Cain (18 page)

God was not
there for the launch. He was busy examining
the planet's hydraulic system, checking the state of the
valves, tightening the odd loose screw that was dripping
where it shouldn't, testing the various local distribution
networks, keeping an eye on the manometers, as well as
dealing with tens of myriads of other tasks, large and small,
each of them more important than the last, and which
only he, as creator, engineer and administrator of the
universal mechanisms, was in a position to carry out and
to which only he could give the sacred ok. Parties were for
other people, he had work to do. At such times, he felt less
like a god and more like the foreman of the worker angels,
who, at that precise moment, were waiting in their immaculately
white overalls, one hundred and fifty on the starboard of the ark and one
hundred and fifty on the port
side,
for the order to lift the enormous vessel, but we could
not say that an order rang out, because no voice would be
heard, for this operation is all in the mind, in one mind,
as if only one man with a single brain and a single will
were thinking it. One moment the ark was on the ground,
the next it had been lifted chest-high by the worker angels,
as if they were
performing an exercise with weights and
dumb-bells.
Noah and his family leaned excitedly out of
the window the better to appreciate the spectacle, at the
risk, thought cain, of one of them falling out. One last
push and the ark was suddenly raised into the upper air.
It was then that noah shouted, The unicorn, the unicorn.
And indeed, galloping alongside the ark was that creature
without equal in zoology, with its spiral horn, its dazzling
white coat, like an angel, that mythical horse whose existence
so many had doubted, and there it was, almost within
their grasp, all they had to do was lower the ark, open
the door and lure it in with a lump of sugar, which is the
favourite treat of all equines, and can be their perdition.
Suddenly, the unicorn disappeared as quickly as it had
appeared. Noah's cries of, Go down, go down, were all in
vain. Manoeuvring the ark earthwards again would have
been very complicated logistically, and what was the point
if the unicorn had vanished and would now be wandering
who knows where. Meanwhile, at a far greater speed than
that of the hindenburg airship, the ark was cutting through
the air, heading for the sea, where, when the water was
deemed deep enough, it finally landed, creating a huge
wave as it did so, a real tsunami, that raced up the beaches,
destroying the boats and huts of fishermen, drowning quite
a few and ruining the local fishing industry, like a warning
of things to come. The lord, however, did not change his
mind, his calculations might be wrong, but as long as no
one else had checked them, he still had the benefit of the
doubt. Inside the ark, noah's family was giving thanks to
god, and to celebrate the success of the operation and
show their gratitude, they sacrificed a lamb to the lord,
who was delighted, as is only natural, given where the lamb
had come from. The lord was right, noah had been an
excellent choice as father of the new human race, for as
the only just and honest person of his day, he would correct
the errors of the past and drive iniquity from the earth.
And the angels, where are the worker angels, asked cain
suddenly. They were not there. Having carried out the
lord's commands so perfectly and completely, those diligent
workers, with characteristic simplicity, as we saw on
the very first day we met them, had returned to barracks
with no expectation of any medals being handed out. It is
as well to remember that the ark has neither rudder nor
sail, it has no motor, you can't wind it up, and resorting
to oars would be simply unthinkable, not even the strength
of all the worker angels in heaven would be capable of
such a feat. It will move, therefore, at the whim of the
currents, it will be pushed by the winds that blow the belly
of the ship along, there will be very little sailing skill
involved and the journey will be one long rest, apart from
bouts of amatory activity, which will be neither few and
far between nor brief, and to which cain's contribution, as
far as we can ascertain, has been exemplary. Just ask noah's
daughters-in-law, who have frequently left their beds in
the middle of the night, where they have been lying with
their husbands, in order to go and cover themselves, not
just with the blanket covering cain, but with his young,
experienced body.

After seven days
had passed, seven being a kabbalistic
number
par excellence, the floodgates of heaven opened.
The rain will fall unceasingly upon the earth for forty days
and forty nights. At first, the cataracts falling
continuously
from the sky with a deafening roar
appeared to make little
difference.
