes the bucket and we smile at each other across the glistening ice, but I’m praying inside my head—just as I’m sure Bash is doing—that no one on the deck below has heard.

  Bash picks the ice up and drops it. It breaks easily. Too easily. Just ten days ago, when I first came up here, it took several drops to break the ice. Now one does it. The ice from all around the sides and top and bottom of the bucket is clear. We put these splintered pieces back in the bucket. The ice from the center is cloudy. And today it isn’t even really ice, more just slush. That’s where the salt from the seawater concentrates, so we throw away that part. It takes greater cold to freeze salt water, which means the salt gets concentrated at the center of the bucket. I pick up the bucket of clear ice and carry it to our tent. The ice will slowly melt, and we’ll have sweet water all day.

  I didn’t know how to do any of this before. Freezing temperatures were rare where I lived. If I were alone on this ark roof, I’m sure I’d be dead by now simply from lack of sweet water. I’m good at figuring things out—I know my strengths. But Bash is better at some things. He’s traveled, by land and by sea. He’s not afraid of anything much, so far as I can tell.

  I walk back to Bash and sit beside him. He’s holding on to the rope that has a bone hook on the other end of it.

  “The ice cracked easily,” says Bash.

  “I thought the same thing. Spring is coming. The days and nights are almost equal in length again. Soon the weather won’t help us get water anymore.”

  He looks up at the sky. The sun blinds today. It blinds every day. “Cloudless, again. No chance of rain anytime soon.”

  I laugh. “There was a time when I couldn’t imagine wanting it to rain ever again.”

  Bash coils the rope as he pulls it up now.

  “How do you do that?” I ask in frustration.

  “What?”

  “How do you know when there’s a fish caught down there? The rope is so heavy and so long, how can you feel a little fish struggling?”

  “Stop it, Sheba.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop what you always do.”

  “What do I always do?”

  “You go off thinking I know everything. Want to know a secret?” He leans toward me. “I pull in the rope when I’m hungry. If there’s no fish there, I drop it again. It’s as simple as that.”

  “I could pull in the rope.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “But it could be my job. I’m capable of pulling in a rope, Bash.”

  “Sure. But like you said, it’s heavy. For me, it’s easy. For you, in your condition, it might even be dangerous.”

  “You don’t let me do anything anymore.”

  He blinks at me. Then he shrugs. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to let the animals go free at night.”

  “I still do that. You know I do. I haven’t missed a single night.”

  “You! Yes, you do it. I do nothing.”

  “You spur me on.”

  “I don’t want to just spur you on! I want to do things myself.”

  “You can’t climb down that rope and up again, Sheba.”

  “You could carry me.”

  “I won’t take the chance of you falling again.”

  “I wouldn’t fall if I was holding on to you.”

  “I don’t even know if you could fit through a porthole. It’s hard for me, now that you’re not there to help me.”

  “That’s absurd! I’m still smaller around than you.”

  Bash reaches the end of the rope. A long, skinny fish flops there. “Ha! Look at that.”

  “What is it?”

  “A garfish. Usually you can’t catch them without a net. Ha!” He sets the fish aside and takes the end of the rope. He wraps it around his shoulders. Then he marks that length with his fingers and holds it around my belly. It reaches easily.

  “See?” I say defensively.

  He laughs. “Of course your girth is smaller. You didn’t really think I was serious, did you? But come on, Sheba. You could hurt yourself maneuvering through a porthole.”

  “All right. You win. But that only makes things worse. I don’t want you letting the animals out every night without me.”

  “You want them to stay locked up?”

  “You know I don’t. Don’t be so maddening. I don’t want you doing everything without me. I don’t want . . .” And I’m crying now. And furious. I don’t want to be crying. I want to argue my side.

  Bash goes to the tent and comes back with his knife. He waits for me to wipe my eyes. “Here.” He hands me the knife. “Slice the fish down the center line, from head to tail. But don’t break the back bones.”

  I do it. “Yuck! Green bones!”

  “Lots of people look at those bones and think you can’t eat this kind of fish. But they’re wrong. Cut the spine out from the flesh now. Try to keep it as whole as you can.”

  I separate the spine and rib bones from the flesh. Then I lay the knife on the floor.

