Sinners and the Sea (22 page)

“The next people taken by the sea were those who fought each
other for the trees and clung to them like lovers. Men and women alike were layered upon their bark, holding on to each other’s hair, backs, and legs, their feet not more than a few cubits off the ground. The water came for them: injured mercenaries, whores, and children just like you, who were probably strong enough to have climbed higher, if only there had been time.

“By the twentieth flash of lightning, the sea had eaten the tree trunks and all those who clung to them.

“A few people made it to the very tops of the trees. Their fate was cruelest of all. They could climb no higher; they could only wait. Wind pruned them from the treetops until just the strongest remained. They heard people below screaming, and then they heard the crashing of the sea. Worse than hearing the people scream was listening as their screams were abruptly silenced. With each flash of lightning, those in the tops of the trees saw the horrible power of the sea. And yet they may have welcomed the lightning. More terrifying than watching death come for you is knowing it is coming and having to wait for it in darkness. The sea reached up from the earth and consumed the trees and all of the people without rafts.

“Rain continued hurtling down from the heavens. It hit us so hard, it felt as if it were being thrown. I never knew how sharp water could be. When the lightning came, we opened our eyes to see what was left of the world, and the rain slashed us nearly blind. On deck, the sea mounted our ankles and rose to our knees. Yet the ark remained on the ground even as people on rafts floated past.

“Soon though, the sea started to come not just from the sky but from the center of the earth as well.

“Children, the ark was huge, three hundred by fifty cubits. Can you think of anything heavy enough to lift that much gopher wood, filled with all the species of the world, off the ground? No number of men or beasts could have raised the ark from the earth. Yet as easily as a strong wind lifts a feather,
the sea lifted it.

“The wind and the dark carried us we knew not where but far. Our eyes were of no use in the darkness, even when we dared to open them against the blades of rain. Everything was black, even us. I did not believe that we would ever emerge.

“But then flashes of lightning started coming closer together, one flash quickly mounting another. I risked my sight in order to open my eyes. The lightning was unlike any you should ever hope to see. From unbearable darkness, we had entered into unbearable light.

“That was when I saw one of the Nephilim. His torso was larger than twenty men across and ten high. It looked as if he were wearing a skirt of thrashing water. His eyes were black with rage as he smacked at it. The sea turned a few of his nails backward and ripped them from his body. But still he slapped at it, bloodying it with his leaking fingers. Turning it pink and then red.

“How must this grandson of God have felt, dying at his grandfather’s hands? I doubt he had ever encountered anything he could not smack away, anything he could not hurt or kill. There is no sound sadder than a giant crying. We are used to babies and women and sometimes men crying. But when a descendant of God cries, the world cries with him. The clouds shook from the strength of his sobs. His tears were added to the water that sought to drown him.

“Would it drown him before he could pull the ark into the sea or punch a hole in the hull to drown us? Our ark had no sail, no rudder. We thought we were taking our last breaths as the wind began to hurl us toward him. Uncle Ham was yelling at me to join Shem, Ona, Herai, and Zilpha belowdecks, but I could not take my eyes off the giant.

“ ‘Take up your weapons!’ Uncle Japheth yelled.

“Your grandfather knew there was no use in trying to fight one of the giants with weapons, so he prayed. He prayed for our lives and the nephil’s death. I prayed for all of our lives. ‘Two of
every
creature,’ I cried up at the God of Adam. Perhaps He did not hear me over the pounding of the rain.

“As we came within thirty cubits of the giant, I could sometimes see his face through the rain. It looked like separate pieces of clay slapped together. His nostrils flared five cubits in either direction, and each of his eyes held enough fury to win a war. But maybe not this war. The sea he was smacking away fought against the sea that carried us toward him.

“Waters clashed beneath the ark, raising us as high into the sky as the top of the tallest mountain. The goat meat in my stomach rose into my throat. For an instant, we were perfectly balanced on the wave.

“Then the giant started losing; the sea he was smacking away could not hold back the sea that rushed toward him.

“ ‘Hold on!’ Uncle Ham cried.

