Ark

by J. J. Wilder

  “But I—”

  He spoke over me, his voice gruff and harsh. “My son’s spirit is broken. He will not speak of what he endured, but it was for your sake he endured it. That, perhaps, I can lay at your feet.”

  “What about what I endured, for his sake? Does that count for anything?” I stripped off my sandals and showed him the soles of my feet, the angry weals of a hundred burns seared into each foot. “This, I endured for your son. Rape, I endured for him. Beatings, I endured for him. I faced death—and wished for it—for him.”

  Noah shifts the bucket to his other hand, eying my feet with discomfort. “For him?”

  “He has spoken of none of it? Nothing?”

  Noah shook his head. “Nothing. We are not so close, even now, that he would confide in me. His mother, perhaps, but not me.”

  I lean my head against the spar and stare up at the sky, a blue so deep it reminds me of Japheth’s eyes. “We were lovers.”

  Noah scoffed, a brusquely sarcastic sound. “I guessed as much.”

  “I never expected it to last as long as it did, or that it would come to mean as much to me as it did.” I close my eyes as the sun peeks over the top of the boat, bathing in me in warmth. “My father hates your kind as much as you do mine. My father saw the necklace Japheth wore, a pendant inscribed with a name of your God, and he was incensed.”

  Noah nodded, eyes narrowed and pinning me in place. “YHWH.”

  He pronounced this yo-VEH, and when he spoke it, his eyes cast up to the heavens, and his chest filled with a great breath. The way he said it, the careful, precise enunciation of each sound . . . he rendered the simple syllables holy, somehow.

  “That is not a name of my God, but the name.” Noah’s gaze glittered and shone as if the light of the sun itself roared behind his pupils, and his presence expanded, as if the presence of his God was somehow filling him, breathing through him. “He is El, The One God. He is Elohim, and He is El Shaddai, and He is Eloah, and He is Elohai. He is not a god, Aresia, daughter of Emmen, he is THE God.”

  Fear bolted through me. Noah’s voice, as he spoke the names of God echoed, and reverberated, shuddering through the very earth as if the plates of the mountains were quaking at the sound. When Noah spoke those names, he ceased speaking as a mortal man, and spoke as the mouthpiece of the very God whose names he recited. The skies, once blue as Japheth’s eyes, roiled with dark clouds black as Japheth’s curls, lightning leaping in blinding bolts from cloud to cloud, and the thunder was Noah’s voice. And when the juddering echoes of the names of God faded, the skies were blue once more, and I felt in the deepest pit of my belly a truth, a knowing—that Noah’s Elohim was real . . . very, very real.

  A profound quiet descended, then, and Noah’s gaze pierced me.

  “You know Him,” Noah stated.

  “I told you.” I stared up at Noah. “I heard Him.”

  Noah let out a breath, setting down the bucket of pitch, and leaned a shoulder against a spar, thick arms crossed over his chest. “The necklace Zara gave Japheth . . . what about it?”

  “It marked him. Had Japheth been any other human, a worshipper of Inanna and Enlil, Father perhaps would not been so angry. But the necklace marked him as a worshipper of Elohim, The One God, and my father hates them more than anyone else on this earth. But for me, my Father would have given Japheth a death longer, more painful, and more protracted than words can describe, for he was not merely a worshipper the forbidden god, but he had dared defile me, the daughter of the king. No matter that I had sought him, that I was as complicit as Japheth in our foolish affair. Have you heard the tales of what my father does to worshippers of Elohim?”

  Noah nodded, his expression tight. “I have seen it.”

  “Compound the violence of that hatred by a thousandfold, and you might understand the fate that awaited Japheth.”

  “Was it worth it?” Noah asked, his voice bitter, the words dropping from his lips as if he was unable to stop them.

  “Ask me that after I have finished telling you the rest,” I said. “Neither of us were innocent of blame, but I knew—I knew I could not let Japheth suffer for my sake. So I gave my father the one thing I had which would sway him: my hand in marriage to Sin-Iddim, King of Larsa.”

