Eve (44 page)

The pain was unbearable. I held my breath. I saw him draw in his lips. “What is it?” I gasped.

“I cannot feel it,” he said.

“Higher!” I felt wrung out, limp, even though every part of me was straining.

He did, then he laughed, more out of relief than happiness. “I have a foot,” he said. “I cannot—” He grimaced. “I’ve got it. The other foot. I am going to pull,” he said. “Lay back.”

I began to push in earnest. I wanted my child out, and I could think of nothing else. Not even the baby’s safety or aliveness.

With a large wrenching, Adam pulled. I bore down.

And with a large sucking sound, Abel was born. The cord was wrapped around his little neck, and he was turning blue. Adam loosened the cord’s grasp and gently shook Abel. “Wake up, little one,” he said. Adam’s eyes were red, and his nose was running. “Wake up.”

Abel cried then, a squall of distress and unhappiness, and my own happy tears flowed. I had borne another living child.

My first glimpse of my baby was a blurred one, stolen through copious tears.

“Well, then,” said Adam. “You’ve got yourself another boy.”

“We should name him Abel,
breath.”
I stared at my boy child, small
and wrinkled. “For it is but a breath that separates him from us and Elohim, life and death.” I raised up on my elbows. “Give him to me.”

Adam handed Abel to me, and I took his slippery body in my arms and laid him on my bosom.

“Abel, my son, you have a father and a mother and a brother named Cain.” I looked over to Cain, who was sucking his thumb and staring at this new being that was suddenly there in his safe and happy realm. “Come see your brother,” I said to Cain.

Cain approached timidly, looking from Adam to me and back again. He stood over Abel’s tiny bloodied body and said, “It’s a fish?”

Adam and I laughed then. It was a good laugh, a healing laugh.

“No,” I said. “It’s another little boy, like you. You’ll have someone to play with.”

Cain looked skeptical. He pulled his thumb from his mouth and stared. “Don’t like,” he said. “Throw it in river.” A rapid dismissal, sealing Abel’s fate. He knew we always threw our offal in the river, for it to be eaten by the fish or reused by the animals that frequented the river’s shores.

I reached up to soothe Cain’s brow. “He is not something we can throw away,” I said. “He’s your brother.”

Cain looked at my face and saw what I was saying was true. He sighed, went to Adam, and sank into his father’s embrace.

“I have an idea,” said Adam. “Why don’t we go find something for your mother to eat?”

Cain nodded his head and jumped up. Here was his chance to change his father’s mind on the issue. He didn’t want a brother, hadn’t asked for one, and he wanted us to reconsider. Joy transformed his face, and now he was jumping up and down, saying, “Hurry, hurry.”

Adam came to me and kissed me on my nose. “I love you,” he said. “Thank you.”

Think not ill of me, but all I could feel at that moment was how angry I was that I had to go through this fire, while Adam did not. A simple “I love you” and “Thank you” was not sufficient compensation for the agony I had endured. Had I known that I would go through two other births in which my babies would die, before I had Naava, I would have never lain with Adam again.

Thankfully, I had time to cool my thoughts while Adam and Cain were gone.

After my husband and son disappeared through the brush, holding hands, I talked to my littlest. I told him all about the Garden and our journey down from the snowy mountains—though I did not think it wise to tell him of his parents’ indiscretions, at least not yet. I told him about his brother, Cain, and how they would grow up to be friends, just like Adam and me. Why would I have thought otherwise?

No mother ever does.

I told him how I felt about Elohim and how sometimes, in the belly of the night, or in the womb of the morning, I thought I could hear Him talking to me—in the song of the bulbul who lived in the konar trees or in the beauty of the red-smeared sunsets in the western evening sky.

Thinking back, I wonder,
Did I really hear Elohim?
I remember telling Abel I had, and obviously he took it to heart, because he was always faithful to that original telling. Never once did he falter, even with the onset of my doubt.
How could he possibly remember?
He was but an infant, one who had just choked on death and sputtered to life, a frail little thing whom Elohim may have breathed into at that last desperate moment.

Maybe this is why I loved Abel so. He had a tender heart, one imprinted with the mark of Elohim’s hand.

The very first time we heard him sing our song from the Garden was when he was two. It was also the first indication we had of Abel’s special connection with animals.

Night had fallen. Adam had finished telling the boys about how their mother had beaten down a fierce bear—Adam was forever exaggerating, and, I had to admit, it did make the story better—and Cain and Abel had fallen asleep, their little bodies curled like flower petals into each other.

Adam was remarking how loudly Cain snored when we heard a snap in the bushes behind us. We both bolted upright, straining for clues as to direction or distance or source.

Up above, the moon was a weak pink crescent, and the stars spilled out over the sky’s vast space. Light was dim, and our vision was limited.

There again. A twig snapped. A leaf crunched. A predator lurked, but we knew not what it was.

We were up on our feet in an instant, Adam reaching for his dagger, me reaching for a slingshot.

The boys were a few steps away, and they were our first concern. I went to them and shook them awake. They were confused, of course, and when I told them to go to Father, they rubbed their eyes, and Cain said, “But it’s not daytime yet.”

The snufflings grew louder. Whatever it was was not trying to hide its presence.

