Forty Days: Neima's Ark, Book One (8 page)

It’s Jorin. He’s not holding a torch
like his father, like the others gathering close to the fire, but
he’s there, standing beside them. And that tells me all I need to
know.

I scramble to catch up with Mother and
Arisi, my heart thudding against my ribcage, my mind whirling like
the gusts of air around us. Will they find some way to keep the
torches lit? Will they really try to burn down the ark—with us
inside it? From the corner of my eye I glimpse sparks of flame
moving closer, flying on the wind, and I’m not sure whether I’m
imagining them.

“
Neima!” I’m startled to
hear a male voice calling and then relieved, a moment later, to see
Father dragging our goats behind him. His mouth moves, but most of
his words are lost to the storm. Still, he waves the goats’ tethers
toward me, and I know what he wants.

As soon as I take the goats, Father
runs for Munzir and his followers. I look between him and the ark,
where Mother and Arisi are already stepping inside, while Noah
bursts out past them, his long blue and white robe waving in the
wind. I need to bring the goats in, but somehow I’m frozen again,
watching Noah approach the fire with a look of wrath to equal
Munzir’s on his face.

“
Why did you not listen?”
Noah roars out over the tempest of sound. His voice is louder than
I’ve ever heard it, powerful and assured, no longer the voice of an
old man. In fact, it barely seems human. “I warned you,” he goes
on, “that God will smite down—”

A sound so great it’s not a sound at
all, but a force that rends the sky in two and threatens to take
the earth with it, blots out the rest of Noah’s words. Blots out
everything—Munzir’s reply and the villagers’ protests, the pounding
of rain against my skin and the air whooshing past my ears, the
beating of my heart and the blood moving inside me. For an endless
moment, that first clap of thunder is the entire world.

And then time rushes forward again,
and with it the rain seems to double its force, making me stumble
and knocking the goats to their knees. Some of the villagers are
falling, too, hands splaying in the mud as they struggle to right
themselves. The lightning comes, then, illuminating this gray world
just long enough for us to see Munzir’s tarp ripped from the nails
that hold it, flung into the sky where it whirls, lost, a white
bird too fragile to direct its own course.

In moments, the fire is nothing but a
drenched pile of sticks.

Mouths are moving, people must be
screaming, the trembling goats beside me must be squealing, but the
only sounds left in the world are the crash of water and wind and
the boom of thunder. I urge the goats forward, but as soon as they
find their footing they slip again, and I do as well. It takes all
my attention just to make some slow progress toward the ark,
dragging the goats behind me, and I have to narrow my eyes against
the increasingly sharp barbs of the raindrops. So I don’t even try
to see what’s going on with my father and Noah, Munzir and the
ruined fire. And I don’t see the shape approaching me as I stumble
onward, till I’m only a few steps from the ark’s open
doors—

—
and a cold, wet hand
grabs my arm.

It’s Jorin, his eyes wide
and his lips moving furiously, though I can’t make out a single
word. I try to pull away from him and he just comes closer, his
mouth moving even faster; every minute facet of his expression
beseeches me to listen, to understand. I’m doing my best to hold on
to my anger against him, but it’s slipping away, a mere gust of hot
air that means nothing as the world breaks into pieces around us.
And then I no longer care what he’s saying; I only want to tell
him:
Go back, now, while you can still
cross the river. I hope your home is strong. Stay safe.

I must be speaking aloud, for Jorin’s
lips have stopped moving and he’s leaning even closer, as though he
can pluck my words out of the wind. Then a hand grabs my other
arm—Father. He takes the goats’ tethers from me and pulls me away
from Jorin, into the ark. And I let him.

Inside, the sound of rain is,
incredibly, even louder. It echoes off the ark’s surface like a
herd of elephants much larger than Bilal and Enise, and it seems to
stampede across my very mind, making any attempt at speaking
pointless. I can’t even hear the creatures who must be wailing in
all manner of animal languages. Father pushes me up the ladder to
the second floor, while he disappears to deposit the goats
somewhere.

It’s dark up here as well as loud, and
it takes a minute for my vision to adjust well enough to see we’re
all here: Uncle Ham and Aunt Zeda, with Shai curled up and crying
beside her; Grandmother Nemzar on Shai’s other side, stroking her
back; my mother huddled in a corner, hands over her face; Japheth
holding Arisi. Kenaan is nailing blankets to the windows, which
does little to keep out the sideways gusts of rain. A moment later
Father reaches the top of the ladder, and then only Noah is
missing.

