r, there was a great need for manpower on board, not sailors, it's true, but cleaners. Hundreds, not to say thousands, of animals, many of them very large indeed, were crammed into the hold, shitting and peeing for all they were worth. Cleaning this up, shovelling tons of excrement into buckets every day was a terrible burden for the four women, both physically, because they were totally exhausted, poor things, but also sensorially, with the unbearable stink of shit and urine that seemed to penetrate their very skin. On one of those days of tumultuous tempests, with the ark being shaken by the storm and the animals trampling each other, ham's wife slipped on the filthy deck and ended up beneath the feet of an elephant. The others threw her into the sea just as they found her, all bloody and smeared with excrement, like a miserable bit of human detritus without honour or dignity. Why didn't you clean her up first, asked cain, and noah replied, There'll be water enough in the sea to wash her clean. From that moment on and until the end of the story, cain would feel a deep-seated loathing for noah. They say that there is no effect without cause and no cause without effect, and that would seem to indicate that the relationship between the two things should, at every moment, be not only obvious but graspable in every aspect, whether consequent or subsequent. We would not, however, go so far as to suggest that the change in attitude of noah's wife should also be included in this general picture. She may simply have thought that, with ham's wife gone, another should take her place, not in order to keep the widower company on his now solitary nights, but to recover the harmony enjoyed before among the younger females of the family and their guest cain, or, put more plainly, given that he had been used to having three women at his disposal, there was no reason why he should not continue to do so. Little did she know that the ideas going round and round in cain's head made this matter an entirely secondary one. Nevertheless, since one thing does not necessarily exclude the other, cain was sympathetic to her advances, You may not believe it, she said, but despite my age, because I'm not exactly in the first flower of youth, and despite having borne three children, I still feel that I'm a desirable woman, what do you think, cain. It had stopped raining a long time ago, the great mass of water was now busily macerating the dead and pushing them gently, with its eternal rocking, into the mouths of the fish. Cain had gone to look out of the window to watch the sea shining in the moonlight, he had thought briefly about lilith and his son enoch, both of them now dead, but in a somewhat distracted manner, as if he didn't really care, and it was then that he heard that whispered voice beside him, You may not believe it. They went from there, he and she, into the cubicle where cain slept, they didn't even wait for noah, who was already lying in the arms of morpheus, to depart this world, and when they had finished, cain had to acknowledge that the woman had been right in her view of herself, she did still have plenty of go in her and, at certain moments, revealed an acrobatic quality that the other women did not, either through a lack of natural vocation, or because they were inhibited by their respective husbands' more traditional approach. And on the subject of husbands, we should mention that ham was the second person to disappear. He had gone up on deck to adjust some planks that were keeping him awake with their creaking, when someone came up to him, Can you give me a hand, ham asked, Yes, came the reply, and ham was hurled into the sea, a fall of some fifty feet, which, although it seemed interminable, was soon over. Noah blustered and raged, saying that after all that time on the boat, only an unforgivable lapse of attention could explain such an occurrence, Keep your eyes open, he said, watch where you're putting your feet, and he went on, We have lost one couple, which means we're going to have to copulate even more if we are to do god's will and become the fathers and mothers of the new human race. He broke off for a moment and, turning to his two remaining daughters-in-law, asked, Is either of you pregnant. One said yes, she was, the other that she wasn't yet sure, And who is the father, Well, I think it's cain, said japheth's wife, I do too, said shem's wife, Goodness me, said noah, if your husbands don't have the necessary generative power, then you had better just lie with cain, which is, in fact, what I foresaw would happen from the start. For reasons best known to themselves, the women, noah's wife included, smiled, while the men, who were most displeased by this public dressing-down, promised to try harder in future. It's odd how lightly people speak about the future, as if they held it in their hand, as if it was in their power to push it further off or bring it nearer in accordance with the needs and expediencies of the moment. Japheth, for example, sees the future as a succession of fruitful copulations, one child a year, a