Eve (43 page)

“All the time,” said Father.

“What do Abel and Jacan have that we don’t have?” I said.

“Sheep and goats,” said Father, laughing.

I laughed too. It was good to speak like this, since Father and I rarely talked with such abandon and pointedness. Granted, Father prayed to Elohim before every meal, but that was a routine thing he did—like me kissing the bread I had made—not something that directly addressed the nature of Elohim. “I have thought about it,” I said. “I think its their heart. Their state of mind. They simply believe, and so they hear.”

“But remember,” said Father, “Elohim encouraged questions.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know not what to think of that.”

On the way back to the courtyard, we passed Cain’s temple, and Father plucked up the red goddess from the middle of all the praying statues and smashed her with the heel of his sandal. Her shards lay scattered upon the ground the morning after, and I gathered up her blue stone eyes. Blue eyes just like mine. Perhaps I shall add them to my rock collection. Perhaps I shall ask Elohim why He does not defend Himself against these invading sky gods.

Why, Elohim, do you not speak for Yourself?

I cannot take care of everyone.

I have had time to think since I punished my brother. I have been thinking that maybe I have it all wrong about Elohim. Maybe He sent us Cain for a reason. Maybe He sends us trials and tribulations to squeeze and mold us into something better—of course, I’m aware that sounds as though I
desire
punishment and hardship, and most certainly I do not! Anyone who possesses an ailment or suffering not of her choosing will know what I mean.

Maybe it is like date syrup.

I am fond of it, as you can see by my pantry. This makes it all the more tragic that I had to be Elohim’s right hand and punish Cain, because this means a meager store of dates for the winter. I point this out only because I want you to know that my heart is good. I want to do the
right
thing, not necessarily the
convenient
thing.

Enough of my ethics. I, Aya, am not of a habit to shout my goodness to the world.

Usually, when Cain’s dates are ripe, I lay them in flat baskets made of palm fronds and weigh them down with some of Dara’s heavier clay pieces. Underneath, I set out bowls to collect the run-off juices, as clear as honey, which thicken after sitting in the sun for several days. The date syrup is versatile. I use it as a sweetener for beer, a syrup for meats, or a nectar served with bread. They are fantastic delicacies, all good, and all born from the destruction of the dates. So glorious is the end result that Abel comes back to the house, instead of sleeping out on the steppes, just to get a taste of the syrup. This pleases me, of course, for I am quite fond of Abel.

Back to the date syrup. Do the dates like to be pressed? I know not.

What if we are like dates, and Elohim
allows
us to be pressed, to exude a lovelier substance?

What I am trying to work out in my head is the
reason
that Elohim seems not to care about our predicaments and disasters, as if He is biding His time for our purification or our distillation, so that
then
He can pay heed to us.

I think, rather, that He
does
care.

But He is helpless to intervene, since we have insisted that we want to live life on our own terms.

Who is calling me in my dreams, my restless dreams? There are
dead things from the deep and alive things from the sky, all crying, aching, moaning, creaking with pain, then a prolonged silence and, in the distance, Elohim sings of loneliness and comfort. “Look at the flowers,” He says.

I do. They are so radiantly purple, lined with fine yellow hairs. It pains me to look at them.

“Listen to the hawk,” He says.

I do. The hawk utters a shrill high-pitched sound, wheels and circles, floats on the air, its wings spread as a hallelujah, a praise to flying.

“Feel the wind,” He says.

I do. I turn my face into the breeze and feel my hair swept off my forehead and away from my cheeks. I feel its cool hand upon my neck.

I become the sun, full of light and understanding. My heart brims with wonder, and I lick its sweetness from my lips. This is everything I have forgotten, everything I have left behind. I recognize this place, its radiance, its joy, and I open my arms to it, to embrace it. To embrace Elohim. To my dismay, I have nothing to offer Him. My hands are empty, my heart too. I am a jar that needs filling, a cup that needs overflowing. I am stripped by uncertainty, anger, and despair, and I am nothing.

