Heaven's Lies

by Daniel Caet

  The winter came without us hardly noticing and one especially wintry morning Liliath entered as an exhale in the house screaming my name. As soon as I heard her I appeared next to her without thinking about the risk that someone might see me, thinking something bad was happening. However, I found Liliath smiling.

  “I have something to show you,” she said, taking my face in her hands. Immediately an image formed in my head and I knew that somehow it was her who was generating it. In the picture I could see her lying on our bed, her pale face showing weariness, but smiling. Then Suriath approached her to put a small bundle in her arms. It took me a few seconds to realise what it was. A baby, the image she was showing me was the birth of our child. The image disappeared, and I saw her face smiling again.

  “I had this vision in the temple this morning. I could not wait to show you.”

  “But do you mean …?”

  “I'm pregnant, Helel. You are going to be a father.”

  That word shook me in the deepest part of my being. I, the one who had been left behind by his father when he needed him the most, the creature that had been rejected by those who were his family was going to have his own. The son became a father. In an instant I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again I found myself on top of a mountain. The clouds, unable to climb so high, swirled a few meters below the top. The sky above was an unpolluted light blue. And there, looking at the sky, I screamed.

  “I'm going to be a father. Can you hear me, Father? You have abandoned me. Today I am the one who abandons you. I will be a better father than you have been to me, and the smile of my children will be my revenge every day. Do you hear me? A revenge that will last forever.”

  Oh, how ignorant I was then of the premonition of my words! But the happiness that Liliath had given me had finally shown me the true open wound that would never close. Beyond the betrayal of my brothers, the pain of not being who I was, the lack of purpose in my life, the real pain was knowing that my father, whom I had been devoted to since my creation, the being that had been the only reason for my existence, he had abandoned me to the hatred of those around me. I, who had given everything for him, had not received a bit of help when I shouted for it. He who could have avoided all that, had simply remained absent, silent. He had left me alone. I had become human. But I had managed to transform his sentence into a blessing, one that was about to give the most beautiful fruit possible and that would be my revenge.

  I returned to the arms of Liliath who never asked me where I had been, what I had done or why, and the happiness of hugging her belly knowing that inside her my child was growing, slowly erased all grief in me and replaced it with a light that I have never had anymore. There, embracing her, I promised myself to forget my past, all the darkness I carried and only to live for them, for my family. But it was the past who did not forget me.

  The news of Liliath's pregnancy filled Armesh and Suriath with happiness and even repaired for a while the bond between mother and daughter. Suriath and Liliath began to spend more time together, time that Liliath removed from their commitments in the temple to the joy of all. For my part, those months were extremely hard. My panic that something happened to Liliath or the little one transformed me in a controlling and obsessive being. I wanted to know at all times where Liliath was, if she was alone or accompanied. The nightmares in which something happened to them were constant and they did not let me sleep at night. Every day I insisted on accompanying Liliath to the temple and picking her up when her tasks there were over, and when my duties made me leave the house for more than a day, I made sure that the servants of the house took my place so that she was not alone a single moment. Everyone in the family took my attitude as a reflection of the fears of a first-time father, but I knew there was something else. My fear was not only about the unpredictable things that could happen in a pregnancy, but about the possibility that my past would come back again to destroy the happiness I had achieved. Now I realise that feeling was the most obvious proof of how human I had become. To my surprise, Liliath took all my reactions with a calmness I had never seen in her. It was as if the pregnancy had, somehow, tempered her character and given way to a different woman, affectionate, tender and even sweet, not only with me, but with all those around us. I do not doubt that the servants appreciated the change and could only hope it was permanent. For my part, the change seemed too strange to me, accustomed as I was to her passion, her anger and her inner fire; that other Liliath was almost foreign to me, unknown, but my love for her was so great that I got used to the new person she seemed to be.

  As the time of delivery approached I became more and more reluctant to move away from our home, but even though I did not want to, there were pastures to be occupied and caravans to receive and I could not get away from my responsibilities eternally. In addition, my ability to transport quickly if necessary made me more calm and confident that when needed I could be next to Liliath. The moment arrived unannounced, and its effects were unexpected for everyone, including the city of Uruk. I was in the southern pastures, not too far from the city when, suddenly, the air changed. A strange chill ran down my back and I turned to look in the direction of the city. The frightened animals began to run in all directions and the murmurs of the shepherds grew to screams of panic. Above the city, a great black cloud as the night swirled generating small hurricanes that hit the walls raising stones from their battlements. Some of the soldiers posted on the walls fell due to the force of the wind and were swallowed by the whirlwinds of air. Men and beasts ran out in panic and me, thinking only of Liliath, immediately went to our house. I appeared in the garden and ran into the house. The image I found explained to me why this chaos and destruction. Liliath was lying in our bed, prey to the pains of childbirth. Her back arched causing her body to take a strange position. Her eyes were blank, and her hands were raised to the sky while muttering something that none of us could understand. Suriath came to me as soon as she saw me and took me aside.

