Eve (22 page)

Eve trundled over to the bench, her hand on her swollen belly, and said with astonishment, “I—I—put two—” She searched under the bench, walked around it. She placed her hand upon her forehead. “They were both right here this morning,” she said, worry puckering her forehead. “Naava,” she called. “Have you seen the other waterskin?”

Naava smiled, because she knew something Eve did not
and
she could use this to her benefit. “Cain took it,” Naava said. “His was leaking.”

Abel stomped away, and Eve waddled after him. “I’ll talk to him tonight,” Eve said. “You’ll have it tomorrow.” Abel didn’t look back. He was vexed that Cain had stolen something that was his. That was Cain’s way, and this was always Abel’s response to it—running away, irritated, but rarely confronting him.

That night, Cain came in with bruises on his legs. He’d spent the greater part of the day climbing his thorny date trees to wave flower dust over the dates. It was difficult work, Naava knew, because she had offered to help
several years ago, but her fright of heights paralyzed her when she had climbed but a short distance off the ground, and she had to climb down to the safety of the solid unwavering earth.

Eve lit the lamps for the evening, then saw him. “Cain,” she said. “The waterskins that were on the bench. I made them for Abel and Jacan.”

Cain’s jaw tightened, and his tone was as prickly as his date palms. “I’m thirsty too. What does one have to do around here to get a new waterskin?” He smelled of the sweet sap of dates, and he was weighted down with exhaustion.

Eve laughed, a buoyant laugh not meant to be derisive or dismissive, but it came out that way, and Cain’s face fell. Eve saw the effect of her laughter and tried to take it back. “Oh, Cain,” she said. “I will make one for you. You have only to ask.” The lamps flickered in the dimming light, and the warm glow coupled with the growing darkness made Eve look younger, more alive.

And Cain, angered by her superficial, I-didn’t-mean-anything-by-it voice, said, “Did Abel ask? Did he ask you to make him a new waterskin? Or did you just happen to notice that he was in need of one—because you are more observant of
his
needs than of mine?” Eve stood there, exposed and bewildered, the flickering lights behind her consuming her astonishment, as Cain continued: “What has Abel done to garner your regard? Am I not your son too? Do I not deserve your love as Abel does?”

A stillness fell. In the twilit eastern sky, the moon shone upon all their injured faces.

Eve gathered herself and fell into her words as though they would dry up. She had been damned before she had even spoken. Naava knew this. Cain knew this. Eve did not. “I cannot explain myself to you, Cain. Please don’t ask it of me. Aya told me Abel and Jacan needed new waterskins, and I complied.” Eve placed her hand on Cain’s arm, but he wrenched it away. “I did not think to leave you out of it. I am not so cruel. But you think I am. Cruel, that is. And I cannot change your mind. Your inclinations… they … I do not understand your quickness to blame. It is as though you’ve chosen to run from the sunlight and sit under the storm clouds. For you, life is rain and thunder and lightning.” Eve waited for Cain’s response, but that is where the conversation ended, for Cain turned on his heel and
walked out of the circle of light. Eve stared after him, and Naava thought that her mother would split apart right then and there, for Cain had flayed her and left her bare bones naked to the unpleasant truth and night air.

Naava didn’t see him until later, when he entered her weaving room, his eyes like swollen rosebuds. “Cain,” Naava said. “Take me away from here. Just for a day. Take me to the city. I want to see what you see.”

He sat at her feet while she weaved. “You want to see the prince,” he said bitterly.

Naava left her weaving, slid off her stool. She ran her fingers through his hair. “Why would I want that?”

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close. She could smell the beer on his breath. “I know you, Naava. You think I don’t see you. You’re like a bitch in heat, sniffing at Abel, sniffing at me, sniffing at the prince, circling, circling, always circling, waiting for one of us to own you.” He released her hand and thrust her away from him. He laughed meanly. “It is time for me to find a wife and move away from here. This place”—he thrust his hand jerkily in the air—“is all wrong. I cannot breathe.”