I cry out in exhaustion. I cry out in fear.

“Eve,” He says. “Eve, my child.”

I fall to my knees, too weak to stand. I am tired, and I pant after this thing called death, the sublime sleep of the animals and plants and my babies.

It ends too soon. I make my stunned entrance into awakeness, into this monotonous world. My eyes fill with tears. To see and feel such beauty, and have it fade like stars in the morning light, floods me with grief. Oh, I know, you grow weary of my complaints. I will not journey forever in the dark.

I relate these things because you must know my travails during that summer—why I did not give credence to my sons’ arguments, why I did not see Aya’s struggles, and why I did not feel Naava’s pain.

There was light ahead for me, despite the fact that one of my sons would kill the other. Yet so much rested upon my bowed shoulders. I could not forgive myself for it.

The longings in my heart had intensified, and I began to find refuge in the garden that Adam had built for me.

Let me inquire of you: Have you ever felt an urgent
pressing
feeling underneath your breastbone, right there in the middle of your chest, whispering to you that something in your life is missing? That there is something
out there
that will fill it and make it whole again? And then, in an unexpected moment, you behold the plains opening up after a rain, in every imaginable color under the sun, and you are simply astonished that it could be so. You have to close your eyes; the splendor of it is too much to take in.

Or am I alone in this?

There in my garden, I told Him everything that came to mind—of my own ineptitudes in raising my children, of the growing hostility between Abel and Cain and how I was fearful that it would end badly, and yes, even of Dara’s goddess, the one who promised fecundity, and how I was uncertain if she was necessarily bad if she could help me through my agonizing pregnancy.

I told Him all this and more. I was certain that, for all my reasonableness and forthrightness, He would answer.

He
had
to answer.

When I thought of the vastness of the stars and the planets and the sun and the moon, I wondered how He could remember such a trivial thing as me. There it was again: that deep sorrow that oozed through everything in those days.

Whenever I felt this way, I remembered the sweet gift of Abel.

Abel’s birth was a nightmare far worse than Cain’s. In fact, he got caught feetfirst in my birthing canal, which Adam and I knew nothing about, having never seen such a birth in the Garden, and despite having recently formed a small herd from the wild goats and sheep that we had found wandering upon the plains.

We had been drawing nearer to the sea. Cain’s constant exuberance had made our animals skittish and shy, and he had turned his attention away from them. His excitement was growing with the increasing variety of plants the farther south we traveled, and he collected seeds constantly, from pods and fruit and such, and was already planning his crops for when we settled. We talked of this often, how good it would feel to just
stop.

When my labor pains began, I continued to walk, thinking that it would be better not to think about it. This lasted all of one morning. Then I could go no farther.

Adam took Cain to play in the dirt nearby, and I squatted to relieve the pressure. But the pain persisted and soon grew so ferocious that I cried out for death to take me—Adam told me this later; I remember it not. I was sweating, and my suffering came in horrible paralyzing waves. I thought my body would rip wide open.

Cain built up sand hills, then demolished them with his hands. He called for Adam to play with him, and each time Adam barked, “I’m busy.” I had not the presence nor the energy to correct Adam or to relieve Cain’s fears.

“Please,” I gasped to Adam. “You must make it come out.”

Adam’s breathing was quick. He looked to be in as much pain as I was. “What do you want me to do?” he said.

I screamed again, for my belly seized up. “Do
something,”
I said. I looked down, looking for a sign of something, anything. “Can you see it?”

Adam shook his head. “Nothing,” he said.

I lay back on my buttocks and elbows. “Reach in,” I said. “Pull it out.”

Adam said, “Maybe we should wait.”

“Do it,” I yelled.

“Try to relax,” Adam said.

Cain began to cry. “I can’t do this, Adam,” I said, tears dripping off my own chin and nose. “You have to help me.”

Adam looked at me tenderly then, and I saw that his fear was for me, not for the baby. He positioned himself at my opening and he reached inside, at first a little ways, then more.