Havah (24 page)

“Hevel, do you remember the first lamb you gave up for the altar?”

He smiled slightly. “I do, Mother. I cried for three nights afterward.”

“You must have thought us cruel to take him in that way. You couldn’t look at it when it was being done but turned your face away, against my leg.”

He shook his head slightly. “I couldn’t bear to see it done. But I knew he was going to the One. And, I have never told you, I think a part of me, knowing the mystery even at that age, envied him just a little.” His face registered a slight awe, shining in his eyes.

“Ah, my good boy,” I said with a soft chuckle before going inside.

Laughter amid tension, smiles before the chasm. We are the new shoot before the storm, the shelter before the flood.

WE WENT AT DAWN. We did not always do it then. We did as seemed to be given us. We did as seemed best . . .

We did as seemed best.

We gathered around the altar: Kayin carried a basket of finely ground flour in one hand, a jar of oil in the other. Behind him came the procession of his sisters: Lila bearing wheat and barley, Ashira bearing flax, and Zeeva carrying a wealth of vegetables. They had not been harvested first but allowed to grow to such size and beauty that these were, I was certain, the best specimens I had ever seen.

Only I knew the tension in his shoulders, how his hand trembled as he set down the basket.

He wore nothing that dawn but linen tied around his waist. I was shocked at how lean, how stringy his muscles had become. How fine he was! Was there ever a more handsome man except for his father?

He laid the baskets upon the stones, arranged them beautifully. He took the oil and poured it out. I petitioned in my heart that it should be the fragrance of every pleasing thing, that it should remind the One of every delight in our valley and that the One might long to walk with us within it again.

When he turned back, I saw the look upon Adam’s face: pride. And though Kayin chafed every moment he was in his father’s presence, his face lifted as I had not seen it do in all these recent years.

If Adam could look upon him with approval, how should the One resist?

I knew Kayin looked next at me, but I kept my eyes fixed stolidly upon the altar.

Would that I had given him any kind word. Would that I had motioned for him to come to my side. But I did not. Even then I had no small mercy for him.

Every man must stand before the One alone.

In my heart, however, I poured out my love like oil. Hevel would not sacrifice the lamb himself but gave it over to Adam. He always stood back and hid his face; he would not come to the altar with tears. Adam sliced the throat of the lamb. I held out the bowl.

For the first time I welcomed the flow of blood into that vessel, and through the process of flaying the animal, I sent up my hopes to heaven.

When Adam laid it upon the altar, I set out the bowl of blood. As I did . . .

Did I see false? A phantom line of skinless animals seemed to stretch out before me.

Blood and oil. Grain and flour. With it we laid out our every hope.

A blaze shot up from the bier. I thought I saw again the fiery pillar, the golden wings stretching up toward heaven, shielding the sword as though it were a flame.

I clasped Adam’s hand as if in doing so we might return to the thing we had always been: one flesh.

Soon.

I dropped back my head. It was the same thing I had felt every time the One was near. I almost expected that evening breeze here, in the light of dawn, or the feel of the sun, too bright for morning. I opened my eyes and saw, beyond the fire of the altar, the bright morning star, undaunted by the blaze.

Yes. Come, Great Initiator, Beginning and End.

Though I knew my children were here around us, in that moment it was only Adam and I. The ground beneath us might be an alluvial plain or the foothill of a mountain . . . or a fertile valley. All of it was holy. All of it was good, for it had all been made by God.

I was torn from the moment by a strangled cry: Kayin’s.

He lurched toward the altar and reeled back from the heat of the fire. Adam let go my hand and tried to haul him back, but Kayin tore free and snatched one of the sheaves of wheat from atop the altar. I watched in confusion as he held it toward the holy fire as one does to light a torch. And then I saw why . . .

One side of the altar burned in bright conflagration. The other had never properly caught. It sent great, reeking coils of stench into the early morning sky so that the burning animal seemed clean and fragrant by comparison.

Adam pulled him back. “Do not interfere with the fire of the One!”

Ashira’s son, Nave, pointed. “Why, the other side isn’t burning at all!”

