Quarantine

17

Marta wanted female company. Aphas and Shim could look for wood and maintain the fire at night. The badu could make traps for birds — his only skiil, it seemed. But there were female tasks they would not do. They did not think it was their place to fetch their food from Musa, or cook it, for example. Marta could do that. Once her stomach had begun to settle, she was glad to have their errands as an excuse to flee the caves. Of course she had to pray, but her devotions did not take up much time. She was an indecisive worshipper of god. Her liturgies were brief and shy. Once she felt safe and strong enough to leave the perching valley of the caves, she took to hurrying each morning down the valley to the tent, where she could bargain with Musa for some bread or dates or curd. She hired a reed bed-mat from him, which she could soften with a cushion of sand. She’d get half her money back if she returned the mat at the end of quarantine unmarked, he said. Sometimes she bought a little stiffened goat’s milk in a pouch, as well, and some of Miri’s sweet cake. To eat in secret after dusk, not to share.

‘I feel responsible for you,’ Musa said, when she stood at his bed end one morning to offer her respects and money. ‘A landlord and his tenants are like cousins. Brothers, sisters, even. And now you worry me. Look at yourself. You’re losing weight,’ he said. ‘And that won’t do. We have to keep you plump and strong. Don’t be like her. My wife’s a stick.’ He turned his head towards the curtain and the rattle of the loom, and called out to his wife,

‘Feed her, Miri. She is my guest. She is my sister for today.’

‘I mustn’t eat,’ Marta said. ‘Not now.’

‘Who’ll know?’ he asked. He wasn’t pleased. He wished that he could puil her to the ground and make her eat. He’d stuff her mouth with bread, not clay, and pick the crumbs off with his tongue. He turned away from her, and fell back on his cushions. An insult to a visitor. ‘You do not have to be our sister for the day if you don’t want. The choice is yours. Be thin.’

The thought of Marta — thin or plump — made his mouth go dry. The fleshy twist ofleavened dough, tucked in his lap, began to uncurl, bake and form a crust. Patience, patience — she’d be his within the forty days. She was alone. Who, or what, could stop him going to her cave one night? His plans for Marta kept him busy for a while. But otherwise, he only thought ofbeing in the market-place, the centre of the crowds again. He wished that he could simply clap his hands and be elsewhere. He’d leave tomorrow if it were possible, except he could not make his escape out of the scrub until those three fools at the caves would put his bags and tent on to their backs and take him to the river valley. He was the warder of other people’s quarantines. He was the prisoner, as weH.

He entertained himself with thoughts ofleaving Miri behind inJericho or, better still, exchanging her for Marta. What would he do when he got north, apart from looking for his uncles and his cousins? He’d have no trouble getting restitution for the merchandise they’dtaken-they’d think he was a ghost-although it might be many seasons before he traced his old companions. How would he live, what would he buy and sell until that day? He asked the question to himself a thousand times, and every time, it seemed the Gaily’s face imposed itself on Musa’s mind. ‘Be well,’ he’d said, and driven out the fever.

Yes, patience was the watchword now. Everything would turn out well if Musa could only wait until he found the healer for a second time, and enticed him to his tent again. In his dreams and in his drink, he’d lured the Galilean from his cave and asked, in lieu of rent, to be taught the trick of healing. He learned to fill his saddle-bags with prayers and spells, to dig up roots, pick leaves. Then he travelied to the pleats and pockets of the world and sold long life, and health. He was mistaken for a holy man, and people emptied out their purses in his lap. He drove out fevers for a price, turned water into wine. He made barren women pregnant with his Galilean tricks, and caused the lame to dance for him. At last he was respected for himself.

He could not stop himself inventing new, unholy miracles. He knew — let’s say — the art of seeing through the women’s clothes, so he could watch them naked as they lined up at his stall. He practised this new skili on Marta. He’d find some task for her close to his bed, so that he might see her bend or lift her arms and watch her fabrics shift across her skin, so that he might enjoy the smell ofher. He made her wait at his bed’s end, while he made plans.

But for the most part of the day, Marta and Miri had their privacy in the screened end of the tent and with the goats. They hardly spoke at first. What should they say? You only had to read the parchment of their skins to know these women had little in common apart from their age, perhaps. Marta’s face was hardly marked, except for a few lines around the mouth, and two almond-shaped wedding scars on her cheeks. But Miri’s face was an empty water-bag — squint lines round the eyes from travelling too long and often in the sun; dry skin across the forehead and the nose; chewed lips; and battle scars.

On the first occasion that Marta had gone beyond the curtain, Miri’s face was bruised. Her smile was puckered by the swelling at her mouth; one eyebrow was bluey-grey and swollen. Hers was a beggarwoman’s face. The elders of Sawiya would drive her sort out of town, with Thaniel leading them. There was, nevertheless, somethingjaunty and unquenchable about the little woman that Marta found irresistible. She had to reach across and touch the bruise, a healing gesture ofher own. The two embraced, and held each other’s hands like sisters. It did not matter that they did not talk at first, for women always find some soundless intimacy with which to occupy themselves.

Marta simply followed Miri. Sat when she sat. Watched when any work was done. Smiled when stared at. Passed the hanks of wool. She held the nannies by their ear tufts during milking. She helped to shake and separate the curds. She took her tum with blowing into the goatskin from time to time to clarify the yoghurt into butter, and collected herbs from the scrub. She learned to slap the unleavened dough against hot fire-stones to make platter bread, cooked in moments. She learned to check and block the pegs on Miri’s loom, and to tie the smallest knots in the broken yarn. She was like a child in some aunt’s yard, clumsy, willing, slow, engrossed, her tongue between her teeth, eager to be praised, and quite content to be ignored. But soon the intimacy of weaving, of sitting side by side on the woven fabric as the mat progressed and lengthened, to help maintain the loom in tension, turned the women into twins. A muttered conversation started. Their shoulders and their fingers touched. Their knees collided on the wool. They talked about their lives, about their marriages, and Marta wept — sad for herself and sad for Miri — on the day that Miri asked how many children she had got at home. Not one.