  “His is a reign of blood and terror,” Noah said.

  I could only stare unseeing, barely breathing. “Any stories and rumors you may have heard . . . none of them approach the truth. You cannot fathom the horror of that place, Noah. You simply cannot.”

  Noah frowned, as if hearing what I wasn’t able to communicate in words. “You were wed to Sin-Iddim?”

  I nodded. “In exchange for Japheth’s life.”

  Noah was silent awhile, considering me. “You love my son.” It was not a question, but a statement.

  I shrug one shoulder, a miserable gesture. “I do not know. I thought I did.” I cast a glance up at Noah. “I do not belong here. And, as you have said, Japheth’s spirit has been broken.”

  “But not yours?” Noah’s voice was strangely soft, for so wild and gruff a man.

  I blink hard against the tears—even now I found it hard to let anyone, let alone a human, see me weep.

  “No. Not mine,” I said.

  Noah’s laugh was not unkind. “Nephilim you may be—princess, queen, and descended from angels . . . but you are a poor liar, Aresia, daughter of Emmen.”

  I blinked up at him again. “You see through me so easily?” I wiped at my eyes. “Is this some power given you by your god, to see a person’s secrets?”

  “My God has granted me no power but faith, Aresia. What I see, I see because I, too, have been broken. I, too, am subject to the human condition which afflicts us all.”

  “What condition is that, Noah?” I asked.

  He smiled, as if it should be obvious. “The fruit of the serpent, gift of Adam and Eve.” He paused for effect. “Sin, Aresia.”

  I frowned; I’d heard the legends and tales Elohim’s followers claimed as truth—creation of all things by the word of The One God, a garden, a serpent, the first man and first woman. Legends, hearsay, tales to tell in the night, nothing more. But the more I encounter this God, this Elohim, the more I wonder if all I’d heard was true.

  A scrap of white cloud crossed the sun, casting a brief shadow over us, and it reminded me of the structure behind me, and my many questions.

  “Why the boat, Noah?”

  “You have heard what my God has told me. I have spoken of it often enough.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want the same story you repeat by the fire, but the truth.”

  He tugged at his beard, raking his fingers through the snarls. “It is the truth. He spoke to me, and he told me that the earth is filled with wickedness. It cannot be redeemed, cannot be saved. He bade me build this ark, because he is going to destroy the earth and everyone upon it.”

  I glance up over my shoulder at the colossal structure—the prow jutting at the heavens, the belly spars bulging wide enough to swallow an entire temple. “There are nine people here, Noah. That boat you are building could carry a city.”

  “He is wiping out the wicked,” Noah said. “He is washing clean the earth of the stain of sin, and when it is finished, He will begin anew.”

  I still didn’t understand. And then Noah glanced out at the small pasture behind the house, in which grazed wandering clumps of oxen, a pair of onagers, a small herd of sheep, a few goats, and a scattering of clucking, pecking chickens.

  “Animals,” Noah said finally. “The boat is for animals.”

  I felt an urge to laugh, so ridiculous was the notion. “You are going to fill this ark of yours with sheep and goats and chickens?”

  Noah must have heard the mirth in my voice, for he frowned at me, the expression like the gathering of thunderheads on the horizon. “A mated pair of every kind of animal that walks upon this earth, and two of every kind that flies over it.”

  “You are going to herd lions and bears and rats
and eagles onto this ark?”

  Noah let out a hissing sigh, as if he had answered this question a thousand times. “He will provide a way. He always provides a way.” It was the only answer he gave, lapsing into irritated silence.

  “I do not mean to mock, Noah. I do not know your god. I have heard His Voice, but I do not know Him. I do not know if I believe in Him. I know He is real, but to believe in Him, after all I have experienced? It is too much.” I look to the sky, as if to see this One God, Elohim, in the endless blue. “I do not mock. But neither do I understand.”

  Noah gazed at me steadily, for so long I became uncomfortable under his stare. Eventually, he spoke.

