I'm already awake and dressed when Samantha comes in with breakfast.
"You're up early," she says.
"Time to go. I'm done here."
"You're Henry now?"
"Henry Goddard, yes, completely."
"How are you going to get a social security number and stuff. Won't that
be difficult at all?"
"Not really," I say, shaking my head. "Graft and Corruption are two of
the most constant forces in the world. I've still got a pile of money. I
can get anything I need." I eat hurriedly from the tray she's brought me
while she thinks to herself.
"Oh. I guess this means no more stories then."
"Not unless you want to go with me. I imagine your father wouldn't take
too kindly to that, though."
She laughs just thinking about it. "No, he wouldn't. Can I walk with you
to the town?"
"Sure."
I say my goodbyes to the family, but only half-heartedly. All of the
Thordeds except the old man and Samantha are glad to see me go. Samantha
and I leave the house and walk down the dusty road towards the nearby town
as her father watches after us worriedly. Still, he lets us go.
"Are you God?" Samantha asks in a quiet voice. Her face is turned from me
when I look at her.
I laugh in spite of myself. "God? I wish!"
A small smile creeps across her face as she realizes her own foolishness.
"Are you mentioned in the Bible then?"
"This again? Please, I don't want to talk about Adam and Eve, okay?"
"Why? Because if you tell me then I'll know for certain and won't have or
need faith?"
I stop in my tracks and look at her in some surprise.
"That's a pretty sophisticated idea. It's not true, I'm impressed."
"Thanks. So are you mentioned in the Bible?"
"All right, all right. Yes, I'm mentioned in the Bible."
"So I know you weren't God, the Devil, Adam, Eve, Cain, or one of those
strange people who married the children. I should be able to figure it out
from that when I get home."
"I didn't say I was in Genesis."
Her hands fly to her hips, her feet stamp coquettishly into the
ground. "Oh!" she exclaims, glaring at me. I chuckle at her display
and grab one of her elbows to pull her along. She takes the hint and
continues walking with me.
"That was mean," she grumbles.
"Sorry."
We walk in silence for a minute, then two.
"Yes, I'm mentioned in Genesis. Let's drop the subject now, okay?"
"Thanks, Henry. Okay."
We pass a small wooden sign that says the town is still two miles up
ahead. I continue walking in a steady pace and Samantha keeps up right
beside me. She's decided to accompany me right to the very end, I guess.
Samantha is the only friend in Henry Goddard's new life right now, I
realize.
"Cain and Abel weren't Adam and Eve's children. They were contemporaries.
Adam was the leader of the tribe," I say slowly.
She says nothing, she doesn't even look at me, but I know she's waiting
for me to continue. She's not pushing me anymore, helping me put the only
memories that continue to be painful through the ages into words.
"The people they married were also contemporaries. Normal people. Their
names were forgotten during the centuries history was passed on orally."
The memories are right there in my mind where they always are. I don't
have to think about them or concentrate on remembering. The pain of my
first life is the only thing that has remained constant through all my
personas. I begin talking while we walked:
"Over a thousand men and women lived in the great plains, broken into
dozens and dozens of tribes. Adam was Chief of one of the largest and
best tribes. The name Adam and the Hebrew name it's translated from
weren't his real names, but I'll call him Adam prevent confusion.
"I was the Shaman of the tribe. My job was to pray to the animal gods for
rain, fertility, et cetera. Primitive religion. I believed in the animal
gods fervently and completely; this was my first life and I had no
perspective to look on things with yet.
"Cain and Abel and all the rest were warriors and gardeners and potters in
the tribe. Our tribe had nearly a hundred people in it, giving us great
strength and vitality. We could take whatever we wanted or needed from
other tribes, and we flourished when other tribes were falling on hard
times.
"This was paradise. We lived well.
"As the shaman of the tribe I was forbidden from ever taking a woman into
my bed or as my wife. I had to keep myself clean and purified for the
gods although many of the rites I presided over were fertility orgies. I
gradually grew uneasy with my lot; as a normal human male I wished to take
a woman in the festivities too; make one my wife, have a child. I couldn't
give up my position though, for then I'd be considered corrupted by my
tribe. They would have to sacrifice me to the gods to remove my taint
from the tribe.
"All my pent up passions and lusts eventually became directed at one
woman: Eve. She was the most beautiful woman in the village and one of
Adam's many wives. I wanted her with a passion that kept me awake at
night and kept me frightened of the gods' punishments during the days.
"Eve realized that I burned with lust for her at some point. She started
to visit me with her co-wives under all sorts of pretenses. She'd ask me
to pray, she'd ask me to sacrifice; each time she'd have someone with her,
but all the words would come from her lips. I thought her daily visits
were torture, but Eve was a bright, intelligent woman with an ulterior
motive.