They shared a bowl of water when they washed. Behind the curtain, Marta let all her clothes drop to her waist and took her underlinen off, while Miri brought a dampened cloth for her to wipe herself, and a head of lavender to make the water sweet. Then Miri matched her nakedness, though less majestically, and washed. She let Marta put her fingers on her stomach and feel for heels and heartbeats. Once they heard the curtain drop. It was still swaying when they’d pulled their clothes back on. They knew that Musa had been watching them. But still they laughed. These were the fullest forty days they’d ever lived.

Late in the afternoon, the men arrived and readied Musa for his daily walk. They left Miri preparing bread behind the tent, and went off through the falling scrub to look for signs of Gaily. A path was worn where there had never been a path, between the caves, the tent, the precipice. Musa with the curling staff. Aphas with a bending stick he’d made from sapbush. Shim, safely at a distance, lost-or hiding- in his meditations. The badu, following and leading, low-shouldered, like a herding dog. And Marta last.

Again there was no sign of anyone in the cave. No healer waved at them. No Galilean shouted out for food. There were just shades and shapes. The rocks were shivering.

Aphas could hardly breathe, he was so disappointed. His lungs felt squeezed. ‘I’m not a very devout man,’ he said, when it was almost time to leave. ‘Ifl’d prayed more, and bathed and followed rules, observed the sabbath better, I might’ve not got ill. Who knows? I might’ve not got this.’ He touched his bulging liver, and gasped several times. The constant pain was wearying. It took him to the edge oftears. ‘But this is what I feel when I am here. This air is … sweet. . There is someone.’

Aphas could not stop himself from weeping now. His illness and his imagined eloquence were more than he could bear. His voice was smothered by his sobbing. He was recalling Musa’s words, how Shim’s very stupid boy had pressed his holy fingers on Musa’s face, and said, I will not let you take this man from us. How he had plucked the fever out; how he might pluck the cancer out of Aphas as easily as he could pluck the stone out of an olive and toss it to the ground. Those were the very words, more powerful than scripture. ‘I did see someone move,’ he said at last. ‘Forgive my tears.’

‘Someone, perhaps. A shepherd. .’ said Shim.

‘Why not a holy man?’

Shim would not aHow that possibility. He spoke from personal experience. He’d seen holy monks several times before, he explained. He’d sat with them, in temples to the north, in Greece, in other caves. He’d seen a prophet once. He’d been with men who knew their scriptures off by heart, and others who could discern the future of the world from studying the stars. Al of them looked wise and old, as dry and silvery as weathered timber. Enlightenment took time. Their beards were long and grey; their skins were lined like parchment scrolls. There was a light around them, not like light from a fire, but cold and pious, corning off their skin like phosphorescence on a fish. Such a light was the mark ofholiness and such a light, people said, could heal. It was a light he hoped to earn himself It wasn’t easy to acquire without long years of seeking it, far from the comforts and distractions of the world. It wasn’t given after forty days. It wasn’t squandered (on the likes of Musa). It wasn’t found in shepherd boys. ‘It does not climb down cliffs to hunt for eggs,’ he said. ‘You mentioned shapes and shadows when you saw something in that cave, but you did not notice any light, I think.’ He closed his eyes. He concentrated on the light to come. ‘Don’t give up hope.’ He meant that Aphas ought to hope that Shim would soon begin to glow.

‘I do hope,’ Aphas said. ‘What else is there for me but hope, and prayer? We ought to pray. As loudly as we can. Then he’ll come. He’ll come to join the prayers, if he’s a holy man.’

It was not easy to kneel in prayer on that rough, sloping ground. Marta felt she ought to help the old man, but once she had, Musa demanded help as well. She had to hold him by his wrists, and take his weight while he sat down, and then she had to pull him forwards on his knees. He held on to her hands too long. His nostrils flared when she got close to him, as if she were a meal. They rocked in prayer until there was hardly any light remaining in the sky. They asked for cures, fortunes, changes in their lives. But still there was no sign of Gaily.

‘He’s gone for good,’ said Shim. ‘I told you so.’ But Musa, Marta and Aphas would not hear ofit. Musa pushed his borrowed staffinto Shim’s back. A warning to stay quiet. It left a puckered indent in his clothes. They watched for tremors in the darkness of the cave. They heard odd sounds, thin evidence of hope. It seemed, as weil, that there were marks ofmovement that looked like lettering on the slopingrockin front ofthe key-hole entrance. Some stones had been displaced since their last visit. Perhaps by birds. Perhaps by someone sitting on the rock.

‘He’s there,’ said Musa, almost the first words that he’d spoken since they’d left the tent. ‘I’m sure of it. And we must tempt him out. A hundred prayers won’t do the job. He isn’t short of prayers. He has his own supply. But he needs food and drink or else he’ll die.’ The next time that they came, he said, they’d bring some dates and bread, and water in a bag. ‘We can tie them to some yarn and lower them on to the rock. He’ll show his face for that. Ifhe’s a man.’

The pilgrims pulled each other to their feet and stood on the promontory for one last view of the cave, like mourners, their shadows dropping out of sight. No movement on the precipice. There was no one to look at but themselves. Then not even themselves, because the light betrayed them. They had to scramble back to safer ground up slopes which had no shape or colour, through scrub which still was waiting for its moon. Meanwhile, elsewhere, in candlelight, the purple and the orange wools embraced.