5

Cain has now done as ordered and slept in lilith’s bed and, incredible though it may seem, it was precisely his lack of sexual experience that saved him from drowning in the vortex of lust that gripped the woman and, in an instant, made her explode into screams like one possessed. She ground her teeth, bit the pillow and then his shoulder, even drinking his blood. Cain laboured determinedly away on top of her, bewildered by her wild, brazen movements and cries, but, at the same time, another cain who was not him was observing the scene curiously, almost coldly, the flailing limbs, the bodily contortions, the postures that copulation itself demanded or imposed until the acme of orgasm was reached. The two lovers did not sleep much on that first night. Nor on the second or third or all the other nights that followed. Lilith was as insatiable as cain was inexhaustible, the interval between two erections and their respective ejaculations insignificant, almost non-existent, you might even say that they had both reached the future paradise of allah. On one such night, noah, the lord of the city and lilith’s husband, entered the antechamber, having been informed by a trusted slave that something extraordinary was going on. This was not the first time he had done so. Noah was the most indulgent of husbands, and during all their so-called life in common, he had been incapable of getting his wife with child, and it was his awareness of this continual failure, and perhaps also the hope that lilith might end up becoming pregnant by one of her occasional lovers and finally give him a son he could call his heir, that had led him to adopt, almost without realising it, the attitude of conjugal permissiveness, which, over time, had become a comfortable modus vivendi, disturbed only by the very rare occasions on which lilith, moved by what we imagine must be that much-vaunted thing female compassion, decided to go to her husband’s bedroom for a brief, unsatisfactory encounter that compromised neither of them, for he then felt under no obligation to demand more than he was given and she could not be accused of denying him his rights. Lilith, however, never allowed noah into her own bedroom. At that precise moment, and even though the door was closed, the vehemence of the two lovers’ erotic enthusiasm was like a series of slaps in the poor man’s face, giving rise to a feeling he had not experienced before, an intense hatred of the horseman currently mounting the mare lilith and making her whinny as never before. I’ll kill him, noah said to himself, without considering the consequences of that action, for example, how lilith would react if her favourite lover was slain. I’ll kill them both, thought noah, broadening out his plan, I’ll kill him and her. These were mere dreams, fantasies, deliriums, noah will kill no one and he himself will have the good fortune to escape death without having to do a thing to avoid it. Not a sound emerges from the room now, but this does not mean that the corporeal party is over, the musicians are merely resting, and the orchestra will soon launch into the next dance, the one whose final violent paroxysm will be followed by exhaustion, at least until the following night. Noah has withdrawn, carrying with him his plan for vengeance, which he caresses as if he were stroking lilith’s inaccessible body. We will see how it all ends.

Given what we have described, it’s only natural that it will occur to someone to ask if cain isn’t tired out, squeezed dry by his insatiable lover. He is tired out and squeezed dry, and as pale as death. His pallor is due simply to a lack of sunlight and exposure to the fresh air that makes plants flourish and people’s skin turn brown. But anyone who had known this man before he entered lilith’s bedroom, where his time is divided between the antechamber and sex, would be sure unknowingly to repeat the overseer’s words, He’s a ghost, a spectre, as the person chiefly responsible for his condition finally realised. You don’t look well, she said, I’m fine, replied cain, Maybe, but your face says otherwise, It doesn’t matter, Yes, it does, from now on you will go for a walk every day, you can take a slave with you so that no one bothers you, I want to see you with the face you had when I saw you at the treading pit, Your wish is my command, madam. The accompanying slave was chosen by lilith herself, what she didn’t know, however, was that he was a double agent, who took his orders from noah, even though he was, for administrative purposes, her servant. Let us, therefore, fear the worst. On the first few occasions, the walks passed off without incident, the slave always walking one pace behind, listening attentively to whatever cain said and suggesting what he thought would be the best route to follow outside the city walls. There was no apparent reason for concern. Then, one day, concern arrived in the guise of three men waiting to ambush them and with whom, as cain quickly realised, the treacherous slave was in cahoots. What do you want, asked cain. The men did not answer. They were all armed, the apparent leader with a sword and the other two with knives. What do you want, cain asked again. The answer came in the form of a sword suddenly unsheathed and pointed at his chest, To kill you, said the man, stepping forward, Why, asked