Eve (24 page)

Cain and she left in the early-morning heat. Naava rode a donkey, straddled with bread and beer and a sling of Aya’s cheese. She and Cain would walk across the plains—scruffy with tumbleweed and sparse vegetation and baked hard by the sun. They would spend the day in the city and walk back before the time of hyenas and jackals—and the large lion that had been stalking Abel the past few weeks. That was their plan, and it was a good one. Naava expected to see much and accomplish much. For Dara she cared nothing, but she would ask for her, with the hope that the prince would be there.

Cain carried a slingshot and a flint dagger with a bone haft, hung upon a leather belt, just in case they should encounter a wildcat or boar intent upon doing them harm.

The morning pressed down upon them, like a great beast panting, which did not bode well for the day—it would only grow more scorching. Naava drew her hand across her brow, mopping up beads of sweat with her sleeve. She sipped from her waterskin, just to wet her tongue and throat. Her donkey snorted impatiently, as he struggled under his burden, which he wanted to eat rather than transport.

“It’s not long before we’re there,” said Cain. “See?” He pointed.

To the north, in the distance, the flat roofs of sun-dried buildings, bright in the morning sun, appeared over a squat stone wall, half constructed. Indeed, there was an advancing black line snaking out from the wall—men carrying goods on their shoulders, to and from several vessels banked on the river and lurching drunkenly from side to side. Farther down along the shoreline were clusters of reed houses, flanked by fencedin
paddocks and by the stickish silhouettes of water birds jabbing their beaks into the silty mud, then lifting and rising upon the hot watery air.

“Keleks,” said Cain, pointing to the vessels. “They bring goods from upstream—ivory, stones, and metal.”

“Metal?” said Naava.

“You told me of the women’s bracelets and necklaces,” Cain said. “The gold and silver and copper are these things they call metal.”

As they neared the city’s outskirts, they came upon a wide dirt path beaten hard by commerce and bordered by tall shivering grasses. An irrigation ditch ran parallel with the road, and there, Cain explained what the myriads of sun-darkened workers were doing. They had built small dams at various levels and were wielding
shadufs,
long poles weighted with wet mud on one end and a bucket on the other, to move water from one level to the next. This way the water from the overflowing Euphrates was captured for crops.

Off in the distance, tent-dwellers huddled around their smoky fires.

Two pelicans descended upon one of the tents, and a loud chatter ensued.

“They train them,” said Cain, pointing at the birds, “to retrieve fish.”

What incredibly clever people,
thought Naava.
Far smarter than Mother and Father.

The fields were green and vast, except for a strange crop that was an undulating sea of blue flowers. Here and there, peasants squatted with tools to weed and cull, then, to ease their strain, they stood to shift the weight of bulbous sacks on their backs.

At that moment, the desert felt immense to Naava.
How could we not have known about these people for so long?
Naava dismounted, to stretch her legs and walk into the city.

The long golden husk of morning brightened further, snuffing out the last starlight on high and the fire glow below. The drab disk of sun oozed through the dusty air and set everything to stirring. Even before they reached the low-slung walls of the city, Naava could hear the faint cracking and pounding of tools against stone, the calls of the marketplace, the cries of children running and playing, and the sharp barks of mongrel dogs. Naava’s excitement rose up to seize her, to hold her fast. She felt her ears peel back and become alert, bristling like that of a furry creature that
could sense change or danger in the air. Her stomach rattled like a burnished nut inside her. The dust had made her eyes red and her nose runny; she did not notice.

A dog ran out to greet them, yipping at their ankles. It’s fur was pocked with scabs and mange, and one of its eyes was missing, its socket cob-webbed with scars.

Several of the working men turned to look at the visitors, but they were too far away for Cain and Naava to read the messages inscribed on their faces. Cain said, “Stay close to me until were inside. I don’t know these men.” He did not have to repeat himself.

Naava’s excitement had turned to trepidation, for although she was full of bravado at home, here she felt it turn to butter.

