Eve (23 page)

Adam pointed to me. “She told me it was good, that we would grow wise. This is
her
fault…
Your
fault, because You made her for me.”

“Adam,” Elohim said. “Really, are you unable to think for yourself, act for yourself? Can you not stand on your own two feet?”

“But I would not have eaten had it not been for her,” he protested.

Elohim was silent. He watched while Adam dug his toe into the ground. Then, softly, He said, “Did not the two of you discuss eating of the tree multiple times? And did you not agree
together
that you would ignore my warning?”

Adam’s voice was small. “We thought You
wanted
us to eat of it. As a test. To see if we could make our own decisions.”

Elohim’s face softened. “Adam, my love is not crafty or devious. It exists to be taken, to be accepted. There is nothing else I desire from you except loyalty.”

Adam hung his head and returned to my side. He reached for my hand. “You’re right,” he said meekly. “I ate too.”

We stood hand in hand, chins and lips quivering, and looked up at our Maker. I did not fault Adam then—that came much later when he blamed me for his deafness—for it was all so overwhelming. I could barely understand the widening abyss between Elohim and me.

Elohim turned to me. “Eve, I have told you before that you will have children, you and Adam.”

I nodded.

“Your pains in childbirth will be greatly multiplied, yet despite this, your desire will always be for Adam, to please him, and in this way he will rule over you. This is not as I had wanted it.” He grew somber, morose even, and continued, “Men will call you
slave
and
subordinate.
As a woman you will know discord and hatred instead of the harmony and peace I wished you to have. Your sensitivity will be interpreted as weakness, your intelligence as evil.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“I know, my child,” He said tenderly.

He sighed and spoke to Adam: “Adam, did you not remember my commandment not to eat? Because you have eaten from the tree, your work will seem fruitless. You will have to work to subdue the earth; the ground upon which you work will be cursed. With great toil you shall eat of it, all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles will crowd out the plants of the field. You shall eat bread until you return to the ground from which you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” With this last proclamation, Elohim sobbed, and the earth rumbled, the trees shook. “Oh, my children, my dear children, what a ruinous day! You have chosen other, and my anger is kindled!”

I was afraid then, and weak in the knees and shoulders. “Elohim,” I whispered. “Have we ruined
everything?
Can we promise not to eat from the tree again?” My hands were out in front of me, palms up, and I was raising them toward Him in supplication.

Elohim was quiet—thinking, I presumed. When He spoke, I had to strain to hear Him. He leaned over, weary. “My love for you has not changed, Eve. It is you and Adam who have changed. You do not know it now, but soon you will, and for that, I am sorry. You have seen things in terms of ‘other,’ not in terms of me.” He clenched His fists. He struggled with His words. “How can I explain these things to you? There are natural laws that govern the universe and the things in it. Fire: It warms, but it can also hurt. Disease: It culls populations, but it makes things die. Beasts: They provide food, but they can also kill. These laws are necessary, but they will seem chaotic and cruel and random because now they can be wielded for evil. People: They can be good, or they can be evil.” He knelt and tore at His hair. He scratched at His face—once more I falter in my description, because I may have seen Him as
a copy of myself. Then He spoke again, although now His voice seemed to reverberate all around us. “Things will seem awry and wrong, but it will be your vision that has been altered. Oh, I am loath to tell you these things, but you will be fearful and selfish and lustful and prideful and greedy, and still you will point the finger at the other and say, ‘See? He is the one you want. She is the one who should die.’” His voice rose, as if carried on the wind, on the wings of flying birds. “You will ask
why
and
how
and
when,
and I will not be able to explain, because you will have grasped at that power and claimed that you can manage it without my help. You will suffer greatly at the hands of others who have made the same choice as you; then you will realize the gravity of what you have done.” Elohim appeared tired then, exhausted and spent. His voice trembled in His last words to us: “I loved you as no other, and I shall continue to love you. Remember this, if you remember nothing else. Know that I am wooing you back, even though you will begin to doubt I ever existed. I am merciful; I will not allow you to live always with this blackened vision.”

Elohim paused, then continued. “Your fire has consumed you; you have lost your radiant glory.”

It was true. Adam no longer shone. Neither did I. We had lost something that made us different from the animals.

He turned from us and beckoned with His fingers. A lion, crouching low and timid under a palm tree, slunk to Elohim’s side. Elohim put his hand upon the lions head and stroked his mane gently. The lion blinked his large ebony eyes and looked up into Elohim’s face. Elohim knelt at the lion’s side and whispered into its ear, “I am sorry.” The lions eyes grew sad and knowing, and he pushed his head into Elohim’s hand.

What came next shocked and disgusted me. I know not why, other than I had not seen Elohim kill before, and what He did struck me as excessive and violent. Elohim had explained the order of things, how things small and large occupied their place in the world, to eat or be eaten, and that the cycle of life and death protected the earth from overuse and deterioration, but to witness this violence from Elohim was an aberration. Of course, I am speaking from a place distant from that time. I know that since then we have inflicted the same evilness upon the animals we have needed for sustenance, and each time I am reminded of how precious a gift their life is.

But then I did not think we would be instruments in death.

Certainly not within the Garden.

Elohim reached out to the lion standing before Him and put His hand on its throat. He dug His fingers in, quick and deep, around the jugular, and yanked the throat from the poor lions neck. The animal slumped, then fell with a booming
thud
to the ground. Rivers of blood flowed from his wound. The light in his glorious eyes went out.

Elohim turned to us, pain etched in every line around His eyes and mouth. He lifted His hand; He still held the unnatural living fibers in His fist. “Your transgression affects even the animals,” He said. He thrust the lion parts from His hand and walked to the riverbed. He stepped into the eddies, washed death from His hands, and picked up a stone, thin and sharp. I had stood where He was now standing. I wondered if He noticed the ribbed sand at His toes, the tiny shells and pale stones rocked to and fro by the lapping waters, if He saw the glimmering fish, felt a soaring thankfulness at such things, or if His anger was all-consuming and blinding.