“Come,” I said. “There is something in the bushes.”

The boys got up then, hurriedly, and ambled sleepily toward our dying fire.

Abel dawdled, rubbing his eyes and nose. There was a flash of something yellow and big, and in that instant I saw Abel being whisked up into the mouth of a horrid beast. Then, silence.

“Abel?” I screamed. “Abel!”

Adam said nothing but tore into the brush, where we had glimpsed the last flicker of the beasts tail. He held his dagger high.

Cain watched wide-eyed, then patted my thigh through the skins I wore. “Mama,” he said. “There. Look.”

I followed his gaze. In the shadows, not far from our fire, was a leopard, standing upright, holding Abel by the scruff of the pelt he wore.

Then.

I heard Abel’s little voice, singing. He sang our song from the Garden. The leopard stood motionless. He made no move to release Abel.

“Stay here,” I said to Cain. I tore his hands from my skins and began to creep slowly toward the leopard. “I’m coming,” I said softly. “Abel, stay still.”

Adam dashed back into the circle of light.

Abel stopped singing. “No, Mama,” he said. “Stop.”

I did.

He began singing again, his thin pure voice filling the night void.

In the retelling of this incident, I myself am amazed and have difficulty coming to terms with it, I am so perplexed. The leopard seemed mesmerized, either by Abel’s gentleness or by his singing. I know not which.

Adam circled around to the back side of the leopard, one slow step at a time.

I stood and stretched my hand out behind me to tell Cain to stay where he was. With my eyes and ears and heart ahead of me, I prayed to Elohim to save my boy to whom He had given life.

Then, as the moon and stars passed overhead in their courses, and the sun slept, the leopard released Abel, sniffing at him only, and turned and walked to the river to drink.

I dared not move.

Abel kept singing.

The leopard drank his fill. He glanced back at Cain and me and twitched his tail before disappearing into the night.

I ran to Abel, who was now quiet and sitting up in the dirt. I checked his body for bite marks, scratches. “Are you all right?” I said, kneeling in the dirt and wrapping my arms around him. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Abel. I should have been holding your hand.”

Abel looked up at me, his thin, pointed chin raising up to face the fingernail of a moon. “He was lonely,” said Abel.

I knew not how to respond, although after the boys had fallen asleep again around the dying fire, I told Adam that I had thought briefly of Elohim when Abel said that. Elohim had known how to calm the animals and quiet the storms and soothe the spirit. Then, on that night, Abel had done the same.

When I got back to the city, I was di^y and stomach-sick from the
wagon ride. Ahassunu gave me no rest and followed me into the pee-pee room to say, “So. Do you have anything for me?”

I held up my hand to warn Ahassunu, then I bent over and vomited all of Aya’s breads and figs into the hole in the floor. I couldn’t help it. My stomach was flipping and flopping like the fish Aya always caught. I sat down and waited to see if I was going to vomit again.

Ahassunu came and stood by me. “Well?” she said. “I’m waiting.”

I untied the sack from around my waist and gave it to Ahassunu.

Ahassunu started to laugh-cry, then she reached down and patted my head. She tore the sack open and went down on all fours like a dog and poured the seeds
tock tock tock
out onto the floor. “Why, they are just seeds!” she said. She made her eyes like a snake and glared at me.

I nodded. “From the Tree of Life,” I said.

Ahassunu ran her hands through them, making them
clack
against one another. Her eyes looked hungry, and she licked her lips. She counted them, then counted them again. She asked me, “How long does it take for them to grow?”

I shrugged. “Mama never planted any,” I said.

Ahassunu raised up on her knees. “Never? Why not?” And then she looked over her shoulder, quick, to see if anyone could hear her. She
whispered, “My child, think. Do you not know of anything else she might have in her garden that she took from Dilmun?”

I shook my head. My stomach still felt like Aya’s boiling stew.

Ahassunu grabbed my chin and squeezed my cheeks. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. I thought of Jacan’s seed game and how much I missed him. I thought of Mama looking for the seeds and not finding them, and all of a sudden I was scared.
Would Mama hate me? I
tried not to cry, but the tears rolled down my cheeks all by themselves. I wiped them away with my hands, so Ahassunu wouldn’t see, but they came back, faster and faster, until Ahassunu said, “Oh, in Anu’s name, stop your sniveling,” and got up to go. “We shall see about that garden.”

I hugged my knees and sat there in the dark for a long time.

Zenobia came and found me and took me into another room that didn’t stink so bad. She told me to lie back, and she put a cool cloth on my forehead. She sang me a lullaby, and I didn’t want it to end. I wished for her to keep singing those pretty sounds, like Mama used to do with Father.

“Were those seeds really from Dilmun?” Zenobia said, when she stopped singing.

“Eden,” I said. “Mama calls it Eden.”

She put her hand under my back and set me upright. “It is important you do not lie to Ahassunu. She has done many an evil thing, and if these seeds do not work, she will punish not only you but Puabi and me too.” She traced the outline of my ear. “You tell the truth, no?”

“Yes,” I said.

Zenobia hugged me tight. “Good girl. Let’s go get something to eat.” She pulled me up by the arms, and I stood, all wobbly at first.