In the Shadow of the Ark by Anne Provoost Page B

They straightened their shoulder cushions and hoisted the sedan chair onto their shoulders. This took them a little while, and the silence became oppressive. The old Builder stared straight ahead. The dwarf rattledthe bones at the end of his staff. The secret they hid was greater and darker than their ship.
    My father chewed nuts for my mother. If it seemed to us unreasonable to build a ship in the middle of the desert, it was just as unthinkable not to take animals that were so tame you could practically catch them with your bare hands and break their necks and pluck them. And those stores that grew and grew? People came from far and near carrying sacks and jars. The workers received part of the grain, part went to the animals, and the rest was stored; there was enough food to keep an army going. In the carpentry workshop and the pottery, work was continuous; there were more wood shavings, shards, and splinters heaped up than anywhere in the world. But why the order to make those amphoras, larger than anyone had ever seen, and so heavy they could barely be lifted? They stood in rows at the edge of the shipyard; walking past them was almost like walking through a tunnel, but if you asked what they were for, you only received an empty look in reply.
    “This Builder is not building a ship,” my father said to us. “He is building a box, an ark, a coffin.” He made drawings on leaves, on tent flaps, on planks. How to spread the weight? This Builder’s god seemed to want a living sacrifice, why else all this concern about sufficient air and light in the hold? But we had transported cattle on boats, we knew how long it took for an animal to get used to the rocking and how dangerous it would be if panic broke out in the herd. And how do you embark the animals? You don’t put grazing animals near meat eaters, because the herdwould try to get away from them and the load would shift. Wouldn’t it be simpler to slaughter the animals first?
    When I got to the red tent to groom the men that evening, I was stopped at the entrance. Two servants blocked my way. “The Builder has ordered his sons to take care of themselves,” they sneered, pointing at the pond where the goats drank.

17
Ham’s Ruse
    T he days passed. I was out of work. I hoped Ham would try to do something to meet me, but he did not. Perhaps his skin was becoming scaly, perhaps the itch was getting worse and worse, but he did not make time to let me look after him. Now that the Builder was better, the building of the ship was being hastened more and more. Japheth and his men were working on the pitch harder than ever, coating the ship on the inside as well as the outside, and the scaffolding that carried the pitch workers was larger than ever, stretching all the way up to the bowsprit. A number of workers had to be dismissed because the height made them sick. They were replaced by slaves.
    Ham was working with my father on the layout and the partitions. They bent over and made drawings in the sand. They had no need to look for shadow: They stayed in the shade of their construction. Ham complained. There was not enough space on the ship, the divisions had to be tighter. The spaces had to be taller, with more light. My father’s sketches became more and more elaborate. Ham constantly had to ask for more explanations because the wind wiped out the drawings in the sand. He threw his adze and drill to the ground.
    Two decks with a space of nine cubits between them is whatmy father designed, with wooden stairs and walkways, and with walls held together with crossbeams. A third deck had to be added. Every attempt to make the interior of the ship more convenient, with more doors and partitions, was accepted by the workers without complaint. Even more, it enthused them; they seemed to assume that a perfect ship would do greater honor to their god, and therefore they would inevitably do well because of it. But they made no connection between their work and the animals that