Forty Days: Neima's Ark, Book One
Kenaan doesn’t help much, either, as he runs up several times a day to show Shai and me his latest catch. Once it’s a pair of skittering green things that dash frantically from one side of their cage to the other, making my heart leap in a strange way. I wish he could let them out, could answer their desperate call for release—but not too near me or my cottage. Another time his cage holds a long, slithering brown snake like a coil of clay come to life. “Still have to find a female,” he says, “so let me know if you step on one.”
“Do you even know if that one’s male?” I ask, already knowing the answer. Kenaan just looks away. I think half the time, he hasn’t even managed to catch two of the same kind, much less one male and one female. He just trusts that no one will look too closely—because who would?
On the afternoon of the third day after Noah’s announcement, Kenaan tells me he’s done with reptiles, and now he’s going to trap birds. He waits till Shai is on the other side of the courtyard, eating raisins out of the jar her mother is loading, before he asks, “Want to come with me? Maybe you can sing to attract them.”
“Huh.” Kenaan knows I can’t sing, and I think his entire invitation is a joke, until he goes on:
“Please, Neima. I’m so bored, and you’re the only one who can know what I’m doing.”
I look down at my hands, red and blistered from so many trips with the cart, and then over at Mother, who is doing a poor job of pretending not to eavesdrop. “Oh, just go,” she says as she loads another sack with loaves of over-baked, nearly inedible bread. I know she’s only agreeing because she wants Kenaan for a son-in-law, but right now, I’ll take any opportunity to escape.
On the way out of the village, we run into Jorin, who narrows his eyes in exaggerated suspicion. “Let me guess”—he crosses his arms over his chest—“Noah’s finally taken things too far, so you two are running away to the woods to live together. I thought you’d at least take Shai with you.”
“Very funny,” I say, but Jorin’s looking at Kenaan—or, rather, he’s looking at the box-shaped twig traps Kenaan’s carrying.
“Are you hunting?” he asks.
“In a manner of speaking.” Kenaan smiles. “And your earlier guess is partly right as well: Noah has grown stranger still, and he’s sent us into the hills to capture all manner of birds.”
I guess Kenaan’s not so concerned with keeping our family’s secrets after all, at least not from Jorin.
Jorin frowns. “To eat, or—”
“He wants us to trap them alive and uninjured,” Kenaan jumps in. “Beyond that, I’m not sure.” So it appears he’s not willing to share all our secrets.
Jorin shrugs and then, accepting as always, breaks into a grin that reaches all the way to his eyes. “Well, I’ll come with you. I’d do anything to escape this blasted sun and my father’s endless commands. I’d even put up with your company.” He nudges my shoulder as we head further into the delicious shade of the tree cover, up the first slight slope of the hillside.
“I don’t know,” I say, “you might scare all the birds away.”
“Truly, Jorin”—Kenaan’s shoulders grow rigid, and a new edge creeps into his voice—“our task will be easier without you clomping around making noise.”
“Oh.” Jorin stops walking, his own shoulders slumping, and looks from me to Kenaan and back again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—” He shrugs again and then, without another word, turns and heads back down the hillside.
“Jorin, wait!” I call after him. He ignores me, and I turn to Kenaan, hands on my hips. “What did you do that for?”
“You didn’t really want him tagging along after us, did you?” Kenaan walks faster, so I have to hurry to catch up. “He’s like a lost little lamb.”
“Kenaan!” Yes, I’ve had the same thought, but somehow it’s different, wrong, in Kenaan’s sneering tone. He’s just out of temper, I tell myself, tired of following Noah’s every ridiculous whim, like the rest of us. And he’s taking it out on Jorin.
We walk in silence for a while, the only sounds those of buzzing insects and twigs breaking beneath our bare feet and, of course, the calling and chattering and singing of birds above us. Already I’m dreading the thought of caging even one of them, but hopefully we’ll be able to free them in a few days. I breathe in long and deep as we climb higher into the hills—the air smells of spicy pine and cedar and, best of all, it’s gloriously free of all traces of pitch.
