Read Online In the Shadow of the Ark by Anne Provoost - Free Book Online

pitch vats. Ham was waiting for me, a knife, needles, and some small bags in his hand. He carefully put them down on a piece of timber that lay across the stones like a shelf. He pulled me down and asked me to move as close to the glow of the fires as I could. He bent over me to do to me what was done to Rrattika boys when they became adults. First he thinned out my hair, cutting some of my curls close to the skull and pulling the longer hair across to cover it. Then he spread beside him the needles and the little bags, from which he shook black dyes. He asked me to close my eyes. With the needles, he made small cuts in my forehead, forming the emblem of the male.
    I did not slap his hand away when drops of blood trickled to my temples. I did not kick his needles into the fire, nor did I blow his dyes into a heap. I did not open my eyes, but I could hear him sigh with the effort. He no longer smelled of cattle, but of cassia and sweet Klamath. His breath brushed over my face. The glow of the charcoal made my limbs feel weak. He applied the dyes to the cuts, dabbing the blood with the edge of his shirt.
    When he had finished, he said, “Bathe your mother by thepond tomorrow. Cover your body with a cloak. Wipe out your memories of Canaan. Become one of us. Earn planks and nails and build your mother a shelter that is more durable than a tent. You will be highly esteemed because you have the best water.”
    I nodded in confusion. The shallow cuts on my forehead burned as if salt had been mixed into the dyes.
    “Don’t let anyone know where you obtain your water,” he continued. “Not me, not my brothers, not my father the day he is going to ask.”
    I still did not reply, I was still unable to talk after this morning’s news. I had to get used to the way events closed in on me, as if I were lost in a cave that, like a snail shell, became narrower and narrower.
    The next day, a boy bathed his crippled mother by the water. He did not scoop water from the pond, he had brought his own water, which was clearer and didn’t smell. The boy did not wear a cloak — that would have been too impractical when using that oil and that water — but a sleeveless tunic, irregular in shape so you could not see that a pair of small breasts hid under it. All attention was focused on the garment that was decorated with shells. No one here wore anything like that, not just because sleeveless garments gave poor protection against the dust and the sun, but because, so far inland, shells were too precious to be sewn onto clothes. The meticulous way the boy worked was astonishing. His fingers moved so carefully and incessantly they seemed like ants, like steadily moving workers who would go over an obstacle rather than walk around it. Amazement couldbe seen on all faces, first of all the servants’. They looked furtively at the water in my bowl, nudged one another and whispered. They stood at the edge of the pond and gaped at every one of my movements. I was using my old sponge, even though it was falling apart from frequent use. And, of course, they paid attention to my mother, her face, and the adornment, which emphasized her beauty. They only withdrew when there were calls from a distance.
    Shem, Japheth, and Ham approached, the sons of the Builder, and the bystanders made room for them, whispering. I did not have time to get up and watch them coming. Before I realized, they had walked past me and my mother. All three wore cloaks that nearly touched the ground. Dust fell out of them when they took them off. It was obvious they were brothers, they resembled one another, though the differences between them were not small. Shem had more of a paunch than his brothers, but had a narrower face. Japheth’s appearance was coarser, his lower jaw protruding as if it had been pushed out by a brutal blow. He had large hands and black furrows in his neck. Ham was much smaller and thinner than his brothers, still almost a child compared to them.
    Shem and