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

“Don’t ask me again to give death a try.”
    Adam nodded. He had swallowed a lot of water. The crystalline liquid was good; it cooled his throat, his mouth. Cautiously, he waited a while to be sure that nothing bad had happened to him, and then urged Eve to drink.
    â€œDrink, Eve, drink. Nothing will happen to you. It tastes very good,” he said, taking her hand and helping her bend down from a rock to take the water in the hollow of a hand and bring it to her lips.
    Eve drank. She sipped the liquid with pleasure, sucking the last drop from her fingers and dipping in again and again. Adam smiled. He admired how she never did anything halfway. Whether she did it out of trust or defiance, he wasn’t sure. But this time her face unequivocally signaled pleasure.
    â€œSee how Elokim saved you when you had decided to die! Who can understand him! I told you he was erratic. He acts one way and then regrets it. One thing is for sure: he is very curious to see what you will do with the freedom you took.”
    They looked up. The Serpent was coiled around the branch of a shrub whose trunk leaned out over the river.
    â€œYou again,” said Adam.
    â€œI’ve been alone, too. I’m bored.”
    â€œIf we had died, would we have gone back to Paradise?” Eve asked. “Is that why he saved us, to prevent us from returning?”
    â€œFrom death there is no returning. Better not to try that again. You haven’t lived long enough. It is life that will bring you closer to Paradise.”
    â€œTell us how,” said Adam.
    â€œI can’t help you. Elokim no longer confides in me. I am alone.”
    â€œBut you know a lot.”
    â€œKnowledge is not the solution to everything. You will discover that as you go along. I’m leaving. I’m tired of answering so many questions.”
    She slipped agilely through the tree branches and disappeared.
    Eve lay back on the grass, pensive. Adam lay beside her.
    For a long time they said nothing, staring at the blue, concave sky through the leaves of the trees.
    â€œI wonder if perhaps the Serpent is Elokim’s Eve,” she said. “When we were in the Garden she told me she watched him create and forget constellation after constellation. They have known each other a long time.”
    â€œMaybe she was inside him the way that you were in me.”
    â€œWhy do you think Elokim separated us?”
    â€œHe thought that we could exist as a single body, but it didn’t work out. You were in too deep. You couldn’t see or hear. That is why he decided to separate us, to take you out of me. That is why it feels so good when the two of us are one again.”
    â€œBut you still believe that I am responsible for everything that’s happened because I gave you fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. You could have refused to eat it.”
    â€œTrue. But once you had eaten it, I had to eat. I thought you would cease to exist. I didn’t want to be left alone. If I hadn’t eaten of the fruit and the Other had banished you from the Garden, I would have left to look for you.”
    Eve’s eyes filled with water.
    â€œI never doubted that you would eat,” she said.
    â€œAnd that day I saw you as if I had never known you till then. Your skin was gleaming, all soft and shining. And you looked at me as if suddenly you remembered the exact place you existed inside me before the Other separated us.”
    â€œYour legs impressed me. And your chest. So broad. Yes, I did want to be inside you again. I see you in my dreams. You have a body like a tree. You protect me so the sun won’t burn me.”
    As one, they got up together and went back into the water to cool off.
    â€œEuphrates,” said Adam. “That’s the name of this river.”
    They floated in the current, abandoning themselves to the sensation of the crystalline liquid. It was not difficult to understand the joy of the fishes whose colors