Eve (30 page)

“Your trip went well?” I said. I smelled the heat of the day on him, and his hair was damp with sweat.

Cain nodded. He carried a basket of gourds and leeks and mushrooms. His lips opened slightly, as if he wanted to ask something but thought better of it. He looked off to the river.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s a bothersome thing, I know,” he started, “but I’m wondering if you might set aside a small bowl of food for me after each meal.”

“Do I not provide enough for you, brother?”

He looked down then, at the basket in his hands. “It is for my temple,” he said. “To feed the gods.”

I studied his face. Indeed, he could not look me in the eyes. “What you are doing is meaningless,” I said. “Elohim is the only God that matters. He is everywhere. He does not even need a temple. Can you not feel Him? See Him? Smell Him?” My words ran away from me like mice.

Cain grew restless. He bent over and picked up a pear from the ground. He tossed it into the air. “Aya, you rest easy in your belief. It’s simple for you to listen to Mother and Father’s stories and take them into yourself for your own. But have you seen, really seen, this Elohim? How can you know that Mother and Father are not wrong? All the people of the city bend their knees to other gods, many gods, and I for one think they are correct. After all, they have priests and priestesses. Does Elohim have people to feed Him, keep Him happy? I think not. This sophisticated plan—of mortal people who feed the gods, expecting to be nurtured in return-reflects thought and consideration for how the universe works.”

I could only say, “Or it is a ruse to further separate the people from their gods.”

Cain studied my face. “Will you set aside food for me?” he said finally.

I stared back at him. And then I nodded. I knew, as well as anyone, that you could not change a persons heart. Only he or she could do that. I grieved, though. For I was alone in my thoughts, alone in my prayers.
There is a beauty,
I wanted to cry out.
There is a glory that wants to be seen, but you must enter it, embrace it. You must climb toward it. You must be thirsty.

Cain turned then and saw Naava leaning over the fence toward Abel. I knew that he refused to take in Abel’s posture and utter disregard of
Naava, because he pursed his lips and swore by the city’s gods. He leaned into his failure like a lamb going to slaughter.

I saw, in the east, the faint chill of the moon appearing.

At evening repast, Abel’s right eye was swollen shut, and Cain’s nose was an onion bulb.

Before I came here, Mama said, “Be obedient. Do as they say.”
She said, “Watch those children like a hawk.” She said, “Remember
everything
.”

Here are all the babies I watch: the girl with the scary black eyes, the chubby boy who is shiny bald, the girl with sparkly rings on her toes, and the girl who sasses back to me all the time. They are: Puabi, Shulgi, Nibanda, and—I forget her name always—Shala. Puabi is the oldest, and her mama makes her stand real still so she can draw black raccoon eyes on her. I don’t know why.

I take care of all these babies in Puabi’s mama’s house while all the mamas sit around and pretty each other up. Other people called slaves do all the work. I don’t know where they get these people who are such hard workers. All the babies run around without a smidgen of clothes on. That way they can go pee-pee anytime.

How I talk to the babies: I don’t. They babble, and so do their mamas. I spank them when they’re bad and give them hugs if they’re good, but Puabi is my favorite, on account of Puabi’s mama, Zenobia, and their pet mongoose, who is supposed to eat all the rats and mouses. I live at their very fine house. It is still being built because it is so big.

The prince lives there too.

Zenobia gives me presents. Once, when I was combing Puabi’s hair—
oh, it was like a nest!—Zenobia came to watch, to make sure I was doing it right. After I was done, Zenobia motioned for me to come closer, but when I did, I saw that she held a shiny pointy thing in her hand. Since I didn’t know what she was doing, I hung back, watching her very closely.

Zenobia laughed—her laughter was soft, like the wind chimes in her room—and said something singsongy She grabbed my hand and pulled me to stand between her knees. Then she pressed her knees into each other, squeezing me tight. She put her hand under my chin and grunted and pointed—that I should look, there, up at that cobweb in the corner. But when I saw the sharp thing coming toward my face, I covered my cheeks with my hands and squealed, “No, no, no.” I shook my head back and forth, since I couldn’t escape her knees.

Zenobia laughed again and pointed to the stone in Puabi’s nose. Then she touched my nose. “Mmm?” she said.

I smiled and nodded.
Oh, yes, I would like to have a pretty nose like Puabi and all the grown-up women. Naava would be so jealous!

I closed my eyes, squinching them tight together, so I wouldn’t know when Zenobia made the hole in my nose. When the pain came, I thought it felt a lot like a hard sneeze, where my nose ached afterward. I yelped and sputtered only when she poured a little wine over it.

Then Zenobia held up a shiny silver bowl, polished like the moon, and I saw the tiny blue stone, and it looked pretty, like a piece of sky in my nose. I held up Mongoose so he could see it, and he licked it. I reached up to feel it, but Zenobia pulled my hand away.

Zenobia loves me, I can tell. On my first morning here, all the people came running in to scoop up their babies. They looked at me all strange, and I didn’t know what to do. Zenobia came and knelt down beside me and tried to explain with her hands. She growled like a lion, then grabbed Puabi and pretended to lick her and eat her. Puabi screamed. Zenobia pointed to the outside where all the people were screaming like Puabi and carrying on.