Father has just stepped off of the
final rung when a voice booms out, incredibly, over all the other
cacophony. It’s Noah’s voice, that newly powerful, inhuman voice,
ringing from the entrance to the ark.

“
It is come,” he says.
Then, another noise: the clap of the ark’s doors
closing.

We’re shut inside.

Time moves strangely up here, in this
dark, damp space with the rain beating like a wall of sound around
us: thoughts come slowly, but once they’ve formed, they hang on
tight and refuse to let go. Then there’s a struggle, a tussle
between one idea and the next…a long moment of emptiness, of
blackness…and the next thought takes root.

And the cycle begins again.

I’m shivering. I’m cold. I’m
freezing.

It’s not cold in here—it’s
stuffy and close and rather humid—but my clothes and hair are
soaking wet and refuse to dry. The extra shifts and blankets I
grabbed back at home—
home
—are soaked through as
well.

Arisi is shivering too. So is my
mother.

Aunt Zeda has blankets. Dry blankets.
She brought them to the ark several days ago. Kenaan is nailing
some of them over the windows, but the rain still gusts in. It’s
freezing. I’m freezing.

Aunt Zeda will share her
blankets, but only since we know it’s
her
generosity that warms us.
Her
forethought we
should be thankful for. I can tell all this from the way her mouth
moves, though I hear only the pounding rain.

Not so cold anymore. But still clammy.
If the men weren’t here, I’d peel this ruined, mud-splattered shift
off me right now. Will I have to sleep here, in the same room as
Grandfather Noah and Uncle Ham and Japheth? As Kenaan?

Light. Sickly lemon light shoots
through the window, and by the time I realize it’s there, it’s gone
again. Extinguished like Munzir’s fire.

Lightning. And the ark is so tall,
taller than the highest cedar tree in our village. And at its
center rises that deck house, and its pointed roof.

Grandfather Noah is descending the
ladder from the deck house right now. There’s another flash of
light, and I catch his grimace of pain as he bends and extends his
knees, as though his old joints pain him. His hands tremble so
badly he can barely keep hold of the rungs, but finally

he reaches the foot of the ladder. He
speaks to my father, but Father shakes his head, leans closer, his
ear nearly against Noah’s mouth.

Noah is an old man again. Gone is the
voice powerful enough to cut through thunder, the arms strong
enough to wrench closed massive ark doors. He’s just like the rest
of us. Human.

Father is crouching beside Mother now,
speaking into her ear.

Mother has shifted closer to me. With
one hand cupped over her mouth, she screams into my ear, and still
her words are like leaves trampled and torn under the weight of the
rain, a few of them lost to the wind. “Father says…worry…watch for
fire…safe.”

Father and Uncle Ham have followed
Noah up the ladder to the deck house. I suppose they’re watching
for lightning, for a fire, so they can get us out in
time.

But “Father says…worry” echoes against
my ears, just beneath the rhythm of the falling rain.

My clothes are almost dry. Time must
be passing.

I hope the men managed to feed all the
animals this morning.

Smell is nearly as powerful as sound.
It’s finally dawning on me why my stomach feels so wretched—and why
I’m not hungry, though I haven’t eaten since this morning. I should
really go clean up some of that animal waste.

I’ve been curled up against the side
of the ark so long my muscles throb. Why do I feel like I shouldn’t
move? There’s no logical reason not to get up and go check on the
animals. It’s not as if the storm can see me through the ark’s
walls, as if my moving will catch the rain and wind and lightning’s
attention and bring their fury down upon us.

But that’s how it feels.

I don’t think I’m alone in this
strange notion, either: aside from the men who’ve taken turns
watching from the deck house, none of us have moved since we
wrapped ourselves in Zeda’s blankets…what…hours ago? Even Kenaan
has just been sitting here, not even jiggling his foot as far as I
can tell, since he finished securing the windows.

Surely we can’t stay like this much
longer. It will get even darker soon. What will we do when we have
to relieve ourselves? I can’t believe I’m trapped here like this,
so close to Kenaan…

But what’s happening to everyone
outside?

I can’t think about that now. Not when
this endless clamor has begun to feel like a series of nails
driving their way through my skull.

At least I’m not shivering
anymore.

I hope the animals are all
right.

That odor really is awful.

In the end it’s Aunt Zeda who
organizes things and gets us moving, first shouting into her
husband’s ear and then my father’s and Japheth’s, then yanking me
and Arisi, my mother and Grandmother Nemzar and Shai up from our
places on the floor, one by one.

