Lilith, p.1
Lilith, page 1
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Contents © Nikki Marmery 2023
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In a former life Nikki Marmery worked as a financial journalist. She now writes fiction from a small village near Amersham, where she lives with her husband and three children. Her first novel, On Wilder Seas, was shortlisted for the Historical Novel Society’s New Novel Award and selected for the Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation’s #AdventureSociety book club.
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For women everywhere.
Be your own gods.
Your Mother commands it.
Lady Lilith
Of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)That, ere the snake’s, her sweet tongue could deceive,And her enchanted hair was the first gold.And still she sits, young while the earth is old,And, subtly of herself contemplative,Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave,Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
PART ONE
PARADISE
4004BC
Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:22-24
In The Beginning
At first, I loved him. How beautiful he was in those days.
There he stood: legs planted wide in the rich soil of our Paradise. Hands on hips, his muscled arms firm and knotted as a young fig tree. His hair fell shining, raven-feathered, to his shoulders. His dark eyes beckoned.
The musty, coupling scent of him unmoored me. He made me giddy.
And I, him, I suppose.
At first.
When did it start? It seemed to come out of the blue. But now I see the signs I brushed away, as ripples on the surface of a pool, sending them far from me, as if that would be the end of it. The fool I was! How could I not know they would come surging back, a hundredfold!
He started to have ideas.
He watched me watering the grainfields with the rain I had stored that was plentiful and sufficient.
‘If we dig here,’ he said, ‘we can channel groundwater. We needn’t wait for the rain. We will direct the water towards the wheatfield and master it. I shall call it irrigation and it will be good.
‘As for your hoeing,’ he said, as I broke the ground one day, ‘it is too slow. We shall hitch a curved and sharpened stick to an ox to bear the burden. I shall call it a plough.’ He nodded sagely. ‘And it will be good.’
‘We shall tally our labour,’ he observed, as I weeded the Garden. ‘When there are more of us – I have a feeling there will be more of us!’ He winked. ‘We shall exchange our work, surplus food and so forth with a worthy item as a symbol of its value. I shall call it money—’
‘And it will be good?’
‘Don’t interrupt, Lilith. I’m talking.’
He paced the meadow, fretting. ‘We will need records of the money. We shall make marks in wet clay, and those marks shall have meaning. When the clay is fired, the meaning will be set forever, as if in stone.’
‘Like this?’
I showed him the marks I had carved on the rib bone of a goat. A calendar for marking the coming and going of the moon, the wax and wane of my own blood that tracked it.
‘No, not like that. Not like that at all.’ He frowned. ‘I shall call my marks writing.’
He was dissatisfied with the bounty we had. He must have more of it. So, he experimented, crossing the various trees in our Garden to create a new fruit. After he noticed how the creatures in our care multiplied, it was the same with the animals.
‘We shall build fences,’ he mused. ‘I shall separate the rams from the ewes, and the boars from the sows. I shall permit the ram to know the ewe, and the boar to know the sow, when I wish them to breed. This way I shall bring forth more rams and ewes and boars and sows as we require them.’
They were fine plans. I admired his ambition.
Only that it changed us. Subsistence was no longer enough. Always, he wanted more. Always he wanted to control.
With the marks on his tablets, he became the law.
‘See here.’ He pointed to his mystifying wedge-shapes and arrows. ‘This is how it must be.’
I could not argue with that, for he had not revealed the meaning of his marks. To me, they were as a sparrow’s feet criss-crossing the clay in search of a worm.
He became the owner of these innovations: at once in charge of them, and benefitting from them most. As he tallied our labour and assigned it a value for his money, he judged his work as higher in merit and necessity than mine.
A strategic director, you might call him in these modern days. It suited him. The knowing arch of his brow. The forthright crossing of his strong arms. The way he nodded when he dispensed his edicts and orders. He was good at it.
His final plan was the clincher. The deal-breaker. The world-changer.
‘When there are more of us,’ he started one day – it had become his obsession, more of us, though I wasn’t sure where he thought they’d come from – ‘we will need to protect ourselves from the others.’
He produced two small hard rocks: one reddish-brown, one grey, salvaged from the riverbed. ‘We shall melt these metals. When they combine, they make a harder, stronger substance, which we will use to make swords and knives, axes and so forth.’
‘What will you call this new material?’ I asked, to amuse myself.
‘Bronze,’ he said, unsmiling. ‘Naturally, I shall wield these weapons, for I am bigger and stronger than you, and I would protect you from harm.’
‘Naturally.’
It made sense – at first. Whatever made him happy.
