In the Shadow of the Ark by Anne Provoost Page A

like foam. One day, they escaped. Their strong will made them fly. Shortly after, she fell into her boat, and all she could do after that was blink her eye.”
    The Builder sniffed. He poked at the bones as if he hoped life would return to them. My mother lay on her stretcher, breathing deeply. She turned her eye toward my father and blinked, showing her approval of what he had done and permission to go on.
    “We do know that eating them does not help. But killing them is satisfying. They taste good and give strength. And there are so many….”
    The Builder shifted on his cushions. When he planted his fists by his sides to hold up his body, I could see his elbows trembling. The duck bones rolled off his knee onto the floor of the sedan chair and onto the ground. For a sick man who had just left his tent for the first time, his voice was strong when he said, “The animals have been counted, the numbers are very exact. You mustnot mock them. Whatever you do, whether you take revenge on an animal species or not, do not laugh at them, do not compare them to foam on the water. There will be no mockery on the ark.”
    We were not chased away that day. Possibly, it was my mother’s story that saved us. But I was struck, as if by a lightning flash, by the understanding of the secret Ham was hiding. The Builder was building an altar. There was an epilogue to the prophecy of doom: The disaster could be averted. To that end, a sacrifice was needed, a sacrifice of a magnitude never witnessed before. That was why we saw the enclosures next to the shipyard filling day after day, week after week. These were the sacrificial animals, the carriers of an ardent wish or great remorse. They would be chased onto the ship as a tribute to the Unnameable. They were the grim guests at this feast. The elect were those who made the correct offering, the most perfect animal or the most valuable kind. That was why there were so many different kinds: The Builder’s offering would be accepted above all others. I had seen it before years ago, when after yet another sudden flood, our people decided something had to be done. We pulled down the walls of our most beautiful huts and rolled up our reed mats. We filled our boats with them. We slaughtered our buffalo, the best looking, the fattest first, and put the meat on the mats. My mother offered her ducks. One by one, she chopped off their heads and carried them onto our boat in broad baskets. Our yard that had always been white with duck shit now glittered like a red lake. We carried our winter stocks on board, many jars ofrice. We dismantled the huts where the supplies were stored and brought them on board too. Then we untied the boat from the jetty and pushed it into the wetland, toward the lagoon, behind which the sea was waiting. So this was the purpose of the Builder’s ship. It was a purification, a trial by the Rrattikas’ god to test their loyalty.
    The servants lifted the Builder’s sedan chair. All that time, I had stayed unobtrusively near the fence because of the dwarf, but now that I understood why the animals were here, I sprang forward. I moved so suddenly that the sedan carriers stood aside for me. The dwarf snorted loudly through his wide nostrils.
    “Are you going to make a sacrifice?” I asked. “Is this ship the carrier of your intense prayer?”
    The Builder raised himself from the cushions. For the first time I could see all of his head, its proportion to his neck and body. The Rrattika liked to make us believe he was more than five hundred years old, but you can’t expect people who forget their birthplace as easily as their last campsite to be careful at keeping track of the years. He was old, but not as old as they said. He raised his finger at me.
    “Who are you, boy, that you ask me a question like this? Are you not the one who grooms my sons?” He did not wait for my answer. He looked away from me, raised his other hand, and immediately the servants started moving.