‘I think things have to be settled sooner than that,’ Naaman says.
Cain wonders where the hurry is, given that the ziggurat is and has been lying idle for some time, and no god is thundering for its completion. ‘Things?’ he queries.
Naaman sighs. It is the sigh of a man who would much rather smile. Why do you make me do this, the sigh says, when our natural medium, you and I, is laughter? Naaman himself says, ‘This business over the poet puts pressure on all of us.’
Cain is aware of the business he is referring to. News of Preplen’s mishap has not exactly ripped through the city of Babel like wildfire — Shinarite consciences would rather be touched by romance than reality, by princes than by poets who sing satirically of princes — but he has heard it carelessly brought up, sometimes as an example of the increasing hazardousness of the streets, sometimes with a fatalism he would feel to be callous, were he in the business of feeling anything about it at all. ‘Too bad… but they come here to escape from worse… and given how fast they breed one less is hardly a catastrophe…’
Cain cannot swear that this is what he has heard. He fears it is not impossible he is hearing with Preplen’s ears. The market places of Shinar rejoicing over his demise… the heathen populace of Babel deaf to the orphaned cries of Jabal, Jubal, Tubal, Gether and Mash, the widowed wails of Nanshe/Naomi, marooned without a helmsman in her furniture… or worse, or better, bent on refilling his shrine to Law and Family with feathers, bones and partridge semen — why, not in his blackest, happiest hours could Preplen have arranged himself a more exemplary final outcome. ‘See!’ Cain can picture him rejoicing, his neck twisted away from a sky he no longer has to scan for ill-intentioned birds, ‘see what I told you! Next time it’ll be you. Since you don’t intend to struggle, since you’re convinced they love you really, at least be certain you’re bathed and barbered for them when they come.’
It is in order not to attend to Preplen’s vindicated voice that Cain remains unsure what sentences he has heard uttered in the streets. He would not want to swear that he has heard what he has heard. But then again he would not want to swear that he has not.
In this way he substitutes a lesser equivocation for a greater — concedes confusion of the senses rather than the affections.
But if he is unsure what he’s sure of, he is at least sure of what he isn’t. He isn’t sure of the implication for him of Preplen’s decease, and isn’t sure of its bearings here, now, on Naaman’s offer of a place of high retreat. Unless Naaman means to round up for their own safety those who may be thought to be in comparable danger of attack — Preplen’s… Preplen’s what?… Kind?… Tribe?
Cain shakes the idea from his mind. What’s he to Preplen!
‘I do not see,’ he says, ‘how the business of the poet affects me or the timing of my decision.’
Naaman does not want to enter into this. How can he communicate to Cain his extreme unwillingness and fatigue? How can he express his indifference to the niceties of detail and contingency? ‘Look,’ he says, falling heavily against Cain, as though himself pushed by the shoulder of confidentiality — ‘you know what rumour is. You, above all people, know how stories start. If I tell you there are one or two abroad who think they saw you, or your shadow, at more or less the time, in more or less the vicinity, looking more or less intent…’
Does he have to go on? Does he need to say more about the variable surmises of approximate attestants?
‘Saw me?’
‘Saw you… saw your shirt… saw the soles of your sandals…’
Something returns to Cain. A recollection he would as soon dispel, of waking naked in a filthy room, hungry in a house where there was only God to eat.
Even to himself he will not name Sisobk. And what then is he to plead to Naaman? The impertinence of the imputation? The wild irresponsibility of the slander? Is he to say, ‘Who? Me? A murderer!’
Naaman is relieved to see that Cain has fallen quiet. He doesn’t believe his nerves would stand for noisy protestations. ‘As you must have noticed, we set no limits to ambition in the construction of our temples,’ he says. ‘You are welcome to build to whatever height you have a head for. Make a name for yourself. Pierce the heavens.’
17. Cain Accepts the Protection of Y-H-W-H
The ravens came.
We sat so quietly, my brother Abel and I, that they dared approach us, their hop hideous, their eyes scorched with greed.
We had heard bad things of ravens. They had so little regard for one another, were so disgusted by the idea, let alone the fact, of their own propagation that they mated contemptuously, the male impregnating the female orally, by firing spittle in her mouth. They were also envious to their souls. Hence their foolish gait. Jealous of the graceful deportment of other birds, they had lost whatever was natural to themselves in a scramble of inept mimicry — now trying to strut like an ostrich, now trying to make an entrance like a swan.
Let the raven be a lesson to you, Saraqael had warned us bitterly, as though he were in competition with the birds himself: Be satisfied with what you have, however little, or you shall lose even that in vain hankerings and preposterous emulation.
With such words do angels of the Lord ensnare the ingenuous into contentment.
In corroboration of this truth, a raven met me, eye to eye. Envious bird to envious brother. Reluctant propagator to one who could not be certain he was meant to propagate at all.
Why, if my eye was open, the raven wondered, was I sitting quite so still?
In order, I answered, not to spill my brother.
The raven dropped his head on to one shoulder and eyed me with horizontal scorn.
He knew something about death I didn’t. But then so did the meanest maggot I trod on in my garden. We had no experience of it among ourselves. No one had lectured us on the subject. No one had said whether we were built to go the way of Abel’s flock — a bleat, a gush of blood, and then up in smoke to please the nose of God; or whether life would drip out of us, in a crimson trickle, like wine from a punctured wineskin. We had been left untutored in mortality. I held Abel hushed and moveless in my arms to keep the life steady and irreducible within him.
The sky would not progress into darkness. The sun had gone, but everything else — moon, stars, wind, the black that normally superseded purple — hung in a suspense that was more respectful than expectant. An evening such as this, perhaps this very evening exactly, had been long awaited. And eventuation commands deference. A ghastly, formal surpriselessness spread inexorably into every corner of the night, like a last reprimand to doubters, like a proof too damning to be questioned, like the final reassertion of absolute power.
Only the ravens wondered what the long lingering of half-light held for them.
In time — although all usual measurement of time had stopped — the raven to whom I had confessed my ignorance of death began scratching in the soil. I took him to be after worms or shard beetles or some other vileness mirroring the mind of God, but conscientiously though he clawed, he never once looked to see what he’d unearthed, never once removed his gaze from mine. His expression was serious, reflective, fretful, not lacking in rapacity but requiring me to grasp that rapacity was not the first and last of his character. I also have it in me to be of use, the eye said. I am the enemy of angels, just like you. Learn, then, from me. Scratch, scratch, scratch as I do, and all may yet be well.
It was only then that it occurred to me that I had done something that needed to be hidden. Did I suppose, with the whole of heaven watching, that I could conceal my brother, as the bird advised, and go on as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened? Of course not. I knew how comprehensively I’d been observed. But I had at last to put Abel down. My arms were tired. He was tired. It was necessary that I lay him somewhere. And while I believed I was ready to withstand whatever questions the Holy Inquisitor was soon to hurl at me, I felt less confident about meeting the wailings of my mother and father. I could not say to them, as I could to Him, this is Your doing, for the reason that they were His doing too.