“ ‘You’re emotional and can’t think clearly. You feel guilty for no reason. We aren’t human, Shallem. You can’t pretend to be a human all the time, you can’t always act as they do. Human love is nothing more than a demanding and egotistic necessity and Cyr is just a mortal boy. Explain your differences to him, show him your love and everything will work out. I’m going to leave so you can be alone with him.’
“ ‘I don’t know what to say to him, Cannat. You’re the one who knows what to say to humans...You understand them without even trying. But I... I can’t... If I only would have looked into his eyes, I would have known how he felt. I have that power and I never even bothered to use it with my own son. I didn’t think...’
“Shallem stopped short, Cyr had just walked into the room. He was smiling, defiant. In each hand, he held a dead agouti, still dripping with blood. He showed the animals to Shallem in the same way a proud fisher would display two of his largest catches. Determinedly, he walked to the foot of the bed and gloated over the pain and horror on Shallem’s face. Then he threw the two animals at him.
“ ‘You see?’ he asked, an evil grin on his lips. ‘What reason do they have to run from me?’
“Shallem was distraught. He didn’t know how to approach the problem. Even more, he exaggerated the situation and came up with false conclusions.
“ ‘I’m being punished, Cannat. It’s a sign. My son has rebelled against me exactly in the same way I rebelled against our Father. He thinks I don’t love him, that I’ve abandoned him. He’s acting like I did. It’s a punishment.’
“ ‘Please Shallem, don’t be absurd!’ Cannat replied. ‘You have a simple domestic problem, that’s it. Listen, I can take him to Florence, to Leonardo. He’ll be all right with Leonardo. If something were to happen, he’d let me know and I would be there in an instant. We’ll visit him often.’
“ ‘You’re telling me to send him away because he’s rebelling against the mistakes I made? Send him somewhere he won’t bother me. You’re telling me to abandon him just like we were abandoned?’ Shallem accused him.
“ ‘You’re taking things out of proportion. You’re being obsessive. I’m leaving for a few days and you must be careful. Cyr is turning six this month, the same age Chretien was when you killed him. I don’t think Eonar will be able to bear letting Cyr live longer than his own son had. He’s so damned vindictive... Lately things have been too calm and I have a strange premonition. Warn me if the slightest thing happens.’
“Cannat left us so we could try and repair our fragile domestic tranquility. As soon as he left, Shallem went to look for Cyr. He came back alone and heartbroken. Our son had not only refused to forgive him, he also blamed him for taking Cannat away from him. Cyr was nowhere to be found when I myself went to look for him. In that endless and thick forest, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. We waited for him to come back when it got dark. Why would he come back? Cyr wasn’t afraid of anything. When Shallem realized he wasn’t going to return, he went to look for him and then forced him to come home.
“Shallem tried to use all of his celestial charms but nothing worked with Cyr. Shallem’s eyes had the power to make me blind to everything. However, Cyr wouldn’t even look into them. He didn’t see an angel standing in front of him; he only saw his father. He saw a being that was as normal and ordinary as your own father is to you. And how difficult it is to talk about our parent’s shortcomings...
“Shallem had come up with a speech filled with weak arguments that was basically constructed from ideas Cannat had given him. He repeated the speech to Cyr again and again, without changing a single word.
“Cyr listened, in silence, and with tears running down his face. Then he stood and moved away from Shallem without even a glance in his direction. Shallem turned to me with a heart rendering look of anguish.
“ ‘If it were you, you would end up submitting. Right?’ I asked Shallem. He nodded, walked toward the boy and once again told him how much he loved him.
“Cyr was impenetrable and stubborn. Although he acted deaf to his father’s please, it was only because he needed to know Shallem’s love for him would be true and constant and that he would not waiver in his attempts to regain his affection even though he was constantly being snubbed. Shallem’s perseverance and persistence never faltered. He followed Cyr everywhere. He followed him around the house and in the jungle, repeating, again and again, how much he loved him and how much he needed to be forgiven. If Cyr climbed a tree, Shallem followed. If Cyr imitated the monkeys and grabbed a vine to slid to the ground, rudely leaving Shallem in the tree, Shallem would grab the same vine and slide down after him. Shallem would wake him at night, not bothered nor discouraged by his grouchiness, and start pleading until he realized the boy had fallen back asleep. For Shallem, regaining Cyr’s loved turned into a constant, obsessive and relentless endeavor. But many days would go by before Cyr thought his father had suffered enough.