The city’s entrance was a wide yawning maw in the wall. No gate had been made for it yet. A white-bearded guardian, his eyes a cloudy blue, sat on a low stool off to the side, with an up-tipped face as if he could neither hear nor see. His face was expressionless, like a sunflower, and he held out his hands, cupped and trembling. He repeated the same plea over and over again, plaintively, like a lamb calling for its mother. Naava gaped at him—where was this man’s family? Certainly Naava’s family would have taken care of one of their own, injured or not.

Men, naked to the waist except for the heavy jewelry upon their chests and wrists and arms, stood, mingling and talking. They had thin lips and prominent noses. A few of them cleaned their teeth with sticks shredded at one end. When they glimpsed Cain and Naava, they paused, and their gesticulating fingers grew still. A man with a head as shiny and bare as a newborn baby’s broke off from the group and wended his way to them. He had large gold hoops in his ears and an armlet of gold around his biceps, and his eyes were outlined in black. He asked them something, which Naava did not understand. Cain answered him and pointed to the donkey and the sacks of cheese slung upon its hips. The man looked at Naava— though she thought
leer
was a better word for it—then nodded to Cain. The man rejoined his friends. There was raucous laughter, and Naava looked away.

“He said, ‘Peace and welcome,’” said Cain.

Naava knew better.

They passed through the city’s entrance, the wall thicker than two arms-lengths, and turned onto a bustling side street, narrow and airless. There an ample and dignified man swept the street in front of his house with a broom fashioned from palm fronds. He looked up to stare, to smile, to hold up a hand in greeting, to laugh at the gaggle of children who scampered about the legs of Naava’s donkey.

“There are so many,” said Naava.

Children of all ages, with nimble, agitated fingers, touched, caressed, and lit like fleas upon Cain’s hairy arms and Naava’s flowing hair. And their voices: like warbling birdsong sung through open, eager mouths, chanting, bandying, echoing phrases and words to one another, as though to churn the stifling air into life.

Naava slapped the children’s thieving fingers away from the donkey’s sling. “No,” she barked.

Giggling, they plunged their hands into the sling again and again, so that Naava worked continually to swat their hands away. It became a weary little game.

“Pesky, aren’t they?” she said to Cain.

“They should be at their studies,” said Cain, laughing.

Two men passed, bantering about something humorous. Between them they carried a swinging clay pot hanging from rods that rested on their shoulders, their chests already gleaming with sweat. They yelled at the children, and the little ones parted to let them through.

Naava covered her nose with her sleeve. The children mimicked her. The stench was palpable. The flies hovered over piles of refuse. Rivulets of filthy water meandered through the dirt streets, searching for a place to pool. A pair of gulls had found their way inland from the sea, following the reek of human existence, and now they sat on one of the piles, their claws clasping the thin slips of fish bones, their beaks working up and down to strip them of leftover meat.

The houses pressing in on all sides were low and flat-roofed, built of the same red-brown sun-dried bricks Naava’s family had used to build their house. A roadblock of masons stood knee-deep in mud and straw, lifting and lowering buckets to a new roof. A man with a grizzled, pointed beard stood on the rim of the structure, legs spread wide. He chanted a sad
little song to the rhythm created by the men slapping mud on the roof. Below, the laborers sang back, answering his call like courting geese.

As the street narrowed, Cain and Naava scuttled sideways like crabs-Cain in front, then the donkey, then Naava, then the gaggle of children. They followed the huddle of houses until it became obvious that the street would open up at the hub of the city, into a splendid cacophony of light, sound, and smells, over which hung a dreamy pall of dust.

“Oh,” said Naava, the spectacle quite taking her breath away. The children skittered off in all directions, being pulled by other, more interesting goings-on.

“That was my reaction,” said Cain, grinning. “You’ll get used to it.”

Indeed, the relative quiet of Naava and Cain’s home compared to the city’s riotous sounds was like night and day. Naava felt overwhelmed at the frantic busyness that surrounded her. Gone were the animal sounds of the plains. Instead, people sounds swirled all about her like a strong current, threatening to pull her under.

There was the swarming marketplace, rushing and bubbling like an engorged river. Along its tattered edges, faded tarps blocked out the merciless sun and protected the goods within. Everywhere, merchants shouted. Rosy-lipped women with slim-necked jars on their heads and baubles upon their wrists and necks walked barefoot past them, their coy, flitting eyes belying their curiosity. A herd of sheep ambled by, bleating; their shepherd clicked his tongue and struck their backs with a braided rope.