few twins now and then, with the lord gazing fondly down upon him, a lot of sheep, a lot of yokes of oxen, in short, happiness. The poor man does not know that his end is nigh, that he will be tripped up and thrown into the void with no life jacket on, gesticulating wildly and crying out in an agony of futile despair as the ark proceeds majestically on to meet its destiny. The loss of yet another crew member caused noah indescribable distress, the realisation of the lord's plan was at grave risk, and, given the situation, they would have to double or even triple the time needed to achieve a reasonable repopulation of the earth. Cain's collaboration was becoming ever more important, which is why noah, since cain seemed unwilling to make the first move, decided to have a man-to-man talk with him, Enough of this beating about the bush, enough mincing of words, he said, from now on it's whenever and however, all these worries will be the death of me, and I can't be of much help for the moment, Whenever and however, repeated cain, what does that mean, Yes, and whoever too, answered noah, giving cain a knowing wink, Including your wife, asked cain, Yes, I insist on it, she's my wife and I can do with her as I wish, Especially since it's in a good cause, said cain, A sacred cause, the lord's cause, agreed noah in appropriately solemn tones, Well, in that case, let's start right away, said cain, send her to the cubicle where I sleep and tell the others not to disturb us, regardless of what happens or what noises you may hear, Certainly, and may the lord's will be done, Amen to that. Now some might think that mischievous cain was enjoying the situation, playing cat and mouse with his innocent companions, whom, as you will already have suspected, he has been eliminating one by one. They would be quite wrong. Cain is wrestling with his anger against the lord, as if he were caught in the tentacles of an octopus, and his latest victims are, as was abel in the past, merely further attempts on his part to kill god. His next victim will be noah's wife, who, quite undeservedly, will pay with her life for the hours of pleasure spent in the arms of her future assassin, and with the blessing and connivance of her own husband too, such was the dissolute nature of this race of humans whose final days we are witnessing. After repeated displays, with a few more or less subtle variations, of various wild, erotic deliriums, mainly on the part of the woman, and which found expression, as usual, in murmurs, moans and, finally, uncontrollable screams, cain led her by the hand to the window to enjoy the cool night air, and there he placed his hands between her still trembling thighs and heaved her into the sea. The only remaining members of noah's family of eight were the patriarch himself, his son shem and his wife and japheth's widow. Two women should still be enough, thought noah with his unfailing optimism and his unshakeable trust in the lord. However, he couldn't conceal his bewilderment at his wife's inexplicable disappearance and he said as much to cain, She was in your care, I just can't understand how such a misfortune could have happened, to which cain responded with a question, Was I your wife's keeper, did I have her tethered to me by the ankle with a rope, as if she were a sheep, No, no, I don't mean that, said noah, retreating slightly, but she was sleeping with you, and you might have noticed something, Yes, but I sleep very deeply. The conversation went no further, and it was true that cain could hardly be held responsible for the fact that noah's wife got up in the dark and went outside for a pee in the night breeze, and there perhaps, after suffering a dizzy spell, rolled to the side of the ship and vanished into the waters. Just one of those unfortunate things. The level of the vast sea covering the earth continued to subside, but no mountain peak had raised its head to say, Here I am, my name is ararat and I'm in turkey. Nevertheless, the great voyage was nearing its end, and it was time to prepare for the conclusion, the landfall or whatever it would be. Shem and his wife had both fallen into the sea in as yet unexplained circumstances, and the same had happened to japheth's widow, who had spent the previous night in cain's bed. Now noah was tearing his hair out in despair, all is lost, with no women to impregnate, there will be no life and no human race, it would have been far better to have made do with the familiar world they had, and he went on, distraught, How can I stand before the lord with nothing but this boatful of animals to show him, what shall I do, how will I live out the rest of my life, Throw yourself overboard, said cain, no angel will scoop you up in his arms. There was something in the way cain said this that awoke noah to reality, It was you, he said, Yes, it was me, answered cain, but I won't touch you, you will die by your own hand, And god, what will god say, asked noah, Don't worry, I'll take care of god. Noah took the six steps that separated him from the edge of the boat and, without another word, jumped.