Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand: A Novel of Adam and Eve

by Belli, Gioconda

  “Cain,” he called. “Cain.”

  Late that afternoon, he found Cain. The dog was playing with a coyote, unaware of the man who was looking for him. When he saw Adam, Cain pricked up his ears and ran up to lick the man’s hands. Adam knelt down and hugged him. The man was as happy as the dog when he knew he was recognized. The coyote observed them for a moment. It seemed to be about to join in their games, but instead it turned and disappeared into the brush. Eve smiled when she saw the man rolling on the ground with Cain. She and the cat had never played like that. The cat never treated her like another cat; in contrast, Cain was jumping and playing as if Adam were another dog.

  It wasn’t easy for Eve when finally she found the cat. She called to it with sweet words, trying to persuade it to come down from the tree where it was crouched, skittish and mewing pitiably. Eve spat into her hand to offer it liquid for its dry mouth. The animal came to her very slowly, moving deliberately along a low branch, but after she scratched its back, it came down out of the tree and rubbed against her legs.

  Accompanied by the dog and the cat, the man and woman started back toward the cave. Adam went first. He would throw a piece of wood and the dog would pick it up and come running back to give it to him. Adam was smiling. Eve had not seen him smile since the fire had driven them from the Garden. He was moving along confidently, sure he was on the right course. She admired his sense of direction. He didn’t use his nose like the dog. He held out an arm, looked along it, frowned, and seemed to know which way to go. His back was very broad. Maybe that was what gave him better orientation. The landscape confused her. The plain was so vast. She looked at the cat, trotting at her side with its light steps. Although they didn’t speak, the animals were a comfort against the abandonment and the solitude. They disappeared at times into the undergrowth, but came when they were called.

  They walked a long time. Eve’s body felt heavier and heavier, and the hollow that since morning had been growling in her stomach began to hurt. She imagined a small animal scratching inside her, chewing on her. She had never felt anything like that. She looked at Adam out of the corner of her eye; he, too, was walking slowly. The sky was changing color, filling with clouds whose rims had turned magenta and pink. She heard a kind of bellow. She turned. Adam was doubled over, clutching his stomach.

  “Do you feel hollow inside? Does it hurt?”

  “This is hunger, Eve.”

  “What shall we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The cave is still some distance away. Mine hurts, too. I don’t want to walk any farther.”

  “Let’s look for a tree. We’ll sit down.”

  They looked for a tree they could rest against. They had to walk quite a way to find one. On the plain, trees were sparse, small. The palm trees, on the other hand, went straight up, slim, with long branches scurrying from the wind. Finally they found a comfortable position on the ground. The dog and cat curled up beside them. Hunger, like fatigue, had arrived suddenly. Lethargic, Adam fell asleep. Eve watched day turning into evening. The darkness seemed soft this time, a dense fog enveloping everything. After a while her eyes could make out the silhouettes of everything near them. That soothed her. She heard whistling, the cries of sad birds, harsh and indescribable sounds. She observed that the darkness of the sky was sprinkled with holes that let light through. She wondered if it was through them that the white petals, which had once been their food, had fallen. This memory, combined with the one of forbidden figs she had tasted, thickened her saliva and cramped her stomach. Adam remembered he had heard the voice condemning them to grasses and thorns. Eve patted the earth around her, pulled some blades of grass, chewed them. The bland, slightly bitter taste depressed her. She regretted eating the fruit, acting so sure of herself, so defiant in the Garden. She wondered if everything she had so longed to know would turn out to be worth the pain. Knowledge and freedom were of so little use in quieting hunger, she thought. If she had been more docile, would Elokim have left them in the Garden? Why had he acted so offended if it was all part of his plan? Perhaps Elokim confused the worlds he had created and forgot the designs he imposed on them. She had to be ingenuous to think that when she ate of the fruit the perverse or adventurous sense of all this would be revealed to her.

