Heaven's Lies Read online

  “They are the gods of our city, Inanna and Enki,” he said by way of explanation. “They are the protectors of Uruk. Gilgamesh is a direct descendant of Enki. I have not dared to ask because of your memory loss but, do you remember the name of your city or village? Maybe the name of your gods? That could be useful to find your family, Helel.”

  Family. I wanted to tell him at that moment that my family was the one who had done that to me, that if I was at his home with a broken body it was thanks to my family. That it was my family who had tried to kill me. But I couldn’t.

  “No, I'm sorry Armesh, I do not remember anything that could be useful,” I answered, still looking at the image on the stone.

  “Well, it’ll be back, surely you'll end up remembering,” Armesh said, recovering his jovial tone. “It's time to eat.”

  A couple of servants entered the room with earthen trays full of food. There was no meat but there was a lot of everything else. Distinct types of fish, boiled and roasted vegetables, a kind of pasta that Armesh told me was made of lentils and spices, wine and, finally, grapes and figs. We sat on the floor next to the table, on mats and Armesh told me to start eating. To my surprise the women did not join us for the food. I did not dare to ask because I knew that among the humans some groups marked importantly the difference between men and women and, until I did not know if that was the case in Uruk, I thought that a respectful silence was the best option. The smell of food aroused my hunger, another new sensation that was quickly replaced by the satisfaction of having satiated it and, at least for a few moments, I did not think about my past or my future, although, unfortunately, that feeling was not destined to last.

  After lunch, Armesh took me to the roof of the house to show me his properties. The image that was shown before me was completely unexpected. The walls of the city were very close and seemed to threaten us with their height. The house of Armesh was located outside the walls, or I should say that it had been left outside since the construction of the wall. From up there I could clearly see the composition of the complex. Five buildings, all of them one floor except where we were. The buildings were joined in the central courtyard where I had spent the morning with Armesh and created a large structure much larger than the houses that could be seen in the distance and which had no more than three blocks. At the main entrance of the house I could see a large garden with fruit and palm trees that isolated the house from the edge of the property. All the properties were arranged on the sides of a large access road that led to one of the entrances to the city. I was greatly surprised by the arrangement of the houses, there was nothing chaotic or casual there, everything had a beautiful order.

  Armesh explained that the avenue that led to the city was much busier in the morning when farmers and fishermen nearby approached with their merchandise for Uruk’s market. Due to the presence of the Innana temple, Uruk had become a place of pilgrimage for the surrounding villages and that had made commerce flourish, making the city market the best place to go if you were interested in buying or selling anything. At that time, only a few merchants with their camels or mules left the city back to their homes. The sun was beginning to set, and the temperature began to fall. From that roof I could feel the desert wind rising in the twilight, shaking my hair and forcing me to close my eyes. Suddenly I began to feel the need to spread my wings and take flight, to rise above the city and its walls to see it in all its extension. I wanted to enjoy again the freedom that my father had given me, the power, the ability to do and undo my whim, the right to rise above all mortal, to be able to shout to the world that I was Helel, the beloved. But the reality was that I was no longer the same, that my wings did not exist in that prison of flesh and blood. A sudden pressure in my chest hit me like a club and my eyes began to fill with tears. Armesh realised immediately and approached me to hug me as you would with a child.

  “My young friend, do not hold them back, let your tears flow, it's absolutely normal,” he said. “No doubt the view of the city has awakened some memory of a similar city you met in your past, perhaps your own, and the memory has been accompanied by deep grief. But that's good,” he continued. “It means that somewhere in your mind your memories are still alive and, if they're alive, we can recover them.”

  The tenderness with which that man treated me without knowing anything about me, the kindness with which he had opened his house to a stranger and the pain of knowing that I was corresponding to his help with lies definitively broke my barriers and there, in his arms, the angel I once was cried like a child.

  That night my brain did not want to sleep. Suriath’s concoctions, which were supposed to calm me down and make me sleep, did not help. It took me a while to sort out my thoughts, so I could analyse the situation I was in, convinced that if I could understand what was happening to me, I could figure out how to reverse it. Something was clear, my body was human. My angelic nature had disappeared, it had been replaced by a completely human body with its limitations and weaknesses. Or maybe not. My hands travelled my naked body. My muscles, my skin, everything seemed humanly normal. My fingers reached the scars of my torso and continued to my legs. Even in the remote probability of having survived a fall like the one I had suffered no human body would have been able to heal those wounds in years, much less in just a few days. That idea ignited a small flame of hope in me. Maybe my angelic part had not totally disappeared, maybe it was just hiding inside me waiting for me to find it again. Yes, it was true that I could not leave that body, that I was limited to it, that my thought was no longer connected with that of my brothers, that I had lost my wings and that I felt a void inside me that I had never felt before; but, although I did not know how to explain what had happened, even though I did not know how to fix it right now, that little hope of returning to my father's arms, of returning to who I was, was enough for me at that moment.

