Eve (9 page)

Poor Dara. Mother has fed her to the jackals. With each pregnancy, Mother seems to care less and less for us; we are so many. Maybe I am wrong. Mother
did
say that she was afraid of what the women might do if she refused them. She
did
say she’d ask Father, and he would tell her what to do. And, after all, she
does
seek to mediate arguments and soothe us with quiet words when no one else will.

But when Jacan went off to join Abel in the fields, Mother did not cry as she had for Abel. In fact, Cain teases Abel about this. When Cain wants to make Abel angry, he rubs his fists over his eyes—“Waa waa, my little son Abel has left the fold. I’m so sad”—as if he’s Mother, and Abel, if he’s close to Cain, tries to strike him.

There were no tears for me, or explanations even, when the strange women came and laughed and pointed at my leg. There are no tears for Dara, being lost to a strange city, to another family who moan to the sky, carve livers for answers, and worship beady-eyed statues. The outrage of it all! Hear this: If Mother does not care for us, once we’ve wandered from her skirts, then she will regret her shoving and her pushing when she gets as old as do the forgotten sheep and goats that lie down at the end of their lives—for who will care for her then? Who will bring her cool water to drink, cook warm bread for her to eat, and take away her offal? Who will care about her bones grown brittle, her eyes gone cloudy, and her hands grown weak? Not I, Aya of the hard heart, Aya who sees everything and knows no one cares for me, except he who wants a belly of my food and the heat from my fire.

But wait. I was telling of how I solved Mother’s problem.

As I was collecting dung for my fire, an asp rose up in front of me, swaying back and forth, ready to strike at my stick, which had roused him from his hole.

I froze.

His hood was spread like a tent, and he hissed at me. I hobbled backward a safe distance and watched him warily. I barked at Goat to stay away. Goat looked up once, nonchalantly, then resumed her eating.

The asp had sunk down now, hovering over his coiled body. I knew what damage he could do; I had seen an asp lash out at a sheep once, and at a rat, and they both went into shiverous convulsions such as I had never seen before, foaming at the mouth and contorting in the body. I had enough problems—I didn’t need to be shriveled by asp venom.

Curious, I hunched down and squatted, the better to watch him. The distance between us was such that I was not frightened. With the sky whitening, I could see the veins running through his black hood, his yellowish-brown stripes. His body was fluid, like the rope Abel used with his flocks, and the smooth warm sheen of his scales reminded me of the yellow jewelry that ringed the visiting strangers’ limbs.

Mother had told us about the serpent in the Garden: not really a serpent at first but a man, like Father and my older brothers, a robust man with quick flirting eyes and a smile that unnerved her. He was too eager to please, a little arrogant and crass—thrilling, to say the least. This serpent was the end product, the thing that was cursed to go around on his belly, right before Mother and Father were thrust from the Garden.
Very clever,
Mother said.
Very interesting,
Mother said.
Very beguiling,
Mother said. She had said this all, in my opinion,
very wistfully.

“Lucifer,” I whispered. For that is the name Mother said he went by. “Lucifer.”

The asp rose up again and hissed. He wound his body tighter, as if to strangle the ground.

I was not afraid. If Mother could entertain him, then I could too. “Lucifer, if that’s you in there, why don’t you speak? I know who you are.”

The asp grew still.

“Mother has told me all about you and the Garden and how you
tricked her into eating of the fruit. Well, Mother’s not so smart. She’s quite gullible, if you want to know the truth. Especially if she’s told she’s pretty.” I stared at him, willing him to speak to me. “Works every time.”

He cocked his head like Goat does when I’m talking to her, curious.

“You knew exactly what you were doing,” I said. “I am not so dumb. I am not so easily tricked.”

Still, the asp did not move.

I continued. “What I want to know is: What transpired in the Garden? I find it hard to believe that this Elohim who created Mother and Father would purposely test them, to see if they loved Him well enough. Were you part of the plan? Did Elohim and you have an agreement?” I traced the outline of Mother’s tree in the sand as I spoke. “You know what I think? You and Elohim had a fight, and you were full of vengeance and ill will, and who was there but Mother and Father, Elohim’s beloved, and you thought:
Well, now, there’s an idea!
Sully their hands; spoil their allure. Then Elohim would have nothing.” I paused, let this sink in.

The asp’s slanted eyes narrowed.

“What I find curious too is that, according to Mother, you told the truth. You weren’t lying. Now, how can that be? After all, you
were
cursed by Elohim. And if you told the truth, does that make Elohim a liar? Or if you told a half-truth, did you simply
forget
to tell Mother the rest of the story?”

I finished my drawing in the sand and taunted him with my stick. “You are a wily one. We might have gotten along splen—”

The asp swung forward, lunging at me, flicking his tail.

I screamed. I jumped up and caught his head in the fork of my stick and rammed him into the ground. His body shook in the sand, flinging dirt everywhere. I brought a rock down on his head, over and over again, until it was nothing but a flattened fibrous disk. I took great pleasure in this—in fact, I gave a triumphant yell—because I had felt so long that a part of Mother had been destroyed by this creature.

Then I stood, quiet.

It occurred to me that I had never taken a life vengefully before. Certainly I had killed birds and fish for food, but those acts were sacred and precious, unlike what I had just done.

My wonder did not last long.

I gathered up the snake’s body and tossed him into the basket. An elixir made from snakeskin and dried orange peels did wonders for coughing fits. I clicked to Goat, and she came running.

