Chapter 12

"And She Knew Him..."

To really know a man you have to be around him a lot. In this respect plural marriage presented me with two handicaps -

Firstly, I was Stan's junior by over 20 years and that meant there was a lot of catching up to do in terms of experience, wisdom, and life in general, a not as impossible task as I at first had thought because to be in some else's aura or spirit is to very much walk with them in their thoughts and feelings too.

Secondly, time was my enemy for I had to share this lovely man with six other equally deserving wives, and there is no doubt that those of us who were more outwardly going stood at an advantage, being less reserved in approaching him. But as I have already mentioned, this Stan resolved by encouraging the stronger to, of their own initiative, give way (he would never push us away) to the more introvert, and encouraged the weaker to be a little more courageous. Most of the problem lay in the sharing of intimacy, and in a variety of ways.

Stan stood somewhere mid-way between us seven when it came to these things. Occasionally he would like to be alone but for the most part he was always glad to have our company, no matter when. Visiting rights extended in two directions - either he would visit us in our apartments or we would visit him in his room. The fixed times routine had been abandoned completely by the time I arrived though he went out of his way to make an exception for a new wife while she settled in, which meant that it was largely up to us to make the initiative in visiting him at nights. To make this and other needs more practical, Stan had wired a complex intercom system around the house with four master controls in the kitchen, living room, nursery and his room. This could be set either as on ordinary communication system or as a baby alarm. Thus a wife could leave small sleeping children in her apartment with the baby alarm system on and be free to be in one of the four aforementioned rooms without having to worry about them.

Five of us liked to shower with Stan and he in his turn enjoyed our company. On not a few occasions more than one of us would turn up. I remember coming into his shower (we didn't have to knock) to find Sarah-Jane with him. My instinct was to turn on my heels in accute embarrassment but Stan called me back.

"Didn't you ever shower with your class mates at school?" as I pretended not to still be embarassed. "Don't worry, there's no sin in being innocent and natural."

Sarah-Jane smiled and reassured me that I was not intruding and so it was that all three of us showered together. Such encounters frequently occurred though on a couple of occasions it got impractical when three of us turned up and he had to turn some of us away. In actual fact these showering incidents had the desirable effect of not only lowering inhibitions and so helping some of us to overcome shyness but demystified that Edenic state and made us feel more at ease. After a few visits we thought nothing of it and we might just as well have been in the kitchen cooking food together or doing anything else.

But Suszana and Anna would have nothing to do with the "showering thing" as they called it which the rest of us felt was their loss in so many ways because it was usually in the showers that Stan would share some of his experiences of the night with the Lord. Kasia was the chattiest in this respect and whenever she and Stan were together there was always a long discussion in progress!

The only thing I didn't like about showering with Stan was when he rinsed shampoo out of his hair because he, being much taller, would rinse it out straight onto me! And another disadvantage to us shorties was the way we would get splashed in the face all the time by water bouncing off his body! Sarah-Jane, being almost Stan's height, seemed to be the only one immune to all these practical irritations and often teased us, pretending not to see us come in the shower and saying: "Oh, sorry, honey I didn't see you down there!" We were not amused.

As with all novelties, at first everybody wanted to come so as not to be left out, which Stan did not enjoy. We tried to sort that one out by agreeing privately amongst ourselves who should go on what day but that was impractical as those with children never knew when they might be free. Stan was always up at 6.30 a.m. so usually the small ones were still asleep - the ones who lost out were usually those who didn't like to get up early, namely, Kryztina and Kasia.

Unless very ill or back late from a trip the night before, everyone was expected to be up by 7.30 a.m. Breakfast was not at first at a fixed time with everyone free to take that when they wanted to, but as the family grew Stan wanted everyone together. So breakfast was at at 8 a.m. and the day's activities started at a comfortable 9 a.m. With no commuting to do, since we all worked at home, this made our daily program very comfortable and stree-free.