  Adam woke beneath the red sky of dawn. This time it did not cause him anguish, it enlivened him. He decided that he preferred day to night. A few steps from the tree they had taken shelter beneath, he saw other trees, with green fruit. He left Eve sleeping and went to one tree. He touched a fruit, then picked it. Pears, he thought. His mouth filled with saliva. He gave one to the dog. He watched him bite it. He saw the juice of the fruit dripping from its jaws. He pulled off another. He did not complete the move to put it in his mouth. He threw it as far away as he could. The dog ran after it. Adam buried his face in his hands. He smelled the fragrance of the pear on his fingers. No! he exclaimed, overwhelmed by a sudden fear that was stronger than hunger. The scent of the fruit had left him dazed. He could not take the risk, he told himself. If Elokim became enraged again, Adam did not even want to imagine what punishment he would impose on them this time. Fruit was dangerous. Its flesh was filled with Elokim’s rage. If they ate fruit, he would cast them even farther away. They would never be able to return to the Garden.

  He woke Eve. She smelled the aroma of the pear on his hands.

  “What is that smell, Adam? Have you eaten?”

  He showed her the pear. But he hadn’t eaten it, he said. Neither he nor she should eat the pears.

  Eve jumped up. She ran to the tree. He followed.

  “He forbade us to eat the fruit from a certain tree, Adam, not all trees.”

  “He forbade us to eat of one tree and he cast us out of the Garden so we would not eat of the other. I tell you, we must not eat fruits. They are dangerous. We cannot take that risk again, Eve.”

  Incredulous, she stared at him. Hunger was gnawing at her innards. The fragrance of the pears so tantalizingly near made it impossible for her to think. She reached out to take one. Adam stopped her. The dog began to bark.

  “You can’t force me not to eat.”

  “Look at us, Eve, alone, hungry, abandoned. What other disastrous move of yours do you want me to share?”

  Eve felt her face and chest burn. Filled with rage and frustration, she contained her desire to throw herself on Adam. The strength of that reaction frightened her. Shamed, confused, she started running. She ran and ran. In the light, cool morning breeze she regained her calm. Adam ran after her. “Where are you going? Why are you running?” he shouted.

  She stopped.

  “It makes me furious that every time you want me to obey you, you remind me that I ate the fruit.”

  “When I lose hope I can’t help it,” he said.

  “Eating it was your decision.”

  “Yes, but it was you who offered the fruit to me. You ate first.”

  “I didn’t know what would happen. You didn’t know either.”

  “We knew that we might die.”

  “That wasn’t what happened.”

  “It didn’t happen at that instant, but we will die.”

  “You’ve seen that Elokim didn’t let us die. Don’t you believe that our coming to know each other was worth the grief? And the taste of the fig? And the cool of the water?”

  “And hunger? And pain?”

  “We wouldn’t be hungry if you would stop being afraid.”

  They started back toward the mountain that held their cave. A shadow was circling over their heads. Adam looked up. After an instant’s blindness from looking toward the sun, he saw against the light blue of afternoon the sumptuous plumage of his favorite bird, its immense orange and gold wings, the small head crowned by an intense blue panache. It was the Phoenix.

  “The Phoenix was the only one of the animals that didn’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge,” exclaimed Eve. “I’m sure that it goes in and out of the Garden without being stopped by the fire.”


  Adam wondered if it could be a sign. Perhaps the Phoenix would carry them back to the Garden, flying over the precipice. With that possibility he was swamped by a wave of laughter and levity. He wanted to jump up and down, wave his arms. On one occasion before the woman arrived, the bird had carried him to the sea. It had set him down on the water, and Adam had seen the languid, buoyant creatures that dwelled there. He named the swordfish, the whale, the shark, the manta rays and dolphins, the schools of sardines, the seashells and starfish. He had observed the warm abysses and the mouths that served as vents for vapor from suboceanic fires. Luminous fish had accompanied him on an exploration, and for the first time he had intuited darkness. It was this intuition of a world without light that his memory had evoked during the first night of darkness in his lifetime. He was remembering the small, colorful fish he associated with Eve’s toes just when the bird descended, stirring a placid breeze and depositing two figs before her. Then it took off, directing its beak and its wings toward the Garden of Eden.

