Sinners and the Sea (4 page)

“How will we get my daughter to his tent through the mob camped all around us?”

My breath caught in my chest at the thought of journeying through the villagers who were calling for my death. It would be a miracle to escape with my life.

“We need not leave this place,” Arrat said. “I will guide him to you.”

My father started. “Will he come with a caravan?”

“No, he travels alone.”

“He will need strong men of some kind to take my daughter safely from this village. Has he no kin?”

There was silence. Then, as if Arrat had not heard my father’s question, he said, “If we promise the villagers she is to go far away and never return, they will likely allow her to leave unmolested.”

Never return.
I could not imagine never seeing my father again. But at least, whether I made it through the mob or they killed me, I would burden him no longer.

“You had best be right.” There was a threatening tone in my father’s voice that I had not heard before.

Arrat faltered for a breath before getting out, “They will. I—I will make certain of this.”

“But what of the people in the village she goes to? Will they not see the stain upon her brow and spread word of it as quickly as a hawk swoops down to snatch up a mouse?”

“The man is well respected. If he tells the people your daughter is his good wife, they will welcome her with friendship and gifts of honey and the finest cloth. They will give her olive oil for her hair,
kohl for her eyes, and rosewater to wash with so that she brings her husband to her. The midwife will supply unctions so his seed takes root. You will be grandfather to many healthy boys.”

“What is the name of this well-respected man, and where is his camp?”

“His name is Noah, and he lives five days journey west of here.”

“Have you spoken of him before?”

“Perhaps, though not at any great length. You would not remember.”

“I will try, in any case. Say again what you have told me of him so it might bring him forth in my mind’s eyes.”

“He is very upright. He is a man of God.”

“Which god?”

“The God of Adam.”

Before my father could ask anything further, Arrat said, “As for payment, I know you to be a fair man, Eben. I have saved your daughter’s life and, more important, her virtue. I ask not a lot.”

“You know me to be more than fair, but I cannot afford anything more than fair now. If this man takes my daughter unharmed from this village, I will give you a quarter of my olives.”

“Is your daughter’s life worth so little to you? I do you this favor at great risk to myself.”

“A quarter of my olives is more than any sensible man would scorn, but I will let you rob me of
half
my harvest for my daughter’s safety. You will see to it that she goes unscathed through the mob, or I will burn my grove to the ground myself to keep you from it.”

“Your daughter will be safe,” the trader said nervously.

When my father was sure Arrat was gone, he muttered, “The trader cannot be trusted. Yet we must trust him.” He turned to me. “Pack a sack you can carry across your back. A man comes to take you for a wife.”

• • •

M
y father did not sleep that night. While the mob shouted back and forth over their fire, he stood near the door flap with his feet apart and chin thrust forward, daring fate to try to bring us down now. He seemed very strong to me, strengthened as a man would be in the last length of a journey, knowing he could soon set down his burden.

CHAPTER 3

THE POWER OF THE MARK I

T
he next morning I was awakened by a booming voice. “Part so that I may pass through your wicked mass into the tent of the only righteous man among you!”

“A man who harbors a demon is no more righteous than the demon itself,” said the gruff-voiced man who had first spoken to my father.

“The God of Adam and those He entrusts with His power of sight are the only ones who can see demons. Any of you who claim to see a demon speaks false.”

I noticed my father had not lit a lamp. Perhaps he thought that the light would have revealed my mark too harshly. I tried to peer with him out the tiny eyehole in the door flap, but he gently pushed me away. I stood in the near-dark, listening to the commotion as best I could, my heart hammering in my chest.

“Who are you, old man? Can you expel the demon?”

“I am a man of God.”

“Let him through. He will do our work for us.” This was Arrat’s voice.

“Do you promise to take her far from here, and never allow her to return?” someone asked.

“I make no promises to any but the God of Adam.”

“Well, if your God of Adam wanted to know if you were taking this woman forever from this place, what would be your answer?”

“I answer to none but Him.”

Arrat’s voice came again through the crowd. “Does this stranger look like a young man setting out to make a new camp? Does he look like he has come to be a bondsman? Let him take her, and we will never see her again.”

A man with an unusually high voice said, “If he means to bring her forth from the tent, we will set upon her then.”

“You will do nothing besides tremble in the sight of the One God or feel His wrath.”

My father turned to me. “That is the voice of your husband. He has peacefully made his way through the neighbors and slowly draws near.”

I did not know how to greet this news. I did not want to dwell where the mob might rush upon me with daggers and flames, yet neither did I want to try to pass through them without an army.

“Hide behind the pots of lentils,” my father instructed. He peered back through the eyehole, so enraptured by the old man who came for me that he no longer seemed to hear the voices tangling around us.

“Who among us is strong enough to tackle the demon?” asked a voice that quivered with old age.

“What choice do we have, with our sons, women, and herds defenseless in the surrounding plots?” the gruff-voiced man replied. “How long do you mean for us to stand out here, doing nothing while the demon grows stronger?”

“By what means does the demon grow stronger?” another man asked skeptically. Perhaps the man was one whom Arrat had swayed with promises of olives or other goods.

I moved close behind my father again, trying to peer out the eyehole with him. I wanted to see the man who would be my husband, if my mark did not first send him rushing back in the direction from which he had come.

“The strength of the soul taken from Mechem. It is hers now, to do whatever evil she can think of. She must be burned.”

I shrank from the door flap. I did not think I had the courage for whatever was to come.

“Let us see how the God-man fares,” the quivering voice interjected, “before we hazard our own souls.”

“He will be sucked dry of all the life that still remains in his faded flesh,” someone else said. “The demon nightly turns the woman into one beast and then the next—a goat, an ox. Many of us have seen a lizard the size of a woman, running up the inside of the tent wall, feet sticky with blood, very likely the blood of a child. Perhaps the blood of the child who went missing only two moons ago.”

