by Chana Keefer
How Rapha grew to love the sound of Kal’s voice, raspy from too many years smoking a special blend of tranquilizing herbs native to his people. Among his adopted family, that cheerful, hoarse crooning meant all was well: The flocks were accounted for and no enemies plagued their borders.
If Rapha came upon Kal in low spirits, he sensed this was due to the family Kal had lost, an event Kal chose not to divulge. But Eve’s state was a constant painful reminder to Kal. Rapha tried not to pry but sometimes the image of a stout woman with a wide smile and abundant curly, dark hair was too strong to ignore. Rapha even knew her name, Eliana, a name that shoved forward in Kal’s mind whenever he heard Eve’s laughter. But the former angel wanted Kal to divulge his past out of trust and friendship. Thus, Rapha respectfully shut the mental door on Kal’s privacy.
But Rapha was glad to have another in their company to watch and pray. While Adam and Eve trusted Adonai, the abundance of the garden had not prepared them for surviving, much less thriving, in a hostile environment.
He could feel the darkness blowing around their small camp, testing the perimeter, seeking a chink in their defenses, sifting Adonai’s law to find a loophole—brooding, malicious, determined. Thus Kal’s vigilance was most welcome and his knowledge of enemy strategy was the perfect balance to Adam and Eve’s wholesome but sometimes complacent trust in Adonai’s protection.
Perhaps due to the loneliness of their existence and their mutual sense of loss, their small company of four developed into a strong, interdependent community—even, in the truest sense of the word, a family—with Kal fulfilling the role of eccentric grandfather, with his stories that enlivened conversations around the fire and passed on indispensable information about their enemy.
But on the morn of Eve’s travail, Kal’s voice was a whisper lest he disturb her, and his darting eyes swept the horizon for signs of trouble. All night his unease had been growing, and, just like Eden, the faithful dog that stood at his side bristling from head to toe, he was on guard.
Rapha too had spent a sleepless night, hearing every moan of discomfort that escaped Eve’s lips and echoing the sentiment of Kal’s endless supplications to Adonai. In his less glorified form the lack of rest made him edgy. For several moons he had observed the girl’s expanding frame, her delicate beauty stretched beyond what he thought possible. That she had remained mobile until they reached this wide land devoid of stones or trees that could hide their enemies was a miracle. The rolling, grassy slopes and fresh water could feed their flocks for as long as was necessary.
Over and over Rapha sifted Adonai’s prophecy, searching for assurance that Eve would survive the ordeal but he found no guarantees. He had finally concluded the wisest course of action was to worship and pray like Kal. With words, Adonai had set all things in motion. With their words, he and Kal would call forth Adonai’s best for Eve and for all those to come.
As the sun marched across the sky, clouds built in the west. Higher and higher they rose until, with the sun at its zenith, they turned the bright day to dusk.
Rapha did not need to see the celestial realm to realize the clash taking place in the heavenlies. With a flash, a streak of blinding light split the sky, striking the tree beside the prostrate Kal—whose fervent supplications simply rose in volume to combat the rush of punishing wind. Without skipping a beat in his prayers, the stalwart man hopped to his feet and raced to lead the flocks to a low-lying shelter of trees, with Eden’s barking and herding assistance.
At first, Rapha did not hear the rising wail over the sound of the storm, rather he responded to the crashing tidal wave of grief. As he sprinted toward the shelter the sound of Adam’s voice rose, a prolonged, primal, “NOOOOO!” colliding with the storm’s fury.
He threw aside the flap of the battered shelter and entered a nightmare.
Blood. It was everywhere: on Adam’s hands as he cradled the still form of his wife, coating the woolen blankets on which she lay and pooling on the ground around her. Death. He could smell it pressing in, draining life from the motionless young woman.
“It happened so suddenly,” Adam stammered. “I think s-something… tore… inside. Sh… she… screamed.”
“Kal!” Rapha called, but the little man was already outside having seen Rapha running toward the shelter. “Clean water. Lots. In the large skins.”
