Eden Page 9

  The woman held out a clenched fist, then turned palm up and opened her fingers.

  Two stones rested inside her hand; the black stone with the white inside and the white stone with the black. In returning the two worn stones, she offered the only gift she had. Of course, she had overheard their master’s words in the muddy street back in the ugly town. Who was she to cast away these two precious stones?

  If the two stones their master had taken from his purse had saved a condemned woman from a vengeful crowd … might they not save her as well? By returning the black stone and the white, might she not exchange them for a touch of sanity? Sanity for two smooth rocks? Anything to quiet the many voices in her head.

  “Can I travel in your purse too?” the woman of invisible flies asked.

  “All are welcome to come with me.”

  Their master smiled at the two stones in her palm. “I was afraid I had lost those for good.” He then took her hand in his and folded her fingers closed, the stones inside.

  “But why don’t you hold them for a while? Perhaps if we travel together we’ll come to know each other, and like those stones that traveled in my purse so long, you too can show your insides without breaking.”

  Their master gently lifted the woman’s chin.

  Looking at her as if to say, Know me …

  For several moments the woman went through many changes, speaking words but not to flies this time. Saying the same words in different order and every time a different way—

  First bitterly, “You …”

  Then after a moment, with a question; as if to ask, have we met before?

  “Do I know you …?”

  Then softening, “Yes. I think I know you.”

  Becoming surer in her thought, “Yes I know I know you.”

  For a moment, her eyes darted about to a fly that really wasn’t there, then down at her clenched fist. The stones lay in her hand, safe and sound. Looking at their master’s face once more, accepting what she finally knew for certain.

  “Yes. I know you.”

  Come Forth

  A great wind came out of the east with the rising sun.

  The clouds overhead slashed across a blue sky.

  And the wind dried the fallen rain off the skin of the land.

  That day’s march promised to be as cold as the night before. The travelers clutched their robes about them, and those in tatters clutched their rags, waiting for someone to take the first step. It seemed much simpler to stand shivering than make the effort to move.

  As they milled about Eden noticed the most curious thing. How this woman who once saw invisible flies came upon them so quietly in the night. Why they never heard her footfalls until she fell upon them.

  Her feet were bare.

  No sandals, not even cloth bindings. Her toes blue from cold, her heels red with cuts. Eden crept close, unsure if she was welcome, but the woman made no sudden movement. Eden sniffed her pale feet very thoughtfully, learning everything there was to know about them. The woman had been walking on bare feet and thick calluses for a long time. And Eden could smell the soot of solitude, the dust of a thousand roads and a thousand empty streets. A thousand barred doors against a woman who wandered alone and who talked to invisible flies.

  Yet of the wounds themselves, some were new, the cuts fresh; others old and draining. And Eden smelled the ominous taint, the beginning of infection. The woman’s bruised feet could go either way, heal or rot …

  Eden’s smart nose drew ever closer, sniffing round and round. What was to be done? What could be done? Eden knew only one thing to do: lick the cut and make it better. Licking always helped. See here now, Cut. I will fix you, Cut, lick and lick until you’re better. Licking always helps you heal. Pay attention, Cut.

  Eden went at the woman’s foot, sniffing and licking round and round, making sure no part was missed. And the woman giggled as the dog’s breath tickled her toes and Eden’s warm tongue soothed the cuts. But the woman who once talked to flies wouldn’t let her keep licking forever. She petted Eden’s head and whispered:

  “No, no little one. You needn’t do that. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”

  The companions stood about with twisted mouths and covetous eyes, that their dog should be so kind to a stranger, when they themselves felt so little for the woman. Judas stared hardest of all, and Eden read his mind, you never loved me that way …

  But instead of hurrying them off on the day’s march, their master only chuckled to himself, gathered his robes under him, and sat on a nearby boulder. Then suddenly he laughed out loud, needing only to touch the thong of one sandal to break the spell that held the companions in thrall. They saw their master tugging at his ankles and rushed to offer the woman the sandals off their own feet:

  “Here, Maryam, take mine. No, take mine! Here, Maryam, take mine!”

  But it was Judas who owned the moment. He tugged on the drawstring of his shoulder sack and produced a pair of brand-new sandals. Eden could even smell the fresh oil on the leather.

  “Take mine, Maryam,” Judas said quietly. “I have extra.”

  The madwoman, who once talked to flies, looked up at the sound of her name from face to face. She held Eden’s head in her hands, stroking her ears. She looked down at her naked feet, naked for how long? She couldn’t remember. How many years had it been since she had worn anything on her feet? She didn’t know.

  “Can you help me tie them?” Maryam asked of Judas. “My fingers have forgotten.”

  Eden watched Judas help the woman, putting on one sandal and then the next. “Maryam,” Judas said to her, part in pity and part disdain. “A common enough name.”

  “And my mother’s …” their master said quietly.

  Eden knew what her master meant. For neither the woman who once talked to flies nor the carpenter’s woman were in any way common. And Eden realized there were things about people she would never understand. So cruel and yet kind, so brave and yet scared. But perhaps most confusing of all, that people never sought beneath the surface, to know your deepest scent.