After a few minutes more we reach a small clearing with a fallen log just the right size to seat two people. Thinking of the slinking, slithering creatures Kenaan’s brought back to the village the past few days, I inspect the log carefully before deeming it safe enough to sit, while Kenaan begins setting the traps. He arranges a complex pyramid of sticks that will fall when the bird disturbs the trigger stick—which it will surely do, thanks to the pile of writhing worms Kenaan places beneath the trigger—before he moves on to the second trap on the other side of the clearing.
“With you here,” he says, “we can carry more than one at a time.”
“Mmm,” I say, not really listening, for already a small brown bird is inching closer to the first trap, eyeing the worms inside. It’s a yellow-throated sparrow, with one bright drop of color below its throat the exact golden shade of an egg yolk, placed as precisely as if someone has dabbed it on with a brush. I have a nearly irresistible urge to frighten the bird off, so I force myself to look away, toward Kenaan. “What about the larger birds,” I ask, “the hawks and owls, cranes and swans? Will you trap them as well?”
Kenaan snorts. “If Noah wants those creatures on his ark,” he says, “he’ll have to find someone else to catch them. Or else they’ll just die out when this supposed flood—”
The snap of the sticks falling reverberates inside me, as though someone has plucked a string within the muscles of my chest, my heart. By the time I turn my head, the swallow is already hidden beneath a layer of branches, its squawk of surprise the only sign left of its presence.
“That was fast,” Kenaan says as he makes his way back to me, not even stopping to make sure the sparrow is secure in its new cage. “Let’s hope our second bird isn’t so quick, or we’ll have little time to rest.” He brushes a strand of hair off my face as he sits beside me, and when his hand lingers too long on my neck, I bristle. I’m still irritated with him for what he said about Jorin, and his fingers are hot and moist against my skin. I try to pull away, but he cups my neck in his hand and pulls me closer, until the tip of his nose nearly grazes my forehead.
“Kenaan— What are you—”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about this.” His breath hits my cheek with each word, and then he gives that strange smile of his, lips pulled higher on one side.
Once more I try to pull back, but he lowers his hand to my shoulder and holds it tight, his face moving closer still until his lips are against mine and…
“Kenaan!” I wrench away again, and this time he lets me go. “I— I’m sorry but…I don’t think of you that way.” I can’t look at him, can’t be this close to him so I stand and walk away, my eyes trained on the nearest tree trunk, my heart thumping with shock and embarrassment.
“You don’t think of me that way?” His voice twists with bitterness and, I think, astonishment. “You know we are to be married, right? You know no one else will have you, and soon you’ll have to get over this childish stubbornness and give me what I want.”
I can’t think, can’t believe this is truly happening as I hear his plodding footsteps move closer, closer, and when I whirl around to face him he’s right before me. I take one step away from him, two, three, and my shoulder blades slam into the thick trunk of the tree at my back. Kenaan’s dark eyes pierce into me, something predatory there, more animal than human, and my heart beats faster, the frantic flutter of a bird’s wings. I’ve never seen him like this before: lips parted, teeth bared, as though he’s about to bite down. Where is the boy I’ve known all my life? The boy who helps Shai wi
th her food at dinner, who picks his little sister up and twirls her around? The boy who flirts innocently with Derya at the river, and does every task his mother asks of him without complaint?
He’s angry with Noah, not with me, I chant to myself. He’s angry with Noah, not with me. But I’m the one before him now, and it’s my body he grasps with both hands, making his way roughly over my shift, squeezing my breasts so hard they throb and then moving lower to my waist, and lower still, pinching the fabric of my skirt with both hands and lifting…
My own hands are on his arms, pushing, pushing but his grip is too strong and my heartbeat is booming, not a songbird’s wings but a hawk’s, an eagle’s, and as his hand clutches the bare flesh of my thigh I kick my leg out, hard, in the direction of the bird trap.
There’s the snap of twigs again, the bird rushing upward in a flash of brown and yellow, and Kenaan is turning toward the broken trap, swearing, and I run.
He’s not coming after me, but I can’t stop. My hawk-wing heartbeat pushes my legs forward; the foolish tears pooling in my eyes turn my surroundings into a blur of green and brown. So I don’t see him till I’ve nearly collided with him:
Jorin. He reaches one hand out to steady me, and I force myself to hold still.
