Forty Days: Neima's Ark, Book One (2 page)

The Lord saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord
regretted that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to
his Heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have
created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping
things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made
them.”

--Genesis 6:5-7

My grandfather is a madman, and the
entire village knows it.

We’ve watched the skeleton of his
madness rise from the ground, bones and joints of wood fastened
together until they’ve grown higher than the tallest cedar tree in
our valley and longer than all the cottages of our village placed
end to end. As each gap in the skeleton is filled with more wood,
we’ve watched his insanity gain flesh, becoming a solid, hulking
beast that looms above us. It is an ark, two sides sloping down to
a rounded base, like the coracles that carry fishermen down the
river bordering our village. But my grandfather Noah’s ark is
broader than the river at its widest point, even when the waters
swell at the height of the rainy season, and I cannot imagine a
body of water large enough to hold it aloft.

We watch the sun rise over the ark’s
peaked roof every morning, and now, as I carry a basket of soiled
laundry to the river, I watch the ark grow larger before me. It
sits on the far side of the river, just outside the village border,
where the villagers can’t rightly complain about its presence.
Though they do so regardless. I move closer still, juggling the
basket that threatens to spill shifts and shirts and shawls with
every step I take, until I can make out the outlines of the men
standing atop its deck. Most are hired men, nomads who will work
for grain or livestock, pottery or tools, but one of those men is
my grandfather Noah. Two of them are my uncles. And one is my
father.

Now that the ark’s construction is
complete, Noah has ordered my uncles, my father and all the
laborers he can find to coat the ship’s surface with pitch. The
black, sticky stuff has crept its way up the wood with each passing
day, until only the open deck and the rectangular, slant-roofed
structure atop it remain uncovered. And worst of all, the pitch’s
stink has woven its way through the village, noxious and smoky and
oily, coating the insides of our noses and throats with each
breath.

It is no longer enough for us to
witness Noah’s madness; now we must smell it as well.

“
Neima!” It’s a young
voice, just behind me. Male.

I clutch the basket handles tighter,
frozen in my tracks now, not ready to turn toward my pursuer. Not
one of the village boys come to harass me again, to pluck at my
skirts or tip my basket into the dirt. Not today. It’s too hot, the
air too thick and foul, and I can’t take it. I should ignore their
taunts, walk fast and keep my back straight, but my curiosity gets
the best of me. I turn my head—

—
and breathe a sigh of
relief when I see it’s only Jorin. Relief—and annoyance. Jorin is
always following behind someone or other, like a lost lamb
scampering after the flock. He even sounds like a lamb, his voice
high and bleating and—

“
Neima. You dropped
this.”

I’m perplexed to find my body still
frozen as he approaches, one of my linen shifts in his outstretched
hand. It’s Jorin, all right—but when did his voice grow so much
deeper, so strong and assured? I blink, shake my head, wondering if
I’m seeing things—but no, a new width broadens his shoulders, and
he stands nearly a hand’s breadth above me, though we are the same
age and have always been the same height. How did so much change
without my realizing it? Jorin is no longer a boy, and I can no
longer compare him to a lamb.

“
Well?” He holds the shift
just out of my reach, crumples it in his dirt-stained hand, waves
it from side to side. “Do you want it or not? I’ve been thinking
our goat needs a dress. She shivers at night, and she would look
quite becoming in your—”

“
Surely your goat would be
offended by my simple garment,” I say, reaching for the fabric with
one hand. Only when I let go of the basket do I realize I’ve been
gripping the handle hard enough to rub my skin raw. “You should
raid my aunt Zeda’s laundry instead—her clothes are much finer. But
you’re not brave enough for that, are you?” Jorin lowers his head,
avoiding my eyes as he finally hands back my shift. “I thought
not,” I say, a touch of victory in my voice.

Jorin may not be a boy any longer, but
he has a long way to go before I will call him a man.

I turn once more, walking faster
toward the river. Jorin scrambles ahead, swivels to face me, and
lopes along backward so the morning sun frames his form. All the
men in our village have dark hair, but Jorin’s always grows lighter
in the summer months, and even now, more than a moon since the
harvest ended, his hair shines the same bright bronze as the
carving knife my father made for me.

I shake my head again, as though I can
cast out that ridiculous thought. What is wrong with me
today?

“
You’re not angry with me,
are you, Neima?” His eyes widen, and I glimpse motes of gold
dancing within the brown. “Not that I can blame you for being out
of temper this morning. That pitch smells worse than the shit of a
hundred hogs—”

“
Jorin!”

He falls quiet and turns, allowing me
to lead again, but he continues to trail me. Finally I must ask:
“Don’t you have work of your own to do?”

“
I’ve fed all the animals
already,” he says, “and I want to rest my feet in the
river.”

“
If only we all had time
to
rest our feet
,” I say, although truthfully I am looking forward to the
cool water as well. The rainy season is late in coming this year,
and the dry heat that sucks moisture from the air, from our skin,
from our very bones has lasted so long I sometimes forget what it
feels like to be cool, to pass a day without my dry throat aching
and the dust rising in clouds around my calloused feet. I walk
faster, anticipating the first gasp of chilly river water against
my skin; but then I spot the gaggle of squealing, half-naked
children coming our way. They aren’t watching where they’re going,
and one boy nearly collides with us. That is, until he realizes
just who he’s approaching—
Noah’s
granddaughter—
and trips over himself in
his hurry to shift course. He even
yelps
, and when some object falls
from his hand, he doesn’t stop to pick it up.

Then I see
what
the boy has
dropped, and his fear no longer bothers me so much.

It’s a scrap of cedar wood, twice the
length of my hand and thicker than my thumb, neatly sawed at both
ends. A remnant from the ark. After a quick glance around to make
sure no one’s watching, I rest my basket on the ground and pick it
up, caressing the planed wood, smooth as river stone.

