Wives of the Flood

by Vaughn Heppner

  “No,” Gilgamesh said. “I’m leaving almost right away. I just wanted to see you one more time. I wanted to keep my word.”

  “You can’t leave,” Odin said. “We need your expertise.”

  It took Gilgamesh a moment. He wasn’t used to conversations. “You need me for what?”

  “We’re headed back to Dilmun,” Ramses said.

  “That’s right,” Odin said. “We want to gather fish-eyes from the sea.”

  The words shocked Gilgamesh, and he wondered why he suddenly felt angry.

  “Semiramis wants the fish-eyes,” Odin explained. “She requested that you help us gather them.”

  “You’re going to Dilmun?” Gilgamesh asked.

  “Nimrod was against it at first,” Ramses said, “for fear of the leviathan.”

  Odin snorted. “For fear that one of us will slay it and match his feat.”

  Ramses turned back to Gilgamesh. “We need your help, my friend. You know the way to Dilmun, and it’s said you have experience harvesting the fish-eyes.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gilgamesh said. “I can’t help you. I have to leave. I have to keep searching for Opis.”

  Ramses grabbed him. “Gilgamesh, you know that she’s…” Ramses’ voice trailed off.

  Gilgamesh stared at Ramses in mortification. He didn’t know it, but under his tanned skin, Gilgamesh had turned white, and he trembled.

  “I have to keep searching,” he whispered.

  Ramses and Odin glanced at one another. Subtlety, other men moved near.

  Gilgamesh felt surrounded, trapped. “I must leave,” he said, moving toward the side of the ship.

  “Wait,” Ramses said, holding onto his arm.

  Gilgamesh tried to pry off the fingers.

  “Grab him,” Odin shouted.

  Before Gilgamesh could struggle free or swing his fists, men pounced upon him, bearing him down onto the hard wooden ribs.

  “I’m sorry about this,” Odin said, as he produced stout cords. “But I’m under orders. You’ll thank me for it later.”

  “No!” howled Gilgamesh, struggling, trying to squirm his way to the ship’s side. “I have to keep searching for Opis. Let me go.”

  They didn’t. Pleading, tears and rage failed to move them. So Gilgamesh glowered in silence, trussed up like a beast, plotting his revenge.

  18.

  Later, after a bad dream, Gilgamesh struggled against his bonds. He yanked, pulled and snarled in frustrated rage.

  Odin squatted beside him. “What’s the use of that, eh? You’ll only wear yourself out and maybe pull a muscle. My advice is to relax. Wait until you have a chance to do something.”

  Gilgamesh panted as he glared at the ribs of the ship.

  “You’ve become like a beast,” Odin said. “Look at you, starved, wretched and acting like a trapped wolf. Your months in the swamp have unhinged you, that and your grief, I suppose. We mourn Opis’s loss. It is a terrible pity. But you’re young like me. In time there will be another woman.” Odin paused. “Believe me, I understand about losing the woman you love. It’s a wretched feeling, and I’m sure you feel your loss more keenly than I did mine. You were to be married. And yet…even that pain can be overcome, or so they say. Look around you. Let the healing begin today.”

  Gilgamesh refused to listen. The words were blasphemy to the memory of Opis.

  Odin poked him with a thick, fat finger, digging into his side.

  Gilgamesh snapped up his head.

  Odin smiled, and he waved his hand at the sail. “Listen to it crack. Look how the wind fills it. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Gilgamesh frowned, noticing how huge the sail was. From time to time, a shift in the wind caused the sail to snap, to shudder. Perhaps it was lovely. He wasn’t sure.

  “Feel the ship’s sway,” Odin said.

  Gilgamesh did. The ship rose on the waves, thumping down. Spray shot up at the prow. Gilgamesh straightened. He glanced to the north and south. There was green sea everywhere. To the west sat an ocher-colored shore of low dunes.

  “We make good time,” Odin said.

  Gilgamesh tilted his head, and then all at once he thought of Opis. He struggled again to free his hands, to free his feet. He snarled and spat.

  Odin rose, with his pudgy fingers plucking at his beard. He motioned to Ramses. “What’s wrong with him? Why won’t he listen to reason?”

  “He grieves,” Ramses said.

