Eve (60 page)

Without a word, I took her hand and led her out of the courtyard, across the scrubby plain between the house and the river, toward Cain’s
date palms, which towered over the newly harvested vegetable gardens and fruit orchards. The wind picked up and blew sheets of dust at us. We covered our faces with the sleeves of our robes.

I realized soon that Dara had followed us, humming a nervous tune.

I watched Mother closely—she had been so unresponsive the previous night after birthing my brother—but she said naught. I had to release her hand finally, for she was digging her fingernails into my flesh. I looked down to see several crescent moons of blood oozing from my palm.

I stopped and watched her go, stumbling along, clutching her midsection, oblivious that I was no longer with her. Dara, ever the forlorn little lamb, trailed after her.

I could not look again upon Abel, my brother, my friend.

I have sweet memories, of course, and those I will carry with me until the day I die.

He had been the only one to stand with me outside the city when my family discarded me like plucked wool. He had given his hand to me when we sneaked through the entry, so it might appear that I did not limp. It was because of him that I was able to see all that was within the walls, and for that, I was grateful.

He told me that my new robe reminded him of the top of the sky at midday. Sometimes, he said, he would nap for a few moments while Jacan looked after the flocks. One time he had lain back, and right before he fell into a brief slumber, he had noticed a wonderful thing. He pointed it out to Jacan. “Isn’t it interesting that straight up from us—no, up there, follow my finger—the sky is a deep blue, then you drop all the way down, to where the edge of the earth is, and the color changes, from blue to light blue, then to white. Isn’t that amazing? I will wager that if someone tried to capture that or use it in a story, no one would believe him.”

On the day Abel stayed with me outside the city gate, he told me he cared for me—and by this, he was insinuating something more than for a sister, I’m sure of it—and that someday, who knew what would happen? He appreciated that I was a thinker, like him, and he knew that we
would be able to solve the problems of life together, for we both knew Elohim.

I had not the gumption to ask
when
and
how,
but I do know that he loved me, as no one else did.

Just as I returned to the house, the prince arrived with his wagon, piled high with gifts and teetering precariously underneath the weight of them all. Naava and I were the only ones in the courtyard to greet him. Naava went to him, kissed him. The prince asked her how we all had fared, and Naava told him of Mother’s difficult birth and of the horrible night of offerings.

The prince acted like a young boy, one eager to please. He began unloading the gifts for our family—for Naava’s hand in marriage—chests made of oak and walnut, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and rosewood; linen of all colors; gold bracelets and silver rings and headbands with multicolored stones in them; oranges and lemons that had been stored in cool places; dates in abundance; jams and jellies and syrups and vinegars; flat and raised barley breads; beer and wine and cheese.

I almost asked him why he bothered, knowing that Cain owed him some of our harvest wealth.

Suddenly Cain stumbled out of Mother’s room into the green-gray light. He was shouting, “It is too much to bear. You have hidden Your face from me, and now You drive me from the very ground I work. Truly I shall die!”

No one answered. I think we were too shocked at his appearance, his demeanor, his surpassing rage.

Cain fell upon his face and wept like a child. “I cannot go on,” he said. “I cannot live this way.”

The prince, shielded by his wagon, looked at Naava, his eyebrows raised.

My sister could only shrug. “Cain,” she said. She walked over to where he was sprawled on the earth. “Where are your stores for the city, the things you owe them, to fulfill your oath?”

Cain froze. Slowly, ominously, rising up from the hollowed depths of the cave he’d created for himself, we heard, “Where is he?”

“Whom do you seek?” Naava said, already backing away. She went to
stand in the doorway of her weaving room. Her face was hidden in the shadows.

Cain stood. He swiveled toward her. “There you are, you harlot,” he said. “Where’s your lover?”

Naava’s face drained of color. She did not move.

Cain blundered toward her, holding his arms out at chest height. His massive hands, callused with field labor and strengthened by hate, clasped around her neck.

The prince sprang forward, launching himself at Cain, grabbing at his hands.

I was too shocked to move at first.

Naava gasped and pawed at her throat. She dropped to her knees, still pawing, still choking.

It was then that I ran to Cain and strained with the prince to pull him off Naava. “Cain, you imbecile,” I screeched. “You have murdered once already.”

Cain released his grasp and wheeled around to me. “What did you say?” he roared.

“You are a murderer,” I said.

Abruptly, he became a child and began murmuring to himself. He tore at his hair and said, “I cannot go on. I cannot go on.” He put his fingers in his ears, pulled at his lobes, and slowly realized that the prince himself was standing within arms reach. His nose twitched, and his lips curled.

The prince reached down for his dagger. He held it out in front of him, indicating he would not use it, and said, “Cain, I mean no harm.”

Cain laughed—this is what I mean by laughter coming so close upon the heels of madness. “You have dishonored my sister,” he said. “And you, better than anyone, know what the penalty is.”