“Do you see these abominations before or after you’ve filled your fifth cup of wine?” the skeptical man asked.

Noah must have stopped and dismounted, because a man cried
out, “Let us watch for the shadows in the tent, so we might know whether the old man will come out again.”

“And if he does, whether his soul is still with him,” someone added.

They went silent, but their silence was not a comfort to me. I was sure they had cast their gazes upon the tent so that they might find some evidence of evil.

My father quickly stepped back from the door flap and looked at me, his brow lined with worry. He must have wondered what Arrat had told Noah. Did the trader conceal the size and darkness of my mark? My years? Most men would be angry to find a woman so long past her first blood.

This time I obeyed when my father motioned me back behind our clay pots of lentils and dried fruits. He opened the door flap and said, “Welcome!”

Noah wasted no time with idle talk. “I have come for your righteous and pure daughter.”

“Besides the wine stain upon her forehead, she is a true beauty, the finest for leagues in all direc—”

“I care not about the surface of things so much as what is beneath them,” Noah said. “Arrat has told me that yours is a righteous family who worships the God of Adam. You have proven your devotion to Him by killing the magician who sought to practice secret arts in your tent.”

“We worship the God of Adam with each breath,” my father lied. “My daughter is obedient to all of His laws.”

Noah snorted his approval. He made this sound again when my father presented him with olives, nuts, apricots, bread, cheese, dried
goat meat, and water to take on the journey. My father thought it best to give these things to the old man before calling me to come out from behind our stores.

“And before you leave, for your mule—”

“Donkey,” Noah corrected. He said this without shame.

My father raced to cover his presumptuousness. “One beast is as the next,” he said quickly.

“No. God created them all, one unlike the other, so that each may serve us in a different way.”

“Of course you speak true,” my father said. “You are righteous and wise beyond your years.” Noah neither spoke nor snorted, so my father continued. “For your donkey, as much hay as you would like.”

“Thank you,” Noah said. “My donkey is much diminished from our travel.”

I remained hidden while Noah and my father went outside to gather the rations.

“Have you slain the demon yet?” someone cried out.

“Where is the blood?” asked another man.

“The demon is too great for his god,” the gruff-voiced man said.

Soon so many voices rang out that no one would have been able to hear Noah if he had replied. It sounded as though at least twenty men were gathered. One old man could not possibly protect me from them.

If I am to journey soon to the afterlife, let me go with dignity. I will bite out my tongue to keep from crying and screaming, for I will not dishonor my father with a shameful death.

When Noah and my father returned to the tent, there was no shortage of silence between them.

“Well!” my father finally said. It was time for him to call me out from my hiding place.

“The girl?” Noah said impatiently.

“Yes,” my father said. “Yes.” But he could not bring himself to summon me.

I could not bear to burden him a moment longer. I rose and stepped around our clay pots to reveal myself.

The wrinkled old man—my new husband—peered at me from under his bushy eyebrows. He did not wince.
He must be nearsighted,
I thought.
The stain upon my brow does not steal his gaze from my eyes.

My father looked at me with great anxiety. “My dutiful, devoted daughter!”

Noah snorted. There was an awkward silence in the space where my father normally would have invited a guest to a meal. The shouts of the mob must have persuaded him it was best for Noah and me to try to journey forth before we lost our chance.

It did not seem that Noah would have accepted a meal, in any case. Seeing that my father was going to say nothing more, he told him, “The girl and I must go at once, unless we can try to make a son here.”

My father sucked in his breath. Noah did not take back his question but instead let it grow bolder in the silence.
Perhaps he is deaf to the cries of the mob,
I thought. If so, I envied him. I could not keep their cries from my ears:

“See now what strange light emanates from the goatskin.”

“A dark stain spreads along the edge of the tent!”

“Perhaps it is the blood of Mechem!”

At last my father said, “My humble hut is unworthy of you. Forgive me that I have no lodging fine enough to accommodate a man of so great a stature in the eyes of God.”

Noah seemed to take this at face value. “Come, girl,” he said to me.

My legs trembled, and I did not trust them to hold me.

He must have known that I did not follow. Before stepping from the tent, he turned back. His voice did not boom so greatly now. “Child,” he said, “I know what it is like to be called to an impossible task. But you must bear up righteously beneath your burden and put one foot in front of the other, over and over again, until you cannot any longer.”

What task did he speak of? Escaping the mob with my life?

Without waiting for a response from me, he turned and left the tent.

I took a deep breath and then stepped into the daylight. The mob went silent.

As though I were dawdling, Noah said, “I have a flock to tend.” I assumed the flock Noah had to tend was made up of goats. I wondered how many animals he had and whether he was wealthy. If he were, why did he ride only a donkey instead of a mule? He continued, “And I do not grow any younger.”

Once we were fully in the light of day, I thought he might not be getting much older either. I had never seen a man of so many years. His beard was so long and scraggly that I imagined he had been tugging on it for most of his life. His skin was so wrinkled
and thin, I wondered how it managed to hold his flesh and blood inside it.

If one or both of us somehow did not die, I would spend my future with this strange and ancient man. While this might be more desirable than death, I did not anticipate it with any eagerness.

This became all the more true when I saw the donkey on which I would travel across the desert. He was sitting on the ground amid a swarm of flies, chewing his tongue.

“The beast does not want the demon on his back,” someone cried out. Others joined their voices to his.

Noah poked at the ass’s belly with a stick, but the donkey did not seem to notice this any more than Noah appeared to notice the mob. I willed the animal to rise and take us away as quickly as possible. As if in answer, the ass laid his head upon the ground.

If this is one of the creatures the God of Adam has made to serve us, I think I will worship other gods.