Shopping in Lublin was by rotation twice a week, sister-wives going out in pairs leaving all but their tinest children in the nursery with other supervising sister-wives. This freedom to put children into others care was one of the blessings of polgygamy that was appreciated most of all, for it meant that the mothers could not only get regular breaks but also be free to pursue a career without having to leave the upbringing of their children to strangers with values distinctly different from our own, which was the fate of children left to the state nursery system. It also meant that for the older children they were exposed to child care - boys and girls alike - developing not only a sense of parental responsibility but training them for marriage and parenthood in a way that children in the state system could never enjoy.

Kryztina and Kasia had pioneered a system of child care in the early days, inspired by partly by a Swedish mother of nine (a non-Christian, as it turns out) and by Stan's own philosophy mingled with their own ideas. As a result of this, children were encouraged to be involved in adult activities from an early age such as cleaning, cooking, gardening and a variety of other activities. The result was much to everyone's liking, not because of the shared work load, but because it developped within them a keen sense of responsibility and community awareness. The communists would have envied us had they survived!

Lunch was usually at 12.15 p.m. followed by a 15 minutes of Bible study adapted to the small children's level, and then a mandatory period of half and hou'rs rest on our beds from 1 p.m. to 1.30 p.m. during which there was to be absolute silence in the house. Stan called it our "Golden Half-Hour". Everyone either read books, meditated, or slept. The telephones were taken off the hooks and nothing was allowed to disturb it. During this time Stan would either retire to his room or rotate visits with his wives, lying with them. He usually slept.

Supper was at 6 p.m. At 7 p.m. the whole family would gather in the living room for a short Bible reading and evening prayers for the children followed by games and other family activities until 8 p.m. After this the smallest children would go to bed and Stan would either go off to work or spend time with the teenagers, perhaps watching part of a film with them, playing snooker, or some other game. At 9 p.m. we gathered for an hour's intense Bible study and prayer and at 10 to 10.30 p.m. we usually went to bed.

Getting to know Stan as a person was, of course, one of my principal objectives. As a wife deeply in love, I wished for nothing but complete union with him in everything, as did the others. It proved not to be as easy to do as I had at first thought, not because he was closed, but because he was both a deep and a complex human being.

He was not, as I have said, an "ordinary" Pole, or even a "Pole", for that matter, given his mixed blood and his unique way of being. He could be both intense to a point that one felt overwhelmed by the shere power of his psyche, as well as relaxed by the ease at which he approached people and made them feel his equal. There was no air of superiority about him in the least and he was as friendly with a stranger as he was with one of his teenage sons or one of his wives.

But this did not mean he was an open book. His communion with God was perhaps the most mystifying of all because it was uniquely personal, and whilst it was always his desire that we should all share in that, we knew that unless we did out part as disciples this could never just be a matter of desire or will.

Stan would often be far away in his communion with the Lord, relating to Him in a way that was for me, at least, sometimes frightening because they both then seemed so far away.

It's a bit like swimming in the sea. Personally, I always like to be able to feel the sand beneath my feet so when, as a youth, my swimming companions would head out for deep water, I would be afraid and remained where I was. There was, as it were, a spiritual pool of water that Stan loved to bathe in, which had no bottom at all because it was a part of the infinite. There one was at the same time both completely vunerable as well as completely safe. To get there meant letting go of every fear and carnal crutch, a place he called the Shekinah, or the manifest presence of Yahweh.

He did not like casual prayer and preferred silent meditation to superfluous wordy exercises. To pray, for him, was to be able to communicate with your whole soul, mind, heart, and body. To this end he had been inspired to create some spiritual dances, which we all joined in at special times, in the room on the top floor above the apartments which was called simply "the temple". It occupied the entire upper floor and was practically bare except for a beautiful carpet and some paintings of beautiful scenes on the white walls. It was in this room that we not only danced but met with other members of the Church to take marriage vows and enter into Priesthood covenants. For us, it was sacred, space, like the Temple of old, though more as an adjunct to the temple which in the New Coevant of Christ is our bodies. Many of us would come here to meditate and pray in the evening or very early in the morning.

