by Tosca Lee
“Nonsense. There is Renana,” Ashira said.
“No.”
“No? And why not, silly goat?”
“She wants to marry Father,” he said, snuffling.
AFTER ALL THOSE MONTHS of nothing but the most perfunctory words, I made my peace with Adam. I found him in the orchard, keeping his own company. When he saw me, he made to rise.
“Wait.” I came up behind him, slid my hands over his shoulders.
We made up in our way.
We did not share words of endearment. Spent, we retreated in silence. I knew there were things on his heart he would have laid plain another day, a lifetime ago, but did not now. Neither did I. I wanted to speak to him of Kayin, and though I meant to broach the topic with the best and purest of intentions, I knew it would disrupt the uneasy peace between us. It could wait.
21
When I returned to the house, I was met by Renana’s accusing stare. New to pubescence, filling into an earthy beauty, she was the one who resembled me the most. I even imagined I saw Adam’s eye stray to her on occasion. But of course, she was near to the age I might have been, had I an age, when I first came to his arms.
“Where have you been?” She had Lahat by the hand and looked for all the world like a young mother scolding a wayward girl.
“That’s no worry of yours.”
“Lahat has been crying for you. He fell and scraped his knee and cut his lip.” She thrust the boy toward me.
“Children fall down,” I said, annoyed with her. Was I allowed not one moment of pleasure? It already came at such a cost that I must bind my tongue and say none of the things that in another time would have already been known. How tiresome, the binding together of two accords to construct one!
I took Lahat as Renana went out in the direction of the field.
WE HAD HARMONY FOR a time after that. The adam and I kept our peace, and though I did not keep myself from him, I did not grow heavy with child that year or the next. Perhaps I am done bearing, I thought. It was the way of animals, I knew, to bear only for a time.
In the summer of the third year, Ashira’s belly grew round. Hevel shone like a dark sun and walked often with his father and even spent more time at the house, sending Zeeva or the sullen Renana with the flock instead. I was relieved for the reprieve from Renana and unmoved that she claimed to suffer out in the sun all day, so glad was I to have Hevel near me by day for the first time in many years.
Zeeva was delighted to be gone from her chores, to spend the day gathering herbs and roots and even the licorice that I loved on the hills. She came back singing and spent those evenings enthusiastically pounding the pulp out of some poor root or another. We all reaped the benefits of her good humor.
“Something must be done about this house,” I declared to Adam one day. We had already expanded it three times; it could not continue to stretch indefinitely, like a woman carrying a litter of children. He agreed, and that year, after the grain was in and the vines were tended, he and Hevel and Kayin began planning the work of a second home. Hevel had by then already chosen a parcel of land across the hills.
“It’s so far!” Lila proclaimed upon his announcement. Her outbursts were rare and abrupt when they happened, like a clap of thunder from a blue summer sky.
Hevel laughed and took her hands. “You can run the distance in three breaths. Or is it that you are growing slower now in your age? What, are those donkey knees I see?”
I chuffed. What did they know of age—what did any of us, for that matter? We had begun to note the new slowness of Reut, who moved about as one always tired since her last litter of pups. She chased them when they returned from the hills with Hevel or Renana but no longer went with the flock, preferring, instead, to stay near the house. Though we knew something of the slowness that overtook the limbs of aging animals—and age progressed more slowly then than now—what did we really know of age?
“Kayin,” I said, loud enough for Lila to hear, “one day you might build on the other side of the orchard, and then we will shout to you so you can send to Hevel’s house when we want him!”
Lila slid me a sidelong glance.
That fall we made the procession to Hevel and Ashira’s new home. They carried with them their mats, all of their belongings, and several stores of food. We had long ago built a storehouse, and there would always be a ready supply of food there, but Adam had separated a portion for them for the beginning of their own. He also gave to Hevel half the flock, from which Hevel gave several milk goats and two lambs apiece to Besek and Lahat.
“See,” Hevel said, “I will mark your lambs like this.” He showed them the ear of one of the lambs, “So you can know which ones are yours. With these you will make a flock of your own.”
“What is that mark there?” Lahat asked, pointing to one of the others. Indeed, they all bore the mark of a circle and a line except for the youngest, whitest lambs, which would, according to his way, remain nameless—and I assumed unmarked—until they had grown past the age of sacrifice.
“That is my mark, so everyone knows who the rest belong to, you see?” Hevel drew it in the dirt.
“Everyone knows who they belong to,” Renana said, droll.
“What does it mean?” Lahat asked.
“This is my stone, that I hurled to kill the fox. Do you remember that?” Besek shook his head. “What? My brave deed?”
“I was very young,” said Lahat, who was only six.
“And so very difficult to impress.” Hevel laughed. “Well, this is the stone that I used to kill the fox. This line, this is my sling or the line of the rock in flight. I’m not sure which.”
“Why didn’t you kill it with your spear?” Lahat asked.
“Because a spear,” Renana interrupted, “is a chancy weapon. One likely to get the owner eaten.”
