Quarantine

16

God had not provided a ready-dug cistern for his Galilean son to take his water from. There were no rock pans by the cave for the dew to gather. Or any salt shrubs within reach, so that Jesus could tear his nails off digging for their liquid roots. There were no barrel bushes with their wax skins, or tamarisks with hoHow, swampy trunks. Ifthere had been any spring plants, vain enough to defy the precipice’s nude and excavated rocks, then they had already flowered, seeded and retreated underground into their bulbs. Jesus searched inside his darkened cell but he could not find any sopbugs, their knapsacks full ofpap, which could provide some short-lived moisture for his tongue with their sweet explosions. There were no nesting birds, or bats, or even any ants to eat, so far as he could tell. There was no rain. He thanked the lord. He’d found a place opposed to sin and nourishment, and he could starve himselfofboth without distraction. God in his generosity had removed all earthly sustenance and cleaned the cave ofal temptations.Jesus only had to conquer his tormentors on the promontory — and time, of course.

A single silver bush was growing in a seam of marl above the cave, scarcely showing leaves. It spread its skeleton across a rock as if it meant to suck the quartz from it. It drank its colour from the stone. Jesus jumped to snatch the lowest leaf, an oddly adolescent act, but men are boys when they are bored. He was surprised and gladdened by the effort that his jumping took, how tired and jarred he felt. It meant he was already weakened by his fast and that much closer to god, therefore. He hardly touched the leaf, but it snapped its stem and fell into his hair as dryly and as heavily as furnace scale. He would not put it in his mouth. He would put nothing in his mouth for al the quarantine. He would not even break his fast at night, unless it was with help provided by his god, a meal placed at his head by angels while he slept (as god had provided a cake baked on hot stones and a pitcher of water for Elijah’s forty days of fasting). But even though he would not place the leaf on his tongue he was still curious to see what sustenance the precipice might give to him. The moist leaves of a pair bush, common in the scrubland by the tent, could be rubbed on to the lips or sucked for sweetness. A sprig of morning star, tucked between the teeth and lower lips, would taste of peaches for a day. But this was only canker thorn. He snapped the silver leaf It fell apart like ash. No sap.

By now he had no sap himself He’d urinated two or three times on that first evening when he’d climbed down the precipice and taken up his residence, and that was normal. He’d always had a nervous bladder, forever wanting to pass water in the middle of the night or as soon as the priest began his readings from the written laws and no one could leave the temple without offence. He’d learnt to put his discomfort to good use: his bladder was a messenger from god, a sign ofhis unrighteousness. It was said by some of the older family that possession by spirits or by unclean thoughts was marked by such an excess offluids. Sneezing, vomiting, a salivating mouth, diarrhoea, passing too much water — these were all signs that evil was in residence. It should be first resisted, then forced out. His bladder woke him in the night with a purpose, he told himself- it was an opportunity to say more private prayers, to practise tongues, to quietly endure the ache, the guilt, until dawn for fear of waking up his parents or setting off the hens if he went outside to urinate. Likewise, his bladder plagued him in the temple when he sat cross-legged before the speaking scroll so that he had the opportunity, not given to the other worshippers, to battle with his imperfect body for the glory of his god.

It was in part a pleasure, then, and in part a self-indulgence devoid ofany glory, to be able to empty his bladder as he pleased. Once he’d settled on the precipice, he could obey his impulses at once, and edge along the cliff-face as far as was safe, to pass his water where it would not contaminate his cave but without regard to parents, temples, hens. Such open privacy had not been possible in the Galilee.

Here was a manwho was in the mood to divine grand meanings in the simplest acts. There’d be no god without such men, prepared to make the little cause responsible for large effects, quick to find the lesson in the most everyday events. So it did not go unnoticed that his first day’s urine was produced by drink stolen from the merchant’s water-skin which he had lifted from the awning of the tent. It had only been a sip, the merest sip, andJesus had drunk nothing since. But ifthere had been any sin or lack ofcharity on his part, then it would show its stains. There would be murkiness. These early waters had been copious, though, and odourless, and clear, and free of guilt. But by the end of the second day offasting his urine was already dark brown, like pitch water. It sank into the ground too thickly and with cloudy bubbles. Even Jesus, whose sense of smell had not recovered from the journey, could recognize the eggy fragrance of sulphur. This was the devil’s urine and Jesus’s bladder had become a battle-ground. The patch of watered dust dried within a few moments. He scuffed it with his heels. He was contaminated by himself but he could not expect a ritual bath for weeks.

On the third day of his quarantine, he had to go along the cliff a dozen times. He stood and waited with his back turned to the sun to no avail, and then he tried again, facing outwards towards the sea, but he was completely drained already. He strained himself until it burned and stung. He pressed his bladder with his fingertips. The impulse to pass water did not go away, but he showed nothing for his efforts, except, again, the thinnest trace of sulphur in the air. He could not wet the soil. His body was an empty bag.

