Eve (17 page)

“What are you doing?” I cried. I half-thought she was crazy from the sickness, but no, she looked at me as calmly as could be and said, “Praying for my baby.”

I knew no answer except one. Now, I did not claim to know Elohim better than Mother, for she actually had seen Him in person, but I did know that He was a jealous God, and I did not think He would glory in Mother’s worship of someone else.

I pointed to the hideous stone woman. “How strong is she?” I demanded. “She’s made of stone. She can’t see you or hear you. Oh, what have you done to us? He’s everywhere, all at once, and He will know what you’ve done! You
know
this—” I pulled on her arm, and she went reluctantly with me over to her reed mat and lay down, positioning her head so that she was comfortable. “Talk to Him. Tell Him you’re sorry, that you’ll never do it again,” I said. When she didn’t respond, I grabbed her cheeks and pinched them between my fingers. “Now! Talk to Him now!”

Mother laughed at me. It was the first time she had ever done so, and it was laughter intended to hurt, as Naava’s always was. The sound trickled
through the air and landed upon my ears, slowly and painfully. Her eyes were twisted in a purple derision, and her fury scorched a ring around me. “Oh, Aya, are you blind and deaf too? You have inquired of Elohim, have you not, about your foot? I see your lips move while you’re down on your knees, grinding corn or shelling lobsters. I am not so dumb as you think.” She pulled my fingers from her face. “Has Elohim answered your prayer? Does He hear you? Because I don’t hear Him anymore. He has long since deserted me.” She turned her head away, and her voice shriveled up like a dried plum. “Do not speak of what you do not know.”

For a brief moment, I stood, paralyzed. My own mother had uttered blasphemous thoughts, and I knew there was no remedy, nothing in my overflowing storage room of medicines that could fix this disastrous mistake.

There was only one thing to be done.

I sang a song to Mother, one I made up on the spur of the moment, about the sweet peace and delicious happiness of the Garden, where the grass was tinged with dew and the river bubbled softly. I included a verse about her beloved waterfall, and soon she fell asleep, her face and limbs gone slack with forgetfulness. Without delay I snatched Mother’s stone woman, her Ugly Beast, stuffed it in a carrying sling, and ran out to the river, out to Cain’s date palms. My bad leg ached, and my breath seized up, but I kept running until I had arrived at the foot of one of Cain’s regal giants. I shinnied up its trunk, careful to avoid the prickly thorns, and sat there on top of the world. Indeed, I could see beyond the house to the east, beyond the river to the west. Everywhere, plants and trees and people had shrunk to half their size, and I was once again Aya the Bird who knew that Elohim had seen her and listened to her and invited her to soar with Him over the desert plains. I caught my breath.

I looked around until I found a scarred hole where beetles had long ago burrowed into the tree. It was here I buried Ugly Beast, a shiny white talisman, defenseless against Aya the Asp Killer, Aya the Lucifer Killer. No one would ever find her up here.

Something of this nature and significance required a small ceremony, much like Mother’s babies did—Daniel and Micayla and Miriam—and I gladly thought up something to say. “Ugly Beast,” I said. “May your head
fall off, and your breasts drip dry. May you choke on your tongue and swallow your lies. Amen.”

I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled out,
“Elohim, if You can hear me, give me a new foot, so that I can run away from here, back to the Garden, where there is peace and happiness. Let me not be ashamed that I have defended You and protected Your name.

“Do You hear me, Elohim?

“Elohim?”

Cain’s gods had become a wedge between myself and Adam.
I feared Cain was right. It made perfect sense to me that the world was too big for Elohim to care for it all at once. How could
one
being hold the entire world in His hand and do a worthy job of it? I had offered many lip prayers to Elohim, but He had covered himself in a cloud so that no prayers could penetrate. Days passed, and I grasped at the fading mystery of the Garden and its Creator.

And then.

Cain told me provocative stories of how the gods existed first and how they grew tired of working the land, so they created man to do it for them. “Mother, it makes sense. Whatever you need, whatever you want, you pray to
that
god or goddess for help. If you need rain, Enlil, Lord of the Air, will do your bidding. If I am being tormented by field mice and vermin, I need only to call on Ninkilim. If a bountiful harvest is what I want, I need only to invoke the name of Ki, Mother of the Earth. See? It’s really very simple.”

I reminded Cain of how Elohim had made the world by His breath and His hands.

“Are you sure, Mother?” he said. “Did you not see any other beings in the Garden?”

“Well, there was Lucifer,” I said.

“Maybe there were more,” he said. “But they were busy.”

It was a possibility I could not shake, despite Adam’s insistence that Cain was digging a hole for himself.

It was Cain’s determination that eventually won me over. He had begun constructing a small temple of his own, out of clay bricks, in the narrow space between the house and Adam’s orchard. Adam was none too pleased with this arrangement and told Cain he was washing his hands of him. Cain had lost much sleep, and his eyes had grown red with weariness. In truth, the building was merely one small room, but if it pleased the gods it would be a sweet tribute to them, and Cain would be blessed, which was what he desired.

Enthusiasm always comes with its twin, bullheadedness, and Cain certainly had both. He explained the city’s religious rituals—now his—to any family member who would listen, and Abel, especially, had grown angry. Abel was a loyal follower of Elohim, bless his heart. After all, Abel had clung to the stories I’d told him from when he was a baby, and he insisted that Elohim spoke to him almost daily. Aya, too, said similar things, and I wondered,
Why does He not talk to me?