  Armesh had offered me a home and, although abusing his good nature did not make me feel comfortable, I would have to keep pretending not to remember anything to extend my stay in his house as much as possible. I needed time. Time to understand why everything was happening to me, time to discover who was behind my fall, time to recover everything my father gave me and time to make the guilty pay for my suffering. That idea made the little flame inside me turn into a blazing fire and the fire made me remember who I was. I was the light bearer, my father's favourite, I was Helel. And embracing that thought I could finally sleep.

  Brother

  The noises of the house woke me up when the sun was already high. The many hours of sleep had been another novelty for me that I had never needed to sleep, but it seemed that my new body appreciated the rest and I felt renewed. I got up and found that someone had left clean clothes at the foot of my bed. When I put them on I noticed that they smelled of some kind of flower that I could not identify, a smell that contributed to make me feel well and encouraged. And from what I could see, I was not the only one.

  The house was a real fuss. I left the room and little Sadith passed like a bolt of lightning around me screaming loudly.

  “I'm going to Akkad, I'm going to Akkad, to the temple!” her screams echoed throughout the house as she ran from one person to another telling the same story to everyone she encountered on her way. The servants could not help laughing when they saw the joy overflowing from that small earthquake. Even I could not help her infecting joy and a spontaneous smile filled my face. It was wonderful to feel that way. For a second nothing was important, my concerns of the previous night, to know how I had arrived at my current situation, to know how to be me again. Nothing was more important than sharing the joy that the little girl was giving away around the house.

  Suriath appeared behind her, trying to calm her, absolutely in vain.

  “What happens?” I asked trying to find out more about the reason for her joy.

  “My husband has agreed to send Sadith to Akkad with my brothers. There she will study in Ishtar's temple as I did, and if she proves her talent, she can be
come one of the priestesses of the goddess. It is one of the most prestigious positions in Akkad and only some of the girls who begin their studies in the temple are chosen to take care of the goddess.”

  The way that woman talked about her daughter's future made me understand that for her it was especially important. She seemed to guess my thoughts.

  “I had the luck to study in the temple and be chosen to be part of the priestesses, but finally my father arranged my marriage with Armesh. The goddess had another path prepared for me. It is an enormous honour that the temple has considered our daughter and offered her the possibility of studying there.”

  Her reaction did not surprise me. I had seen men give names and forms of all kinds to my father and everything he represented and had seen how intense that devotion could be. It is part of your nature to transform what you are not able to comprehend in its entirety into something close and accessible, something you can understand. The gods and goddesses that men worshiped all over the world were no more than your limited understanding of what my father was and meant but, at the same time, they were your way of communicating with him, of bringing you closer to his presence, of bringing him into your lives and into your homes and there was nothing wrong with that. I knew that even some of my brothers had been confused with gods and worshiped as such and my father had always been tolerant of it, the important thing was the message, not the messenger. Unfortunately —how could it be otherwise—, in your eagerness to understand what surrounds you, you simplified everything you saw by putting it all in the same bag. Humans decided to include in their collection of beings worthy of adoration all supernatural creatures, including the creatures of the underworld, demons whose only interest was the destruction and corruption of the human being for the mere pleasure of destroying. Once again, my father had been tolerant, this time in a way that escaped my understanding. So many times, I had wondered why my father did not do anything about it, why he did not manifest himself as the only form of truth and eliminated all those other forms of false worship! Unfortunately, my father made me the way I am and keeping my opinions is not part of my nature, so I had not been able to stop expressing my doubts repeatedly, and yet I always got the same answer. “Let them grow.”

  I let Sadith continue to spread her joy to everyone and I went out into the back garden thinking that I could find Armesh there, but the servants told me that he had had to go to the city. After hearing about my existence, the council had asked him to go to Innana's temple that morning. It was not unexpected, the previous night Armesh had explained to me that as my host, sooner or later he should explain to the council who I was and what was the nature of my stay in his home, and should take responsibility for me and ensure that it did not constitute a risk to the city or its inhabitants. Everything routine according to Armesh. Despite everything, the situation made me feel slightly nervous, for years I had seen how humans could feel threatened by anything outside their immediate world and how that feeling of threat could bring unexpected and uncontrollable consequences. But there was nothing I could do except wait for Armesh to come back and explain how everything had gone.

  The morning was wonderful, the temperature was very pleasant and the odours that came from the plants that Suriath cultivated with care in that area of the garden filled the air with a fresh and sweet atmosphere. During the first moments of my new existence my body had given me only pain, but suddenly that day it offered me something different. The heat of the sun on my skin, the smells of the garden, even the light that flooded everything made me feel full of energy and eager to laugh. I took my feet off the sandals and put them naked on the floor. The earth was still cool despite the sun and I could feel its roughness and firmness on the soles of my feet. Somehow, I felt connected to everything that surrounded me, one more element of the whole nature that stretched around me, and I could not help but wonder if humans always felt that way, wonderfully fulfilled.

