Song of the Crow
Page 13
And the Old Bone blinked his one good eye against the salty spume. Even the death in his scarred-over eye blinked.
“C’mon. Let’s go see if your old aerie’s still there,” he said. “That’s as good a place as any to die.”
So up we flew, for the last time, to the home of my old song.
But the wind took us completely. All was floodwater and waves and clouds that engulfed us. We were in the hurly-burly of chaos, like an angry cloud of bird wings, large wings, small ones, and raggedy-feathered ones that could no longer beat against the wind, and the birds smacked into us and flew past knocking into more birds.
Then the sky calmed, and we found a clearing where we flew through the eye of the hurricane over the ark. There a bird could hold steady over the flood that had engulfed all things, all hillsides and mountains. All was water. Already nearly every surface of the ark was covered with birds, like a crowded nesting colony of every color, shape, and size. The ark listed perilously from the weight. The Old Bone and I searched for a place to land. But there was none. How long could we flap in the clearing above the ark?
Because the Old Bone had no tail, he could not glide at all but kept flapping and flapping, going down despite himself. All around us, birds were dropping from the skies, making hardly a splash in the momentous seas.
The Old Bone said, “Do you see a spot to land?”
“No. I don’t.”
“My wings,” he said. “I’m setting down anyway. Farewell, my friend.”
He let himself drop in among the birds on the ark, and I kept in flight just behind him, watching the seagulls and other large floating birds, well rested as they were, peck at the one-eyed crow for a brief time until he splashed into a wave crashing against the hull and disappeared without a trace to the foaming seas.
When Flok, a famous Norwegian Navigator, was going to set out from Shetland for Iceland, then called Gardarsholm, he took on board some Crows, because the Mariner’s Compass was not yet in Use.
—THOMAS DAVISON, Rural Sports
9. Trespass
The ark listed horribly from the staggering weight of all the earth’s birds, and the skies were full of more. A funnel of birds like a wobbling twister followed the ark, where the birds fought and died for a place to land. On one side, the bulwarks dipped below the boiling seas. The bow stem and stern would alternate, each sinking below the waves while the other thrust itself up, until finally there were so many birds, the ark could no longer lift its nose from the seas. It lay like an injured whale beginning to turn its belly to the sky. A wave would spill over the ark and wash a broad flank of birds into the sea, only to be replaced immediately by more that dropped from the sky. Birds fell and smacked up against me on their way down to the hissing waves, where, faintly, I saw God’s face move upon the waters.
The Great Beak opened and blew.
From the mouth of the seas came a furious blast that swept all the birds from the ark and blew them away, and just as I was sweeping past the vessel, it righted itself and I hit up against its sides. Pinned by the wind against the dead trees, I looked and saw that I’d landed beside the sickly husk of Hook-bill the Haunted, beak open, embossed on the hull. And I remembered the secret entrances she had shown me. Flopping down to one, I entered easily.
· · ·
Inside, the ark was a place now of rank and humid darkness, desperate and dangerous to trip through, and too dark for flying. The distant, fiery antlers of the beastman would temporarily cast their dim light from somewhere within the ark’s tangled structure. And just as quickly as the torches appeared, they vanished, but not before revealing cage after cage of spooked, cowering creatures, subdued and staring out with passive eyes or curled up asleep in pools of their own bile. The turbulence of the flood dulled them as though they were soused in the beastman’s bloody, narcotic potions.
And the ark rolled, not like a single vessel but like a float of logs loosely tied together, like the long spine of a sea monster, riding along the crests and troughs of the sea. The howling outside was still the sad siren of devastation, and the clacking, creaking, twisting sound of the ark was a faint, lost complaint beneath it.
Once, when one of Noah’s sons passed by with the fiery antler, I saw the cages of creatures in the orb’s smoky glow. I realized that I was of no pair, no part of the seven clean beasts, and no part of the two-by-two entry of the unclean either. I was not supposed to be on the ark. I was not to be saved. But hadn’t the God Crow told me to be ready when the time came? Or was Everlasting All-Knowing talking to Plum Black, or Night Time, or my father, when I’d mistaken it as a message to me? Perhaps my place was in the flood, to drown, or to see what was beyond it. Perhaps the birds were faring better out there.
I stuck my head out from between two logs and into the stinging air. I saw nothing but the wings of God that shot like arrows across the waves. The long lines of wind had no end and no beginning except that of darkness, and like a strange, aggrieved outlaw, I ducked back inside and stayed where I was.
IV. The Ark
Dismantle your house, build a boat.
Leave possessions, search out living things.
Reject chattels and save lives!
Put aboard the seed of all living things, into the boat.
The boat that you are to build
Shall have her dimensions in proportion,
Her width and length shall be in harmony,
—EPIC OF GILGAMESH, TABLET XI
In the end the ship fell far short of the necessities, and to this day the world still suffers for it.
Noah built the Ark. He built it the best he could, but left out most of the essentials. It had no rudder, it had no sails, it had no compass, it had no pumps, it had no charts, no lead-lines, no anchors, no log, no light, no ventilation; and as for cargo-room—which was the main thing—the less said about that the better. It was to be at sea eleven months, and would need fresh water enough to fill two Arks of its size—yet the additional Ark was not provided.