Never had Naava felt more rage. She would have liked to give Cain what he deserved: a thrashing for lumping her with the animals. What an outrage! So this was hatred; this was desire!

She kissed Cain upon the lips, and he weakened, reaching for her. He fumbled with her breasts and put his manhood between her legs, and her last thought was:
So I have won. There is nothing wrong with me.

Upon Elohim’s booming entreaty “Where are you?” Adam and I
scurried and crouched like children into a covered space canopied by honeysuckle bushes. Looking back on it now, I am certain He knew where we were, but He wanted
us
to come out of hiding, to tell Him this thing we had done.

We were afraid, but more than being under the thumb of fear, we felt a tantalizing thrill, because we were alone in a quiet dark place, shouldering the heavy knowledge of our secret—that we had tasted and savored the forbidden.

Adam grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “What should we do?” he whispered.

I put a finger to my lips.

We were in the cool of evening, and the shadows had grown long. I shivered.

The sound of footsteps and of ponderous breath. Elohim’s voice again, closer: “Where do you hide? How have you come to this place?” Disappointment and pain were evident in His voice. It was a question to which He already knew the answer, for Adam and I could feel Him, see Him, through the leafy branches. A slight rustle, and I left Adam to crawl out into the dying light of the day. Adam attempted to pull me back, but
my resolve was stronger than his brawn, and I succeeded. I stood before Elohim, unsure of what to say. “We were afraid,” I said. “So we hid.”

“I see,” said Elohim. “Why do you cover yourself?” He gestured to the fig leaves I was holding close to my body.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “These.” I removed them. “I felt—”

“Naked,” said Adam, as he crawled out from behind me. He scuffed his feet and refused to look at Elohim.

“Who told you that you were naked?” said Elohim.

“Well,” I said. “As You can see, we’ve lost something. We no longer have our light about us.” Although it was the most obvious thing, I felt— although I wouldn’t have known how to put it into words just then—an unfamiliar shifting of vision, not in the sense that our eyesight was narrowed or altered but that there was a rapid proliferation of unbidden thoughts and desires I did not know I possessed.

“Yes,” said Elohim. “I can see that.”

I felt a wave of tremendous sadness then—what I know now to be guilt—an incessant nagging feeling that I had done something wrong, that I had grossly misstepped. In fact, it left me flighty and nervous. I opened my mouth to protest, but Elohim’s eyes stopped me. They were brimming with tears.
Could it be that Adam and I had injured Him?
It could not! It was not such a grievous error, the eating of the fruit, to cause Him pain, was it?

“Have you eaten from the tree?” Elohim asked. The disappointment and anguish on His face showed that He already knew. “The one from which I told you not to eat?”

Adam looked up, flustered. He stuttered, “The w-woman that You m-made for me, she gave it t-to me, and I ate.” In his eyes there was terror and fear. He did not look at me, only at Elohim. “Had you not made her, I would not have even considered disobeying You.”

“Adam,” I blurted out, feeling betrayed.
“You
agreed.
We
agreed.”

Adam looked at me then, his eyes languid and unblinking. “I did it only because you asked me to.”

There it was. Blame, heaps of it. I knew not what to say. I stared at him, incredulous.

Elohim turned to me, tears now coursing like rivers down His cheeks. “Eve, what is this you’ve done? Why did you not listen?”

By this time I was on my knees before Him, my own tears tumbling to the earth. Oh, how my heart was torn asunder to have hurt my Creator so! Elohim’s weeping had ignited a spark within me, and I wanted to explain-no, that is not the right word—
clarify
what had occurred in the space of a single, silly, squandered afternoon in the Garden He had made for us. “Elohim, please,” I pleaded. “Be not angry. Lucifer was here—”

“Lucifer?” Elohim’s voice boomed, sending a violent wind through the trees.
“Lucifer?”

