Authors: José Saramago
were
the universe's one last hope. Cain has already given his
answer by
killing abel because he could not kill the lord.
Things do not augur well for the
future life of this man.
And
yet this harried man setting off, pursued by his own
footsteps,
this wretch, this fratricide, had more principles
than most. Just ask his mother,
who would often find him
sitting on the damp ground in
their vegetable patch, staring
at a small, newly planted tree,
waiting for it to grow. He
was four or five years old and he
wanted to see trees grow.
Then she, apparently even more
imaginative than her son,
explained to him that trees are
very shy and only grow when
no one is looking at them,
They're embarrassed, you see,
she said to him one day. For a
few moments, cain said
nothing, but after some thought,
replied, Then don't look
at them, mama, they're not shy
with me, they're used to me.
Sensing what would happen next,
his mother looked away,
and immediately her son's voice
rang out triumphantly, It
grew, it grew, you see, I told
you not to look. That night,
when adam returned from work,
eve, laughing, told him
what had happened, and her
husband replied, That boy will
go far. And perhaps he would have
done if the lord had not
crossed his path. And yet, he has
already gone quite far,
although not in the sense that
his father had meant. Dragging
weary feet, he was now tramping
through a desolate landscape without so much as a ruined shack in sight or
any other sign
of life, a terrifying wilderness made more
menacing still by the blank sky
and the threat of an imminent downpour. There was no shelter anywhere, apart
from
under
one of the few trees, which, as he walked, were beginning to show their tops above
the horizon. The branches,
usually only sparsely covered
with leaves, did not guarantee
any protection worthy of the
name. It was then, as the first
drops fell, that cain realised
that his tunic was stained with
blood. He thought perhaps the
rain would wash it away,
but then thought better of it and
tried to disguise the stain
with earth, no one would ever
suspect what lay beneath,
especially since there was no
shortage in such places of
people with grubby, grimy tunics.
It began to rain hard, and
his tunic was soon soaked, and
not a trace of blood was left,
besides, if asked, he could
always say it was lamb's blood.
Yes, he said out loud, but abel
was no lamb, he was my
brother, and I killed him. At
that precise moment, he forgot
what he had said to the lord
about them both being guilty
of the murder, but his memory
soon came to his aid, which
is why he added, If it's true
what they say, that the lord
knows all and can do all, then he
could have removed that
jaw-bone and then I wouldn't have
killed abel and we could
be standing together at the door
of our house watching the
rain, and abel would agree that
the lord had been quite
wrong not to accept the only
things I had to offer in sacrifice, the seeds and the ears of wheat born of my
hard work
and
the sweat of my brow, and he would still be alive and
we would be
the same firm friends we always were. Crying
over spilt milk is not as
pointless as people say, it is in a way
instructive because it shows the
true scale of the frivolity of
certain human behaviour, because
if milk is spilled, it's spilled
and all you can do is clean it
up, and if abel died a cruel
death that's because someone took
his life. Thinking while
getting soaked to the skin is not
the most comfortable thing
in the world and that is perhaps
why, from one moment to
the next, the rain stopped, so
that cain could think at his
leisure and freely follow the
course of his thoughts until he
found out where they would lead
him. Neither he nor we
will ever know, for the sudden
appearance, out of nowhere,
of a dilapidated hut distracted
him from his ponderings and
from his griefs. There were signs
that the land behind the
house had once been worked, the
inhabitants had clearly
long ago abandoned it, although
perhaps not so very long
ago if we bear in mind the
intrinsic fragility, the precarious
cohesion of the materials used to
build such humble
dwellings,
which require constant repairs if they are not to
collapse in a single season. With
no careful hand to watch
over it, such a house will have
little chance of withstanding
the corrosive effect of the
elements, especially the drenching
rain and the rough winds that
rasp away at it like sandpaper. Some of the interior walls had crumbled, most
of the
roof
had fallen in, and all that remained was a relatively sheltered corner where
the exhausted traveller could collapse. He
could barely stand, not just
because of the distance he had
walked, but also because hunger
was beginning to bite.
Evening was coming on, soon it
would be night. I'm going
to stay here, said cain out loud,
as was his custom whenever
he needed to calm himself, even
though he was not under
threat from anyone just then,
indeed, it was unlikely that
even the lord himself knew where
he was. It isn't particularly cold, but his wet tunic, clinging to his skin,
is making
him
shiver. He reckons that by taking it
off he would kill two birds with
one stone, firstly, because
then he would stop feeling cold
and, secondly, because the
tunic, being made of fairly thin
fabric, would soon dry. And
so he took off the tunic and
immediately felt better. True,
it didn't seem quite right to be
sitting there as naked as the
day he was born, but he was
alone, there were no witnesses,
no one who could touch him. This
thought provoked another
shiver, although not of the same
sort, not of the kind he had
felt from contact with his wet
tunic, but a kind of tremor in
the genital region, a slight
stiffening that quickly went away,
as if ashamed of itself. Cain
knew what this was, but, despite
his youth, either paid it little
heed or else feared that more
evil than good would come of it.
