Джонатан Келлерман - The Golem of Hollywood

“Yup,” Jacob said.

“It’s interesting, I hope?”

“Right now there’s nothing much to discuss. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

“About the case?”

“About dinner,” Jacob said.

“Ah. Please do. I need to know how much food to get.”

“You’re not planning on cooking.”

“That wouldn’t be very hospitable, would it.”

Jacob smiled.

Sam said, “I’ll ask Nigel to pick up takeout.”

Jacob considered that better than having Sam burn his house down, but not by much. His father lived on a tight budget. “I’m asking you to please don’t put yourself out.”

“I won’t until I know you’re coming.”

“Right. Well, I’ll call you if I can make it, okay?”

“Okay. Be well, Jacob. I love you.”

Sam was a gentle man but sparing with his affection. To hear him state it plainly took Jacob aback. “You too, Abba.”

“Call me.”

“I will.”

Jacob turned onto his block. The hot dog still felt lodged in his chest, and he was tempted to crack open one of the clinking bottles and wash it down.

A dinged white work van had taken the place of the Crown Vic.

Midway up the stairs, Jacob changed course. Rather than take the bottles into the apartment, he stashed them in the Honda’s passenger-side footwell and drove back toward the murder house.

Her older brother says, “You are mine, for I am elder.”

Her twin brother says, “You should love me, for you arrived on my heels.”

Her older sister says, “You are ungrateful and must humble yourself.”

Her twin sister says, “You are willful and must submit.”

Her father says, “You remind me of one I once knew. She flew away.”

Her mother frowns and says nothing at all.

Of herself, she says, “I am mine and I will do as I please.”

One year has passed since Asham’s sisters wed. Now the harvest has come again — a great bounty, thanks to Cain’s wooden mule — and their father declares that they will bring their offerings soon.

“And then you must choose.”

“I choose nothing,” Asham says.

Eve sighs.

“It isn’t right to be alone,” Adam says. “Every creature finds its mate.”

“‘Its’? Am I an animal?”

Nava, bent over the loom, snorts.

Adam says, “If you won’t make a decision, we will allow the Lord to make it for you.”

“I thought you and He weren’t on speaking terms,” Asham says.

Yaffa feeds the fire, clucks her tongue. “Don’t be rude.”

“Your vanity is a sin,” Adam says.

“You say everything’s a sin.”

“Things cannot go on as they have,” Adam says.

“They’re grown men,” Asham says. She turns to her sisters. “Tell your

husbands to stop behaving like children.” She picks up the carrying gourd and starts out.

“I’m not done talking to you,” Adam says.

“I’ll be back later,” Asham says.

Whenever their father speaks of the garden, his voice droops with sorrow. Knowing nothing of the early days, Asham feels not sadness but wonder that things could be any different than they are. Her greatest pleasure is to walk alone, plucking flowers, grass caressing her bare knees. The land smiles on her. As a girl she would annoy her parents by coming home with her face caked in mud and her hands teeming with bugs and worms and snakes that she has been warned never, ever to touch. They are her companions, the earth’s hidden majority, the displaced and the disdained.

Today the valley sings of spring, and she hums in harmony as she tramps through the fields, the gourd swinging by her side, keeping time. She sips air sweet with pollen and savory with solitude.

And why shouldn’t she be vain? Not terribly much, but she’s not going to pretend she doesn’t see how her brothers look at her. And would be lying if she said she didn’t find their rivalry flattering, in some perverse way. Though she thinks it would be wicked if that were her only reason for holding out. She knows them. She knows that choosing one will rupture the fragile truce that exists because she has steadfastly refused them both.

What kind of creator creates a world out of balance?

Asham does not share all of Cain’s doubts about the Lord’s perfection, but neither can she content herself with the simple obedience preached by Abel and their father.

Two by two they exist.

Father and Mother, Cain and Nava, Abel and Yaffa.

And her.

She is the odd number, extraneous, a joke perpetrated by a cruel god.

Runty and irate, she arrived last, moments after Yaffa, in a gush of blood. Their mother speaks of the birth as if she still feels the pain.

In that moment, I understood my punishment.

She does not speak this way of any of her other children, only Asham. Leading Asham to wonder: was the punishment the agony, or her very existence?

Twilight finds her hugging her knees beneath the canopy of a carob tree. Against a sky of purple and gold, soot-colored lumps come over the hill.

Abel, returning with the flock.

Asham watches his regal shape grow. Her twin is fine and fair with fluffy golden hair; he looks, in fact, not dissimilar to the animals he tends. Though she has never heard him raise his voice in anger, there is nothing weak about him. She has seen him carry four stragglers at once, digging his fingers into fleece, lifting while they bleated and protested.

Across the meadow, she can hear him clicking his tongue and stamping his crook, urging the sheep homeward.

The dog sprints ahead to scout.

Asham lets out a low whistle, and the animal pricks up its ears. It bounds through the foliage and into her arms, licking her face. She holds it close and puts her finger to her lips.

“I know you’re out there.”

Asham smiles.

“Both of you,” Abel says. “I can hear you.”

“No, you can’t,” she calls.

He laughs deeply.

She releases the dog and it bolts forward to lick its master’s hand. Asham crawls out and shows herself. “How did you know it was me?”

“I know you,” he says.

“You’re out late.”

“I could say the same about you.”

“I didn’t want to go home,” she says, hefting the sloshing gourd on her shoulder. It wobbles on a handle made of spun flax — Cain’s invention.

“Let me,” Abel says, taking the gourd as easily as if it were empty.

The light has left the trees, and the night stirs, prey and predator alike seeking cover. Fireflies flash and extinguish. The flock tightens of its own accord, and the dog barks at any who stray. Abel listens to Asham relate the discoveries of the day, showing him with her hands the size of the iridescent beetle she caught this morning.

“Don’t exaggerate,” he says.

“I’m not,” she says, jostling him.

“You’re spilling my water,” he says.

“Sorry — your water?” she says.

“Now my leg’s all wet,” he complains.

“Last I checked, I drew it.”

“I’m carrying it.”

“I never asked you to,” she says.

He clucks his tongue at her. It makes her feel like she’s one of his sheep.

She says, “Father says we’ll bring the offerings next week.”

“It’ll be good to give thanks. The Lord has been generous.”

Depending on her mood, his piety either charms or irritates her. At present she wants to hit him again, in earnest; he knows as well as she does that Adam has set her a deadline.

They fall silent. Not for the first time, she wishes Abel would be the one to lead the conversation. Talking to him is like floating in a lake.