“I still remember the blink of an eye in which I was suspended in air before we started to fall. It was the feeling I’d had in my head
since Grandpa Noah started speaking of the flood, and finally, it had spread to my body.

“Then the bow of the ark tipped toward the giant, and we were falling face-first into the sea. As we plunged, I gripped the hatch’s handle with my hands. The rest of my body lifted into the air.

“I had never swum before. I had never even been in water up to my knees. The sea slapped my eyes harder than hands can slap. It entered my nose, mouth, and ears, and filled the inner passages of my body. I could not breathe; there was no room for air.

“When the ark righted itself, water from the bow spread across the deck. The sea fell from my back, and if I’d had the strength, I would have stood up. But the water in my body did not go anywhere except deeper. My lungs were drowning inside me.

“Footsteps splashed over the deck. Uncle Ham lifted me and pressed his fingers between my ribs until I gave up enough of the sea to gasp for air. Ham tried to open the hatch and push me down the ramp to the second level, but there was a sudden thwack upon the hull. We were thrown against the wall of the deck where the giant’s hand had hit it. He drew his hand back to strike again.

“ ‘We mean you no harm,’ I called to him. But the waters and the wind were hurtling us toward him again, and Uncle Japheth gripped a spear that was drawn back as purposefully as the giant’s hand. The giant looked at him with bloodshot eyes and hit us, once more knocking us against the deck wall. Somehow Uncle Japheth kept hold of his spear.

“ ‘You’ll get us killed,’ Ham yelled.

“ ‘Is no one else man enough to defend the ark?’ Japheth yelled back. He was as enraged as the giant.

“ ‘You cannot defend the ark with spears or swords or daggers,’ Noah said. ‘We must pray.’

“I took my eyes off the giant to look up at the sky.
Why do You pit the ark against the nephil? Do You mean to save only him or us?

“When the giant drew his hand back again, the waters were crashing higher against his chest. He did not know how to swim; there had never been an opportunity to learn. Until the flood, water probably never reached waist-high upon any giant. His great chest was heaving with anger and exhaustion. This time, when he hit us, the sea caught his elbow. Instead of winding back his arm to strike, he reached over the wall of the deck. His fingers were wrinkled prunes of flesh, and they bled where the sea had torn his nails from his body. The fingers were coming down onto the deck. We rushed from their path. All but Uncle Japheth. He bent his knees deep and braced his spear against the deck.

“Children, you see the lines on your own little palms? They crisscross and form triangles. The lines of the giant’s palm seemed to form a perfect target in the center. This was where Japheth jabbed the spear with all his might.

“The giant’s lower lip fell so that his huge mouth lay open, yet no sound issued from his throat. A tear big enough to drown any one of you rolled from the outer edge of one eye. He raised his hand up, with the spear stuck through the palm.

“Japheth kept hold of the spear and was lifted off the deck. He jerked his body around, trying to free the spear. Blood poured not
just from the giant’s fingertips but from his palm as well. I yelled at Japheth to let go of the spear. When he didn’t, I grabbed his legs—no easy task, considering the force with which he kicked them. I was lifted from the calf-deep water on deck, almost ten cubits into the air. My weight was not enough to unhook Japheth’s fingers from the spear or the spear from the giant’s palm.

“He drew his hand back, and Japheth and I dangled over the sea. It smacked up at my feet, then rose to my legs and then to my waist. My tunic tangled around my thighs.

“ ‘Please,’ I called to the nephil.

“My father, your great-grandfather, said that Nephilim do not see well, but the giant’s eyes met mine and gripped them despite the tossing of the sea. He lifted his hand higher and raised it above his head to get a better look at me. Japheth flailed his legs. ‘Let go so I can kick him!’ he screamed at me. If I let go, I would fall into the thrashing sea. But I could not keep hold of Japheth’s wet leg as he tried to shake me off.

“I did not have far to fall. A wave rose up to meet me and carried me with it as it crashed down to rejoin the sea. The cold knocked the breath from my body and seized my heart. The deep pulled me near.”

I do not tell them that the sea wanted me the way a man wants a woman—I could not rise, I could not breathe.

