In the Shadow of the Ark (5 page)

We start at a pool. From there, we follow the deep, invisible vein we can feel beating and sometimes foaming. The vein guides us to a cavern, a crack in the earth. There we make camp and lure strong-armed men who dig the wells for us and draw the sweet water.

That is how I knew life, that was the order I was used to. To see that there were different rules in this shipyard confused me. Here women lugged water jars like thin-legged donkeys. But was that not exactly why it was the right place for me? With my mother’s divining rod, handed down from generation to generation, and my ability to find the veins that flow under the earth, I would be a very attractive catch for a people with no understanding of water. Alem had kissed me in exchange for water; he had, night after night, shared his knowledge, told his secrets, not hiding any aspect of love from me. My skill could be my hallmark; their lack of it, coinage in my hand. Understanding what I could mean to the Rrattika gave my feet wings, even though my soles were still aching from our long trek.

All through the morning I walked. The divining rod led me amongst the sickle-shaped hills, and from there into rocky terrain only inhabited by the wind. In the rocks there were many caves, all looking the same. With their inviting air of mystery, they all seemed intent on making visitors lose their way. Nothing grew in the hollows that led to their entrance. The undulations in the sand made me think of the ripples on the water back home
when the wind rose. Because the wind could not get amongst the rocks, there were unexpectedly many flies. They instantly covered my mouth. The sun climbed higher and became hot.

My common sense told me to turn back. The surroundings were confusing and threatening, the sort of place one does not return from, but I knew I was approaching my goal: The divining rod writhed against the tips of my fingers and pointed forcefully at a particular opening in the rock face. This cave, like the others, must have been closed at one time by a gate, but that had collapsed and decayed. The cavern seemed to have a regular shape, like a hand, with recesses and passages. I smelled the scent of earth mixed with moisture. The farther I penetrated, the more uneven the ground became. I stumbled. All around me lay strange objects that rolled away with a hollow sound. It was some time before I recognized them as skulls and bones. I tried to convince myself that they were the bones of dead animals, but my eyes were rapidly adjusting to the darkness, and around me became visible the remains of wanderers, left behind for centuries. The skulls were stacked in rows in this burial place, amongst them small ones, from children and newborn babies. In holes to the left and the right of the path I was walking on were thigh bones and ribs, stacked separately. The deeper into the cave, the more orderly the stacks, resembling huge, regular structures.

I wanted to go back, away from this spot that felt offensive to me, almost barbaric — we put our dead on papyrus boats that we burned on the lagoon. But the divining rod in my hand trembled uncontrollably. I thought it was fear making my hands tremble
like leaves in the wind and causing the tip of the divining rod to move, but the trembling turned into thrashing, the end of the rod even hitting my face.

I went so far in, the darkness almost made walking impossible. The cave tapered into a deep passage, a narrow opening too dark to venture into. It was open at the top, but the light was so faint that it was like penetrating the night. There were galleries, connected by narrow passages. I came to a spot that seemed to go down into the very underworld. I made slow progress. There were a number of deep holes, each of which could mean death, but I kept going along the narrow ledge, because it was the only way to keep away from the terrifying stacks of bones, which seemed to be ever taller and built according to an ever stricter plan.

I do not know how I found the passage to the spring. It seemed no more than a fold in the rock. Because of the divining rod, I forced my way through. The ground was wet, my feet slipped, any moment I expected to hit my head on a protruding rock, but the water was so close, I forced myself forward.
Just let my father try to get me away from here,
I thought.
Just let him try to convince me now that his idea is the right one.
I went in the direction of a familiar sound, stretched out my hands, and after some searching, felt water so cold that it was as if it bit my fingers. It was a trickle, no stronger than a baby goat’s pee. But if I was patient, my jug would fill.

T
he sun had only just passed its highest point when I returned to the truss-bending workshop, the jug heavy in my arm. My mother had disappeared. The spot where I had left her had been churned up, and her woolen cloak lay crumpled up amongst the rubbish.