“He sang clever words, lovely words, that made me believe I could become wise like You. He shook the fruits from the tree and ate of them and nothing disastrous befell him. He convinced me that I, too, could taste of their sweetness, with no harm to myself or to You, so I ate.” I looked at Adam, who still moved away from me. “
We
ate.”

“I should have known,” whispered Elohim. Then He cried out. It was a roar of rage, of anger, of betrayal, of sorrow. With His fists, He beat upon His chest. He fell to His knees, so His face was near mine. He cupped my face in His hands. “I have failed you. No, I did not tell you everything because I did not think … did not think … you had to know, but now …” His eyes were pleading. “Oh, I am sorry, Eve. I should have told you to be wary of him, this Lucifer. He’s a crafty one. He can twist one’s words into tangled vines and befuddle your thinking. He asked me about you, and I told him very little, thinking that he would grow bored and move on, but, no, he came to you instead—oh, why did I not intervene? He is jealous of my love for you and Adam. He wants to own you, possess you, and he will not stop until he does.”

“But,” I said, confused, “he was not unkind. He did not seem to want anything from me, except”—I looked down—“maybe …”

“He wanted
you,”
said Elohim, lifting my chin to make me look at Him. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”

From the mulberry bushes to our right came a low cackle.

Elohim stood and whirled.

A flash of colored light.

He took a step toward the bushes and spoke. “Show yourself, accursed monster!”

Lucifer slid from the bushes and faced Elohim. Now he was a cowardly looking man, no longer a shining star but sniveling and hunched over, a grotesque grin on his face.

Elohim raised His hand as if to strike, but instead He pronounced loudly, “Because you have done this and sought to deceive, cursed are you among the beasts! The choice was theirs to make—
alone
.”

Lucifer laughed.

Elohim’s words simmered with heat. “On your belly you shall go, eating dust all the days of your life. There will be everlasting animosity between the woman and you, between her seed and your seed. He shall crush your head; you will bruise him on the heel.”

Lucifer’s grin turned into a hideous snarl, red and seething, and he rose up from his crouch, swaying, and said, “What is this
You
have done? Why did
You
put that tree in the garden?” There was a bit of mockery to his tone, more obvious than before.

Elohim reached out and clamped a hand around Lucifer’s neck.

Lucifer fumbled at Elohim’s fingers, but Elohim held on.

“You know why,” Elohim said. “I gave you similar choices, if you remember.”

Lucifer’s eyes and cheeks bulged. He pulled at Elohim’s hand, scratching it with his nails, and croaked, “You … are … jealous.”

“Without law, there are no choices. Without choices, there can be no knowledge. Without knowledge, there is no wisdom. And without wisdom, there can be no true love,” said Elohim quietly. He released His fingerhold on Lucifer and flung him into the bushes.

Lucifer scrabbled up. “You’ve not seen the last of me,” he hissed, then, as an afterthought, he said leeringly, “They are beautiful, especially the woman.” His form changed then. He dropped to the ground and writhed in the dirt. His screams were like those of the jackals at night, shrill and terrifying. Great hunks of his beauty fell away in large pieces, shed like the skin of the scaly creatures. His body lengthened into the shape of a wriggling stick. His appearance became dull and common, and he slithered away among the rustling leaves, snapping his newly formed tail at Elohim.
It was then I think I understood that he, too, like Elohim, could change forms, maybe to represent what the viewer wanted most.
Was that possible?
I wondered later in life if Lucifer came back as the city’s prince, for both Cain and Naava were smitten with him, and the prince only led them further from Elohim, not closer.

Elohim turned to me, His eyes wet and blazing. “Eve, oh, what, what have you done?”

“I’m sorry,” I cried. “Forgive me.” An interesting word crossing my lips—
forgive.
It would take me many years to understand what I meant by this.

Adam moved a short distance away from me.

“I do,” He said. “I already have.” He paused to look at Adam. “Adam, where are you going? Are you not part of this?”