“I knocked into something solid, and small enough that my arms could encircle it. The giant’s littlest toe. I tried to travel up along the slant of his foot and climb the hair on his legs. But the sea would not let me, and the sea had become master of everything on earth.

“You might not believe me, children, and I hope you will never know for yourselves, that the sea’s greatest weapon isn’t its violent crashing or its depth. It is the cold. My mind was losing its sway over my hands.

“If you have ever been underwater for long, you know it’s as hard to keep your mouth closed as it is to swim through the center of the earth to the other side. Without my permission, my lips unlocked and my jaw stretched wide, seeking air and whatever warmth the air could provide. This time the water did not stop at my lungs. It filled every organ, every space, every passageway, even my veins.
The God of Adam is going to let me drown,
I thought.

“I knew I was the least needed of all those God had put on the ark. Noah was the prophet of His word, and our sons and daughters-in-law were tasked with repopulating the world. I could clean and weave. But so could everyone else, even Noah and my sons, if they could bring forth the necessary humility. As for cooking, we had dried meats, dried fruits, and nuts—foods that needed little preparation. Perhaps my rations should have been divided among Noah and the children instead.

“My body panicked, but my mind was done fighting.
Please, keep my sons and daughters-in-law healthy,
I said,
and spare this giant.

“Red descended through the swirling sea. The giant’s hand, the one without the spear in it, was coming closer. Then the giant lowered his head into the waters as well. He looked down at me, and our eyes met again. I was too cold to be afraid when he pinched me between his thumb and forefinger, cracking one of my ribs as a man
would accidentally crack the shell of a small beetle he picked up, no matter how gentle he was.

“The giant’s balance was unsteady. Giants are known for stumbling and sometimes taking out whole villages beneath their feet. Yet he was able to bring me toward his face. He began to choke, just as I was.
Why has he lowered his head into the sea?

“A current caught him and smacked him sideways. Without his feet on the ground, he could not regain his balance. Still he pushed me toward the surface. But the sea refused to let me leave. My giant struggled to his feet, his footfalls raising the deep. Sand swirled around us. The sea was growing taller, rising over my giant’s head, but he refused to fall. He lifted me up, and I broke the sea’s surface.

“Air—there is nothing so delicious in the entire world.

“The currents grasped him now. They jerked him first in one direction and then another. Still he kept me above the surface of the sea.

“Ham, Shem, and Herai were pressed against the wall of the deck. Ham and Shem screamed, ‘Mother!
Mother!
’ My whole body choked on the sea and the cold, and I did not know if I was going to survive, yet I felt a speck of joy to hear my sons calling to me. Ham held one end of a rope and tossed the other end toward me. The wind knocked it back into the ark.

“He tried again, and again the wind returned the rope to him. I leaned toward the ark, stretched my arms in front of me, and prayed. My giant heard my prayer. We began to move toward the ark. The faces of my family became clearer to me and all seemed to contain the same emotion: hope.

“As we came within ten cubits, their expressions changed. Though they were happy that I was near, the giant’s arm came near as well, and it would smack against the hull in the next few breaths. My body was trapped in his fingers, but I leaned my head back to signal him to slow down. By this time, though, he had little say where we went. The water climbed higher in search of me. I suddenly knew what the people who had made it to the tops of the trees felt: a breath of utter helplessness, followed by the wailing of a small wild part that refuses to give up.

“The wailing unleashed itself into my limbs. My mind had taken hold of them again. Even before the water reached me, I began beating my arms as if I could push it back down. My head was not far from the hull, my feet not far from the sea. Both closed in on me. The giant did not let go of me as the sea rushed over my legs and mounted higher to suckle at my breasts. The side of my head knocked against the hull, and I felt what little warmth was left in my body bleed out of the gash in my ear. That gash turned into the scar you see now. My arms and legs stopped moving. As the water rose over my nose, I said good-bye to my family.

“Then I was buoyed up and tossed skyward. The giant released me into the air. ‘Grab the rope,’ Uncle Ham called down to me. But my hands no longer worked. I was at the mercy of the sea, and the sea has no mercy.