When Stan did pray, it was intense, deep, and very personal, and one felt that someone else was in the room, an invisible guest with whom he would converse much as he conversed with us. Sometimes he would pause to listen and often he would hear the voice of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) speaking. He hated prayer for prayer's sake, or pretending to communicate with God when one was only talking to oneself. He could pray at the most unexpected times, whenever the Lord deeply moved him. Quite out of the blue he would be founded praising Him or just talking to Him such that at first I thought he was talking to one of us. This he did quite naturally when at home but was more circumspect in public - he would pray silently too.

At times he would arise from prayer as though on fire like Moses. Though his face didn't shine like the prophet's did, there was an undoubted Presence that was literally electric. Once during such an experience I reached out to touch his hand and got an electric shock. No kidding! And I was not the only one. There was a time, Isabel told me, that the presence of the Spirit in him was so strong that lightbulbs would start popping. That, I learned, was why we had no lightbulbs in the temple, only candles. One friend of his in the US was glad to be rid of him because of all the dud lightbulbs around his house! But this, mercifully, belonged the past. His superstitious friends had accused him of being demonised by occult powers and so he had approached the Lord to have this phenomenon put to rest. Still, I didn't like the electric shocks, though they were mercifully rare.

Stan explained to us that latent within man is great psychic power which has been sealed since the Fall. This power is what Satan and his demons lust after and try to release and feed on through occult exercises like yoga, perverse sex, or through more violent satanic rituals such as murder. He taught us that this power had been tapped by many in the charismatic movement, which they had mistaken for the the Holy Spirit, and deceived millions in the process:

"The Holy Spirit does not operate on this level, at least not yet. The gifts of God's Spirit are externally bequeathed - they come from heaven to us, and not from within. You may recall that the evangelist Timothy obtained his gift prophetically through the laying-on of hands - it was not something he "naturally" possessed. The presence of certain kinds of gift may, from time to time, release this psychic energy, but it is not the power of the Holy Spirit itself. All the supernatural displays you see amongst the gurus, witches, mediums, shamans, and the like, are all the result of releasing this energy by magic, which thing Yahweh has forbidden, because demons use it to delude their naïve followers into believing that they and their master Satan are the ones who are bequeathing this energy. The truth is, Satan has no "natural" energy of his own - it's all stolen. He's like the petrol thieves in Warsaw who go around siphoning gasolene out of people's cars and then sell it back to the gullible at cut-down prices. In the occult, Satan steals your psychic energy by encouraging you to channel, do yoga exercises, and the like. He gives you 1% back and with it some special experiences of well-being, harmony, maybe some healing, levitation, clairvoyance, or some other ability, and then guzzles the rest himself, and laughs all the way as he takes you more and more into spiritual bondage.

"As Christians, psychic power may occasionally be released through us viâ the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) when it is needed for healing, walking on water, etc., but usually these supernatural miracles are the result entirely of the Ruach. We are certainly not supposed to go seeking for this psychic energy. It will be used in a spectacular way later on during the Tribulation, perhaps, and certainly during the Millennium. But more of that another time..."

Stan could effortlessly discourse on so many different subjects which for us were new and exciting discoveries. He always had our wrapt attention when talking about such things. There were few non-Christians who dared to debate him, because he would wrap them up in their own illogical thinking and expose their deceptive techniques.

We, his wives, soon picked these things up too, which is probably why we had so few friends in the world. For the most part, people wanted to spin illusion, play games of deception, and create fantasy worlds to justify their own sinning, which we would have nothing to do with. Whenever we would meet someone who appeared charming and delightful, Kryztina would remind us of her favourite scripture when it came to finding those who would be true disciples of the Lord: "What you have heard from me through many witnesses, this commit to reliable men who will be able to teach others as well" (2 Tim.2:2).

