Forty Days: Neima's Ark, Book One Read Online Free PDF Page A

she’s
grasped enough. Zeda places a hand on her daughter’s arm, but my
aunt’s fingers are trembling too much to provide much comfort. At
the far end of the table, Japheth lays a hand on Arisi’s stomach as
if to shield both her and the babe. The rest of us remain rigid,
our bodies tight and taut, as though we are withdrawing into
ourselves to escape some unseen threat.
    “ Father.” My own father
speaks slowly, deliberately. “I have done my best to be a dutiful
son, to obey and respect you in all things. But this—this I cannot
accept. You can’t bring wild animals into our village. You will
endanger our children, our homes, our entire community.”
    “ God will protect us
from—”
    I have never seen Father,
have never seen anyone interrupt Noah, but he does so now. “If I don’t stop you,” he
says, “the rest of the village will.”
    Noah does not explode in anger as I
thought he would, as he did when Japheth spoke. Perhaps he is too
caught up in his own mind, in his strange ideas, to realize just
what my father has done. “God will not allow the people of this
village to disrupt His plan,” he says.
    Across the table, Shai is
crying.
    “ Nahala,” Father says to
Mother, his voice hard, “take Neima and go home. I need to speak to
Father alone.” Only a moment passes before Ham and Japheth say the
same to their wives. We stand, leaving our untouched plates behind,
and I can’t help thinking that later, Grandmother Nemzar will have
to clean all this up.

    ***

    Outside, the sun has disappeared, but
the moon and stars shine so brightly it might still be day. I’ll
miss these clear nights, when the rainy season begins and the
clouds hang low, though I’ll welcome the drought’s end. Shai is
still sniffling, and I want to comfort her, but Zeda grabs her by
the arm and hurries off. My mother, too, walks ahead, her back
rigid with displeasure. Can she possibly still be upset about me
and Kenaan? Only Arisi and I walk slowly, taking in the open night
air, which has cooled enough to feel like bliss after the stifling,
overstuffed cottage.
    “ You know,” Arisi
says—softly, though the village is quiet now, nearly everyone
inside eating or sleeping already—“these animals Noah speaks of may
not arrive. Perhaps he is so confused that he only believes he has
procured them.”
    “ Perhaps.” I hope Arisi is
right, but with all his years here, Noah has come to know every
trader who passes through our village. Some of those traders deal
in animal skins, and furs, and even great tusks. If the traders
don’t hunt themselves, they surely know others who do. And Noah
will spare no expense to get what he believes he needs. He’ll
probably even pay with his sons’ food stores and livestock—after
we’ve loaded the ark, of course—and then we’ll all go hungry this
winter, if we aren’t mauled by wild animals first.
    That is, if Father can’t talk Noah out
of his madness.
    “ It will be all right.”
Arisi’s voice jolts me from my thoughts, and I realize we’re in
front of the small cottage she shares with Japheth. “Somehow,” she
says, “it will be all right. We have to believe that, or else how
can we keep going?”
    I think of Mother stomping ahead, of
Zeda yanking Shai away. Anger, or embarrassment, or fear of what
others will think—so many things can keep people motivated, can
drive them forward.
    But I like Arisi’s method
better.
    “ I’ll see you tomorrow,” I
say, “and hopefully we won’t be baking a year’s worth of flour into
bread we can’t keep.”
    She smiles. “Tomorrow.”
    When she’s gone, I make my steps even
slower; I’m not eager to return to our cottage and my mother. But
then I hear a voice ahead of me, breathless and
irritated:
    “ Come…back…here…you…rascal…of…a… Neima?”
    Jorin stops short, panting, but the
goat he’s chasing continues scampering through his fenced
courtyard, bleating and shaking and—well—shivering?
    “ See?” he