Storm (18 page)

“I didn’t speak disrespectfully anyway,” says Ada. “I simply asked a question. Would either of you brothers like to answer it?” She looks at them sternly and waits. “I didn’t think so.”

“Noah’s right not to open the windows yet,” says Nela slowly. “I just realized. All the birds are on our deck. If he opens the windows, they’ll fly off—and if they don’t find dry land and they can’t get back to the ark, they’ll die.”

Ada looks at her. “You can’t seriously want us to stay in the dark because of birds. Not for eleven more months, Nela.”

“Well, I for one won’t put up with this cursed ark for another eleven months. As soon as I see land outside, I’m getting off,” Ham says. He looks at Nela. “With or without the rest of you.”

“I don’t care what you do when you see land,” says Ada. “I care about sunlight. Now.” She looks at Nela defiantly, then back
to the brothers. “The shutters on the windows have to open.”

“Why come to us?” says Shem. “Japheth’s your husband.”

“Japheth is with Noah right now. Japheth is always with Noah. They’re on the bottom deck. Possibly basking by a porthole. Noah simply forbade us to open the shutters, and he marched off down the stupid ladder with Japheth at his heels.”

“He’ll be working all morning,” says Ham. “He won’t know what you do in his absence.”

“Have you forgotten about your mother?” says Ada.

“Oh, come on,” says Ham. “Mother loves sunshine. She raises her fat face to it and smiles like an imbecile.”

“Mother Emzara is not an imbecile,” says Leba in a clipped tone. “She is a loyal, obedient wife.”

“Mother doesn’t always obey Father,” says Ham.

“She does when Puzur is around,” says Ada.

“And Puzur never leaves the top deck,” says Leba.

“Puzur Amurri,” says Ada with disdain. “It feels like his job is to keep watch on us women all the time. He’s practically become one of us. He’s beside us in all our chores.”

“Puzur was brought on board to steer the ark after the rains subsided,” says Ham. “And that’s your answer! Puzur will have to open the windows. He’ll have to see out in order to steer.”

“Noah says no one is steering anywhere for eleven months,” says Ada. “He claims it will take that long for the waters to subside enough to see even the topmost peaks of the highest mountains.”

“And just how does he know that?” asks Ham.

Ada glares at him.

“Please, Shem. As my husband. Please, Ham. As my brother-in-law.” Leba talks softly now. “Please talk to Noah.”

“He won’t listen to us,” says Ham. “The only one he listens to is Japheth. And I bet even Japheth can’t fix this. Once Father’s made up his mind, it’s too late.”

Nela walks up to him. “If no one thinks they can persuade Noah”—she steps closer to Ham—“then would it be all right, husband, if we found our own solution?”

Ham’s brow wrinkles. “What solution?”

Leba leans toward Nela. “Yes, what?”

“We can tell Mother Emzara you men need more help, so she’ll let us take turns coming down. Then we can stand by a porthole and soak up the sun. We don’t need the shutters open up top if we can get sunlight down here. Would that be all right?”

“You’re a clever one, Nela. Maybe too clever.” Ham looks at her a long while. “But all right. I wouldn’t stop you.”

And so it starts. That day and the next Ham and Shem feed us, water us, and clean out our waste. And the three wives come down the ladder at intervals and stand by a porthole, simply basking. The animals bask too—those that can reach a patch of sunlight within their cage. Queen and The Male often climb onto the lip of our porthole and just sit there, looking out, even though the air is still frigid. Other animals poke out their heads.

But then, ironically, it turns out that the women are needed to help on this deck and on the one below, as well—so they’re
not lying to Mother Emzara, after all. Delivering water becomes the biggest chore, a gigantic chore. Once the rains stopped, the buckets didn’t fill on their own. And seawater can’t be drunk. Even with all that rain, the sea is salty still. So the women pass the entire day on water duty. They tend fires on the top deck, boil seawater, collect the sweet water condensation in buckets, and trudge it down the ladders to the lower decks.

They don’t complain, though. Or not much. Each time they carry down a bucket, they stand awhile in front of a porthole. It seems they’ll never get their fill of sunshine.

