Eve: In the Beginning (3 page)

But the warning didn’t seem to create the same feeling in her as it did in him. Adam slowed his step as he neared the alcove again. He edged closer until he could see his wife sleeping. It was too dark to make out her features clearly, but he was satisfied she still slept unharmed.

Yet ... why should she be harmed? There was nothing or no one here that could harm her.

The feelings that coursed through him weren’t new, but they were stronger than he’d ever remembered. He’d do anything to protect her, even if it meant telling her a final
no
.

Adam breathed out, the idea washing over him, bringing greater comfort. That’s what he’d have to do: forbid her to visit the tree. It was the only way to ensure her protection. And he meant to protect her — forever. He wouldn’t let her die.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Genesis 1:6

Adam is curled up next to me when I wake. He usually stirs easily, but this morning he is heavy in sleep.

I move away from him carefully so as not to wake him. I normally wait until he has gone to wash in the pond before I walk to my stone wall. At the back of the alcove, where I’ve hung woven leaves to keep the space cool on hot days, I’ve begun to scratch marks in the stone.

One mark for each time the sun rises.

It’s the only way I can keep track of the days.

“How long will we live here?” I asked Adam once.

“Forever.”

“How long is forever?” I said.

“Forever will never end,” he answered, as if it were obvious.

I thought about his words and wondered if there was a way to count forever. But tracking the number of days and nights with my fingers did not work. Did forever have an end? If there was a beginning — the day that Adam was created — then there must be an end.

Even if we don’t die.

I move quietly to the back wall as Adam’s breathing fills the silent spaces. With a broken rock that I keep tucked in a corner, I scratch a line about the length of my finger. I look over the many lines I have drawn. They reach from the ground to my waist now, spanning the width of me twice over. I replace the rock and return to the front of the alcove.

Another day toward forever is marked.

Adam’s face looks tired, and I decide to let him sleep while I refresh myself. I walk to the pond that branches off the nearby river and wade into it, soaking myself in its delicious coolness. I drink my fill of the water, then wet my hair. Water drips down my back as I walk to the closest tree and gather the fruit. Adam is always hungry when he wakes, whereas I can wait to eat until the sun is halfway up the sky.

But this morning I want to nourish myself for a long walk.

Adam doesn’t know it yet, but I want to visit the borders. On the way, I can check on the cattle, and if the mist has cleared past the borders, I might be able to catch a glimpse of what’s beyond the garden.

Returning to the alcove, I find Adam just waking up, but I wait until we are preparing to set off for the herb gardens before I speak. “Where are you working today?”

He looks up as he places a stone tool into a basket I have woven from long grasses. “I’ll be overturning the soil between the patches of herbs in the north garden.”

It’s something he can do by himself. “I plan to visit the cattle,” I say.

He lifts the basket and straightens, facing me. His gaze is sharp. “I don’t want to be separated. We’ll go together to the north garden. You can help me till the ground, or you can gather herbs.” Elohim has given him the task of keeping the garden and tending to the herbs. I spend most of my time with the animals unless Adam needs my help.

I wait, but he offers no other explanation.

“I haven’t visited the cattle for a number of days,” I say.

“We can visit them together,
later
,” he says.

I have never heard his voice this hard. I don’t like it. But I think if I follow him today, he’ll be more willing to go to the borders tomorrow. “All right.”

He grasps my hand and leads the way, nearly tugging me along. Something is bothering him. My heart pounds as I realize I must be right: he did see something by the tree of knowledge of good and evil yesterday. What was it?
Who
was it?

Perhaps Adam is correct; we should not be separated.

Yet, I still want to visit the borders, and I don’t want to wait until tomorrow or another day. It has been a while since we’ve been there. Adam didn’t like my many questions the last time we went, and we haven’t been back since. I want to push through the thick trees and look out at what’s on the other side. Any time I’ve gone with Adam, it’s been too difficult to decipher anything in the mist.

I glance at him, wondering how much I should press. His bronze complexion looks sallow in the morning light. “You’re tired this morning,” I say.

Adam stops, as if remembering that I’m at his side, and looks at me, then past me. “I slept little last night.”

“Were you dreaming?” I ask.

He shakes his head, and we continue walking, more slowly now. I don’t remember Adam having trouble sleeping before. If he has, he has not told me. I am the one who sometimes wakes in the middle of the night, unable to shut out my intruding questions.

The north gardens teem with activity. Bees fly among the flowering herbs that grow on the small hill leading up to a tangle of vines. I’ve tried to tame the vines before, but I give up when the sun grows too hot. Colorful insects hop from plant to plant, and birds chirp in a chorus of song. I hum without thinking about it, imitating the birds’ sounds.

Despite all the activity, a few deer doze in the shade near a grouping of trees. I cross to them and stroke their short, sleek fur. They barely stir, cracking their eyes open only to see who approaches. “You are lazy ones today.”

The deer I am stroking blinks its eyes open for a moment, and I wonder what it’s thinking. It has been in the garden as long as we have, maybe even longer. All of the animals have been. They don’t die either.

I can’t help but glance toward the borders. We aren’t too far from them, and I can see the top of the line of trees. The morning sky is clear, and I wonder if there is mist beyond the borders today. Adam says he has never seen beyond the borders without mist.

I sense Adam watching me, and I turn to see him smiling. I wave, grateful his melancholy has left. He’s told me many times he loves to see me with the animals.

