“Hush, Father. Don’t try to talk “
“It is … it is our last – .”
“I listen, Father. To you. To El.”
“You will do what—“
“Yes. Father. I will do what El tells me.”
“No matter . – “
“No matter how strange it seems.”
“Yalith—“
Noah’s tears flowed more freely- “Oh, Father, I don’t know.”
“Never fear.” For a moment Lamech’s voice was strong, and he sounded almost like one of the seraphim. Then the strength faded, and he spoke in a thin whisper. “El will take care of …”
“Father. Father. Don’t go.”
“Don’t hold me back, my son … my son …”
Noah’s tears fell like rain.
“Our dear twins—“
“What, Father?”
The old man gasped, and then smiled a surprised smile of joy, so radiant that it seemed to light the darkened tent.
Had lightning flashed to make the smile visible?
“Father!” Noah cried. And then, “Father!” And then his sobs broke like waves across the dry sands of the desert.
The stars did not sing. The sky was silent. Higgaion sat up, ears alert. Dennys raised his head, and it seemed that the stars were holding their light.
And suddenly the bright presence of a seraphim stood before him, and the starlight again fell onto his upturned face.
Japheth and Oholibamah held vigil for Grandfather Lamech in their own way. They went to the desert, to their particular resting rock, and sat quietly, holding hands.
At last Japheth spoke: “Thank El that my father and grandfather are reconciled. It would be much harder to bear this if—“
Oholibamah smiled. “Two stubborn old men. Yes, it is better this way. We have the Den to thank for this.”
“It was a happy day when I first found them in the desert, our young giants. They have taken good care of Grandfather.”
Oholibamah sighed. “We are going to miss him. Yalith, especially; she was the closest to him of us all.”
“True.” Japheth cradled her dark head with his hand. “But Father says it is best that death has come to get him now. He is too old and frail to stand the trip.”
“What trip?” Oholibamah asked.
Japheth’s eyes were darkly unhappy. “Oh, my dear one, it is what I promised to tell you. Father says that El has told him strange things. And that he has been given very specific instructions.”
“What instructions?”
Japheth sounded uncomfortable- “Oh, my wife, it is very strange indeed. El has told my father to build a boat, an ark.”
Oholibamah, who had been leaning against her husband, sat up abruptly. “An ark? In the middle of the desert?”
“I said it was strange.”
“Could he have made a mistake?”
“El?”
“Not El. Your father. Could he have misunderstood what El was telling him?”
Japheth shook his head. “He sounded very certain. He said that El had also told Grandfather Lamech the things which are to come.”
“An ark.” Oholibamah’s dark brows drew together. “An ark, in a desert land. It makes no sense. Has your father told the others?”
“Not yet.” Japheth pulled Oholibamah back against him. “He says they will laugh.”
“They will,” Oholibamah agreed. But she did not laugh.
“I have never seen him more serious,” Japheth said.
“What’s the ark to be built of?” Oholibamah asked.
“Gopher wood. At least we have plenty of that. And then he is to put pitch inside and outside to make it watertight.”
“From what water?” Japheth was silent. She turned so that she could look at him. “This does not sound like your father.”
Japheth spoke in a low voice. “Nor does it sound like El.”
Oholibamah stroked his face. “We do not know what El does or does not sound like. El is a great mystery.”
Japheth laughed. “So is a big boat in the desert.”
“How big?” Oholibamah asked.
Japheth flung out his hands. “Three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.”
Oholibamah asked curiously, “El gave these precise measurements?”
“According to Father.”
“I don’t understand,” Oholibamah said. “I wish you’d had a chance to talk to Grandfather.”
Japheth shook his head, wiping the tears from his eyes.
“And our twins.” Oholibamah said. “What will happen to our twins now?”
“It is possible they might go on taking care of Grandfather’s garden and groves. But I’m not sure. Grandfather’s death is the beginning of a big change.”
Oholibamah nodded. “There are dissonances in the song of the stars.”
“Have you heard it?” Japheth asked.
Oholibamah nodded. “The song has changed. Yes, I have heard it. But why should Grandfather Lamech’s death be the beginning of change? He is a very old man.”