This was a lesson he would not forget: water is more valuable than gold. He hunted for the well-shaped proverb. That was the line that he could preach when he got back to the Galilee. He briefly saw himselfoutside the temple gates on market day, raised on a cart, with se^ons for the multitude. An empty purse is better than an empty pot, he’d say, and his neighbours in the audience would put their hands across their mouths and whisper, It’s Gaily, see. Listen to him now. We never knew him after all. But for the moment he was more concerned with his own empty pot. Perhaps he had been arrogant and profligate. He almost wished he’d saved the urine that he’d passed so easily on the first day. To break his thirst, ifhe grew desperate. Let god forbid that he was ever as desperate as that. He’d heard tales ofbadu who in a drought would drink their own waters and the acrid waters of their camels and think nothing of it, but badu lived close to the earth, like animals themselves. The water that they normaily drank from wells was bladdery, and shared with ail the desert creatures anyway. The badu had no god to satisfy, or rituals to obey. They did not have to wash their taints away.Jews, though, were a people governed by the laws brought down by Moses from the mountain, and cleanliness of body and of spirit were the paving stones to god. Those that forsook the laws, Isaiah said, would be consumed.

Jesus was determined that he would not be consumed so easily. He shook his head and stamped his feet and beat his shoulders with his fists until all thoughts of water went away. He would not let his hunger and his thirst lay traps for him. The spirit had to beat the flesh. I am not hungry, he told himself This is not thirst. The dryness and the stomach pains are false. I do not want to eat. It is the nourishment ofhome I miss, not bread and water. It is the nourishment of god I seek, not wine or meat.

That’s what he told himself, but in his heart and in the middle of the night he was less certain. He was plagued by thoughts of rolling back the days, back to the shepherd’s where he’d left his overcloak, back to his father’s carpentry, a chisel in his hand, back to the times when he was small and unremarkable and prayers had been more comforting than food or sleep. Here, in the scrub, his prayers were fickle; sometimes a single verse would strengthen him, but more and more he found no courage in his prayers. The cave had swallowed them. The precipice diminished them. The darkness muttered to itselfwithout pause but was not listening to him. At those times, he turned away from prayers and concentrated more on finding some reclusive strategy by which he could survive his quarantine.

First of all, he set himself what Achim the psalmist called ‘the Task ofNot’, the discipline ofwanting nothing from the world. Seek wakefulness instead of sleep, the psalmist said, and pain instead of comfort. If you are offered apricots or gals, then put your fingers in the bitter dish. And look only for the peace that’s found in wretchedness and not the peace that’s found in love. There were hermits even in the Galilee that lived to Achim’s recipe: they put ashes in their mouths; they would not let themselves sit down, even at night; they broke their finger-bones with rocks; they stripped themselves of clothes and walked about like animals. Jesus had seen such men himself. He’d watched them hardly flinch when they were stoned by villagers.

Jesus, then, would be an achimite. He had to look for peace in wretchedness. He took a youngman’s pleasure in the prospects of his suffering. There was no other choice but to embrace discomfort as a friend. The scrub had offered him few hospitalities, little sleep, no love, but it could readily provide all the suffering that he might seek along its paths, and show him torments in a thousand shapes. He could not bring himself to smash his hands, not yet. He would not break his fast, even with dust or ashes. But he could at least be naked like an animal. Angels go naked, he reminded himself He hardly wore any clothes, and only those for modesty, but he removed the few that he had — a tunic, and a cloth, the prescribed undergarment of the Jews — and took them to his rocky perch and set them free like doves, the poor man’s sacrifice, to wing their way down to the valley floor where Musa’s donkey lay without a shroud. The words of Achim cailed to him again: Come for me now, come for me in a thousand days, for I am naked, I am yours, and all I had is thrown to the wind.

Jesus — naked on the precipice, his garments irretrievable — felt both foolish and triumphant all at once, and even briefly aroused by his own nakedness. What would his parents say? What would his neighbours make of him? Look at their Gaily now. He had reduced himself to flesh, when he had expected and boasted that the fast would subjugate his flesh and cause his spirit to be clothed in gold. Butjesus really felt no shame. There were no witnesses. The air and sun were satisfying on his skin. He was a child again, and he had entered into Eden.

It was not long before his body grew too hot to stay for long in Eden, and the first of many headaches started. He withdrew into the cave where the borrowed light and temperatures were more forgiving, at least by day. He leaned against the inside wall, the perfect achimite, until his arm went numb, and then he squatted on his heels. Not sitting, quite. It was a compromise. He muttered resolutions to himself, rocking with each word, although his feet were cut and painful. He bore the cramp and deadness in his legs as if they were a blessing. But he gave up on Achim within a day, although — too late — his clothes were gone for good. The darkness undermined his appetite for wretchedness, and he had reached the point in his fast when he was vulnerable.

