Wayward Son (16 page)

The sound of human voices.

The gulf between his past and present was anguishing. Having used people to further his own ends for untold generations, Cain now longed for the simple pleasure of human contact. Not to control, or command, but simply to converse. Yet all he heard was the sound of his loneliness.

Most terrible of all was the void of his future. Nature could sustain him indefinitely, Cain knew, but was a future without human fellowship one in which he wanted to live? Immortality, he understood for the first time, was a curse, not a blessing.

***

Having wandered for eons, Cain sought rest. In the desert, south of the great inland sea and west of the great river, he found
a giant depression
in the earth. It contained a massive freshwater lake, perhaps two weeks’ journey in circumference. Finding no source feeding the oasis, he figured these waters remained here from the flood. Cain lingered long at this spot, for the hunting was excellent. Migratory flocks of birds and land animals congregated here in huge numbers. He also decided that he would now simply wait here for people to find him.

Remaining at a fixed location for decades on end, Cain took advantage of the clear desert nights to track the movements of stars and planets. On windless days, he drew celestial maps in the sand. Many clusters of stars resembled animals, he thought, and he named the patterns for his own amusement: lion, bear, crab, scorpion. And then there were rare exceptions to the usual routine: full eclipses of the sun and moon, meteor showers, and—most spectacular of all—comets. Even these long-tailed wonders, though, seemed to obey laws and be subject to patterns. An especially bright comet that Cain observed recurred every seventy-five or seventy-six years. Eventually he stopped counting how many times he saw it grace the heavens.

What he did not lose count of, however, was the diminishing number of animals visiting his now significantly shrunken oasis. Reluctantly, he reached two conclusions: First, God was apparently compelling him to resume his wandering. Second, and more galling, Noah and his clan must have died off long ago.

He would never see another human being.

***

One torrid morning, a few days after an unrelenting sandstorm had swept past, Cain climbed to a high point to scan the environs for a passing herd of beasts in search of water. Approaching the edge of a tall cliff, he noticed how mighty the lone
cypress tree
there had become. Long ago—or was it yesterday?—it had been a sapling. In his abject solitude, Cain had lost all sense of time.

So it was that he called out in daylight on the master of spirits. Cain decided he would assent to the spirit’s claim that it was he who sustained life—and if that was true, Cain determined, he would tell the spirit he was ready for the afterlife.

“I am weary, spirit. I cannot face a life of wandering anymore.”

“Yes, Cain, it is so. God has punished you unjustly.”

“You have told me many times that I am not to blame for Abel’s death.”

“True, my friend. God’s mistake of rejecting your fine offering caused Abel’s death, not you.”

“But now, I am ready to join my brother.”

“And how will this come to pass?”

“Release me, spirit. You claim to be the cause for my survival. I no longer wish to live.”

“Death may not be the end of God’s punishment. It is possible that death may be only the beginning.”

“I don’t care about possibilities. My life now is barren torture. I can’t go on.”

“Then I will help you. But I will not cancel your restorative powers. Your life on earth will end only if you have the courage to take it yourself. That is your very greatest power, Cain.”

“What would you have me do, spirit?”

“The means are at hand. A leap from this cliff is the act of only a second, but it is also an eternal act. It is fitting that your grave will be an oasis. Death will be the source of life. You will join me forever!”

The voice dissolved in air. As Cain stood near the edge of the cliff, he pondered what the master of spirits had called the act of “only a second.”

Then the other voice, the voice from long ago, resounded in Cain’s head.

“
I will give a sevenfold punishment to anyone who kills you.”

He was trapped. Paralyzed. Would God’s sevenfold punishment extend to him if he took his own life—and for eternity? Breaking down, he sank to his knees.

“I curse you, master of spirits!” Cain cried. Pounding the sand, he called on God himself to end his life, but the long-absent voice remained silent. He planted his face in the dust of the earth and wept bitter tears. Just as the grains of sand inexorably slipped through his clutched fingers, so too had all meaning been emptied from his life.

