Eve (19 page)

“Listen,” Aya says. The bees go
buzz buzz buzz,
and I can feel the hum in my teeth. “Do you remember how I talk to Elohim?”

“Look!” I say, pointing up at a butterfly that’s landed on the sky weed. “It’s shiny and yellow. That’s a new one!”

“Dara,” says Aya, rising up on her elbow. “I need you to listen. Remember when we were here a long time ago, and I called out ‘Elohim!’ and we heard Him whisper back?”

I nod my head. “Naava said it was the wind.”

“No,” Aya says. “Elohim spoke.” She taps her finger on my nose. “Abel said only people who believe in Elohim can hear Him.”

“But I can’t
see
Him,” I say.

Aya chews on her lip and looks away. “That’s not important, I don’t think. I think Mother said Elohim was
in time,
meaning He can be everywhere at once.”

“Nuh-uh,” I say. “How could He be here in the garden
and
up in the hills with Jacan? That’s silly.”

“I’m not sure,” says Aya. “But Abel says he can talk to Him anywhere.” She puts her hand on my belly. “You’ll need a friend, Dara, when you go away. Those people don’t use the same words as we do, so you won’t have anyone to talk to.” She brushes the hair off my face and kisses my cheek.

“I can talk to Turtle.”

“No, I’m taking care of Turtle, remember?”

“Oh.” I remember, and my voice sounds as small as a mouse.

“You have to learn to talk to Him,” says Aya. “I did too. I want you to try with me now. If He doesn’t answer right away, it means He’s busy. Go on.”

I look at Aya, disappointed that we aren’t playing the cloud game. “Why do I have to?” I ask.

“To introduce yourself.”

I giggle. “Doesn’t He know who I am already?”

Aya doesn’t say anything.

“Do I have to fold my hands like the people I made for Cain?” I say.

“He’s not picky,” says Aya. “I talk to Him while I’m grinding grain or catching fish. Mother used to talk to Him when she was washing clothes or sweeping the ground. Any position will do.” She clicks her tongue and says, “Here, I will do it with you.” She sits up and pats the ground in front of her, in between her knees.

I climb over Aya’s bad leg and sit with my back to her chest. Aya reaches around and folds her hands over mine. “This first time we’ll do it like Cain’s statues do.”

After a bit she says, “Go on, Dara,” so I say, “Hello, Elohim, my name is Dara, and I like the yellow butterfly, and Aya has a surprise for me, and I want you to make Naava go to the big city instead of me …
please
.” I turn to look at Aya. “There. Is that good?” I tilt my head to listen. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Shhh,” says Aya. She pulls me closer to her and cups her hands over my eyes, so I can’t see. “Listen.”

I only hear bees.

“Shhh,” Aya says.

But I don’t hear anything besides bees. I lean forward and push Aya’s hands away. “What’s the surprise?” I say.

Aya sighs and gets up. “I wish you would have heard Him,” she says. She holds out her hand again, and I take it.

“Maybe He’s taking a nap,” I say.

“He doesn’t need naps,” says Aya.

“Why not?” I say.

“Too many questions,” says Aya.

Aya leads me to the edge of the garden where Mama buried her babies that were dead. She jerks me back by my elbow and tells me to be quiet. She kneels on one knee and puts her arm around me and points. “There,” Aya says. “You see those grasses moving? The long ones?”

The grasses are doing a little dance. I nod.

“Watch,” says Aya.

“What is it?” I say.

Aya puts her finger to her lips, and we wait there, in the shady part of a tree that has leaves as big as my head.

“She’s wild,” Aya says finally. “I can’t count on her showing up. Especially during the day.”

“What is it?” I whisper, excited to see what Aya sees.

“A hedgehog, with her four tiny babies.”

“Maybe if we shout, they’ll come out,” I whisper. I call, “Come here, baby hedgehogs, come here.”

“Shhh,” says Aya, and we sit there like that, as still as deer, until the shadows grow long long long.

Aya says, “I have to get back. The duck will be about done.” We get up, and Aya brushes the dirt off my knees. I’m disappointed not to see the hedgehog and her babies. Jacan told me he saw one once, with its pinched face and long claws, snuffling around outside the courtyard in the morning, but it froze and rolled into a prickly ball when it saw him. He tried to catch it, but it was too quick for him.

“Maybe Elohim is wild, like the hedgehog,” I say. “You can’t count on Him.”

Aya puts her hand over my mouth. “Take it back,” she says. She wags her
finger in my face. “Never say things like that. You’ll hurt His feelings. Mother does this too, and it’s not right.” She’s shaking her head and tugging me hard by the elbow, toward the house.

“You’re hurting me,” I say, pulling my arm away. She lets go of my arm, but she’s still as mad as a hornet.

“Abel says Elohim deserves the proper respect, the proper attitude, and I think he’s right. When you talk to Elohim, you have to
trust
that He’ll answer.” She stops and puts her hands on her hips. “Do you understand that word, Dara?
Trust?
”

I shake my head and look at the ground.

“I’m sorry,” says Aya, kneeling down in front of me. “I’ve scared you. Come here.”

I lean into her. She smells like dead duck and cooking broth.

Aya puts her hands on my cheeks. “Look at me.”

I look into Aya’s eyes, blue as the sky.

“You have to
believe,”
she says. “You have to
hope
.” Here she scrunches up her lips. “You know when Goat wants to eat and you feed her?”

Of course, I know that. Goat loves to eat! I nod.

“Well, you are
depending on
the fact that she will ask you for food at certain times of the day. Right?”

