—I know of no brother Seth.
—He’s just recently born.
—There you go then. I have not been home for years. There is little chance that I shall go in the future, so I’ll continue to know nothing of this Seth or any other new fledglings in Father’s brood.
—Too bad. I’d hoped . . . I’ve heard that Mother bore him . . .
—Yes?
Abel’s hesitant voice is filled with wonder.—That she bore him to replace me.
Cain laughs aloud: it is the sweetest joke he has heard in some time.—Is that such a surprise? Lose a hut to fire, build another one. Lose a goat to the fox, breed another one. Lose a child to some horrible crime, conceive another one.
He wonders if Abel is thinking the same as he: And if you lose a brother?
But instead Abel admits, I hadn’t thought I’d be so easily replaced.
A kind of grim satisfaction fills Cain at this.—I imagine it would be a shock. Precious little you can do about it now though.
Abel’s voice grows breathy, as if the breeze is filling it up.—I suppose not.
—Unless you go and, and—haunt them. Like you’re doing to me.
—I think I’ll spare them that.
A thought occurs to Cain then.—What about that girl you were so keen on?
—Girl?
—The one you were planning to marry. Have you ever gone to see her? Aren’t you curious?
—Ah . . . no. I’ll leave her in peace, I think. It was just a misunderstanding between us. Farewell, brother.
—Wait! I get to ask a question of you!
—You just did . . .
Cain jolts around but there is nothing besides gravel and mountains and spindly scrub bushes. Nonetheless he cries out, Do you forgive me? Abel! Do you forgive me?
The echoes come back to him: Forgive me? Give me? Give me!
•
The vision or visitation or whatever it is preoccupies him for many days. He descends from the mountains where he has sought isolation, and for a time he pays no heed to the stones and curses hurled at him by the farmers and villagers on his path. But it is only a matter of time before his brother’s presence fades from his memory, and the immediate reality of bearing all humanity’s loathing becomes once more his daily preoccupation.
Despite this, he can’t help wishing he’d called out a bit sooner: Do you forgive me? Any answer at all—yes no it doesn’t matter—would have been better than silence. Would have helped Cain come to terms with where he finds himself. Which is, he is beginning to realize, nowhere at all. Regardless of where he wanders he is still, always, nowhere.
32 the conversation
—How would I know? snarls Cain.
An awkward silence ensues.
God, in the form of a gray-bellied cloud, drifts lazily across an afternoon sky of unimaginable blueness. Cain had been staggering along the river’s edge in the miasmic shade of a cypress grove, listening to the blood scuttling through his arteries, when the Almighty had appeared, demanding, Where is your brother?
Now God asks again: Have you not seen him today?
—No, Cain snaps, I haven’t. I’m not his keeper, nor his mother either. Go ask her, she’s likely enough to have her arms around his precious head.
His head. His brother’s head, broken and stove-in at the bottom of the ravine. Twisted at an angle that God never intended. His tongue, bit through by his own teeth, lying in the dust beside him.
God is there as a cypress now, tall but not so tall as some of the others. Together in the grove they look like columns holding up the sky’s vault. It is past midday and sunlight angles through the treetops in golden-green fingers, lending the place an air of holiness that Cain could happily do without.—Do you think you can deceive me?
Exasperated, Cain turns at right angles away from God. The river confronts him now and he has no choice but to cross it, stepping along a series of half-submerged stones slick with algae. In fact he’d never planned on trying to deceive anyone, God least of all. But recent events had shifted faster than his ability to keep up. And so, having at last done what he’d long dreamed of, Cain is left wondering: Now what?
God waits for him on the far bank in the form of a large flat boulder. Lichen patterns it in particolored stains.—Your crime will not go unpunished.
Cain, knowing he is beaten, stops and says nothing. Stands ankle-deep in cold river water and waits.
—Confess what you have done, God commands quietly. The voice is reasonable, soothing even.—Do not compound your sin by denying it.
—I have done nothing! spits Cain.
Why is he lying? He cannot say. Some primeval impulse to cover up, to dissemble: the child’s urge to escape the wrath of the parent. Cain knows it is useless but there’s too much noise in his head to think clearly. Rage tumbles through his mind like a plague of frogs. He both tries not to think, and can’t help thinking, about his brother’s easy smile, his eyes green like this cypress grove at dawn, the creeping grin as he turned toward him.
They had stood at the edge of the ravine this very morning. Cain’s blood sang in his veins. His rage was the melody. He had resolved to murder his brother and felt oddly detached from the proceedings. Insofar as motivation went, there wasn’t much more to it than that. There was no single thing that had cemented his resolve—only a thousand tiny things built up over the years, accruing higher and higher into a great termites’ nest of revulsion.
In the time it took to draw a breath, Cain recalled ten reasons to kill his brother:
| 1. | The way he smiled vacuously at anything he didn’t understand. | |
| 2. | His certainty that all conflict could be resolved if people just tried a little harder. | |
| 3. | Preferential treatment from Eve and Adam. | |
| 4. | Preferential treatment from God. | |
| 5. | You should and You shouldn’t. | |
| 6. | A breathtaking inability to see another’s point of view. | |
| 7. | The unbearable way he treated the younger children. | |
| 8. | Smugness in all things. | |
| 9. | His effortless ability to mouth platitudes that, unconvincing though they were, still left Cain feeling a misfit. | |
| 10. | Obliviousness to all of the above. |
None of these reasons was especially valid, Cain knew. Or perhaps they all were. Perhaps it came down to this: his brother annoyed him, so he would die. Annoyed him, enraged, infuriated, humiliated him. And made him feel he deserved it. These were good enough reasons, weren’t they? They had seemed so that morning, when both men had stood atop the cliff overlooking the ravine. Abel leaning out, peering down at some imaginary curiosity that Cain had pointed to. Against the small of Cain’s back pressed his hand and in it was the stone. The stone was large but knobbed, affording an easy grip as if formed especially for this purpose.
Formed by whom?
Cain had pointed to the bottom of the ravine, some sixty cubits below.—Look! What do you suppose that is?
His brother squinted down.—What?
—There. Do you not see it?
—I see nothing, brother.
And then Abel leaned further into the abyss, stretching his slight, brown-haired frame, before deciding his elder brother was having a joke on him. And as Cain hefted the stone, arcing his arm with all