Cain had always smothered the thing he loved the most, and this he did then, with his towering bricks and prattling mouth. He asked Dara to form little people out of clay, all with folded hands perched in front of them. I heard his explanation to her: “Two times a day they offer up meat and bread and wine to their gods.” Here, he became distracted. “They take these statues—like the ones you’re making—to a temple much bigger than mine, and their statues pray for them, all through the day. Remarkable, don’t you think? It’s efficient and smart.” He said something then that I was unfamiliar with, and I realized, stunned, that he was attempting to speak the city people’s tongue. The click of his tongue, the rasp of his words—all sounded like the gibberish of the city women who had come to visit. I said nothing then, because I was so shocked at the ease of his transformation. He was like a grasshopper; he could not sit still.

Dara nodded. She did not yet side with Elohim
or
these other gods. Her face was bunched, like a flower before its petals have opened. With chubby fingers, she formed small balls, and out of these, she formed heads
and legs and bodies with crooked arms. She took a stick, and with its sharp end she traced lines in their clay hands to make tiny praying fingers.

Behold Cain, my son who loved everything stripped down to the essentials—here is the cause; here is the effect.

Dara was simply happy in the knowledge that she was pleasing her big brother.

Although I had not yet visited the city, I knew the allure of it was great, for Cain, for Adam.

For me.

When I was feverish and sick and Aya came rushing in on me like that, smug as a tick, I was embarrassed and startled. I thought she had gone out to collect dung. It was a test, really. To see if the alabaster goddess could help me, help my baby live through my sickness. I was weary of burying. I was tired of crying.

I reacted harshly, I know this now. I said cruel things to her, my little bird. I could not help myself. When she caught me at it, the panic and fluttering in my chest would not subside, and I was grateful that Aya sang me to sleep finally.

Slowly I slipped away, and dreamed—of Eden and of Lucifer.

The first time he appeared to me in the Garden was when Adam went off for a day, to see where the river would take him, and I was too lethargic to go. Adam had been gone only moments when suddenly there was this beautiful creature, pleasing to look at, standing right before me. He was like Adam but more radiant, more tempting—cloaked in the colors of the ruby, the diamond, the beryl, the jasper, the onyx, the lapis lazuli, the emerald, the turquoise, and the topaz. Lines of gold rippled where each hue melded into the next. He was flowing and smooth and sensual.

“Greetings,” he said in a low voice.

I stood up, for I had been kneeling in the dirt, studying an insect that looked exactly like a leaf. I brushed off my hands and felt myself grow warm all over, as the time Elohim had made fire. “Hello,” I said. “Who are you?”
How many creatures like Adam and me had Elohim made? Why hadn’t we known there were others?

“I am Lucifer, star of the morning,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you. Elohim has been quite secretive about this little project of His. He’s been in such a good humor lately that I had to come see what all the fuss was about.”

“You came from … ?” I pointed to the sky and the day-squelched stars, then tentatively to the other end of the Garden. “Are there others of you?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. He slithered closer—for that is how it seemed—and reached out to stroke my cheek. He looked me up and down, his gaze raking my skin. “Nicely done.” He smiled.

Up to that moment, I had never felt so exposed.

“I’ll give Him credit for that,” he said.

Again, I felt warm all over. He made me tremble, not unlike how I felt the first time I met Adam. “Where are the rest of you?” I said.

He moved even closer, close enough so I could smell the desire on his breath. “Oh, nearby,” he said. “We’re very curious about you.”

I did not move. It was as though I was commanded by some force other than myself to stay, to linger precisely in that spot. It was not an unpleasant sensation.

Lucifer kissed me tenderly on the lips, and I felt my limbs go weak. I felt the flicker of his tongue upon my cheek, then, “Is it true?” he said. “Did Elohim really say you couldn’t eat of any of the trees?” He pulled back and clasped my fingers in his. “Did He?”

The brief distance between us seemed to clear my befuddled mind, if only for a moment. “Oh, no,” I cried. “We’ve tried them all, and they’re delicious. Here, let me show you.” I reached to pluck a lychee for him, but he pulled me back into his embrace.

“Really?” There was a hint of scorn in his voice. “Of
all
the trees?”

“Well, no,” I said. “Not from that one. We are not even to touch it.”

Lucifer smiled then, a smile that made me doubt everything I had seen of him up to that point. “Watch,” he said. He released my hands and walked toward the tree.

“Stop,” I cried. “You shall surely die.” My words grew softer because, indeed, Lucifer was already next to the tree and had his hands upon the bark. “Please,” I said. “Elohim will be angry.”

Lucifer shook the tree so hard that the trunk groaned and the branches swayed and the fronds clapped their hands. Several of the luscious fruits fell to the ground with
a plop.
They split open, spilling their seeds and flesh out upon the ground, their aroma wafting toward me on the humid air. He looked back at me, over his shoulder, as if he expected me to say something. When I didn’t, he made a great show of examining his hands and his body and said, “Now then, nothing has happened. What could Elohim have meant?” He seemed truly puzzled as he walked back toward me.

“You don’t feel anything at all?” I said, astonished. Rashly, I laid my hands on his arm—or what appeared to be an arm—to see for myself, and I felt something odd, a tingling of sorts, an uncomfortable feeling of possession. I withdrew my hand.