Mother Emzara helps with the water too. After about a month of carrying that water and then dutifully rushing back up the ladder to fetch another bucket, she finally succumbed to the seduction of sunshine. And in a most sensual way. She dropped her cloak on the floor and stood there in her shift, bare-armed. Then she lifted the shift so that her pale legs showed. She’s done that every day since. She says nothing to her sons as they move around her in their chores. Her skin has changed from its washed-out color to something deeper again, healthier. All the women look different since the sun came out thirty-seven days ago—that’s how long it’s been, exactly how long; I can keep track now that there’s such a clear difference between day and night.

I smile at the change in the women’s skin. Noah, however, never seems to notice. I can see how it wouldn’t be in his best interest to. These people are learning, slowly and painfully, perhaps, but inexorably, what to notice and what to ignore.

S
hem comes down the ladder, carrying an ax. I’ve been expecting him.

Everything changed after Ham and Shem caught me in Nela’s shift that night. The next day they fought, and Nela denied everything. That wasn’t the end of it, though; the mystery of who the brothers had talked to in the dark goes on haunting them. Relentlessly. Right after all that terrible confusion and treachery, the sun came out and a new daily routine was formed. But just as the day came to have its new routine, so did the night.

And this is the first part of the routine: Shem. He goes from cage to cage, checking the rocks to make sure the swinging doors are locked. Then he stands in front of our cage and watches Queen and The Male. They immediately oblige with a sex show. Like usual.

“Is that all you do?” Shem asks lightly. “Come on, tell me. Tell me about the other things. About how you get out of your cage and parade up and down the deck. Tell me.” I think he might actually be daft enough to harbor at least a tiny suspicion that they really can talk. But now he laughs, and I’m pretty sure he’s laughing at himself. So maybe he knows it’s nonsense. He leaves in a good mood. It’s as though he’s happy that he hasn’t learned anything from his inspection of the deck. Perhaps he fears whatever truth lies behind the mystery of Nela’s shift.

Soon enough Ham comes down. Tonight he has an awl in one hand and a hammer in the other. Sometimes he carries an ax, but not now. My whole self goes heavy at the sight of him. Ham is the most unhappy man I’ve ever seen. He walks up and down the deck tonight, talking to himself. He does that every night. And he talks loud enough that I can catch most of it. So I know that he questioned Ada about Nela’s whereabouts that night. Ada backed Nela up, of course, and went further to say that Nela’s shift had disappeared before then. He was surprised by that—and convinced. So he questioned Mother Emzara—he questioned his own mother about what she had done that night. That led to no satisfaction either. He’s such an idiot.

“Death!” he shouts now as he spins on a heel and shoves his face against two cage poles. The wolf inside howls. I don’t flinch; I’m onto his tricks. Ham tries shouting like that in order to out the ghostly shift-wearer. A single word. Or an animal noise—a growl, a roar. Then he’s silent. Sometimes he throws something
into a cage. He’ll pull a wad of rotted fish from his pouch and sling it hard between the poles. Now and then he hits an animal and a squeal of pain or alarm sounds. But it’s a random method of attack. It’s like shooting an arrow blindly into the air, hoping to bring down a bird.

Fruitless. Absurd. But he won’t give up. He’s determined to solve the mystery.

He blows between his lips at the baffled wolf and walks back toward our cage. And he stops in front. “She doesn’t love me.” His voice breaks on the words. I’ve never heard him say this before. I watch him through the straw. He’s hollow-eyed, gaunt. “How could she?” he says. “How could anyone?” He leaves.

I don’t like Ham. I don’t trust him. But pity washes over me all the same.

I wait, hugging myself and rocking side to side just a little. Ham’s misery has pierced me.

Now Nela sneaks down the ladder on bare feet. This is the third and final part of the nightly routine. The mystery of the shift drives all of them to act batty. But Nela is the closest to understanding, for she doesn’t walk the whole deck. She comes only to our cage. She knows the answer lies here. Once she even took away the rocks and put both hands on the poles, readying herself to lift the swinging door and enter. But The Male came dancing up to her so boldly, she quickly stopped. The Male can be counted on for certain things. He makes me smile.

But Nela makes me cry. Because she cries. Right now she
pads over to us and simply sits on the floor and sobs. Sometimes she bares her teeth and presses on them, as though they ache. Sometimes she mutters so softly I can’t catch the words. Tonight there is nothing but weeping. I put my fingers in my ears to block the noise, but I don’t close my eyes. At some point she may take action, and I have to be ready. I can’t anticipate what action because none of them seem completely rational—so I lie here anxious, blinking hard.

