the men hold staffs or rocks, but Cain knows he is safe with the mark upon him.
—What do you call this place? he asks.
Safe, but not welcome. They do not speak, except with their pinched mouths and frowning eyes.
—I have wandered a long time. A cup of water would be appreciated.
No, not welcome at all.
A stone hits the back of his head. He whirls about and sees empty huts. Another strikes him from behind and he whirls again. The stones are not large enough to do damage, nor are they hurled with any great force; but they are unpleasant. They are intended to harry, not kill him.
Suddenly he is engulfed in a hailstorm of fist-size stones. The villagers no longer bother to conceal themselves: perhaps their numbers give them courage. Children and women join in the attack. Cain holds up his hands but it is useless: a sharp-edged missile slices his brow, another momentarily stuns him and the world turns black. When his vision clears he finds himself running, staggering in uneven steps across stony ground. He continues long after he has left the village and its cold welcome behind.
•
It happens again at the next village he approaches, some months later, and the next. After that he treads warily around human habitations, like a wild dog or a serpent. Flinching at every chance encounter, and holding himself ready to flee.
This goes on for years.
•
It is during this time that a singular thing occurs.
Cain is in the mountains, where he has fled to escape the hatred of people he does not know. He lives on cactus fruit and less water than he is used to, with the effect that his bowels are compacted and uncomfortable. One morning he is squatting between two rocks, trying to void himself as best he can, when behind him a voice says, Do not turn around, brother. It is I.
Cain’s guts clench. He knows the voice but says anyway, Who?
—Your brother.
He begins to straighten up but the voice arrests him.—If you try to look I’ll go.
Cain halts, his back to the voice.—I thought you died. I thought I—killed you.
—You did.
A pause then, silence filled only with the chatter of jackdaws and the wind’s sibilant hiss. Cain forces himself to speak with a jauntiness he does not feel.—So then? You’ve come back to haunt me?
—I’ve come back to ask you a question.
—Then you must let me ask one of you.
—Maybe, murmurs Abel.
Cain snorts.—I suppose you’ll ask why I did it?
—I don’t care about that, Abel tells him in a dismissive tone.—Some things are bound to happen sooner or later, and I guess that was one of them. This is more important: What do you know about our brother Seth?
—I know of no brother Seth.
—He’s just recently born.
—There you go then. I have not been home for years. There is little chance that I shall go in the future, so I’ll continue to know nothing of this Seth or any other new fledglings in Father’s brood.
—Too bad. I’d hoped . . . I’ve heard that Mother bore him . . .
—Yes?
Abel’s hesitant voice is filled with wonder.—That she bore him to replace me.
Cain laughs aloud: it is the sweetest joke he has heard in some time.—Is that such a surprise? Lose a hut to fire, build another one. Lose a goat to the fox, breed another one. Lose a child to some horrible crime, conceive another one.
He wonders if Abel is thinking the same as he: And if you lose a brother?
But instead Abel admits, I hadn’t thought I’d be so easily replaced.
A kind of grim satisfaction fills Cain at this.—I imagine it would be a shock. Precious little you can do about it now though.
Abel’s voice grows breathy, as if the breeze is filling it up.—I suppose not.
—Unless you go and, and—haunt them. Like you’re doing to me.
—I think I’ll spare them that.
A thought occurs to Cain then.—What about that girl you were so keen on?
—Girl?
—The one you were planning to marry. Have you ever gone to see her? Aren’t you curious?
—Ah . . . no. I’ll leave her in peace, I think. It was just a misunderstanding between us. Farewell, brother.
—Wait! I get to ask a question of you!
—You just did . . .
Cain jolts around but there is nothing besides gravel and mountains and spindly scrub bushes. Nonetheless he cries out, Do you forgive me? Abel! Do you forgive me?
The echoes come back to him: Forgive me? Give me? Give me!
•
The vision or visitation or whatever it is preoccupies him for many days. He descends from the mountains where he has sought isolation, and for a time he pays no heed to the stones and curses hurled at him by the farmers and villagers on his path. But it is only a matter of time before his brother’s presence fades from his memory, and the immediate reality of bearing all humanity’s loathing becomes once more his daily preoccupation.
Despite this, he can’t help wishing he’d called out a bit sooner: Do you forgive me? Any answer at all—yes no it doesn’t matter—would have been better than silence. Would have helped Cain come to terms with where he finds himself. Which is, he is beginning to realize, nowhere at all. Regardless of where he wanders he is still, always, nowhere.
32 the conversation
—How would I know? snarls Cain.
An awkward silence ensues.
God, in the form of a gray-bellied cloud, drifts lazily across an afternoon sky of unimaginable blueness. Cain had been staggering along the river’s edge in the miasmic shade of a cypress grove, listening to the blood scuttling through his arteries, when the Almighty had appeared, demanding, Where is your brother?
Now God asks again: Have you not seen him today?
—No, Cain snaps, I haven’t. I’m not his keeper, nor his mother either. Go ask her, she’s likely enough to have her arms around his precious head.
His head. His brother’s head, broken and stove-in at the bottom of the ravine. Twisted at an angle that God never intended. His tongue, bit through by his own teeth, lying