  “No,” Odin said. “It’s more than that. He’s become a beast.”

  “Gilgamesh,” Ramses said.

  Gilgamesh didn’t answer. He was too busy struggling against his bonds.

  “Have you ever noticed how a Hunter stands taller when he dons a suit of bronze armor?” Odin asked.

  “I can’t say that I have,” Ramses said.

  “What about a woman,” Odin said, “as she wears fine clothes and jewelry, with eye-shadow and henna? Have you noticed how they comport themselves differently while wearing such things?”

  “I have,” admitted Ramses.

  Odin grunted, and because of the rise of the ship and its downward thump, he moved unsteadily toward the stern.

  Some men slept in the waist, curled up in cloaks. Others sat and spliced rope or chatted together. One or two watched the sail, while another kept lookout. Everyone had a spear or bow and arrows beside him. They had often talked about how Nimrod had reacted the instant he spied the leviathan. They told each other that they too must act just as quickly.

  A few moments later, Odin shuffled back, with two other men in tow. “Gilgamesh,” Odin said, “I’m not going to hurt you. But if you resist it will go worse with you.”

  Gilgamesh glared at the fat man. He noticed a razor in Odin’s grasp. Then the two men grabbed him, holding him tight. Gilgamesh struggled just the same.

  “Don’t,” pleaded Ramses, who had crawled behind him. Ramses yanked Gilgamesh’s head back, his fingers intertwined in the long, matted hair.

  Gilgamesh’s eyes went wide as Odin shuffled near, the razor inching toward his face. Sunlight glinted off the metal. Gilgamesh froze. They were going to slit his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut. Better to get this over with quickly.

  But Odin didn’t slash the razor across his throat. Instead, he scraped off the scraggly, shaggy beard and mustache. He did it without cutting flesh.

  After the shave, they cut off the dirty headband and much of his matted hair. Soon thereafter, they soaked his head with seawater, Ramses lathering it with soap and then another bucket of cold, salty seawater. Finally, with Odin apologizing, they tore off his rank clothes, tossing them overboard. They untied his feet and forced new, clean breeches on him and then they retied his feet and undid his hands to put on a woolen tunic. After all that, with Ramses and Odin talking to him softly, as if he were a wild wolf, they fed him jerked beef and convinced him to eat figs and drink water.

  It made him groggy.

  When Gilgamesh woke later, he felt different. The hunger pangs were gone. The wind felt strange on his bare cheeks. The clean clothes…he frowned.

  “Ah, you’ve woken up,” Odin said. “How do you feel?”

  Gilgamesh shrugged.

  Odin jumped behind him and untied his hands. “Go ahead, untie your feet.”

  Leaning forward, noticing the wary way the others glanced at him, Gilgamesh undid his feet. New sandals shod them. He threw away the hemp cords and stood, feeling the sway of the ship, adjusting to it so he didn’t fall.

  “We’re a long way from the marsh,” Odin said.

  Gilgamesh flexed his fingers, wondering who he should kill first.

  “Soon we’ll land at the first island,” Odin said.

  “At Dilmun?” Gilgamesh asked thickly.

  “No,” Odin said. “The one you landed at the first night at sea when you traveled with Nimrod.”

  “Ah,” Gilgamesh said. “Yes. I remember.” And he did remember that first fantastic voyage aboard the Odyssey, with Grandfather Ham guiding them.<
br />
  Someone had woken Ramses. He shuffled over. “I’m sorry how we treated you.”

  Gilgamesh nodded thoughtfully. A hollow spot filled his stomach, an ache. Yet…the terrible despair wasn’t as strong. He wondered what sort of trick they had played on him. How had they managed to change him? It couldn’t simply have been the new clothes and lots of food, and a shave and thorough washing. Such things didn’t affect a man as strongly as that.

  “Do we have to tie you up again?” Odin asked.

  Gilgamesh pondered. “I won’t jump overboard, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He made no promise not to hurt them, to pay them back for what they had done to him.

  “You’ll come with us to Dilmun?” Ramses asked.

  Gilgamesh thought about lying and then slipping into his canoe at night and paddling back to the marsh. No. He didn’t want to lie. And he knew a strong current flowed away from the marsh and toward the sea. Such a current would make it a difficult journey in a one-man canoe.