That was only natural, the force of gravity
guided the torrents into the sea, into which they appeared
to vanish, but it was not long before the fountains of the
ocean deeps overflowed too and the water began to rise to
the surface in gushes and spouts as high as mountains that
came and went, merging with the vastness of the sea. In
the midst of these wild aquatic convulsions that seemed
bent on swallowing everything, the boat managed to
survive, bobbing about like a cork, always righting itself
at the last moment, just when the sea seemed about to
gulp it down. After one hundred and fifty days, once the
fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens
had closed, the water, which had covered even the highest
of mountains, began slowly to subside. Meanwhile, though,
one of noah's daughters-in-law, ham's wife, had died in an
accident. Contrary to what we said or implied earlier, there
was a great need for manpower on board, not sailors, it's
true, but cleaners. Hundreds, not to say thousands, of
animals, many of them very large indeed, were crammed
into the hold, shitting and peeing for all they were worth.
Cleaning this up, shovelling tons of excrement into buckets
every day was a terrible burden for the four women, both
physically, because they were totally exhausted, poor things,
but also sensorially, with the unbearable stink of shit and
urine that seemed to penetrate their very skin. On one of
those days of tumultuous tempests, with the ark being
shaken by the storm and the animals trampling each other,
ham's wife slipped on the filthy deck and ended up beneath
the feet of an elephant. The others threw her into the sea
just as they found her, all bloody and smeared with excrement,
like a miserable bit of human detritus without
honour or dignity. Why didn't you clean her up first, asked
cain, and noah replied, There'll be water enough in the sea
to wash her clean. From that moment on and until the
end of the story, cain would feel a deep-seated loathing
for noah. They say that there is no effect without cause
and no cause without effect, and that would seem to indicate
that the relationship between the two things should,
at every moment, be not only obvious but graspable in
every aspect, whether consequent or subsequent. We would
not, however, go so far as to suggest that the change in
attitude of noah's wife should also be included in this
general picture. She may simply have thought that, with
ham's wife gone, another should take her place, not in
order to keep the widower company on his now solitary
nights, but to recover the harmony enjoyed before among
the younger females of the family and their guest cain, or,
put more plainly, given that he had been used to having
three women at his disposal, there was no reason why he
should not continue to do so. Little did she know that the
ideas going round and round in cain's head made this
matter an entirely secondary one. Nevertheless, since one
thing does not necessarily exclude the other, cain was
sympathetic to her advances, You may not believe it, she
said, but despite my age, because I'm not exactly in the
first flower of youth, and despite having borne three children,
I still feel that I'm a desirable woman, what do you
think, cain. It had stopped raining a long time ago, the
great mass of water was now busily macerating the dead
and pushing them gently, with its eternal rocking, into the
mouths of the fish. Cain had gone to look out of the
window to watch the sea shining in the moonlight, he had
thought briefly about lilith and his son enoch, both of
them now dead, but in a somewhat distracted manner, as
if he didn't really care, and it was then that he heard that
whispered voice beside him, You may not believe it. They
went from there, he and she, into the cubicle where cain
slept, they didn't even wait for noah, who was already lying
in the arms of morpheus, to depart this world, and when
they had finished, cain had to acknowledge that the woman
had been right in her view of herself, she did still have
plenty of go in her and, at certain moments, revealed an
acrobatic quality that the other women did not, either
through a lack of natural vocation, or because they were
inhibited by their respective husbands' more traditional
approach. And on the subject of husbands, we should
mention that ham was the second person to disappear. He
had gone up on deck to adjust some planks that were
keeping him awake with their creaking, when someone
came up to him, Can you give me a hand, ham asked, Yes,
came the reply, and ham was hurled into the sea, a fall of
some fifty feet, which, although it seemed interminable,
was soon over. Noah blustered and raged, saying that after
all that time on the boat, only an unforgivable lapse of
attention could explain such an occurrence, Keep your eyes
open, he said, watch where you're putting your feet, and
he went on, We have lost one couple, which means we're
going to have to copulate even more if we are to do god's
will and become the fathers and mothers of the new human
race. He broke off for a moment and, turning to his two
remaining daughters-in-law, asked, Is either of you pregnant.