cain, Because your time is up, You can’t kill me, said cain, the mark on my forehead will not allow you to, What mark, asked the man who was, it seems, somewhat shortsighted, This one here, said cain, Oh, yes, I can see it now, what I can’t see is why a blemish would prevent me from killing you, It’s not a blemish, it’s a mark, And who put it there, did you do it yourself, asked the man, No, the lord put it there, What lord, The lord god. The man burst out laughing and the others, including the unfaithful slave, provided a gleeful chorus. Better the last smile than the first laugh, said cain, and then, addressing the gang’s leader, Do you have family, he asked, Why do you want to know, Do you have children, a wife, a father and mother still alive, other relatives, Yes, but, You will not need to kill me for them to be punished, said cain, interrupting him, the sword in your hand has already condemned them, the lord’s word on it, Don’t think you’re going to lie your way out of this, shouted the man and advanced, sword at the ready. At that same moment, the weapon was transformed into a cobra which the man, horrified, shook from his hand, There, said cain, what you took for a snake was a sword. He bent down and picked the sword up by the hilt, I could kill you now, and no one would come to your aid, he said, your companions have fled, as will the traitor who brought me here, Forgive me, begged the man, kneeling down, Only the lord can forgive you, if he so chooses, I can’t, now go, you will find the reward for your villainy at home. The man left, head down, weeping, tearing his hair, regretting a thousand times over ever having chosen the profession of murderous bandit. Repeating the steps he took when he first arrived, cain walked back into the city. Just as on that occasion, he turned a corner and found himself face to face with the old man leading the two sheep by a rope. Goodness, you’ve changed, said the old man, you don’t look anything like the vagabond who came from the west or the treader of mud, No, I’m a guard now, said cain, and made as if to go on his way, Guarding which door, asked the old man in a tone that was intended to be mocking, but which sounded rather resentful, If you know already, why waste time asking, Because I don’t know the details, and the savour of any story is always in the details, Well, go hang yourself on them then, you have a rope after all, retorted cain, and that way I wouldn’t have to see you again. The old man shouted, You will go on seeing me until the end of your days, My days will have no end, answered cain, moving off, and watch that those sheep of yours don’t eat the rope, That’s what I’m here for, but it’s all they think of doing.

Lilith was not in her room, nor on the roof terrace, where she often sunbathed naked. Sitting on his bench, cain considered the situation, trying to weigh up what had happened. It was clear that the slave had taken him down that path on purpose in order to meet the waiting bandits, so someone must have plotted against his life. It wasn’t difficult to guess the name of what we would now call the mastermind behind that failed murder attempt. Noah, said cain, that’s who it was, no one else in the palace or in the city would gain anything by my disappearance. At that moment, lilith came into the antechamber, That was a short walk, she said. A thin veil of sweat made the skin on her shoulders gleam, she was as succulent as a ripe pomegranate or as a split fig from which oozes the first honeyed drop. Cain considered carrying her off to bed, then abandoned the idea, perhaps later on, there were serious matters to deal with first. Someone tried to kill me, he said, Kill you, asked lilith, startled, who, The slave you sent with me and some hired bandits, What happened, tell me, The slave led me down a path out of the city, that’s where the attack took place, Did they hurt you, wound you, No, How did you escape, asked lilith, No one can kill me, said cain calmly, You’re the only person in the world who believes that, Yes, I am. There was a silence, which cain broke, My name isn’t abel, he said, it’s cain, Oh, I like that better than the other one, said lilith, trying to keep the tone of the conversation light, an endeavour that cain laid low with his next words, Abel was the name of my brother, whom I killed because the lord had chosen to favour him at my expense, and I took his name to conceal my own identity, We don’t care if you’re cain or abel, news of your crime never reached us here, Yes, I see that now, Tell me what happened, Aren’t you afraid of me, don’t I disgust you, asked cain, You are the man I chose for my bed and with whom, in a little while, I will again lie down. Then cain opened the ark of secrets and described the dramatic event in detail, including the flies on abel’s eyes and mouth, as well as the words spoken by the lord, and the enigmatic promise he had made to protect him from a violent death, Don’t ask me why he made that promise, said cain, he didn’t tell me and I’m not sure there is an explanation, It’s enough for me that you’re alive and in my arms, said lilith, Don’t you see in me a criminal who can never be pardoned, asked cain, No, she said, I see in you a man against whom the lord offended, and now that I know your real name, let’s go to bed, I’ll burn up with