  “Let me think about it,” he told them. “Give me a day.”

  “As long as until then, you promise not to leave without first telling us,” Odin said.

  “Agreed,” Gilgamesh said. After he was done with them, they might beg him to leave. But on that, he remained silent.

  19.

  Toward nightfall, they came to the first island. Gilgamesh remembered it as a rather barren place, home to sea turtles and little else. Still, it was better than sleeping aboard ship and more exotic than landing on the salt marsh shores of the mainland.

  Odin ordered the sail reefed. With long poles afterward, they pushed themselves toward a sandy beach. The waves lapped against the ship and every once in a while, a big one propelled them closer to land.

  “What’s that?” shouted a man, who stood at the prow.

  “What?”

  “It’s dark and lies on the shore,” the first man said.

  Men crowded the prow to look, but the sun had set and it was difficult to make anything out.

  Gilgamesh squinted with the rest of them. His heart quickened.

  “That looks like a canoe,” a man said.

  Gilgamesh couldn’t swallow, couldn’t think.

  “A canoe?” Ramses asked. “That means…”

  “Opis,” mouthed Gilgamesh, not daring to speak the word. He felt hot and then cold. Was it possible that Opis had made a run from the marsh to the island? The current would have worked in her favor. His eyes widened. It might have been impossible for her to paddle back to the marsh. What if the leviathan had crawled onto shore and eaten her as it had once eaten Anu? The possibilities…

  “Opis!” Ramses shouted. “Opis!”

  Men scanned the shore.

  “That’s definitely a canoe,” Odin said.

  It was visible to Gilgamesh as well, but there was no Opis. Then it became too much. He jumped overboard, salt water swallowing him, stinging the inside of his nose. He bobbed to the surface and swam in the darkening sea. Soon, he waded through surf as the men aboard ship shouted Opis’s name. Gilgamesh scrambled to the beached canoe, in the last light picking up an article of clothing. He sniffed it, and he didn’t know if it was his imagination but it reminded him of Opis, of having her in his arms.

  Trembling, he ran onto the barren island. His eyes roved everywhere. He dashed over dunes as stars appeared. Grass rose here and there, but what a wretched little island this was. How would one drink?

  He spied a hovel, what looked like sandy walls. Cloth flapped in the breeze.

  He ran, with a sinking feeling in his belly. Still he couldn’t speak her name. He tripped and sprawled. He crawled and leaped to his feet, spitting sand.

  The cries of Opis had grown stronger. The others must have landed.

  Gilgamesh saw an opening and in the darkness spied a heap. He walked with a slow tread. Terror, a final and grim weariness, stole upon him. Thoughts of Opis dying of dehydration or wasting from starvation threatened to fell him worse than any spear thrust. He walked through the opening. He knelt beside the heap. Slowly, tenderly, he drew a worn blanket back. Starlight shone on Opis. He leaned near, with his lips an inch from hers. Holding himself still, without breathing, he felt the soft intake of breath, a whisper of it through her nostrils.

  She was alive! His Opis lived.

  20.

  Opis dreamed. She dreamed that Gilgamesh had found her. It was such a pleasant dream as compared to the nightmares that had consumed her. Lonely weeks in the marsh, dodging crocodiles, learning to fish and build huts and then paddling away, terrified that Uruk or one of his cronies would find her and force her to marry against her will, had made her sick with fright. Then she had found the Bitter Sea. It had roused her curiosity. She had rowed over the bar and into the green waters. The wide sea had amazed and delighted her, until the current caught her canoe and propelled her farther and farther from shore.

  Landing on the deserted island and realizing that she’d probably die here… Constant nightmares had driven her to despair. Now, however, she dreamed that Gilgamesh stroked her fevered brow and gave her sips of water. In her dream, he fed her pieces of fruit and spoke words of love. At times, too, he spoke harshly. It didn’t seem directed at her, but at others. He said they couldn’t leave. She wasn’t well enough. She never heard any replies. Yet the dream changed. There was motion. At first, it made her sick, but Gilgamesh was always there.

  Then one day, she blinked herself awake. She lay under some sort of awning and heard odd thumps and the snap of leather and wooden creaks everywhere. She didn’t remember any of those noises or that awning when she had first fallen asleep. Some sort of motion was underneath her. She turned to inspect it. She lay on a thick mat. She felt under the mat, felt wood that moved or strained. It seemed, too, that water slid under the wood.

