Storm (13 page)

And my laugh changes everything. Queen lopes to the nearest cage with poles and climbs up it. She swings along the poles, going from cage to cage, leaping like the very definition of
free
. The Male leaps with her. They are off and away, down to the rear end of the ark. I can’t even see their shadows anymore. But I hear their whistles and whoops. I hear
thunk
as their weight hits a pole,
thlush
as their hands let go and grasp and let go and grasp over and over. I clap in joy.

I cross the deck to our cage and go to block the swinging door, just in case the aardvarks or the duikers should suddenly become bold and think of venturing forth. But on second
thought, I grab the door and lift it up. “Come out,” I call to the aadvarks. “Come out into the world.”

The female is over in the corner, nosing around my nest. The male is bumping along the front poles. They’re both solitary souls. In fact, maybe I’ve never seen them together except when they sleep. Funny that I didn’t realize that till now. She ignores my call. He looks at me, then turns and goes the other way. Cautious creatures.

And the duikers are asleep.

Oh, well. So it’s bonobo playtime only. Well, that’s enough. That’s more than enough.

I hear them coming
thunk, thunk
toward me. I drop the door, in fear that they’ll hit it by accident, but they scamper around it expertly and go off flying to the forward end of the ark again. Around and around. They make so many circuits of the deck, I lose count.

I sit on the floor in a puddle of envy. I’m puny and earthbound compared to them. I wonder if people could take to the trees. Aban and I lived in a cedar—how long? More than a week? We scampered from limb to limb. But we didn’t swing. We couldn’t use our arms like that.

Finally Queen and The Male fly onto the poles of our cage and slide to the floor. I hold the door up and wait. My heart thumps hard. I try not to have expectations. They should do what they want. I shouldn’t even try to influence them.

They go on inside.

I let out a gasp of gratitude. I had no plan if they had decided not to go back inside. Nela said the Mighty Creator gave humans dominion over animals. I don’t know who taught her that, but she’s wrong. At least, she’s wrong about my gods. El himself is a bull, Reshef is a deer, Yam is part dragon and part serpent. I feel no dominion over Queen and The Male. They have as much right to determine their actions as I have to determine mine. I follow them in and pull the rocks back into place.

Queen and The Male curl together. Envy tightens my skin again. I’m alone. But I’m glad they have each other. And I’m glad, so very glad, that Queen seems happy again.

I want to be happy too.

I want everyone to be happy. All the people on this ark. All the animals. I have to find a way to make that happen.

Clunk, clunk
. The noise comes from outside our porthole. It rudely disrupts my reveries. I walk to it. The frigid air bites at my eyes and nose. My breath makes a fog in front of me. I peek. There’s that rope again, the one that I saw days ago, when I nearly fell out the window trying to snag it. I wanted to get Queen to notice it, but I couldn’t. There it is.

Someone’s pulling it upward, and it smacks against the side as it goes. It’s close enough to our porthole tonight that I could grab it. I can see the bottom of the rope now. It’s attached to a much thinner rope, a short one, and at the end of that rope a large fish flops. How did that happen? There’s no net. But it’s a sea bass, as sure as I’m alive. Sea bass are delicious. At least grilled
over an open fire they are. I quick grab the rope and pull the fish toward me. I wrestle with it, trying to get it free. Something’s caught inside its mouth. I reach in. There’s something sharp in here. I rip the fish free and hold it firmly by the tail in my left hand, while I look at the rope in my right hand. A bone cut into a hook shape dangles at the end of the thin rope. It hooked the fish. I never saw people catch fish with a hook before.

The rope jerks upward, out of my hand. “Ahiii!” That bone hook split open my fingertip!

“Who’s there?” comes the cry from above, as the rope disappears upward.

I step back quickly, pulling my hand inside the porthole. The sea bass wriggles so violently it slips from my hand into the straw.

I hear an angry curse. Whoever is at the end of that rope heard my cry. And now he knows I stole his fish. He knows I’m here.

He’ll come down the ladder. He’ll search through the cages. He’ll find me. He’ll throw me overboard. Like Noah said—the same number of creatures that entered this ark must leave this ark. Alas. It’s finally done.

I don’t even bother to hide.