“Finally, Shallem was able to regain his son’s love. I knew this would happen because Cyr wanted to give in to his father’s love, it was only a question of time. From then on, everything was great again.
“Once more life in the jungle became life in paradise. A life in paradise with an authentic and heavenly Son of God and not a dejected Adam.
“Now that Cannat wasn’t around, we spent all of our time together. Shallem showed us all the treasures in the jungle, as proud as if he himself had created it. He was happy, very happy. However, at times I caught him looking at his son with a deep and indecipherable expression.
“One night, two weeks after Cyr and Shallem had reconciled, I awoke inexplicably frightened. Dawn was approaching and I realized Cyr was not sleeping in the bed next to ours. I looked around the room but no one was there except for Shallem lying beside me. On the verge of hysterics, I shook him and told him Cyr had disappeared.
“ ‘Calm down. Everything is all right.’
“ ‘But Shallem, what if he went to the city? I know something is going to happen. Cannat was right, something is going to happen. I feel it!’
“ ‘Okay, let’s go look for him,’ he conceded.
“We appeared on one of the streets in the city asking ourselves where he could have gone. We walked and yelled his name, absolutely unconcerned about the people who stuck their heads out of windows, fascinated by our unexpected appearance on their street.
“Suddenly, Cannat cried, ‘The isle of flowers! He’s there! My God! It can’t be! Let’s go!’
“He pulled me by my hand and we raced through the streets. Frantic, I kept asking him what was happening to Cyr.
“We weren’t far from the Avenue, close to the isle of flowers, when I suddenly saw the horror with my own eyes. At first, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. But as we grew closer, the reality of what was happening hovered over me like a noxious gas.
“They were both seated on the stone ledge that surrounded the pond. They were both holding aquatic flowers in their hands. It seemed like they were having fun, playing with the flowers as if they were old friends. The child, my child, took a flower from the young man’s hand. The young man’s hair shined resplendent; it shined with every indescribable color in the spectrum. Cyr took the flower from Eonar.
“They both looked up as we approached. We stopped running and walked the last few steps to still our racing hearts. Not saying a word, we stopped in front of them. However, I knew Eonar and Shallem were exchanging words.
“ ‘Cyr, come with me,’ I told him.
“Eonar, looking at me, rested his arm around Cyr’s shoulders so he couldn’t move. And then, for the first time, I heard his voice.
“ ‘You weren’t expecting me, were you?’
“It would be useless to try to describe the inexplicable timber of his voice. His voice was alive, vibrant and harmonic. Only his strange intonation gave him away. He spoke French, as we all did, but it was as if he had never heard or spoken it before.
“Cyr wanted to
get up but Eonar gently held him in place.
“ ‘Where’s your Siamese twin? Why hasn’t he come yet?’ he asked Shallem.
“Exactly at that moment, Cannat appeared in the water directly behind them. In a flash, he had Cyr in his arms and, with his feet flying across the floating flowers, retreated a few meters.
“Startled, Eonar stood up so he could turn and see what had happened.
“ ‘Cannat,’ he said without denoting surprise.
“Cannat got out of the water and I ran to pick up Cyr.
“ ‘You yourself came to get revenge,’ Cannat snapped. ‘Of course..., all of us angels have children..., except you. None of them wanted to come here and kill Shallem’s son like cowards. They love Shallem, in spite of the fact that somehow you managed to convince them to trap Shallem in our realm to prevent him from sharing his soul with his son when he was born. What cunning scheme did you devise to convince them?’
“ ‘Only one son is dead,’ Eonar replied. ‘Mine.’
“ ‘Shallem had a good reason to kill him. What’s your reason? Solely hate? Vengeance? First, you snatched her away from Shallem, and then, he killed that evil son of yours. That wasn’t enough for you, of course. You wanted to impose your own Hammurabi code of law.’