One said yes, she was, the other that she wasn't yet
sure, And who is the father, Well, I think it's cain, said
japheth's wife, I do too, said shem's wife, Goodness me,
said noah, if your husbands don't have the necessary generative
power, then you had better just lie with cain, which
is, in fact, what I foresaw would happen from the start.
For reasons best known to themselves, the women, noah's
wife included, smiled, while the men, who were most
displeased by this public dressing-down, promised to try
harder in future. It's odd how lightly people speak about the
future, as if they held it in their hand, as if it was in
their
power to push it further off or
bring it nearer in accordance with the needs and expediencies of the moment.
Japheth, for example, sees the future as a succession of
fruitful copulations, one child a year, a few twins now and
then, with the lord gazing fondly down upon him, a lot
of sheep, a lot of yokes of oxen, in short, happiness. The
poor man does not know that his end is nigh, that he will
be tripped up and thrown into the void with no life jacket
on, gesticulating wildly and crying out in an agony of futile
despair as the ark proceeds majestically on to meet its
destiny. The loss of yet another crew member caused noah
indescribable distress, the realisation of the lord's plan
was
at grave risk, and, given the
situation, they would have to
double
or even triple the time needed to achieve a reasonable repopulation of the
earth. Cain's collaboration was
becoming
ever more important, which is why noah, since
cain seemed unwilling to make the first move, decided to
have a man-to-man talk with him, Enough of this beating
about the bush, enough mincing of words, he said, from
now on it's whenever and however, all these worries will
be the death of me, and I can't be of much help for the
moment, Whenever and however, repeated cain, what does
that mean, Yes, and whoever too, answered noah, giving
cain a knowing wink, Including your wife, asked cain, Yes,
I insist on it, she's my wife and I can do with her as I
wish,
Especially since it's in a good cause,
said cain, A sacred
cause,
the lord's cause, agreed noah in appropriately solemn
tones, Well, in that case, let's start right away, said cain,
send her to the cubicle where I sleep and tell the others
not to disturb us, regardless of what happens or what
noises you may hear, Certainly, and may the lord's will be
done, Amen to that. Now some might think that mischievous
cain was enjoying the situation, playing cat and mouse
with his innocent companions, whom, as you will already
have suspected, he has been eliminating one by one. They
would be quite wrong. Cain is wrestling with his anger
against the lord, as if he were caught in the tentacles of an
octopus, and his latest victims are, as was abel in the past,
merely further attempts on his part to kill god. His next
victim will be noah's wife, who, quite undeservedly, will
pay with her life for the hours of pleasure spent in the
arms of her future assassin, and with the blessing and
connivance of her own husband too, such was the dissolute
nature of this race of humans whose final days we are
witnessing. After repeated displays, with a few more or less
subtle variations, of various wild, erotic deliriums, mainly
on the part of the woman, and which found expression,
as usual, in murmurs, moans and, finally, uncontrollable
screams, cain led her by the hand to the window to enjoy
the cool night air, and there he placed his hands between
her still trembling thighs and heaved her into the sea. The
only remaining members of noah's family of eight were
the patriarch himself, his son shem and his wife and
japheth's widow. Two women should still be enough,
thought noah with his unfailing optimism and his unshakeable
trust in the lord. However, he couldn't conceal his
bewilderment at his wife's inexplicable disappearance and
he said as much to cain, She was in your care, I just can't
understand how such a misfortune could have happened,
to which cain responded with a question, Was I your wife's
keeper, did I have her tethered to me by the ankle with a
rope, as if she were a sheep, No, no, I don't mean that, said
noah, retreating slightly, but she was sleeping with you,
and you might have noticed something, Yes, but I sleep
very deeply. The conversation went no further, and it was
true that cain could hardly be held responsible for the fact
that noah's wife got up in the dark and went outside for a