CAIN chapter two

CHAPTER TWO

As they walked across the dry dusty base camp toward the interrogation room, Eve Salanger's mind raced with questions, all vying to be first on the list to be asked to this stranger who had intruded into her life. She hugged her notebook to her chest and tried to avoid eye contact with people she passed.
Archer's reassuring hand lightly gripped her right elbow as he led her across the compound.
"There are two guards posted outside the door." He said. "If you start feeling threatened..."
Eve cut him off. "Sam, the man just survived an atomic blast. Do you really think two guards are going to stop him if he decides to get frisky?"
Archer chuckled nervously. "No, I suppose not, but they'll be there anyway."
As they approached the blockhouse, the two guards came to attention. The area in front of the small block building was lit by a single outdoor lamp at the top of a thirty foot wooden pole.
"Do you want me to go in with you?" Archer asked.
"No, I better go in alone. Trust me, Sam, I'll be okay." Eve took a deep breath and let it out shakily.
"Let's see your game face." Archer replied.
Eve remembered his lesson from the academy about "The Game Face". It was a psychiatrist's duty to her patient to be analytical and emotionless. To be an observer, and not a participant in their problems. No matter what they felt for a patient, it couldn't show on their face. It made her smile. Archer hugged her shoulder with one arm.
"Go get him, tiger." He said as he reached for the door knob. Eve walked into the room.


