Chapter 10
Cain has no idea where he is, he can't tell if the donkey is taking him along one of the many roads of the past or along some narrow track in the future, or if, quite simply, he is trotting through some new present that has not, as yet, revealed itself. He looks at the parched earth, the thistles, the sparse scrub scorched by the sun, but parched earth, thistles and scrub are what one mainly sees in such barren places. There's not a road in sight, from here you could go anywhere or nowhere, as if the destinations were constantly shifting or had decided to wait for a better occasion to show themselves. The donkey is jogging steadily along, he seems to know where he's going, as if he were following a trail, or, rather, a confusing coming and going of tracks left by sandals, hooves or bare feet, that you have to study attentively if you want to avoid finding yourself going backwards when you thought you were heading straight for the north star. In the past, cain has been a would-be farmer, as well as a treader of clay, but he is now a diligent tracker, who, even at moments of uncertainty, tries not to lose the thread of those who have preceded him, regardless of whether or not they ever found a place where they could stop and say to themselves, I've arrived. Cain doubtless has very sharp eyes, but not so sharp that he can recognise his own marks among the many other tracks, the hollow left by his heel or the slightly scuffed print of his weary feet. Cain has passed this way before. He will realise this when he suddenly spots the remains of the ruined house where he once sheltered from the rain and where he will not be able to shelter today because what was left of the roof has fallen in, all one can see now are fragments of crumbling wall, which, after another two or three winters, will merge for ever with the earth from which they rose, earth to earth, dust to dust. From now on, the donkey will only go where he is told to, the days when he was the sole guide on this journey are over, or perhaps not, for left to his own devices, the memory of his former stable might be strong enough to lead him to the city that he left, who knows how many years before, carrying this man on his back. As for cain, he, naturally, has not forgotten the road to the palace. When he enters the palace, it will be in his power to change direction, to abandon the other presents awaiting him, both previous and future, and return to that familiar past for a day or two, possibly more, but not for all the remaining days of his life, for he has not yet met his fate, as we will see. Cain lightly touches the donkey's flanks with his heels, ahead lies the road that will lead him into the city, and there he will have no option but to drink whatever wine has been poured for him. Seen from close to, the city appears not to have grown, the same squat houses seemingly oppressed by their own weight, the same adobe bricks, only the palace rises above the dark mass of the older buildings, and, inevitably, in accordance with the rules of this story, just around the corner stands the same old man at the entrance to the square, leading the same sheep tethered by the same rope. Where have you been, have you come back to stay, he asked cain, And what about you, retorted cain, you're still here, are you, still not dead, As long as these sheep are alive, I will be too, I must have been born to tend them and stop them eating the rope that tethers them, There are worse fates, You mean your own, Maybe I'll tell you about that on another occasion, right now, I'm in a hurry, Is someone expecting you, asked the old man, That I don't know, Well, I'll just wait here to see if you leave or stay, Wish me luck, To do that I would need to know what is best for you, Even I don't know that, You're aware that lilith had a child, aren't you, asked the old man, Of course, she was pregnant when I left, Yes, well, she has a son, Goodbye, Goodbye. With no need to be told, the donkey headed for the palace gate, where he stopped. Cain slid down from the saddle, handed the reins to a slave who came to greet him and asked, Is anyone in the palace, Yes, my mistress is here, Go and tell her she has a visitor, Abel, your name is abel, murmured the slave, I remember you well, Off you go, then. The slave went up the steps and returned shortly afterwards, accompanied by a boy of about nine or ten, My son, thought cain. The slave beckoned cain to follow. At the top of the steps stood lilith, as beautiful and voluptuous as ever, I thought you would come today, that's why I put on this dress, to please you, Who is the boy, His name is enoch and he's your son. Cain went up the few steps that separated him from lilith, grasped the hands she held out to him and, in an instant, was holding her in his arms. He heard her sigh, felt her whole body tremble, and when lilith said, You came back, he could say only, Yes, I came back. At a signal from her, the slave led the boy away, leaving them alone. Come with me, she said. They went into the antechamber, and cain noticed that the guard's bed and bench that had been assigned to him ten years before were still there, How did you know I would come back today when I arrived here quite by chance, Never ask me how I know what I say I know because I won't be able to answer, but this morning, when I woke up, I said out loud, He will come back today, I said it so that you would hear, and it was true, here you are, but I won't ask you for how long, No, after all, I've only just arrived, it's hardly the time to speak of leaving, Why did you come back, That's a long story, too long to be told here, between rooms, Come and tell it to me in bed, then. They went into the bedroom, where nothing appeared to have changed, as if, during that long absence, cain's memory had been carefully modifying his recollections, one by one, so as not to feel surprised now. Lilith began to get undressed, and time seemed not to have passed for her at all. It was then that cain asked, What about noah, He died, she said, and her voice did not tremble nor did she look away, Did you kill him, asked cain, No, responded lilith, I promised you that I wouldn't, he died a natural death, Better so, said cain, The city is called enoch too, lilith remarked, Like my son, Yes, And who chose the name, Which name, The city's, Noah, And why did he name the city after a son that was not his, He never told me and I never asked, answered lilith, lying down. And when did noah die, asked cain, Three years ago, So for seven years, in the eyes of everyone, he was enoch's father, People pretended that was the case, but everyone here knew that you were the real father, although it's true that, over time, only the older people remembered, but be that as it may, noah could not have treated him better if he had been his own son, That doesn't sound like the man I knew, it's as if he were two people, No one is just one person, you, for example, are both cain and abel, And you, Oh, I am all women, and all their names are mine, said lilith, and now, be quick, come and give me news of your body, In ten years, I have known no other woman, said cain, as he lay down, And I have known no other man, said lilith, smiling mischievously, Is that true, No, there have been a few other men in this bed, but not many because, frankly, I couldn't stand them, I felt like slitting their throats when they ejaculated, Thank you for your honesty, To you I will never lie, said lilith and put her arms around him.