I realize she can’t just ask us to
stand and follow her, at least not without screaming herself
hoarse, but I’m still irritated when she tugs my elbow a bit more
sharply than necessary.

Aunt Zeda leads us into the next room,
where sacks of grain and other supplies line one wall like a mound
of solid shadows. My eyes have adjusted well enough that I can see
Zeda rooting around for an empty bucket, placing it in a corner,
struggling to hang a blanket from the rafters, finally giving up
and running for Kenaan, who nails the blanket into
place.

Once Kenaan leaves the room, I can at
last admit that, yes, I need to relieve myself. Badly.

With that done, I join Mother,
Grandmother and Arisi in arranging blankets against one wall of the
ark. It seems we’re going to sleep in here and the men in the other
room, closer to the deck house.

It also seems we’re running out of
blankets.

Aunt Zeda unearths some of our
over-baked bread and a few full water skins just in time: in
moments, a new darkness descends, one so deep I can barely make out
the shape of my own hand.

Someone presses a hunk of bread into
my palm, and since I don’t know what else to do with it, I eat
it.

Then my throat is coated with sawdust,
so when someone passes me a water skin, I drink.

Then there’s nothing to do but curl up
against the wall and pretend to sleep.

***

It begins in the middle of
the night, or perhaps the early morning. My stomach lurches. The
blood inside me lurches. My
bones
lurch. And then I realize the movement’s not
inside me at all. The
floor
is lurching, tipping, angling to one side just
the smallest bit. I’m not even sure how I know this, as I huddle in
this pitch darkness, unmoving, unseeing, though not unhearing—no,
the pounding of the rain is relentless. But somehow my body senses
the change around me. My mind and my useless eyes and ears and all
my limbs scramble to find a new equilibrium, but all that frenzy
inside me just leaves me even dizzier. And then there’s the
ba-rum, ba-rum
of my
heartbeat, so forceful it’s almost painful. It’s fear that makes my
heart so strong and so heavy—fear of what that tilting floor might
mean. I wish I could tell whether the others were awake, could ask
Arisi what she’s thinking. I almost wish the lightning would
return, if it meant I could see what’s going on, even for an
instant.

Another lurch. If someone
screamed, would I hear it? If
I
screamed, would I hear it?

There’s nothing to do but wait. I
clench my jaw, my shoulders, my fists, focus on the sensation of my
fingernails digging into my palms, and wait…

And wait…

And wait…

A body smacking into mine wrenches me
out of half sleep. It must be morning; just enough light leaks in
for me to make out Arisi’s delicate features beside me. Her eyes
are stretched wide, one hand clutching my arm and the other on her
stomach, as we slide farther and hit Mother on my other side. I
hear her cry of shock—it’s a loud cry, but still, the rain must
have abated a little—and then we’re shifting back, in the opposite
direction, and Aunt Zeda gives a shrill protest as Arisi knocks
against her. It’s all so strange and ridiculous, I’m not sure
whether to scream or laugh. Or pinch myself and hope that I wake up
safe at home, that this is all a mad dream brought on by Noah’s
ravings.

But my stomach is sloshing around
inside me as though it’s being tugged in three—no, four—directions
at once, and I realize that in addition to the sideways lurching,
the floor is rocking forward and backward a bit. And I know this is
no dream, for no dream could force such bile to my throat and leave
me whirling, dizzy and faint, untethered from the ground yet held
in place by the discomfort inside me.

And then it gets worse: my stomach is
rising now, forcing itself up through my chest, toward my throat,
blocking my airway as I try to breathe through the nearly
unbearable sensation…

…
a moment of nothingness,
of pure, weightless relief…

…
and my stomach slams back
down, hard, with an explosion of pain like stars. I try to rise, to
make it to the bucket in the corner but I’m stumbling, tripping
over myself and it makes me feel even worse, and then the sounds
and smells around me tell me the others aren’t making it to the
bucket either, and then I give up.

***

Somehow we trek the impossible
distance across the floor that shifts in all directions beneath us,
through the open doorway, back to the room with the ladders, where
the men slept. They’re awake too. And as sick as we are.

***

That rising-falling feeling happens
again and again, both inside and outside our bodies, as we sit
or—in most cases—lie flat on the floor against the wall. After
Father manages the climb to the deck house and back down again, he
confirms what we already know: it’s the sensation of water lifting
us, lifting the ark off the ground. I’d refuse to believe him if I
could, but the ark won’t let me—it won’t stop rocking and rolling
backward and forward, to one side and the other, buffeted by the
wind above and the water below.