Cain halted abruptly, and Naava, who was trailing closely behind, bumped headlong into the donkey’s rear; the donkey in turn gave her a quick brutish kick to her shins. She yelped and leaned over to rub her throbbing leg.

Cain didn’t respond. His attention was engaged at the moment by the billowing sea of robed people climbing their way to the top of a stepped, squared-off platform that sat like a regal indifferent lion in the middle of that immense open space. The people carried baskets of food, rounds of bread, and little clay figurines in their hands. The children, too, were somber and imitated the slow genuflecting of their parents. They were edging their way to the top, to a small covered building made of bricks,
where they handed their gifts to a woman dressed in white and a man with a gold headdress.

Naava said, “I think that is the big woman who visited us. The one who killed the lamb.”

Cain was not listening.

Reverently, the woman nodded her head, touched the peoples foreheads and breasts with her fingers, then placed her hands on their shoulders. The people nodded and bowed in return and began the journey down, happier and lighter now. The children mimicked the more jovial mood of their elders, and their faces lit up, their feet skipped, and they peered into their parents’ faces with open, anticipatory joy.

Naava stood at Cain’s side. “What are they doing?” she said.

Cain’s face wore a look that could only be described as wonder. “They’re bringing food to Inanna.”

“Inanna?” said Naava.

“The Queen of Heaven,” said Cain. “The Goddess of Love.”

Naava glanced at Cain and saw the longing in his face, not for her but for Inanna.
Who was this Inanna that had captured the hearts of so many?

“Is that what Mother had? Her little statue?” said Naava.

Cain nodded, then walked toward the lowest step, which was crowded with tiny statues that held their hands in clasped appeal.

“Like yours,” said Naava in amazement.

Cain nodded again and, in his eagerness, turned and said, “The people set these here so they can pray to Inanna on their behalf. Inanna rules over all the gods.” He pointed to the building at the top. “They set a table for her with gold bowls and cups, food and wine, even a censer to please her—” He saw that Naava was struggling to keep up with him. “A censer … uh, a thing to burn a pleasant aroma, something they call incense.” Cain’s excitement was contagious. “From dark to dark they do this.”

“She’s up there now?” said Naava incredulously.

“I don’t know,” said Cain. “They say that she comes when she wants to.”

“Is she Elohim’s wife?” said Naava.

“No,” said Cain, disgusted. “Mother and Father cling too tightly to their dreams, their past. This is the real thing.” He gripped Naava’s arm,
and with his other, he pointed to the worshipful clay statues. “Mark my words, it makes more sense to have many gods, one for each force you come up against—one for fire, one for healing, one for storms, one for flocks.” The words were spilling out of him now. “The stories: You should hear the stories of these gods, what they can do. They are magnificent— and deadly. Elohim is child’s play compared to them.”

In Cain’s voice, Naava heard the cracking and slipping, like wet hides shrinking in the sun, stiffening with an irreversible tension—
rebelliousness.
Not that she would have called it this exactly, but she sensed a delicious and pleasant thrill through her abdomen and her limbs that could stem only from talking about Elohim and her parents in this dismissive and wholly disrespectful way. Although she was not one to sit around and think about
why
she did things—it was such a useless exercise—she felt that this was her embarking on her own life, her own desires, without the aid of any guiding hands except those
she
chose. And she had chosen Cain—to teach her the city’s ways, to teach her about love, to teach her about the gods in the sky.

Cain fumbled with the sling on the donkey. He reached in and pulled out a lump of cheese. “I’ll only be a short while,” he said.

“Oh, no,” said Naava. “The cheese is to barter with.” That was a new thing for her—
bartering—
though Cain had tried to teach her the finer points of it, using items at home for practice. Suddenly it occurred to her that Cain might have taught her incorrectly, just to garner a few laughs later. She felt a little unsteady, like a new lamb trying to get its footing. But she would not show Cain how she felt. She would succeed at this task, and he would be proud of her quickness.