The prince shifted back and forth, so as to confuse Cain’s advances. “I took her in a marriage ceremony, before Inanna. How is that a dishonor?”

Cain spat on the ground. “She is with child,” he said.

I heard Naava gasp behind me.

The prince turned to Naava. He looked confused. I imagined he was thinking,
How could she be with child? Was it not just yesterday that I lay with her?

Cain continued. “I see you blanch. She is
mine.
Do you hear me?” He looked at me, then the prince, then Naava.

“Does your brother speak the truth?” said the prince to Naava.

Naava stared at him.

“Of course it’s true, you boar. She is carrying my child.
My
child,” said Cain.

Naava shook her head no but did nothing more. It was as though her words had been stolen away, her tongue cut out.

“What is that mark upon your forehead?” said the prince.

Cain’s hands fluttered to his face, his forehead.

With a flash of recognition, the prince said, “A star.” His face became as white as Abel’s horizon sky. He dropped his dagger, and it fell to the ground. “Inanna’s star,” he said breathlessly.

“It was not Inanna,” said Cain, reaching for the dagger upon his shin.

“Her sign,” said the prince. “Her sign of protection.” The prince seemed struck with awe.

I was dumbfounded too. Elohim had chosen a symbol that He knew most people would recognize.

“You will not fight me?” said Cain. He pointed his dagger at the prince.

“I cannot,” said the prince.

I found my voice. “He means to kill you,” I shouted, reaching my hand out toward the prince. “You have to fight. You don’t know him. He will kill you.”

The prince looked at me in astonishment. “He would not,” he said, but even as he said it, Cain was coming for him, and his look turned to one of terror.

“This will be easy,” said Cain, leaping forward.

The prince held his hands out in petition. “Please,” he said.

Cain was the stronger man, a man of the fields and of hard labor. The first stab was an undercut to the belly. I heard the crack and crunch of ribs and the belated
oomph
that leaked out of the prince’s mouth—his lips opened in an astonished and petrified oval.

“Stop!” I said, hobbling to Cain’s side, trying to put myself between the prince and Cain.

The prince’s fingers clasped around my arm. Stiffly, he turned to me
and whispered, “He is cursed.” The veins in his face swelled up. His eyes bulged.

Quickly, Cain circled around the prince, grabbed the prince’s chin, yanked his head back, and, with a flick of his wrist, made one clean slice across his slender neck. Blood poured forth from the wound, and the head dangled to one side. The prince slumped and fell like a sack of gourds. His limbs twitched violently, then grew still.

There was a moment of silence. Naava began to pummel Cain with her fists. “Do you know what you have done?” she screamed. “Do you?” She was spitting at him, her eyes awash in fury. “They will kill you. They will hunt you down and kill you, you stupid, stupid man. And then they’ll kill the rest of us.”

I ran to the prince and felt his neck.
Please let there be something,
I thought.
Please let him live. Please.
I saw the prince’s eyes, wide and vacant, and I reached up to close them. I straightened his robes about him and covered his face with a cloth, so the flies wouldn’t land on him. I felt strangely numb, strangely absent, as though these things could not possibly be happening to me, to us. I would wake up, and all would be well.

Cain had captured Naava’s flailing arms, like a frog does a bug, a smile flickering about his lips. I thought of the asp I had killed—here was Lucifer’s spirit embodied in another.

Naava finally got her words out. “The baby. I wish it were anyone’s but yours.” She sank down before him and crumpled into a heap at his feet, sobbing.

There I was, on the other side of love. I could no sooner alter my
children’s behavior than Elohim could alter mine or Adam s. How strange and unreal it felt.

In the gathering dust storm, I held Abel’s head, bloodied beyond recognition and crawling with flies. The wicked vultures hovered, drifting overhead, their wings trembling upon the wind currents. I would
not
let them have him! I thought that something had to happen, something had to occur, that Elohim would show Himself and breathe life into my boy, as He had breathed life into Adam and me. My son would live again. He
had
to live again.

Elohim could not have meant to allow Cain to do this awful thing. Surely it must have been a mistake, and Elohim would rectify it. I simply had to wait. But waiting was what I’d always done, as though in the waiting I had given myself over to forces stronger than myself. I had surrendered the
living
of my life.

Elohim
had
promised that things would go awry and that we would be furious with the
nature
of it all.

And I
was
furious. Livid beyond anything I had yet experienced.

How could this striving, this death, be a natural thing? It was so final. I didn’t want to ponder His reasoning—that it was the order of things, to lay down at the end of one’s life, to return to the earth from which it was made.

I wanted Elohim to be wrong.

I wanted to find Abel when I went back to the courtyard. He would be sitting there, playing his flute or laughing with Jacan or helping Aya with the meal. He would hug me and tell me what a wonderful mother I’ve been and tell me all that he had learned from Elohim.