  Yet the woman who spoke to flies had sought them out despite her fear, sought them out on bare feet with nothing between her and the cold, hard ground. Sought them out to return two stones, the black stone with the white inside and the white stone, black within …

  Eden smelled the woman’s feet inside her new sandals, then sniffed and licked a little more. The cuts were already draining, the woman’s feet healing. Eden went back again for good measure, each gentle touch of her tongue making the wounds better and better:

  See now, Cut, I cleaned you.

  See now, Cut, I closed you.

  See now, Cut, I fixed you.

  Suddenly the wind paused for a moment and a quiet urgency swept over the travelers. Their master looked to the horizon as though hearing a silent call. And suddenly he rose from his boulder and strode out alone, taking even Eden by surprise. While the rest—Samson, the lambs, the companions and the newcomer, Maryam in her new sandals—all rushed to keep up.

  The group struck out at a great pace along the road, but with every step forward the gales of wind pressed against them, snatching their robes and tugging their limbs. The gusts pushed back almost as strongly as they struggled forward. And despite how hard they slogged, one foot in front of the other, the landscape slowly ground to a halt beneath their feet.

  A great force, a great will wanted them moving and on the march. But within the wind a fierce defiance, like a wall, held them back. A divine will urged them to stumble on, but denied them passage. The earth seemed to refuse to yield. A force prodded them on, yet a stubborn hand prevented them from gaining ground, reaching the next rise, the next orchard, the next field. It seemed as though all of them—man, woman, animal—were destined to stagger forward only a step at a time with nothing to show for all their effort.

  The wind ripped across Eden’s nose, whistling in her ears.

  She felt her legs struggling, the old weakness again, drag
ging her down. The dog looked at Samson, whose eyes said, How can I be so tired?… And the lambs of course, suddenly and for the very first time complaining all at once, “The wind is so great. The ground is so hard! The pebbles so sharp! Our feet! Oh, our poor feet!”

  Yet even as they walked and struggled on, Eden could feel her master’s will growing with every step. Weary though they were, no force on earth could stop him going on.

  Where were they going? No one knew.

  Yet all feared they would arrive too late.

  The tempest swirled about them and yet they trudged on, one foot in front of the next. Eden watched the sun rise in the east, pass overhead and set in the west. And still they marched on through the night. The sun rose, the sun set, another day, another night—yet still the travelers never paused to rest. Walking in place to nowhere, trapped between where they were going and where they had been. Caught between what lay ahead and what fell behind, an endless road that never changed.

  At last, after what seemed leagues and leagues, the wind buffeted them to a halt and they pulled up short where they stood, stumbling upon one another. A confused knot of people and animals milled about at the edge of a lonely pasture. They had stopped in silent agreement, too weary to push on yet too weak to go back. Like strangers lost in a foreign land, not knowing where to turn.

  The wind sighed as if pleased with all their effort, and on its wings floated a soft voice. Someone or something was calling out to them. In that moment they saw a servant girl running down the road, her head bare, waving a headscarf in her hand. Crying and begging, clearly desperate, but the wind swallowed her words.

  She seemed to know them; halting a hundred paces off, she waved the scarf frantically for everyone to see. Come on! Come on! she begged. Come with me!

  And all who saw her overcame their weariness, their invisible shackles cast away, free to run, free to follow her. The servant girl led them over the crest of a hill, down a slope and then up another hill. And suddenly it struck Eden that this part of the country seemed familiar. They’d been here before. But where had they not gone? Over the course of the year they had walked over their own footsteps a dozen times.

  The servant girl paused on the next crest. Below them lay a well-tended field and a large white stone house behind a high stone wall. Something seemed familiar about the place. Then Eden remembered … they had tarried here for water and a short rest, months and months ago. The servant girl was leading them to the fine house and rich orchard of a very pious man and his sisters. But the companions had not returned in all this time.

  As the servant girl reached the courtyard walls, the household poured from the doors to meet the travelers, and many strangers were among them. People from nearby homes and farms had been waiting inside the enclosure, wailing and in grief, for the lord of these fields and orchards, the Pious Man of this house, had died.

  Eden, Samson and the lambs stopped short of joining the crowd, hesitant to mingle with those so clearly distressed. A momentary fear ran through the animals, that mourners in such great pain might do something rash. Strangely at this moment, Eden could no longer understand the minds or words of people, as though the wind had swept that power from her. She looked to Samson to see if he understood, but he only hung his head and dipped his ears as if ashamed. And when she caught the donkey’s eye she saw he understood as little as she.

  The lambs hid behind them both; the single thought racing through the flock: weddings and funerals, very bad for lambs. There were always fewer lambs after such ceremonies. Perhaps not knowing every word that passed between people made for purer hearts, like a cloak of silence shielding the animals from ugliness. But in any case, the animals saw what they saw even if the power to read minds had abandoned them, and what they saw was not pleasing to their eyes.