Ashira hushed him, pushing down his finger and covering his mouth. Kayin cried out in one last desperate push for the altar, but Adam held him fast. It was too late by now anyway; the fire over Hevel’s lamb was burning lower and lower, until it was the flickering fingers of one burning hand. And then the carcass—what was left of it—glowed as a timber that has been burnt through . . .

The fire went out. The form of the animal collapsed upon itself, only ash.

Hevel stood with head bowed, swaying slightly, saying nothing, looking at no one. His lips moved, though no sound came from them.

The lamb was gone, consumed utterly. Even the embers were gone, the ashes already stirring in the air.

But the once-feast on the other side of the altar continued to smolder, ruined, the smoke horrifically foul.

Kayin slumped in Adam’s arms, and, when his father continued to hold him fast, pushed him away with a violent shove. Adam staggered back.

“The One will do as the One will do,” Adam said. But even I wanted to cry out that the sacrifice, the bounty, had been perfect.

Lila, normally so reserved, covered her eyes with a great wail, but Ashira silenced her.

“Hush. The One has done as the One has willed. That is all.”

At that, Kayin shot his sister such a look of venom that she actually backed a step. I hurried to him and took his arm, trying not to look at the altar. “Come away. Let it be.”

He jerked away from me and, with a howl, lunged for the altar. He pushed the vegetables, stinking and smoldering, into the ashes of the lamb. But even then they did not catch fire though they lay, half toppled, in the very place where fire had consumed the lamb. When Adam pulled him gently away a second time, Kayin staggered, his eyes darting this way and that. He groaned, tearing at his hair, and stumbled off, not looking back.

“What does it mean?” Zeeva whispered, too loudly. Ashira began to usher away her children and gently laid her hand on Hevel’s arm. He seemed to have slipped away to another place, though his body stood rooted to the ground. When he lifted his head, I caught my breath at the expression on his face. It was beatific. My heart lurched.

How could this be? Oh, God!
I sank to my knees.

For as much as my heart hurt for Kayin, my heart should have swelled for Hevel. But I could only think:
This is not how it was supposed to be.

Hevel turned away, still in a daze. Renana started in the direction of Kayin, but Lila stopped her. “Do you think he needs a chit of a girl to comfort him?”

“I will go after Kayin,” Adam said.
His heart, too, longs for the One,
I thought with sadness.
I am not the only one.

“No,” said Hevel slowly, seeming to rouse from reverie. “I will go.”

Adam reached for me, and I clasped his hand tightly. Kayin and Adam had been enough at odds already. Kayin would, I knew, never forgive his father for holding him back when he would have attempted to light the fire over his offering.

Hevel kissed Ashira on the forehead and went after his brother.

24

Just before dawn there came a rustle outside the house. I opened my eyes, instantly alert with the keen sense of a mother. I sat up, my heart quickening. Perhaps my sons were back. Oh, the questions I had for Hevel! And how I wanted—needed—to comfort Kayin.

When Kayin slipped through the door, I felt instantly relieved. I almost chuckled, so furtive was he, like a child with a secret. I opened my mouth, but upon seeing me he gestured frantically. Only then did I see his disheveled hair, the dirt on his face. Across the room Lila stirred. Kayin shrank back, out the doorway completely. I got up and dressed, even as Lila sat up, alarm in her eyes.

“It is fine. Rest a bit longer.” I put on my sandals.

Once I emerged outside, however, I could not find him until I went around the side of the house. There he was, bent over as though ill, his face twisted. He tugged at his hair, threw himself toward me, and then immediately shrank back.

“Come, my son.” I lay my arm around him. I had wronged him. How greatly I had wronged him! “Come away from here and we will talk.” How my heart ached for him. “Where is Hevel now?”

He gave a strange, rasping laugh. “Again, ‘Where is your brother?’ You used to send him after me! Should I now be the shepherd of the shepherd? Ah,
God!
”

The laugh became a cry and then a thick sob. He threw himself down to the ground and embraced my feet so that I nearly lost my balance.

