Cain (7 page)

Don't think
you're going to lie your way out of this, shouted
the man and advanced, sword at the ready. At that same
moment, the weapon was transformed into a cobra which
the man, horrified, shook from his hand, There, said cain,
what you took for a snake was a sword. He bent down and
picked the sword up by the hilt, I could kill you now, and
no one would come to your aid, he said, your companions
have fled, as will the traitor who brought me here, Forgive
me, begged the man, kneeling down, Only the lord can
forgive you, if he so chooses, I can't, now go, you will find
the reward for your villainy at home. The man left, head
down, weeping, tearing his hair, regretting a thousand times
over ever having chosen the profession of murderous bandit.
Repeating the steps he took when he first arrived, cain
walked back into the city. Just as on that occasion, he
turned
a corner and found himself face to
face with the old man
leading
the two sheep by a rope. Goodness, you've changed,
said the old man, you don't look anything like the vagabond
who came from the west or the treader of mud, No, I'm a
guard now, said cain, and made as if to go on his way,
Guarding which door, asked the old man in a tone that was
intended to be mocking, but which sounded rather resentful,
If you know already, why waste time asking, Because I don't
know the details, and the savour of any story is always in
the details, Well, go hang yourself on them then, you have
a rope after all, retorted cain, and that way I wouldn't have
to see you again. The old man shouted, You will go on seeing
me until the end of your days, My days will have no end,
answered cain, moving off, and watch that those sheep of
yours don't eat the rope, That's what I'm here for, but it's
all they think of doing.

Lilith was not
in her room, nor on the roof terrace, where
she often sunbathed naked. Sitting on his bench, cain considered
the situation, trying to weigh up what had happened.
It was clear that the slave had taken him down that path on
purpose in order to meet the waiting bandits, so someone
must have plotted against his life. It wasn't difficult to
guess
the name of what we would now call
the mastermind behind
that
failed murder attempt. Noah, said cain, that's who it
was, no one else in the palace or in the city would gain
anything by my disappearance. At that moment, lilith came
into the antechamber, That was a short walk, she said. A
thin veil of sweat made the skin on her shoulders gleam,
she was as succulent as a ripe pomegranate or as a split fig
from which oozes the first honeyed drop. Cain considered
carrying her off to bed, then abandoned the idea, perhaps
later on, there were serious matters to deal with first.
Someone tried to kill me, he said, Kill you, asked lilith,
startled, who, The slave you sent with me and some hired
bandits, What happened, tell me, The slave led me down a
path out of the city, that's where the attack took place, Did
they hurt you, wound you, No, How did you escape, asked
lilith, No one can kill me, said cain calmly, You're the only
person in the world who believes that, Yes, I am. There was
a silence, which cain broke, My name isn't abel, he said,
it's
cain, Oh, I like that better than
the other one, said lilith,
trying
to keep the tone of the conversation light, an
endeavour that cain laid low with his next words, Abel was
the name of my brother, whom I killed because the lord
had chosen to favour him at my expense, and I took his
name to conceal my own identity, We don't care if you're
cain or abel, news of your crime never reached us here, Yes,
I see that now, Tell me what happened, Aren't you afraid of
me, don't I disgust you, asked cain, You are the man I chose
for my bed and with whom, in a little while, I will again lie
down. Then cain opened the ark of secrets and described
the dramatic event in detail, including the flies on abel's
eyes and mouth, as well as the words spoken by the lord,
and the enigmatic promise he had made to protect him from
a violent death, Don't ask me why he made that promise,
said cain, he didn't tell me and I'm not sure there is an
explanation, It's enough for me that you're alive and in my
arms, said lilith, Don't you see in me a criminal who can
never be pardoned, asked cain, No, she said, I see in you a
man against whom the lord offended, and now that I know
your real name, let's go to bed, I'll burn up with desire
right
here if you don't hurry, I knew you
as abel, and now I need
to
know you as cain. When the delirium of repeated and
various penetrations finally gave way to lassitude, to
complete physical exhaustion, lilith said, It was noah,
wasn't
it, Yes, I believe it must have
been, agreed cain, I can't think
of
any other person in the palace or the city who would
want to see me dead as much as he would, When we get
up, said lilith, I will send for him, and you will hear what
