Authors: José Saramago
Despite the grey
gloom of pre-dawn, you could see that the
birds,
not the charming winged creatures that will soon be
singing their songs to the sun, but the brutish birds of
prey,
those carnivores who travel from
scaffold to scaffold, had
begun
their work of public cleansing on the exposed parts
of the hanged men, their faces, eyes, hands, feet, the half
of
a leg left uncovered by a tunic.
Two owls, startled by the
sound
of the ass's hooves, flew up from the dead slave's
shoulders with a silken murmur perceptible only to experienced
ears. They swooped very low down a narrow alleyway
next to the palace and disappeared. Cain dug his heels into
the donkey's sides and crossed the square, wondering if he
would again meet the old man with the two sheep, and, for
the first time, he asked himself who that impertinent person
might be, Perhaps it was the lord, he murmured, he'd be
quite capable of such a thing, given his liking for turning
up when and where he's least expected. He preferred not
to think about lilith. When he woke in his lonely guard's
bed after a broken, constantly interrupted night's sleep, he
had felt a sudden impulse to go into the bedroom for one
last word of farewell, one last kiss, and who knows what
else. There was
still time. Everyone was asleep in the palace,
only lilith was sure to be awake, no one would notice his
brief incursion, or perhaps only the two slave-women who
had half-opened the gates of paradise to him when he first
arrived, and they would simply say with a smile, How well
we understood you, abel. Once he turns the next corner, the
palace will disappear from view. The old man with the sheep
wasn't there, the lord, if it was him, was clearly giving
cain
carte blanche, but no road map or
passport or recommendations for hotels and restaurants, it was how journeys
used
to be made, leaving things to
chance or, as they used to say
even
then, in the lap of the gods. Cain again spurred his
donkey on and soon found himself in open countryside.
The city had become a dull grey-brown stain, which, gradually,
with increasing distance, and even though the donkey
was moving at only a moderate pace, seemed to merge with
the earth. The landscape was dry, arid, with not so much
as a thread of water in sight. Faced by such desolation, it
was inevitable that cain would remember the hard journey
on foot he had made after the lord drove him out of the
fateful valley where poor abel would remain for ever. With
nothing to eat and no water to drink, apart from that which
miraculously fell from the sky just when his soul had lost
all strength and his legs were threatening to give way
beneath
him. At least this time he would
not lack for food, the saddlebags are crammed full, a loving thought on the
part of lilith,
who,
it would seem, was not such a bad housewife as her
dissolute ways might lead one to believe. The problem is
that there is not a scrap of shade to be had anywhere. By
mid-morning, the sun is already pure fire and the air a shimmering
mass that makes us doubt what our eyes can see.
Cain said, At least I won't have to go to the trouble of
dismounting in order to eat. The road rose and rose, and
the donkey, who was clearly no ass, was following a zigzag
path, now to the right, now to the left, and one imagines
that he must have learned this trick from mules, who know
all there is to know about mountain-climbing. A few more
steps and they had reached the summit. And to cain's
surprise, astonishment and stupefaction, the landscape that
lay before him was completely different, full of every imaginable
shade of green, with leafy trees and cultivated fields,
glittering water, a mild temperature, and white clouds
drifting across the sky. He looked back and saw that nothing
had changed, the same parched, arid scene lay behind him.
It was as if there were a frontier, a line separating the two
countries, Or two different times, said cain, unaware that
he had said anything, as if someone else were thinking for
him. He looked up at the sky and saw that the clouds moving
in the direction from which we have come stopped precisely
at that point and then, by some unknown art, vanished. We
must bear in mind the fact that cain is ill-informed about
cartographical matters, one might even say that this, in a
way, is his first trip abroad, and so it is only natural that
he
should feel surprise at seeing
other lands, other people,
other
skies and other customs. That's all very well, but what
no one can explain to me is why the clouds cannot pass
from here to there. Unless, says the voice issuing from
cain's
mouth, this is a different time,
and this land cared-for and
cultivated
by the hand of man was once, in ages past, as
sterile and desolate as the land of nod. So are we in the
future, then, we ask, having seen a few films and read a few
books on the subject. Yes, that is the usual formula used to
explain what appears to have happened here, the future, we
say, and we breathe more easily, now that we have placed a
label on it, a docket, but, in our opinion, it would be
clearer
to call it another present, because
the land is the same, but
has
various presents, some are past presents, others are future
presents, and that, surely, is simple enough for anyone to
understand. The creature who appears to feel the greatest
joy at this change is the donkey. Born and bred in drought-
stricken lands, fed on straw and thistles, with water often
rationed, or almost, the vision before him verged on the
sublime. It's a shame there was no one there capable of interpreting
the twitchings of his ears, that form of semaphore
with which nature had endowed him, never thinking that
the fortunate beast would one day have to express the ineffable,
and the ineffable, as we know, is precisely that which
cannot be expressed. Cain is happy too, dreaming of eating
his lunch in a countryside full of greenery, babbling brooks
and a symphony of little birds warbling away in the branches.