  Eve picked up the figs. Just seeing them filled her mouth with the anticipated flavor of the juice and the flesh of the fruit. Quick as the cat, Adam took them from her hands.

  “No, Eve, I told you no fruits. Most of all, figs.”

  He clutched the figs in his hands. His eyes followed the course of the Phoenix. As he watched it leave without carrying them back to the Garden, he was paralyzed with disappointment.

  “I am really, really hungry,” said Eve, frightened. “We must eat, Adam. We have to eat.”

  “I am as hungry as you, but our misfortune gives me pause.”

  “But the bird brought these, Adam. The Other must have sent them.”

  “We don’t know that, Eve. I thought that the Phoenix would carry us back. But these figs—we don’t know, Eve, if this is another trick,” he said stubbornly. “We still don’t know if the Other is for us or against us.”

  Silenced by Adam’s blindness and stubbornness, Eve swallowed her tears, tasting the salt in her dry mouth.

  “Please, Adam. Don’t throw away the figs. Keep them.”

  Adam buried them at the entrance to the cave. He dug the earth with the help of a sharp rock. Under the starry night, Eve persisted in her attempts to make him stop. There are two, Adam. Give me one. She did not persuade him. They lay down to sleep without speaking, without touching, each thinking of the other’s harsh judgment. Her hunger made her picture the fig deteriorating in the earth, food that could be in her mouth lost through the man’s intransigence, his cruelty. He was cruel when he forced her to watch as he buried the fruit; more so because he had decided for both of them. He had acted as if her words had no weight, no sound, as if he didn’t hear them. And she and her words were one. Not to hear her was to make her nonexistent, to leave her completely alone.

  He was aware that he hadn’t listened to her. Listening to her made him weak, muddled his intentions. She had too much confidence in herself, and he no longer knew in what, or in whom, to have faith. On the other hand, he knew that he needed her. He missed her warmth, her body.

  She was awakened by his hand seeking a refuge. Timidly, he touched her side, hoping she would grant him some way by which he could ease his hand beneath her and enfold her in his arms. At night, Adam always hugged her to him, her back against his chest. Feeling the man searching for her in the darkness aroused her tenderness. The memory of her rage was not enough to make her push him away. She let Adam’s arm rest across her breast and pressed close to him. She was cold. The cave was cool and protecting by day, but at night it lost its soul. They had to produce their own heat, snuggling against each other. Silently, she settled into his arms. He whispered into her ear that the next day he would take her to the sea.

  CHAPTER 11

  THEY WALKED UNTIL THE GULLS AND THE SMELL OF salt came to meet them. Before their eyes appeared an enormous, transparent blue bowl. The dog dashed into the water, unafraid. He leaped about, barking madly. The cat, indifferent, lay down on the sand to contemplate the sea. Adam told Eve about his explorations. He wanted to take her to see what he had seen. They walked into the water. She advanced with caution. The effort it took to push her way through the liquid made her feel limited, clumsy.

  “Now, Eve,” said Adam, when the water was up to their chins. “Now, sink down, spread your arms and push toward the bottom.”

  It was useless. However much she tried. She was stymied by the choking in her nose, her mouth, her throat, and the water pushed her back to the surface. Moving her arms and her legs, desperate, she tried to head back toward the beach. She was aware that Adam was following her, confused and embarrassed. “This isn’t how it was before,” he told her. His body wasn’t responding; it wouldn’t go any farther down than the depth of a few arm strokes before water entered his every orifice and he couldn’t breathe. The sea was to look at, Eve told him when they had reached dry land and had recovered from the salt water they’d swallowed and the battering and bumping the attempt had dealt them, especially Adam. He had been so emphatic in describing the underwater world. Now he doubted he had ever seen it, and wondered if it too was a dream, as much of his life seemed of late.