  “Good. Now do what I do.” He breaks off a part of the backbone, cracks it in his side teeth, and sucks at it.

  “That looks disgusting.”

  “Try it.”

  I do. “It’s not bad.”

  “Now the eyes.”

  “What about the eyes?”

  “Pop them out with the tip of the knife. Make sure you don’t pierce them.”

  I do it in a second, expertly. I’m used to popping out eyes to give to Screamer—who still loves for me to feed him, even though he clearly feeds himself well; he’s strong and sleek. I bite my bottom lip. How is the kit? Does anyone give him treats anymore?

  “All right, now we chew them. Be careful, cause there are strange little hard bits inside. You can spit them out. You can spit out the eyeball sac, too. But don’t spit any of the liquid from the inside. Swallow it all.”

  I watch him chew on a fish eye. “Your teeth are black with the liquid.”

  “Yup. You do it now.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Suit yourself. But it’s what we’ll have to do once the seawater stops freezing. There’s sweet water in the spine and eyes of every fish.”

  I put the other eye in my mouth and chew on it. It’s not good. But it’s not revolting. I spit out the solid parts. “You aren’t helping me get over the idea that you know everything.”

  Bash lifts an eyebrow. “Are you cold? Want to go back inside the tent to talk?”

  “I’m fine. You’re the one whose skin is exposed all over. You’re gooseflesh everywhere.”

  “So now we’re in a contest of who can stand the cold, are we?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know, Bash. You bring out the worst in me. You know too much.”

  “I didn’t figure out about fish spine and eyes on my own. Any sailor knows it. And you know plenty of things. The way you put the peed-on straw out on the deck to lure the male giraffe, I would never have thought of that. And the way you got the female bonobo—Queen—to mimic you, so that she’d pull out the stick and close in the tigers. That was brilliant. You have a way of—”

  “Stop! Please. Don’t say another word!” I’m sitting curled forward, but my belly is in the way, so I can’t close myself off from the world, like I used to be able to do. I want to disappear. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments.”

  Bash is silent. Why doesn’t he say he knows that? I look sideways at him. He’s sitting with his knees cocked upward, and he’s running his hands through his hair over and over.

  “Anyway,” he says at last, “this is your job from now on. You’ll be the one to split open the fish. You’ll cut the flesh from the spine. You’ll pop out the eyes. I’ll have to catch fish all day in order for us to get enough water that way, so you’ll be working all day.” He looks at me. “Satisfied?”

  I nod. “I want to say thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me.
It’s your job.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you should tell me, Sheba.”

  This is as close to an argument as we’ve gotten. I feel in the wrong. And that’s unfair. Bash does plenty of wrong things too. “You spied on me.”

  “What?”

  “You watched me with the giraffe. Way back—that first time. You didn’t make yourself known right away.”

  “I didn’t know what kind of person you were. I went down the rope to see if the thief who had stolen my fish the night before would be there again. And I saw you. Acting strangely. So I watched for a while. You call that spying?”

  “It is spying.”

  “It’s sensible. Are you telling me you always make yourself known to everyone you watch?”

  I swallow. “You know I don’t.”

  “All right, then.”

  I look down at my hands. “I don’t want to depend on you, Bash.” Then I face him. “It’s all right with me if we depend on each other, but I don’t want it to be one-sided.”

  “It’s not one-sided.”

  “Yes, it is. I don’t want to owe you things.”

  “Owe me? Ha.” He shakes his head ruefully. “You’ve got it all wrong, Sheba.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You remember how I told you I’m a king?”

  “Of course I remember that. Is it true?”

  “Yes. But it’s complicated. I’m king of Bashan.”

  I smile. “Bashan? Really? And I named you Bash.”

  “I told you it was fitting.”

  I nod, stupidly satisfied, as though I was somehow smart when it was nothing more than coincidence. “I don’t know where Bashan is.”

  “My country is bordered by the river Jordan on the west and . . .” He stops. “It doesn’t matter. Everything’s gone now. Anyway, when I traveled, I told everyone my people were all giants. So that made me the king of the giants.” He looks at me. “I’m a giant.”

  There’s that word he used once before: giant. “You’re the biggest human I’ve ever seen.”