Indeed, to the right-hand side of the road, he can see a line
of large trees, promising the best of shades and siestas.
Cain
and the donkey trotted off in that
direction. The place would
seem
to have been created on purpose to provide cool shade
for weary travellers and their respective beasts of burden.
Running parallel to the trees was a line of bushes that
concealed a narrow path going up to the top of the steep
hill. Relieved of the weight of the saddlebags, the donkey
had surrendered to the delights of lush grass and the occasional
rustic flower, neither of which he had ever tasted
before. Cain took his time choosing his lunch menu and ate
it right there, seated on the ground, surrounded by innocent
birds pecking up the crumbs, while memories of blissful
moments spent in lilith's arms once more heated his blood.
His eyelids were just beginning to droop when he was startled
into wakefulness by the voice of a young boy calling,
Father, this was followed by a much older male voice asking,
What is it, isaac, We have the fire and the wood, but where
is the lamb for the burnt offering, and the father replied,
The lord will provide a lamb as the burnt offering. And they
continued on up the hill. While they are doing so, it would
be as well to know how all this began, as further proof that
the lord is not a person to be trusted. About three days ago,
at most, he had said to abraham, the father of the young
boy carrying the firewood on his back, Take your only son,
isaac, whom you love, and go into the land of moriah and
offer him up for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains,
later I will tell you which one. Yes, you read correctly,
the lord ordered abraham to sacrifice his own son, and he
did so as naturally as if he were asking for a glass of water
to slake his thirst, which means it was a deep-seated habit
of his. The logical, natural and simply human response
would have been for abraham to tell the lord to piss off, but
that isn't what happened. The following morning, that
unnatural father rose early to saddle up the donkey, prepared
wood for the sacrificial fire and set off to the place the
lord
had indicated, taking with him two
servants and his son
isaac.
On the third day of the journey, abraham saw the
aforementioned mountain from afar. He then told his
servants, Stay here with the donkey, the lad and I will go
over yonder to worship the lord and then come again to
you. In short, as well as being as big a bastard as the lord,
abraham was a consummate liar, ready to deceive anyone
with his forked tongue, which in this case, according to the
personal dictionary belonging to the narrator of this story,
means treacherous, perfidious, false, disloyal and other similarly
fine qualities. When he reached the place of which the
lord had spoken, abraham built an altar and placed the wood
on it. He then tied up his son and lifted him on to the
altar,
on top of the wood. Without
pausing, he took up his knife
in
order to sacrifice the poor boy and was just about to slit
his throat when he felt a hand grip his arm and heard a
voice in his ear shouting, What are you doing, you wretch,
killing your own son, burning him, it's the same old story,
it starts with a lamb and ends with the murder of the very
person you should love most, But the lord told me to do it,
said abraham, struggling, Keep still, or I'll be the one who
does the killing, untie that boy at once, then kneel down
and beg his forgiveness, Who are you, My name is cain, I'm
the angel who saved isaac's life. This isn't true, cain is no
angel, that title belongs to the being who has just landed
with a great flapping of wings and who is now declaiming
like an actor who has finally heard his cue, Lay not thy hand
upon the lad, nor do anything to him, for now I know that
thou fearest the lord, being prepared, for love of him, to
sacrifice even your only son, You're late, said cain, the
only
reason isaac isn't dead is because
I stepped in to prevent it.
The
angel looked suitably contrite, I'm terribly sorry to be
late, but it really wasn't my fault, I was on my way here
when
I developed a mechanical problem in
my right wing, it was