Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand: A Novel of Adam and Eve (8 page)

“Who is the Other? Who is the Serpent? Who are these beings, Adam? What do they want of us? One deceives us; the other punishes us. They pretend to be our friends but they contradict each other. If eating a fruit has brought us this punishment, what do you think will happen if we kill to eat? I don't want to kill, Adam. How will we know what to kill and what not to? Kill to eat,” she repeated with an expression of repugnance and amazement. “Whoever thought of such a thing?”

“I told you there are many rabbits. They must have been made for this purpose.”

“I assure you that the rabbit you kill does not care in the least whether there are many more. And if another animal decides that we're
its
rabbits?”

“Day by day we will have to live and learn. I can't answer all your questions.”

“You should not kill. My whole body tells me that. If death is such a punishment, why do we have to inflict it on others? It seems it is difficult for Elokim to put himself in our place, though he thinks that he knows what is best for us, but I can put myself in the place of the rabbit. Poor creature. Look at it, turned into waste.”

“It isn't a matter of killing for killing's sake, but killing to survive.”

“It wasn't that way in the Garden.”

“You wanted to know Good and Evil. Perhaps this is evil. We will have to try it. If not, we will die.”

“We are going to die whatever we do.”

“Elokim said that our time hadn't come.”

“So it seems to you that this is the evil we must try.”

“Yes.”

“But we are free, Adam, we can choose. If you think that we made one mistake, why should we make another? We have been left on our own. It's our decision how we want to live.”

Adam stared at Eve for a long moment. He admired her vehemence. But she was the one who had brought them to this crossroad. She'd had no fear of knowing Good and Evil and now she was afraid of what they would have to do to live.

“You ate the fruit.”

“I wanted to know, Adam. Now I know more than I did when we were in the Garden. That's why I'm asking you not to kill.”

“If we hadn't eaten the fruit, it's possible that we would never have had to kill, but now we're alone. I can't do what you ask. I, too, know what I have to do. Maybe it isn't up to you to kill. Maybe that is why we're different.”

“It may be, Adam. Think that if you want.”

“I am larger and stronger than you. I feel responsible for our surviving.”

“I feel responsible for looking after you. And it seems that I will have to begin by protecting you from yourself. We are
not
animals, Adam.”

“How do you know that? The only thing that differentiates us from them is that we speak.”

“And have knowledge.”

“I know that we have to eat. The animals know that, too. You are the only one it bothers.”

“It troubles me to have to kill.”

“That is how it is. We didn't make it that way.”

“You will have to harden yourself to do it. You will learn to be cruel.”

“That may be evil, Eve, but evil is also part of knowledge.”

Eve thought with nostalgia of the light and quiet of the Garden. Of eternity. She recalled the repose of her spirit, the simple thoughts of a mind untouched by alarm, by weeping, by anguish or rage; that feeling of floating along on the surface of the water like a leaf.

“If we hadn't eaten the fruit,” she said, looking Adam in the eye, “I would never have tasted a fig, or an oyster. I wouldn't have seen the Phoenix rise from its ashes. I wouldn't have known night. I wouldn't have learned that I feel alone when you leave me, and I wouldn't have felt how my body—so cold, even in the heart of the fire—filled with warmth when I heard you calling me. I would have gone on seeing you naked without being disturbed. I would never have known how much I like it when like a fish you slip inside me to invent the ocean.”

“And I wouldn't have known that I don't like for you to be hungry. To me it seems cruel to watch you grow pale and not do anything to prevent it. I didn't decide that things should be this way, Eve. I learn from what I find around me.”

Adam had nothing to add. Eve, too, was silent. Why did they think so differently? she wondered. Which of the two would prevail? Out in the open, near the rocks around the cave, she curled up beside him and later, straddling Adam with the waning moon above her head, caused the man to forget hunger and the need to kill.

In the early morning they returned to the cave. The intense heat had given way to a pleasantly warm emanation. On the sand of the grotto a few stones were still faintly glowing. Thoughtlessly, Adam dropped the rabbit. In a bit, the smell of the roasting meat started his saliva flowing. On the fire, the
meat turned golden and was easier to sink his teeth into. He would have to learn to control the fire's intensity, he thought. Like everything else, it contained both good and evil.

The woman observed him, but kept her distance.

 

T
HE NEXT DAY IT
was Eve who went out to explore. She chose to go alone. “You mustn't go very far,” he said; “you don't want to find yourself somewhere you can't get back from.” What made him think that she couldn't come and go as easily as he? She smiled. And went out.