Finding reliable people - that was the difficulty. We had all known those who had outwardly appeared to be wonderful Christians but who had deserted when the going got tough. We learned how to spot them by getting them to teach the truths we knew. If they couldn't communicate them, we knew they didn't understand them.

Notwithstanding the LaHayes' book which I had devoured, I could not have prepared for Stan when it came for our full-marriage. He had the great advantage, as I supposed, of being a mature lover with a lot of experience behind him whereas I had none. He was gentle, skilled, and wonderful.

The first night was uncomfortable, as he had forewarned me, but it was also in a way the most satisfying for once I had been penetrated I knew that I belonged to him forever, and he to me. He was gentle and patient with my clumsiness and I was content in the beginning simply to let him teach me. With the fire of passion awakened and fully expressed, I felt as though I had at last become a complete woman. And the more I was together with him, the more I wanted him.

For a week I was in utter and complete bliss, we retired early and I learned what it was to eat of one of Eden's most delicious trees. His eyes were always upon mine, gazing deep into my soul as we made love, his embrace tight and protecting. This calm and often reserved man became transformed in his nuptual garden as he revealed to me an ocean of deep, steady fire within himself. I began to know him as I had not known him before.

After the week's honeymoon was over and he was reunited with his other six wives I began to crave him. My passion ignited, I just wanted to be in his arms always, and in the most intimate possible way. The others were gracious to me, knowing what it was I was going through, so he saw me rather more often than the others for the first few weeks. I once came into his room whilst Kasia was with him and felt like an intruder..

"Don't go," pled Kasia, "come and be with us."

"Oh I couldn't, not really," I cried feeling even more foolish.

"Come any lie on my left side and let us talk about good things," suggested Stan.

I sheepishly climbed into bed with them, very embarrassed, ashamed that I had interrupetd their love-making, but neither seemed to mind. Their mastery of the flesh amazed me, how they could simply stop, and find time for someone lonely as I was then. We all three lay together, Stan in the middle, cuddling, whilst he shared some thoughts. I looked across at Kasia who smiled, and stroked my hair, to indicate that she loved me and was glad to have me there. As Stan talked, I began to relax, and forgot what it was I had come for. Stan and Kasia got into a spiritual discussion and I listened fascinated for they were always talking about the Lord. Always. I felt ashamed again that all I was thinking about were my passions. Stan looked at me and said:

"Hélène, my darling, our desire is to find the innocence of Eden once again, where harmony prevailed everywhere. The torch of passion has been lit in you and shown you its delights. But Eden is full of all kinds of trees with every sort of delightsome fruit to eat. Here we move from tree to tree with the ease of small children moving from one toy to another. Here one can partake of any tree and relax knowing that we do all in the purity of Christ."

I don't know how many hours we two laid next to him for we all eventually fell asleep until Kasia was awakened by the babyalarm and Alexei's voice and was gone, leaving Stan to myself. I slippled off my nightie and buried my head into his bosom, imagining that I was lying in a field of dew-covered grass early on a summer's morning. Stan breathed steadily, and half awake detected my presence, and wrapped his arm around me more tightly, and drifted off again. I lay snug and warm until I too was taken into sleep's deep mystery and was no longer there.

I awoke early, at 5.20 a.m, and took advantage of my sleeping husband to gaze all over him for an hour before he also awakened. I wanted to memorise every curve of his body with my eyes and hands. His little groans of pleasure made me feel special and though I should have let him sleep, I could not in the end stop from kissing him and waking him up completely.

"Hello, my summer butterfly," he said with a song in his voice, "you're looking radiant this morning!" I smiled that wide innocent smile of one hopelessly in love and stared helplessly at his face, lost in my own dreamy happiness. He drew me close and filled me with his fire.

I knew he usually got up at 6.30 a.m. but did not want him to go. His alarm went off, and my face told a story of disappointment and grief.

"How can I keep him a little longer?" I thought selfishly to myself, and then hit on the idea of starting a Kasia-type discussion which always got him going.

