Eve Read Free Page B

different, act different. Speak differently.”
    “Father’s irritated,” said Cain, his face unfolding like a newly lit star, fire and light at the same time. He pointed to his ear and said, “They wanted to know what happened to his ear.”
    Adam frowned.
    Eve sidled up to Adam and slid her hand into his. Startled, Adam glared at her, shook his hand free, and said, “You too? Do you laugh with them, at my expense?”
    Eve brought her fingers to her lips, then held them out, denying any misdeed, but Adam had already spit out what he wanted to say, what Cain had goaded him into saying, what he always said when the discussion circled and landed upon Adam’s ear. “My ear would be whole if it weren’t for you.”
    And then Cain, like a wildcat grown bored with a limp hare between its paws, said, “Mother, they’ve given me a gift for you.” He reached into his leather bag and pulled out something white that looked like the figure of a woman—firm breasts, taut pregnant belly, and legs that were smoothed into a cylinder, nice for holding.
    Adam sighed, shook his head, and sat down on the courtyard bench with his head buried in his hands.
    Eve reached for the figure, puzzlement on her face, and traced her finger across its head, its neck, its belly. “It’s stone,” she said.
    Cain shrugged his shoulders and gestured to Eve’s swollen belly. “Alabaster. For the baby.” He looked to Adam for help. “We’re not entirely sure what it is, but when we tried to explain with our hands”—here he stretched his fingers over his belly—“that you were with child, a woman pushed this into my hands, rubbed her stomach, and folded her hands in front of it, mumbling a mess of words I couldn’t understand.”
    “I think it’s something they pray to, for help,” said Adam, still not looking up.
    Eve looked startled, and that’s when Naava said, “There are men and women gods?”
    “Elohim has a wife?” Eve said.
    “It’s not Elohim,” Adam said. He lifted his face defiantly. He jabbed his hand at the statue. “Look at it. It’s made of stone. Worthless, really. How could anyone expect something like that to help them?” He actually glowered at Eve’s obvious interest in the stone woman, Naava thought. “I could eat a mule! Aya, where’s my bowl?”
    Aya brought Adam some olives and barley bread and sat next to him. “Father, do they have someone who knows herbs?”
    Naava saw Adam’s nostrils flare, which he did whenever he was on the verge of losing control. After all, this sudden intrusion of people had startled everyone, including him, and this fact seemed to only irritate him. “You’re not going anywhere, do you understand? You’re staying right here, with your mother.” And to Eve, he said, “It’s not safe. We don’t know who they are or what they want yet.”
    Eve nodded but didn’t answer. She was caressing the little stone woman with her fingers.
    Naava let her mind concoct fabulous images of these strange people. She imagined they were beautiful. She imagined they were fascinating creatures, not a dull bone in their bodies. She imagined what they would think of her, upon first glance.
    Right then, Naava resolved that Eve’s baby sling would become a new robe for herself. For one could not visit such marvelous people in the rags Naava wore every day.

Hello, morning. Hello, sun, sliding up out of the blackness. I’m up here—invisible! This is partly because I’m up so high, like a bird in the sky, and partly because my family’s just beginning to wake. Cain doesn’t know I climb his date palms, and I don’t intend to tell him. Besides, who would guess I could shinny up here?
    If I had wings, I would swoop down from this tree and fly to the north. I would follow the green riverbanks of the great muddy Euphrates to the rugged mountains and shaggy pines where Mother and Father came from. There I would search for the flaming light that blazes the way back to the Garden. I would ask