She noticed that the sun was softly filtering through a cloud-covered sky. She walked toward the river, planning to find some way to cross to the greenness on the other shore. The dog followed her through the meadow of tall yellow grasses. It ran ahead of her sniffing the ground, stirring up rabbits that fled in every direction. There were many, it was true. She imagined their tiny hearts beating with fright. A falcon flew very low, snatched up one, and flew away with it. It will kill it. It will eat it, she thought. She remembered the scent of animal flesh. The vision of live creatures eating one another was repugnant. The blood. The dog's teeth. The torment of the sacrificed animals. All so sad. What good could result if life fed on death? Who had arranged it that way? What would she and Adam do if another animal tried to kill them? She refused to accept that this was the only way to sustain themselves. The earth produced figs and fruits. If it fed birds and elephants, it had to offer sweet and benign nourishment. Ah, how she missed the white petals of the Garden!

She came to the river. She stopped to look at it. She imag
ined a gigantic eye very far from there weeping crystalline water. The river moved so swiftly and yet it had no purpose other than to flow, just flow. She listened to its murmuring. Maybe birds died in the river and continued to sing within it. The inexpressive, mute stones were soft and meek beneath the water. The river came from far away. It disappeared on the horizon. High atop the mountain from which they had thrown themselves into the void, she remembered having seen two long strands of water twisting across the landscape until they grew small in the distance. Someday they would have to follow this water and see where it went.

She walked beneath the shade of the trees, breathing in with pleasure the scent of growing things. Squirrels, birds, insects abounded. The dog was sniffing everything. It stopped to urinate. From the riverbank, Eve crossed to a little island, balancing on stones that rose above the surface. The dog swam. Eve, too, sank into the water to swim to the far shore. There she collected fruit in a palm leaf, anything that seemed fleshy and edible. The countryside was greener and more lush on that shore; there were luxuriant trees and some small palms displaying clusters of fruits she pulled off, enchanted with her find. She also found some tall golden grasses crowned with small hard grains she also tasted. She wandered along, possessed of a strange energy, like a deer, looking here and there, no longer contemplative but moved by a clear purpose of finding in the nature around her things that could be transformed and useful to them. She tore off long, pale leaves. She tied them together to hold what she had gathered. She picked husks, seeds, flowers, examining them all, sure she was surrounded with clues that with patience and care she would be able to decipher. The
previous night, looking at the feathers of the Phoenix, she had in her imagination constructed feathered robes for her and for Adam, but she had found only a few feathers scattered about the ground.

On the way back with her small load, she had a moment's dismay. She would lose everything when she crossed back to the small island. She saw branches floating in the current, and figured out that by using vines she was carrying to tie together two large, dry pieces of wood, she could put together a small frame to transport her booty. The dog lay down in the shade to wait while she worked. Finally, Eve reached the other side, shivering but happy. And she knew that what she had done that day was good.

A
DAM HAD KILLED MORE RABBITS. HE HAD SKINNED
them. Eve was saddened when she returned and saw the array of skins—stiff, emptied silhouettes—laid out on the rocks in the sun. She found Adam sprawled inside the cave, his face concentrated on clinging to sleep, the remains of his feast on the ground beside the fire, where pieces of dry wood were burning. The cat lying impassively beside him raised its head to look at her. The dog took possession of a few bones and went to lie down in a corner of the cave.

Eve opened her bundle of fruit and ate dates and oranges.

“The land on the other side of the river is like the Garden,” she told Adam when he woke up. “There are a lot of trees and fruits. Look what I found. You won't have to kill more rabbits.”

“Did you see how many I brought? I used a burning stick to light a fire on one side of the meadow, and took up a post on the other. They came running. If you had been with me, we would have had even more.”

He smiled with satisfaction and pride.

“Why did you want so many?”

“We will use the skins to cover ourselves, and we will not want for food.”

“I told you that there is fruit in abundance on the other side of the river.”

“We can't go too far from here, Eve. We have to wait close to the Garden in case the Other regrets it and changes his mind. Come see.”

He got up and led her outside to a place in the rocks where he had laid two rabbits, not skinned, on a clean flat rock.

“I've put out this offering to the Other. I want him to know that we are grateful that he intervened and sent the Phoenix to save you from the fire. He has continued to look out for us. Maybe he will forgive us.”

“It's one thing to prevent our dying and another to be in a mood to let us return.”

“Look, you were mistaken when you thought that eating the fruit would not amount to much. It may be that you are mistaken again.”

“And if he doesn't come to take the rabbits?”

“We will take them to him. We will bring him an offering every day to soften his heart.”