Is there any dry land left at all? I
glance to the windows above me, but even lifting my head makes the
room spin around me, and rising to my feet seems out of the
question. Besides, the windows are so high I’d barely be able to
see out even if I stood on tiptoe, and Father says all you can see
from that angle is clouds and rain, anyway—you have to climb to the
deck house for a clear view.

And none of us seem capable of making
that journey again right now, not even Father.

I remind myself how much worse Arisi
must feel, with her swollen stomach: she has her own bucket beside
her now, and it seems she’s barely lifted her head from it in an
hour. And poor crying Shai, who is far too young to deal with this.
And then there are all the people outside the ark…. But to tell the
truth, though it shames me to admit it, at this moment nothing
seems to exist outside my own heaving stomach, my shaking limbs, my
throbbing head. I’ve been sick to my stomach before, when I ate
something that disagreed with me, and once, as a child, I lay ill
for nearly a week with a terrible fever. But I’ve never experienced
a sickness like this before, a pain that roots itself at the bottom
of my gut and radiates outward till I’m sure I can’t stand it for
one moment longer. I don’t think any of us have experienced this
before.

The world outside is no more than a
fever dream.

***

The animals aren’t getting fed for a
while. And nothing’s getting cleaned up. We’ll just have to put up
with the smell.

***

Time passes.

***

The rain—or perhaps just the wind that
drives it against the ark with such force—has calmed further, and
the thunder is gone for the time being, but I almost wish they
would return. For now we can hear the animals. Such a confusion of
moans and roars, whines and growls, grumbles and bellows, at once
pitiful and terrifying. The creatures must be sick too. And
frightened. And hungry.

Uncle Ham and Father finally rise to
deal with the animals that will no longer be ignored, but they
clutch their stomachs and move slowly, unsteadily. Japheth should
go with them, but he won’t leave Arisi’s side for a moment, and
Kenaan—well, I think Kenaan is the sickest of all of us. He’s been
moaning like a child for so long now, I’ve lost track of which
cries are his amid all the animal protests around us. Once Father
and Ham are up, I try to stand as well—I want to help, and to check
on the elephants—but even lifting my head and shoulders from the
blanket beneath me forces my stomach toward my throat again. I
can’t bear the thought of retching once more on an empty stomach,
so I allow myself to fall back to the floor.

As Father nears the ladder down to the
lower level, he bends over, suddenly, so his back is nearly
parallel to the floor, his shoulders creeping inward, and he stands
frozen like that for a long, excruciating moment. I can’t bear to
see him appear so vulnerable, in such pain, just like the rest of
us. I remember him at the smithy when I was a child, transforming
burning-hot metal into weapons and tools with an ease that seemed
like magic, and I think he should somehow be above the weakness
that has struck the rest of our family.

Finally he recovers himself and
straightens, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding. Then he
disappears down the ladder, with Uncle Ham behind him.

***

I watch Noah out of the corner of my
eye. He’s sitting up, and he’s not groaning or grasping his
stomach, but taut lines run across his face, from the corners of
his mouth to his jawline, from his eyes to his temples, as though
holding in his pain takes all the effort he possesses. I wonder if
his God told him this sickness was coming, if there’s some secret
purpose behind it too vast for our human minds to
comprehend.

Thinking of such things is far too
difficult. Thinking at all is far too difficult.

***

Some of the animal noises are coming
not from below, but from our own level, from the rooms past the one
where we slept last night: squeaks and caws, coos and whistles.
Shai pesters Kenaan until he admits he put all the birds he trapped
up here. In the same room as the reptiles.

I wish for the rain to drown
everything out once more.

***

By the time Father and Uncle Ham
return, Aunt Zeda has wrestled up more bread and water. She says
eating will make us feel better, but I think she just relishes the
chance to order the rest of us around. I only manage a few bites
before my stomach rebels, and the water tastes like old metal and
something rancid—or perhaps that’s just the taste permanently
lodged at the back of my throat.

At least Father tells me the animals
are all right. Frightened and distressed, but all right.

***

As darkness begins to creep its way
back into the ark, we women go back to the room where we slept last
night. We make our way on hands and knees, like animals
ourselves—all of us except Aunt Zeda, that is, who appears to have
a stomach made of metal. I wonder why we bothered to move in the
first place.