“Yes, it is true,” she said proudly “Be happy for me, Aland. Ugiel is still your brother, is he not?”
Aland dropped to one knee, so that he no longer towered over her ‘Yes, we are still brothers, though we have chosen very different ways “
“And you’re sure yours is the better way?” There was scorn in Mahlah’s voice.
Aland shook his head sadly “We do not judge. The seraphim have chosen to stay close to the Presence.”
“But you’re too close to be able to see it. The nephihm have distance and objectivity.” He looked at her, and her glance wavered for a moment “Yes. Ugiel told me that”
Aland rose slowly to his full height. With one silver wing he drew her briefly to him, and she smelled starlight. Then he let her go “You will not forget us?”
“How could I forget you’ ‘ she exclaimed “You have been my friend since Yalith took me out to greet the dawn and I met you and Aanel “
“You have not greeted the dawn lately.”
“Oh—I am learning about the night “
Aland bent down and kissed the top of her dark head. Then he walked slowly across the desert. Tears fell silently onto the sand.
Mahlah looked down. When she raised her head, she saw a pelican flying up, up, to be lost among the stars.
Yalith hurried into her family tent “Mahlah is betrothed to one of the nephihm1”
No one heeded her. Her parents, brothers, and sisters-in-law were lying around on goatskins, eating, and drinking wine her father had made from the early grapes. Several stone lamps lit the tent with a warm glow; too warm, Yalith thought. Almost no breeze came through the open tent flap, or the roof hole. The moon was descending, and only stars were visible. She looked around for Japheth, her favorite brother, but did not see him. Probably he was still out looking for the brother of the young giant in her grandfather’s tent.
Her mother was stirring something in a wooden bowl, intent on what she was doing. A mammoth, well fed, with lustrous long hair on its flanks, lay sleeping at her feet.
Someone had been sick, probably Ham, who had a weak stomach, and the smell of Ham’s sickness mingled with the smell of wine, of meat from the stewpot, of the skins of the tent. Yalith was accustomed to all these odors, and noticed only that Ham was lying back on a pile of skins, looking pale. Ham was, in any event, the lightest-skinned in the family, and the smallest, having been, according to Matred, born a full moon early. Anah, his red-haired wife, knelt by him, offering him wine. Languidly he pushed it away, then pulled Anah down to him, kissing her full, sensual mouth.
Yalith went up to Matred, her mother. Repeated:
“Mahlah is betrothed.”
Matred looked up briefly. “She’s not old enough.”
“Oh, Mother, of course she is. And she is.”
“Old enough?” Matred was preoccupied with what she was doing.
“Betrothed.”
“Who is it this time?”
“It’s not one of us. It’s one of the nephilim.”
Matred shivered, but went on stirring, without focus. “Mahlah has changed. She is no longer my merry little girl who was satisfied to see a butterfly, or a drop of dew on a spider’s web. She is no longer satisfied to be with us in the home tent.” A tear dropped into the bowl.
Yalith patted her mother’s arm. “She’s grown up, Mother.”
“So have you. But you don’t go chasing about the oasis at night. You don’t run after nephihm.”
“Maybe the nephil ran after her?”
“She’s pretty enough. But it is not right for me to hear something like this at secondhand. That is not how things are done. That is not how my daughter behaves.”
“I’m sorry,” Yalith said uncomfortably. “I was walking home from Grandfather Lamech’s, and I saw them, Mahlah and a nephil. His name is Ugiel. He asked me to tell you, so that you would not be worried.”
“Worried!” Maned exclaimed- “Just don’t tell your father, that’s all. What’s to prevent this L’gh—“
“Ugiel.”
“This nephil from coming himself, with Mahlah, to tell me and your father, according to the custom.”
Yalith frowned worriedly. “He said that times are changing.” Eblis had said that, too. She felt a jolt of insecurity in the pit of her stomach. She did not tell her mother about Eblis.