"Stan," I asked sheepishly but with an intent academic look on my face, "what was the tree that Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden? What kind of knowledge did it represent?"

Stan paused, wondering I suspect what I was up to, but fully believing that my question was sincere - and it was.

Stan gave a soft laugh. "Well now, my love, you do pick hard questions, don't you? I hope you're not going to be another Isabel?"

"What do you mean?" I panicked, wondering if he was on to my little plan.

"Isabel always comes with tricky questions, and in that respect she's my Queen of Shebah, tickling Solomon's philosophical mind."

I snuggled up to Stan again whilst looking him in the eyes, satisfied that I had already achieved my naughty aim.

He continued: "What do you think that tree is, Hélène?"

I was mildly annoyed. I hadn't wanted to work, just relax in his arms and drink more of him up. But now I'd have to turn off some physical senses and get the grey matter going.

"Uh, I don't know," I lied, "what do you think?"

Stan by now had sensed something was up. You could not easily fool him. His spirit was like an antenna or a satellite dish, picking up the slightest changes in mood. He could tell when something wasn't quite right. The muscles around his eyes tensed and I sensed he knew I was up to something.

"Come on, Hélène, what's going on," he said seriously, not willing to let me get away with it.

I felt stupid. I knew he would start probing me until he was satisfied that he knew what was going on, so I spared myself the interrogation.

"I just want to be longer with you, Stan, that's all."

He smiled and gave me a big wet kiss on the mouth. "Thanks for being honest, Hélène. Honesty means everything to me. Let's go and shower and I'll answer your question...that is, if you're still interested."

I was. And now I was going to get a Kasia Institute lecture. Gee!

He turned the shower on, waited for it to warm up, and we hopped in. "If you want me to talk, my love, you're going to have to soap me so I can concentrate", and gave me a big wink. I liked that idea very much. "But just be sure you concentrate, OK?"

"OK!" I gave a wicked smile and started soaping him as slowly as I possibly could.

"And don't forget the hot water tank isn't infinitely big and that there are dozens of other bodies that need washing down before breakfast!"

I grinned.

"I'm going to let you solve this one, Hélène. All the clues are in the Genesis. I hope you remember the story in detail so we don't have do go looking for a water-proof Bible mid-way."

"Come on, Stan, " I teased, "we'll run out of hot water if you don't get on!"

I squealed as he pinched me, and had to go searching for the soap which had slipped out of my hand onto the floor in the steam-filled room. He tickled me as I went down and I squealed again.

"What's going on in there?" came the half serious voice of Anna.

"Oh, nothing," laughted Stan, "I'm just trying to catch a mouse that got in here."

I giggled uncontrollably as the soap flew out of my hand again.

"It's no good," I said, "I just can't concentrate!"

"Forget the bar of soap, there's liquid soap on the wall," he said a little impatiently.

Stan didn't like to be kept waiting when he considered an important matter needed to be discussed. "Let's go back to Eden..."

"What now?" I asked, a giggly mood having taken me over completely. I got one of those girly fits and was hopeless.

"OK, just wash," said Stan, "and I'll tell you while I'm dressing."

I silently soaped him and then unexpectedly he did the same to me.

"I think you've missed out a bit," I said.

Stan laughed.

"In fact, I think you've forgotten nearly all of me."

You can't usually out-tease Stan as I soon discovered.

"Is that so?" he said. "That's intolerable" and began to soap me so fast that I went into another giggly fit, slipped on the floor, and just couldn't stop laughing.

"Hey you two," came the voice of Kasia from outside where Anna had been, "when am I going to get soaped?"

I creased up again.

"Breakfast in 20 minutes".

After the shower I collapsed on the bed, exhausted from all the laughing. Stan gazed at me while he got dressed and I loved every moment of it.

"You heard Kasia! Only 15 minutes now!"

"But you haven't told me about the tree," I protested.

"Not true. I've told you all about it."