I
have to say. They slept a little to
rest their weary limbs and
woke
almost at the same moment. Lilith, already out of
bed, said, Stay here, he won't come in. She summoned a
slave-woman to help her dress and then asked the same slave
to send a message to noah, requesting an interview. She sat
in the antechamber waiting, and when her husband arrived,
she said point-blank, You will order the execution of the
slave whom you gave to me as a companion for cain on his
walks, Who's cain, asked noah, taken by surprise, Cain was
abel and now he's cain, you will have the men who ambushed
him killed as well, Where is cain, since that is now his
name,
He's safe in my bedroom. The
silence became palpable. Then
noah
said, I had nothing to do with what you say happened,
Be careful, noah, lying is the worst of all cowardices, But
I'm not lying, You're a coward and you're lying, you're the
one who told the slave what to do and where and how, the
same slave, I suspect, whom you have used to spy on my
activities, hardly necessary since whatever I do, I do
openly,
As your husband, you should respect
me, Yes, you may be
right,
I really should, So what are you waiting for, asked
noah, feigning an irritation which he was far from feeling,
for he was still trembling from her accusation, Oh, I'm not
waiting for anything, I simply don't respect you, Is it
because
I'm not a good lover and haven't
given you the child you
wanted,
he asked, Even if you were a brilliant lover and had
given me not one child but ten, I still wouldn't respect you,
Why, Let me think about it, and as soon as I've discovered
the reasons why I feel not the slightest respect for you,
I'll
tell you, you'll be the first to
know, I promise, but now,
please
leave me, I'm tired and need to rest. Noah was about
to go, when she added, One other thing, when you have
tracked down that wretched traitor, and I hope you will not
be long about it, be sure to tell me so that I can witness
his
death, the others don't interest
me, All right, said noah, and
as
he crossed the threshold, he heard his wife's last words,
And if you torture him, I want to be there too. Back in her
room, lilith asked cain, Did you hear, Yes, What did you
think, He was clearly the person who ordered me to be killed,
he couldn't even act the innocent. Lilith got into bed, but
instead of snuggling up to cain, she lay on her back, eyes
wide open, staring at the ceiling, then suddenly she said, I
have an idea, What, We should kill noah, That's madness,
complete nonsense, protested cain, please, don't even think
such an absurd thing, Why is it absurd, we would be free
of him then, we could get married, you would be the new
lord of the city and I would be your queen and your favourite
slave, the one who would kiss the ground you walk on,
the one who, if necessary, would receive your faeces in her
hands, But who would kill him, You would, No, lilith, please
don't ask me that, don't order me to do that, I've had my
fill of murders, You mean you wouldn't kill him for me,
don't you love me, she asked, I who gave you my body so
that you could enjoy it endlessly, freely, extravagantly, so
that
you could enjoy it without rules or
prohibitions, I opened
to
you the doors of my mind, which I had always kept bolted
shut, and yet you refuse to do the one thing I ask of you
and that would bring us total freedom, Freedom, yes, but
remorse too, You're forgetting that I am lilith, I'm not the
kind of woman to feel remorse, that's for the weak and
feeble, And I am merely a man called cain who came from
far away, a man who killed his own brother, who worked as
a treader of mud, and who, having done nothing whatever
to deserve it, has had the extraordinary good fortune to
sleep in the bed of the most beautiful, passionate woman
in the world, whom he loves, wants and desires with every
pore of his body, So we won't kill noah, then, asked lilith,
If you really want to, have a slave do it, No, I don't
despise
noah so much that I would send a
slave to kill him, But I'm
a
slave and you wanted me to kill him, That's different, a
man who lies in my bed is not a slave, or perhaps he is, but
only to me and my body, So why don't you kill him yourself,
asked cain, Because, despite everything, I don't think I
would be capable, Men kill women every day, who knows,
perhaps by killing him you would start a new trend, Let
other women do that, I am lilith, wild, crazy lilith, but
that
is as far as my errors and crimes
go, So we'll let him live
then,
it will be punishment enough for him to know that
we know he wanted to kill me, Put your arms around me,
trample me beneath your feet, o treader of mud. Cain put
his arms around her, but he entered her very gently, without
violence, with an unexpected tenderness that brought her
almost to the verge of tears. Two weeks later, lilith
announced
that she was pregnant.