—MARK TWAIN, LETTERS FROM THE EARTH
Berrossus, the Babylonian high priest from the temple Bel Mar Duk, states that in his time around 300 BC, remains of the ark could still be seen and some get pitch from the ship by scraping it off and use it for amulets. . . .
In 380 AD, Epiphanus, Bishop of Salamis, visited the land of the Kurds and stated that he was shown wood from Noah’s ark. . . .
At 11:15 on July 31st 1969, [Fernand] Navarra and the SEARCH team struck pay dirt: five pieces of wood resembling planking, with the longest piece nearly 17 inches long. This new additional find confirmed Navarra’s discovery, and for many scientists proved conclusively that Noah had indeed stepped forth onto dry land here on Mount Ararat.
—IN SEARCH OF NOAH’S ARK, SUN CLASSIC PICTURES
All animals, even insects, were human size in the Garden, walked upright, and spoke. At least they appeared human size to Adam.
—DAVID ROSENBURG, The Lost Book of Paradise: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
1. Book of Sapphires
The ark creaked and moaned.
The blackened timbers begged for the mercy to bust apart and be sent adrift from the will of the beastman that held them fast. There they could die a fitting tree-like death and have their spirits released, too, pulverized by the endless words of the wind and the sea if that’s all there was ever going to be. Every once in a while a mournful whining as if from a living creature traveled past in the wind. But mostly it was a barren, awful howling. Even the yes and no of God was gone, leaving nothing but the heaving anger, now beyond anger, until it was nothing, just nothing mashing on itself.
The ark was stifling with the soggy animal air, and seasickness, and the smells of wetted sawdust and pitch where it leaked down from the hull. The farther down you went, the thicker the stench became. Many animals swampish and cold-blooded escaped to the sumpwater at the bottom of the ark. Crocodiles, long-tailed dragons, and water snakes slithered around in the sloshing swill t
hat grew as the ark rolled and leaned under the forces of the flood. The hippopotami were down there, and all manner of watery creatures pushed and ate their way from their cages to live down in the dark, bubbling cesspool. Elephants reached into the rank water with their trunks but did not drink. They only sprayed the salty element onto their backs and each other, bringing a humid animal mist into the already vapory compartments.
And seven. Seven elephants. Why them? So mindful. Such gentle natures. So slow and deliberate. Like the flow of a river that has long ago made up its mind, one of the elephants lowered itself one limb at a time down into the water. In sagacity and faithfulness so like a crow. Perhaps the elephants’ size alone distinguished them from us.
I kept expecting to stumble upon the cage or compartment containing the seven crows. Most of the clean beasts of seven were from the farm, and these animals slept in the compartments with the beastman, providing comfort and warmth for all. Man and cow slept curled up with one another in the hay of Noah’s compartments. Dog, duck, and goat slept nearby. And chickens. Even the dim-witted, ground-hugging chicken was considered clean and allowed to wander in and out of the beastman’s quarters at will. What is a bird that can’t fly? Seven horses, seven cattle, six hens and one rooster, three geese and four ganders, three sheep and four rams, one of them not paired off, one alone and useless in the continuance of things, all of them beasts of Noah, bleating, squawking, mooing to be fed when the beastman walked near, sharpening his knives, one against the other.
Here, in the compartments of Noah’s family, both light and food were plentiful. And being one of my original raiding sites, the lay of the beams was familiar to me, making this an easy, interesting place to hide.
“Papa, shall we make haste to prepare a burnt offering?”
“No, Ham. We have no place for a fire large enough.”
“What about a small creature? Like the rabbit?”
“No. When we have arrived by God’s hand, then we shall make an offering.”
“Offerings,” said this son of Noah, and his eyes bubbled over, greasy and fish-like. Long and skinny, like his father, the one known as Ham spoke through large, crooked teeth. His hair was the wildest of all the beastmen, growing from him with the abandon of shrubbery. “Why do we offer up the fat of our efforts, anyway? Does Yahweh ever eat any of it?”
“We’ve been making offerings of our favored beasts,” said Noah, “ever since our great ancestor, Abel, made the first one, so many generations ago.”
“And look what happened to him.” Ham leaned forward now with a fist clenched over the handle of his supper tool.
“We make offerings to show our reverence,” said Noah, “and to appease the Great God of Adam.”
“Just look. Is He appeased now?”
Ham pointed with his thumb back over his shoulder, out beyond the beams of the galley and the logs of the hull. There was a silence in the ark’s house, except for the rocking, creaking noises, back and forth, and the howling from without.
Noah’s face flushed red with exasperation as he fought within himself. “Are you trying to increase His wrath?” But the one known as Noah calmed himself as he neared the torchlight of the dinner table. There, he took his seat importantly. And the mammal ate. He shoved the food into his glistening, gut-colored mouth and worked his jaws. Then from the beast’s lung-colored lips came the strange sounds of human speech.
“My son, my son, my son. Ham, and others, too, listen to me. For the generations depend upon your ability to re-create the stories I am about to tell you, and have been telling you all along. Why should we make offerings? Well . . .”