  A corner of the awning above her moved, admitting bright light.

  “Opis.”

  She lay back. “Gilgamesh?” she whispered.

  “Opis,” he said, ducking low, carefully hugging her.

  “This…this isn’t a dream?” she whispered, her heart fluttering wildly.

  “No. I’m real and so are you, my dearest.”

  “Gilgamesh,” she wept, clinging to him, refusing to believe this was true.

  After a time, he pried off her arms. “Let me get you some water, some food. You’re very weak still. We thought…” He smiled. He had strong, white teeth in a tanned face. She didn’t recall him being quite so dark.

  She slept after eating, and when she woke the second time, the realization that Gilgamesh had found her truly sank in. Her gamble had paid off, unless after all this, her beloved still couldn’t pay her father the bridal price.

  “Ha!” was Gilgamesh’s answer to that.

  They were anchored off Dilmun, the Blessed Land, and dove for fish-eyes. Gilgamesh taught the others the art. Some of them had found the sweet onions that Uruk had harvested. Bags of them lay in the ship’s waist. While at sea, three men with bows watched for the leviathan. Thoughts of the beast kept the diving tense.

  Opis soon discovered what her beloved’s ha meant.

  “Do you think I’ll let Uruk maul you after this?” Gilgamesh asked. “Do you think your father’s avarice will thwart me now?” He laughed once more, a strong, manly sound, one that sent shivers of delight through her.

  According to her brother Ramses, who spoke to her when Gilgamesh dove, Semiramis had deep interest in her beloved. To bring Gilgamesh out of the swamp, the wife of Nimrod had plotted with Odin. Through cunning, Semiramis had convinced Nimrod to send the ship to Dilmun. At first, Semiramis had kept secret all knowledge of the fish-eyes. Nimrod, knowing there were ulterior motives at work, had soon discovered the secret. According to Ramses, who had learned it from Odin, who had learned it from Semiramis—she had coached him when to reveal what and to whom—Nimrod confronted her with the secret of the fish-eyes. Semiramis, as if defeated, admitted the truth. Shrewd Nimrod, went the story, studied his wife
, at least barking laughter, saying he approved the gaining of such precious stones. Nimrod understood that some sleight of hand had taken place during the original voyage to Dilmun, and that at last Ham’s diving for oysters made sense.

  “Yes,” Nimrod said, “let Odin make this voyage for you, Semiramis. Let him find these fish-eyes so you may crown yourself with beauty.” According to Ramses, the real reason for the trip had been hidden from Nimrod: that of finding and revitalizing Gilgamesh for Semiramis’s future comfort.

  “Semiramis lays plots within plots,” Ramses said. “She knew that Nimrod would be suspicious of her. Thus, she hid something from him to find. Know, sister, that this wanton has designs on Gilgamesh. I believe she thinks that she loves him.”

  Opis kept this revelation to herself. She also swore Ramses to secrecy.

  “I won’t tell Gilgamesh,” Ramses said, reluctantly. “But I think it’s unwise for you and him not to confront this openly with each other.”

  “That’s because you think like a man,” Opis said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  Gilgamesh told her that now, after their ordeals, that no one could say to them: “Don’t marry. Wait. First get the father’s permission.”

  “Opis, my love,” Gilgamesh said. “We will present them with an accomplish fact. I will of course pay your father the bridal price. But we will not wait for his approval. Nor will either of us worry about Uruk’s reaction. He can worry about mine if he dares to molest you by so much as a frowning at you or giving you a lustful glance.”

  “Yes, Gilgamesh,” she said.

  Several evenings after her recovery, Ramses helped her don a fine dress that one of the men had made for her. Then, on land and near dusk, Odin presided over the ceremony. Everyone agreed that Ham had spoken before of the custom of Havilah galley masters in Antediluvian times. Such masters, according to Ham’s old stories, had the right to marry people. Odin, as ship captain, was invested with the needed authority.

  Gilgamesh, in clean clothes and with oiled hair, stepped through the ranks of watching crew. He took her hand, smiling, beaming, and turned to Odin.