Now he made himself more comfortable, and did his best to drive al thoughts ofAchimfromhis mind, although the psalmist’s songs were thumpingly insistent. He devised a second strategy for himself, to deal with quarantine, to conquer thirst. It was more kindly and more homely than the Task ofNot. He would not embrace discomfort, after al. That was a vanity. Instead he’d be a resting camel, aimless and unthinking, and with no memory or hope to complicate his life. Every boy in the Galilee who’d ever run out of his yard at dusk to watch the caravans arrive knew that a camel could travel with its panniers full without water for ten or twelve days before its hump began to hang. A resting camel with no pack to carry could stay for twenty days at camp with nothing in its mouth but teeth and tongue and stil be fit enough to canter with the herd. A fatted camel, if it kept out of the sun and stayed down on its haunches, could survive a quarantine without water. It would, like Moses, have just enough strength to carry a stone tablet from the mountain-top to the water-hole, where it could be refreshed. Was not a man a finer and a stronger creature than a camel? Could a man not go as far and further without water and last the forty days, unthinkingly, like a beast? Jesus nodded to himself He’d be a resting camel, yes, and not go anywhere. He’d stay down on his haunches. He’d not expose himself to heat or sun. He’d not explore the precipice or even sit out on the rock to feast on Moab and the sea. He’d stay inside the shaded halo of the cave by day, seeking out the coolest air and asking nothing of the thriving sunlit, moonlit world beyond, except that it should rescue him from memory and hope.

That did not last. Jesus had another strategy. I’m like the canker thorn, he told himself at other times. I have no need of sap. I’ll spread my skeleton across the rock and root myselfinto

this marl. Sometimes he was a camel and a thorn at once.

Again, particularly at night when he was cold and desperate for voices, Jesus turned back to his prayers. Old friends. He’d force himself to be more disciplined with them. No matter that his friends were fickle. He was not fickle, nor was god. He prayed out loud without fear ofoffending any ofhis family with his fervour. If he could not excel at prayers, then no one could. But no one — not a priest, a saint, a prophet from the hills — could pass the countless moments of the day engaged by prayer alone. There always came a time when the repetitions made his chin drop on his chest, so that he woke with a falling shudder after just a moment’s sleep. At other times he simply could not concentrate. His worshipping became more conscientious than spontaneous. The prayers lost weight, like ashes in a fire, and floated off. Sometimes he stopped the verses halt\.vay through and caught himself paying more attention to the dirt beneath his nails or an old woodworking scar across his hand than to the holy words. Sometimes a prayer became a conversation that he halfrecalled. He calied on god to answer him, but all the voices that he heard were from the Galilee, a cousin’s voice, a neighbour talking harshly to his wife, a peddler caliing out his wares.

Most ofall Jesus was disrupted by the silence of the cave, the depth ofnight beyond the entry, the scrub’s indifference. Perhaps this silence was another test, he thought. Like hunger was a test. And boredom, too, and fear. Instead of prayers, he tried to concentrate on god in other ways, by listing all the prophets that he knew, the holy books, the laws. He repeated all the aliiterating finger songs he’d learnt when he was small, each joint an attribute of god, the wise, the merciful, the generous, the enemy of sin. . He took to marking patterns and holy signs on rocks and on the ground and touring them each day to run his fingers round their shapes, so that these dusty journeys ofthe fingertips became his wordless prayers. And that was comforting. He took it on himself to pass the time by marking rocks with all the words he knew.

He had taught himself at home to recognize a few words in written Greek script, more words than anyone else in his fa^mily. He could read and write his own name, and the name of god. He could roughly translate the inscription on the local temple stone which promised death to gentiles if they strayed into the inner court. He knew the meaning ofTI.CAES.DIVI, the truncated Latin on the tribute coins. It designated Tiberius to be an Emperor and God. A blasphemy, the priest had said. The priest had little sympathy for Rome, although when it came to coilecting tithes he much preferred their silver blasphemies to the copper ones.

Jesus also knew the scripts for a dozen or so words in Aramaic. He liked their timber squareness. They were shorter and less angled than the Greek or Latin; no vowels. The marks were simpler and more cheerful, doing all they could to bend in natural shapes. They’d been designed by holy carpenters, not masons. Their comers had a little curve to them, the work of planes.

After his boyhood years ofstudy at the temple school, steadying the scrolls and holding down the parchments beneath the pointing finger of the priest, Jesus had learnt to match some of these Aramaic shapes to sounds — the little candelabra of the letter sha, the lightning strike of enn, the falling plough sign of the kaoh. He liked the places on these parchments where scribes were changed. The one who’d stitched his way across the page with wary, threadlike marks passed on his verses to the playful and untidy one who let his muddy sparrows leave their tracks in undulating lines. Then came the scribe whose writing always toppled backwards, as if the meanings of the words were riding faster than the shapes which soon would fall on to their spines.

