Eden River by Gerald Bullet Page A

sure I shall love her very much, and I expect she’ll love me, don’t you? Then she’ll forget about her baby. Forget, forget, cried Larian: do you spend all your time forgetting? Come if you like, Naban; but it may be they will kill you when we get to my own people. Kill, what is that? asked Naban. It is what Cain would have done to Kelimuth’s baby, said Larian. But Naban, it seemed, had not understood that part of the story; nor perhaps had Kirith, for she could conceive no possible danger in his going with Larian where he would.

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    Next morning, with Naban for company, Larian came to the river that now divided her from Cain’s country, and memories rose up in her of that first exodus from Eden, and particularly of how she had stood on the bank watching Cain and Zildah and Zildah’s baby moving away from her in the boat. Where are your boats? she asked Naban. He did not understand her, and would have talked of other things; but when she began to explain the nature of boats, and to tell how Abel had been the first (and perhaps the last) to make one, he plied her with questions, hungry for every detail she could remember of the boat’s construction; and she had much trouble to persuade him that to build a boat would take many days and perhaps more skill than he and she could muster between them. Even then he was reluctant to abandon the project, nor could he understand that time was precious to her. Have you lost your wish to see Kelimuth? Larian asked him. But this, too, was beyond his understanding. Where was thehurry? In his lively young fancy Kelimuth had already a palpable existence, and he already loved her; but having no sense of time’s undeviating flow, and lacking that knowledge of mortality which drops a tincture of fear into all human love and sharpens the edge of absence, he could have postponed his first sight of her indefinitely and with an easy mind. Larian, however, wise in her dealings with children, weaned him from his dream of navigation by asking him if he thought he could swim across the river, or was it too far for him? He laughed at the absurdity of the doubt, Abel and his boat being in a moment forgotten. Come along, I’ll show you. We’ll swim together, shall we? And Larian, encumbered though she was by her modest skirt and by the more grievous burden of her years, smiled with relief and entered the water eagerly.
    By crossing the river they left Eden behind them, and Larian was glad, though as yet the journey was scarcely more than well begun. Beyond the river lay a wood, and beyond the wood a wide green plain, and beyond the plain seven hills dotted with myrtle and juniper. Darkness came swiftly down on them as they descended the seventh hill, and it was in darkness, going hand inhand, that they reached the outskirts of the Forest of Nod. And still the camp of Cain and his people was distant by a long day’s journey. Rest could no longer be postponed: Larian was in bitter need of it, and even Naban, who talked much and freely, taking a deep delight in every minute of his adventure into unknown territory, began to show signs of fatigue, though for pleasure in his new friend he was ready to humour her inexplicable whim by going on and on without complaint wherever she led. But now, unable to go further, she lay down in a sheltered place and made ready for sleep. Naban lay down beside her; the two became immersed in a timeless dark; and presently, after a long silence had passed between them, he drew amorously near to her, candid and unthinking. Whereat, warm with kindness, she took him in her arms saying: Lie still, child. Have you forgotten my Kelimuth already? She could not but know, she who remembered her girlhood’s Eden, that such a question could have no meaning for such as he; and finding him restless in her embrace she sought to distract him by telling of her fear that wild beasts would find them in the night and tear them to pieces. To