“The news of our arrival spread through the village and a noisy and growing crowd began to form at a safe distance away from us.
“When the gods grew silent and Eonar directed his gaze toward the mortals, one of them must have thought it was the right time to start cheering Kueb and Oman, and as soon as he started, the rest of the crowd joined in.
“Eonar didn’t move and the expression on his face remained indecipherable. He didn’t make the slightest movement with his hand nor did his breathing accelerate. With a simple, brief, and indifferent look, he made five hundred or one thousand of those innocent people, who had flocked around their gods, burst into flames.
“The scene that followed was more than apocalyptic. The poor people were screaming and running like mad. They tore off their clothes; they rolled on the ground. They desperately tried to help each other put out the flames but their efforts were in vain. It was as if the fire had started inside their bodies. Those who ran toward us, because they wanted to jump in the pond, were immediately sent flying through the air, their heads exploding...
“Screaming uncontrollable, Cyr and I held onto each other. Those people... the angels didn’t even look at them. Their calm and indifferent demeanor was such that if Cyr hadn’t of been standing beside me shrieking uncontrollably, I would have thought the holocaust was just a hallucination. The angels looked at nothing but each other. Eonar was staring at Cannat.
“ ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he said seriously. ‘You have so many and they reproduce so quickly.’
“Cannat didn’t respond but it was obvious he didn’t care.
“ ‘Explain yourself now. Why did you come if you knew you couldn’t do anything with both of us here?’ Shallem demanded.
“ ‘Shallem,’ he responded in a leisurely tone of voice. ‘You lost your dignity a long time ago, but now..., now you’re pathetic. Tell me, don’t you feel stupid living in that small human house; using their strange mortal utensils; roaming around with this woman, roaming around dirty throngs of humans, letting their touch infect you; roaming around dark, narrow alleys that reek, day and night, of repulsive humans? Have you forgotten who you are?’
“ ‘I’m with humans who love me,’ Shallem responded coolly. ‘Who loves you, mortal or immortal? For good or for bad, we learn, we change, we evolve. You’ve remained stagnant from the day you were created. You have no horizons. You don’t even have a life. Now answer my question, why are you here?’
“For a few moments before responding, Eonar absentmindedly gazed at the massacre he had created as if it were just some common street show.
“Do you really think I truly cared about that mortal boy’s life, my mortal son, as you called him?’ He asked raising his voice above the rumble of screams and flames. Then he looked at his brothers. ‘I only wanted a son to see what would happen, see what he would be like. And he was exactly what I feared he would be. He was just like Shallem’s son: a weakling and a coward. The seed in a mortal body can only produce human children, mortal children. Trash. I want a son who is truly mine, Cannat. A real son. A son like your Leonardo.’
“ ‘We’re happy for you. We hope he’ll be born soon and we hope he’ll have a joyous life.’ Cannat said sarcastically. ‘What else do you want? Or did you just come to tell your brothers you want to be a father?’
“ ‘He wants you,’ Shallem whispered.
“ ‘What?’ Cannat asked, incredulous.
“ ‘He wants you to go back with him,’ Shallem clarified.
“ ‘Your deplorable ability to read minds has always bothered me, Shallem,’ Eonar confessed.
“ ‘It’s useful when dealing with insidious demons like you,’ Shallem responded, walked toward us, and picked Cyr up in his arms.
“ ‘What do you say, Cannat?’ Eonar asked ignoring Shallem. ‘Shallem can also come back, if he wants. It wasn’t long ago he wanted to come back and I wouldn’t want to take him away from you. Don’t you try it Shallem! Don’t you dare disappear with that boy in your arms! I’ll chase you around the planet!’
“ ‘Why don’t you disappear? You’ve lost what little sense you have left if you think we’d share one minute of our lives with you!’ Cannat cried out.