My father is back,
was my first thought, but I could not imagine him having taken her without leaving a sign for me. The furrow left in the grit was a zigzag, not the firm, straight line left by someone who knew where he was going.

My thoughts raced like wildfire:
Who had gone off with her? Who would abduct a cripple? How would he ever survive the shame of such cowardice?
My mother was beautiful, she was flawless and gorgeously adorned, but so useless because of her inability to move that no one had ever even thought of taking her.

The trail led past the fires to a long shed that, judging by the objects that were being carried out of it, was a carpentry workshop. I followed the trail at a run, indifferent to the good water sloshing out of my jar.

I found her to one side of the shed. She was in the company of a young man whom I recognized, before I even saw his face, by his striped cloak and the sawdust in his hair. In my hurry to get to her
I ran even faster. At least, I thought I was running fast; whoever looked at me probably only saw me stumbling. I had the jug on my hip. Already I had carried it in front of me, on my head, and on my other hip. Now I was exhausted. I dumped the jug next to the stretcher, a movement that made the young man jump up. The clumsy way I sat down was, of course, partly out of relief: She was here, she was safe, we had not been mocked by someone who wanted to play with her as with a doll. But my relief vanished when I saw that she was not well. Her eyes were dull with deprivation. Her carnelian beads burned on a skin that looked desiccated, she was beyond sweating; I could smell her sores.

“She is thirsty,” I said without looking at the young man I blamed for everything. My voice sounded strange, no doubt because of the cold water, of which I had drunk quite a lot.

The young man moved out of my way and bowed his head. “I have shown her the shipyard,” he said. “I have offered her drink…. She did not answer….” He seemed to understand it was his fault, for he blushed down to his neck. With him was a slim dog, sniffing the wind. The beast had licked her face, I could see it by the smudges on her cheek. And one of the handles of the stretcher had been damaged.

When I put the jug down by the end of the stretcher, her eye opened wide, she shivered, I could not moisten her lips fast enough. “Quiet,” I said. “Calm down, everything will come good.” I was calm and restrained only to her. To the young man I said, “Why did you take her away from her spot? She was in a well-chosen place.”

He straightened his shoulders. “She is the boat-builder’s wife,
and I am looking for him. I was hoping she would help me. What is wrong with her?”

“She became crippled while she was fishing.”

He reached out to the dog, stroking its head.

I let a scoop of water trickle into my mother’s mouth. She swallowed and looked at me. It was good water, I knew. But it was also the water of the dead, so I gave her no more than necessary. The look in her eye asked for more, her skin was burning, she had been unprotected in sun and wind for a long time, but I had already decided on my way back that, for the time being, washing her with the water was safer than giving it to her to drink, so I got up to take her over to the pond.

“Help me move her,” I said.

The young man was surprised by the request, but seeming to decide it was fair, he got up and took hold of the heavy end of the stretcher where the water jug was. I walked in front, my back to him. I heard the wheeze in his breath. The greyhound followed us at a short distance, occasionally coming up to the young man, but never to me.

I was quite aware that this was not right, that in this shipyard a man did not carry stretchers or water jars. Passersby looked at us and quickly turned their eyes away, clearest proof that what they saw disturbed them. His willingness to walk with me despite those looks made me feel generous. In a way, it was astonishing that my mother and I had come here from the marshes to be helped by the Builder’s son.

We got to the pond, where a small herd of goats was busy drinking. But the animals quickly drank their fill, and I could get
to work. I filled a hollow of the right size with the finest sand I could find, spread the cloak over it, and rolled my mother off the stretcher. I found a bowl with a small crack that someone had left behind, filled it with water from the jug, and settled myself astride her hips.

The dog stood close by. It could smell my oil, of course, which was mixed with myrtle, cinnamon, sweet Klamath, and cassia, according to an ancient recipe, handed down to me through Manilada and Kan. The dog was emaciated, his haunches almost transparent, and he rocked on his tall legs like a mosquito in a draught. He seemed as underfed as his master, nervous and thin as a grasshopper.

