In the Shadow of the Ark

by Anne Provoost

  She released me. “This journey is a heavy load for us women. Look at Zedebab. Her nerves are at breaking point. Her twin sister drowned. The girl was not different from Zedebab in any way whatever. Yet Zedebab was chosen, and her sister not. Can anyone comprehend this?” She handed me the lamp and pushed me along the passage. With her forceful grip she forced me back into the dodoes’ pen.

  “I will spare your life,” she said flatly. “So long as you do something in return. I need someone to slaughter a bird for me. You killed ducks for food, didn’t you?” She pointed at the birds surrounding us. It occurred to me that her movements resembled the dodoes’. She too had a small head on a large body, and just like them, she placed her feet carefully so as not to disturb that large body’s balance.

  “No,” I said. “Not the dodoes.”

  “A dodo is what I want,” she said. “That one has been at my fruit.” She pointed her chin at the blue female with the mournful voice. She opened the hutch and produced three alabaster statues, images of a bull and two calves. “Then you’ll pluck it and cut it up in small pieces,” she continued. “My gods demand sacrifices, but I am forbidden from killing animals. If you kill the birds, both the Unnameable and my gods will be content.”

  With both hands I was gripping the bars on the door of the pen. I calculated my chances of getting away. “Why these gods if you already have one who saved you from the flood?” I asked.

  But she was alert. Her grip on my arm was strong, and she jammed the door with her leg. “These gods are very special. They promise something you get nowhere else. A life after death, not in a realm of shadows but in a paradise. Is that not lovely and attractive? Is that not much better than what the Unnameable promises: a good, long life?”

  I tried to extricate myself. But she twisted my arm so high up my back that my shoulder cracked. “Catch it, or I take you to the Builder,” she said.

  The dodo angrily beat its head and spat and hissed like a fire when I grabbed it. I had to clamp its beak to prevent it from pecking out my eyes. I struggled with it, making a noise like a wild thing and filling the cage with feathers and quills and droppings. Taneses urged quiet, but of course that did not help. She gave me a knife so sharp it must have just been whetted. The flapping did not stop until I managed to get my arm across the wings. I quickly broke its neck to stop the noise. The beast did not close its eyes when it went still in my hands.

  Taneses watched as if she wanted every movement to be imprinted on her memory.

  I carefully plucked the dodo, removed the glory of its color, the hundreds of feathers, every one of which glowed differently in the soft light. In its pupil I saw my own face.

  “Have you slaughtered an animal?” asked Neelata when I returned to her. “How could you? That way you will not save your father.”

  I laid my head in her lap so she could comfort me. “I saved myself!” I said. As she wiped the blood from my hands, sorrow rose in me.

  58

  An Accident

  The number of marks on the wall doubled. The rain had stopped, but the water was not draining away. The hay in the stores was rotting, it started to ferment and became black as pitch. Something was going on with the seasons too. Suddenly, the larvae matured. Within days we were tormented by swarms of mosquitoes, which rained down on our faces and limbs as soon as we lay down. After a while we learned how to repel them by burning rags, but most of the time it seemed the smoke would overcome us long before the mosquitoes.

  The mosquitoes set the bats moving. In the morning, I would find them tangled in the nets and tent-dividers that Neelata had stowed between the beams of her ceiling. I could not resist disentangling them, when Neelata was not there, and dashing them against the wall. And then there were the leeches. They sat on your face, your hands, and your feet. Your whole body became covered in little black holes, particularly those parts that were exposed to the air. From the mud and the dirt, the flies were born, they came from nowhere but drove the cattle in the holds mad.

  As the days crawled by, our hopes of an early landfall diminished. Sailing became a habit, and it seemed we were losing sight of the purpose of the journey. The voyagers forgot the flood. Like me, they forgot their previous lives, and like me, could not imagine the life to come. Everyone seemed to be mostly concerned with the cares of the moment. Wasps building a nest in a spot no one could reach suddenly became more important than the thought of a new land. Out of boredom, the voyagers sang songs they invented. The songs were mostly about their loneliness. I must admit, they were good at singing, and at rhyming too, in that language of theirs! They sang about the monotony of sailing and of the sound of the water. Sometimes the songs were melancholy, sometimes so wild the donkeys started braying and the dogs howling.

  I killed animals for Taneses. At first mainly dodoes, later spotted swans and jumping geese. She roasted them under the air funnel, because that was where the smoke dispersed fastest. “My gods are content,” she said. “You’re conquering a very special place in their hearts.”

  But I did not show myself to the others. Tempers were restless, I was afraid of what would happen if they discovered me. The Builder became ill again. This time he slipped into a state like madness. They thought he had been bitten by a bat, because he wandered about the hold with foam on his lips and his teeth clenched. Shem and Japheth were furious with the bats. They hit out at them with sticks and did not care if, from some of these species, both the male and the female perished. Of course, there were so many of them, all with differently angled jaws and claws.

  I knew the illness from which the Builder suffered. I had seen men and women slowly die of it in the marsh country. I also knew of the preparation of quicksilver, which, if applied properly, could give relief. But offering my services would have meant death.