"Her visits to my hut became so commonplace that no one thought anything
of it anymore, including Adam. She was married to the Chief, I was a
sanctified holy man. Nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
"The first time we made love I cried and trembled for hours afterwards,
waiting for the gods to strike me down. I lived in fear for a few weeks
until I realized that no holy punishment was forthcoming. Eve stayed away
from me during this time, sensing my confusion and self-loathing.
"After I was no longer afraid of punishment from the gods she began to
travel to my hut to "pray" again and we "prayed" in earnest, every single
day. She came to love me, something as new to her as physical relations
with a woman were to me. She had never loved Adam; she was only his wife
and possession.
"Our arrangement went on for another year. Eve became pregant with my
child -- although everyone assumed it was Adam's. When she bore it, it
turned out to be a girl and so Adam brought it to me to be sacrificed to
the gods. He had wanted another son. The sacrifice was to happen that
night but after they had set up the fire and prepared the food and animals
I was nowhere to be found.
"The hunters made short work of tracking me. I was dragged back to the
village with my daughter clutched to my breast and I confessed my sins
tearfully before the tribe. Judgement was swift and certain.
"The sacrificial fire was to be put to good use. I was bound with leather
straps to a pole as the wood was piled up around. Eve was bound to
another pole next to me as punishment for her own crimes and infidelity.
As a last touch, my daughter was laid at my feet to burn as well. It
would be a huge sacrifice that would bring my tribe great honor and
clensing.
"The three of us screamed as the flames leapt up from the dry plains wood
and brush. The pain was intense, bringing tears to my eyes that instantly
evaporated from the heat. I saw my daughter writhe and howl as the flames
licked at her flesh. When she stopped moving I turned my head to watch
Eve die, her own skin blackening and peeling away before she ceased to
move as well.
"It was then that I realized that although my body was burning and
blackening in the fire I was not dying. The damage seemed to be contained
at a certain level that was not fatal, although very painful. The leather
straps holding me to the pole had burned through, allowing me to raise my
hands in supplication to the gods. They wanted me to live.
"I stepped from the fire to the awe of my tribesman. I was told later
that I appeared as a demon, my skin charred black as coal. I looked down
at myself and rubbed at the flesh on my arm, watching the soot come away
from pink, new skin. I was healed.
"There were big urns of water by the fire heating up for cooking. I
picked one up and upended it over myself to wash the soot from me. A gasp
rose up as they saw me undamaged and whole.
"'I am the beloved of the gods,' I told them. I knew in my heart the
words I spoke were true, for had I not been undamaged in the fire? 'You
have no right to kill me.'
"All of the villagers bowed before me, including Adam himself. I felt no
sorrow at Eve and my daughter's death after I saw him kneel in the earth
to me. I had been saved by the gods for a purpose and if they had chosen
to save my daughter, they would have. Later, I considered this their
punishment for my having been with a woman. Eve's death had been her
punishment for her seduction of me. The foolish girl; if she had been
content in her lot in life she would have lived for another decade or
more. Instead she had found an early grave.
"With me as their figurehead our tribe launched a jihad that ended up in
our assimilating or destroying every other rival tribe in the great
plains. Our tribe had swelled to a simply unwieldy amount of people but
Adam managed to keep the peace with his great leadership skills and my
evident holiness backing him up. I now led rites filled with miracles of
self-mutilation: I'd cut my arms, throat, stomach, whatever, and let the
tribespeople watch me heal miraculously.
"Adam sub-divided our tribe and became the Chief of Chiefs. I stayed with
him, advising Adam and later his sons for hundreds of years before my
first Change. Even after that I'd often hold high positions in the tribal
hierarchy, helping guide the tribe with the wisdom I had attained over the
years. And that was my first life, and the story of Adam and Eve."
There's a pause before she realizes I'm done.
"I have two questions about that story," Samantha says, still not looking
at me. "May I?"
"Shoot."
"Where are you mentioned in the Genesis? You said you were."
"I was the serpent of course. I tempted Eve."
"Then how come all that other stuff with miracles isn't mentioned?"
"I helped create and pass down the history. It wasn't too hard for me to
arrange for some things to be forgotten in the last eight thousand
years."
"I have one last question then. That second one was still part of the
first one."
We start passing the first buildings of the town. We both know this will
be the final final question. I nod and it spills from her lips: "So why
are you immortal?"
"I think I was just born this way."
"Is that all?"
"That's all. Better than saying 'I don't know.'"
She sighs as we come to the Greyhound station. "Time to part ways," I
say, and she nods. She stands apart as I talk to the lady at the ticket
window. There's a bus outside on its way to Washington D.C. and I make
the necessary arrangements, paying with the cash in my wallet.
"I guess this is goodbye then," Samantha says, looking quite sad.
I wordlessly hand her the second ticket I had bought and board the bus,
not looking back to see if she followed. Henry Goddard wouldn't ask a
young girl to desert her family.
But he'd certainly take care of such a girl if he had to. I had already
decided Henry was a nice guy.
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