  “Birth is imminent, but I do not know if she can resist it. The pain is so great that she has lost consciousness and have suddenly entered the state you see.”

  “There must be something we can do, whatever!” I yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders.

  “Nobody can do anything, Helel. The pain of childbirth has made her power take over. She is the only one who can control what is happening. If she does not come back to herself soon, I'm afraid it will be the end of the city and, perhaps, of herself,” she said with tears in her eyes. “The only thing we can do is wait.”

  The hours were eternal. The storm increased in intensity at times and the servants brought news that a whole section of the wall had collapsed along with one of the towers of the temple of Inanna. The screams that came from our room were terrible and I could only think of the worst. The impotence of not being able to help Liliath in that trance was destroying me, the possibility of losing her was something I could not conceive. Suriath had expelled from the room anyone who was not a woman as was tradition and, from that moment, the life of my child and my wife were in her hands. In that moment of despair, of agony, I felt more alone than I had ever felt and I realised how much I lacked my father’s support, the embrace of my brothers. The things I had lost were very important, but there beside me was Armesh, the father I had found and who had given me a new family when I needed it most.

  Suddenly the storm disappeared. The change was so sudden that we thought we were deaf. The pressure and the ominous sound of the wind went away and only silence remained. A silence that was broken only by a sound, the cry of a baby that emerged from our room. I turned quickly to look at Armesh as if seeking confirmation that my ears were not deceiving me. Armesh smiled at me, and then the door to our room opened.

  “You can enter,” Suriath said with a smile on her face.

  I entered the room in silence. The smell of blood and fluids was very intense, but I did not care. Liliath smiled at me from the bed. Her face was the living image of exhaustion. I we
nt up to her to take her hand in mine and kiss her sweetly. She did not say a word, but her eyes closed as she smiled.

  “She need to rest, master,” said one of our maids. “The delivery has been very hard.”

  I got up from the bed and when I turned around I found Suriath in front of me with two bundles in her arms.

  “I suppose you want to meet your children, Helel,” she said with the sweetest smile I had ever seen.

  “Children?”

  “Yes, Helel. They are twins, a boy and a girl.”

  I could not believe her words. I received the two lumps from her arms and my eyes met the most beautiful vision in the world. Those two little creatures stared at me with their blue eyes as intense as their mother's. Mine responded immediately filled with tears, tears of joy as I have never shed again. And there, at that moment, unexpectedly, I knew what complete happiness was.

  “The girl was born first and did not cry when arriving. We believed the worst, but she seems to be perfectly healthy. The delivery of the child has been much more complicated and almost took the life of his mother, but finally we managed to save them both and he also seems perfectly healthy. I'm sure you heard his screams at birth.”

  “I can never thank you enough for what you've done, Suriath.”

  “Well, you can give them a name to begin with,” she said smiling. “It is tradition for the father to name his children when they are put in his arms for the first time.”

  I did not have to think. Their names came to my mind immediately.

  “Their names are Narmesh and Niel.”

  I spent the following months completely absorbed in my little ones. Armesh understood that it was very important for me to enjoy that happiness and kept me away from any responsibility outside the house. Suddenly, Armesh's house had become a home where joy and laughter filled every corner. It was like those little ones had brought to that home an aura of happiness that could be felt by anyone under that roof. Unfortunately, I could not say the same about mine.

  Right after the birth Liliath began to develop a strange apathy that ended in an absolute rejection of everything that had to do with our children. Her character worsened day by day, and she could not even stand the sound of the laughter of the little ones. On more than one occasion I found her screaming at the servants to take them from the room she was in because she could not stand their presence. My worry was growing. I tried to take them to her as much as I could thinking that my presence would temper her character, but the only thing she did was to end up removing me away from her side too. Suriath tried to calm me by telling me that it was not strange that right after the birth some women developed a kind of sadness that made them unable to take care of their children, but that was always something transitory. But I was not so sure, what I saw in Liliath when our children were present was not sadness but hatred, an irrational hatred that I could not conceive how it had originated. It was not the only change. Our once passionate life as a couple had totally disappeared. Liliath rejected me every night, with any excuse at the beginning and without bothering to make an excuse at all later, and every expression of affection had become nonexistent. It was as if she was not the same woman I had married, and I wondered if the return to her days in the temple had something to do with it. Each time she spent more time there, some days from sunrise to sunset. Besides, she had forbidden me to accompany her or pick her up, arguing that her power was big enough to protect herself. I felt I was losing her, but I had no idea why and that made me helpless and generated a great anxiety that was only cured by the vision of my children's faces.