“Neima, are you all right?” I still can’t see clearly, and I’m not sure if his voice is concerned or only confused. “Where’s Kenaan? I saw you two, but I wasn’t sure—”
He saw? He saw what was just happening, and he did nothing to stop it?
I push his arm away and tear past him, and though he calls after me once, twice, he doesn’t follow.
***
Though I’m exhausted when I make it back to the village, I pause only to drink some water before I grab my cart for another trek to the ark. Getting straight to work seems like the best way to avoid questions and conversation, and it will provide an excuse for my sweaty, disheveled appearance. But more than that, I’m afraid of where my mind might go if I stop moving for even an instant.
I try to focus on the familiar ache of my blistered hands, my sore legs and shoulders, but a question keeps rising to the surface: Who can I tell?
Not Mother—she’d probably be thrilled at Kenaan’s apparent interest in me, at the chance to force our engagement.
Not Father—it’s improper to speak of such things to a man, and even if it wasn’t, I can’t imagine looking Father in the eye and telling him what Kenaan tried to do.
Not Arisi—between Noah’s demands and the baby, she has enough to deal with, and I wouldn’t want to worry her.
Derya? Perhaps, but I haven’t seen much of her the last few days. And she likes Kenaan so much… Should I warn her? Would he do the same to her, or is it only that he believes he and I will be married, so he has some right to—
No. I have to put it out of my mind, or I might go a bit mad myself.
I make two trips to the ark and back again, three, four, until the sun hangs low in the sky, bleeding streaks of orange and crimson into the horizon. I shovel food into my mouth without tasting it, avoiding my parents’ faces, my mother’s questions. I fall onto my pallet in the darkness, finally allowing my tight limbs to turn to liquid as I collapse, and my shoulder hits something hard. I force myself to sit up again, to reach under my pallet for the offending item: the carving I began…was it only a few days ago?
Carving useless objects out of wood is a strange, stupid, pointless habit. I grab the wooden figure by its crude shoulders and carry it into the kitchen, and then I throw it onto the smoldering fire.
Chapter Four
On the fourth day after Noah’s announcement, the animals begin to arrive.
Even before that, though, the day starts off strangely: Aunt Zeda is loading her cart with all manner of supplies Noah never mentioned, flat clay oil lamps and flasks of olive oil, woolen blankets, clay plates and bowls, extra tunics and shifts. Can she have begun to believe in Noah’s predictions? She mutters to herself as she works, shielding her cart as though the rest of us are spies or thieves. Perhaps this endless dry heat is making all of us a little crazy; it does seem to suck the moisture from our very minds, leaving our thoughts as heavy and motionless as rocks in a dry streambed. I wish the rain would come.
I do not wish Kenaan would come to Grandmother’s courtyard, but he does, greeting his mother and sister first before sidling over to me as if this is any other morning. “I might try to catch a hawk today, Cousin,” he says. “Maybe even an eagle. Would you like to accompany me?”
I won’t look at him, but I can hear the smirk in his words. “No,” I say sharply, focusing on the grain sack beneath my fingers.
“I thought not,” he mumbles under his breath as he saunters off. So this, I guess, is the closest we’ll come to acknowledging what happened yesterday—unless he finds me alone. And I won’t let that happen.
***
When I cross the river on my way to the ark, it’s not the animals I notice first, but the people. Villagers are actually clustered on the far side of the river, nearer the ark than I’ve ever seen them before. Jorin’s father Munzir, a skilled carpenter and a powerful man in our village, speaks in a low rumble I can’t quite make out and gestures wildly with his arms. The others follow his movements with their eyes, faces creased in what looks like worry or anger, looking toward—
Oh. Barred wooden cages are spread everywhere, some taller than any man in our village, and a few strange men roam among them. The traders and hunters, I guess, and I catch sight of at least four of them. How odd that they’ve all arrived at once, as though Noah really has orchestrated all this in a way beyond the power of any man. And Noah himself—he’s speaking to one of the traders, peering into a cage, pointing at a row of items spread out on a blanket on the ground.