A lion ate one of the babies, not one of my babies, but someone else’s. The men, even Naava’s prince, lined up with bows and arrows and said they’d be back soon.
Beware, bad lion,
I thought,
they’re coming to get you.

Zenobia pulled on my hand, then Puabi’s. She dragged us out into the sunshiny day. We walked and walked and walked until we got to this tall mountain with stairs. It was very hot, and there were so many people there, I almost got lost.

But wait. Look. I saw all the little men and women statues with their hands folded in front of them, some clay, some stone. They were all praying, just like Cain had told me, just like the ones I made for him. There were so many. They looked like Abel’s flocks, except they were flocks of people. I tried to touch one, but Zenobia slapped my hand.

Zenobia reached into her robe and pulled out a piece of meat wrapped in cloth. It smelled terrible. She pointed to the top of the mountain and pushed on my back.
Too many stairs,
I thought.
Why do I have to go? I could fall with all these people pushing and pulling. Mama would be sad if I never came home at all.
But I didn’t have a choice.

Once, I turned around to see how far up I was. Zenobia and Puabi looked like miniature people down there. I waved. They waved back. I sat down when I got to the top, just to rest, but there were people in white robes who took the meat from me. One of them was scary Bosom Lady who killed the sheep at my house, except now she kissed my head, and then a man in a yellow hat took the meat into the house that was at the top. Bye-bye, stinky meat.

I pointed to the house. “Who lives there?” I asked Bosom Lady. But she said
uh uh uh
and shooed me down the steps.

When I got to the bottom, I asked Zenobia, “Who will eat the meat?”

Zenobia didn’t answer. Her hands were stiff, like sticks. The ripples in her forehead were deep deep deep. Something besides the lion was worrying her.

Puabi tugged on my hand. We walked away from the big mountain, and I thought maybe this was the mountain Aya talked about always, that she was going to fly away to. When I got home I was going to tell Aya there was nothing special about it. I didn’t see any Garden, that’s for sure. Or anyone named Elohim.

And then I started forgetting what Mama looked like. I decided to make her another statue because Aya said she hid her other one. Maybe Mama would like me better and not send me away again.

I asked Zenobia for clay and fire, and Zenobia understood. She said Ahassunu’s big son, Balili—the man called
priest,
with the yellow hat at the mountain—would bring me some clay from the river. Ahassunu was the one who brought Mama the yellow cloth for my robe, and her daughter is the naughty one, Shala. Balili turned out to be nice, though. I don’t know how he came from inside Ahassunu.

While I was waiting for the clay and fire, I got a good idea. I would make rattles out of clay for the babies. I would fill them with seeds that made noise—Balili could find me some—and then I would put a string through the hole and pinch the sides together like waves and dry them in the sun.
Shush shoosh shush
they would go, as they bounced along the ground. I could keep track of the babies all the time, and the bad lion would be scared off. I am a big girl now. I thought of this idea all by myself. And surprise, surprise, I thought,
This can be the number-five thing for Mama’s baby!

When Balili saw my rattles, he picked one up and scratched his nose and said, “May I?” I was proud to give it to him. Always he gives me things, but I never have anything to give him.

I am learning lots of things. Now I make story symbols like the city people. It’s not so hard, because Balili has been teaching me. Every day he comes, and every day the mothers watch their babies just for a little while. They say if I learn fast enough, maybe
I
can teach their babies.

When I get too tired of learning, Balili lets me get a drink of water. When I make a mistake, he taps me on the back of my hand, not so hard, though, because he’s nice. He shows me how to make clay tablets that are still wet and how to start on the left-hand side, or at the top, so all the marks I make aren’t erased by my hand. All the time, he draws pictures, and I have to guess what he is drawing. Sometimes he gives me clues, sometimes not.

I will tell you all that he does. He’s very clever. He shows me how to cut a reed to a point. Then he jabs me with it, not hard, just so I can feel how sharp it has to be. Then, we start drawing the symbols into the clay. He makes a mark like this:
He scoops up imaginary water in his hands.

“Water,” I say.

He nods. “
A
,” he says, making a funny sound.

“
A
,” I repeat. This must mean
water.

He grins. He makes another mark:

“Tree,” I say before he finishes.

He frowns and pretends like he’s making flour on a quern, like Aya does.

“Barley,” I say. I pretend to eat bread.

“
Še
,” he says.

“
Še
,” I repeat. I think this must mean
barley—
or does it mean
bread?

There are symbols for everything. Even if I draw the sun but it’s not the right way, Balili is patient and shows me again. My favorite is to draw Turtle. Balili says another sound, and I try to remember that it means
turtle.
My Turtle. Balili says I am a very smart girl, and after ten days—here he makes me count out the days with my new words—of answering questions correctly, he gives me a red-threaded bracelet of speckled beads that look like agates. I think maybe I’ll give it to Aya, because she collects rocks. It will be my thank-you for taking care of Turtle, poor Turtle-without-a-Mother.