"Huh?" I sat up, baffled. "When?"

"Think about it," he said and was off.

Hurriedly putting on my nightie and slip I went after him, catching him as he opened his door.

"I'll tell you after breakfast, OK? Now you go and get ready or I'll get into trouble."

I arrived at the breakfast table just in time for the bell and grace. Kasia, Anna, and Sarah-Jane all looked at me and giggled at one another.

"I hear you dropped the soap while climbing a tree this morning," teased Sarah-Jane.

"Oh no, you've got it completely wrong," said Anna as she put on a melodramatic pose. "Our Hélène has been out fishing but the fish got away."

They giggled again, and I blushed.

"Sorry," said Anna, "I didn't mean to embarass you. But you'll discover that we've all got a wicked sense of humour here!"

Isabel was not amused.

"Correction," interjected Sarah-Jane, "nearly all of us," put off by Isabel's harsh look.

"Alright, ladies," intervened Stan, "the mud-wrestling isn't until 2 o'clock this afternoon. Let's get serious and give thanks for this lovely day."

We settled down to breakfast and the day's activities started again. Stan resumed the conversation: "Suszana is going to Lublin to shop this morning, Hélène - would you like to swop with Anna and then I can talk to you because I've got some things to do in town too. Is that OK, Anna? You can take her spot on Thursday."

"That's fine," answered Anna. "But tell me all about it when you get back."

"Right, thank you. Here's your assignment, Hélène, to give a 10 minute talk in our Bible study this evening on the Tree of Knowledge. OK?"

I had to agree. "But only if I understand what you teach me," I quipped.

"Of course. When are we leaving. Suszana?"

"Half an hour," she replied, "if that suits you."

I sat next to Stan while we drove down to Lublin.

"You said that you had already told me about the Tree of Knowledge," I said, "but we never discussed it."

"True," replied Stan, "because we were enacting it."

I remembered Suszana in the back as she spoke: "Can you remember what Adam and Eve did after they ate the fruit, Hélène?" she asked.

"Sure, they hid themselves because they discovered that they were naked." I twigged.

"You mean," I gasped, "that they had sex???"

"Simple as that," Stan butted in. "But they had it before they were given permission to do so by Yahweh. They had sex before their time - out of season. They were betrothed but not fully married. Yahweh would have married them and blessed when the right time had come but instead they got the serpent to give his blessing instead. From that moment Satan obtained the legal right to be spiritually present anytime man engaged in illicit sex. That's why corrupting sex is high on Satan's agenda."

I was silent, astonished at the simplicity of it all. But then I wondered: "But if my memory serves me right, God blessed them right after the creation before they partook of the fruit."

Suszana had her Bible out. "You're thinking of Genesis 1:28 where it says: "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it". You're right in the sense that God blessed them to fulfil a divine imperative to reproduce, just as our children are. But they aren't married yet. This was a general benediction, not a marriage service, Hélène."

"OK, I'll buy that," I replied. "But doesn't God say somewhere that He has married them? What about the stuff about leaving home and being one flesh?"

"That," said Stan, " was a general blessing to mankind, since Adam and Eve had no father and mother to leave. There is no indication from the text that God ever married them berfore the Fall, only that He blessed them to be such at an unspecified time."

"But what has this got to do with wisdom?" I asked. "Eve was enticed by the fruit because it would make her wise, not because some desire for sex?"

"The act of marrital intercourse is always known in the Bible as 'knowledge'. The modern translations obscure this by saying, for example, that 'Adam lay with his wife, and she became pregnant'. But you were brought up on the King James Bible, weren't you? Can you remember how it translates the act of intercourse?"

I remembered: "Sure, Stan. I can even quote to you from memory: "And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain..." (Gen.4:1). I paused. "OK, I can buy that, but I also remember that Adam called Eve his 'wife' shortly after she'd been made from his side, and that was before the fall."

