Free Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand: A Novel of Adam and Eve by Gioconda Belli Page A

knew that he needed her. He missed her warmth, her body.
    She was awakened by his hand seeking a refuge. Timidly, he touched her side, hoping she would grant him some way by which he could ease his hand beneath her and enfold her in his arms. At night, Adam always hugged her to him, her back against his chest. Feeling the man searching for her in thedarkness aroused her tenderness. The memory of her rage was not enough to make her push him away. She let Adam’s arm rest across her breast and pressed close to him. She was cold. The cave was cool and protecting by day, but at night it lost its soul. They had to produce their own heat, snuggling against each other. Silently, she settled into his arms. He whispered into her ear that the next day he would take her to the sea.

CHAPTER 11
    T HEY WALKED UNTIL THE GULLS AND THE SMELL OF salt came to meet them. Before their eyes appeared an enormous, transparent blue bowl. The dog dashed into the water, unafraid. He leaped about, barking madly. The cat, indifferent, lay down on the sand to contemplate the sea. Adam told Eve about his explorations. He wanted to take her to see what he had seen. They walked into the water. She advanced with caution. The effort it took to push her way through the liquid made her feel limited, clumsy.
    â€œNow, Eve,” said Adam, when the water was up to their chins. “Now, sink down, spread your arms and push toward the bottom.”
    It was useless. However much she tried. She was stymied by the choking in her nose, her mouth, her throat, and the water pushed her back to the surface. Moving her arms and her legs, desperate, she tried to head back toward the beach. She was aware that Adam was following her, confused and embarrassed. “This isn’t how it was before,” he told her. His body wasn’tresponding; it wouldn’t go any farther down than the depth of a few arm strokes before water entered his every orifice and he couldn’t breathe. The sea was to look at, Eve told him when they had reached dry land and had recovered from the salt water they’d swallowed and the battering and bumping the attempt had dealt them, especially Adam. He had been so emphatic in describing the underwater world. Now he doubted he had ever seen it, and wondered if it too was a dream, as much of his life seemed of late.
    â€œBut the sea is not only to be looked at,” he said with certainty.
    Eve lay on the beach and closed her eyes. The sound of the waves regularly slapping on the shore was like the noise of the incessant string of questions forming and dissolving in her mind.
    A short while later, Adam returned. He sat down beside her.
    â€œLook, I’ve brought something for your hunger,” he said.
    She looked. It was some rough, oval shells. When they were opened, she saw they were filled with a thick, white, trembly substance that left her mouth clean, as if the water had been turned into delicate, briny meat. Adam had laid one on a rock and hammered it with a stone until it revealed the fruit inside. Oysters, he said. Oysters, she repeated, laughing.
    â€œHow did you find out that they had something inside we could eat?”
    â€œThe same way I knew their name. The same.”
    They did not go back to the cave until the next day. They spent the night on the beach, some distance apart, humiliated by the uproar in their guts: the noises, the smells, the wastethey expelled. At dawn, nauseated, they washed in the ocean. They discussed the possibility that their bodies might have grown rotten, if this was a new punishment for again having put something in their mouths. But then they saw the dog and cat urinate, defecate, and scratch sand over their waste.
    â€œAdam, do you think the animals know they’re animals?”
    â€œAt least they don’t think they may be something different. They don’t get confused the way we do.”
    â€œBesides animals, what do you think we are?”
    â€œAdam and