Читать книгу Deserted - Nathan Roberts - Страница 11

Naameh sighed with relief as she entered the cool still air of her shop. She brushed the sand off her robe and unwrapped her long gray hair.

“I was up late stitching,” Naameh said as she began to sweep in the dark room. The bones in her knees chirped and her wooden foot banged against floorboards.

“We went back through the guest list I and realized we were going to need more tablecloths.” It was five days until the wedding of her youngest daughter, Mal and Naameh had been spending her days in the shop, and her evenings preparing for the wedding—cleaning the ark, sewing new tablecloths and curtains, and finishing the matching wedding robes for her five grandchildren.

Naamah checked the tall jars that lined the walls of her shop. The first jar was full of creamy giraffe’s milk. She lifted the second lid—it was empty.

“Only one jar?” Naamah tsked. “Noah wanted to finish the lattice on the fourth floor before the guests arrived.”

“Why is there only one jar of giraffe’s milk?” Naameh asked again. When no one answered. Namaah finally looked up. She was alone in the shop.

“Old lady talking to herself.” She shook her head, quietly laughing at herself, the wrinkles in her plump cheeks gathering around her eyes.

“Mal!” She knocked hard on the door that led to the cellar.

“Hold on a moment,” Mal said, running up the stairs with a basket of ostrich eggs hanging from each forearm.

“I was just saying thank you for getting the milk in.” Naameh smiled, gently brushing the sand off her daughter’s forehead.

“I should have started with the giraffes.” Mal explained, a little winded. “By the time I got the first jar the sand was blowing in every direction. I know dad wanted to finish the fourth floor.”

“You leave your father to me,” Naameh reassured her. “Now, go put those eggs down so we can open the shop. People are already lining up.”

Naameh walked to the front door and openned it a crack. A hot gust of sandy air blew in with the first customer.

“Rayah! How are you?” Naameh smiled holding her hands out expectantly. Rayah brushed the dust off as best she could before hugging Naameh.

“Well look at you, you’re just covered in sweat and sand.” Naamah tsked. Rayah and her daughter made the walk once a week from their small farm just down the road. Always with fresh-cut timber and a dozen eggs. “I wasn’t going to come in this wind, but Chalah was sick and I . . .”

“Hold that thought, deary,” Naameh cut her off. “It’s just too much to ask people to wait out there.”

Rayah furrowed her brow. “There’s a lot of people in line.”

“All the more reason. Just tell them to brush off as best they can before they get inside.”

“Grab that broom against the wall, Mal.” Naameh pointed.

After a lot of bustling, brushing, and shuffling the shop was filled with women of every age in a long line snaking along the walls of the now very hot and very sandy shop.

“Everyone okay?” Naameh looked around smiling reassuringly. There was a cheerful murmur of agreement.

Naameh focused on her first customer, “Now Rayah, you were saying your husband was not feeling well?”

“It’s his gut. He saved a flank of ibex that I told him to throw away.” Rayah looked around at the women, who knowingly nodded to each other. Naameh was tickled. She lived for these stories. “So I catch him in the middle of the night, mid-flank” Rayah mimicked her husband chewing dead-eyed. “And mind you the meat has already turned green at this point.” Rayah’s ten-year-old daughter pipes in, “And two hours later he’s—” her small body doubled over as she mimicked throwing up. The shop erupted in a chorus of laughter.

“So we need a cup of Noah’s giraffe milk in exchange for the wood.” Rayah placed the arm’s-length timber on the floor. “And one ostrich egg for these,” her daughtered added, handing Mal the basket of chicken eggs.

Mal ladeled a cup of giraffe’s milk and handed them an ostrich egg. “And give them a little extra giraffe’s milk. We want Chalah feeling better by your wedding day. Noah is roasting an ostrich and a fresh ibex!” Namaah laughed. Mal blushed and the women laughed in anticipation of the big party.

Over the four generations that Noah’s family had milked giraffes, it had come to be known as the cure-all in the valley. Anyone complaining about gut pain, headaches, sore feet, or a baby two weeks late—giraffe’s milk was the cure. It was the first suggestion out of everyone’s mouth. And Naameh’s shop was the only place to get it.

Naameh never confirmed that giraffe milk had healing properties. But she never denied it. Smiling out of the corner of her plump mouth and touching her nose, she said, “The results speak for themselves.”

Noah never interfered in Naameh’s shop. And she never commented on how big he built the ark. His one demand was that she only trade giraffe’s milk for timbers. “We can’t build the ark with egg shells,” Noah would repeat whenever the topic came up.

It was late in the afternoon by the time the last woman had left the shop. Mal sat exhausted on the large stack of wood planks.

“Just leave those for the boys to pick up in the morning,” Naameh said, wiping the sweat from her forehead. “I don’t imagine they got much work done in this wind.”

Outside the shop, the wind whipped back and forth under the gray clouds that covered the valley like a blanket. Naameh leaned on Mal’s arm as they slowly navigated the sandy path in the long shadow of the massive four-story ark that towered over the two-room mud and stick homes that dotted the now treeless valley. The ark was by far the largest structure in the valley. After visitors got over the initial shock of seeing a four-story boat in the middle of the desert, they would often comment on the smooth timbers that lined the boat’s massive hull. The first two floors of the boat were made of long smooth timbers, the last testament to the tall gopher wood trees that had once dotted the valley. But as the eye moved up the ark, the timbers became shorter and shorter, until the fourth floor was nothing more than a patchwork of arm-length wood of different shapes and colors.