Gradually the sobs subside. Nela holds the hem of her dress up in front of her face. Ah, I recognize this. She’s done this several times now. She picks out an end of yarn, pulls on it just a little, then cuts it off with her teeth. She chews it and swallows it. Nela is slowly eating her dress, that fancy dress, as Ham called it. This makes her seem the least rational of them all.

I clench my teeth. I should reveal myself. Every night it takes more effort not to. That would at least stop part of her torment—she’d know where her shift had gone. I feel in another life—a different world from this one—we could have been friends. But even if we somehow managed to befriend each other now, here, it would only make other problems for her. Keeping secrets would drive a wedge deeper between her and the others on the ark. And it’s hard to keep secrets; it’s easy to slip up.

Besides, she might not feel about me like I feel about her.

I clench my teeth harder and will myself to just stay still, stay silent.

Finally she stands and goes back up the ladder.

I am on my feet already. There is no reason to delay—because none of them ever come back twice in a night.

The humans aren’t the only ones suffering. The animals are tortured by life on the ark. They didn’t choose it. They have no notion of why they are here. The Mighty Creator might talk to Noah, but he doesn’t talk to them. They are confused and weary, and many of them are sick. You don’t bite your own foot if you’re healthy. You don’t end a roar in a cough if you’re strong. There’s no evidence yet that the sea’s receding. I look out our porthole as often as I can, searching. Not one speck of land. No, their torment will continue.

But I can help them directly. I couldn’t save my little brothers, but I can save these animals. Noah’s family keeps them fed, but I keep them healthy and sane.

That one night galloping the length of the deck over and over changed the giraffes. No longer do they mope, each in a different corner alone. Instead they mate. I know that, even though I’ve witnessed it only once. That’s because the whole deck knows; when they mate, the male’s head hits the ceiling and we all hear it. But he doesn’t seem to care. So I learned—the giraffes taught me for sure—being free, even if for a short while, heals.

Shem and Ham and Nela have done their routine; now I do mine. I go to our porthole and reach to the side. Bash’s rope hangs there. I yank on it. The rope is coiled on the floor of wherever his compartment is on the deck above. When he sees it’s been uncoiled, he knows I’m waiting for him. If he was watching
the rope when I did it, he’ll come down fast. Otherwise, I’ll just have to wait till he notices. In the meantime, I go out the swinging door of our cage. Queen and The Male exit with me and fly off into the dark. When Bash joins me, we will let out other animals, like always.

When we first started this, thirty days ago, we let out only a single pair of animals at once. We wanted to find out what kinds of problems might arise. After all, some of the animals are much smaller than others. The poles on their cages are closer together to keep them in. So when we first let out small animals, we didn’t know if they might stupidly wander through wider-set poles into cages where bigger animals lived and then wind up getting stomped on or eaten. We tried to follow close behind them to ensure they wouldn’t. Our following didn’t work, though. Despite Bash’s long legs, neither of us was able to keep up with most of the animals. They simply scurry too fast. And some of them did wander into other cages. But they all somehow managed to get out safely.

So we took heart from their survival and now, most nights, we set loose many animals at once, so long as we’re sure they won’t harm one another. We know all the animals in a single cage are safe to let out together. But this is a huge ark, and the animals are many. So we try to let out at least two cages at once, sometimes three. That’s the only way we can get to all of them on any kind of frequent basis. We watch them run and leap and hop and roll and chase each one another and mock fight and do what animals do.

Some of them had to be forced out of their cages. The gorillas were like that. The first time we woke them, they only reluctantly sat up. They blinked and pulled their knees up to their chests with an elbow propped on a knee and their jaw propped on that fist. It struck me as the most mournful pose imaginable. Bash begged them to come out and play. But they just looked at him listlessly. Finally I splashed them with water. Seawater, of course. Sweet water is far too precious. But I can lower a bucket on our rope and get seawater any time I want. The doused gorillas shook themselves off, then swaggered out on hind feet and front knuckles. They moved slowly halfway down the corridor. Then the female let loose. She spun in a circle, just spun faster and faster till she fell over. The male did the same. They ran and did somersaults. Then they ran sideways and rolled sideways. The next time we let them out, they burst from the cage and frolicked half the night. That’s how it’s been with even the shiest animals—freedom is irresistible.