Chapter 13
God was not there for the launch. He was busy examining the planet's hydraulic system, checking the state of the valves, tightening the odd loose screw that was dripping where it shouldn't, testing the various local distribution networks, keeping an eye on the manometers, as well as dealing with tens of myriads of other tasks, large and small, each of them more important than the last, and which only he, as creator, engineer and administrator of the universal mechanisms, was in a position to carry out and to which only he could give the sacred ok. Parties were for other people, he had work to do. At such times, he felt less like a god and more like the foreman of the worker angels, who, at that precise moment, were waiting in their immaculately white overalls, one hundred and fifty on the starboard of the ark and one hundred and fifty on the port side, for the order to lift the enormous vessel, but we could not say that an order rang out, because no voice would be heard, for this operation is all in the mind, in one mind, as if only one man with a single brain and a single will were thinking it. One moment the ark was on the ground, the next it had been lifted chest-high by the worker angels, as if they were performing an exercise with weights and dumb-bells. Noah and his family leaned excitedly out of the window the better to appreciate the spectacle, at the risk, thought cain, of one of them falling out. One last push and the ark was suddenly raised into the upper air. It was then that noah shouted, The unicorn, the unicorn. And indeed, galloping alongside the ark was that creature without equal in zoology, with its spiral horn, its dazzling white coat, like an angel, that mythical horse whose existence so many had doubted, and there it was, almost within their grasp, all they had to do was lower the ark, open the door and lure it in with a lump of sugar, which is the favourite treat of all equines, and can be their perdition. Suddenly, the unicorn disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Noah's cries of, Go down, go down, were all in vain. Manoeuvring the ark earthwards again would have been very complicated logistically, and what was the point if the unicorn had vanished and would now be wandering who knows where. Meanwhile, at a far greater speed than that of the hindenburg airship, the ark was cutting through the air, heading for the sea, where, when the water was deemed deep enough, it finally landed, creating a huge wave as it did so, a real tsunami, that raced up the beaches, destroying the boats and huts of fishermen, drowning quite a few and ruining the local fishing industry, like a warning of things to come. The lord, however, did not change his mind, his calculations might be wrong, but as long as no one else had checked them, he still had the benefit of the doubt. Inside the ark, noah's family was giving thanks to god, and to celebrate the success of the operation and show their gratitude, they sacrificed a lamb to the lord, who was delighted, as is only natural, given where the lamb had come from. The lord was right, noah had been an excellent choice as father of the new human race, for as the only just and honest person of his day, he would correct the errors of the past and drive iniquity from the earth. And the angels, where are the worker angels, asked cain suddenly. They were not there. Having carried out the lord's commands so perfectly and completely, those diligent workers, with characteristic simplicity, as we saw on the very first day we met them, had returned to barracks with no expectation of any medals being handed out. It is as well to remember that the ark has neither rudder nor sail, it has no motor, you can't wind it up, and resorting to oars would be simply unthinkable, not even the strength of all the worker angels in heaven would be capable of such a feat. It will move, therefore, at the whim of the currents, it will be pushed by the winds that blow the belly of the ship along, there will be very little sailing skill involved and the journey will be one long rest, apart from bouts of amatory activity, which will be neither few and far between nor brief, and to which cain's contribution, as far as we can ascertain, has been exemplary. Just ask noah's daughters-in-law, who have frequently left their beds in the middle of the night, where they have been lying with their husbands, in order to go and cover themselves, not just with the blanket covering cain, but with his young, experienced body.