Looking again over the edge of the cliff, Cain was shocked nearly witless—not by what he saw, but by what he heard.

A thin, high-pitched voice. A
human
voice.

It echoed from a short distance away to his left. The language was foreign, but its tinge of fear was palpable. Was this a trick of the spirit to entice him over the cliff’s edge?

Cain crawled on his hands and knees to the very edge of the overhang with its dizzying vista. Just below the drop-off, but not visible until now because of the angle, a small boy clung to a rocky outcropping. Far below, at the base of the cliff, an older boy stared upward, extending his arms in a pleading gesture.

The boys had evidently been separated. Playing near the edge of the cliff, the younger child had taken a misstep and then, by some stroke of good fortune, managed to grab hold of the outcropping to avert a fatal fall. Meanwhile, the older boy had caught sight of him from the floor of the oasis and was shouting advice or encouragement from below.

It was clear that the child was tiring fast and would soon be unable to sustain his hold. Just as the boy’s arms buckled and his feet grated along the gravel, Cain stretched full-length at a downward angle and grabbed him by the wrist.

Cain and the boy locked eyes. This was the first human face into which he had looked since before being saved by the ark. In that split second—as the boy’s thin frame dangled from the end of his rescuer’s powerful arm—Cain decided that he would not end his own life.

He had snatched this boy back from the edge of death. But the boy had saved him as well. Hope welled inside him—he had found human civilization again. The earth was no longer his to roam alone.

He pulled the boy all the way to safety and stood up to brush the dirt from his chest and legs. As he did so, he looked over the edge of the cliff and saw a gathering crowd of people. From their pack animals, Cain understood that it was a trading caravan—and a caravan meant that there were once again cities.

The group clambered up the steep trail Cain had taken on the other side of the cliff, and they soon joined him, smiling and laughing, at the summit. One of the men, whom he took to be the child’s father, lifted him gently out of Cain’s arms and kissed the boy’s cheeks repeatedly.

More and more people emerged, seemingly out of nowhere. Cain was soon surrounded by men, women, and children, all happily greeting him in an unintelligible tongue. Sign language eventually cleared up the mystery of their sudden appearance at this spot. Their caravan had become lost in the sandstorm, and they had ended up in the same oasis that he was calling home.

But to where had they been traveling when the storm disoriented them? The boy’s father drew a picture in the soft sand. It showed a long river, crowned by a broad delta. It was, without much doubt, the great river Cain had surveyed so long ago to the east.

Elated to join these travelers, Cain made the man understand that he could serve as their guide. The caravan adopted him, though this time not as a stowaway. His rescue of the child meant that they would treat him as one of their own. The great wandering had reached its end.

On the way to the river, Cain happily learned a new language: Egyptian.

CHAPTER 17

Malibu, California: Two Days Ago

IT WAS JUST AFTER eight o’clock on Friday morning when Laura Mendez reached Amanda’s apartment. Although not a morning person, she had set her alarm for an hour earlier than usual to keep her promise to feed Plato. As she rubbed the remaining sleep from her eyes in the slanting rays of California sunshine, Laura noticed the yellow Jeep Wrangler in its usual parking slot.

“Hmmm…she must have taken a cab to the airport last night,” Laura murmured as she turned the key in the door.

“And left in a hurry,” she added, noticing a heap of dirty clothes on the floor. Amanda’s place was normally a bit untidy, save for her immaculately organized desk and bookshelf, but Laura had never seen this much disarray. After giving a few brief strokes to Plato, who was sprawled on the center of the desk, Laura scooped up her friend’s laundry and went to the bathroom to toss it in the hamper. As she passed the bedroom, Laura noticed the unmade bed with Amanda’s childhood teddy bear and her XBox game controller on it.

In the bathroom, a wetsuit hung in the shower next to Amanda’s surfboard, which was emblazoned with a Marine Corps logo. “Roger James holding his daughter up on the waves,” Laura thought with a pang, remembering the charismatic ex-Marine. The sentiment only magnified when she began making Amanda’s bed, as a paperback her friend had been reading tumbled out of the covers to the floor and ejected its bookmark—the memorial card from Mr. James’s funeral service.

