Heavens Before (39 page)

“It’s Tirtsah,” Ghinnah guessed. “Our husbands and the father of our husbands are all checking the animals below. And I’ma-Naomi is above, preparing the midday meal—not that I could eat anything.”

Tirtsah came down into the quiet orderliness of the cages, stalls, and enclosures, pausing to look at some of the animals and to touch them, as if she doubted they were still alive. At last she met Annah and Ghinnah, her full mouth set in a grimace, her fine, dark eyebrows lifted in a token greeting. “Ma’adannah. Ghinnah. The mother of our husbands wants to talk to us together before the men come up from the lower level.”

The pen heaved swiftly, causing Annah to grab the upright post of a nearby stall. The swinging, sliding sensation nauseated her. With an effort, she remembered to hold the flaring torch out at arm’s length to avoid burning anyone or anything. Staggering, Ghinnah and Tirtsah clung to the post with Annah. Ghinnah pressed her hand to her mouth, and Tirtsah held her stomach as if she might retch. As everything seemed to sway about them, Annah shut her eyes. Slowly the pen righted itself in the waters, and the motions eased. Annah leaned against the stall, limp with relief. Sweat prickled over her skin, making her shiver.

Sagging against the post, Ghinnah uttered a despairing groan. “I’m so tired of being ill and creeping around like a would-be-dead person.” Then, recognizing her unfortunate figure of speech, she said, “Oh, forgive me. I should have used different words.”

“We understood what you meant,” Annah assured her. Glancing at the drooping Tirtsah, Annah became
concerned. “Tirtsah? Do you need a bucket?”

“No.” Tirtsah ran a hand over her ashen face, then looked at Annah, mutinous, as if she expected to be humiliated. “I’ve been waiting for you to laugh at me, to tell me how wrong I was. And how right you were—that you knew this storm would come.”

Clearly aggravated, Ghinnah burst out, “Oh, Tirtsah, I’m sure you’ve been waiting, but Annah’s not ever going to behave so rudely. And she hasn’t laughed since this storm began. In fact, I’ve never heard Annah laugh. Think about it, Tirtsah; your husband and his family haven’t exactly been rejoicing in this destruction.”

Tirtsah remained stonily silent.

Disheartened, Annah focused on the flames of the torch.
Please, Tirtsah
, she thought,
I don’t want to quarrel with you
. Gently she said, “Tirtsah, even now, you don’t understand, do you? We didn’t care to be ‘right’ about this storm. It wasn’t something we wanted. I certainly didn’t want to believe the father of my husband when he first spoke of it.”

Pained, thinking of her dead sisters, Annah continued. “But the father of my husband was right. I couldn’t deny the truth; outside the lodge of Noakh, I’ve never met another person who was truly kind and loving, who also loved the Most High. Even my own father—the only person in the settlement who ever loved me—did as he pleased. Everything was according to his own will. He refused to believe in a Creator who desired harmony with him.”

“I believe in the Most High now,” Ghinnah confessed timidly. Her small round chin quivered as she added, “But I didn’t until the storm. And I simply happened to be inside this pen instead of outside.”

To Annah’s surprise, Tirtsah gave a choked little laugh, and her huge, dark eyes glimmered with moisture. Taking a quick breath, she nodded. “I didn’t want to believe either. But now I do. Though if it weren’t for the storm, I never would have believed. The Most High was nothing to me but a child’s story.” Tirtsah bit her lip, and tears slid down her cheeks. “Annah!” she cried. “I’ve been so afraid! If He destroyed all the others for believing as I believed, then why has He allowed
me
to live?”

“Perhaps because He realized that you would learn to trust Him and to love Him,” said Annah, hardly daring to hope Tirtsah would agree.

Gulping down an audible sob, Tirtsah shook her head. “I don’t deserve to live.”

“None of us deserves to live,” Annah said, her own eyes welling, burning as she recalled her previous hatred for Yerakh and everyone in the settlement. “It was the violence of our thoughts and deeds—as much as our shunning of the Most High—that helped to destroy the others. In my heart, Tirtsah, I am just as guilty as you.”

