Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand: A Novel of Adam and Eve by Gioconda Belli Page A

put her arms around Adam. She did not want to see him suffer. His sorrow resonated inside her, gave her shivers. She wanted to wrap herself around him, grow more hands to caress him. The impatience he often provoked in her dissipated. In its place she felt a wish to console him and love him that was both strong as the wind and as gentle and singing as the murmur of water in the river. She wondered whether his skin could perceive what she felt, if he could smell it, if knowing her tenderness for him would calm his worries.
    â€œLet’s try death, Eve,” said Adam, suddenly standing upright. “Maybe if we die we can return to the Garden.”
    â€œYou just said that you don’t like death.”
    â€œI thought that the night was death. Perhaps it is not knowing what it is that frightens us.”
    â€œAnd how will we manage to die? It won’t be easy,” said Eve, bewildered.
    â€œI have an idea. Let’s climb to the top of this mountain,” he said, pulling himself together, animated by his resolve.
    He started up the mountain. She followed, reluctantly. She didn’t know what it was to die. The Serpent had said that death was feeling nothing, but no explanation had been given aboutwhat followed. Maybe it was worth a try. Maybe the best way to bring an end to their doubts was to find out whether death was really so terrible. Better to know than to suffer the uncertainty of ignorance.
    The mountain rose high above the cave. Great stones protruded here and there, and among them the ground was sandy and dotted with thorny bushes. As they climbed, their bodies felt heavier. Their feet, the palms of their hands burned against the rough sand. The sky had changed. It was blue now. With no clouds. The fire had been extinguished and the disk of the sun shone with an intense white light impossible to look into. Again they felt intense heat lacerating their skin. Eve’s feet were bleeding. I can’t go any farther, she said. You go on alone, but Adam picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and kept plodding on, panting, sweating, completely drained. He could not comprehend his fatigue, how laborious it was to do what previously had cost no effort. Eve moaned, whimpered. Her laments crept into his nostrils, his eyes, his ears, and tore at him inside. Silently, he cursed Elokim. At last they reached the top. They could view endless land, smoking volcanoes, the island of the Garden of Eden, rivers running toward the sea.
    Eve said nothing. Although it was different from Paradise, the landscape was beautiful. Beautiful and strangely hers.
    â€œIf we die now, we will never see all this again,” she said.
    â€œI went with you to eat the fruit,” said Adam. “You come with me now.”
    After a wordless and fleeting moment of doubt and lamentation, Adam leaped from the promontory into the void. Eve jumped after him.
    They fell headlong, air whistling in their ears. Eve closed her eyes, clamped her lips shut.
    Adam watched as the red dust of the ground stirred and rolled into a dizzily whirling wind tunnel that enveloped them, broke their fall, then transported them through the air and gently dropped them into a current of water.
    Again the voice spoke within them.
    â€œThis is not the time to die,” it told them. “You will know death at its proper moment. And when it comes, you will wish for it to hold off a little longer.”

CHAPTER 9
    S HIVERING, THEY SWAM TILL THEY EMERGED FROM the water. They recognized the palms, cedars, and pines, the banks of the river they had seen from a distance. So this was where Elokim had carried them. On the grass they found more dry skins to clothe themselves. The sun shone high in the sky. They lay on the riverbank, not speaking, confused but wiser from the experience. Little by little, warmth enveloped their bodies and calmed the trembling caused by vertigo and the fearful fall.
    â€œI was terrified,” said Eve.