Now, I am Aya the Asp Killer, the Lucifer Killer. Wait until I tell Mother.

Naava stands and goes to the window to look out upon the sun,
which rises redly in a tangerine sky. Tufts of clouds peel away from the sun, as if to say
A brand-new day.
She lifts a flask, pours cool water into a chipped clay cup, and raises it to Eve’s lips, dried and cracked now from talking.

“Rest,” says Naava, but Eve shakes her head, determined to go on, to inscribe her story on the hard clay of Naava’s heart. Naava sighs. Eve was always stubborn and oblivious to those around her. Yes, she nursed the little ones, corralled the young ones, but after that, her children all had to grow up fast, for most likely another one was on the way, vying for Eve’s motherly attentions. Naava helped when she could, but mostly she did her weaving and stayed mute, except, of course, for all the times she felt she needed to speak up because she had been wronged—which was frequently.

Naava knew she was beautiful. Neither Adam nor Eve would ever come out and state it that way,
You are beautiful,
but her name meant
beautiful,
and she could only go by the meanings of her other siblings’ names to know they were not, essentially, beautiful. Aya’s name, for example, meant
bird.
Naava chuckled to herself every time she thought of the humor
in that; Eve had a funny bone, at least. Cain meant
acquire,
and he certainly knew how to do that, hoarding sections of land like there was no tomorrow. Naava saw the greed in Cain’s eyes, but she also saw the adventure, so she admired him. Her thought was to align herself with him, so that maybe he would take her with him on his increasingly frequent visits to the new settlement—for the visitors had become dwellers and were building walls for what they called a “city.” Abel meant
breath—
quite literally,
the steam from one’s mouth.
This was how Naava saw him, as a vapor she couldn’t capture, as a smoke tendril she could not hold. She watched him come and go—he was never in one place very long—and she pined for a moment alone with him, to tell him that she loved him, that while she wove her threads in and out, all she could think about was him.

Dara:
compassionate.
Jacan:
trouble.
Those were the twins. Jacan came first, feetfirst. Then, when Eve thought all was finished, Dara slipped out easily, a messy mass of arms and legs, and Eve cried out that at least one of them had been kind to her. Naava had been there, helping, but Aya had done most of the work. Naava had grown faint at the sight of so much blood, and Aya—even at five years!—had had to push Naava aside and pack Eve’s womb with wool and herbs to stanch the bleeding. There were others, who had come and gone, buried in Eve’s garden. They all had names, anointed by Eve and her sense of their identity, for once named, Naava knew, there was no changing others’ perception of who you were. Daniel—
Elohim is my judge—
born too soon. Micayla—
who is like Elohim—
born with the swollen head. Miriam—
sea of sorrow—
born with a tangled and knotted cord.

So, Naava was beautiful.

There was that fact.

She had never clearly seen her face, other than in the darkened surface of the river on a calm day, but even then all she could see were shadows and contours. She knew her brothers were curious about her—how Cain caught her glance and held it, how Abel looked away, ashamed and embarrassed. She wielded great power, she knew. Just as Aya healed with her potions, Naava could paralyze with her simple presence. And Naava had grown haughty. She lived as though floating on water, unconscious of
where it was taking her and not truly seeing those she left behind, drifting in her wake.

Eve was one of them.

One particular morning, not long after finding they had visitors to the north, Naava watched from her loom as Eve paused in her sweeping to loosen her muscles. She stretched her swollen calves and arched in a backward crescent. Sighing, she slipped her hands under the weight of her belly and pulled it up.

And then Adam came back from the orchards with a sprained wrist, which he wanted Aya to look at. Aya had him sit on the ground, near her fire. She was all business as she rubbed a green sticky poultice into Adam’s skin, splinted it with a poplar branch, then wrapped it like a cocoon with some of Naava’s wool.

“Don’t take this off,” Aya chided. “It will swell, and you won’t be able to move it.” Aya’s hands were strong and purposeful, and she took no pains to be gentle.

Adam nodded and winced at Aya’s sharp movements.

“He needs water,” Eve said abruptly.

Aya just grunted, her lips pursed in concentration.

Eve dropped her broom and plodded to the gate. She disappeared around the corner of the house and returned a short while later, walking gingerly with a drinking cup brimming with fresh water from the cistern. This she brought to Adam and stood by while he gulped. She took the cup from him and sat, leaning up against the mud bricks of the house, watching Aya and rubbing her lower back with callused fingers.

“Are you in pain?” said Adam, his words infused with concern.

“Ach,” said Eve. “Very much so. With every birth, I feel as though a piece of me is being ripped out. I’m afraid I will die with this one. A body can only take so much.”

Aya looked up sharply to study Eve’s face. Naava couldn’t read her intent: Was it sympathy or disgust?

“Die?” Adam held up his good hand to tell Aya to stop her ministrations. “That’s a strong word.”

“I know,” said Eve.

Adam leaned forward toward Eve. “I know it’s hard for you,” he said. “Maybe tonight I could rub out the aches?”

Eve nodded submissively, like a child, and then seemingly without thinking poured out a torrent of words that caught even Naava unaware. “I’ve been thinking that we should add a small waterfall to the garden, so that you can hear a slight burble when you sit, just like we did in the Garden. You remember, don’t you? A bubbling green twilight, that’s what it was.” Eve clasped her hands, and her voice rose like a summer storm. “And the white flowers, they’re all wrong. What was the name of the creamy flowers that floated on the ponds, on little green disks?”