Tirtsah cried quietly, her tears gleaming in the light of the resin-soaked torch. At last, sniffling, she said, “I believe you. And Him. I’ll never understand why He should—as you say—desire harmony with me, but I’m grateful He does. I pray I never give Him cause to despise me further.”

“Turn to Him,” Annah urged, wiping her eyes. “That’s all He asks.”

Ghinnah was also wiping her eyes. She straightened suddenly. “Ugh! I’m tired of crying! I want to do something—anything else. Listen, if the waters have quit tossing us about for a while, then let’s go to I’ma-Naomi before our husbands finish their work. We can come back
to check the animals later.”

“These poor creatures aren’t doing anything anyway,” Tirtsah agreed. She sighed, as if to clear her thoughts. Then she actually took Annah by the wrist, pulling her along as one sister would naturally behave toward another. “Hurry; I’ma-Naomi is waiting.”

Pleased by this new turn in their relationship, Annah allowed Tirtsah to lead her up the ramp to their living area. Naomi was at the hearth, keeping a close eye on the flames beneath a small iron rack, which supported a plump bronze cooking pot. Annah eyed the hearth appreciatively. The crackling glow of the fire was a welcome relief against the continual downpour of rain and chaos outside the pen.

Ghinnah reached Naomi first. “Here we are, I’ma. That last turn made us sick again, so we had to wait before coming up to see you.”

“And you’ve all been crying again,” Naomi observed, her dark eyebrows lifting in her calm, commanding face. “Sit down. We need to talk.”

Curious, Annah fastened the torch in a sturdy wall bracket and sat with Ghinnah and Tirtsah, facing Naomi expectantly.

Naomi pursed her lips, then spoke severely. “We have been mourning long enough. It’s been almost thirty days now. We are alive, and we forget that we should be thanking the Most High for His mercy in sparing our lives. I think even our husbands have forgotten how to laugh, they’ve been so busy watching the storm and the animals.”

Annah heard Tirtsah suck in a quick breath. Ghinnah actually laughed. “I’ma, we were just thinking the very same thing. We’ve all been crying for so long that we’ve
worn ourselves out.”

“Then we agree.” Naomi relaxed as if she had been worried that they would be angry with her. “We need to remind ourselves that we are alive, and we ought to praise the Most High for His goodness.” Leaning forward, she said, “Also, we need to celebrate my husband’s six-hundredth year of life. We passed it while we were harvesting the herds.”

“His six-hundredth year, ” Annah repeated in dismay. “Six kentums. We didn’t know….”

Each one hundred years of life for any person, man or woman, was traditionally celebrated by feasting, dancing, visiting, and gift giving. Failure to celebrate was an insult to the person in question, as if that person was despised, and the years of their lives were counted as nothing.

“Does he think we hate him?” Ghinnah asked, sounding horrified.

Naomi smiled and shook her head, the gold talismans of her hair bindings sparkling in the light. “No, child. My dear one doesn’t think that at all. It was his choice not to celebrate. At the time of his six-hundredth year, he was mourning for our Methuwshelakh. And we were too busy harvesting the herds to take time for any celebration. After that, again, we were too busy preparing for this storm.” Naomi’s dark eyes were shining, almost mischievous. “But tonight, we should remind him of how very, very old he is! And we should feast. I’ve made him a new tunic, and we can prepare all his favorite foods, but I’ll need your help.”

“We should keep this a secret,” Tirtsah added, her lovely face glowing. “It would be fun to surprise our husbands.”

As they all agreed, Annah’s thoughts raced ahead,
trying to plan some sort of gift for her father-in-law.
Six hundred years
, she thought.
How can we not celebrate?

“Spiced cakes,” Noakh said, his somber face brightening as Annah placed a basket on the mat in front of him. “And beans.” His eyes widened as Ghinnah presented him with a large dish of his favorite red beans; thick, sweet, darkened with spices, and simmered until they were almost a paste. Smiling, Naomi and Tirtsah offered Noakh an immense assortment of vegetables, all perfectly cooked and gleaming with olive oil and flecked with fragrant herbs. Now, Noakh became suspicious. “What’s all this?”

They waited to answer him, for the storm released a sudden burst of light and a massive, reverberating boom of noise. Glancing upward, Annah sighed, relieved as the noise faded. These vast, overwhelming sounds were less frequent now, thinning out in duration and intensity as the waters deepened over the earth. Hearing the usual rushing downpour, they all relaxed.