“What is this? Stop it now.” I tried to pull him to his feet before he could cause a scene and wake the whole house. I could smell the wine upon him. Well, I could not fault him; of course he was undone. We had fostered expectation and the veneer of controlled perfection in him and here it was, cracked as any pot too long in the fire. I could only blame myself. How I must pour out my love to him now!

I pulled him away from the house; I desperately did not want him encountering his father. Not yet. “Come away now,” I said, drawing him with me. Had Hevel not put him to rights? I had assumed through the day and evening he would make all well between them—would make well many things, in fact.

“Forgive me,” he said, crying like a boy, going wherever I pulled him. His nose ran, leaving slippery tracks in his grimy face as it had when he was a child. He smelled foully of earth and wine and smoke—the smoldering smell of burnt grain and oil. There was something else, too. Grime caked his hands up to the forearm. It had smattered his face.

Abruptly, he pulled away and shouted, “Do not look on my face! I cannot look upon yours!”

“Kayin! What are you saying?”

“Mother, Mother—do not remove from me your love! Please do not take your love from me!”

A growing unease in my bowels. “I would never! It is not your doing that the One chose whom he—”

He was staring at me, and the look was filled with horror. His eyes seemed painfully white against the dark gore of his face.

“Kayin.” My hands had begun, inexplicably, to tremble. “Where is your brother?”

At that, he fell to the ground with wild wails, beating at his chest and face and shoulders. His voice was none I recognized—raw and like an animal’s. Cold seized my chest. I got down, grasped his shoulders.

“Kayin! Where is Hevel? Where is your brother?” But he only beat at himself, clawing at his face and hair. I shook him hard, with more strength than I knew myself to have, until the whites rolled up in his eyes.
“Where is Hevel?”

All at once, he lay still.

“Come, Mother,” he said in a small voice, wiping at his face with the back of his forearm. I heard a sound behind us, and Kayin started as Lila came out of the house, her face stricken. I could see now the form of the adam moving inside, hurriedly dressing.

“Do not let her see me! Do not let her come!” His hoarse cry sounded as though he had shouted all through the night.

I pulled him up and hurried with him across the yard, dragging him with me, feeling ill. As though the motion had brought order to his brain, he faltered. “Please, say you will not stop loving me. Please, never remove your love. I cannot bear it. I cannot bear it. I can barely bear to live—”

Fear was a cord around my lungs. “Tell me! Tell me what happened!”

He would have fallen to the ground again, but I caught him and shook him once more.

“I have heard the voice of the One!”

I halted, confounded. “What?”

“I heard the voice of the One, Mother.”

“What did—what did he say to you?” Why did those words, so long hoped for, feel so horribly wrong?

“The same as you, Mother, just now.”

“What?”

“He said that sin crouches at the door.”

I thought of Kayin, crouching, himself, at the door only a short time earlier.

“What cryptic tale is this?” Nothing made sense: the son before me covered with grime; the One, addressing the man whose sacrifice he had no regard for after so many years . . . the whereabouts of Hevel.

Where was Kayin’s brother, favored of God?

We neared the far field. I hesitated, but Kayin walked stiffly on.

I had a sudden recollection of the young Hevel running to me.

Mother, come quick!

Impossibly, as though he knew the turn of my thoughts, Kayin said, “You never knew. You never knew that the jackal I slew that day on the hill nearly slew me first. It came at me in a rush and would have had me except that Hevel threw a stone at it and stunned it. I was such a coward, Mother! ‘Get it, Kayin!’ Hevel shouted at me. I went to it on legs near to falling. Only when it lifted its head and began to get back up did I kill it with my spear.”

“Why do you tell me this?”

“Hevel would have finished it, except that I told him to get away because I feared for him—I did, truly—but I also knew I could not go to you having let Hevel kill it. It fell to me. It always fell to me. I could not bear that he should come to you having saved me, and so I made him swear never to tell—”

His voice broke, and he fell to sobbing again, quietly, into the crook of his arm.

“Please do not hate me, Mother. Father’s hatred I can abide, for he hates already that I share your love though I would remove myself from your heart and from this very earth if I could!”