One did not live as long as Rapha without learning the birthing process. After cleaning his hands with water and wine he assessed the situation. Gently probing, he confirmed his fears. The head of the baby was huge and pressed uselessly against the fully dilated opening. He bared Eve’s stomach, all the while explaining to Adam what must be done and continuing his dialogue with Adonai. Taking the sacrificial knife, he once again utilized the wine and, instructing Adam to grip his wife lest she struggle, he cut.
His ancient heart quailed as Eve came to and shrieked while Adam whispered assurance and strove to keep her still. Rapha steadied his hands and shut his ears, his only goal to complete the process as quickly as possible. Continuing through the layers of skin, muscle and membrane, he once again probed… and froze. Too many limbs. No time to ponder. There was the head. He lifted the bloody babe up. It was huge but perfectly formed with large eyes that blinked once before its mouth opened wide with a lusty wail. In carefully extracting the remainder of the body from Eve’s still form—luckily she had lost consciousness again—he encountered resistance. The cord was tangled around the foot of the baby he held along with… a hand… from another.
Rapha disengaged the first baby’s foot and handed it to Adam before calling, “KAL!”
Instantly the little man was beside him, dousing with wine and lending assistance. Again Rapha probed, located the head and lifted. The second blood-covered body emerged but, even through the muck, the color was wrong. The long cord was wrapped around its neck.
The next moment stretched endlessly as Rapha removed the afterbirth, cut the cords and swabbed. Two lives were waning before his eyes.
“Pray!” he commanded as his own tongue slipped into his native language, a dialect reserved for unhindered communication with his Maker. All the while his heart, mind and hands raced with lightning speed, the flow of life-giving words continued from his lips, pausing only when he placed his mouth over the mouth and nose of the second babe and breathed short puffs, gently inflating the tiny lungs, then sucking and spitting until those passageways were cleared and the child breathed of its own accord. When the second babe joined the chorus of cries, he began the painstaking process of stitching Eve’s womb and staunching the flow of her blood. Utilizing a strong, thin line of intestinal skin, a by-product from their last sacrificial lamb, he stitched with his crude needle fashioned from the sharp leaf of a nearby bush. How Rapha prayed, never pausing in the battle for the young woman’s life that raged with more fury than the wind that threatened to wrench their shelter from the ground.
As Rapha tied off the first layer of stitches and began on the second, the wind died. Peace descended. Eve’s eyes fluttered and she smiled at Adam who stroked her forehead and murmured endearments as he placed the first baby into her arms.
Eve was barely coherent, for which Rapha was grateful as his fingers continued their deft manipulation of thread and needle. The wonder and relief as she gazed upon her baby also worked as an excellent distraction between her gasps of pain.
However, while the war was no longer beating against the confines of their shelter, it raged stronger than ever inside the minds of those surrounding Rapha. Adam’s struggle was understandable as he supported his wife, stroking the hair from her brow even as he strove against feelings of revulsion toward the babe in his arms, the perfectly formed, eerily aware baby boy who gazed with innocence from thick-lashed eyes of prismatic beauty. The iridescent glow was unmistakable. He had his father’s eyes.
But even greater than Adam’s struggle was the storm raging in Kal. The little man was going through the motions of wiping the baby in his arms clean with water-soak
ed clumps of wool and preparing to wrap it in woolen strips set aside for that purpose, but his mind was tortured.
The sight of Eve’s distress during birth—the blood, gore and newborn wails—were bringing forth horrific memories for Kal. The man’s protruding eyes stared down at the babe in his arms, but he was living another moment: the beloved Eliana in travail, his own baby in his arms.
Rapha was pulled into Kal’s emotional sphere even as he completed the stitches on Eve, cleansed the site one last time and added a light poultice of herbs to strengthen and protect the vulnerable wound.
Now he must tend the babies’ cords, cut them short and burn the end to staunch the flow of blood. After heating the sacrificial knife Rapha stepped toward Kal.