They continued along the path. They walking past a pair of giraffes who were eating the last cluster of dusty green leaves off the top of a bush. The ostriches, sittting low over their few remaining eggs, squawked at them as they passed. They continued past the pig pen, past the cows and camels. A particularily cold gust of wind blew across Naameh’s cheeks and Mal stopped to stare at a patch of particularly dark clouds.

“The wind will push them right over us,” Naamah said, patting her daughter’s arm.

“It was never this cold when I was young,” Mal grimaced as she tucked her scarf tight.

“People only remember the nice weather,” Naameh assured her. “And it’s always colder in the shade.” Mal knew it was useless to argue so she let it go.

Whether it was age or the weather, Naameh couldn’t deny that her knees hurt a little more each time she made her way up the sixteen wooden steps to the small front door of the ark.

Naameh sighed as they stepped into the cool darkness of the ark. The windows in the large main room were all latched shut. She could hear Noah and her sons’ hammers pounding upstairs. She stood by the door and shoook the sand off her dress as her eyes adjusted. After a moment she saw the newly polished tables and stools Noah had finished making for the wedding. The craftsmanship was impeccable, each piece perfectly sanded, trimmed, and fitted.

The red curtains hung, nearly touching the floor. She had made them special for Mal’s wedding. Naameh ran her hands along the matching red tablecloths, which bore a bright yellow stripe down the middle. They tableclothes were still clean, despite the sand and whatever Noah was working on upstairs. She sighed, looking at the bare tables. She had five days to make three more tablecloths.

Mal sensed her anxiety. “Don’t worry, we have plenty of help to finish everything.”

They walked past the hand-carved signs on the small side rooms. They read: ibex, llama, zebra, cow. Naameh had reorganized each room to hold all the extra curtains, tablecloths, plates, cups, and candles she had collected from all the weddings, funerals, and holidays.

Naameh slowly made her way up the first set of stairs, the tap of her wooden foot lost in the hammering upstairs. A wave of frustration hit her as she opened the door to the storeroom and saw dozens of massive sacks of beans, rice, and hay scattered across the floor. Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth were nailing together a row of shelves.

Noah stopped. He looked at Naameh and then down at the mess on the floor as if seeing it for the first time, his hammer hanging guiltily by his side. “We finished the last set of tables and chairs. And then I saw those clouds roll in and I wanted to re-check the supply deck in case it rai—”

Naameh raised her eyebrow and Noah stopped. Mal came up the stairs and pointed at the shelves incredulously. “Are these shelves for the wedding?”

Noah forced a toothy smile. “There was a whole mess of chickens roosting in the bean stores. So we started cleaning them out and decided we needed more shelving.”

Naameh took a deep breath. “Well, just finish it up. We already have plenty to do.”

“How much wood did you get today?” Noah asked pointing at his dwindling stack of timbers. “I suppose people stayed home on account of the wind.”

“No one showed up.” Naameh lied casually, hoping to get a rise out of him. “And Rayah told me Chalah was sick, so I sent her home with the rest of the giraffe’s milk.”

“You didn’t!” Noah looked at her aghast. “There was a weeks worth of milk in that jar! We were gonna put up—”

“I’m just getting you, you old grouch,” Naameh laughed. “Everyone huddled into the shop.”

“And you . . .”

“And I made sure to get your wood.” Naameh rolled her eyes and started up the stairs.

“You’d give the roof away if it wasn’t nailed down,” Noah muttered to himself.

“What was that?” Naameh stopped on the stairs.

“It’s a business, is all I’m saying,” Noah said louder.

“We have a wedding in five days is all I’m saying.” She pointed at the disorganized sacks on the floor.

“We roasted up the chickens,” Noah said, eager to change the subject. “I’ll make you a plate.”

Naameh stopped on the third floor to give hugs and kisses to her five small grandchildren playing on the floor with carved wooden animals. Her knees were sore and her legs burned by the time she made it up the final set of stairs to her bedroom perched on the deck of the ship.

She sat down on her bed. Outside her bedroom window the clouds were still looming, now darker as the sun was setting. The wind didn’t seem have moved them. Naameh untied the leather straps to her wooden foot and massaged her stump. The skin was thick and calloused and her calf muscle was tight and sore.

From her bed she could see smoke rising from the cooking fires burning at the homesteads that dotted the valley. She could see the small frames of Rayah and her daughter hunched over a fire outside their one-room clay house.

She remembered being a small girl and sitting around the cooking fire, her mother reassuring her, “You’ll find somebody.” The other mothers nodded along, “Oh yes . . .” their voices overflowing with so much pity that Naameh was convinced there was absolutely no way she would ever find someone to marry her.

Naameh remembered the first time she had seen the ark. She was fourteen and had finally managed to convince her mother that she could navigate the rocky hills that seperated their valley from the ark. Naameh had stood in awe as she watched Noah’s father Lamech on a tall ladder. He was hammering long timbers onto the unfinished second story. Noah had handed her a cup of giraffe’s milk. She noticed his fingers were stained the color of the timbers.

“Why is your dad building that boat?” she asked.

“A flood,” Noah shrugged. “Someday this whole valley is gonna be underwater.” His hand panned across the hills surrounding them.

Naameh remembered trying to imagine the ark bobbing up and down on water the way sticks floated in the puddles in her garden.

“When?” she asked nervously. It had never rained enough to even cover her ankle.

Noah shrugged again. “What’s wrong with your foot?” he asked, pointing at her calloused stump. Naameh tried to stand up as straight as she could, took a deep breath, and with as much pride as she could muster she said, “I don’t have one.”