They were Adam’s words. He had called it chancy upon Kayin’s first leopard kill. It had nearly crushed him, who had brought back the pelt for me, so proud, looking only for a kind word.
“Well, a spear requires more bravery,” Hevel said, ignoring his sister, who turned on her heel and left. “You see, I am quite afraid.” Hevel mussed the boy’s hair and then made a face after Renana’s retreating back. Lahat found this hilarious and chased Renana for days with a protruding tongue.
Hevel’s house was solidly constructed of sturdy mud brick. How it reminded me of the day Adam had brought me to our first home. I wept to think of my hearth without them, but Ashira embraced me with a smile.
“As you said, Mother, you need only send Kayin shouting.” It had been exaggeration to say Kayin might shout at them beyond the orchard, but it was still only a good walk—or short run—away.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Kayin said, “and who knows. Perhaps I’ll stay on for a bit. What? You might as well get used to not being alone with that child on its way.” He grinned.
When we left, he did not come home with us but went to see to Hevel’s flock. It was the time of year after the grain harvest and before the rains when Kayin went near to mad looking for work for his hands. Soon there would be pelts and fat and sinew and new hides aplenty, chancy weapon or not. No one could throw a spear as well, or as accurately, as Kayin.
Not even Adam.
THAT WINTER LILA TURNED out her finest fabrics yet, and Zeeva’s bread grew impossibly more delicious. Ashira, waddling late in her pregnancy, came to crush the juice of grapes with her sisters, which we left to ferment in the sun. On tense nights after long days, the wine eased our nerves.
I delighted in my children and even in the adam on occasion—especially on those nights when the crickets chanted their loudest, their trill reminding me of a time when even the insects knew song, when I could look up at the sparkling gems of my crown and know that not so much had changed, at least in the heavens. Did not the sun keep the same course, though it shone hotter by the year, and did not the moon keep her courses—and mine?
Heavens, trees, earth, and water . . . all things
seen and none unseen. Hadn’t there once been a populace of beings there in array, a host? Perhaps I imagined it. As I listened to the swaying boughs of the willow at night, I wondered if the One had forgotten us, having gone away to another place, and to more obedient children.
ONE DAY SOMETIME AFTER the birth of Ashira’s daughter, I went to the field to bring food to Adam and Kayin and the strapping Besek. Such a young buck of a man, my Besek! He was the tallest of us already, due in no small amount to Zeeva’s doting feeding of him. Lila was ever in the house, twining her threads and yarns, and Lahat was with his brother in the hills. As I passed the orchard on my way to the fields, which were full with golden grasses carefully selected through the seasons for the best and heaviest seeds, I heard voices ahead. I stopped short, surprised to see Adam and Renana. They stood close together. I could see now that she was beaming up at him, something in her hand held close against her breast. It hung from a cord around her neck. On Adam’s face was a smile I had not seen in many years.
I stood there and stared. When they eventually noticed me, they fell apart, and Renana started quickly in the direction of the house.
“Husband?” My voice sounded clear as a bell, though I knew Renana was already beyond earshot. “I was coming to you in the field. I brought food for midday.” It was still only late morning—no wonder they had not expected me so soon.
“Thank you.” He took the basket from me. “I was coming anyway.”
I did not want to ask what he said to Renana; somehow I felt it beneath me. But I was piqued by the look on his face and by her hasty exit.
“I made her a necklace,” he said, awkwardly, gesturing in the direction of the retreating Renana. I was put in mind of the one he had given me once, so long ago, and stunned by a sharp spike of jealousy.
“Well, that’s all fine. She’s already impudent. Now she’ll be insufferable!”
Whatever it was he made for her, she wore it beneath her tunic so that all I could see was the cord around her neck. I imagined she did it on purpose. I studied her sidelong, comparing the girl I had seen peering out from the pool upon the valley floor with the girl before me. Yes, had I an age, it might have been the same as hers now. Indeed, how very alike we looked.
“What is that necklace you wear?” I asked one day as we cut reeds at the river’s edge.
“Nothing,” she said, not looking at me.
“Then let me see nothing.”
She straightened with a sigh and took her time wiping her hands and moving aside the plait of her hair. When she lifted it from beneath her tunic, my heart stopped.
A woman on a cord.
So very much like my own.
She slipped it back inside and went back to work without looking at me.
“How lovely,” I said, forcing the words.
It plagued me like a boil. Perhaps it was only that she reminded him of me at that age. Perhaps he had wanted his work to be more appreciated than I had appreciated it that day I had thrown it from me in the cave. I did not like any other direction my mind went.
They were scrupulous in my sight and hearing, nearly as much as Kayin and Lila. I could say nothing.
Kayin and Lila, at least, had nothing to hide. Theirs was a language of gestures and silence, of small tokens and kind deeds. He carved new pegs to her specification when she needed them, and his tunics were made with painstaking skill, often bearing the first experiments of a new pattern or subtle color. Though one would need to watch them as carefully as one watches the movement of the sun through the day to know they were intimate, I envied their communion.