“What is all this?” Noakh asked again, bemused, looking at the feast set before him. “How can we eat all this food tonight?”

“You are the oldest, my dear one, with your six-hundredth year,” Naomi teased. “In your lifetime, you’ve eaten more than any of us; you could manage to eat a little more than usual.”

“My father’s six-hundredth year!” Khawm cried, slapping both hands to his forehead, almost wailing. “How could we have forgotten? We should be beaten!”

Seated near their father, Yepheth and Shem both
groaned and looked equally stricken. But Noakh chuckled dismissively.

“I didn’t forget, but I didn’t care to celebrate at the time. We were still in mourning for the father of my fathers, and we were harvesting the herds.” He sighed, as if overcome by the memory of those long, miserable days of sorrow and endless work.

Shem hugged his father. “We can still be angry with ourselves for forgetting! Forgive us, Father, and we’ll celebrate your sixth kentum now. Look what our wives have done.”

Annah watched her husband, thinking,
It’s good to see you smile again. I’ma was right; we’ve been mourning long enough. Even Khawm and Yepheth look happier already
.

“Say you’ll play the harp for us tonight,” Ghinnah was coaxing Yepheth. “And Shem and Khawm should play the pipes and reeds.”

“If they survive this,” Tirtsah said. She presented a broad, flat basket of plain, crisp grain cakes and a clay bowl of bright red paste that she had prepared earlier in the day. She had refused all offers of help, and even Annah and Ghinnah did not know the ingredients Tirtsah had used. The paste was a brilliant, glistening, tempting red. Challenging everyone, Tirtsah said, “Some of the smallest, weakest people in my home-city ate this paste constantly. But many of the giants themselves were unable to eat it without crying.”

Khawm nudged Yepheth. “I dare you to try some.”

Curious, Annah dipped a grain cake into the paste and ate it. Her first impression was of salt and savory herbs, but then her mouth burned, and her eyes teared up as she broke into a sweat. The paste was fiery beyond belief, an intense concentration of all the most searing spices she
had ever eaten. Gasping, Annah quickly ate a plain grain cake, then drank some water. By now, everyone had tried some of the fiery red paste, and they laughed at each other’s reactions. But only Tirtsah, Khawm, and Ghinnah took more. Noakh chuckled in protest as he refused a second serving, telling Tirtsah, “Thank you, daughter, but I would prefer to live.”

“Never make that red paste for me,” Shem whispered to Annah. “I think my face is numb. But I’m glad to see Khawm’s wife finally behaving as part of this family.”

Annah agreed, grateful that Tirtsah had finally accepted them—and the Most High. They ate their evening meal with only one interruption; the pen changed direction again, veering about so quickly that Annah had to put down her dish of food while her stomach settled. Shem continued to eat.

Apparently noticing her aversion and hoping to distract her, Shem nudged Annah, whispering, “We should give my father some sort of gift tonight.”

“I made a gift for you to present to him,” Annah replied, placing a small fold of leather on her husband’s knee. “Perhaps you can promise to carve him a small storage case later.”

In honor of this day, Annah had made a pendant of a gold leaf that she had originally created for Tirtsah. To Annah’s disgust, the gold leaf had been too long and heavy to use in Tirtsah’s hair bindings—but it was perfect for Noakh’s pendant. Shem grinned as he felt the weight of the gold in his palm. “I can guess what you’ve made, beloved,” he whispered, his voice making her shiver. “I’m eager to see it.” Immediately, Shem gave it to his father.

Seeing the pendant, Noakh protested, “Daughter, you should have saved your gold! I’m an old man, and you will
have sons and daughters to provide for later.”

“If it were not for you and your family, I wouldn’t be alive today,” Annah told him. “And I would have had no chance to bear sons and daughters.”

Though there is no child yet
, she thought, aggrieved. Her longing for children intensified with each passing month. Shem had tried to console her by pointing out all the disadvantages of having a child now, while they were so overwhelmed by the storm, but Annah begged him to stop trying to reason with her. His calm logic only upset her, making her feel irrational.