Fallen

David Maine

Description

Beginning with the murder of Abel by his brother, Fallen rewinds through fury and jealousy, lust and despair, right back to the bite from the apple and mankind's first taste of shame. From the bones of this age-old tale, David Maine weaves a compulsively readable and startlingly modern human drama of love, betrayal and rage. We know the end of the story, but how did it really begin?

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Canongate Books
• Date de parution: 16 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781782112273
• Langue: English

Extrait

‘This book’s power to rivet the reader approaches the miraculous . . . quirky, delectable, daring.’   Janet Maslin, New York Times
‘A very sophisticated kind of soap opera . . . As he works his way back from experience to innocence, [Maine’s] tone shifts from darkness to light, ending with Eve’s irresistible, knowing humour and lovely paradisiacal reveries . . . Again and again throughout this novel, Maine’s talent is revealed . . . In his hands, Cain becomes a tortured hero, the character who is remembered long after the bland and blameless Abel is forgotten.’   Elena Seymenliyska, Guardian
‘Maine’s prose is as simple and economical as the life it’s depicting, but it doesn’t skimp when elaborating the basic passions felt by its players, as they learn what it is to be human.’
Dave Pollock, Independent
‘With a modern novelist’s art, acuity and insistence on psychological realism, Maine . . . had me believing in the truth of these most archetypal of characters and the situation they found themselves in . . . Having appropriated such an old story it’s a marvel that Maine can make it feel so fresh.’    Independent on Sunday
‘With charm and wry wit, [Maine] merely tickles the idea that God is perhaps, well . . . a bit of a bastard.****’
Alex Barlow, Time Out
‘Maine has exchanged the compact narrative of the Old Testament for the modern novel, supplying the psychological motives, theological questioning and explanatory incidents absent from his bibliographical sources.’ Matthew Creasy, Financial Times
Also by David Maine
The Flood
The Book of Samson
 