“ ‘You hate me for no reason, Cannat! I have never harmed any of your brothers and, nevertheless, you despise me as if our fall were all my fault. Your resentment began the very day we were exiled and has followed me for millions of years. It’s not fair! Did I force you to make a decision? Did I secretively whisper in your ears, trying to convince you I was right? I spoke on my own behalf and you all backed me up! If I wouldn’t have spoke up, someone else would have. Perhaps one of you.’
“ ‘No one blames it all on you, Eonar. We were all guilty,’ Shallem stated.
“ ‘Come with me. I’m begging you. We’ve always loved each other. We’ll start over.’
“ ‘We don’t like the supreme leader attitude you’ve adopted,’ Cannat intervened.
“ ‘That’s over. I’ve learned we are all different and I’ve learned that these differences are what make us individually stronger. We all have different but equally admirable powers.’
“ ‘Careful, Cannat,’ Shallem warned. ‘He wants your power.’
“ ‘Yes. I admit that. You’ve always been the strongest among us, Cannat. Everything you have is desirable. Your justifiable arrogance, the distant manner in which you seduce humans and interact with them, without involving yourself in there pitiful lives, but enjoying, without bias, everything they can give you. You were the first to find happiness and you’ve known how to keep it as if it were an inalienable and inherent right. And it IS your right. It’s all of our right. Shallem’s correct, I don’t live. I don’t have a past nor a future. I’ve spent centuries living like a being who has no hope. You are my brother, my favorite brother and this is why I humble myself to beg you. Help me, teach me, guide me to this road of happiness, which only you have found. Am I lying Shallem? Do you find my words to be untrue?’
“Shallem weakly shook his head no. Cyr was in his arms and had his head buried in his neck, terrified. All around us, the closest one some twenty meters away from us, lay hundreds of carbonized cadavers and others whose bodies were still burning. If some other native tried to approach us, he would immediately burst into flames.
“ ‘I’m not threatening you with the boy’s life, although I can’t understand why he’s so important to you. I’m begging you, humbly. I’m your brother and I need you.’
“ ‘Do you really think you would find happiness if I were to go back with you? Do you think that just by being with me you’ll change? Look at Shallem... The only happiness he gets from being with me is what he gets directly from the love we share
for each other. And you and I don’t love each other, Eonar. All three of us were together at one time, remember? And what happened? We all went in different directions. Why would it be different now that we are even more proud, more distant, and more hostile? Admit it, we are solitary creatures. I’m sorry but this is the land I want to walk and will continue to walk. If I disobeyed our Father to escape that realm you love so much, what makes you think I’ll go back just because you want me to. I’ve found my place and I’m sorry but I can’t help you find yours,’ Cannat retorted.
“Eonar looked at them both with an inscrutable expression.
“ ‘You are both so certain I can’t defeat you,’ he said. ‘You’re probably right, there’s little I could do to you. However, Shallem, is there a way you can stop me from burning your son’s fat body? You’re not answering. Can I interpret your silence?’
“ ‘You won’t leave unless you get your vengeance, right?’ Cannat silenced him.
“ ‘Come with me and the boy will live. I know his life is not that important to you but it is to your brother. Shallem, it’s up to you to save your son. Tell us what you think. Would you prefer your son to die or to lose Cannat?’
“Shallem raised his head with obvious displeasure and said some words I couldn’t understand.
“ ‘It’s useless, Eonar,’ Cannat argued. ‘I’m sorry you feel so alone you have to resort to such embarrassing tricks. I will never leave and waste the few and precious years this jungle paradise has left just to be with you.’
“Without moving his head, Eonar shifted his eyes. First, his eyes fell on Cannat and then slowly moved to Shallem. Finally, he stared at me. I was glued to Shallem, grabbing his arm horrified.
“ ‘Do what you’re thinking and I’ll have eternity to find a way to make you regret it,’ Shallem suddenly blurted.
“Eonar sent him a long, profound and inexpressive look.
“ ‘Think before you before you hurt them,’ Cannat persisted. ‘I’ve always wanted to test my powers on you. I even picked a place to send you. It’s over there. You see it? Inside that monstrous statue. The bad thing is that you would have to share it with a few mortal souls. I don’t think you would like that very much.’
The Devil's Concubine Page 31