Some might say
that social and domestic peace finally
reigned
in the palace, enfolding everyone in the same
fraternal embrace. This, however, was not the case, for after
a few days had passed, cain came to the conclusion that
with lilith expecting a child, his time there had ended. When
the child came into the world, everyone would consider it
to be noah's child, and although, at first, there would be no
shortage of more than justified suspicions and murmurings,
time, the great leveller, would soon smooth them away, and
future historians would take care to eliminate from the
city's
chronicle any reference to a
certain treader of mud called
abel,
or cain, or whatever the devil his name was, a doubt
which would, in itself, be deemed reason enough to condemn
him to oblivion, to permanent quarantine, to the limbo of
those events which, for the peace of mind of dynasties, it is
best not to talk about. Our story may not be historical, but
it shows how wrong or perhaps malicious those historians
were, because cain did exist, he gave noah's wife a child,
and
now he has a problem, how to tell
lilith that he wants to
leave.
He hoped that the lord's curse, You will be a fugitive
and a vagabond upon the earth, would persuade her to accept
his decision. In the end, though, it proved less problematic
than he had thought, perhaps also because the child, that
handful of hesitant cells, was already expressing a will and
a desire, the first effect of which was to reduce its
parents'
mad passion for each other to the
status of a vulgar sexual
fling
to which, as we know, the official history will not devote
a single line. Cain asked lilith for a donkey and she gave
orders for him to be given the very best, the most docile and
the sturdiest in the palace stables. At that point, news came
that the treacherous slave and his partners in crime had been
discovered and arrested. Fortunately for sensitive souls, who
always look away from unpleasantnesses of any kind, there
were no interrogations and no torture, perhaps because of
lilith's pregnancy, for in the opinion of notable local
female
authorities, this would augur ill
for the future of the
gestating
child, not just the blood that would inevitably be
spilled, but also the terrible screams of the torture
victims.
These authorities, mainly midwives
of long experience,
believed
that a baby in its mother's womb can hear everything going on outside. The
result was a sober death by
hanging
before the entire populace of the city, as a warning,
Be careful, this is the very least that could happen to you.
The execution was watched from a palace balcony by noah,
lilith and cain, the latter because he had been the target of
the failed attack. It was noted that, contrary to protocol,
noah did not stand in the middle of that small group, lilith
did, thus keeping husband and lover apart, as if she were
saying that, although she did not love her official spouse,
she would remain joined to him, because that is what public
opinion seemed to want and what the interests of the dynasty
appeared to need, and that although she was being forced
by cruel destiny, by the lord's curse, You will be a fugitive
and a vagabond upon the earth, to allow cain to leave, she
would remain bound to him by the body's sublime memory,
by the inextinguishable recollection of the dazzling hours
she had spent with him, something a woman never forgets,
not like men, to whom such things are like water off a duck's
back. The corpses of the malefactors will remain hanging
where they are until all that remains of them are bones, for
their flesh is accursed, and the earth, if they were buried
in
it, would erupt and vomit them up,
over and over. That
night,
lilith and cain slept together for the last time. She
wept, he clung to her and wept too, but their tears did not
last long, they were soon overcome by erotic passion, in
whose grip they once more lost all control and fell into
delirium, absolute and utter, as if the world were nothing
more than that, two lovers interminably devouring each
other, so much so that lilith said at last, Kill me. Yes,
perhaps
that would be the logical end to this
story of the love between
cain
and lilith, but he didn't kill her. He placed a long,
lingering kiss on her lips, looked at her for the last time
and
then went and spent the rest of the
night in the bed reserved
for
him in the antechamber.