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Authors: Rebecca Kanner
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loom and sacks of lentils into the tent. It was dark because of the morning shade of the palms. Noah banged two pieces of flint together and produced a spark much sooner than was natural. He lit a lamp.
Upon the dirt lay several jars of clay, a pot, and a large spoon. A knife lay on a piece of goat hide beside them. These were the sum of Noah’s possessions.
After taking in my new home, I squatted to look at the bottom of my tunic. It was dirty and ripped where the horde had grabbed at it.
“It is best,” Noah said.
I wanted to know why it was best that my tunic was ripped, but I feared that if I asked him, he might think I was vain, or worse, that I was questioning his wisdom. I reasoned that it was better for my tunic to be undesirable so the people would not become aggressive about stealing it from me.
“My lord, our neighbors . . .” I said. “I have never met such as them.”
His eyebrows moved toward each other. I should not have spoken ill of his flock. “At least they do not adorn themselves with finery,” he said.
I would have preferred they be decorated with jewels instead of human teeth, but I kept my thoughts to myself: something that I would learn one is more prone to at the beginning of a marriage than at the end.
Noah snorted as I took the riding blanket from him and spread it on the floor in the corner of the tent. As I waited on hands and knees for him, I prayed to his God and others. I asked that they protect the son in my belly, if there were one.
CHAPTER 8
NOAH
. . . Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age . . .
GENESIS 6:9
A s in my last days in my father’s village, I left the tent only to bring up water from the well and to relieve myself. I drank little of the date juice I made for Noah, so I sometimes managed not to leave the tent for a whole cycle of the sun around the earth.
Not a day or night passed without the sound of swords clashing, or screaming orgies of wine and flesh. These sounds were often accompanied by the conversations Noah carried on with the God of Adam as he paced inside the tent. I could sometimes make out a sentence or two of his mumbling. Usually he was hopeful:
“They are not lost to us. Your words stick in their ears, and eventually, they will hear them.”
“Little by little, my Lord, the wicked come closer to belief. They are on the very verge of fearing You.”
“It will not be long now.”
He often paused, and I suppose that was when he was listening for the God of Adam. I do not know if He responded.
Noah was able to walk only a few steps before changing direction. This was because I had asked him if I might stay within the walls of the tent in order to protect my virtue.
“God watches over your virtue,” he had replied. But he sounded slightly anxious as he said it, so I continued to stand before him with my head bowed. The silence argued better for me than I could have argued for myself. “But He can watch over it more closely if you are here in the tent,” he said. Thus, everything I needed to perform my chores had been brought inside. Surely, when the neighbors saw Noah carrying in all of our food stores and the loom, they thought he was even more mad than they had suspected.
A couple of times I even prepared meat in the tent. Flies or worms—not so unlike those that had crawled on the corpses we had seen on our journey from my father’s tent—congregated on the unusable pieces of meat, which I threw out of the door flap, and in the little pools of blood on the ground of the tent. These creatures were preferable to the ones outside; they did not hurl insults at me or wrench my tunic over my knees to peer at my woman’s parts.
Inside the tent, I also wove clothes and blankets for the people of the town, who were constantly in need of new ones. When Noah had told me that making clothes would be my primary chore—despite that we would not profit from it—he had explained, “I am leading this lost and
Upon the dirt lay several jars of clay, a pot, and a large spoon. A knife lay on a piece of goat hide beside them. These were the sum of Noah’s possessions.
After taking in my new home, I squatted to look at the bottom of my tunic. It was dirty and ripped where the horde had grabbed at it.
“It is best,” Noah said.
I wanted to know why it was best that my tunic was ripped, but I feared that if I asked him, he might think I was vain, or worse, that I was questioning his wisdom. I reasoned that it was better for my tunic to be undesirable so the people would not become aggressive about stealing it from me.
“My lord, our neighbors . . .” I said. “I have never met such as them.”
His eyebrows moved toward each other. I should not have spoken ill of his flock. “At least they do not adorn themselves with finery,” he said.
I would have preferred they be decorated with jewels instead of human teeth, but I kept my thoughts to myself: something that I would learn one is more prone to at the beginning of a marriage than at the end.
Noah snorted as I took the riding blanket from him and spread it on the floor in the corner of the tent. As I waited on hands and knees for him, I prayed to his God and others. I asked that they protect the son in my belly, if there were one.
CHAPTER 8
NOAH
. . . Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age . . .
GENESIS 6:9
A s in my last days in my father’s village, I left the tent only to bring up water from the well and to relieve myself. I drank little of the date juice I made for Noah, so I sometimes managed not to leave the tent for a whole cycle of the sun around the earth.
Not a day or night passed without the sound of swords clashing, or screaming orgies of wine and flesh. These sounds were often accompanied by the conversations Noah carried on with the God of Adam as he paced inside the tent. I could sometimes make out a sentence or two of his mumbling. Usually he was hopeful:
“They are not lost to us. Your words stick in their ears, and eventually, they will hear them.”
“Little by little, my Lord, the wicked come closer to belief. They are on the very verge of fearing You.”
“It will not be long now.”
He often paused, and I suppose that was when he was listening for the God of Adam. I do not know if He responded.
Noah was able to walk only a few steps before changing direction. This was because I had asked him if I might stay within the walls of the tent in order to protect my virtue.
“God watches over your virtue,” he had replied. But he sounded slightly anxious as he said it, so I continued to stand before him with my head bowed. The silence argued better for me than I could have argued for myself. “But He can watch over it more closely if you are here in the tent,” he said. Thus, everything I needed to perform my chores had been brought inside. Surely, when the neighbors saw Noah carrying in all of our food stores and the loom, they thought he was even more mad than they had suspected.
A couple of times I even prepared meat in the tent. Flies or worms—not so unlike those that had crawled on the corpses we had seen on our journey from my father’s tent—congregated on the unusable pieces of meat, which I threw out of the door flap, and in the little pools of blood on the ground of the tent. These creatures were preferable to the ones outside; they did not hurl insults at me or wrench my tunic over my knees to peer at my woman’s parts.
Inside the tent, I also wove clothes and blankets for the people of the town, who were constantly in need of new ones. When Noah had told me that making clothes would be my primary chore—despite that we would not profit from it—he had explained, “I am leading this lost and
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