Lamech could feel disgust for Noah, and had been able to ever since he was small. For that body and for the sickliness that kept him indoors. Those violent emotional eruptions, which weren’t related to anything at all. How angry he could get when he saw them coming, how ineffectual he was while they were in progress, how guilty he felt when they were over. As Noah himself was blameless for them, he couldn’t turn his rage on him, a small boy, that would have been pure wickedness, but instead must forget the whole thing and try to help him as best he could.
But now he was twenty years old and could help himself.
Best leave him alone, Lamech thought, and turned toward a movement he sensed outside the window. It was Barak returning from the forest. He was just going out when an impulse made him look in on Noah again. What repulsed him also had something compelling about it. Perhaps because he stood quite outside it himself. He saw it, but didn’t understand it.
Noah bent his head right down to the nodding bird, studying every bit of it, and when it stopped, he was quick to wind it up again.
It’s just a toy! he wanted to shout.
Instead he retreated into the hall, just as Milka came through the door with two pails of water in her hands.
“Are you in here?” she asked.
“I saw a man on the roof when I arrived this morning,” he said. “Who was it?”
“Tiras,” she said as she went past him. “We discovered that the rain was coming in yesterday. So I sent him up to investigate. It should be fixed now.”
“I’ll go and take a look anyway,” said Lamech, pushed his feet into his shoes, put on his hat, and went out.
In front of him, his back against one of the huge roots of the farmyard tree, sat Barak whittling away.
“What are you making?” Lamech asked.
“A bow,” said Barak.
“It’s looking good,” said Lamech, and began to walk toward the outhouse.
“Put on your old hat,” said Barak.
Lamech stopped.
“What for?”
“I want you to wear it.”
Barak nodded at his hat. Lamech took it off, turned it in his hands a couple of times. “What’s wrong with it?” he said. “It’s a good hat, isn’t it?”
He looked at Barak.
Barak looked down at the bow he was shaping.
Lamech didn’t like this. This was the way Noah had behaved when he was young. Everything had had its meaning. He’d usually done what Noah asked him, but he couldn’t do that with Barak.
There was nothing wrong with Barak.
“What rubbish, Barak,” he said. “I’ll wear what hat I like and that’s that.”
He shook his head so that his son would be left in no doubt as to what he thought of such notions, went across to the outhouse and lifted the ladder down from the wall, carried it over to the back of the house and clambered up.
He lifted off the new roof tiles, and once he’d found that the work had been done satisfactorily, he replaced them and remained standing up there for a while looking out. He spied something moving in the copse down by the river, half-hidden behind the trees, and, fixing his attention on the nearest piece of open ground he calculated it would reach, he soon discovered that it was the cows that had strayed in that direction.
The gate must be open.
Barak must have forgotten to shut it behind him, he thought, climbed down the ladder, carried it over to the outhouse and hung it back on the wall, halted at the corner of the house and looked across to the place where he’d last seen Barak. Apart from the knife and the half-finished bow, it was empty and deserted.
He’d tell him when he got back, he thought, and began to walk down toward the river. When he came to the riverbank, he cupped his hands to his mouth and sang.
“Come along, girls!” he sang. “Come along, girls!” Soon bells were clanging from in among the trees.
“Have you been away exploring?” he said when they were all gathered round him. There were few things he liked better than his cows. Their warm, dark eyes, their calm movements, their mild natures. The warmth they gave off.
“Come on,” he said, and set off up through the copse with the cows straggling at his heels. When they were all in, he closed the gate behind them and set course for the house, realized that they were still following him, turned and told them they were to stay there, which they acknowledged, for the sound of hooves on turf behind him ceased when he went on.
Halfway across the orchard he caught sight of Barak lying on the ground on the far side of the tree. He was lying on his front with his arms outstretched and his cheek to the ground. The first thing he thought was that he must have fallen the moment before he saw him. But he didn’t get up, he didn’t grasp his knee or elbow, he just lay there, still.
Lamech began to run. Through the orchard, into the farmyard, over to the tree.
“Barak,” he said as he stopped. “Have you hurt yourself?”
Barak didn’t answer, and he knelt and turned him carefully over.
His eyes were closed. A trickle of blood came from one side of his mouth. But apart from that he seemed unhurt.
And his heart was beating.
Lamech craned his head back and looked up into the crown of the tree above him.
He must have fallen from there.
Lamech placed one hand beneath his head, the other round his waist, and raised him into a sitting position. The movement caused Barak to open his eyes.
“I fell,” he said.
“Does it hurt anywhere?”
Barak shook his head faintly. Then he turned to the side and vomited. There was blood in the vomit.
“Ugh,” he said. “That hurt a little.”
Lamech stroked his hair.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll go indoors.”
He lifted him up and cradling him close carried him to the door, turned the handle with some difficulty, pushed the door open with his foot, and went in.
“There,” he said. “Not hurting?”
“No,” said Barak.
He carried him through the kitchen and into the living room.
Noah rose.
“What’s happened? Has he hurt himself?”
Lamech made no reply.
“Get an eiderdown and a pillow,” was all he said. “And we’ll lay him on the bench.”
Noah hurried out. With Barak in his arms, Lamech heard his footsteps on the floor above.
A bit more blood had run out of the corner of his mouth. Lamech wiped it with his thumb.
“You’ll soon be able to have a rest,” he said.
Noah returned, and Lamech placed Barak on the bench with the eiderdown spread over it. He thought that the blood might be coming from a bite on the lip or tongue, and asked him to open his mouth. But he saw no injury.
He pressed the boy’s chest gently.
“Does that hurt?”
“A bit.”
“That’s not too bad,” said Lamech. “You’ve only broken a rib. It’ll mend itself. Just rest now.”
And Barak closed his eyes.
“We’ll leave him in peace for a while,” Lamech said to Noah. “Go and tell your mother what’s happened, will you?”
Noah hesitated.