That night, Eve felt that sleep would be slow to come. She opened her eyes in the dark and saw the eyes of the cat shining, unblinking, along with the reddish glow of the low fire Adam had fed with dry grasses and twigs so it wouldn't go out. She did not understand cruelty, but the word tasted bitter on her tongue. She closed her eyes. She searched deep into her anguish for the difference between the blood that flowed
from her most intimate self and the blood of the rabbits. In her mind's eye, the sea reappeared, and also the long, quiet beach on which the waves sang their endless song. On the distant rocks she saw a figure. She thought it was Adam, and walked toward it. The face of another like herself surprised her. That this other recognized her and knew her name amazed her even more. Unlike herself, who was barely covered with the crude, ragged skin that served as clothing, this woman was enveloped in a feather garment that fell softly over her body. Eve could hear that she was talking, but the wind carried away her words. Eve wanted to hear her, and walked closer, struggling against the strong wind, which had become dense, and white. Her mouth filled with salt, but she did not give up. She wanted to know who had so suddenly appeared in her solitude. At last she was able to break free from the wind that had entrapped her, and she fell forward on the woman. With the embrace, the face she was looking at dissolved. When Eve regained her balance she was alone on the beach, sitting in place of the other, wearing the feather robe, gazing at the sea.

“Adam, where do we go when we sleep? Who are the ones like us who live inside our dreams? Last night I saw another like me on the beach. She may be there. We should go look for her.”

Adam said that he had dreamed of others like him. This didn't mean that they existed. Dreams were what they themselves wanted to see.

Adam went outside to see whether Elokim had taken away the rabbits. There was nothing now on the stone, but up on the crag that crowned the solitary mountain he saw two large buzzards, biding their time. He ran to pick up the skins he had
put out to cure, instinct telling him that it was not Elokim who had taken away his offering.

“We will take it to the Garden,” he said when he returned to the cave.

Eve gave him oranges and berries to taste. He ate slowly, savoring the sweet juice and flesh of the fruit. She collected the seeds to plant later, so that, like the figs, they would be converted into trees. They gathered dry branches to revive the fire. Adam threw a string of sacrificed rabbits over his shoulder and they set out toward the Garden.

It was hot. In the distance the sky was gray, filled with smoke, as if the other half of the earth, the part they couldn't see, was burning. They recalled visions from their first days: disturbances and splendors they had contemplated without worry. The signs of cataclysms and rumbling that made the ground shake beneath their feet now terrified them. Eve pressed close to Adam. What was out there? Farther on? she wondered. She questioned whether someday they might know what the distance held. Adam held her close. She was smaller, her body more delicate. He wondered why. He wondered if she could be right to think that she was with him to protect him from himself. He often was afraid to leave her alone. He feared the way she dreamed, how she left his side without moving. Her eyes surprised him, seeing signals that for him went by unperceived, and her skin, which like the nose of the dog and the cat, sensed what was to happen. Many nights, watching her sleep, he wanted to wake her and hurt her. He could not help the rancor he held for the peculiar way with which, unlike him, she was connected with the Earth, like a tree without roots. It amazed him that she barely lamented having eaten the fruit of
the Tree. She insisted that it wasn't she but the Other who was responsible, and she refused to accept her part of the blame, the dangerous force of her curiosity. She could still put them at risk if she continued to insist on going farther from the Garden, arguing that they would never return. He could not resign himself to accept that. More than of cataclysms and the unknown, he was afraid of himself, of what he was prepared to do in order to survive in this hostile land. He was afraid of hunger, and of the ferocity with which he had killed the rabbits one by one, crushing their heads with a rock. A person had to be cruel to kill. She was not mistaken.

They knew the way to the Garden by heart, and for that reason they could search their innermost thoughts as they walked through the meadow where the wheat grew tall and golden—without their having yet envisioned the bread its grains contained.

Distant smoke carried by the wind clouded the light of day, dimming the outlines of the land. As always happened when they approached the Garden, sadness entered through their feet and rose up their bodies like a climbing vine. In their memories, nostalgia intensified the color, weight, and aromas of their recollections.

 

T
HIS TIME
A
DAM WAS
the first to notice the changes. Eve was walking with lowered head, concentrating on repressing her revulsion at the odor of the dead rabbits. The sound of his voice startled her and she looked up.

“Its fading, Eve, it's fading!” he exclaimed with anguish.

Eve looked. She stumbled slightly when the surprise at what
she saw combined with the sensations of her the body. Adam ran to support her. Leaning on him, she saw a broad band of light within which, as if suctioned by enormous force, the precipice was closing. The Earth was being joined again, but everything that had been the Garden was ascending, dissolving in a resplendent mist, as if a hidden ferment was boiling up from the depths of the ground and vaporizing the trees, the orchids, the climbing passion flowers. Vegetation was being converted into drawn-out silhouettes that lengthened toward the sky in vertical strokes of green filled with pale vibrating shades of red, blue, violet, and yellow, as if suddenly the Garden was yielding to its unrecognized vocation: rainbow. The shapes of tree trunks, shrubs, everything closer to the ground, was the same, but the majestic branches of the Tree of Life and the darker Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, as well as the foliage and colors in the uppermost part of the trees, were separating from the surface, creating the effect of rain that was rising instead of falling, vibrant, trembling, holding within it every tone of green; it was like seeing the image of a pool that someone was gently and slowly drawing up into the sky.

