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.
Part Two: The Flood
And I say, “oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest;
yes, I would wander far away;
I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah
I would hurry to find a shelter
from the raging wind and tempest.”
--Psalm 55:6-8
Chapter Six
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 st
omach 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.