Fallen by David Maine

Author:David Maine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books

19 the previous winter

The mistake was in hitting the boy. That much is certain, however much his wife protests that the blow was warranted. The more she says so, in fact, the more certain Adam grows that it was the wrong thing to do.

Nor has this been his only blunder. Adam is sure he has made thousands. If he etched the list on tablets, no doubt the stack of them would reach halfway to the sky. Not that he can particularly remember more than a handful—and not that he didn’t have help.

The weather is vindictive too. Winter has settled in and with it come long cold afternoons, joyless nights, and bitter mornings. Rain slashes down every second day, even the occasional snow squall. Just the sight of this makes Adam tired: the distant mountains carry a perpetual mantle of white as if they too have grown as old as he feels.

There are chores enough to do while the earth lies comatose. Tools to make or mend, garments to repair, fires to tend. The whole family sleeps in the eating hut, the only warm room in the compound on account of the driving winds and pervasive damp. The fire is left to smolder as they sleep, and in the mornings Adam wakes to a stiffness unknown to his previous years. As if the very membranes of his joints are drying up, pulling his bones out of alignment.

Knees and neck are the worst. He squats painfully next to the ashes each morning and pokes them till he finds an ember, then blows on it, feeding little tufts of dry grass. He enjoys being the first to rise. Let the others rest. Before long flames are cackling, twigs and branches have begun spitting sparks while the rest of the family slowly come to life. But even while Eve fries the breakfast meat and the children giggle sleepily or argue grumpily, the tightness in Adam’s joints remains. Sometimes it’s not gone till midday. He wonders if the development is permanent, if he has it to look forward to for the rest of his days. He wonders if, one morning, he will find that he cannot move at all, and if on that day he will be dead.

•

Cain avoids him throughout. Sleeps at the far end of the room by the open entryway and doesn’t linger at meals. Spends his days outside doing Adam knows not what. Abel is gone too but that is logical: the animals are outdoors.

One morning Adam steps outside. Abel lounges against the wall of the eating hut, a couple of miserable ewes crowding his knees. Across the fields the younger children approach the compound, arms piled high with firewood. Even the four-year-olds, Epon and Epna, do their part, dragging a Y-shaped stick between them that is nearly as long as they. Adam smiles fondly upon them.

The children drop the wood in a heap at the end of the clearing and have turned away for more when Abel calls out, Don’t leave it like that.

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