  “He does not ask us to understand, Aresia. He asks us to have faith.”

  “In what?”

  “In that which we cannot see, but feel. In that which we hear, but cannot taste. In that which is, and was, and forever will be. In Him, Aresia.”

  “I had faith in my gods,” I said.

  “Did they speak to you?” Noah demanded. “Did they accept your offerings and answer your many prayers?”

  I shook my head. “Never. And thus I do not believe in them any longer.”

  “You have prayed to The One God,” Noah said, his gaze refusing to release me from its potency. “You spoke to Him, you begged something of Him, am I correct?”

  Slowly, I nodded.

  Noah tilted his head to one side. “And what did you ask of Him?”

  “‘Save him,’” I whispered. “That is what I prayed. Save him.”

  Noah’s gaze shifted beyond me, to the fields whence I came; Japheth was returning, at long last, carrying the basket. “And there he is.”

  “Broken.”

  Noah nodded. “But what is broken can be fixed. What is shattered can be remade.”

  “But not as it was,” I argued.

  “You are not as you were at birth, or as a child, or as a young woman. You have changed, all the while. Pain changes us, and so too does pleasure, and all that exists in between. All things change us, for God formed man out of clay, and as clay we are, from birth to death, ever malleable.” As he spoke he stared at Japheth, who was approaching us from a distance. “We are none of us as we were—that is life, Aresia.”

  “Your God . . . will He speak to me again, do you think?”

  Noah shrugged. “I cannot answer for Him, for He alone knows His will.”

  A long silence, but for the hammering of Shem’s mallet and the scrape of Ham’s adze.

  And then Noah met my eyes once more, and they were full of a sadness I could not comprehend. “‘You, your sons, your wife, and your son’s wives,’” Noah intoned. “That is what my God told me. When the waters come, we will enter the ark, and we will ride out on the floods which will clean the earth.”

  I swallow hard at Noah’s implication. “I see.”

  “I cannot change the will of God, Aresia.” He stood up. “I am sorry.”

  12

  All Life

  “‘There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood.’” Genesis 7:3 (NLT)

  Japheth bound the final sheaf of wheat, tossed it on the stack, and wiped his brow with his wrist. It was a hot day at the end of the harvest season; he’d plowed the field, planted, weeded, and harvested the entire crop of wheat by himself, and so felt a little burst of pride at the head-high stack of golden wheat. It needed only to be threshed now, and then would be ready for Namus to collect and transport to Bad-Tibira.

  After a short rest, Japheth transferred a portion of the sheaves into the back of the wagon, tossed the sickle up onto the driver’s bench, and climbed up. With a click of his tongue and a snap of the reins, the onagers lurched into motion. He was in the farthest field east, just over the rise from the house, and it only took a few minutes to crest the shallow hill, which brought the ark into view.

  It was more than half-finished now, with the sides nailed into place from keel to midway up, with many of the interior compartments also in place. The more complete it became, the more staggering the scope of the undertaking became, and the more baffling the whole business was to Japheth. It wasn’t that he doubted the existence of God, or that he doubted the faith of his father, it was just . . . difficult to believe a flood so monstrous would need a boat of this size.

  He was a practical man, a warrior, and a farmer. If he planted a seed, cared for it, nurtured it, then it would grow into a plant; if he swung a sword, his enemy died. If the rains came, the crops would grow; if there was a drought, they died. These were constants; these were things he could count on as being true.

  Faith was more difficult. He’d watched his father and mother; he’d seen their faith. He’d watched his father offer sacrifices to Elohim, watched him walking in the fields, talking to God as if speaking to a friend pacing at his side. He’d seen his father with that vacant, faraway expression that said he was listening to the Voice of God. But Japheth had never heard that voice, had never felt that presence. He’d seen the effects of His presence on Noah.

  Having witnessed their unwavering faith for his entire lifetime, Japheth believed in the basic existence of Elohim. He even allowed himself to believe that some prayers had been answered—he was still alive after all, and so was Aresia.