desire right here if you don’t hurry, I knew you as abel, and now I need to know you as cain. When the delirium of repeated and various penetrations finally gave way to lassitude, to complete physical exhaustion, lilith said, It was noah, wasn’t it, Yes, I believe it must have been, agreed cain, I can’t think of any other person in the palace or the city who would want to see me dead as much as he would, When we get up, said lilith, I will send for him, and you will hear what I have to say. They slept a little to rest their weary limbs and woke almost at the same moment. Lilith, already out of bed, said, Stay here, he won’t come in. She summoned a slave-woman to help her dress and then asked the same slave to send a message to noah, requesting an interview. She sat in the antechamber waiting, and when her husband arrived, she said point-blank, You will order the execution of the slave whom you gave to me as a companion for cain on his walks, Who’s cain, asked noah, taken by surprise, Cain was abel and now he’s cain, you will have the men who ambushed him killed as well, Where is cain, since that is now his name, He’s safe in my bedroom. The silence became palpable. Then noah said, I had nothing to do with what you say happened, Be careful, noah, lying is the worst of all cowardices, But I’m not lying, You’re a coward and you’re lying, you’re the one who told the slave what to do and where and how, the same slave, I suspect, whom you have used to spy on my activities, hardly necessary since whatever I do, I do openly, As your husband, you should respect me, Yes, you may be right, I really should, So what are you waiting for, asked noah, feigning an irritation which he was far from feeling, for he was still trembling from her accusation, Oh, I’m not waiting for anything, I simply don’t respect you, Is it because I’m not a good lover and haven’t given you the child you wanted, he asked, Even if you were a brilliant lover and had given me not one child but ten, I still wouldn’t respect you, Why, Let me think about it, and as soon as I’ve discovered the reasons why I feel not the slightest respect for you, I’ll tell you, you’ll be the first to know, I promise, but now, please leave me, I’m tired and need to rest. Noah was about to go, when she added, One other thing, when you have tracked down that wretched traitor, and I hope you will not be long about it, be sure to tell me so that I can witness his death, the others don’t interest me, All right, said noah, and as he crossed the threshold, he heard his wife’s last words, And if you torture him, I want to be there too. Back in her room, lilith asked cain, Did you hear, Yes, What did you think, He was clearly the person who ordered me to be killed, he couldn’t even act the innocent. Lilith got into bed, but instead of snuggling up to cain, she lay on her back, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, then suddenly she said, I have an idea, What, We should kill noah, That’s madness, complete nonsense, protested cain, please, don’t even think such an absurd thing, Why is it absurd, we would be free of him then, we could get married, you would be the new lord of the city and I would be your queen and your favourite slave, the one who would kiss the ground you walk on, the one who, if necessary, would receive your faeces in her hands, But who would kill him, You would, No, lilith, please don’t ask me that, don’t order me to do that, I’ve had my fill of murders, You mean you wouldn’t kill him for me, don’t you love me, she asked, I who gave you my body so that you could enjoy it endlessly, freely, extravagantly, so that you could enjoy it without rules or prohibitions, I opened to you the doors of my mind, which I had always kept bolted shut, and yet you refuse to do the one thing I ask of you and that would bring us total freedom, Freedom, yes, but remorse too, You’re forgetting that I am lilith, I’m not the kind of woman to feel remorse, that’s for the weak and feeble, And I am merely a man called cain who came from far away, a man who killed his own brother, who worked as a treader of mud, and who, having done nothing whatever to deserve it, has had the extraordinary good fortune to sleep in the bed of the most beautiful, passionate woman in the world, whom he loves, wants and desires with every pore of his body, So we won’t kill noah, then, asked lilith, If you really want to, have a slave do it, No, I don’t despise noah so much that I would send a slave to kill him, But I’m a slave and you wanted me to kill him, That’s different, a man who lies in my bed is not a slave, or perhaps he is, but only to me and my body, So why don’t you kill him yourself, asked cain, Because, despite everything, I don’t think I would be capable, Men kill women every day, who knows, perhaps by killing him you would start a new trend, Let other women do that, I am lilith, wild, crazy lilith, but that is as far as my errors and crimes go, So we’ll let him live then, it will be punishment enough for him to know that we know he wanted to kill me, Put your arms around me, trample me beneath your feet, o treader of mud. Cain put his arms around her, but he entered her very gently, without violence, with an unexpected tenderness that brought her almost to the verge of tears. Two weeks later, lilith announced that she was pregnant.