  Because, of course, there were suspicions. They began to wonder why this voyage was not coming to an end. What was going wrong, who was committing errors, what so displeased the Unnameable that he let the water stay? There were more and more rumors that a child had been sighted. It always seemed to disappear in a flash, so no one could ever catch it. And the disappearance of the animals I killed did not go unnoticed.

  My fear made me short of breath. During the day, the heat in the ark was unbearable. Neelata fanned me. She only left me when absolutely necessary, when she had to work or to go and eat. She did not feel the need to walk on the deck. But because I insisted, she went to look at that wet world outside. Excitedly, she told me about the reflections and how the sky kept changing over the water. But even under the clearest of skies, she could not see a papyrus boat.

  One night, I was busy preparing a quail for sacrifice to Taneses’s gods. I had broken the beast’s neck and had plucked it. The fire was ready, but Taneses thought the offering too meager and wanted another one. It was an unusually rough night, as if somewhere in the distance a new storm was brewing. That gave me a feeling of security: The voyagers would feel ill and lie down on their beds. And so I got a fright when I saw someone going up the gallery. The figure that crossed my path and made me hide hastily was Zaza. She moved with unsteady steps, she seemed lost and had difficulty standing up. All the way up she climbed, and I could hear her footsteps on the deck.

  I did not know why she went up there. Walking on deck right now was dangerous. The surface was slippery. She was not carrying a lamp.

  What would she do if she spotted me? Would she scream? I followed her anyway, I could not stop myself. The strange way she moved showed she was in greater need than I.

  It was a dark, sinister night. On deck were the glistening trails of snails that had come out of the wilted foliage looking for fresh food. I noticed she had prepared her coming: A crate with some steps against it stood near the railing.

  She was not startled when I stood next to her but greeted me. “Hasn’t it been a long time! I didn’t really think you had thrown yourself into the water, not with that child. You look lovely and well! Are they giving you a decent li
fe, those children of mine? How are you bearing up on this endless journey?” With every step I took, she moved away from me, her carriage alert, her toes tensed.

  “It won’t be long now,” I said soothingly.

  She moved close to the steps and looked out over the water. The sea was restless but not wild. There was a little wind. She was silent, like a ewe becoming mute at the sight of the shearer.

  “My children’s father says,” she said after along silence, “there will be a new land, a new beginning. He doesn’t say where I am supposed to find the strength for all this. I am too tired for his paradise.” She had folded her arms across her gown, her forearms supporting her breasts. She climbed onto the steps, put her left foot on the first step, her right foot on the second.

  “Why did you go along with this dream?”

  “A man needs to have something,” she replied. “And a dream is better than emptiness.” She stepped onto the crate. I gripped her hand to stop her, but she just used it to balance herself.

  “Don’t throw my shoes in after me,” she said. “They must not think it was an accident.”

  It seemed impossible, the water was not wild enough to do what it did: A wave came up, a gigantic, voracious wave that scooped her up but did not even touch me. I felt her push off against my arm and she was gone. Her gown floated on the water.

  I rested my arm on the railing for balance and stood there. What was this? What did it mean? I had done my best, I had tried to do the Unnameable’s will, and had been forced to disobedience by Taneses. Where was my father with his worthless little boat? Was he watching me, could he see me standing here, grubby, my belly curving with life? Throw your rules, your manners, your habits overboard, he had said. I had given up all my old rules. My lips formed questions for him. What did you mean when you said, “Do everything that is asked of you”? What did you mean when you said, “Forget what I have taught you”? Being obliging produced no better results than disobedience. My head was full of anger, anger that stank like smoke. The ship under me was burning. I had not put out the fire near the air funnel.

  59

  The Fire

  The fire destroyed the stores and smothered an unknown number of animals. Shem, Ham, and Japheth grabbed the first water they could get their hands on, the sweet, scarce drinking water from my cave, and used it to put out the fire. While they plunged the jugs into the barrels to let them fill up they were calling out, “Where is Mother? Where can she possibly be?”

  Zedebab stamped on the sparks with her feet. Neelata threw her wall hanging on the flames, which choked under the weight of her embroidery. Ham took off his cloak, plunged it in the water, and put it back on. Dripping wet, he hurled himself into the fire, beating at the flames with his hands as he searched for his mother. Taneses ran past, carrying alabaster statues of two calves and a bull in her arms. Her skin lit up with the fire behind her, looking as transparent as the statues she was carrying. Then she disappeared in the flames.

  The animals screamed. As the corridors and galleries filled with smoke, they made the same noises as when the ark was first lifted up by the water. Put! I thought, running through the ship. But the smoke overcame me. There was only one safe place, of course. I felt my way toward it. I recognized the Builder’s hut by the staff that stood at the door; it was the sign of his presence, as it had been when they lived in their tents. He lay on the wooden pallet by the wall, his mouth half open. To my surprise, his room too was filled with smoke. I moved into the corner farthest away from him, the ever thickening curtain of smoke between us. He said not a word, but looked at me with eyes used to hallucinations.