  But building a giant boat in farmland hundreds of miles from the nearest sea, because the whole earth was going to be flooded? That was harder to understand—that was harder to believe in. Yet Noah believed. Zara believed. Sedele and Ne’eletama believed. Shem believed. Ham believed. And Neses? She believed more fiercely—if more quietly—than anyone else but Noah.

  After their last meeting in the fields of golden wheat, Aresia remained aloof and distant. She’d taken to sleeping under the sheltering bulk of the ark’s round belly, often keeping to herself for entire days on end. Zara brought her food, and even Noah would spend time talking to her, which Japheth found supremely unsettling. Neses, too, could often be seen near Aresia’s little nest of blankets, speaking in low tones. What did those two women talk about? Him? God? Japheth did not know, but he often wondered.

  He spent hours awake in the dark cold, keeping watch during the night, sitting in the open doorway of the house, staring out at the tiny orange flicker of Aresia’s candle. What did she do out there, all alone? What did she think, what did she feel?

  He thought of the love they shared. The fierce need to protect her, to shelter her, to see her healed, in the days following her escape from Sin-Iddim. He’d thought that was love.

  But his experiences at the hand of Mesh-te still haunted him.

  His work in the fields was all that could distract him, all that was able to erase the memory, even for a moment. And the only way he could fall asleep was at the bottom of a wineskin. His brothers watched him drink, and they disapproved. His parents watched him drink and disapproved even more, but they would only look at one another and turn their heads.

  Staring after Aresia, night after night, he wondered what he could say to her to ease her pain. Japheth knew, deep down, that he owed her even the smallest comfort, but he was now so troubled, he had no idea how to comfort her.

  The thought of touching her, after what he’d experienced, made him shudder, even thought she was now more beautiful than ever. Life away from the city, away from the horrors, was doing her wonders.

  It wasn’t Aresia . . . it was him. She had tried to reach out to him many times, but he spurned her and for that he was sorry. What comfort could he offer her now?

  He arrived at the house with the wagonload of wheat. After seeing to the onagers and sending them out to graze, he washed his hands and face. He heard the voices of the women inside, Zara giving the occasional order, Sedele and Ne’eletama answering, telling jokes to each other, and laughing. He glanced over at the ark and saw Aresia on a scaffolding next to Noah, painting pitch on newly finished sections of siding. It appeared neither she nor Noah was speaking, but they seemed comfortable in each ot
her’s presence.

  It was . . . unsettling. What had they found in common?

  “She heard the voice of El,” Neses said, startling him.

  Japheth pivoted to find Neses standing behind him, a basket of wet clothes propped on one slim hip. She was a small, unassuming woman who barely reached his shoulder, her body thin as a reed, her hands and wrists and ankles delicate. She was like the birds that ran upon the shores of the Tigris, prone to long bouts of stillness so one forgot they were near. At other times she would be so restlessly busy it was tiring to watch her. Fresh from the nearby Euphrates tributary, she had the hem of her dress tucked into her belt, leaving her legs bare. Her hair was brown, dark and thick; she normally left it unbound, but now she had it twisted up on the top of her head, baring her neck.

  Japheth blinked, taking in her presence, and then turned away as she set her basket down and released the hem of her dress.

  “Who heard the Voice of El?” he asked.

  “Aresia.”

  Japheth merely nodded his head.

  Neses lifted a tunic out of the basket and wrung it out. “You watch her. At night, I mean. I see you staring after her.”

  “You watch me?” Japheth questioned, shooting her a sharp glance.

  “I have trouble sleeping, many nights,” she said, her voice quiet. “I am not watching you, I merely . . . see you.”

  “And how do you know it’s her I watch?”

  Neses let out a soft sigh; so quiet that Japheth nearly missed it. “Who else would you stare at half the night?”

  She hung the garment over the side of the wagon, reached for another, and wrung it out.

  “I see you talking to her, sometimes,” Japheth replied.

  “She is lonely.” Neses looked directly at Japheth, making it seem almost an accusation.