On the first night when it was apparent that Sandy’s fever had left him and he was weak but recuperating, Lamech suggested that they go out of the tent and sit under the stars. “Their light cannot harm your healing skin. Your skin is so fair, so fair. No wonder you had the sun fever.” He held out his hand and Sandy took it, letting the old man pull him to his feet. His legs felt weak and unused. Lamech pushed through the tent flap, holding it aside for Sandy, who had to bend over to go through. Not far from the tent was a large and ancient fig tree, too old to bear fruit any longer. One root had pulled up from the ground and formed a low seat, before it dipped down into the earth again. Lamech sat on it, and beckoned to Sandy to sit beside him.
“Look.” Lamech pointed to the sky.
Sandy had already been staggered by the glory of the night sky on his nocturnal visits to the grove which served as outhouse. He had tried to question the old man as to where he was, what planet, what galaxy. But Lamech had been bewildered. Sun, moon, and stars revolved around the oasis and the desert, put there by El for their benefit. So Sandy still had no idea where he and Dennys had ended up with their foolishness.
Now he simply looked up at the sky in awe. At home, even in winter when the air was clearest, even deep in the countryside where they lived, the stars were not like these desert stars. It seemed that he could almost see the arms of spiral galaxies moving in their great circular dance. Between the radiance of the stars, the blackness of the firmament was deeper and darker than velvet.
Except at the far horizon. “Hey.” Sandy asked. “Why is it so light over there? Is there a big city or something?”
“It is the mountain,” Lamech said.
Sandy squinted and could just make out a range of mountains against the sky, with one peak higher than the others, a long way off, much farther off than the palm tree which had led them to Japheth and Higgaion and the oasis. “A volcano?” he asked.
Lamech nodded.
“Does it erupt often?”
Lamech shrugged. “Perhaps once in every man’s life-time. It is far away. When it goes off, we do not get the fire, but we get a rain of black dust that kills our crops.”
The light tingeing the horizon was indeed so far away that it did not even dim the magnificence of the stars. Sandy asked, “Is it always this clear?”
“Except during a sandstorm. Do you have sandstorms on the other side of the mountain?” Lamech had set it in his mind that the twins came from beyond the mountains. That was as far away as he understood.
“No. We’re nowhere near a desert. Everything is green where we live, except in winter, when the trees lose their leaves and the ground has a good cover of snow.”
“Snow?”
Sandy reached down and picked up a handful of the clean white sand. “It is even whiter than this, and it is softer, and it—in winter it falls from the sky and covers the ground, and it’s called poor man’s fertilizer, and we need it to make sure we’ll have good crops in summer. Dennys and I have a big vegetable garden.”
The old man’s face brightened. “When you are better and can go out in the daylight, I will show you my garden. What do you grow in yours?”
“Oh, tomatoes and sweet corn and broccoli and brussels sprouts and carrots and onions and beans, and almost anything you want to eat. We eat what we can, and what we can’t, we can.” Then he realized that the old joke would mean nothing to Lamech. He amended, “We can some of our produce, or freeze it.”
“Can? Freeze?”
“Well, uh, putting by food that we’ve grown in the summer so that we’ll have it to eat in the winter.”
“Do you grow rice?” Lamech asked.
“No.”
“You don’t have good enough wells for it?”
“We have wells,” Sandy said, “but I don’t think we have the right kind of growing conditions for rice.” He was going to have to look up rice cultivation when they got home.
“Lentils?” Lamech pursued.
“No.”
“Dates?”
“It’s too cold where we live for palm trees.”
“I’ve never been on the other side of the mountains. It must be a very strange place.”
Sandy did not know how to correct him. “Well, where we live, it’s very different.”
The old man murmured. “You are the beginning of change. We are living in end times. It can be very lonely.”
Sandy, looking at the stars, did not hear. “Grandfather Lamech, is my brother really getting better?”
“Yes. That is what I am told.”
“Who tells you?”
“The women, when they bring the night-light.”
“Do the men never come? I haven’t seen your son.”
“It is only the women who care.” Lantech’s voice was bitter.
“Japheth—“
“Ah, Japheth. Japheth comes when he can, my youngest grandson, my dear boy.” He sighed, wearily. “When my son, my only son, was born, I predicted that he would bring us relief from our work, from the hard labor that has come upon us because of the curse upon the ground.”
Sandy felt an uncomfortable prickling. “What curse?”
“When our forebears had to leave the Garden, they were told, Accursed shall the ground be on your account. It will grow thorns and thistles for you. You shall gain your bread by the sweat of your brow.” He sighed again, then all his many wrinkles wreathed upward in a smile.
“It is as I predicted. My son has brought us relief. The vines flourish. The herds and flocks increase. But he has grown proud in his prosperity. I am lonely in my old age. I am glad that you have come.”
The mammoth came out of the tent and came to them, putting his head on Lamech’s knee. “The women keep telling me that I am welcome in my son’s tent. But I will stay here, where my son was born, where his mother died. That is no reason for my son to refuse to come see me, because I choose to remain in my own tent. He is stiff-necked. What will he do in his turn when his sons want his tent?”
“Does he want your tent?”
“I have the deepest and best wells on the oasis. I have always given him all the water he needs for his vineyards, but he complains about having to fetch it. Too bad. I will stay in my own tent.”
“Maybe,” Sandy suggested, “your son is stubborn because his father is stubborn?”
The old man smiled reluctantly. “It could be so.”
“If he doesn’t come to see you, why don’t you go see him?”
“It is too far for an old man to walk. I have given my camels and all my animals to my son. I keep only my groves and garden.” Lamech reached out and patted Sandy’s knee with his gnarled hand. “I hope you won’t be wanting to leave right away, now that you are getting well. It is pleasurable having someone to share my tent.”
Higgaion nudged the old man.
Lamech laughed. “You’re a mammoth, my dear Higgaion. And while I have deep devotion for you, I am feeling the need of a human companion, especially during my last days.”
“Your last days?” Sandy asked. “What do you mean?”
“I am not as old as my father, Methuselah, but I am older than his father, Enoch. Now, there was a strange man. my grandfather. He walked with El and then he was not. And he was younger than I. El has told me to number my days.”
Sandy felt distinctly uncomfortable. “How many numbers?”
Lamech laughed. “Dear young giant, you know that numbers are merely many or few. The voice of El said few. Few can mean one turn of the moon, or several.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Sandy said. “Grandfather Lamech. are you telling me that someone said you’re going to die?”
Lamech nodded. “El.”
“El what?”
“El. These are troubled times. Men’s hearts are turning to evil. It is good that I will be able to go quietly. My years are seven hundred and seventy and seven—“
“Hey! Wait!” Sandy said. “Nobody lives that long. Where I come from.”
Lamech pursed his lips. “We have not used our long years well.”
Suddenly the starlight seemed cold. Sandy shivered. Lamech’s fingers again touched his knee. “Don’t worry. I won’t leave you until you are all well, and reunited with your brother, and are both able to take care of yourselves and return home.”
“Home,” Sandy said wistfully, looking up at the stars. “I don’t even know where home is, from here. I’m not sure how we got here, and I’m a lot less sure about how we’re going to get home.”