LATER THAT YEAR KAYIN did indeed build a small house on the far side of the orchard, but Lila would not go to live there. So he went there sometimes by himself, but he was never gone for more than a day or two and always returned to his sister, speaking no audible words of love, but lying down together at night.
Kayin’s house did not fall to disuse; Besek and Zeeva snuck away there often. One day they announced that they would go live there to keep it. Even as I said my blessing, I was relieved for Lila’s staying near because it meant that Kayin would never be far, though Adam seemed none too pleased.
One day Adam said, “He should go to live in his own house.”
“Why should he? A man follows his woman. She is his flesh.” It was never a question. We were the only precedent we knew.
“Then Lila should go. They are old enough to be on their own twice over from the age that we were.”
“We do not know the age that we were,” I said, though he was probably right.
ONE DAY I ASKED Lila, “Why do you not go to live in Kayin’s house? Clearly he loves you.”
She laid down her shuttle. By that, I knew this to be an answer of some weight. “Because I am not his first choice. And he will not dishonor me by pretending I am or by giving second gestures to me.”
The plainness with which she said it brought me pain and admiration for her at once. “Besides, I don’t think Kayin really wants to live in his house. He would be here, in his home, with his mother and father.”
I knew the “father” part to be a pretty fib.
“But if you went, he would follow.”
“I know,” she said, glancing at her hands. “But his heart wishes to be here.”
I sighed—not the sigh of the weary but of the one who catches her breath at beauty. Now I understood how fitting they were for each other. How I had not seen it before!
“Besides, you will need me.” Lila picked up the shuttle and bending over the warp.
“Indeed? And why is that?”
“Because you are pregnant again.”
22
Sufa was born rear first, with a mighty rending that left me abed for days. It was the first such injury I ever had. When I tried to rise from my mat in the days following, Lahat went running for Ashira, who walked over, heavily pregnant herself, to admonish me in person. Renana sang her chants over the squalling child, playing a drum that startled the baby with every beat. Sufa let out a great wail every time Renana struck the drum; her lungs were robust from the first day.
Not long after I had recovered enough to go about my work once again, Ashira bore her second child. Hevel and I delivered him together, and Lila wrapped him in a new linen cloth. Ashira named him Nave and gave him over to his older sister, Kanit, showing her how to hold his head. I was glad, having had boys first, that Ashira should have a girl firstborn. It confirmed for me a strange balance in the world, an equation that I thought ever changing but balanced—where one creature died, another was born; where one field flourished, another was eaten away by locusts—the mystery of which was known only to the One.
How strange and natural at once it was, to hold the children of my children in my arms. I had seen children in Ashira’s arms and lap ever since she was old enough to hold them, but to see Kanit and Nave, born of her, filled me with pride. I said to her that day the same thing I said on the day she bore Kanit: “And now you know what it is to create with the One.” This time I added, “You have gotten a man with the help of the One that Is.”
“And with a little help of Hevel.”
“Yes, a little.” I gave my son a sidelong wink.
Renana came to chant the name of the child. “You will carry on the name of your father,” she said, rocking the baby in her arms.
I left after that, having little patience for her company, the rhythmic sound of her consonants still in my ear.
The season droned on. Renana went to live in Kayin’s home, which seemed to pique Lila none at all even though Besek and Zeeva seemed none so enthusiastic. They tried to live alongside the demands of their sister, who said often she was sick and could not work, until they ignored her completely.
Eventually she left to live with Hevel. Hevel was the very image of her father and too good-natured to be stern with her, but Ashira would have none of her impudence and smilingly struck her hard once across the mouth for saying something none of them would ever tel
l me, before telling her she was welcome to stay so long as she minded the children and improved her cooking.
Adam was often away from the house in those days. It was the sowing season.
THAT YEAR THE WHEAT grew tall in the field and yielded its kernel more willingly than I ever remembered. Adam and Kayin were exultant. I looked forward to the fruit crop, to the new oil pressed from olive and almond and the pressing of the grapes. One night, I thought, Surely these are the joys of an old woman.
And I did feel old, as redundant as the grinding stone and as worn away. I cheered the achievements of Sufa as she learned to use the midden—Lila was by now an expert in training the children in this way; she was tired of seeing even her coarsest cloth used for napkins. I praised Zeeva for her skill with food that far surpassed any of mine. I communicated my love to Kayin in quiet ways and embraced Hevel when he would let me. I tried to show my love to Besek and Lahat and to coddle Ashira’s children whenever I saw them.
But I was weary.
One night before the grain harvest, Zeeva and Besek came to eat with us and lay down after dinner together. They were giddy from wine—I could smell it on them. I was restless on my mat, disinterested in sleep. When the snore Zeeva was known for issued from her direction—harmonized by Besek’s—and I was certain Sufa would not wake up, I got up, gathered my cloak and sandals, and went out.
Outside the mist was rolling in from the river. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. The air was crisp, not so cold—I could warm myself quickly if I wanted. I left my cloak outside the house and walked along the path toward the orchard and the fields beyond.
In the orchard I stopped and considered the sky through the trees. In an orchard like this, the One had come upon me. On such a night as this, my promised seed had been born.