Elohim returned to the lions side.

Adam and I did not move. We knew not what Elohim was planning, and we did not know if we were His next victims, for indeed He had promised death if we ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Was this the death He meant?
I am sure I looked much like Adam; he had grown quite weak and pale at the spectacle and had put his arm around me.

Elohim knelt. With the stone set on edge, Elohim sliced the lions belly open, from neck to groin. He teased the skin and fur back, tearing it from the membrane and muscle below. He was meticulous and methodical. He did not speak.

It took a long while.

Adam and I watched, shifting only in exhaustion and incomprehension. We were in the lull between the crime and punishment, the horrid time of contemplation and sorrow and fretfulness.

Elohim stood finally. He held out two irregular skins. “To cover yourselves,” He said.

Adam and I looked at each other, confused, but reached for them anyway.

He lifted His hand and pointed to the east, where a strange light had begun to burn. “You will go from here,” said Elohim, “to the east to live, so that you will not eat from the Tree of Life, which gives everlasting life, and you will live forever in this pitiable state.”

I must have looked astonished, because, indeed, I had already added the tiny black seeds from the Tree of Life to my growing seed collection, which I carried in a pouch at my side.

“Why do you smile, Eve?” said Elohim.

“We’ve already eaten from the Tree of Life,” I said. I looked down at my feet, trying not to betray my sudden interest.

“I know,” He said. “I did not forbid eating from that tree. But now that you have chosen other, you should not eat from it again”—then, in a gentler voice—“for it is not about eating. It’s about betrayal and disregard for me. Do you not see the difference?”

I nodded but did not look up.

Elohim came forward and placed His hands on our shoulders. His touch exuded strength and courage and love and forgiveness; it is a shame I cannot feel those things now, at least with the intensity I felt them that day. He pulled Adam and me into the curve of His chest and said, “I shall redeem you one day, and you will have ample opportunity to live out your lives in harmony with nature … yourselves … me.” His voice broke. “Go now.” He withdrew from us and pushed us toward the wavering eastern lights.

I fell to my knees again, sobbing. “Elohim, oh, gracious friend, look past our indiscretion. This is our home. We belong with You.” My plea rose up on flimsy wings, and it was as though the other plants and animals had a throat too. Everywhere orchids bloomed, frogs caterwauled, monkeys screeched, water burbled, and insects danced, as if to say,
Yes, it is right and fitting that Adam and Eve should stay with us here, in the Garden.

Elohim turned His back to us, a rock unmoving. His shoulders stooped. His body shook with sobs.

Adam and I left Him then.

We made our way to the light, holding the reeking skins about us. As we approached the eastern end of the Garden, I could see that the light was, in
fact, a wall of luminous, wavy bands of color—green, blue, and yellow— and that in the midst of it stood a curious winged beast. It had the form of Adam and myself, but its wings were outstretched to bar the way. It’s face resembled that of a lion or an eagle—that is my best approximation. It looked straight ahead and did not acknowledge our presence. I have seen nothing so strange as that since then, and I do not wish to encounter it ever again. There was something eerie and wholly alarming about both the creatures brilliance and permanence. As we passed, its wing dipped to allow us passage—there was a rush of air, then another, as it returned to its position of protection—and although Elohim had not explained this new development, it was obvious these things were here to prevent us from reentering the Garden.

We carried nothing, save for my collection of seeds. No food, no water—nothing that could prepare us for our new life away. We made our way slowly, without conversation, past the huge palm trees and bamboos and orchids, into Elohim’s vast other world outside the Garden. We did not think—not for a while, anyway—that this was an enduring arrangement. Surely Elohim would invite us back to discuss the stars and the planets and the upkeep of the Garden! Surely He would see that we were sorry. Surely it was a minor thing we had done.

That summer, Naava was a girl in a woman’s body. Swelling
breasts, widening hips. She did not know what game she played. She only answered to her body’s yearnings and her minds callings. She was fascinated by the mystery of a man and a woman. She was drawn to the smell of Cain and the lure of the prince.

She had already had her first and second and third bloods. It had been unexpected, really. Eve had not told her it would happen; instead, when Naava felt a release in her groin and something wet between her legs, she lifted her robe and saw the reddish-brown smear upon her leg. She went to Aya and asked her sister to make up a concoction for her. She was bleeding.

“You look fine to me,” Aya had said.

“You can’t see it, silly,” said Naava. She whispered into Aya’s ear, “It comes from
down there
.”

Aya pulled back, stared hard into Naava’s eyes. “Goat gets that,” she said. “It’s not serious. Abel says it’s for having babies.”

“Babies?” said Naava. “How? I don’t understand.”

Aya shrugged. “You have to have it to have babies. Ask Mother if you’re so worried.”

But Naava kept it to herself. Besides, it lasted only several days at a time. She used strips of cloth, secured in another cloth wrapped around her waist, to stanch the flow, and then she was fine again.

Nothing would prevent her from visiting the city.

Her visiting day came sooner than she thought. She regretted that she had not yet completed her robe for a sweeping grand entrance—she was behind because of Dara’s unraveling—but there would come a day, she knew, when she would wear it with great pride, and all heads, men’s and women’s, would turn her way. Naava had convinced Cain that she wanted to visit Dara, and she had convinced Eve that not only would she visit Dara, she would barter in the market with some of Aya’s mild goat cheese. She was lying, of course.
So gullible,
she thought. She just wanted to see what the city was like, and if she saw the prince, that was even better.