On the card, beneath the decorated Marine’s photograph, was the Bible verse: “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”

Laura reflected back to that sad day, recalling how her friend handled the sudden tragedy of her father’s death. Amanda was so grief-stricken that, in planning the funeral, she had only this verse, her mother’s favorite, to draw on.

She remembered Mr. James’s funeral clearly, but even more so the aftermath. She recalled how the words of that Bible verse on the memorial card had triggered several anguished, late-night conversations between her and Amanda. The phrase troubled her friend deeply, who had confessed to Laura that her mom and dad were at odds over religion. He had always boycotted the Sunday services Amanda attended regularly with her devout mother until her death. Amanda had desperately wanted to know whether her dad was in heaven, but Laura didn’t have much of an answer to comfort her with.

At least during those terrible days, Amanda had Juan Carlos.

A sudden clatter punctuated by a thud broke Laura’s reverie, and she returned to the living area just in time to see Plato leaping from the desk and emitting a series of plaintive meows. He had dislodged several framed photographs, which now lay strewn on the floor. Fortunately, no glass was broken.

“Have patience, my little philosopher king,” Laura reprimanded. As she opened the can of food for him, Plato rubbed rapturously against her leg.

After she fed him, Laura began replacing the photographs, trying to remember where they belonged on the desk. There was a picture of Amanda at the age of twelve with her parents at the Great Wall of China, just before her mom passed away. Next in chronological order, another photo showed a blue-gowned Amanda at high school graduation in Japan. “Braces still on,” commented Laura as she shook her head affectionately. More recent snapshots included a group photo of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority girls at a beach volleyball game, and a picture of Amanda and Laura after they won their first nine-ball tournament.

“But what’s this?” Laura asked out loud as she examined a picture she hadn’t seen for years in the apartment. It was a shot she herself had taken of Amanda and Juan Carlos outside the Body Electric tattoo parlor on Melrose in Hollywood. It had evidently been taken out of hiding—and recently.

“So, J. C., you really have resurfaced?” Laura mused as her mind traveled back more than seven years…

***

The beautiful evening in late May was supposed to have been a celebration. Both the lovebirds were ecstatic. That morning, Amanda learned she had been admitted to the prestigious work-study program at the Getty—which just happened to include a full-tuition scholarship for doctoral studies at UCLA. The award letter, signed by Dr. Archibald Walker, strongly implied that a full-time position on the Getty’s staff would be hers upon the receipt of her PhD.

“Talk about a gold-plated graduation present!” Amanda high-fived Laura after she read the letter aloud to her for the second time.

“Have you told J. C. yet?” Laura asked.

“Are you kidding? I called him right after I left a message for my dad—with the time difference between here and Nigeria, I’ll probably hear from Dad tomorrow. Johnny was thrilled, though. He said he also had some pretty good news, but wouldn’t tell me until after today’s exhibition game. Something about a Castilian superstition. Anyway, he should be here by five.”

They were waiting at the Kappa house, where Juan Carlos had promised to pick them up when he got back from the game.

“You guys really want me to tag along to Body Electric? I feel like a third wheel.”

“Laura—you’re my best friend! Besides, how often do I do something like this?”

“I still can’t believe you’re actually getting a tattoo.”

“Johnny has been asking me for a while. I guess I just needed a good excuse.”

“Okay, I’ll join you. I think I really
do
need to see this!”

At a quarter past six, Juan Carlos finally rumbled up to the house on his Harley. “Am I late?” he asked with a smile. Both Laura and Amanda pretended to scowl.

“I’ll take my moped and follow you,” Laura said as Amanda climbed on the Softail’s rear seat, her arms wrapped around Juan Carlos’s waist.

At the Body Electric, Amanda went first. Within half an hour, she emerged from the parlor into the waiting room, proudly displaying a small rendering of a papyrus scroll tattooed on her right ankle. After Laura and Juan Carlos had duly admired the artist’s handiwork, Amanda gestured toward the inner sanctum.