“I presume they sit up there drinking. It’s their last evening after all.”
“Do they?” said Barak.
Noah put the stone back on the table and turned to his brother.
“Of course they do. There are lots of things that go on that you don’t know about. Do you think Father goes to the market because he has to?”
Barak nodded.
“Well, you’re sillier than I thought, then,” said Noah.
They looked at each other for a moment. Then Barak smiled.
“Go on,” he said. “What else do they do that I don’t know about?”
“I’ve said too much already,” said Noah. “To become an adult you have to sign a solemn declaration that you’ll never give away what adults do in secret to children.”
“Ha, ha.”
“It’s true. Hang on a moment, I’ll show you. I’ve got the agreement here somewhere,” said Noah, and bent down and began to shuffle through the pile of paper under his writing table.
“No, I can’t find it at the moment,” he said, straightening up again.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Barak. “I can ask Father if it’s true tomorrow.”
“If what’s true?”
“That he goes to the market to drink.”
“No!” said Noah. “Are you mad?! You most definitely mustn’t ask about that!”
“If you’re afraid I will, you’re sillier than I thought,” said Barak.
Noah stared at his brother in surprise.
“You had me there,” he said.
Barak lowered his eyes and squirmed a little from Noah’s praise, but was still unable to prevent himself from smiling.
Noah smiled too.
“Come here and I’ll show you something,” he said.
Barak sat on his lap, picked up one of the stones.
“Can you see what it is?” Noah asked.
“It looks like a beetle,” said Barak.
Noah reached around him and lifted up the next one.
“And this?”
“A kind of leaf?”
“It looks like one,” said Noah. “But it isn’t. It only resembles a leaf. Rather like the stones over there,” he said, pointing toward the table by the wall. “They resemble the eggs next to them, d’you see? They’re almost identical, but they’re not eggs, they’re stones that look like eggs. That beetle isn’t a beetle, but a stone that looks like a beetle. And once you start looking, there are things like that everywhere. Do you remember that butterfly we saw, the one that looked like a leaf?”
Barak nodded.
“There are fish that resemble little horses,” Noah went on. “And fish that look like stones and even like plants. Not so long ago I saw an insect that looked like a twig.”
“Did you catch it?” Barak asked.
Noah shook his head.
“And one of the rocks beneath the waterfall has the same shape as a human face. Have you seen it?”
“Yes.”
“One of the beams in the attic has a face on it and there’s another in the floor of the living room. And, you must remember, they were once inside a tree. How many trees could have faces like that in them? Trees are full of pictures. Stones are full of pictures. Mountains are full of pictures. The ice in the glacier has every kind of outline in it. Then there are potatoes that look like faces and carrots that look like hands or noses. .”
He stopped. He could see from Barak’s gaze, which was fixed somewhere deep in the landscape outside the window, that he wasn’t listening. He was glad he’d discovered this for himself. On some occasions he’d worked himself up into such enthusiasm that his brother’s sudden diversions, which came sooner or later, in the form of questions about something quite different or an abrupt turning away, had made him quite cold inside, and put him in a state in which the only possible answer to his brother’s obvious lack of interest was anger. Only when it was too late was he able to reflect that his brother was only a child. That it was him his brother’s attention was directed toward, not what he was interested in. If he’d made him cry, he would be racked with remorse, and then it would be tit for tat, for Barak was proud and not too young to know the power of rejection.
Noah tousled his hair.
“Are you bored?” he asked.
Barak shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Time’s just going a bit slowly today.”
Noah smiled.
“That’s hardly surprising. I remember how I used to look forward to him coming home. But the worst thing you can do is to sit here. You must get out and do something. Before you know it, it’ll be bedtime, and when you wake up, he’ll come.”
“Well,” he said. “But what can I do?”
“Help your mother drive the cows in for instance. You can do that now. You see, they’re standing over there.”
He nodded toward the herd that had gathered on the other side of the meadow fence at the bottom of the garden. Some stood grazing, some stood staring into the garden, some kept their calves, playing by themselves over by the tree, under supervision. They drifted slowly to and fro with their placid minds. Now and then a tail was lifted and a cow pie was pressed out, now and then one would get too close to another and be forced to run a few yards, now and then they opened their jaws and bellowed.
“Are you going out tonight?” asked Barak.
“Perhaps.”
“Can I come too?”
“You know you can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you belong to the day.”
Barak turned his head to him and smiled.
“Do you belong to the night, then?”
Noah nodded. “Yes.”
“And Anna? What does she belong to?”
“A bit of both, I think,” said Noah. “But now. .”
“Yes?”
“Off with you!”
He put his hands under Barak’s arms and lifted him to his feet.
“And take your bowl with you,” he said.
A few minutes later Barak appeared in the farmyard, wearing high boots and carrying a stick in one hand. He walked down to the meadow, opened the gate, and walked out among the cows. Even though they knew the way only too well, he gave them a few smacks on the legs, and so, steered by the little boy with the big boots, the whole herd moved slowly up toward the cowshed. When they were out of sight, Noah replaced the board in front of the window, laid a fresh sheet of paper on the table in front of him, and began to write.
LIVING THINGS
FIRE
DEAD THINGS
trees/land plants/water plants
the sun
mountains/stones
insects
the stars
earth
land animals/sea animals/birds
cherubim
water/clouds/ice
human beings
lightning
air
Nephilim
conflagrations
bones/skeletons
Angels
the moon
GOD
LIVING THINGS IN THE DEAD
DEAD THINGS IN THE LIVING
stones with insects or plants
skeletons
the human face in the rock by the waterfall
eggs with shells that resemble stones
horses, etc., in the clouds
insects that resemble twigs/leaves