I had no need for weapons. Let him have his sword and his plough, his writing-tablets and money. I didn’t look to the future. I lived happily in the here and now, rooted in the cycle of our daily lives. I tended my roses, I cared for the animals, I gathered the grain. I made clay pots to store our food. I made music to mark the rhythm of our lives. I beat a tambour to welcome the new moon. I danced for my own delight.
One day, I had been assured, I would be the mother of all mankind. All in good time.
I was in no rush. I had my own purpose: the Secret, entrusted to me alone. Its gift was finer than rubies; better than gold. I cherished and nurtured it in my belly, for it was mine, the gift of our Holy Mother solely for me, the First Woman.
Nor did I mind his mania for progress, for I loved him. And after the smelting and the forging, the harvest and the grinding, the winnowing and the milling, the baking and the cooling, the music and the dancing, we would meet under the Tree – the one from which we Must Not Eat – and we would roll upon the moss and laugh and kiss, and by all that is sacred and holy, he would plough me like a field of barley, and it was very good.
I Am Your Lord!
The day it changed was like this:
We were beside the pool. The sun burned dazzling bright. The waterfall churned, sending forth little waves, crests shimmering gold like nectar. We lay on a sun-warmed rock and breathed in the drowsy scent of myrtle.
What glory there was in our Garden. All that was pleasant to the eye and good for food. Hard rosy apples and blood-red oranges. Lemons as fat as quails that dropped from the branch if you so much as looked at them. Walnuts and pears, over-ripe figs, almonds and olives. Jewel-seeded pomegranates and sharp-tasting quinces. Everything always in season, no tree ever bare. The sweet heady scent of blossom at all times, even as there was fruit.
Now I come to think of it, it never grew. The fruit was merely there, ever ripe for plucking.
I did not know that was not usual. How could I?
Beyond the orchards lay the grainfields: the golden barley and swaying wheat. Adam’s irrigation, his basins and levees, taps and dams, ran through them, bringing life-giving water from the four rivers that bounded our Paradise. The chest-high stalks bowed low with the wind. Always full-grown. Eternally ready for harvest. Since the first plan ting we had not sown new seed.
Looking out over the fields stood our sturdy cabin, crafted from the trunks and boughs of tall cedars and graceful pines, roofed with date-palm thatch. Beside it, my rose garden. The sweet scent welcomed me every morning and sent me joyful to sleep at night.
The animals came to drink from the pool. We had many rams and ewes, boars and sows by then, thanks to Adam’s breeding regime. Sturdy bulls and sweet-eyed cows. Bearded goats. Plump-breasted ducks, feathered fowl of all kinds. We looked at them, and they were good.
The heat was thick in the air like honey. The lilies danced on the breeze. The sun beat upon the glittering water and reflected into the sapphire sky.
Adam turned to me, his lips wet with lust. He put my hand to his thickening part and it reared with life and vigour. I climbed onto him, my fingers rooted in the black-curls of his chest.
‘No.’ He squeezed my wrists. ‘Lie under me.’
‘I don’t want to.’ I lowered my hips, enfolded him deep within the core of me, to prove my point. I proved it well enough.
He groaned with pleasure, then pushed at me again.
‘I said, lie under me!’
‘No! You lie under me!’
I thought he was joking. And truly, I was very content where I was, filled with the joy of him. But his eyes weren’t smiling.
‘I am your lord and you shall lie under me!’
‘You are my what?’ I laughed and felt him shrivel like a prune.
Oh, he was angry then. ‘I am your master!’
I rolled beside him and shut one eye against the blinding sun. Lord and master indeed!
‘We were made together, you and I, and I am your equal.’ I caressed his broad chest and kissed his plum-red lips. He softened. ‘And while I’m at it,’ I laid my head in the hollow of his shoulder, ‘I’ve had it with your edicts and orders, your zeal for improvement. Let us return to how things were before. Let us live and work together in harmony once more.’
He squeezed my hand and my spirit soared.
‘Shall we not have more time for leisure? Must we toil all day under the hot sun, for more bounty than we need? What call have we for surpluses to trade, money to exchange? Let us rest and enjoy what we have been given, for we are blessed indeed.’
He smiled and my heart leapt with love for him.
‘As for your weapon—’ I eyed his great bronze sword laid beside us. ‘Is it really necessary? I am the only one here. The animals are tame and do our bidding. Why do you carry it?’
Well, he did not like that. The tenderness drained from him like blood from a sacrificed lamb. He slammed a balled fist into the rock.
‘Do not question me!’ he roared. ‘It is my strength, my right hand. I carry it to protect you because you are mine! I wield it to remind you of your weakness!’
