I WOKE UP to the sound of Ham and Noah arguing. Both with speaking with a heated vehemence I couldn't care to listen to, and I buried myself under my furs, inhaling deeply.
The scent of Ham, of sweat and woodchips, and the salt of tears, brought me back to reality. I was in Ham's tent, but I had slept alone. The last I remembered of seeing him was him trying to comfort me, because Naamah was —— Naamah was ——
No tears were forthcoming as the word rolled around in my head, as heavy as a boulder on my mind. Dead. My sister was dead. And I hadn't been there for her. Had Mother and Father even cared? Had they tried to tend to her in her final hours? Or had they left her alone to writhe in her illness, only discovering her corpse hours later? Each new image conjured by these thoughts flayed me like a whip.
I had cried so much I now felt empty inside, a vessel of grief, now exhausted.
"We can't wait much longer to tell her, Ham." Noah's voice, pleading yet firm, disrupted my mental torture. "Every day we mislead her is another day closer to the ——"
"Spare me the lecture, Father," Ham spat. Against his father's gentle tone, his words were as kind to Noah as an asp would have been to a lamb. I could practically imagine seeing the venom dripping from his blue eyes. Even his voice sounded choked. "You didn't see how she was last night. And now you're adding even more grief onto her heart?"
"What do you expect me to do, my son?" Noah sounded exhausted. A hesitation followed.
They were talking about me, I realised. My mind was addled by a headache caused by too much weeping. My jaw set, and I tossed off the furs. I was still in the kēthanoth I'd been wearing the day before, but my propriety was the last thing on my mind.
I tossed aside the pelt covering the entrance of Ham's tent, and fixed both men with a glare. Noah was facing me, and his tensed brow eased somewhat. "Na'el," he said, kindly, liking he hadn't just been arguing with his son about me.
Ham looked over his shoulder at me, and I felt a pang of shock in the deep recesses of my heart at how bedraggled he looked. Dark rings circled his eyes, and his black hair looked wild, like he'd spent the night raking his hands through it instead of sleeping. Maybe he had —— In concern for me? a traitorous thought slithered across the forefront of my mind —— but that only added fuel to the fire that was my vexation.
I didn't need him coming to my aid every second, or arguing on my behalf. I hoped my eyes, however puffy and tired they were, communicated this to him. My mother's moods had taught me well enough to face harsh words head-on, and if that was to be my fate, then so be it. For Ham to stand in the way was something I was unfamiliar with. I had defended Naamah from the verbal onslaughts, but no one had ever defended me.
"Na'el," Sedeqet said softly, her touch making me look away. Her round face was marred by worry, but her pert lips gave me an encouraging smile. "I'm glad you're awake. We were all getting worried."
She gently led me to Noah and Emzara's tent, where I usually slept. I stood in the doorway as she rustled around and handed me something soft and green, my eyes on the furs I was used to sleeping on. Had Ham slept here, with me in his tent? Had they all let me weep in privacy?
I inspected the material Sedeqet had given to me. It was a kēthanoth, pale green in colour. And soft to the touch. I rubbed my thumb against it, feeling my brows pull together. "Is this...?"
Sedeqet clasped her hands together. "It's yours. Last night, Emzara, Ada and I stitched it together. We wanted to give it to you today, though I know it's not the best of times——"
"It's perfect," I cut her off. I didn't want to think about it. I remembered the dye I had watched Emzara make a few days ago, and the not-so-subtle secret whispering she and Ada had had the night before. I gave Sedeqet a hug and tried to anchor myself in her gentle touch. "Thank you."
"Get changed," Sedeqet inclined her head to the tent. Her eyes moved beyond me. "Noah's waiting for you."
|||
We walked towards the Ark in silence I was grateful for. It was better than grovelling pity, I reckoned, although I seethed as we approached the massive wooden structure.
Built at Elohim's behest, Noah had told me. Had it been his god's will for my sister to die, too?
We didn't stop in the shadow of the Ark. Instead, Noah invited me inside, lighting a torch he raised in the air. I inhaled through my nose at the sight of the cavernous space, and regretted it. The stench of wood and pitch was overpowering. Beneath my sandals, the old tree trunks slotted together felt stable and sure.
"I brought you here to tell you the purpose of the Ark, Na'el," Noah said. For a moment it seemed he wouldn't meet my gaze, but then he did. The old man never failed to surprise me; first by not being a lunatic, then by not being the coward I knew Ham thought he was. His blue eyes were sad, and, lit by the flames, their shine seemed to writhe with pain. But he didn't look patronising.