Some might say that social and domestic peace finally reigned in the palace, enfolding everyone in the same fraternal embrace. This, however, was not the case, for after a few days had passed, cain came to the conclusion that with lilith expecting a child, his time there had ended. When the child came into the world, everyone would consider it to be noah’s child, and although, at first, there would be no shortage of more than justified suspicions and murmurings, time, the great leveller, would soon smooth them away, and future historians would take care to eliminate from the city’s chronicle any reference to a certain treader of mud called abel, or cain, or whatever the devil his name was, a doubt which would, in itself, be deemed reason enough to condemn him to oblivion, to permanent quarantine, to the limbo of those events which, for the peace of mind of dynasties, it is best not to talk about. Our story may not be historical, but it shows how wrong or perhaps malicious those historians were, because cain did exist, he gave noah’s wife a child, and now he has a problem, how to tell lilith that he wants to leave. He hoped that the lord’s curse, You will be a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth, would persuade her to accept his decision. In the end, though, it proved less problematic than he had thought, perhaps also because the child, that handful of hesitant cells, was already expressing a will and a desire, the first effect of which was to reduce its parents’ mad passion for each other to the status of a vulgar sexual fling to which, as we know, the official history will not devote a single line. Cain asked lilith for a donkey and she gave orders for him to be given the very best, the most docile and the sturdiest in the palace stables. At that point, news came that the treacherous slave and his partners in crime had been discovered and arrested. Fortunately for sensitive souls, who always look away from unpleasantnesses of any kind, there were no interrogations and no torture, perhaps because of lilith’s pregnancy, for in the opinion of notable local female authorities, this would augur ill for the future of the gestating child, not just the blood that would inevitably be spilled, but also the terrible screams of the torture victims. These authorities, mainly midwives of long experience, believed that a baby in its mother’s womb can hear everything going on outside. The result was a sober death by hanging before the entire populace of the city, as a warning, Be careful, this is the very least that could happen to you. The execution was watched from a palace balcony by noah, lilith and cain, the latter because he had been the target of the failed attack. It was noted that, contrary to protocol, noah did not stand in the middle of that small group, lilith did, thus keeping husband and lover apart, as if she were saying that, although she did not love her official spouse, she would remain joined to him, because that is what public opinion seemed to want and what the interests of the dynasty appeared to need, and that although she was being forced by cruel destiny, by the lord’s curse, You will be a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth, to allow cain to leave, she would remain bound to him by the body’s sublime memory, by the inextinguishable recollection of the dazzling hours she had spent with him, something a woman never forgets, not like men, to whom such things are like water off a duck’s back. The corpses of the malefactors will remain hanging where they are until all that remains of them are bones, for their flesh is accursed, and the earth, if they were buried in it, would erupt and vomit them up, over and over. That night, lilith and cain slept together for the last time. She wept, he clung to her and wept too, but their tears did not last long, they were soon overcome by erotic passion, in whose grip they once more lost all control and fell into delirium, absolute and utter, as if the world were nothing more than that, two lovers interminably devouring each other, so much so that lilith said at last, Kill me. Yes, perhaps that would be the logical end to this story of the love between cain and lilith, but he didn’t kill her. He placed a long, lingering kiss on her lips, looked at her for the last time and then went and spent the rest of the night in the bed reserved for him in the antechamber.