landlost | ONC 2024

seven.

Emzara's hands flapped dismissively in my peripheral vision. "No. Na'eltama'uk will help me dye today."

I felt his scrutiny on me for a moment. I grew all too aware of the fact that I still had not tied up my hair. Then I heard him walking away, his sandals kicking at the stones along the cart-way path.

"Keep the fire burning, girl," Emzara said, darting forward and adding more kindling to the smoking pile. I hadn't noticed it had nearly petered out, and I hastened to dump the larger branches and twigs amongst the red and twisting flames.

I let Emzara take over as I retied my plait, the repetition of one lock flowing over the other soothing. Even though Emzara seemed to have become kinder ever since we'd fought, I still hid Naamah's figurine underneath the animal pelts that comprised of my bed at the foot of Noah and hers. And I was quick to obey her, and learn. I owed her as much, after my disrespect.

Besides, Ham had returned Naamah's gift to me. I had no more grievances to carry against her.

Once she was satisfied with the size of the fire, she hefted the stone into the firepit. Then she beckoned me towards a sewn animal-hide-and-bark basket. "Go fill this with water from the river. Then we'll add the dyes and the heated rock."

The basket was heavy on the return trip, and my arms shook with the exertion as I set it down at her feet. I winced as some of the water spilled, but Emzara didn't seem to notice, staring into the flames with a sort of antsy anticipation.

"I teach all the women how to make clothes," she explained, with a hint of pride in her voice. "It's a skill that can easily please my sons."

Sweat dripped down my neck. It was a stifling hot day, and I felt further suffocated by the questions I longed to voice. Wouldn't it also please your sons to have their sons and daughters running around? And a constant through it all, that soft utterance of that name; Elohim.

My curiosity about the god was like an unscratchable itch that had settled under my skin at the scorching of my retinas during the lightning. Quiet, but there. Noticeable, yet able to be ignored.

"Now we add the dyes." Emzara poured a pestle's worth of yellow powder into the water, and then produced yet another small clay cup filled with blue.

I watched as she stirred them together, creating a pale and murky green. Then she directed me to hand her a nearby, forked stick, and she pushed the rock from the firepit into the basket. It landed with a splash and hiss of water bubbling furiously against heated stone.

"Then we wait for it to boil." Emzara unfixed white strips of woven fabric from the coil spanning between Noah and her's tent and Japheth and Ada's, and handed them to me so I could feel their softness.

"Cotton?" I asked, surprised. It wasn't one of the crops they grew, although they had a large and unspecified variety, ranging from barley, wheat, figs, dates, to small green vegetables that poked out of the soil.

Emzara smiled, and looked beautiful while doing so. For a moment her taunt features, only tightened by her hair in a bun, relaxed. "I've been saving it from the last time Noah traded scrap wood," she explained, adding the fabric to the basket of heated water.

From alongside the log she usually sat on, knitting together threads of fabric, she took hold of strips of green reeds, and proceeded to rip them up even further before dropping them in as well.

"It helps the dye stick," she told me. Emzara shook her head, her smile more playful. "Although urine is just as effective. But Adataneses wasn't very happy with that."

I couldn't but laugh at the mental image of Ada's face, creased with disgust. "And now what?" I asked her, as the water began to froth.

"Soon enough the dye will stick, and then I'll begin stitching together the cloth."

We fell into a silence that was more comfortable than I expected. But then I opened my mouth and let the most pestering of questions fly.

"Why doesn't Elohim permit Ada and Sedeqet to have children?"

Emzara's face tightened, a curtain drawn over the peacefulness of her face, blotting out her smile. "You really can't hold your tongue, can you?"

I shut my eyes and regretted having spoken at all. "I just thought that I might ask. Will the same rule apply for me and ——?"

"That's Noah's burden to explain to you," Emzara cut me off. She didn't look at me, but her vexation was evident even though I couldn't see her no doubt furrowed brows. "He was the one who implemented it. You don't think my heart longs for my children to have children? To grow old, surrounded by my kin's kin?"

And yet if this order was the bidding of Elohim —— the very god Noah proclaimed had provided them with everything, which gave him reason enough to be praised —— then why did Emzara seem so unhappy with carrying it out?

This god seemed to be riddle I struggled to work out.

"My heart aches for Sedeqet," she continued, but more quietly, as if mainly to herself. Her age-spotted hand clutched at her chest. "All she wants is a babe of her own. And she's not getting any younger. I pray she gets to have her child someday."

"Why do you suffer so under your god's orders?" The questions were forcing their way from my jaws of their own violation. Left too long to boil, I couldn't control the rising of the steam. "I thought Elohim was meant to bring you happiness."

Emzara waved me away, her fingers nearly digging into the skin of her breast through her kēthanoth. "Cease your ignorant chatter, girl," she ground out between her teeth. "You know nothing of Elohim."

Ham appeared out of nowhere, supporting his mother's side. I deemed his look at me accusatory, and felt heat rush down my spine.

I knew nothing about Elohim, I conceded to that, as Ham took his mother to her tent.

I ensured the fabrics didn't overdye, and pinned them back to their places along the cord.

"What happened?" Ham asked me, returning without his mother. He stood too close to me, his head bowed towards mine. He was only a hand's width or so taller than me, and I couldn't escape his probing blue gaze.

I refused to answer him, sure Sedeqet or Emzara would be listening to us talk through the walls of the their respective tents. And I wouldn't dare ask him about why the women weren't allowed to bear children.

"Nothing." I shrugged. I showed him my green-stained hands, using them as an excuse to escape his gaze and head for the river to wash them. My cheeks felt even more heated under the blazing sun as I thought again of Ham standing bare-skinned save for his kēthanoth, waist-deep in water that dampened his broad shoulders and tanned forearms ——

I shook my head free from such idle thoughts. Both Elohim and Ham were such oddities amongst others of their nature; Elohim, a god that had tangible power, instead of a figurine of sober silence.

And Ham, a dark shadow amongst his brothers and sisters-in-law, with his inscrutable blue eyes.