fallen David Maine

CANONGATE
Edinburgh • New York • Melbourne
First published in Great Britain in 2006 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street,
Edinburgh EH1 1TE
First published in America by St Martin’s Press, New York, 2005
This edition first published by Canongate Books Ltd in 2007
This digital edition first published in 2013 by Canongate Books.
Copyright © David Maine, 2005
The moral right of the author has been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library
ISBN 9781782112273
www.canongate.tv
for my family
Contents
Book One
The Murder
40.
The Old Man
39.
The Brother
38.
The Son
37.
Thirty Years Previous
36.
The Mistake
35.
The Proposal
34.
The Strangers
33.
The Years Previous
32.
The Conversation
31.
The Murder
Book Two
The Brother
30.
The Murder
29.
The Girl
28.
Some Weeks Previous
27.
The Old Man
26.
The Stranger
25.
The Conversations
24.
The Previous Two Years
23.
The Judgment
22.
The Offering
21.
The Proposal
Book Three
The Family
20.
The Proposal
19.
The Previous Winter
18.
The Mistake
17.
The Abomination
16.
The Conversation
15.
Two Summers Previous
14.
The Years
13.
The Second Son
12.
The Previous Murder
11.
The Arrival
Book Four
The Fall
10.
The Arrival
   9.
The Son
   8.
Two Years Previous
   7.
The Gifts
   6.
The Years
   5.
The Previous Spring
   4.
The Murder
   3.
The Conversation
   2.
That First Morning
   1.
The Old Man
book one the murder
40 the old man
The mark burns upon him all the time now. Its hurt is open and shameful like a scab picked until it bleeds. In years past he could find ways to forget it or at least misplace his awareness for a while; it was never easy but he managed. These days he cannot. There is nothing to fill Cain’s time so the mark does this for him.
It stains his flesh like a parasite.
Countless people have witnessed it over the years, but even those who have not don’t lack for an opinion. Some say it is a letter—the first letter of his name, reversed to show God’s displeasure. Others say it carries the shape of a stillborn child, or a wolf’s skull, or a coiled serpent. Still others, less fanciful perhaps or just duller, claim it is no picture at all. Merely a smear unreadable, the Devil’s thumbprint or God’s. What does the shape matter? The point is, it is there, plainly visible, crying out to be seen.
But the miracle lies in the seeing. For all those who look upon the mark see it differently. Like the Tower of Babel reflected mirrorwise, everyone who lays eyes upon Cain’s face beholds something different from all the others, sees the message spelled in a different tongue, though the message is always the same.
And what message is thus conveyed? A simple one: Don’t touch. Stay away. Leave this one alone.
The others in this house, Cain’s in-laws and grandchildren, heed this advice and give him a wide berth. Only his son remains stubbornly loyal. And recently, his dead brother as well.
But now Cain is convinced that Abel has left him forever: tonight’s visit was his last. So with nothing more to do, he waits to die. He is not being dramatic. Among his many faults, this is not one. He expects to be dead by morning.
The old man shifts and wheezes. The wet climate he finds himself banished to torments his breathing. Deserts are tough but at least the air is clean. Not that he expects sympathy: impetuous he may be, hot-tempered and violent, resentful and self-pitying, any number of undesirable qualities. But he has never been stupid.
So then. He shifts his weight in the crepuscular gloom of the hut and allows his gaze to drift past the low open entryway, outside to where the fading crimson sky has clotted into dusk. From outside float children’s laughter and the calmer voice of his son. Cain knows he is not welcome out there. Nor unwelcome exactly; but if he ventured from his hut the voices would quickly fade, glances would be cast down, the children would drift off, and the women’s mouths would tighten.
No. He will stay inside this night. At least it will be his last such.
Cain settles onto the earth, arms folded behind his head. A sigh ripples through his nose and musses the yellowing whiskers of his beard. So the matter of his mortality has been decided. In a strange way a burden has been lifted. If he were carefree he might start whistling, but he is not. He is a man who dwells upon serious thoughts. As a boy he dwelt upon serious thoughts. As a fetus in his mother’s womb he was prone, quite likely, to serious ruminations, while his lighthearted brother simply enjoyed spinning and kicking in the watery gloom. People change in some ways as they grow; in other ways they don’t.
Maybe that’s the nub of it, he thinks. Maybe that’s where all the problems started between himself and his brother—himself and his mother—himself and his father. With two unborn souls, spinning or brooding in the watery wet, waiting for the unforgiving light of their first morning.
There is something in that, some truth waiting to be grasped like a teat in an infant’s hand. But like that teat, the truth is too large and unwieldy for the old man’s grip, and when he clutches at it, it bounces to one side, slipping heavily from his fingers. And whatever lies beyond Cain’s vague sense of disquiet slips away as well.
He is old and gets distracted easily. When the idea is gone he doesn’t bother to follow it, and soon forgets it altogether.
•
This evening Cain appears calm but he his not. His terror is that of a tiny boy dropped from a great height during a thunderstorm while vultures pluck his flesh. His stomach feels slightly out of kilter, down where his intestines should be. This makes his midriff hurt. It makes his back and his loins and his molars hurt. Was this how his brother felt as the life hurtled from his body, or did he feel something else entirely? Rage for example or bewilderment, or perhaps an overwhelming grief that blotted out all else with enormous reptilian wings?
Cain tucks his chin against his clavicle, shuts his eyes tight, and tries to keep the world at bay. Outside, his grandson Irad cackles as the children play some game involving rocks and noise. He is, he thinks, almost ready to leave this place behind forever. Almost eager, in fact.
Almost.
So behold him there: Cain lying alone in the hut, thinking back on his life, tallying it up. Waiting to die.
39 the brother
Lately something strange has been happening to Cain: he has been having conversations with his dead brother. In the early morning, during the rift between sleep and consciousness, Abel appears in the hut, squatting at the foot of Cain’s sleeping mat, cracking his knuckles or picking his teeth.—And how is it with you lately? he likes to ask. His voice is colorless, like the air.
Abel has been gone fifty years now, and Cain is a jumpy, scared old man.
These visitations terrify him, but the terror precludes any violent outcry. He does not command Spirit begone! or Out with you, shade! or any of a dozen other entreaties that cram into his mouth. Fear commands that he lie half-groggy on his mat and converse civilly with his long-murdered brother. So he replies, I am well enough.
—That’s good to hear, nods Abel. He says this every time, with the same bland sincerity that used to so curdle Cain’s nerves when they were both younger. Just boys really. And alive.
Abel says this every time too:—Soon we’ll be reunited. I’m looking forward to it.
Cain says nothing but wonders if this is true. Hopes it is. Fears it is.
Abel’s fingers brush against the floor of the hut, leaving no furrows in the sand. He looks no older than the day when Cain pummeled him with a stone and pitched him off a cliff. For that matter there is no sign of the violence of his death. Green eyes flicker from a broad, open face, and a tangle of brown curls caresses his shoulders. He had always been a pretty youth, olive-skinned and dimpled: five decades of extinction has not changed this. Cain grimaces. He is crippled and riven with pain, and sometimes his eyes water with unfairness of it: that Abel should remain eternally young, while Cain must suffer rancid teeth and creaking joints and incontinence a