This was a happy ignorance for Jesus, only knowing a dozen words amongst so many thousands. He would not want to read as easily as scholars, he told himself, for that would only help to split the meaning from the sound, to divorce the music from the shape. If he could read like his priest could, by simply dragging his forefinger underneath the script and speaking every word he touched as if these were not verses but an endless rote of errands to be run, then the scriptures might become little more than strings of tiny tasks, a list. There’d be no mystery. But in his ignorance, he could both listen to the words of the reader and marvel, too, at the unspoken narrative of shapes, or concentrate not only on the script but also on the spaces in between. God was in the spaces, he was sure. God went to the very edges of the page.

Now, at the entrance of his cave with all the light of day removed, only the voice of the priest was missing. There was still a scroil for him to sit beneath. Jesus could look into the stars and see such spaces and such shapes as he had followed in the temple, spread out across the boundless parchment of the night in silver verses; again, the little candelabra, the lightning strike, the falling plough, the wary, undulating, toppling constellations which were the work ofjust one scribe. The sky was like the scriptures, written down in Aramaic too.

So Jesus took great care in marking down his list ofwords. It was a sacred act, and one which brought the vastness of the scriptures and the sky into his cave. He cut the three square Aramaic letters which signified the name of god in the soft clay wals and scratched them on the harder entrance stone. He made a temple ofhis cave. He consecrated all the surfaces. He marked his own name, too, but lower in the clay and smaller than the name of god. He’d not scratch in the truncated titles of the caesar

— T I.CAES. D IVI — but he attempted to reproduce the Greek warning to all gentiles that they risked their lives by corning too close. He wrote it where it would be seen if anyone came too close, in the weathered earth at the entrance to the cave. He hoped that anyone could read. He faltered after seven of the twenty words. The shapes were blurred. He used to know them al by rote, but now his memory was failing him, like his bladder. It was an empty bag. He finished off his warning to the gentiles with the Aramaic enn and sha and kaoh. A word that made no sense, but Jesus found the letters comforting. The lightning lit the candles, struck the plough.

When he had finished writing out the word for god, laying claim to every stone and any flat face of clay which had room enough for lettering, he chose something simpler to occupy his mind. He took up his pointed writing rock and scratched a basket of three circles in the sun-dried floor, just inside his cave, and cut the circles into quarters with a cross. It was a rough grid on which to play the mill-game. This was how bad boys avoided temple lessons, hiding in the medlar trees, and playing on the mill-board for prizes of dried grapes, with sacrilegious forfeits for the ones that lost: put grass snakes in the priest’s side room; steal walnuts from the temple tree; rap on his door and run. . And this was how old men killed time until the time killed them, sitting with their backs arched in the shade, above a mill-game board, waiting for their girls to serve a meal or for the moon to send them home. Jesus searched for tiny stones to act as counters

— six blackish-brown, six white or grey — and spent the day as best he could in opposition to himself, testing al the blocked and ambushed routes around the grid. He’d never been much good at the mill-game when he was young. He had not practised. He’d prayed instead. He could not see the point of games.

Now he had all the practice that he wanted. He could enjoy the dodging conflict ofthe little stones, the way they tussled for the cross-roads of the board, and did their best to flee the outer ring and hold the centre ground. There was another sermon there, he thought. Outside the temple gates on market day, raised on a cart. The mill-game as a symbol of the world, with god its inner circle and the stones as pilgrims hunting for the centre of the cross. It was a holy game.

He could, therefore, persuade himself not to mind the guilty times when he abandoned prayers, when he lost heart in the repetition of the scriptures. Instead, he contested with himself in the mill-game and played both parts, the winner and the loser. Indeed, it seemed the game itself was a sort of prayer, with just one supplicant and no one to respond except himself The mili-game worshipper, alone in quarantine, could not presume the company ofgod. Nor could the man at prayer. Both ofthem had to play both roles, and be in opposition to themselves and make al moves, and lose and win in equal part. God would not show himself He would not sit cross-legged on the far side ofthe board, replying to each move ofJesus’s with his own stratagems, drawing in his breath when he seemed bettered, crying out when he had Jesus trapped, dispensing charity and hope and forfeits when he had placed the final stone inside the cross. He would not simply run up like a dog whenever Jesus prayed.

It was no comfort, knowing that the winner was the loser too. Jesus could not sleep, even though he had relented in his disciplines and allowed himself to lie naked and depleted on the ground, out of the draught, his shoulder as a pillow. His skin became as cold as clay. Where were the camel and the thorn? He rolied into a ball, his knees pulled up towards his chin, his thin arms clasped around his shins, his backbone bumpy like a rabbit’s gut. It was the fourth night ofhis quarantine, and he was weak.