The animal’s breath on her face bothered my mother, but she did not let it show. As always, she looked straight up, her eye searching the sky for passing birds.

The Builder’s son observed my actions with the concentration of a child, watching the way I poured water over my mother, cup after cup. The water ran off her and soaked into the cloak. I shifted different parts of my cloth around the tip of my finger to rub her body. This was when patience and meticulous care were needed, because poor circulation had made her skin extremely sensitive. Fortunately it was cooler here, close to the pond. But there were hornets and flies. They seemed maddened by the scent of my water.

“Why does your father keep her alive?” he asked when I had finished the slow and gentle washing. “Why drag along a woman who does not move when you order her?” He had knelt down next to me.

“She is dear to us,” I replied and started on the oil. The skin absorbed the fluid and slowly came to life.

The young man watched it intently, his mouth half open, with a look that would have made my mother blush, stimulating the blood flow, had she had less pride. His amazement was not surprising: My mother was beautiful. She gleamed like a freshly shelled nut. Her skin was dark but smooth, and only flawed by the sores on her back. He looked at her neck and her breasts, this boy who was not used to nakedness. Now and then he raised his hand as if to touch her.

I did not know then what sort of person I was dealing with. I knew he was the son of the Builder of the ship, and that he had taken charge of the woodwork. But I knew nothing yet of his fondness for almonds, of his ability to go on working in an enclosed space on even the hottest days, or of the softness of his fingertips, barely calloused by the work. I soon discovered that his name was Ham and that he was the youngest of the three, but I had no inkling of the rest. That is why I did not tell him that my bedridden mother had grown out of my walking mother, that there no longer was any difference between the two. The memory of her moving was her moving, the memory of her goodness was her goodness, it made it impossible not to take care of her. I did not really expect him to understand, we had not found understanding anywhere, so why expect it here?

“My father will not turn up,” was all I said. “He wants to go back to the marshes of Canaan.”

“Why does he want to leave?” His breath wheezed even when he was not exerting himself. Little sounds came from deep inside
his body. They were like a separate, smothered conversation he was carrying on with his dog.

“He cannot take this project seriously,” I replied.

He pressed his hands into the grit under him. His cloak was torn at the neck. I could see his collarbones, his skin, and his chest that was hairless and smooth. His skin had been washed, not rubbed with oil. It was mainly his cloak that made his appearance grimy: There were stains on it, and near the hem, the stripes were invisible because of the dirt.

“He will work with the finest timbers. I will give him tools made by the best blacksmiths. And a great degree of independence.”

“I’ll tell him,” I said.

The passersby were still staring. I was not sure what bothered them most: me or him or the fact that he was with me. He lowered his voice, almost to a whisper now. He raised his hand to his shoulder. His sleeve fell back to his elbow. He had pale, hairless underarms with deep-lying veins and fingertips splayed at the nails.

“We have lost our direction. My old father is ill. As long as he was in control, everything went well. But now we have to carry on without him. We have grown up here in the desert — what do we know about boats? My foreman is no help. He stood on a jetty once, so he calls himself an expert. I am looking for someone who really knows how it should be done. I will wait for your father. I have been waiting for him for a long time.” Unthinkingly, he touched his jaw and the curve down to his neck. I was not looking, but I saw it anyway.

Because he was my own age, and because he had been careless with my mother, I allowed myself to say, “A man begins building a gigantic ship. Then he falls ill. Nobody knows how to carry on. Yet the work goes on. Why not wait till the old man gets better? Or dies?”

“Don’t joke,” he said. “Do not underestimate us. We know exactly what we are doing. We cannot suspend building. There is no time. Completion is extremely urgent.”

I laughed, the way you laugh at a child making up a story. He could have turned his back on me. I was a stranger on his territory, and he was the son of a man of consequence. But he did not turn away. He watched as I rubbed my mother with oil. Because of his watching, it was not as usual: There was more feeling in my fingertips than normal. Because he was also looking at me, at my face, and at all of my body, which was glowing from exertion.