survey your hold. If any animals, against your father’s orders, are having a roll in the hay, I’ll abuse them so thoroughly they’ll die of embarrassment. I’ll do this in a manner that so entertains the elect that they’ll actually hope the animals will start all over again! And I cost you nothing, just the weight I carry, and believe me, that is slight, and will only become less.”
The brothers slapped their thighs laughing. The dwarf was in the habit of pretending to live on air and water. Every time the sons had a meal, he would scream loudly as if in disgust at whatever the women had prepared. This amused the sons no end, if only because it infuriated the women so much that the less tolerant amongst them would pick up a sandal to beat the dwarf with as soon as he appeared. We all knew that as soon as the brothers had had enough, he scraped out the pots in the servants’ area, but everybody kept insisting that the dwarf was surviving without food.
While the dwarf was holding forth, I was doing Japheth’s hair, plaiting it in a checkerboard pattern. I gently tugged at tufts of hair to stimulate the circulation. But I was listening so intently that at times I forgot to go on working.
“The time will be long, an endless tedium of half sleep. I will have to remind the elect of their manhood to prevent their members shriveling before the goal is reached.”
“We’ll think about it!” the brothers shouted when his song was finished. The dwarf completed his dance and left the tent. As always, he left behind a smell of fermenting fruit. I tried to carry on plaiting quietly, but had trouble controlling my movements and not tugging too hard and hurting Japheth. Here was talk about a lifetime on the ship. The dwarf’s song was about people! He was saying things about members shriveling! Was this a form of self-sacrifice, like the gestures of atonement we had seen the Rrattika make on our journey here, in places where the sun had driven the river underground? They left men without any disability, injury, or insanity — in other words perfectly healthy men, capable of work — behind in a dry well, on occasion even on a cross. These men died slowly. They attempted by their own deaths to avert the deaths of many, and they did this because they had been chosen for it. Was this what they were planning, these uncultured wanderers, who with this structure were so intent on raising themselves above those around them? Was this ship in the wilderness an exercise in endurance, a test of fortitude, a slow starving of a group of people and animals who would, little by little, lose their strength and sink into the half sleep that precedes death, and in doing so save all those who stayed behind? Morethan once, Ham had said to me, “I will save you.” Was he going onto the ark himself? Did I want to be saved at the cost of his life? Would they one day pull up the gangplank and go and die in that gigantic cocoon, while we, the workers, the ones who had wrought this insanity, would stand around it, and hear, day after day, the sounds from inside the belly of the ship becoming weaker? Had I worked to make their skin spotless and supple, their hair clean and their fingernails shiny, only to have to watch them willfully letting it all shrivel and dry and wither in the belly of a gigantic coffin?
I must have misunderstood, it could not be possible, this must have been an old song that was about someone or something else.
But I could see in Put’s face that I had not misunderstood. He sat next to my mother, his mouth open, motionless with amazement.
I think I must have dropped the comb. Getting up, I knocked over the bowl of water. It made the dust, sand, and grit of the floor bubble up, turning it dark like skin. I left the tent, following the dwarf. He was in the adjoining servants’ area, where the leftovers of the meal had been taken. He sat bent over the pots like a vulture, unable to speak. His hands shook so hard that the
The brothers slapped their thighs laughing. The dwarf was in the habit of pretending to live on air and water. Every time the sons had a meal, he would scream loudly as if in disgust at whatever the women had prepared. This amused the sons no end, if only because it infuriated the women so much that the less tolerant amongst them would pick up a sandal to beat the dwarf with as soon as he appeared. We all knew that as soon as the brothers had had enough, he scraped out the pots in the servants’ area, but everybody kept insisting that the dwarf was surviving without food.
While the dwarf was holding forth, I was doing Japheth’s hair, plaiting it in a checkerboard pattern. I gently tugged at tufts of hair to stimulate the circulation. But I was listening so intently that at times I forgot to go on working.
“The time will be long, an endless tedium of half sleep. I will have to remind the elect of their manhood to prevent their members shriveling before the goal is reached.”
“We’ll think about it!” the brothers shouted when his song was finished. The dwarf completed his dance and left the tent. As always, he left behind a smell of fermenting fruit. I tried to carry on plaiting quietly, but had trouble controlling my movements and not tugging too hard and hurting Japheth. Here was talk about a lifetime on the ship. The dwarf’s song was about people! He was saying things about members shriveling! Was this a form of self-sacrifice, like the gestures of atonement we had seen the Rrattika make on our journey here, in places where the sun had driven the river underground? They left men without any disability, injury, or insanity — in other words perfectly healthy men, capable of work — behind in a dry well, on occasion even on a cross. These men died slowly. They attempted by their own deaths to avert the deaths of many, and they did this because they had been chosen for it. Was this what they were planning, these uncultured wanderers, who with this structure were so intent on raising themselves above those around them? Was this ship in the wilderness an exercise in endurance, a test of fortitude, a slow starving of a group of people and animals who would, little by little, lose their strength and sink into the half sleep that precedes death, and in doing so save all those who stayed behind? Morethan once, Ham had said to me, “I will save you.” Was he going onto the ark himself? Did I want to be saved at the cost of his life? Would they one day pull up the gangplank and go and die in that gigantic cocoon, while we, the workers, the ones who had wrought this insanity, would stand around it, and hear, day after day, the sounds from inside the belly of the ship becoming weaker? Had I worked to make their skin spotless and supple, their hair clean and their fingernails shiny, only to have to watch them willfully letting it all shrivel and dry and wither in the belly of a gigantic coffin?
I must have misunderstood, it could not be possible, this must have been an old song that was about someone or something else.
But I could see in Put’s face that I had not misunderstood. He sat next to my mother, his mouth open, motionless with amazement.
I think I must have dropped the comb. Getting up, I knocked over the bowl of water. It made the dust, sand, and grit of the floor bubble up, turning it dark like skin. I left the tent, following the dwarf. He was in the adjoining servants’ area, where the leftovers of the meal had been taken. He sat bent over the pots like a vulture, unable to speak. His hands shook so hard that the
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