I hold my finger up to my face. It drips blood down my hand. I suck on it.

The fish flops on my feet. And I’m hungry again. I’m so hungry. I’m always so absurdly hungry. I stomp on the fish. It’s
wrong to let an animal suffer. This way death comes faster.
Thank you, fish, lovely sea bass. Thank you for your life.

And, oh, yes! I search around and find that piece of bread that Queen rejected. Perfect bread. Perfect accompaniment. I clear the straw off a section of the floor. Then I pop out the fish eyes and set them there: an offering for Screamer. Now I rip open the fish belly with my teeth and set aside half the fish for Queen and The Male. I make a feast of bread and the rest of the raw fish. And I’m lucky; there’s a large roe sack. Not much is better than sea bass eggs. I savor this meal. Every little taste.

For a last supper, this is a good one. An excellent one.

I wait for the fisherman.

I
wake. Something’s wrong.

The one who owns that rope with the bone hook—has he finally come down to kill me? I wriggle out from my nest, ready to meet him. It’s night again. Last night I waited for him. I expected sandal clacks on the ladder, curses, rough hands, and a hurl through bitter air into a bracing sea, then ice in my mouth as I drowned. Eventually my eyes couldn’t stay open any longer. I slept the whole day in my straw nest, dreaming the worst.

I peer through the dark now. But I see no one except Queen. The fisherman isn’t coming to kill me.

Queen shoves dried fruits toward me. A large quantity—surely more than my share. The spine of the sea bass lies in the middle of the cage, stripped bare. I look in Queen’s eyes and I’m
almost sure she’s offering the extra fruit in gratitude—a trade of sorts. She thinks last night’s fish came from me. And it did, sort of. But it was really the fisherman’s, whoever he is.

I don’t waste time over niceties; I simply eat the fruit. All of it. I’m always a glutton when I wake in early evening. The food makes my blood rush strong again. I feel consoled. Peaceful. The fisherman really isn’t coming to kill me.

Thunder rolls. I stand and look out our porthole, legs splayed, hands on the lip. The rain seems harsher than usual. The sky goes bright now and then, but violently, brutally, as though the lightning is a sword. The weather is completely at odds with how I’m feeling right now.

Clump, clump
.

I drop to the floor.

Noah stands at the foot of the ladder. He’s not looking this way.

I scrabble under the straw.
Please, please
. I press myself prostrate to the floor. I don’t even know if I’m fully covered, but I’m afraid to risk the noise of moving more.

Clump, clump, clump
. Silence.
Clump, clump, clump.

I dare to turn my head. I can see through the lumpy straw. Lightning flashes, and for a moment Noah is illuminated. His arms are folded over his chest and his head is bent down. He beats his chest with one fist. But now he lifts his face upward and holds his hands out to the sides, palms up. He walks forward three steps.
Clump, clump, clump
. He walks backward three
steps.
Clump, clump, clump
. “Holy,” he says. “Holy, holy, holy.” His head bobs up and down. He takes three steps forward, three steps backward. “With a whole heart, I have done what has been asked of me. I give praise. I give thanks.” Forward, backward. “Man is but a weak runt. Take pity.” Forward, backward. “We are trying so hard. So hard. Turn us back from the pit, so that your light might shine upon us.” Forward, backward. “Teach me wisdom. Holy, holy, holy.”

The ark sways. I hear waves slap against the sides so loud, Noah’s voice is drowned out.

“Father!” Shem comes down the ladder with Japheth and Ham behind him. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t interrupt,” says Japheth. “He’s praying.”

“Father,” says Shem, “forgive me, but we have to shut the hatches on the portholes below before water comes in.”

Noah’s head still bobs. He doesn’t look at his sons.

“You’re wasting precious time!” shouts Ham.

Noah jerks his head toward them. “Never let me hear you say that again! Go! Do your job! The Mighty Creator helps the worthy. And those who help themselves are worthy. Shut the hatches.”

They clack down the ladder at the other end of the ark, deep down into the bowels of the ark, Noah, too. Shouts and bellows from below compete with the thunder.