I froze to hear these words. Why did he think I was his? Why did he want me to feel weak?
As it turned out, the sword he claimed was for my protection was no defence against that which hurt me most. His body that I loved so much, he used against me. His oak-strong arms held me down and his tender hands crushed my wrists. He forced me beneath him and pinned me with his legs, a knee bruising the inner flesh of my thigh, his foot pinioning my ankle. The hard boulder bit from below and he pummelled me from above and within. He smothered my mouth to stop me cursing and looked over my head as if I were not there. Where once we had pleased each other, now I was but a vessel for his desire. With violence, he had his joy of my body and there was no joy for me in him.
Was it worth it, Adam? You took by force what you had always had by love. It cannot have been sweeter.
His Name
Perhaps you have been told I was banished because in my anger I cursed and said His name.
But that is not what happened.
In truth, He is a jealous god. He was angry because it was not Him I named at all. In my fury and despair, I called to Her. To the Holy Mother who loved us, who nursed us, who should have protected me.
‘Asherah!’ I cried, when Adam had slunk away among the barley-stalks, shame-faced at least, the tip of his ridiculous sword trailing behind him. I wiped his dew from my bruised thigh with a bulrush.
‘Mighty Asherah, Giver of Life and Queen of Heaven, why have you forsaken me?’
There was no answer. She had been quiet a long time by then. I had seen Her only once in recent weeks, when She came to the Garden to bequeath to me the Secret.
I washed Adam’s stain from me in the pool. I stayed a long while under the waterfall. Its rumble filled my ears, its icy embrace numbed my senses. All around me, water tumbled and churned.
I dived below the surface where there was stillness and peace. I scrubbed the blood from my limbs with silt from the very depths. I scoured my insides clean of his seed.
When I was out and warmed again by the sun, I crushed the leaves of soothing aloe and healing comfrey and bathed my bruises in the sap. I sat on the rock and cradled myself. The myrtle drooped in sorrow. A bearded dove, perched on a carob tree, wept. Fat drops fell from his beady eyes, his head tilted in sympathy.
In the distance, thunder rumbled. A cloud rolled in, low and black. The dove took to wing and soared. Here He comes. I steeled myself.
He boomed my name. ‘Lilith!’
It was as if the mountains cracked and spoke. It echoed in the plains and valleys, blasted from every crevice and cave. The leaves whispered it as they rustled in the wind. The bulrushes wailed it, bowing low to the tempestuous pool. The waterfall thundered it, Lilith! Lilith! as it cascaded down the rockface. The river babbled it, splashing around boulders, rushing onwards to the sea.
The sound came from all around, at once inside and outside of my head. The word throbbed and pulsed through my veins. My temples bulged.
LILITH!
* * *
I misled you. I did say His name, too.
It is forbidden, but words do not scare me, for I have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, which grants mortals the Wisdom of gods, and I am Wise.
And I know the Secret.
I know that like a ram, a bull or a boar, He cannot create life alone. He did not birth us.
Asherah did.
But since She has been silent, (where did She go? Why did I not notice when She went?) He tells us that naming is Creation.
He names and it is so. He breathes and gives it life. It’s why Adam loves to name things too. Naming is to man what birthing is to woman.
They can name things all they like, it does not change the truth.
Life comes from a Mother.
He cannot fool me as He has deceived Adam!
What can He do to me now? He is not my god, no Father of mine. He did not protect me! He did not avenge my violator! He thinks to punish me for Adam’s sin! I will say His name whenever I please.
‘Yahweh, Yahweh, YAHWEH!’
I screamed it from the mountaintops, I hurled it against the cliff so it rebounded one hundred times in number, but not a gnat’s wing more in strength.
The Red Sea
I fled south to the ocean. Asherah was Lady of the Sea. Perhaps I’d find her there.
He sent three angels after me. Those who always delivered His pronouncements. Tearing down on beating wing, tripping over their clumsy feet in their glee to report the Shalts and Shalt Nots.
The angels found me on the shore, toes in the cooling surf.
‘What have you done?’ asked Senoy, wrapping his grey wings around his shoulders like a cloak.
‘What any woman would.’
‘Return to Adam,’ barked ugly-browed Sansenoy.
I burrowed my feet deeper into the sand.
‘It will be death to refuse,’ said Semangelof.
‘What is death?’
‘You stupid woman!’
Semangelof was by far the scariest of the three, with frown lines like cracks in granite marking his huge, bulging forehead. His thin hair bristled like an angry cat. ‘Death is when life’s joys end. Your body will go to its grave and your soul will descend to the dark pits of Sheol, the Underworld. Never will your eye see happiness again!’