After seven days had passed, seven being a kabbalistic number par excellence, the floodgates of heaven opened. The rain will fall unceasingly upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. At first, the cataracts falling continuously from the sky with a deafening roar appeared to make little difference. That was only natural, the force of gravity guided the torrents into the sea, into which they appeared to vanish, but it was not long before the fountains of the ocean deeps overflowed too and the water began to rise to the surface in gushes and spouts as high as mountains that came and went, merging with the vastness of the sea. In the midst of these wild aquatic convulsions that seemed bent on swallowing everything, the boat managed to survive, bobbing about like a cork, always righting itself at the last moment, just when the sea seemed about to gulp it down. After one hundred and fifty days, once the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had closed, the water, which had covered even the highest of mountains, began slowly to subside. Meanwhile, though, one of noah's daughters-in-law, ham's wife, had died in an accident. Contrary to what we said or implied earlier, there was a great need for manpower on board, not sailors, it's true, but cleaners. Hundreds, not to say thousands, of animals, many of them very large indeed, were crammed into the hold, shitting and peeing for all they were worth. Cleaning this up, shovelling tons of excrement into buckets every day was a terrible burden for the four women, both physically, because they were totally exhausted, poor things, but also sensorially, with the unbearable stink of shit and urine that seemed to penetrate their very skin. On one of those days of tumultuous tempests, with the ark being shaken by the storm and the animals trampling each other, ham's wife slipped on the filthy deck and ended up beneath the feet of an elephant. The others threw her into the sea just as they found her, all bloody and smeared with excrement, like a miserable bit of human detritus without honour or dignity. Why didn't you clean her up first, asked cain, and noah replied, There'll be water enough in the sea to wash her clean. From that moment on and until the end of the story, cain would feel a deep-seated loathing for noah. They say that there is no effect without cause and no cause without effect, and that would seem to indicate that the relationship between the two things should, at every moment, be not only obvious but graspable in every aspect, whether consequent or subsequent. We would not, however, go so far as to suggest that the change in attitude of noah's wife should also be included in this general picture. She may simply have thought that, with ham's wife gone, another should take her place, not in order to keep the widower company on his now solitary nights, but to recover the harmony enjoyed before among the younger females of the family and their guest cain, or, put more plainly, given that he had been used to having three women at his disposal, there was no reason why he should not continue to do so. Little did she know that the ideas going round and round in cain's head made this matter an entirely secondary one. Nevertheless, since one thing does not necessarily exclude the other, cain was sympathetic to her advances, You may not believe it, she said, but despite my age, because I'm not exactly in the first flower of youth, and despite having borne three children, I still feel that I'm a desirable woman, what do you think, cain. It had stopped raining a long time ago, the great mass of water was now busily macerating the dead and pushing them gently, with its eternal rocking, into the mouths of the fish. Cain had gone to look out of the window to watch the sea shining in the moonlight, he had thought briefly about lilith and his son enoch, both of them now dead, but in a somewhat distracted manner, as if he didn't really care, and it was then that he heard that whispered voice beside him, You may not believe it. They went from there, he and she, into the cubicle where cain slept, they didn't even wait for noah, who was already lying in the arms of morpheus, to depart this world, and when they had finished, cain had to acknowledge that the woman had been right in her view of herself, she did still have plenty of go in her and, at certain moments, revealed an acrobatic qua
lity that the other women did not, either through a lack of natural vocation, or because they were inhibited by their respective husbands' more traditional approach. And on the subject of husbands, we should mention that ham was the second person to disappear. He had gone up on deck to adjust some planks that were keeping him awake with their creaking, when someone came up to him, Can you give me a hand, ham asked, Yes, came the reply, and ham was hurled into the sea, a fall of some fifty feet, which, although it seemed interminable, was soon over. Noah blustered and raged, saying that after all that time on the boat, only an unforgivable lapse of attention could explain such an occurrence, Keep your eyes open, he said, watch where you're putting your feet, and he went on, We have lost one couple, which means we're going to have to copulate even more if we are to do god's will and become the fathers and mothers of the new human race. He broke off for a moment and, turning to his two remaining daughters-in-law, asked, Is either of you pregnant. One said yes, she was, the other that she wasn't yet sure, And who is the father, Well, I think it's cain, said japheth's wife, I do too, said shem's wife, Goodness me, said noah, if your husbands don't have the necessary generative power, then you had better just lie with cain, which is, in fact, what I foresaw would happen from the start. For reasons best known to themselves, the women, noah's wife included, smiled, while the men, who were most displeased by this public dressing-down, promised to try harder in future. It's odd how lightly people speak about the future, as if they held it in their hand, as if it was in their power to push it further off or bring it nearer in accordance with the needs and expediencies of the moment. Japheth, for example, sees the future as a succession of fruitful copulations, one child a year, a few twins now and then, with the lord gazing fondly down upon him, a lot of sheep, a lot of yokes of oxen, in short, happiness. The poor man does not know that his end is nigh, that he will be tripped up and thrown into the void with no life jacket on, gesticulating wildly and crying out in an agony of futile despair as the ark proceeds majestically on to meet its destiny. The loss of yet another crew member caused noah