Horror and fear flooded Kal’s features as he leapt to turn his back to Rapha, his bent body forming a living shield for the newborn in his arms. “No! It is not his fault! You will not harm him!”
Rapha reassured Kal. “No, my friend. I will merely burn the severed cord. No harm will come to him.”
Kal’s hands remained ready to intervene as the blankets were parted and the glowing knife approached. When the scent of burned flesh assaulted his nose, the stoic warrior succumbed to his darkest nightmare. Rapha tossed the knife back into the fire in the center of their shelter just in time to catch Kal’s crumpling form.
Smoke everywhere. Flickering shadows and a sickening scent of burning herbs… the smell made his head heavy while something in his heart fought the sensation. His heart. It was his heart he cradled against his breast. He was handing her over. No! He must snatch her back from them, from the men with their flowing robes and noble faces that flickered in the wafting fumes to become hideous, grasping beasts, licking their lips, eager for a kill.
When Kal came to, he was on his back outside the shelter with a cold rain lashing his face and Rapha’s concerned expression above him.
Panic once more flooded in. “Where is the baby? What have you done?”
“Both the babies are with Adam. All is well.” Rapha’s hand was on Kal’s shoulder. “No, do not rise. You… fell over.”
Kal leapt to his feet. “Ugh! A great lot of help I am! Get in there and tend Eve. I am fine!”
Rapha, noting the pounding vein in Kal’s temple and his trembling hands, knew this statement was far from true. “Of course,” Rapha said as he stepped back inside the shelter’s heavy animal skin doorway.
But Kal’s memories continued to assail Rapha’s mind and he peeked out just in time to see Kal sink to his knees, knobby hands covering his face.
With a quick invocation of Adonai’s peace, Rapha had to train his thoughts once more on the newborns… and their parents.
So much balanced on the knife’s edge of that moment. Eve’s life hung by a fragile thread and, as Rapha continued his ministrations to her, he felt the turmoil in Adam’s heart.
There the young man stood, cradling the spawn of his enemy in his arms, his face a mask of fear, revulsion and, remarkably, pity.
“I cannot,” Adam gasped, “please, Adonai, do not ask it of me.”
Rapha did not need to ask what the Almighty required. The words were pounding through his frame as well.
Adam, with dark circles under his eyes and Eve’s blood yet staining his garment, spoke Adonai’s directive, though each word ripped through his lips as if composed of flaming thorns.
“Teach them My ways. Love them with My love. Nourish, cherish, and instruct them as your own flesh.”
Soon, Eve revived enough to reach for the babies and Adam took them to her. With coos of adoration she snuggled them close with an unquestioning maternal instinct. Even the second-born babe responded well, grasping to a fold of her robe and drinking deep with an expression of bliss.
Physically, it appeared, all would thrive. But Rapha needed no divination to know their struggle had just begun.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Enemy Within
Rapha surveyed the surrounding land. It was a glorious sunrise with streaks of bright, awakening light kissing the tops of distant mountains with molten pink and gold while a salt-laced breeze teased a flock of waterfowl inland to rush overhead in a frantic, squawking V. He loved this land. Ever since their little band had settled here nine years ago, he felt they had found the closest thing to paradise the world could offer. With hard work and patience they had carved beauty and function and even, he fancied, gratefulness from the rescued terrain that had responded to careful cultivation, rewarding them with a dwelling that flowed with plenty.
For the most part, their borders had been peaceful. Beyond the occasional wandering wild animals and their constant struggle with nature’s unpredictability, they had dwelt unmolested, well fed, and content.
Adam and Eve insisted their animal sacrifice was all the protection they needed, while Kal, who had the deepest reverence for their worship, never relaxed his guard.
Rapha’s own views fell between the two. Yes, the sacrificial lamb held back Lucifer’s claim, and evil required constant vigilance. Once again he sensed the brooding tension of those last days in Eden. In their years of apparent peace, reports had continued to reach his ears, mostly from the ravens who knew no borders, of men of immense size who fought and conquered, then destroyed all within their grasp. Thus he knew Lucifer’s breeding program flourished.