Not just any items, though. I recognize the way the sun glints off the metal, separating the sky into golden bars and dazzling the eye, and I can’t keep from running forward despite the growing pit in my stomach. I know even before I’m close enough to see clearly that these are Father’s greatest bronze works: spears and hammers, axes and knives, strong shovels and durable jugs, cuffs and bracelets that exist for no reason other than their beauty. This is years of toil, of time and skill and sweat, laid out on the ground, and Grandfather Noah will trade all of it for wild animals in wooden cages.
A high-pitched squeal comes from one of the cages, and I turn toward it—and find myself staring straight at two lions. Two young lions, not newborns but certainly less than a year old, with eyes too large for their heads and wide, clumsy paws. I breathe out an instinctive sigh of relief, and then realize how foolish that is—they may be young, and certainly preferable to full-grown cats three times their size, but they’re still vicious beasts standing only a few paces from me, with just a measly set of wood bars to separate us.
They don’t look vicious, though, at least not at the moment. One placidly licks a paw while the other explores its cage with unsure steps. It turns and looks right at me, letting out another high, lazy yip: the sound seems to be closer to a yawn than a growl.
One of the traders notices me looking and moves closer. “Are you a member of Noah’s family?” he asks. His accent is so odd, some vowels too clipped and others too long, that it takes me a moment to decipher his words.
“Yes,” I finally answer, “I’m his granddaughter.”
The man nods, his expression serious yet strangely sedate, as though dropping off young lions before a massive ark outside a small village is an everyday occurrence. “You should be safe to enter the cage to clean it and to feed the cats,” he says. “As long as you don’t provoke them, they’re young enough to remain docile.” To prove his point, he reaches through the bars and rubs the nearest lion on the head. It doesn’t protest, but I’m still not eager to follow his lead. “Just use caution and good sense, and remember: their teeth and claws are sharp, and they grow stronger and larger with every day.” I’m becoming used to his accent, but I almost wish I didn’t understan
d his words. Especially when he adds, “The same holds true for the cheetah and lynx. The bears, though, I’d be wary of, even if they are young.”
He sees me jolt and laughs. “I take it you haven’t had a chance to look around yet? At least your grandfather asked for younger animals, where possible. It could be worse.” Sense within madness, I think. “Although,” the trader adds, “those wolves look full-grown to me.”
You’d think I could keep from jolting again, but I can’t.
The trader follows me as I weave through the scattered cages. I think my reactions to the strange animals amuse him, though if you ask me, I’m taking this all rather calmly. I’m not sure it’s really sunk in yet. In any case, the trader certainly knows more about the animals than I do, so I don’t mind his presence.
There are hyenas and jackals, two stump-legged onagers with reddish fur and black stripes straight down the center of their backs, and bizarre birds that stand on one long, stick-like leg with the other bent. They have long necks, too, that curve in one downward loop and one upward one, and beaks larger than those of any swan or crane. But strangest of all is the color of their feathers: a soft, blushing pink I’ve seen on no other animal, though it reminds me of the honey-scented flowers that grow between tree roots in the spring.
As we move closer, the birds open their great beaks and squawk; they spread wings nearly as wide as I am tall and wobble away from us until they hit the back of their cage.
“They’re skittish creatures,” the trader says, “and they’re far from home. Your grandfather will pay dearly for them.”
Two humpbacked camels, not penned in but ambling around and chewing on the grass, keep wandering perilously close to the caged flesh-eaters. At first I think they’re only the traders’ animals, until I notice Noah inspecting one of them and haggling with the nearby trader. The camel just keeps chewing; it has no idea it will soon be trapped within the walls of a wooden ark.
A bit farther off, two strange, solid-looking animals are tethered to a small juniper tree by a length of rope, though it looks like between the two of them, they could pull the tree out by its roots if they were determined enough. As I move nearer, I see that their gray skin is wrinkled and tough-looking, almost like leather, with reddish hair scattered across their heads and backs. They have wide, floppy ears and, oddest of all, each has a long, tubular protrusion where its nose or snout should be. I think these creatures are elephants, the source of the huge tusks traders occasionally bring to our village. But only one of the two has anything remotely like those tusks, and they’re short, barely peeking out from either side of its long snout. Despite the animal’s size and the weathered look of its skin, it somehow reminds me of a baby smiling, displaying its first two teeth.