“She eats
everything,”
I say.

“Well, that’s how you have to
depend on
Elohim. You have to know that He will take care of you and answer your questions.”

I think about this. “But when we were back there”—I point to the sky weed—“He didn’t talk to me.”

Aya stands up again and takes my hand. “Sometimes you have to wait, like when you wait for your pots to get hard in the fire.”

“Oh,” I say.

We walk back to the house, my hand in Aya’s. I’m glad I have Aya as a sister. She knows important things.

Maybe Elohim will tell me where I can find the number-five thing for the baby, and then I won’t have to go away.

Naava watches through the window as the wide flat earth on the
horizon slices the sun in two. A hawk wheels in the sky, searching for the movement of grasses, the scurrying of prey He turns, spots something. He folds his wings in and plummets to the ground like rain.

There is a storm of squawking outside the window.

Eve ceases her storytelling.

“A hawk,” Naava explains.

The noise is unbearably loud. The hawk stands in the courtyard, nonchalant, with one foot clenched over a hapless, motionless crow. The clamor comes from the other crows, the ones he has
not
caught. They dive upon him, then lift up, over and over again. The hawk seems patient enough.

Naava turns to her mother and says, “I’ll be back.”

Eve nods, and Naava slips through the low-hanging doorway and uses her hands like a broom, swooshing the birds up and away. Still, they cry out. The hawk blinks at her languorously, and Naava has a fleeting feeling that she’s met him before—
hadn’t Aya said something about a hawk or an eagle once … one of Abel’s dreams?
Then the thought is gone. The hawk rises up and treads air right above her head, the dead crow in his talons. Higher and higher he rises. She stares after him, and the uneasy feeling returns. Naava begins to dread the rest of Eve’s story. She sees whats
coming—the role she played in Abel and Cain’s jealous spats—and she sees now this is why Eve has called her back, before Aya and Dara, to delegate the blame.

She straightens her shoulders and turns back to the house. She knows accepting her share is the last gift she will be able to offer to her mother.

Naava was not afraid to admit it: He was beautiful! Even more so than Abel. The prince—for that is what he called himself—was of medium build, leaner than Father or her brothers. His hair, as black as night, was long and straight, parted in the middle, and pulled back with thick leather cording. His jaw was smooth, unlike the wild hairiness of Father and Cain and Abel. His chest and stomach were bare, except for a heavy yellow disk imprinted with a star around his neck and a shawl thrown over his right shoulder. His thighs and knees were hidden by a long skirt, and his fingernails shone white and clean, his hands uncallused. When he smiled, his whole face cracked into a million suns. His relaxed manner, the way he leaned forward into his talking, the way he brought all his fingers together at their tips to emphasize his words fascinated Naava. She could not look away.

The prince had come with the women from the growing city to claim Dara. He arrived midday on a litter, an odd kind of house carried by manservants and hung with billowing panels of fabric. He disembarked elegantly, bowed to Eve, kissed her hand, and said, in a halting voice-how amazing that he could mimic their sounds and inflections already!— “My harem is pleased with our arrangement.” Only Cain laughed at this. No one else did. They understood him to mean only that the
city
or
people
were pleased.

The prince took in their sprawling, rough-hewn abode and nodded his beautiful head. “Nice,” he said. Naava wasn’t sure if he was truly sincere or if there was a hint of mockery threading through his voice.

Because business seemed to breed business in the company of strangers, Adam and Naava’s brothers sat with the prince in the courtyard on reed mats, underneath the shade of the roof overhang, and discussed land shares and irrigation rights. If the prince were not there, Adam and
Naava’s brothers would still have sat in the shade and talked after their chores were done, but about mundane trivial matters, like digging out the irrigation canals or tying up the grapevines, which interested Naava not in the least.

This was the first time Adam’s family had entertained a guest at any meal. It was a momentous occasion. For the occasion, Abel had killed a calf—reluctantly, because this stranger was no friend of his—and Aya had cooked it in a broth of onion and garlic and lentils. She prepared curds and honey in Dara’s clay bowls. A fine mixed beer. Raised barley bread with ghee. Cherries and plums from Adam’s orchards, and pistachios.

Cain leaned forward, unaware that his gestures mimicked the prince’s. Cain’s hands flew around his head like nervous birds, and his voice was tinged with awe. “You are blessed by your gods,” he said.

The prince waved his hand in the air. “We must appease them. Serve them. They provide for us. This is… perfect, no?”

“What of Elohim?” said Abel, studying the prince’s face.

“Elohim?” said the prince. “Who is this?”

Abel did not falter. “Elohim is the
one
God, the true God.” He tilted his head toward Adam. “Father has seen Him.”

The prince contemplated this, ran his forefinger across his lips and looked at Adam. When he spoke, his words sounded uncertain. “No one sees… gods. They live in the sky and the underworld.” He turned back to Abel. “This is your name for Enki?”

Cain did not allow Abel to answer. “The name is not so important. There are gods—
God
for you, Abel—who help us from time to time. We have to honor them, is this not so?”

Adam interrupted. “Elohim’s name
is
important, Cain. Elohim would not enjoy sharing it with others of lesser importance, lesser power. You know not of what you speak.”

The prince’s face darkened. He grunted and stood. He said, hoarsely, with a worried glance at the sky, “We cannot talk like this. The deities are jealous and—how do you say?—vindictive. I must go.”

Cain stood too and held out his hands to the prince. “We will talk of other things. Please. Sit. Eat… drink with us. We are friends.” He swept his hand in the direction of Adam and Abel. “They want this too. We all do.”