“
The boys are still daring
each other to bring home the
cursed
wood from the ark, I suppose,” Jorin says with
disdain in his voice.

“
Don’t be so superior.” I
keep my voice light. “I seem to remember you doing the same, just a
year or two ago.”

Jorin scowls, kicks a clod
of dirt free with his bare foot. “No,” he says. “I might have
fetched the wood, on a dare. But I never believed those foolish
superstitions.
I
always brought the wood all the way home. Or to
you.”

I blush at the reminder that Jorin is
the only member of our village, besides my parents, who knows my
secret: I carve miniatures out of wood. Animals and people,
cottages and coracles, carts and wagons, all small enough to fit in
the palm of my hand. It is a strange hobby, especially for a girl,
and Mother was not happy when Father taught me and even gave me a
carving knife of my own. She forbade me to speak of my craft or to
do it outside our cottage—Noah’s behavior brings enough attention
to our family without my adding to it—but Jorin once ran into our
kitchen during a rainstorm and caught me whittling before the
fire.

Even now, out here where anyone can
see, I can’t resist running my fingers over the wood for a moment,
feeling the warmth it holds inside after a morning in the sun. I
wonder what creature lies beneath the smooth surface, waiting to be
freed by my carving knife. But then I shake my mind free of its
daydreams, tuck the wood under my laundry, and continue toward the
river. I have work to do.

Jorin has never revealed my strange
secret, but he often asks what I’m working on and if he can see it.
I can sense the usual question on the tip of his tongue now, in
fact, so I head him off: “I’ll show you someday, I promise. Just
not yet.” Jorin only shrugs in response, as though he expected as
much. I always find some excuse to put him off, since my efforts
never live up to the images in my mind—at least not yet. I am
improving, though, and I haven’t given up hope that one day I’ll
make something beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful, here is the
river before us now, low from the lack of rain, but still cool and
clear and glinting in the sunlight. I throw down my basket and dip
my feet in the water, and for a moment, if I look away from the ark
and hold my breath to avoid the stench, I can almost believe I’m in
paradise.

And then I notice the group of women
washing their own laundry a bit downriver. They glance from me to
the ark with narrowed eyes, whispering and clucking their tongues
and even wrapping cloths over their mouths and noses as if my
appearance has made the odor twice as unbearable.

No, this village is no paradise, and
those women will not let me forget it.

I grab one of Father’s tunics, plunge
it in the water, and begin to scrub the dirt out much more
vigorously than necessary. “You’ll exhaust yourself before you’re
halfway through,” Jorin warns, and I flick some water in his
direction. Accidentally, of course.

“
Would you like to help,
then?” I ask, and Jorin grows suddenly silent.

We work quietly for a
short while—or rather, I work while Jorin
rests
—with only the soft swish of
river water and the women’s distant whispers to accompany my
scrubbing. And then the circle of women cracks open, and out of
their midst comes my best friend Derya, flouncing toward us with a
basket of soaking-wet laundry dripping in her arms, her long black
braid swinging at her back. When she reaches us, she dumps her
laundry in the river and continues washing as if nothing has
happened.

“
Well, good morning to you
too,” Jorin says after a moment.

Derya just shakes her
head. “Those women are insufferable,” she says. Anger turns her
green eyes into sparks against her golden skin, and as usual, I
feel dull as river mud beside her. But I’m grateful for her
support. “As if it’s
your
fault,” she goes on, “that Noah believes a great
flood is going to destroy the world!”

And there it is: the reason
Grandfather has devoted himself to this interminable project, has
forced my father and uncles to neglect their own duties in order to
help him. Thanks to Noah, our village is now a destination for
unsavory nomads in search of work, and with all the trees felled to
build the ark, mudslides plague us throughout the rainy season. In
any other man, such behavior would never be tolerated. But my
grandfather was once one of our village’s most respected members,
and his madness grew slowly, over years, plank by plank as the ark
rose higher, until suddenly it was too large to ignore and too late
to act against it.

I still remember the day I first heard
about the rains that would supposedly fall till our cottages were
submerged, our animals drowned, though I can’t recall who told me,
or whether I simply overheard the gossip. But I will never forget
the way I tore through the village, heading straight for my father
at work in the smithy, and I will never forget how I ran inside
without calling out first, even though I was forbidden to do so.
Father was pouring molten bronze into molds, but to my young mind
and eyes, it was as if he held liquid fire just a few hands’
breadth from his body, at the end of a long, precariously thin
wooden handle. If he was a more excitable man, a less steady one,
there might have been a terrible accident. As it was, I suffered
only a scolding once Father put the smoking-hot pot down on the
smith stone and led me back outside, away from the open flame and
molten metal. And even his reprimand was light, once he realized
how frightened I was; he never could be harsh with me. I remember
how he gathered me in his arms, so close that I rested my cheek
against the warm leather of his apron and breathed in the smoky
residue that lingered there. He told me that there would be no
flood, that old Noah wasn’t right in the head, though I should
never say so aloud.

“
But how can you know?” I
whispered into his chest.

He breathed out, long and deep, and I
bit my lip as I waited for him to speak. “I suppose nothing in this
world is certain,” he said at last. “But I promise that if you, if
any member of our family is ever in danger, I’ll do everything I
can to protect you.”

Now, as I wash Father’s tunics in the
river, I realize I can’t remember the last time I visited him at
the smithy, or even exchanged more than a few words with him over
supper. The ark has kept him busy, I suppose.

It takes me a minute to notice Derya
is no longer chattering beside me, and I crane my neck to see her
standing beside Jorin, facing away from the river. “Can you
imagine,” she says softly, “all of this, just…gone?”