Eve opened and closed her eyes to be sure that the vision was not the result of her fainting spell. She did not know the word
farewell
, but she felt it. She thought that the death they had been promised would be something like this. The landscape and the colors would fade, the original site of memories would vanish, and they would be left defenseless, numb, alone, impotently watching what was, or could have been, disappear.

She was enraged by such a cruel design.

However, it was perhaps time for the Garden to be gone,
time to accept once and for all the reality for which they had been created and in which they would have to live. In the midst of her indignation she felt the clarity of Elokim's thought expanding inside her. She and Adam were not the beginning, but the perfect end he had wanted to see before emboldening himself to grant them freedom, she felt he said. Someday their descendents would undertake a return to the Garden of Eden. Eve envisioned a knot at her core untying, separating from her link by link: rough beings making their way, overcoming obstacle after obstacle in search of the Garden, that vision of splendor she planted in their memory. She understood the urgency and hope caused by her glimpse of the confused, multitudinous images she was still incapable of deciphering. She had seen the groping search of her descendants, the circular road that they would have to travel until they sighted the outlines of the trees beneath which she had drawn her first breath. She wished she and Adam could have kept the small, perfect parcel of ground that would forever point toward her with its accusing finger. She realized that it would serve very little to allude to her innocence. Her guilt was also part of the designs of Elokim and the Serpent.

She came back to herself. Adam was shaking her.

“You were right,” he moaned. “He is destroying it. We will never be able to return, or eat of the Tree of Life.”

The man put his arms around Eve's waist, sobbing, disconsolate. He had harbored the certainty that they would return to the Garden. Now that he had killed, death inspired terror. Every night his anxiety grew. He touched himself when he woke; he filled his lungs to be sure of the air, the scent of the earth, Eve's presence at his side. He gave thanks for light, the
water of his eyes, the firmness of his skin, his muscles and bones, even the animal functions that had initially repelled him. And now Elokim was forcing him to contemplate the end of his beginnings. Just like the foliage of the trees, so his life and Eve's would dissolve, as would the ocean, river, fire, or Phoenix their eyes had seen.

They did not have to consult each other to know that they would wait there until the Garden disappeared completely. Awed by the spectacle, they found a place among some rocks, fluctuating between amazement and consternation. Ribbons of color fluttered in the wind, breaking into vertical lines of changing hues; from the tops of the trees, flocks of birds rose into the sky, scattering in all directions; the male and female Phoenix left, flying toward the sun. Their magnificent iridescent red and gold wings caught fire in the distance and filled the air with flames. Eve had the clear sensation that time had stopped. She did not know if it was because everything was happening at a dizzying pace, while they and everything around them held their breath. Even the insects the dead rabbit had attracted seeming to be floating in the air, immobile. Adam's movements, as he fanned them away with a handful of wheat, seemed to her exasperatingly slow.

“Eve, do you think we could go in one last time? The precipice has closed over.”

“There's nothing left of the Tree of Life but the roots. Elokim will know that we can no longer eat from it and live forever,” she replied.

“I don't want to die.”

“What did the rabbits do when you killed them?”

“They struggled, but afterward they were quiet.”

“Maybe that is all there is: struggle and then quiet.”

“And afterward, will there be another Garden?”

“And what would we do there with the knowledge of Good and Evil we have acquired?”

“I don't know, Eve. I don't know. Do we try now to go in once more? I would like to go in.”

They approached with caution. They were afraid they would be harassed by the whip of fire. Only a few solid traces of the Garden remained. Nothing hindered them. They walked among silhouettes of trees and plants. In the reverberation of the air there were still traces of certain aromas, even the song of birds. Color, like foam, clung briefly to their skin. The Garden was saying good-bye, licking them like a dog.

In the spot where Adam remembered waking with Eve at his side, they found three small plants whose roots were still locked in the soil. Carefully, they took them up to carry back and plant, thinking that beneath their shade they could again have the illusion of being in the Garden of Eden.

They went to the center of the Garden, to the site of the Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge. The bands of color were now above their heads, forming a dense string of intense bright green lights. Beautiful, said Eve. Beauty. That is how it is called. She was happy at having found the right word. She had looked for it more than once in the world of her exile that little by little was capturing her with its violent dusks, its plains, its rivers. Beauty appeared if the eye knew to recognize it. Perhaps it existed even in death. Perhaps death was not so bad. She shook her head, looked at her hands. Her hair and her fingernails had grown. How long would their lives last outside the eternal time of the Garden?