Read Online In the Shadow of the Ark by Anne Provoost - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anne Provoost
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along with him. After their daily labors, they waited with sluggish impatience. When they returned, they pushed back the canvas and did not request anything, but their eyes were burning.
12
A Righteous Man
A fter work I would sit down with my father. One day I noticed small pieces of charcoal lying under his feet: jet-black traces of someone who has been drawing.
“What were you doing?” I asked.
Nervously he looked away into the shrubs, and I knew that somewhere in there, there were boards with sketches of a vessel. I said, “Father, are you a righteous man?”
Surprised, he straightened his back. His eyes became clear at my question, he forgot the chaos in the quarry and out there. “I do not know if I am,” he said slowly. “But I strive to be.”
“Then go to Ham and offer your services. You have promised.”
13
A Mark in Time
M y father worked for Ham during the day and, in the evenings, built a house for four with the timber we earned. He placed the house at the end of the quarry, not far from the ash dump where he obtained the charcoal for his sketches for the ship, and far enough away from the tents and barracks not to be bothered by the constant sound of grinding hand mills. He worked fast. It was the desire to sleep in a hammock again, and no longer on the ground like cattle, that made him drive nails into timber long into the night. But every morning, long before I left for the spring, he was already at the scaffolds. Sometimes he would walk up to the red tent even before sunrise, carrying a lantern, avoiding the sleeping bodies of the workers.
What did he do there? He spoke with Ham. Parts of the ship were demolished, ribs pulled down and set up anew. He was building a genuine ship, not just some structure that looked like one. He knew of the need of ancient peoples to leave behind markers in the landscape, a stone table or a lime-filled furrow in the shape of a snake, and he felt indulgent at the thought that he was contributing to an effort to leave a mark in time. My father made the ship seaworthy without believing it wouldever sail. In this region, water was not part of one’s thoughts; if you thought of calamity, it was drought you imagined. He was realizing a dream. What he was building was a ship of ships, so perfect it would be a shame to launch it into the water. It was enough for him to know that in the future famous characters would be linked with the structure, and that in its ruins people would search for the remains of kings and children of the gods.
The woodworkers worked hard. They secured tree trunks on a frame; one man sat on top of the trunk, another below it, between them a saw that they pulled toward themselves in turn. So they cut plank after plank, day after day. They constructed slipways, lugged slabs of timber onto scaffolds, and at the end of the day whetted their saws. They barely complained at having to start all over after my father arrived; they were well fed, and that seemed to satisfy them. Perhaps they too felt they were working on something that transcended them, a timber masterpiece they would refer to forever. My father measured and made jigs. He drilled mortises and cut dovetail joints; he bent over the drawings and explained them, the pockets on his belt full of nails, and a small purse with animal claws around his neck, a talisman to prevent him being attacked by a wild beast again.
“What does Ham do inside that ship?” I asked.
“He’s dividing it.”
“Is he hot in there?”
“There isn’t a breath of wind. He’s hot in there.”
I have often wondered how it was that my father became confident much sooner than I did. The winds rushing through the shipyard did not affect him. Unlike me. The wind came up and dropped. It made tumbleweeds roll about and bent grasses. It whispered of things Ham would not tell us.
14
The Animals Come, in Ever-Growing Numbers
F or weeks, I washed and groomed Ham and his brothers. In the cave around the well, I had
12
A Righteous Man
A fter work I would sit down with my father. One day I noticed small pieces of charcoal lying under his feet: jet-black traces of someone who has been drawing.
“What were you doing?” I asked.
Nervously he looked away into the shrubs, and I knew that somewhere in there, there were boards with sketches of a vessel. I said, “Father, are you a righteous man?”
Surprised, he straightened his back. His eyes became clear at my question, he forgot the chaos in the quarry and out there. “I do not know if I am,” he said slowly. “But I strive to be.”
“Then go to Ham and offer your services. You have promised.”
13
A Mark in Time
M y father worked for Ham during the day and, in the evenings, built a house for four with the timber we earned. He placed the house at the end of the quarry, not far from the ash dump where he obtained the charcoal for his sketches for the ship, and far enough away from the tents and barracks not to be bothered by the constant sound of grinding hand mills. He worked fast. It was the desire to sleep in a hammock again, and no longer on the ground like cattle, that made him drive nails into timber long into the night. But every morning, long before I left for the spring, he was already at the scaffolds. Sometimes he would walk up to the red tent even before sunrise, carrying a lantern, avoiding the sleeping bodies of the workers.
What did he do there? He spoke with Ham. Parts of the ship were demolished, ribs pulled down and set up anew. He was building a genuine ship, not just some structure that looked like one. He knew of the need of ancient peoples to leave behind markers in the landscape, a stone table or a lime-filled furrow in the shape of a snake, and he felt indulgent at the thought that he was contributing to an effort to leave a mark in time. My father made the ship seaworthy without believing it wouldever sail. In this region, water was not part of one’s thoughts; if you thought of calamity, it was drought you imagined. He was realizing a dream. What he was building was a ship of ships, so perfect it would be a shame to launch it into the water. It was enough for him to know that in the future famous characters would be linked with the structure, and that in its ruins people would search for the remains of kings and children of the gods.
The woodworkers worked hard. They secured tree trunks on a frame; one man sat on top of the trunk, another below it, between them a saw that they pulled toward themselves in turn. So they cut plank after plank, day after day. They constructed slipways, lugged slabs of timber onto scaffolds, and at the end of the day whetted their saws. They barely complained at having to start all over after my father arrived; they were well fed, and that seemed to satisfy them. Perhaps they too felt they were working on something that transcended them, a timber masterpiece they would refer to forever. My father measured and made jigs. He drilled mortises and cut dovetail joints; he bent over the drawings and explained them, the pockets on his belt full of nails, and a small purse with animal claws around his neck, a talisman to prevent him being attacked by a wild beast again.
“What does Ham do inside that ship?” I asked.
“He’s dividing it.”
“Is he hot in there?”
“There isn’t a breath of wind. He’s hot in there.”
I have often wondered how it was that my father became confident much sooner than I did. The winds rushing through the shipyard did not affect him. Unlike me. The wind came up and dropped. It made tumbleweeds roll about and bent grasses. It whispered of things Ham would not tell us.
14
The Animals Come, in Ever-Growing Numbers
F or weeks, I washed and groomed Ham and his brothers. In the cave around the well, I had
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