He curled up in his corner,
knees to chest, and fell asleep.
The cold of dawn woke him.
He reached out to touch the
tunic, noticed that it was still
a little damp, but decided to put
it on anyway and let it dry
on his body. He had had no dreams
or nightmares, he had
slept as one imagines a stone
must sleep, without consciousness, without responsibility, without guilt,
however, his first
words
when he woke were, I killed my brother. In a different
age, he might
perhaps have wept, he might perhaps have
despaired, he might perhaps have
beaten his chest or his
head, but things being what they
are, with the world so
recently begun, we still lack
many of the words with which
we can begin to try and say who
we are and cannot always
find those that will best explain
it, and so he contented
himself with repeating what he
had said until the words
ceased to mean anything and were
just a series of incoherent
sounds, meaningless babblings. He
realised then that he had,
in fact, had a dream, well, not a
dream exactly, but an image
of himself returning home and
finding his brother standing
in the doorway, waiting for him.
That is how he will
remember
him for the rest of his life, as if he had made
peace with his crime and had no
further need for his feelings
of remorse.
He
left the hut and took a deep breath of cold air. The
sun had not
yet risen, but the sky was lit with delicate
colours, enough for the arid,
monotonous landscape before
him to appear transfigured in
that early morning light, a
kind of garden of eden with no
prohibitions. Cain had no
reason to set off in any
particular direction, but he instinctively sought the footsteps he had left behind
him before he
had
departed from his route to investigate the hut where he
had spent the
night. It was simple enough, he just had to
walk towards the sun, which would
soon be appearing above
the horizon. Apparently soothed
by those hours of sleep, his
stomach had moderated its pangs
and would, with luck,
remain in the same quiet mood
because there was no hope
of finding any food soon, and
although it's true that he did
come across the occasional fig
tree, there was never any fruit,
it not being the season. With a
remnant of energy he didn't
even know he had, he set off once
more. The sun came up,
it won't rain today, and it might
even be hot. It wasn't long
before he began to feel tired
again. He had to find something to eat, if not, he would die in that desert
and, within
a
matter of days, be nothing but a skeleton, because the
carnivorous
birds or the occasional pack of wild dogs that
had not as yet appeared would
make short work of him. It
was written, however, that cain's
life would not end there,
mainly because it would not have
been worth the lord's
while to have spent so much time
cursing him only to leave
him to die in that wasteland. The
news came from below,
from his weary feet, which had
taken a while to realise that
the ground they were walking on
had changed, there was
now no vegetation, no scrub or
thistles to hinder his steps,
in short, cain, without knowing
how or when, had found a
path. The poor wanderer was
thrilled because it is a well-
known fact that a road, path or
track will lead sooner or
later, nearer or farther, to an
inhabited place where it might
be possible to find work, a roof
and a crust of bread to
assuage his hunger. Encouraged by
this sudden discovery,
and, as they say, putting a good
face on a bad business, he
dredged up some energy from
nowhere and quickened his
pace, expecting at any moment to
see a house, signs of life,
a man mounted on a donkey or a
woman carrying a pitcher
on her head. He still had to walk
a long way though. The
old man who finally appeared was
on foot and leading two
sheep along on a rope. Cain
greeted him as warmly as his
vocabulary allowed, but the man
did not reciprocate. What's
that mark on your forehead, he
asked. Taken by surprise,
cain asked in turn, What mark,
That one, said the man,
raising his hand to his own head,
It's a birthmark, replied
cain, You're obviously not a good
man, Who told you, how
do you know, answered cain
unwisely, As the old saying
goes, the devil marks those he
finds fault with, Oh, I'm no
better or worse than anyone else,
I'm just looking for work,
said cain, trying to lead the
conversation in the direction
that best suited him, There's no
shortage of work around
here, what can you do, asked the
old man, I'm a farmer,
We've got enough farmers, you
won't find any of that kind
of work, besides, you're on your
own, no family, No, I lost
mine, How, I just lost them,
that's all, In that case, I'll leave
you, I don't like the look of you
or that mark on your forehead. He was about to move off when cain stopped him,
Don't go, at
least tell me the name of this place, They call
it the land of nod, And what does
nod mean, It means the
land of fugitives or wanderers,
and seeing as how you're
here, tell me, what are you
fleeing from and why are you a
wanderer, Look, I'm not going to
tell my life story to someone
I happen to meet on the road, a
man leading two sheep
along by a rope, besides, I don't
know you, I owe you no
particular respect and am under
no obligation to answer
your questions, We'll meet again,
Who knows, I might not
find work here and have to move
on, If you can make adobe
bricks and build a wall, this is
the place for you, Where
should I go, then, asked cain,
Take the next road on the
right, at the bottom is a square,
and there you'll find your
answer, Goodbye, old man,
Goodbye, and may you never
be old yourself, What do you mean
by that, That the mark
on your forehead is no birthmark,
that you didn't put it
there yourself, and that nothing
you have told me is true,