Suszana answered: "Yes, that's right, just as you were Stan's betrothed wife before you were married fully to him. The first reference is in Genesis 2:25, 'And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.' They were like our children who run around naked without the slightest concern. But they hadn't had sex. If they did, it's astonishing that Eve never got pregnant. She was certainly fertile. But Cain was the fruit of that illicit sex..."

"You mean, she got pregnant while in the Garden?"

"Yes," replied Stan. "That's why she gave birth to a killer. Genesis 4:1 is usually read to mean that Adam had sex with Eve after the fall, leading to Cain's conception."

"But why did she thank the Lord for the newly born child?" I couldn't make out what she was so pleased about if this was, in a way, a devilish conception.

"You have to remember that this was her first pregnancy, the first of the human race, in fact. Of course she would be excited and spontaneously grateful, for she also suffered the first labour pains. Her thankfulness could have been for many things that we aren't certain of, because her joy isn't explained. Some think she was grateful that the Lord kept His promise to her, and that he would grow to manhood. Others think she jumped to the unwarranted conclusion that Cain was the promised deliverer, the Messiah, who would reverse the effects of their terrible sin. But she was definitely wrong there. John tells us that Cain was the seed of the devil..."

"I've heard some say that Satan had sex with Eve," remarked Suszana, "and that was why he was so wicked, being Satan's literal seed."

"Yes, that's one theory," retorted Stan, "but it's false because it says quite clearly that Adam knew his wife, and she conceived, not Satan. The satanic seed was spiritual."

"Are you saying, then, then, that when men and women have unlawful sex, that Satan corrupts their offspring from the time of the womb?" I asked, half shocked.

"It pretty well looks that way, doesn't it?" said Stan soberly. "Unfortunatle the Bible says very little about him before he gets jealous of Abel and kills him. That's not to say that Cain didn't have a choice - we all have free agency, but that he was disadvantaged from birth."

These were indeed troubling thoughts. No wonder Stan was so very careful about sex and seemed to stand almost alone in condeming all sex outside marriage.

"Satan was swift into action," continued Stan. "He didn't wait around. What a bitter pill for Adam and Eve to swallow to watch their firstborn murder their second-born. Cain was a natural rebel. He knew which sacrifice was required but decided to do things his way and provoke the Lord. Abel, by contrast, was a true man of faith, and conceived during legal sex. He is the first listed amongst the heroes of faith (Heb.11). Yah'shua says he was righteous (Matt.23:35) and one of Yahweh's prophets (Mk.11:50-51)..."

"Maybe this is what angered Cain so much," suggested Suszana, "because he probably urged Cain to repent and believe Yahweh's Word - this only sent Cain into a blind rage."

"I agree," said Stan. "The Serpent was quickly striking at the Seed of Eve, corrupting her first son, and murdering her second one, so that the Messiah couldn't be born."

"Do you think that Abel was Yah'shua incarnated the first time round?" I asked.

Stan shook his head: "You are a deep thinker, but no, I don't think so. But I believe Satan thought he might be. Satan at least knew that he was in the line of the Messiah." He paused. "There's a funny twist to the Abel story which is very interesting. And that's Abel's name means "vapour" or "vanity"..."

"Are you sure, Stan?" asked Suszana.

"Yes. It means that which is transientory or temporary."

"So Adam and Eve knew all along, do you think?" I asked.

"That seems to be the case. But they had no idea of what was going to happen to Cain which means "acquisituon", a name spontaneously given by Eve in grattitude for the Lord keeping His promise. Maybe she wasn't supposed to know. Yet why tell her of Abel's fate? It is a mystery to be sure."

But Suszana understood as I was to learn later.

"OK, sweethearts, drop me off at Radzwiłł's Palace. I'll meet you back here at 12 o'clock. Will that do?"

"Fine," said Suszana, as Stan passed the moument and pulled the car up at Litewski Plaza. Suszana swopped seats and we were off to the main store.

"What do you think, Hélène?" Suszana asked me.

"I think I've got a lot to think about."