  Thus, we survived Narmesh’s and Niel’s first year, between uncertainty, sadness, anxiety and the warmth and joy that those little ones gave us. For their first anniversary we received an unexpected visit. Sadith arrived unannounced for the joy of Suriath and Armesh and Liliath's indifference. This time there were no bitter words between us, but quite the opposite. Sadith congratulated me on my fatherhood as if that conversation during the wedding had never existed, and immediately asked to see the children. Somehow an immediate bond was created between them that was palpable every time they were together. The children laughed loudly every time they were with her and sought their embrace as if they knew nothing more. It was as if they had replaced their mother with the person who most resembled her physically. For her part, Sadith was the very image of sweetness with them and treated them as if they were her own children. And it was beautiful to see them together.

  Sadith extended her visit several times with different excuses although we all knew that the real reason was her desire to spend more time with the children and everyone was happy that it was so. All except Liliath, who barely crossed a glance or a word with her sister. Despite everything, that lack of contact did not generate a tense atmosphere in the house since Liliath spent most of her time in the temple. Several times I saw Sadith and Suriath talking to each other in whispers and something inside me told me that the topic of conversation was Liliath. I would have liked to talk to them, ask them what we could do, but I did not think it appropriate to interrupt their conversations and I kept quiet. I cannot help thinking that maybe a word in time would have made things go differently. But if I have learned something in these millennia is that you cannot stop the darkness. Like time, it walks slowly but tirelessly and it always reaches you.

  One frosty winter morning I woke up at dawn and Liliath was not by my side in bed. Her space was still hot, so I assumed it could not be long that she had gotten up, and I decided to go after her. I found her at the door of the house, ready to leave for the temple.

  “It's a bit early to go to the temple, don’t you think?”

  “Helel, save yourself the reproaches, will you? I have enough with my mother. In addition, we are working the incantations to dominate demons, it is something very critical and I need to dedicate a lot of time to it if I want to control that power.”

  “What the…?” I said trying not to scream so as not to wake up the children. “Have you lost your mind? That is far beyond your power. No human can subjugate a demon, at least not safely. And the consequences if it goes wrong can be disastrous.”

  “Beyond my power? What do you know about my power, Helel? Maybe if you had not spent the last year drooling over those two tadpoles you would have realised that my power is far beyond what anyone expected, beyond the priests of the temple and, of course, beyond yourself.”

  “Those two tadpoles as you call them are your children, our children. At what point did they begin to be less important than your lust for power? You are so obsessed with becoming bigger than everything that surrounds you that you are leaving your own family aside. Your children have not known what a mother is since they were born!”

  “And, do you think I care in the least? I never wanted them. They are only a nuisance, all day crying, laughing, interrupting my concentration. I do not have time to take care of them. Also, you and my little sister do it very well.”

  “Is this what it is, Liliath? You do it just to be better than Sadith?”

  “Please, do not be ridiculous! It's been a while since I got past Sadith. Sadith, my mother and you.”

  “Liliath, I'm begging you,” I said, reaching for her to try to hug her. “You do not know what you are getting into, this will overcome you. This time you spend in the temple is just a misfortune waiting to happen. You have to stop before it's too late.”

  “Oh please! Your fear is the result of your frustration.” She pulled away from my embrace. “How does one feel when he has had the power to create and destroy, to make your will the only one, to crush men only by your desire and suddenly to become nothing? You have become a pathetic creature, Helel! You still deny your nature, playing at being a man when you should be a god! All right, keep playing the families if that's what you want, but do not get in my way because I'm going to become the god you did not want to be, and I'll crush any miserable human being who tries to stop me. And that includes you.”

  Th
e rage in her words reflected in her eyes, burning as if they were in flames. Without saying more, she turned and left the house leaving me in silence with my shame. Shame because I knew that part of her argument was true. I had decided to accept my new condition to have a family, a love that would replace everything I had lost, and, in that acceptance, I had lost the same family that I had wanted to build, and myself.

  The hours of the day passed slowly and Liliath did not return. I did not tell anyone what happened that morning, although I was sure that one of the servants would have heard something, and probably the story of the event would eventually reach Armesh and Suriath. To my surprise, it was Sadith who came up to me to talk.

  “Do you still love her?”

  The question, so direct, left me confused.

  “With all my heart. But I have failed completely. If I had not encouraged her in the first place to explore her power, we would not be in this situation. It's me who created a monster.”