The animals on this deck keep calm, though. We are safe, and somehow we all know it. Maybe the animals on the bottom
deck are getting splashed, maybe even soaked, but we aren’t. I lie in the straw, rocking hard, completely dry with a full belly, and all at once I realize something: It’s stupid to be sad. That’s the sum of it. I have to find something good to do. Something that brings me hope. That’s the secret now—the secret to surviving on the ark. Maybe it’s the secret to surviving anywhere. I don’t believe in Noah’s god, but I do believe what Noah said. We must all do what we can.

The ark soon stops rocking; the worst of the storm is over. The men clamber upstairs. And I have arrived at two clear plans. One is about plants; one is about animals. And maybe, through the combination of them, I’ll wind up helping these people, too.

Queen is exploring a knothole in the floorboard. She wipes around it with one long, blunt finger, then brings the finger to her nose, holds it in front of her eyes, puts it in her mouth. Such a thorough examination. I’m almost surprised she didn’t hold it to an ear, too. And I laugh. I have come to love Queen’s ways.

Queen quick turns her head toward me, as though my laughter is a signal. The Male comes alert too. He bounces on his haunches. Well, good. I hadn’t meant to announce my intentions in that way, but indeed, they are right. Why not start tonight, right away? It can be as though the storm marked the beginning of a new way of life.

I go to the swinging door and dig out the first rock. Queen comes to my side and digs out the second one. I’m bigger than Queen, but her fingers are longer than mine. I’m sure she got
a better grip, or she wouldn’t have been able to do it. I gape. Her intelligence always astounds me. I should be used to it by now—she learns so much more quickly than I do. I laugh again.

I hold up the door, and Queen and The Male glide out onto the center of the deck as though this is a given, something they’re accustomed to, rather than only the second time. They race off into the dark, running on their hind feet, waving their arms over their heads.

I go stand in front of the female aardvark to block her path. “Go! Scat! Run!” She rolls onto her back and kicks at me with her claws. I shake my head in exasperation and go toward the male. He stands motionless, but I sense his anxiety. He’s about to do something equally stupid to what she did. “All right, you idiots. Suit yourselves.” I go out through the swinging door. Then I stack one rock on top of the other and perch the bottom of the swinging door on them. Stuck like that, the door makes an opening. Not a high one, but the aardvarks can easily scoot out if they want. It’s their choice.

I stand in front of the next cage and watch the aardvarks from there. They don’t go near the propped door.

A dull thump comes from behind me. I spin around. The male giraffe slams his neck against the female’s. He does it again and again. She walks away, and he flops his neck so his head nearly hits the floor. There’s something mournful in it. “You poor things.”

The male comes toward me. I don’t move. His head is too
large to fit between the poles, and he has no hands to stretch out and grab me. I’m safe from him. He lowers his head till it’s level with mine. Then he extends an enormous blue-black tongue and licks me right up the center of my face. Rough and raspy.

I pull the rocks out of the gullies in front of his swinging door. He’s not a meat eater, I know that much. And I can’t figure out a way he could hurt me, except maybe trample me. But I can duck inside my cage if I have to. I hold his door up high, both of my arms stretched to the limit. He just looks at me. Well, of course. I’m being ridiculous. I can’t hold the door high enough for him to pass through. He’s got to do his part. He’s got to push his way out. How can I lure him?

I keep holding the door, but I turn my head to look around for an idea. The female aardvark stands motionless at the propped-open door of our cage. I don’t know how long she’s been there. Suddenly she jumps out, jump, jump, jump, across to the other side of the deck. She rises on her hind legs a moment, ears erect, and looks every which way. She leaps again. Then trots off.

Victory warms my chest. An aardvark is getting a taste of freedom. A tiny taste. But it’s better than nothing. This is one of my plans. Freedom makes Screamer happy. It makes Queen and The Male happy. Maybe freedom will make all of them happy. And I’m the one who’s giving this to them. Me! I’m not helpless on this ark.

The male aardvark watched her go. He goes now. In the same pattern—look, listen, jump like mad.

The door lifts out of my hands. I turn and watch the male giraffe push it high with his neck. He’s out now. Gigantic. I’m standing here with my arms in the air, holding the door that has come back down on me.
Please don’t let him attack me.
My lips feel so dry I think they’ll split. I lick them. The giraffe walks off.