Rapha longed to forget their enemy, to focus only on their flourishing family and rich harvests. He could hope Lucifer would forget his seed born to Eve but Rapha was too well acquainted with Lucifer’s ways to accept complacency. Rapha had no doubt Lucifer knew of Cain and Abel, of their height and strength that proved their angelic lineage. And though Rapha no longer held counsel with the heavenly host, he could read the stars and understand the overriding mood of nature that pointed to the same conclusion: Their little corner of this land was an island in the midst of a fast-rising sea of evil.
He took a deep breath, cleansing his mind of Lucifer’s threat as his eyes swept the valley’s horizon.
“Never let him steal the ‘Now,’” Adonai’s words from the garden again resounded in Rapha’s heart. For this moment, this sweet breath of fresh day with the rim of sunlight peeking over the edge of their land, Rapha would enjoy the hum of bees, the musky scent of freshly tilled soil, and the warmth of morning’s first light on his face.
Soon he expected to hear Cain and Abel’s young voices raised in the excitement of continuing rivalry. What would today’s challenge be? Throwing the spear for distance? Perhaps target practice with the same? Last week it had been wrestling and footraces. The strapping lads were constantly inventing new ways to compete.
Such had been the way of things since their birth when the two were lifted from Eve’s womb seemingly interrupted in a struggle for supremacy, a struggle that almost cost Abel his life. How the three men had cried out to Adonai in that crucial hour and how grateful they had been when both mother and second-born babe had recovered.
Day by day the lads had flourished, consuming more food than Rapha could have imagined. Long and lean, both boys possessed handsome faces, abundant hair, and razor-sharp minds that quickly grasped and mastered any new skill. But they differed in other aspects. Cain’s hair was lighter, containing the hues of sand and sun-bleached wheat while Abel’s was deep brown with burnished streaks of copper. Both kept their long hair secured in braids for ease and simplicity. Thus far the boys were humble regarding their beautiful faces and perfect bodies since they were only nine and did not concern themselves with such things. Besides, except for Kal, others in their lives were also tall and perfectly proportioned. Cain was broader, thicker of muscle and bone while Abel remained slightly taller and more slender. In this way each was built for a different type of strength. Cain excelled in contests based on brute force and distance while Abel bested his brother in endurance and accuracy.
When they had outgrown wrestling with their mother, they roughhoused with Adam and Kal (who could get the upper hand with dirty tricks). Rapha
remained slightly taller and broader in build, but the boys were growing at an alarming rate. If the size of Cain and Abel’s feet were any indication, they would soon be at least two heads taller than Rapha. Even now he refused to wrestle with the lads since, if put to the test, he possessed the maturity of self-control, but the twins, Cain in particular, threw off all restraint in order to win.
This fact marked one of the overriding differences between the boys. Abel had an uncanny connection to the emotions of others while Cain viewed most emotions as weakness. The thought of being the cause of another’s pain was unconscionable to Abel. Rapha felt this was one of the reasons the animals in Abel’s care trusted the boy so implicitly. Cain, on the other hand, had his mother’s love of growing things and reserved his empathy for them. He reveled in the backbreaking labor of tilling the stubborn soil and nourishing the crops, trying to improve them year-by-year. He doted on his vines, trees and stalks just as carefully as Abel cared for his flocks, with an instinctive, protective, practically maternal attachment. In fact, one thing sure to puff Cain’s chest with pride, almost as much as besting his brother in physical contests, was a compliment at mealtime comparing his handiwork to the unsurpassed fruits of Eden.
If only… Rapha caught himself. Once again he was wishing Cain could be more like his brother. Abel was a happy lad, whistling through his days and bringing cheer while Cain tended to be moody. Abel took worship of Adonai more seriously and begged to hear Adam and Eve’s stories of dwelling in the garden over and over, whereas Cain would appear distracted or even bored.
For Abel, it was simple to love and be loved. Not so for Cain who was easily angered and grew sulky when he was not the center of attention, which was often since Abel was a gifted jokester.