And as Noah launched into the drone that is history (for it is the same with bird as it is with beast), Ham and especially his wife, Nanniah, were the only ones listening. All others were passed out in their bunks of straw and animal hide from the rough ordeal of escaping the deluge, or from bouts of sickness with the sea. And though the seasickness did not allow some to sleep, it did dilute their attention.
There was the place known as Paradise, said Noah, and yes, all his family knew of it. But it was different, a lot different, way back when. Noah hoped that when they returned to the world, they could all return to the Garden as well and keep it as fresh and unspoiled as it had been before the terrible blight of knowledge had entered into the thoughts of humankind. Of course, their job would be a little easier this time around, now that Adam and Eve had already finished the naming of all of God’s creatures. The supple, naked youths, Adam and Eve, slender and athletic and without a blemish anywhere, had little to do all day but adorn themselves with flowers and see to it that each and every creature on earth had a special word applying to that creature and that creature alone. The great monster leviathan bellowed above the seas, What is my name? It roared. And when Adam gave a name that pleased the whale, the majestic creature opened its spout and hissed its steamy breath in gratitude above the seas. Pick me. Pick me next. Throughout the garden, the different creatures followed the innocent lovers around. What is my name? Birds fell from the sky. Beautiful insects with willowy wings landed upon the shoulders of Eve. What is my name? What’s mine? Indeed, the glories of the world were few and simple back then, but glorious nonetheless.
The stories of Noah’s race were noxious and intolerable to a bird, but quaint enough that I began to feel the tender amusement one might find in listening to a child’s humming, and the occasional magical misunderstanding that might pop out of that child’s mouth.
But even by Noah’s reckoning, the world had turned wicked almost overnight. Perhaps in the next world they would need extra safeguards against the abominable natures of humankind—a talisman to ward off fire eaters, piglet eaters, and all those with a gluttonous appetite; a way to put an end to the inventors of musical instruments, practitioners of perfume, those who steal secrets from heaven not meant for mortal heads, giants who crave the daughters of men, brothers who smite brothers, and so on, and on.
Noah stood from the table and reached into a large woven basket. He pulled out an object that gave him much pleasure. This book, he said, had been bestowed upon him by the archangel Raphael. Inside it was a sacred text containing the answer to all mysteries useful to humankind: the instructions needed to tame demons, herbs and practices in the art of healing, the many forces guiding the stars, and the plans used in building the ark. These were just a few of its useful instructions. According to Noah, all of the earth’s wisdom could be stowed in one book and one head—one gaunt, sunken, Noah-like head. He held up the book, bound in sapphires, and when he opened it, a light shone from within that made plain and luminous his troubled features.
Across the table, Ham sat and listened. He listened as if paying attention no longer to his father’s words but only to the queer sounds of human speech and the strange celestial glow coming from his father’s book. He wore a look of quiet dismay, and beneath the table grabbed the hand of his wife, Nanniah, and the two of them rolled their eyes as the father spoke, not seeming to know or care that no one else was listening. When I saw the fall of Nanniah’s thick black hair, a chill rushed through me that could be none other than the stirrings of Our Many. Her quick, moist, intelligent eyes peered all around her into the far shadows of the compartment. And I thought that if the others had partaken of the Great Mother, too, it made no difference; this was where her soul stayed. Nanniah kept tracing the slope of her stomach, as if bird wings beat within.
Beyond, in their berths, the rest of their family slept in heaps.
Along with the book’s unearthly glow, a special pearl hanging from the timbers cast a kindly luminescence down upon Noah’s family. By day, this pearl would dim, and in this way the human family was able to mark the passage of days, which to them was of extreme importance. By night, it burned intensely like a star, and I’d yearn for the beauty of our old songscape where at night points of the Milky Way shone through the trees. I spread my wings, and the pearl cast an enormous moving shadow across the walls.
Wings, wondrous wings, I fanned them against the uneven beams. Now I was the monster.
The whole family was fearful.
“A creature out of its cage.”
“How?”
I opened my beak and made my voice heard. “How? Awk! Can’t you see? The rats, they eat at the cages, they scurry into your food. Already mouse, shrew, and snake slosh happily with the larger creatures in the sumpwater above the keel. Insects fly and burrow themselves into the wood of the ark. And ducks, do you know where the ducks are? Wicker cages, wood cages, what are these to a creature that can digest hide and hair and man-sized mammal bones in its stomach? Only the sickness of the sea holds the lion at bay. It’s the same with all of the stronger beasts, the wilder beasts. Not like those whimpering, begging beasts of burden you keep at your feet.”
One of them spoke.
“Oh, dark bird.”
“Crow.”
“Get him.”
“And see that no other creatures are out of their cages.”
“Did you not hear me? Oh, never mind,” I said.
And the sons and daughters of Noah were helpless, watching me fly away.
It soon learnt how to talk, and every morning flew to the Rostra facing the Forum and greeted Tiberius by name, then Germanicus and Drusus Caesar, and, after that, the people of Rome as they passed by; finally it returned to the shop. The raven was remarkable in that it performed this duty for several years.