José Saramago - Cain

The place is the same, but the present has changed. Cain sees before him the city of jericho, which, for reasons of military security, he has not been allowed to enter. The attack by joshua's army is expected at any moment, and, however vehemently cain assured them that he was not an israelite, they continued to deny him access, especially since he could give no satisfactory answer to the question, What are you then, if you're not an israelite. When cain was born, there was no such thing as the israelites, and when, much later, they came into existence, with the sometimes disastrous consequences with which we are familiar, the censuses carried out omitted the family of adam. Cain was not an israelite, but neither was he a hittite, an amorite, a perizzite, a hivite or a jebusite. He was saved from this lack of definition by a farrier from joshua's army, who fell in love with cain's donkey, That's a fine animal you've got there, He's been with me since I left the land of nod and he's never let me down yet, Well, in that case, if you agree, I'll take you on as my assistant on a bed and board basis, on condition that you let me ride your donkey now and then. Cain thought this a reasonable proposal, but asked, And afterwards, After what, asked the other man, After jericho falls, Oh, jericho is just the beginning, afterwards there'll be a long war of conquest during which farriers will be as necessary as soldiers, In that case, I accept, said cain. He had heard tell, from those who had known her, of a famous prostitute who lived in jericho, a certain rahab, whom he longed to meet so as to refresh his blood, for he hadn't had a woman under him since the last night he spent with lilith. And despite not being allowed into jericho, he still did not give up all hope of sleeping with her. The farrier informed the necessary people that he had taken on an unpaid assistant, and thus cain became a member of the support services of joshua's army, entrusted, under the watchful eye of his boss, with the task of treating the saddle sores of donkeys and asses, donkeys and asses and nothing else, you understand, for a cavalry worthy of the name had not yet been invented. After what seemed to everyone an excessively long wait, they were told that the lord had finally spoken to joshua, to whom he had said the following, word for word, For six days, you and your soldiers will march round the city once a day, and seven priests will go ahead of the ark of the covenant, bearing seven ram's horn trumpets, and on the seventh day, you will march round the city seven times and the priests will sound their trumpets, and when they sound a much longer blast, the people must shout with a great shout and then the walls of the city will fall down. Contrary to what a perfectly legitimate scepticism might expect, that is exactly what happened. On the seventh day of that never-before-tried tactic, the walls really did fall down and the soldiers poured into the city through whatever opening lay before them, and jericho was taken. They destroyed everything, putting to the sword men and women, young and old, even oxen and sheep and asses. When cain finally entered the city, the prostitute rahab had vanished with all her family, for they had been taken to a place of safety as a reward for the help she gave to the lord when she hid the two spies joshua had sent into jericho. When he heard this, cain lost all interest in her. Despite his own reprehensible past, he hated traitors, who were, in his opinion, the lowest of the low. Joshua's soldiers set fire to the city and burned everything in it, apart from the silver and gold and the vessels of brass and of iron, which, as usual, were added to the treasury of the house of the lord. That was when joshua issued a second threat, Cursed be the man who rebuilds the city of jericho, death to the eldest son of he who lays the foundations and to the youngest son of the man who sets up the gates. At the time, curses were real literary works of art, both in the force of their intention and in the language in which they were couched, had joshua not been the ruthless person he was, we might almost take him as a stylistic model, at least as regards the important rhetorical chapter on curses and maledictions, so little read in modern times. From there, the israelite army marched on the all too appropriately named city of ai, where, after suffering the humiliation of a defeat, the israelites learned that you don't mess around with the lord god. For a man called achan had taken certain things from jericho that had been condemned to be destroyed and, as a consequence, the anger of the lord was kindled against the israelites, This will not do, he cried, whoever disobeys my orders is condemned. Meanwhile, joshua, led astray by erroneous information given to him by the spies he had sent to ai, made the mistake of underestimating the strength of his adversary and sent fewer than three thousand men into battle, and they, attacked and pursued by the inhabitants of the city, were forced to flee. The israelites lost the will to fight, as has always happened at the slightest defeat and although they no longer show their dismay in quite the same way as in the days of joshua, rending their clothes and falling to the ground and covering their heads in dust, some verbal wailing is inevitable. It is evident from joshua's pleas and complaints and questions that the lord did a very bad job of bringing these people up. Why did you have us cross the jordan, was it in order to deliver us into the hands of the amorites, to destroy us, it would have been far better if we had stayed on the other side. It was clearly absurd for this same joshua to lose his head over the loss of a mere thirty-six soldiers, the number killed in the attempted attack on ai, when, after every battle, he leaves behind him a trail of many thousands of enemy corpses. And he went on, O lord, if israel flees its enemies, the canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it and will attack us and destroy us, and no one will remember us, what will you do to defend our great name, he asked. The lord did not appear in person or in the form of a column of smoke this time, and so one imagines that he was merely a voice thundering out into space and echoing around the mountains and the valleys, saying, The israelites have sinned, you have broken the covenant

I made with you, you have taken things that were destined to be destroyed, you have stolen them and hidden them and put them among your baggage. The voice grew louder, That is why you could not resist your enemies, because you, too, were condemned to be destroyed, and I will not take your side again until you destroy that which, though condemned to destruction, is still in your possession, up, joshua, and summon the people, the man who is found to have taken those things will be burned along with everything he has, family and goods. Early the next morning, joshua gave orders for the people to come before him, household by household. Questions, enquiries and denunciations finally led him to a man called achan, the son of carmi, the son of zabdi, the son of serah, of the tribe of judah. Joshua addressed him in gentle, mellifluous tones, saying, My son, give glory to the lord and make confession to him, tell me what you have done, hide nothing from me. Cain, who was watching along with the others, thought, They're sure to pardon him, joshua wouldn't speak to him like that if he was going to condemn him. Meanwhile, achan was saying, It's true, I have sinned against the lord god of israel, Speak, tell me everything, joshua urged him, When I saw among the spoils a beautiful babylonian cloak, and nearly two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold nearly fifty shekels in weight, then I coveted them and took them, Tell me, where are those things now, asked joshua, They are buried in the earth beneath my tent, and the silver under them. Having wheedled this confession out of him, joshua sent some men to search the tent where they found the stolen items, with the silver underneath, just as achan had said. They took them and brought them to joshua and to all the israelites and placed them before the lord, or, rather, before the ark of the covenant that stood for him. Joshua then took achan with the silver, the cloak and the wedge of gold, along with his sons and daughters, and his oxen and his asses and his sheep, his tent and all that he had, and led them to the valley of achor. When they arrived, joshua said, You were the cause of our misfortune, because of you, thirty-six israelites died, may the lord now be the cause of your misfortune. Then the other israelites stoned achan and threw him into the fire, together with his family and all that they had. Then they raised over him a great heap of stones which is there to this day. For that reason, the place was called the valley of achor, which means misfortune. The lord's anger was assuaged, but, before the people dispersed, his stentorian voice rang out again, Be warned, he who offends me will pay, for I am the lord.