And then there was the light from the cherubim. Each evening Cain would mount the little hill behind his house and watch the flames that stood out so clearly against the black heavens. The thought of Abel would often come to him then, and he let it. They shared the same fascination for the cherubim, but whereas Abel wanted to go there, for Cain it was enough to watch them from here. He had no opinion about what they looked like, or who they were, he saw what was there: a fire that was always burning in the middle of the world.
He breathed in and out deeply a few times. The air was so cold that he could feel it filling his chest. He knew that the evening was unseasonably cold because the harvest festival would begin the following day. Something of summer often still hung in the air then; several times during his childhood the countryside had been hot and dusty, he remembered, and the first shriveled leaves had fluttered almost unnaturally down, as the wind was still so mild, and all the faces one saw glistened with sweat. But he could recall the opposite, too, the year snow fell while the leaves were still on the trees. How lovely that had been! The leaves’ yellows and greens against the white of the snow. And savage. For that was the first year he was allowed to help with the sacrifice that always started the festival, and the snow preserved every drop of blood that flowed out of the lambs. Dark red, almost black where it pooled, brighter and seemingly fresher where the blood had only fallen as spots.
How old had he been? Six? Seven?
A long time ago at any rate. And tomorrow he was going to make his own offerings for the first time. He’d already been down to the cellar and sorted out what he would take. His field hadn’t exactly provided him with an abundance of produce, but he could spare something. He had put aside the best of everything, as much of it as he could carry. Potatoes, carrots, onions, rutabagas, wheat, and barley.
A scream somewhere in the distance suddenly pierced the air. He’d never heard anything similar, and stood stock-still as he tried to place it. Some sort of predator, he thought. But he was by no means certain. Nor could he tell where it came from. The air was so clear that it could easily have come from the mountains on the other side of the valley.
Perhaps it was just the distance that had distorted it, he thought after the scream had ended.
He was rather cold, but didn’t want to go in just yet, the evening was too lovely for that, and he decided to take a walk down to the river. The grass crackled beneath his feet. He had the feeling that the first snow was not far off. Perhaps it would even fall tomorrow, he thought, and halted. In the darkness before him the river ran past. Although the autumn had been dry, its water level was high and its current strong.
Mightn’t he take a trip in his boat before it was too late?
It was in the shed, ready to be launched. He’d had it on the riverbed up by the sandbanks for a while, and had tarred it, but till now hadn’t found the time to test it.
He had always intended to try it out in the dark. He’d never been in a boat before, and if it turned out to be harder than he imagined, he wanted the failure to go unobserved. As time had passed, and no convenient moment had arrived, he’d consoled himself with the idea of waiting until the spring.
But could there be a better moment than now? The darkness was intense, the current strong, the grass so slippery with rime that it would be light work to haul it down to the river.
He went up to the shed, lugged the boat out, and pushed it across the meadow down to the scrub by the riverbank and out onto the water. Although he was rather nervous, he didn’t hesitate: after checking that the paddle was aboard, he placed one foot on the boat and pushed off. The current took hold of it immediately. The boat began to drift downstream as it spun slowly round. Its speed was greater than he’d anticipated. At first he didn’t dare move, but held himself rigid with a hand on each side. The boat spun faster and faster the closer it got to the rapids. They were weak; originally he’d considered that the speed at which the boat would be driven through them was nothing but an advantage, but now that he realized even a hasty intervention with a paddle would be ineffective, he began to be alarmed. The water was icy, the current treacherous. And he didn’t know if the swimming ability he’d displayed in diving for Abel was a once-only phenomenon.
At the same time there was something blissful about drifting down the river in the dark. The spinning gave him a hollow feeling in his stomach, and when he tilted his head back and looked into the vast dome of stars above him, he couldn’t restrain himself but had to cry out in ecstasy.
Then he entered the rapids. The boat rocked violently, he clung to the sides as hard as he could, but he didn’t feel safe and let himself slide forward from the thwart to the deck, and so, kneeling with his bottom in the air, head down on the keel planks and his arms out to each side, he was carried down them.
He sat up gingerly again when the boat reached calmer waters, took up the paddle, and leaned carefully over to one side to put it in the water, but not carefully enough, because the boat canted over, the water was suddenly just beneath the gunwale, and in a panicky attempt to right it, he stood up, with the result that the boat keeled to the other side, at the same time as he lost his balance, thrust out his arms, and released his grip on the paddle before he managed to crouch down and clutch the sides again.