  He has been abandoned by his god, I thought. Once a sea of water had come from the sky, and now not a drop to keep the smoke out of his bedroom. I stood ready to lift him off his bed and carry him onto the deck when I heard footsteps in the corridor. The voyagers had come to get their father, and I could not get away.

  The fire under the air funnel had been put out. Shem and Japheth were wet through. Zedebab had tied her skirts together between her legs, making her look as though she was wearing baggy pants. Neelata’s hair had been scorched. Ham held his badly burned hands up in front of him. They were all black with soot, making them look as if they belonged to my people.

  When they noticed me, they stared at me, particularly Zedebab, who seemed not to remember how she knew me.

  “Where is Mother?” they asked, as if they knew I had the answer.

  “I do not know,” I said.

  My voice startled them, suddenly so open and loud in this ship. Everyone went on deck to get some air. Zaza and Taneses were missing. Worry about Zaza’s fate and grief for Taneses’ death formed a strange bond between us; nobody thought of asking me yet, “What are you doing here?”

  “Taneses wanted to save her belongings,” they told one another. They mourned Taneses, but I admired her. She had finally taken the step. She had gone into the fire because nobody had been prepared to push her into the water, and so had entered her gods’ paradise. But of course the display of grief for Taneses was mainly a way of not having to think about the shoes that lay on the deck, and about the fact that Zaza was taking far too long to appear.

  The material damage was great. Of the women’s quarters, only Zedebab’s remained. The central living space had been destroyed. The voyagers no longer had a place for playing shovelboard or making music. The stores of food had been burned. In his attempts to beat out the flames, Ham had used the scrolls on which all mankind’s wars, their dates, and the names of their victors were depicted.

  But all that was as nothing compared to the loss of Zaza. She was the mother, the conciliator who understood what no one would express. On her sons’ faces I could read their dismay. Neelata and Zedebab too were speechless. They had come to know and appreciate Zaza. Because there was no one else, she had taken the place of their own mothers. And she had taken so much with her, all knowledge of motherhood had been lost with her. In the new world, they would have to learn childbirth from me, who knew nothing about it.

  “Let me do your hands,” I said to Ham, but he thought he did not need my care.

  “They do not hurt, it is my heart that pains me,” he said. That sounded true. His hands were so badly burned they must have lost all feeling.

  Shem was the first to be able to take stock of the new situation. He allocated Taneses’s bedroom to me. The walls were scorched, her bed and cupboards turned to ashes, and her spoons and skimmers twisted by the heat, but I had a bundle of hay and a blanket. “In the new land,” he said, pointing at the curve of my belly, “you will become Japheth’s wife, the bearer of his progeny.”

  Japheth protested. His thoughts were with Taneses. I could not replace his wife, he said, and he had no feelings for me. He had not forgotten that I had prevented his father’s blessing.

  But Shem had no patience with his objections. “What would you rather, that Ham had two wives and you none, or the fair division I propose?”

  60

  The Builder

  From that day on, I took care of the Builder. Neelata and Zedebab refused, Zaza and Taneses were dead, and Ham, the man who had learned the art of caring by practicing on me, could no longer use his hands. The news that Zaza had perished in the fire had a bad effect on the Builder. He lay on his mattress, shivering, eyes and mouth half open, seeming unable to speak. By the light of the small oil lamp it was shocking to see how the illness had attacked his skin. Barely any blood flowed through it, at most a pale sap that kept him alive.

  “Stay with him and do all that is needed,” said Shem. He left me behind in the hut that resembled the Builder’s tent in the shipyard. Inside, the same chaos reigned, and it was permeated by the same resiny smell of ointment. Attached to the wall with bronze screws was a small, square, acacia-wood altar with four horns. In the incessant commotion during the early part of the journey, he had no doubt spoken with his god here, but now the illness exhausted him, no Unnameable could do anything about t
hat. Beside his bed stood the cage with the messy dove and the little bells, and on a stand a few nondescript little plants with brown, serrated leaves in moist soil. On the shelf below, jugs, a press and sieves, covered with ash from the fire. I opened all the pots I could find and sniffed them. I found mugs with dregs of wine, but also the pots of ointment I was looking for. I boiled up an herb broth, which I fed him spoonful by spoonful.

  I took care of him every day. He was restless in his sleep because the lumps on his belly and in his groin itched.

  “What do you dream about?” I asked him when, on the third day, he looked at me. His irises trembled constantly, the whites around them were bloodshot, and stale-looking tears filled the corners of his eyes.

  “About the newborn children,” he said. “The animals have been saved, but not the newborn children. Someone needs to explain that to me.” Crumbs of dried ear wax lay on his pillow. I brushed them onto the floor or blew them away.

  “I had a conversation once, with a man,” he continued. “We were deep inside a cave full of the dead.”

  “That man was my father.”

  “His words touched me deep in my heart. He was speaking about showing remorse. What happens if remorse is not genuine?”

  “Then calamity follows.”

  “That is right. Calamity follows. But what if the calamity comes first? If it comes so fast and unexpectedly that there is no time for a request, for a question, an expression of remorse? Zaza disappeared so fast. She died too soon, and in the wrong way. On this ark, life does not turn into ashes, it turns into foam. Foam is what we must become.”