East of Eden

Her golden hair was wet with perspiration but her face had changed. It was stony, expressionless. At her throat the pulse fluttered visibly.

“You have two sons,” Samuel said. “Two fine sons. They aren’t alike. Each one born separate in his own sack.”

She inspected him coldly and without interest.

Samuel said, “I’ll show your boys to you.”

“No,” she said without emphasis.

“Now, dearie, don’t you want to see your sons?”

“No. I don’t want them.”

“Oh, you’ll change. You’re tired now, but you’ll change. And I’ll tell you now—this birth was quicker and easier than I’ve seen ever in my life.”

The eyes moved from his face. “I don’t want them. I want you to cover the windows and take the light away.”

“It’s weariness. In a few days you’ll feel so different you won’t remember.”

“I’ll remember. Go away. Take them out of the room. Send Adam in.”

Samuel was caught by her tone. There was no sickness, no weariness, no softness. His words came out without his will. “I don’t like you,” he said and wished he could gather the words back into his throat and into his mind. But his words had no effect on Cathy.

“Send Adam in,” she said.

In the little living room Adam looked vaguely at his sons and went quickly into the bedroom and shut the door. In a moment came the sound of tapping. Adam was nailing the blankets over the windows again.

Lee brought coffee to Samuel. “That’s a bad-looking hand you have there,” he said.

“I know. I’m afraid it’s going to give me trouble.”

“Why did she do it?”

“I don’t know. She’s a strange thing.”

Lee said, “Mr. Hamilton, let me take care of that. You could lose an arm.”

The life went out of Samuel. “Do what you want, Lee. A frightened sorrow has closed down over my heart. I wish I were a child so I could cry. I’m too old to be afraid like this. And I’ve not felt such despair since a bird died in my hand by a flowing water long ago.”

Lee left the room and shortly returned, carrying a small ebony box carved with twisting dragons. He sat by Samuel and from his box took a wedge-shaped Chinese razor. “It will hurt,” he said softly.

“I’ll try to bear it, Lee.”

The Chinese bit his lips, feeling the inflicted pain in himself while he cut deeply into the hand, opened the flesh around the toothmarks front and back, and trimmed the ragged flesh away until good red blood flowed from every wound. He shook a bottle of yellow emulsion labeled Hall’s Cream Salve and poured it into the deep cuts. He saturated a handkerchief with the salve and wrapped the hand. Samuel winced and gripped the chair arm with his good hand.

“It’s mostly carbolic acid,” Lee said. “You can smell it.”

“Thank you, Lee. I’m being a baby to knot up like this.”

“I don’t think I could have been so quiet,” said Lee. “I’ll get you another cup of coffee.”

He came back with two cups and sat down by Samuel. “I think I’ll go away,” he said. “I never went willingly to a slaughter house.”

Samuel stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. The words came out.”

Samuel shivered. “Lee, men are fools. I guess I hadn’t thought about it, but Chinese men are fools too.”

“What made you doubt it?”

“Oh, maybe because we think of strangers as stronger and better than we are.”

“What do you want to say?”

Samuel said, “Maybe the foolishness is necessary, the dragon fighting, the boasting, the pitiful courage to be constantly knocking a chip off God’s shoulder, and the childish cowardice that makes a ghost of a dead tree beside a darkening road. Maybe that’s good and necessary, but—”

“What do you want to say?” Lee repeated patiently.

“I thought some wind had blown up the embers in my foolish mind,” Samuel said. “And now I hear in your voice that you have it too. I feel wings over this house. I feel a dreadfulness coming.”

“I feel it too.”

“I know you do, and that makes me take less than my usual comfort in my foolishness. This birth was too quick, too easy—like a cat having kittens. And I fear for these kittens. I have dreadful thoughts gnawing to get into my brain.”

“What do you want to say?” Lee asked a third time.

“I want my wife,” Samuel cried. “No dreams, no ghosts, no foolishness. I want her here. They say miners take canaries into the pits to test the air. Liza has no truck with foolishness. And, Lee, if Liza sees a ghost, it’s a ghost and not a fragment of a dream. If Liza feels trouble we’ll bar the doors.”

Lee got up and went to the laundry basket and looked down at the babies. He had to peer close, for the light was going fast. “They’re sleeping,” he said.

“They’ll be squalling soon enough. Lee, will you hitch up the rig and drive to my place for Liza? Tell her I need her here. If Tom’s still there, tell him to mind the place. If not, I’ll send him in the morning. And if Liza doesn’t want to come, tell her we need a woman’s hand here and a woman’s clear eyes. She’ll know what you mean.”

“I’ll do it,” said Lee. “Maybe we’re scaring each other, like two children in the dark.”

“I’ve thought of that,” Samuel said. “And Lee, tell her I hurt my hand at the well head. Do not, for God’s sake, tell her how it happened.”

“I’ll get some lamps lit and then I’ll go,” said Lee. “It will be a great relief to have her here.”

“That it will, Lee. That it will. She’ll let some light into this cellar hole.”

After Lee drove away in the dark Samuel picked up a lamp in his left hand. He had to set it on the floor to turn the knob of the bedroom door. The room was in pitch-blackness, and the yellow lamplight streamed upward and did not light the bed.

Cathy’s voice came strong and edged from the bed. “Shut the door. I do not want the light. Adam, go out! I want to be in the dark—alone.”

Adam said hoarsely, “I want to stay with you.”

“I do not want you.”

“I will stay.”

“Then stay. But don’t talk any more. Please close the door and take the lamp away.”