Just deeply tortured.
"You know the story of Adam and Eve?" he asked me. The question lit my ire and made me remember Ada, Sedeqet and I's discussion the day before.
Has it only been a day? My grief seemed to have aged me a hundred years.
"No, and I don't care for it. All I know is that your Elohim made man leave the Garden of Eden, and ever since, it's been nothing more than ——" I cursed, using words I knew my mother would give me more than just a few beatings for. I didn't care if the Ark was a temple, because I didn't care for its god. And I didn't care that Noah was the man who'd one day be my father-in-law, either, because I would sooner die and join my sister in whatever afterlife awaited us. Surely even that was better than being without her.
Noah merely watched me, offering no rebuke. I exhaled heavily, my tirade over. The silence pressed against my bones and made the air seem like a living thing, writhing with my anger.
"Na'el," Noah said, in a maddeningly patient way, "Elohim didn't make the world to be corrupted, or man to be susceptible to death. He didn't make man do anything, either. The reason these things happen is not because God judged Adam and Eve; it is what they did in order to be judged."
He waved the torch around, casting strange and twisting shadows on distant wooden walls. I felt a sudden fear he would accidentally drop it, and set the entire thing on fire. "They disobeyed Him," he said, a hint of tightness in his voice. "Elohim gave them the power of choice, and they chose to do the wrong thing. They knew the consequences. And we all suffer for it. Your sister suffered for it."
I looked around, my eyes sharpening on what looked like wooden pens littering the cavernous space. I blinked through the headache that pulsed at my temples, feeling like I could see more and more with every passing second.
"It was never Elohim's plan for man to become so tarnished," Noah explained. His usual calm gentleness had returned. "Which is why we'll start anew."
"Anew?" I asked, warily. The word he'd used to describe the Ark the first time I'd seen it suddenly popped into my hand. Tabeh. Safe passage. But something else niggled at the back of my brain. Something about water.
"Yes." He heaved a sigh that caught my attention. I'd never seen him so pained, although he tried his utmost best to hide it. But his knuckles were white around the torch, and the wrinkles around his eyes deeper than usual.
"Na'el, listen to me closely. Soon —— once we have finished the Ark —— it will start to rain. And it will rain more than it ever has, and ever will. It will drown the entire world."
Every word was a stab in my chest. My confusion was heavy and tainted the air like blood. Fear ran like a quick-growing vine down my spine, and along my bones. Every inch of me was frozen, enraptured as he spoke.
Noah was crazy. He had to be. But his blue eyes were lucid, and his voice measured.
"The Ark will be the only thing that remains. And you, Shem, Japheth, Emzara —— everybody onboard. We will be the last of mankind." He waved his hand again. "And we will bring the last animals. Once the Rain stops, we can rebuild. And make the world better, this time. Then, Sedeqet, Ada, you —— Elohim will permit you to have children. The first of a new Eden."
I raised a hand to my head and could feel my pulse throbbing in time with my headache. "Everything, just ... Gone?" I thought of the Rain that replenished the single bush, behind the Ark. How could that ever be threatening?
But I shuddered as my imagination began to fill in the gaps.
"Yes. But until then, we must keep working on the Ark, and growing our food reserves. We all have our duties." His eyes bored into me. "I'm telling you this because Elohim has given me His blessing to do so. And He will save you as well."
Elohim will spare me? But why? I could barely understand him, let alone begin to believe in him. My mother's gods would never have stood for such insolence. How could the same god who had let my sister die save me, instead?
"I know your pain is great." Noah rested his free hand on my shoulder. He hesitated for a moment. "But perhaps it was a mercy. Sometimes, healing that we pray for doesn't come from this side of life."
He retracted his hand. I stared at him. All I could do was breathe in the scent of pitch.
Noah was mad. Maybe not as much as the townspeople had said, but he was definitely overzealous. I am sure his description would have been devoted.
But I believed him, at least about the part where he'd said that mankind was corrupt. I recalled the dark-eyed men I had seen in my old town (I could no longer call it my home. There was nothing left for me there), and the beggar I had seen in the street.
He'd been my father, I realised. My father, who hadn't even spared me a word the day before, and had tried to hide his identity from me.
Maybe the world did deserve to be wiped out. Although I wasn't sure yet of where my place would be in the new one.