Matred put down her wooden spoon with a bang. “There are many who think it an honor to be noticed by a nephil and accept their ways. Anah”—Matred looked across at her son Ham’s wife, redheaded, still luscious, but beginning to be overblown—“Anah tells me that her younger sister, Tiglah, is being singled out by a nephil for marriage. Anah is thrilled.”
“But you’re not.”
“Tiglah is not my daughter. Mahlah is.” Matred turned away. “Child, I am not star-dazzled by the nephilim. They are very different from us.”
“They are beautiful—“
“Beautiful, yes. But they will make changes, and not all changes are good.”
I don’t want things to change, Yalith thought- And then, in her mind’s eye, she saw again the young giant who had bowed to her in Grandfather Lamech’s tent, and who was unlike anybody she had ever seen.
Matred continued: “Change is, I suppose, inevitable, and sometimes it brings good things.” She looked across the tent to her oldest son, Shem, who was sitting with his wife, Elisheba, eating some of the grapes from the vineyard which were not pressed for wine but kept for the table. Shem was pulling one grape at a time from the bunch, and throwing it to Elisheba. She would catch each grape in her open mouth and they would both laugh with pleasure at this simple, sensual game. It seemed amazingly young and romantic for this stocky, solid couple. “Elisheba is a great help to me. And then, Japheth’s wife—“
Yalith looked to where a young woman with softly curling black hair against creamy skin was scouring a wooden bowl with sand. The young woman looked up and waved in greeting. Matred said, “She comes to us from another oasis, and with a strange name.”
“0-holi-bamah.” Yalith sounded it out.
“Look at her,” Matred commanded.
Yalith looked again at her sister-in-law. Oholibamah was fairer of complexion than Yalith or the other women, even fairer than Ham. Her hair and brows were blacker than the night sky, a rippling, purply black. When Ohotibamah stood, she was nearly a head taller than the other women. And beautiful. She always seemed lit by moonlight, Yalith thought. “What about her?” she asked her mother.
“Look at her, child. Look at her.”
Yalith was shocked. “You mean you think she—“
Matred shrugged slightly. “She is the youngest daughter of a very old man.” She held up the fingers of both hands. “More than ten years younger than her brothers and sisters. I love Oholibamah as though she were my own. And if Oholibamah was indeed sired by a nephil, then great good has been brought into our lives.”
Yalith looked at Oholibamah as though seeing her for the first time. After Yalith and Mahlah, Oholibamah was the youngest woman in the tent, younger by several years than Elisheba, Shem’s wife, or Anah, Ham’s wife. All three of Yalith’s brothers had married at unusually young ages, and all three had grumbled at having to take on domestic duties so soon. Shem had protested, “But we are too young to marry. I’m the oldest, and I’ve barely reached my first hundred years.”
His father had replied, “There is a certain urgency, my son.”
“Why? And how will you find wives for us when we are so young?”
“You are fine-looking men,” the patriarch assured him.
Ham had joined in. “But why the rush, Father? What is this urgency you speak of?”
The patriarch pulled at his long beard, which was beginning to show white. “Yesterday, when I was working in the vineyard, the Voice spoke to me. El told me that I must find wives for you.”
“But why?” Ham protested. “We’re young, and we need time.”
“There are changes, great changes coming,” the patriarch said.
“Is the volcano going to erupt?” Shem asked.
“If the volcano erupts,” Ham said, “wives won’t do us any good.”
Their father told them only that the word of El had come to him in the vineyard, and that El had given no explanation.
Elisheba and Anah were easily found for Shem and Ham. The patriarch had a reputation as an honest man. He had the largest and best vineyards on the oasis, and fine flocks of goats and sheep. The fame of his wine had spread to many other oases round about. Matred was a woman of unquestionable virtue and beauty, and her girth attested to her skills as a cook. It was a privilege to marry into her tent.
Japheth was young enough so that no one stepped forward. His face was still smooth and beardless. His body hair was no more than soft down. His eyes were friendly and guileless. But he was on the threshold of manhood. His father went off on his camel one day, and came back with Oholibamah.