Japheth agreed. “It is not at all strange that he should die.”
Oholibamah mused, “Perhaps it is strange that Grandfather Lamech should die just as El gives extraordinary commands to Lamech’s son.”
“Oh, my beloved,” Japheth said. “You are wise. Sometimes I wish you were not quite so wise.”
They twined their arms about each other. Japheth put his lips against hers, and they took comfort in their love.
When it became apparent that Sandy had not returned to Lamech’s tent, nor had he stayed in Noah’s, there was great consternation.
Noah’s sons and their wives had come with Matred across the desert, and stood sadly outside Grandfather Lamech’s tent.
“We haven’t seen him,” Japheth said anxiously to his father. “We thought he was following you.”
Yalith reached for her brother. “We were so busy with our grief, we didn’t even think . . -“
Noah pulled at his beard. “He said he would follow me.”
Ham said, not unkindly, “Whatever’s happened, we can’t look for him now, not with the morning sun rising.”
Shem explained to Dennys, “In our country, in this heat, the dead must be buried quickly.”
Dennys tried to hide his panic at Sandy’s inexplicable absence. Sandy was reliable. If there was a reason for his not having followed Noah to Grandfather Lamech’s tent, he would somehow or other send word.
How? There were no telephones. But wouldn’t he have tried to find one of the seraphim? He wouldn’t just have gone off somewhere, without telling anybody.
Matred put a motherly arm about Dennys. “Now we must anoint Grandfather Lamech’s body and prepare it for burial at sundown. Then we will leave our grief and look for the Sand. There is some reasonable explanation for his absence, I’m sure.”
Anah suggested, “Perhaps he’s somewhere with my sister. I think they’re very taken with each other.”
Dennys shook his head. He did not believe it. Sandy would not go off with Tiglah, knowing that Grandfather Lamech was dying.
Yalith slipped her hand into his and squeezed it comfortingly. She kissed him lightly on the cheek, like a butterfly, and then went with her mother and the other women into the tent. The men stayed outside while Lamech’s body was rubbed with oil and spices and wrapped in clean white skins.
The sun rose high in the sky, beat down on them with the fierceness of a brass gong.
Japheth said, “Do not even think of going off to look for him in this heat. Den. The sun would strike you down, and that would not help your brother.”
Had it not been for Japheth, Dennys would have put on one of Matred’s woven hats and gone to look for Sandy. But Dennys knew that Japheth was right.
“Surely he’s somewhere in the shade,” Shem said. The palm grove where they were sitting shielded them with its dense shade. “Don’t worry. Den. The Sand is a sensible lad.”
“Yes, but—“ Dennys started. And stopped himself. The people of Noah’s tenthold were grieving for Lamech. Higgaion was in the tent with the women and the old men, and Dennys knew that it was irrational of him to feel abandoned by the mammoth. He was, after all, Lamech’s mammoth.
The tent flap was pushed open slightly and Higgaion trudged out, and toward Dennys, raising his trunk in sorrowful greeting and asking to be picked up, much as a small child will raise its arms to be lifted.
Dennys gathered up the little creature and held it against him, letting his tears drop onto the mammoth’s shaggy head.
At sunset, Noah and his sons carried Grandfather Lamech’s body to a shallow cave not far across the desert. The women followed. Dennys stood between Yalith and Oholibamah, as Noah and Shem, Ham and Japheth dug a grave in the sand just inside the cave. Dennys had offered to help with the difficult digging, not only out of love for the old man, but also to take his mind off his near-terror over Sandy.
Noah told him, gently, that it was the custom that only the sons should do this final art of love, but that Dennys should stay with the women and the sons-in-law, because he had become a child of the family.
The sun slid below the horizon. The sky was a deep crimson. As the sun vanished, there was a faint glow on the far horizon, and the young moon began to peer over the edge of the planet. The moon’s diamond crescent seemed strangely subdued as it rose, and Dennys, standing to one side, thought that he could hear a soft and mournful dirge. A star trembled into being, then another, and another.