  Among those who poured through the house gates was an angry Rabbi with a very sour face and one of the devout man’s sisters, clutching her headdress close about her face. Eden could not hear what the woman said, as she hissed in the Rabbi’s ear, but the grieving sister was clearly angry at their master. Suddenly the grieving sister left the Rabbi’s side and accosted their master, cutting off any reply. The sister wrung her hands in grief, her eyes accusing, demanding, why didn’t you come whilst my brother was sick? Why?

  The Rabbi nodded sternly at every word she spoke, while frowning at the travelers with a mouth that bled contempt. Everyone could tell what the sister was thinking. If their master had wanted to see his beloved friend, why not come earlier? There was time enough. But look now, too late! Too late!

  Their master suffered the sister’s harsh tongue without objection.

  Then Judas came forward and tried to explain that they had all been delayed on the road, but the sour Rabbi glared him into silence. Judas shrank away, returning to the lamb’s fold. Eden and Samson heard him whisper to the lambs, “Her brother is dead. We came too late.”

  But the sister, still resentful, pointed into the house where the other sister remained hidden, and pointed to the great crowd of mourners, all gathered to pay their respects.

  And Judas muttered under his breath, glancing at the lambs, “If there is to be a funeral feast, things will not go well for you.”

  The lambs began to shuffle nervously, wondering whether to flee, whether to flee right now. But no one tried to herd them into the enclosure, and the crowd grew suddenly hushed, taking a step back.

  The second sister appeared in the doorway of their house as if in a trance. She recognized no one, but then paused for a moment beside Eden’s master. And though their master tried to comfort the second sister with soft words, she did not seem to hear. The first sister still harangued all nearby, with a voice like rusty nails.

  After a moment, the dazed sister left the doorway and slowly walked across the enclosure and onto the road. Her headscarf fell to her shoulder but she let it go, and all saw quite clearly where she went—to the rocky hill and the cave of the grave itself.

  Eden’s master bowed his head and followed. The animals feared to stay with the crowd and trotted after him, followed by Judas and the companions. All of them suddenly felt greater fear than any could remember, for the people dogged their heels and some among them spoke cold and bitter words.

  The Rabbi pushed his way to the front of the crowd, seeking to lead them. Yes, he had been to the grave when the Pious Man had died and wanted all to know. A narrow cave, a slab covering the rock mouth, and nothing to see. Just dead Lazarus, and if you didn’t believe him, come look for yourself.

  When they reached the tomb the crowd stood about and the words got even uglier. Yet Eden saw that some among them looked upon her master with pity in their eyes. He groaned as he approached the blank slab of stone, as though simply to look at the face of stone filled him with weakness and pain.

  Sorrow fell from her master as he discarded his cloak. He covered his face with naked hands and wept. And Eden could feel why: for the loss of this man, for being too late, for staying in one place while the wind brought time to a standstill. Eden came to him so he knew she was there. As he wept, salty tears slipped through her master’s hands and fell upon her nose. Without thinking she licked them off her nose. They tasted of water and life.

  At this the trance seemed to fall from the silent sister, and she stared hard at the rock slab of the tomb as though to pierce it with her eyes. She placed her hands upon the slab, and then her forehead. She knew what lay behind, dead brother, Lazarus, four days gone. Dead all the while the travelers had been on the road to nowhere.

  Eden could smell it too, the scent of dead flesh that crept from the tomb. Decay. The rank odor of nevermore. Suddenly the dog was aware the Hollow Man had joined them. The creature from the wasteland had slithered out of thin air, and stood innocently among the onlookers. He first approached the companions and tried to speak to Maryam of the invisible flies, and then to Judas, but they shunned him. So instead, the Hollow Man went to the Rabbi’s ear and whispered for some time.
<
br />   But the Rabbi turned his head to listen when Eden’s master finally spoke, his voice so low all strained to hear him. And though Eden could barely hear her master’s words, they struck her heart, and she understood these were the words her master whispered to the silent sister in the doorway of the house.

  Words which came into her head on the faintest heartbeat, the faintest breath of thought, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die …

  The distant sister, no longer in a trance, looked sharply at their master, hearing his words as though for the first time. And Eden heard something even stranger—the sound of movement beyond the stone slab. She went to the wall of rock and listened closer, yes, something inside the tomb was moving. Eden scratched at the tomb, whined and scratched again, if only she could speak, if only—

  Then the distant sister shrieked, for she heard something beyond the stone as well. Many hands rushed to the slab and pushed and pulled and finally rolled away the stone from the place of the dead.

  Eden heard her master’s voice rise strongly, boldly to heaven for all to hear. It rang off the rocks, off every upturned face and echoed in every ear.

  “Lazarus!” he cried. “Lazarus, come forth.”

  And out of the dark mouth of the cave the figure of the Pious Man appeared. Both sisters, the wailing and the silent one, clasped each other. Pale and faint, they swooned and many hands rushed to catch them. Then more hands came to remove their brother’s shroud. For the man, once dead, now stood among them.

  The Rabbi with the mouth of contempt held his head in awe, his face whiter than a winding cloth. Other mourners helped him find a place where he could sit without falling over. Whether he was stunned, blinded by a stroke of light or smitten at this wondrous sight Eden could not tell. But when the dog looked from mourner to mourner the Hollow Man was nowhere to be seen.