indescribable distress, the realisation of the lord's plan was at grave risk, and, given the situation, they would have to double or even triple the time needed to achieve a reasonable repopulation of the earth. Cain's collaboration was becoming ever more important, which is why noah, since cain seemed unwilling to make the first move, decided to have a man-to-man talk with him, Enough of this beating about the bush, enough mincing of words, he said, from now on it's whenever and however, all these worries will be the death of me, and I can't be of much help for the moment, Whenever and however, repeated cain, what does that mean, Yes, and whoever too, answered noah, giving cain a knowing wink, Including your wife, asked cain, Yes, I insist on it, she's my wife and I can do with her as I wish, Especially since it's in a good cause, said cain, A sacred cause, the lord's cause, agreed noah in appropriately solemn tones, Well, in that case, let's start right away, said cain, send her to the cubicle where I sleep and tell the others not to disturb us, regardless of what happens or what noises you may hear, Certainly, and may the lord's will be done, Amen to that. Now some might think that mischievous cain was enjoying the situation, playing cat and mouse with his innocent companions, whom, as you will already have suspected, he has been eliminating one by one. They would be quite wrong. Cain is wrestling with his anger against the lord, as if he were caught in the tentacles of an octopus, and his latest victims are, as was abel in the past, merely further attempts on his part to kill god. His next victim will be noah's wife, who, quite undeservedly, will pay with her life for the hours of pleasure spent in the arms of her future assassin, and with the blessing and connivance of her own husband too, such was the dissolute nature of this race of humans whose final days we are witnessing. After repeated displays, with a few more or less subtle variations, of various wild, erotic deliriums, mainly on the part of the woman, and which found expression, as usual, in murmurs, moans and, finally, uncontrollable screams, cain led her by the hand to the window to enjoy the cool night air, and there he placed his hands between her still trembling thighs and heaved her into the sea. The only remaining members of noah's family of eight were the patriarch himself, his son shem and his wife and japheth's widow. Two women should still be enough, thought noah with his unfailing optimism and his unshakeable trust in the lord. However, he couldn't conceal his bewilderment at his wife's inexplicable disappearance and he said as much to cain, She was in your care, I just can't understand how such a misfortune could have happened, to which cain responded with a question, Was I your wife's keeper, did I have her tethered to me by the ankle with a rope, as if she were a sheep, No, no, I don't mean that, said noah, retreating slightly, but she was sleeping with you, and you might have noticed something, Yes, but I sleep very deeply. The conversation went no further, and it was true that cain could hardly be held responsible for the fact that noah's wife got up in the dark and went outside for a pee in the night breeze, and there perhaps, after suffering a dizzy spell, rolled to the side of the ship and vanished into the waters. Just one of those unfortunate things. The level of the vast sea covering the earth continued to subside, but no mountain peak had raised its head to say, Here I am, my name is ararat and I'm in turkey. Nevertheless, the great voyage was nearing its end, and it was time to prepare for the conclusion, the landfall or whatever it would be. Shem and his wife had both fallen into the sea in as yet unexplained circumstances, and the same had happened to japheth's widow, who had spent the previous night in cain's bed. Now noah was tearing his hair out in despair, all is lost, with no women to impregnate, there will be no life and no human race, it would have been far better to have made do with the familiar world they had, and he went on, distraught, How can I stand before the lord with nothing but this boatful of animals to show him, what shall I do, how will I live out the rest of my life, Throw yourself overboard, said cain, no angel will scoop you up in his arms. There was something in the way cain said this that awoke noah to reality, It was you, he said, Yes, it was me, answered cain, but I won't touch you, you will die by your own hand, And god, what will god say, asked noah, Don't worry, I'll take care of god. Noah took the six steps that separated him from the edge of the boat and, without another word, jumped.
The following day, the boat reached land. And the voice of god was heard, saying, Noah, noah, come forth from the ark with your wife and your sons and the wives of your sons, bring forth with you every living thing that is with you, both fowl and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth and be fruitful and multiply. There was a silence, then the door of the ark slowly opened and the animals began to emerge. Out they came, an endless stream, some large, like the elephant and the hippopotamus, some small, like the lizard and the cricket, others medium-sized, like the goat and the sheep. When the tortoises, who were the last to emerge, were moving off, slowly and ponderously as is their way, god called, Noah, noah, why do you not come out. Emerging from the dark interior of the ark, cain appeared on the threshold of the great door, Where are noah and his family, asked the lord, They're all dead, answered cain, Dead, what do you mean, dead, how, Well, apart from noah, who drowned himself of his own free will, I killed them all, You murderer, how dare you ruin my plan, is this how you show your gratitude for my having spared your life when you killed abel, asked the lord, There had to come a day when someone would show you your true face, What about the new human race I had promised, There was one, but there won't be another and no one will miss it, You are indeed cain, the vile, wicked killer of your own brother, Not as vile and wicked as you, remember the children in sodom. There was a great silence. Then cain said, Now you can kill me, No, I can't, the word of god cannot be taken back, you will die a natural death on the empty earth, and carrion birds will devour your flesh, Yes, once you have devoured my spirit. God's answer went unheard, and what cain said next was lost too, but it seems likely that they argued with each other on many other occasions, and one thing
we know for certain is that they continued to argue and are arguing still. The story, though, is over, there will be nothing more to tell.
Cain Page 12