The room was small, perhaps eight by twelve feet, with no windows, a concrete floor, cinder block walls, and a single rectangular table and two chairs. In the chair on the left sat a bald man with his head bowed, dressed in a khaki green jumpsuit. The light hanging from the center of the ceiling left his face mostly in shadow. He finally looked up at her after the door clicked shut.
His hairless face was handsome, in a rugged sort of way. His steel grey eyes were fierce, but pained, as if he knew what it was like to be the hunter and the hunted. His long straight nose gave him a hawk-like appearance, and his thin tight lips reflected a determined resolve. This man was here in this room, not because he had been captured, but because he wanted to be here. When their eyes made contact, his expression softened and a smile touched the corners of his mouth. In that second, he went from being a cunning predator to a distinguished gentleman. All the fear and apprehension Eve had felt before entering the room melted away, and she was left with a calm feeling of security.
As he stood up and gestured to the other chair, Eve gasped. At his full height, he stood well over six feet tall, dwarfing her by at least a foot. His broad shoulders and barrel chest made him look massive in the ill-fitted jumpsuit. His large hands could easily crush her skull like a melon.
"Please, have a seat, Dr. Salanger." He said. His voice, strong and resonant, while at the same time, gentle and kind, seemed to echo around the room.
"How do you know my name, Mr. Cain?" Eve asked as she approached the chair and sat down. The man waited until she was seated and then sat down himself before answering.
"I saw you give a speech five years ago in Chicago." He replied simply.
"That's it?" She asked.
He nodded.
"How did you know I was even here? This project's personnel records are top secret."
"I asked a friend of mine to make sure you were assigned to the medical staff." Cain replied with a smile.
"I see, and how was this friend of yours able to pull that off?"
"You'd have to ask Leslie." Cain replied.
"Who's Leslie? An old girlfriend? Your sister?"
"General Leslie Groves. Director of the Manhattan Project."
Eve looked up from her notebook and stared at the man across the table from her. She wrote something down in her notebook. Cain leaned in closer to see what it was. Eve glanced at him and moved her hand to cover the page.
"Why were you trying to kill yourself, Mr. Cain?" Eve asked, leaning back in the chair and tilting the notebook towards her for privacy.
"Cain." He said.
"Excuse me?" Eve replied.
"No mister. Just Cain."
"So Cain is your first name then?"
"No." Cain replied, resting his right fore arm on the table.
"Why did you try to kill yourself, Cain?" Eve repeated.
"That's the thing that struck me about you in Chicago, Doctor, you cut right to the meat of the matter." Cain's grin widened.
Eve was getting frustrated. She felt as if he was toying with her like a cat playing with a water bug. She took a deep breath and let it out.
Sensing her frustration Cain relented. "I would think that was obvious. I want to die."
"There are easier ways." Eve said as she wrote in her notebook.
"None that I've tried."
Eve looked up from her writing to see if he was playing with her again. The serious expression on his face told her he wasn't.
"Are you telling me you can not die, Cain?"
Cain ran his finger down the edge of the table with his eyes lowered. When he looked up at her, Eve could almost feel the seriousness radiating from his eyes. The look was enough to answer the question.
"How is that possible? Everyone dies." Eve said gently.
"If that were true, doctor, I would not be sitting here."
Eve wrote something in her notebook, and rubbed her eyes.
"Why can't you die, Cain?" She asked.
Cain considered the question for several seconds, as he continued to stroke the edge of the table.
"Do you attend church, doctor?" He finally asked.
"Not since high school. What difference does that make?" Eve replied.
"Read the Bible often?" He added.
"Occasionally, but I don't see the relevance..."
"Genesis, chapter four, verse sixteen," Cain began, "so the Lord said unto him, "Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold." And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him could slay him."
Cain stared at Eve Salanger, she held his gaze briefly, then lowered her eyes to her notebook and wrote some more. "Cain, I don't think you comprehend the seriousness of the situation you are in. This is no time for jokes, or games."
"You don't believe me." Cain said.
"Believe what? You're the Cain from the Bible? That God himself cursed you so that you can never die? I believe that you believe it to be true."
"But you don't believe me." Cain added.
Eve slumped back in her chair and sighed. She rubbed her eyes with her fingers, and started writing in her notebook. "Whether I believe you or not isn't important." She said.
"It is to me."
Eve looked up from her writing. She studied Cain's face. She had met numerous paranoid delusional patients since she became a psychiatrist. All of them believing one thing or another. Some talked to God or thought they were God, others were convinced they were Satan. Some saw giant talking rabbits, while still others believed they were Santa Claus. They all had a certain look in their eyes that marked them as what they were, mentally disturbed individuals who had lost the capacity for rational thought. Cain's eyes didn't have that look. They were clear and steady.
"Dear God," Eve whispered. "You're not joking."
Cain shook his head.
"But, but, how is this possible?"
Cain smiled. "Haven't you heard? Through God all things are possible."
Eve stood up from her chair and started pacing the length of the small room. She rubbed her hands over her face as she paced, then covered her mouth staring at the floor. She glanced at Cain then paced some more. Finally she sat back down. She put her elbows on the table and rested her head against her folded hands.
"Why me?" She asked.
"Why me what?" Cain asked
"Why did you ask for me?" Eve looked up into his eyes and waited for the answer.
"It's silly." He said, sounding embarrassed.
"I want to know. I think I have the right to know."
Cain lowered his eyes, and looked at the table. With his index finger he picked at a chip in the surface. "When I saw you in Chicago, it wasn't because I was interested in psychiatry. I was walking past the lecture hall at the university and saw your name on the sign out front." Cain paused and scratched the back of his smooth bald head. "I've always had a weakness for women named Eve."
"That's the reason?" Eve asked.
Cain shook his head. "No, that's the reason I went in to listen to your lecture. I went in, and when I saw you standing on the stage, I couldn't take my eyes off you. I stood in the back and watched you for two hours."
"What are you saying, that you fell in love with me?"
Cain looked up from the table and looked her in the eyes. "No, no, I mean yes, in a way. You reminded me of someone I haven't seen in a very long time. Someone I love very deeply."
"And who is that?" Eve asked.
"My mother." Cain stated. His eyes lowered back to watching his hand.
Eve's jaw dropped. She covered her mouth with her hand. Unable to help herself she started giggling.
"I told you it was silly." Cain smiled.
"I look like your mother?" Eve asked.
"Yes."
"The mother of all mankind?"
"Yes. Well, not all mankind."
Eve's eyebrows knitted in confusion. "What do you mean? The Bible says..."
"The Bible," Cain began, "isn't entirely accurate. You have to understand that the stories from that time were not written down until much later. Before that they were pasted down from generation to generation verbally. They changed, evolved as it were, as they were told."
"So Eve wasn't the first woman? Wasn't taken from Adam's rib like they told us in Sunday school?"
"I couldn't say about that. She may have been, my parent's didn't talk about that much while I was with them. What I can say is that there were other people on the Earth by the time I left who were not related to us."
Eve couldn't believe what she was hearing. More what is more important she couldn't believe she believed what she was hearing. Her parents were devoutly religious, and had instilled in her strong Christian beliefs at an early age. During her college years she had turned away from her upbringing, and embraced science as her religion. She still believed in God, or a Supreme Being as she sometimes called him, but the dogmas of orthodox religion no longer stirred her soul.
"I'm hungry." Cain stated, "are you? I know you must be tired."
"I don't know which I'm more of, hungry or tired." Eve replied, rubbing her tired eyes with her thumb and index finger. "Would you like something to eat? I can have something brought in."
"Would it be possible to get out of this room and eat? I could also use a bathroom visit."
Eve smiled as she stood and started walking toward the door. "I'll see what I can do."