He doesn’t want anything to happen to me
, I think. And of course I don’t want anything to happen to him, to us, or to any of the animals in the garden. I don’t want any of us to die, but I still think he is too cautious. There is no one but us in the garden, and it’s always been that way and always will be, as long as we follow Elohim’s commandments.

Adam bends over and turns the rich earth with a stone tool, and I think of Elohim’s commandments to us. Some of them were given before I was created, and although Adam has repeated them many times, I can’t always keep them straight.

I walk over to Adam and stand near him; I am his shade from the sun.

“Which commandments were given
before
I was created?” I ask him.

Even though his face is turned down, I see his lips quirk. “The commandment about the tree,” he says in a patient voice. I have that commandment memorized.

“And the ones after I was created?”

Adam straightens, squinting in the sun. He’s perspiring, and he wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. I think I might help him do the tilling, but there is no hurry to get the work done. There never is.

“Be fruitful and multiply,” he says. His memory is flawless. “And replenish the earth and subdue it.”

I nod. I know those ones, but I can’t remember the exact order. “Are the commandments for the animals as well?”

“They are.”

The sun is rapidly warming the garden. I look back at the lazing deer. “They aren’t following the commandments,” I say.

Adam chuckles. “They aren’t doing much of anything today.”

I look up at Adam. “What does
subdue
mean?”

“Just as we’re doing now.” He waves a hand at the flourishing herbs. “Caring for the plants.”

He is right, but we aren’t really doing that much. I wonder if we are
subduing
anything. The plants grow whether we tend to them or not. The sun and the mist do the majority of the work.

“Let’s walk to the river and get a drink,” Adam says.

“Can we continue to the border?” I ask. “Just for a short while? There is no mist today.”

Adam is silent, but he puts an arm around my shoulder. Even though it’s too hot to be touching much, I let his arm remain. Soon enough we step into the cooler shade of the trees. The river on the northern end runs deep and wide. Both of us like to swim like the river fish.

Adam splashes me as we step into the river, and I laugh and dive under the water. I come up near him and tug him in with me. He swallows a mouthful of water and surfaces with a sputter. I quickly swim toward the opposite bank before he can dunk me.

But Adam is faster than I am, and he easily overtakes me. I scream as he pulls me beneath the water again, and I manage to wriggle away. I stay underwater as long as possible, letting the current carry me along the bank. When I resurface, Adam is dozens of paces upstream.

At first I think he’s laughing. Then I realize he is calling out to me. He dives into the river and swims toward me. I wade onto the bank and sit down, waiting for him to arrive, my toes dipped into the water.

I can’t read Adam’s expression when he rises out of the water, but he is by my side in an instant. “You shouldn’t have gone this far without me,” he says, still breathless from swimming.

“The current is fast,” I say with a shrug of my shoulder.

“Eve,” he says, his tone serious.

I sigh and look over at him. “Just tell me what’s wrong, Adam. Why are you behaving like this? What are you worried about?”

He runs a hand through his soaking hair, and water droplets fall onto his shoulders. He is stalling, and I wonder why he has to think about talking to me.

“Has Elohim told you something?” I press.

“No,” he says quickly. “Elohim hasn’t visited me without your knowledge.”

It’s been at least one moon cycle since Elohim has appeared. I brush off beads of water clinging to the hairs on his arm. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“I can,” he says, but his voice is reluctant. “It’s just that I’m not sure of what I saw — if it was anything.”

“By the tree?” I ask in a quiet voice.

He nods.

Then he did see something too. We are silent for a moment.

When I reach for his hand, I say, “We should explore the garden, see if there are any changes.”

Adam meets my gaze and squeezes my hand. “You really want to go to the borders, don’t you?”

I hide a smile. “Only if it would make you feel better.”

“It might,” he says, and I can see the smile in his eyes. He pulls me to my feet, and we start walking toward the second river. My heart pounds in anticipation. The sky is clear blue, and there is no wind. It’s a perfect day to see into the wilderness beyond.

“Do you think we’ll be able to catch a glimpse of the sea?” I ask. One of our blessings from Elohim is that Adam and I have dominion over the fish of the sea. But in the garden, there are only rivers.

Adam chuckles. “Perhaps. Or perhaps not.”

“What kinds of fish do you think are in the sea?”

“They are probably much like the ones in the rivers,” he says, his voice ever patient.

I hear the cattle before I see them. They are scattered quite far from one another today, lowing quietly when not feeding on grass. Adam and I walk among them, stroking their backs and talking to them as if they could reply.

I love spending time with the gentle cattle, but I’m more interested in visiting the borders today. The grass grows higher near the line of trees, and as Adam and I walk through the trees, I relish the cool shade. My hair is still damp from the river. The birds stop their chattering as Adam and I pass by, and I wonder if they have ever been past the borders. Do the birds follow Elohim’s commandments as well?

Adam and I stop at the low stone wall that Adam built before I was created. It circles the entire Garden of Eden and has never been crossed by either of us. “There is nothing out there for us,” Adam has told me many times.

I place both hands atop the rock wall, which reaches to my waist. There is no mist today, just as I had believed. The sun is stark, and it illuminates the rocky ground that slopes away from us. I look as far as I can see in all directions and see nothing but dirt and rocks in a vast plain.

“Where are the plants? The herbs?” I ask.

Adam is staring past the rock wall as well. “I don’t see any. They must grow farther out.”

In the distance, a dark form swells against the sky. “What’s over there?” I ask, pointing.

“It’s too far away to know, but it’s probably a hill,” he says. “A very large hill.”