With their spirits soothed and their bodies amply compensated for that long separation, the moment arrived to put the past in order. Lilith had asked, Why did you come back, but he had already said that he didn't know how he had got there, and so she modified the question, What have you been doing all these years, and cain replied, I saw things that haven't yet happened, Do you mean you saw into the future, No, I was there, No one can be in the future, Then don't let's call it the future, let's call it another present or other presents, You've lost me, Yes, I found it hard to understand at first too, but then I realised that if I was there, and I really was, I must be in the present, a present, and what had been the future had ceased to be the future, tomorrow was now, No one's going to believe that, And I have no intention of telling anyone else, Your problem is that you have no proof, some object brought back from that other present, It wasn't just one present, but several, Give me an example. Then cain told lilith about the man called abraham whom the lord had commanded to sacrifice his own son, then about a great tower built by men who hoped to reach the sky and how the lord had razed it to the ground with a hurricane, then about the city where the men preferred to go to bed with other men and about the punishment of fire and brimstone that the lord caused to fall on them, with
no thought for the children, who didn't even know what they might wish for in the future, and then about the vast throng of people at the foot of a mountain called sinai and the making of a golden calf, which those people worshipped and were slain for doing so, about the city that dared to kill thirty-six soldiers belonging to an army known as the israelites and whose population was wiped out down to the last child, and about another city, called jericho, whose walls were demolished by the blast from some trumpets made of rams' horns and then how everything inside it was destroyed, men and women, young and old, even oxen, sheep and asses. That is what I saw, concluded cain, and many more things for which I have no words, Do you really think that what you saw will happen in the future, asked lilith, Contrary to popular belief, the future is already written, it's just that we don't know how to read the page it's written on, said cain, wondering to himself where he had found such a revolutionary idea, And why do you think you were chosen to have that experience, Well, I'm not sure I was chosen, but I have learned one thing, What's that, That our god, the creator of heaven and earth, is completely mad, Do you dare to call the lord god mad, Only a madman unaware of what he was doing would admit to being directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and then behave as if nothing had happened, unless, of course, it's not a case of real, authentic madness, but evil pure and simple, God could never be evil, if he was, he wouldn't be god, evil is what the devil is for, It can't be right for a god to order a father to kill his own son and burn him on a pyre simply as a test of faith, not even the wickedest of devils would order someone to do that, You've changed, you're not the same man who slept in this bed before, said lilith, You would not be the same woman if you had seen what I saw, the children of sodom burned to a cinder by the fires of heaven, Where's sodom, That's the city where the men preferred men to women, And was that why everyone was killed, Everyone, not a soul escaped, there were no survivors, Even the women whom those men spurned, lilith asked again, Even them, That's how it is with women, if the rain doesn't get you, the wind will, Anyway, the innocent are now accustomed to paying for the sinners, The lord seems to have a very strange idea of justice, Yes, the idea of someone who hasn't the slightest notion of what human justice might be,
Do you, asked lilith, I'm cain, remember, the one who killed his brother and was punished for his crime, Fairly leniently, it must be said, remarked lilith, Yes, you're right, I would be the first to admit that, but god, the one we call lord, was still the main person responsible, You wouldn't be here if you hadn't killed abel, in fact, from a selfish point of view, you could say that one thing led to the other, No, I just did what I had to do, killing my brother and sleeping with you in this bed are all effects of the same cause, Which cause, Being in god's hands, or in the hands of fate, to give him his other name, And what do you intend to do now, asked lilith, That depends, On what, Well, if I ever become master of my own life again, if this skipping from one present to another, completely independently of my will, ever stops, I will lead what is usually called a normal life, like everyone else, Not like everyone else, you will marry me, we already have a son, this is our city, and I will cling to you as faithfully as the bark to its trunk, But if that doesn't happen, if my fate continues, then, wherever I am, I will be subject to being shunted from one present to another, and we will never be certain, you and I, what tomorrow might bring, besides, Besides what, asked lilith, It seems to me that what is happening must have some meaning, some significance, and I feel that I shouldn't stop halfway without trying to understand what it's about, So that means you won't be staying, that you'll leave again one day, said lilith, Yes, I think so, if I was born for something different, then I need to know what it is and why, Let's enjoy what time we have, then, come here, said lilith. They embraced and kissed, rolling from one side of the bed to the other, and when cain found himself on top of lilith and was about to penetrate her, she said, The mark on your forehead has grown bigger, Much bigger, asked cain, No, not very much, Sometimes I think it will grow and grow and spread all over my body and turn me into a negro, That's all I need, said lilith, laughing, a laugh that immediately became a groan of pleasure when, with one thrust, he drove his penis home.
Cain Page 9