  “But the sea is not only to be looked at,” he said with certainty.

  Eve lay on the beach and closed her eyes. The sound of the waves regularly slapping on the shore was like the noise of the incessant string of questions forming and dissolving in her mind.

  A short while later, Adam returned. He sat down beside her.

  “Look, I’ve brought something for your hunger,” he said.

  She looked. It was some rough, oval shells. When they were opened, she saw they were filled with a thick, white, trembly substance that left her mouth clean, as if the water had been turned into delicate, briny meat. Adam had laid one on a rock and hammered it with a stone until it revealed the fruit inside. Oysters, he said. Oysters, she repeated, laughing.

  “How did you find out that they had something inside we could eat?”

  “The same way I knew their name. The same.”

  They did not go back to the cave until the next day. They spent the night on the beach, some distance apart, humiliated by the uproar in their guts: the noises, the smells, the waste they expelled. At dawn, nauseated, they washed in the ocean. They discussed the possibility that their bodies might have grown rotten, if this was a new punishment for again having put something in their mouths. But then they saw the dog and cat urinate, defecate, and scratch sand over their waste.

  “Adam, do you think the animals know they’re animals?”

  “At least they don’t think they may be something different. They don’t get confused the way we do.”

  “Besides animals, what do you think we are?”

  “Adam and Eve.”

  “That isn’t an answer.”

  “Eve, Eve, you never tire of asking questions.”

  “If it occurs to me to ask it’s because there are answers. And we should know them. We ate the fruit, we lost the Garden, and we know almost nothing more than we did before.”

  They were talking as they returned to the cave. It was doubtless a punishment to think that the body would choose that way to wreak vengeance when they ate, Adam said, but the truth was that he, at least, felt better, with more strength in his muscles, and more spirit.

  “It’s reasonable. Expelling something that smells so bad makes you lighter. And what a curious sensation—very different from pain, don’t you think?”

  Smiling, Eve concealed how embarrassed the subject made her feel. To see herself reduced to ingesting and eliminating like the dog and the cat nauseated her, made her feel diminished. She could not understand how Adam seemed to draw something good from what to her was humiliation. She could not understand how he failed to perceive the implicit animality of the experience.

  “The Other wasn’t playing when he said that dust we are and to dust we will return. These bodies of ours—how long do you think they will last? Adam asked.

>   “I don’t know. I know only that mine hurts more than yours.”

  Water began to fall from the leaden sky. Large drops beat down on their shoulders. They went running into the cave. The rain was falling in torrents. In the sky, a tree with illuminated, gleaming branches lashed the firmament. The earth answered the assault of the lighted branches with harsh rumblings. In the darkness they saw the sparkling eyes of the cat. The dog sniffed the ground. The four grouped together on the projecting rock that served them as a bed. Embraced, Adam and Eve watched the explosions, the thunder and lightning, astonished and fearful.

  “Is the sky going to fall? Are the stars dropping from the sky?” Eve asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Adam. “They’re very far away.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Eve awoke bleeding from between her legs. She was terrified when she got to her feet and saw the red liquid flowing from her sex. In the splendor of the dawn, the cave was filled with mist. Even the clouds had taken refuge from the sky’s fury, she thought. In her lower abdomen a fist was opening and closing, mortifying her. The red liquid was warm and sticky. The dog came over to her and smelled her. She pushed it away, uneasy. She went to the spring in the cave and washed off, but the blood kept flowing. She woke Adam. He said he would bring her leaves so she could clean off. He told her she should lie down again. They were frightened but they hid their fear from each other. Adam quickly returned. His hands were full of figs and fig leaves, and his face was glowing. With the rain, two figs trees had burst up from the fruit he had buried at the entrance to the cave. The trees, fully grown, were covered with figs.