  The servants withdrew slowly from the garden upon seeing me, undoubtedly instructed by Suriath, and the silence, broken only by the birds that sang in the trees, became the perfect complement to the symphony of aromas. Almost unconsciously I closed my eyes a second and then I could hear it. It was a kind of lament, a barely audible moan that came from one of the most distant parts of the garden. I started searching for the source of the sound and found a small seat built into one of the garden walls, a kind of cubicle where the person sitting was almost completely hidden from view. The laments came from Liliath who was hiding in the seat hollow crying inconsolably. When she saw me, she got scared. No doubt she hoped to hide her tears from the world and tried to wipe her face quickly and look away as if nothing was happening.

  “You have nothing to fear,” I said.

  She did not answer me, reluctant even to look at me.

  “I will not bother you anymore. I will not tell anyone where you are, do not worry.”

  I turned to leave her again in her solitude and when I was on my way she spoke to me.

  “They do not understand, you know?”

  I turned slowly and approached her.

  “What is it that they do not understand?” I asked as I sat beside her slowly.

  “Sadith,” she said as if it were obvious. “They send Sadith to study at the temple instead of me because they think she's better, but she is not.”

  Her face showed an indescribable rage and impotence, her eyes were red like ripe pomegranates, it was clear that she had been crying for a long time. Her hair, red as fire, was stuck to her face by the effect of tears.

  “I'm sure that's not the reason, probably you will also go to study in the temple in a short time,” I said trying to reassure her without success.

  “Let me explain how things work here,” she said, surprising me with her mature way of speaking. “I am the oldest, I am already twelve years old, in another three years my father will have chosen a husband for me, probably someone from the council, who can continue the family line. My father does not have sons, therefore that marriage is essential for his house.”

  She stopped for a second to recover the air she had lost by saying all that in one go. Her head was looking at the ground when she continued.

  “They are wrong, they choose Sadith to go to the temple because my mother says she has the vision, but she is not the only one, I also have it, I saw you fall.”

  I do not know if it was the phrase or her blue eyes staring at me as if they could see beyond me, but my skin bristled.

  “One moment, go a little slower. What is that vision?” I asked, afraid of knowing the answer.

  “My mother was chosen to study in the temple of Ishtar because she has the gift of vision, when she looks in the water she can see things that are yet to happen, the goddess granted her that gift,” she explained patiently. “My sister has inherited that gift, so my father wrote to the temple asking for her to be accepted as a student and future priestess. A messenger arrived this morning with the response from the temple and my father communicated it to both.”

  The pieces were beginning to fit together, Suriath's pride for the daughter who followed her steps had more to do with her gift than with the joy of having a priestess daughter. These types of gifts in humans could be a blessing or quite the opposite depending on the environment in which they were received. Girls as small as Sadith could be considered possessed or witches in very small populations or be completely out of the market of convenient marriages due to its peculiarity. By entering the temple, Armesh and Suriath had ensured that their daughter was protected for the rest of her life.

  “Liliath, if that's the case, we should be happy for Sadith, it's a wonderful opportunity for her. But why do you say you saw me fall?”

  “I do not have the same gift as my mother, I cannot see what's going to happen in the water, but I can see it in my dreams and I can see farther than the two of them,” she said, raising her head proudly. “Both saw you arrive at our house, they knew that you would live here, among our family, but they
did not see you fall, I did, I saw how you fell in my dream. And I saw the others.”

  Her explanation generated more anxiety in me with each word.

  “I saw the others,” she repeated, “the swords, I saw them fall behind you, they tried to reach you, but they could not, the light came before,” she said visibly excited to be able to share her secret with someone.

  My body tensed like a bowstring and I felt the anguish taking over me and it was like a rope around my neck that made it difficult for me to breathe.

  “What light, Liliath? Go on, I beg you.” I said to the girl.

  “I saw a light that came to you before them and then you fell faster, and they could not reach you. And then you hit the ground.”

  Her description of my fall had an immediate effect. As I listened to her, my own memories woke up and I knew that everything she was telling me was true. I could remember my brothers trying to reach me in my fall, I could see their faces, I could feel again the lacerations that their angelic swords inflicted on me, and now, thanks to her words, I remembered the light that hit me as out of nowhere just before I hit the ground.”

  “Is there anything else you can remember, little one? I said while my hands trembled. Anything.”

  “No, and I'm not small, I'm almost a woman, Helel!” she protested, calling me for the first time by my name.

  That reprimand was like a slap that brought me back to reality. That girl had a huge secret, like me. And life had just joined us with some common purpose. At that moment, without either of us knowing, a bond had been created, a connection that nothing could break.

  “Liliath,” I said taking her hands “It is important that you do not tell this to anyone else. I will keep the secret of your vision if you keep the secret of what you saw, okay?”

  “But I do not want it to be a secret, I want my parents to know, so they can send me to the temple like Sadith” she protested, letting go off my hands.