Quarantine (10 page)

was too small and catlike, with far too many bracelets on his

arm, she thought, to be much of a threat to her. But there was

something devilish and immature about his face. If he had any

body hair, it would not match his hennaed head.

Marta had her numbers and her seeds for company. She

watched the men, and waited for the sun to warm her up. The

badu did not speak at all. He dropped pebbles in his mouth. But

the old man was glad to talk, and the blond, though he hardly

turned his head, seemed resigned to listen. The old man did not

whisper, but spoke up loudly - in self-conscious Greek - so that

everyone could hear, perhaps. He gave his name, his place of

birth, his trade. He was Aphas the mason, from Jerusalem. He

reported on the complications of his journey to the caves, his

attempts to light a fire, the discomforts of the night. All unimportant, unrevealing, reassuring facts. What other intimacies than these should be exchanged by strangers in the wilderness? Finally,

when no one offered to reply, he turned towards the badu and

asked for his name and his place of birth. But the badu only

smiled - bad teeth, wet pebbles - and shook his head. He didn't

want to give his family name, perhaps. He did not know his

family name. What badu did? Or else he had no Greek. Aphas

turned to Marta now and, with a chuckle at the badu's silence,

tried to implicate her in his amusement. 'Some chatterbox,' he

said. He almost asked her name, but then had second thoughts.

Was it polite? One could not simply ask a woman's name, or

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say, 'Who are your husband's family?' or 'Why have you come

here alone? What do you want?' Instead, he tapped the blond

man on the knee - an old man can assume such intimacies - and

said, 'Yes, yes? Let's hear. '

The honey-head, as Marta had thought, was from the north.

He knew some Aramaic and some Greek, though many of the

words he used were unfamiliar. Unlike the gabbling stonemason,

he spoke as ifhe had eternity. She didn't recognize the name he

gave for his home town, but she knew his own name well

enough. It was Shim. An almost Jewish name. Though he was

no Jew, he said. His grandfather had been a Jew, however, who'd

left the valley ofJezreel in one of the dispersals, sixty years ago.

Now he'd come back to the land of his forebears, Shim said, to

seek something that he could not name. 'Perhaps there is no

word for it. As yet.'

'To meet with god,' suggested Aphas, keen to show he was

a man of culture.

'No, no, the word "god" is hardly strong enough for what I

seek.' He would not look at the old man, but only concentrated

on his staff and his own voice. 'My god is not a holy king, an

emperor in heaven. He's immanent in everything. In things like

this . . . ' he shook his staff, ' . . . and in the human spirit. He will

absorb us when we die. If we are ready. But first we have to

find that something for which I have no word . . . '

'Enlightenment's a word . . .' ventured Aphas.

'Enlightenment comes to the ignorant. That is their candle in

the dark and their salvation from the sensual impulses and appetites

of public life. But for myself, I am looking more for . . . Tranquillity, perhaps. That's not so easy to acquire . ' He rubbed his fingers on his thumbs, as if his words were cloth. 'I can encounter god

at home. I can find enlightenment in tiny things. I do not have

to leave the house. But here . . . ' again he felt the cloth of words,

'what better place to look beyond enlightenment and god for

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nameless things than here, in caves, far from the comforts and

distractions of the world?' Aphas nodded all the while, though

men like Shim - scholars, mystics, sages,· ascetes, stoics, epicureans, that holy regiment - were a mystery to him. Why punish your body voluntarily when the world and god would

punish it in their good time? It would not do to argue, though,

with someone of Shim's undoubted class and dignity. 'I've

understood,' he said, although to Marta's eyes, he looked alarmed.

'I know it, though there is no word for it . . .'

'As yet.'

He had not turned his back on god, the emperor of heaven,

Shim continued. Not on one god. Not on any of the gods. But

he was Greek in his beliefs. He worshipped every living thing.

'I worship this,' he said, picking up a stone. 'I worship those. '

H e pointed at the birds. 'I worship this.' Again h e turned the

spirals of his staff.

'That's good. That's very Greek,' said Aphas.

'I worship everybody here,' Shim continued. His voice was

slow, and hardly audible. 'Excepting one of course.' He lifted a

hand from his staff and pointed at himself

Aphas could not claim to have such selfless motives as Shim,

he said. He could not claim to be so Greek. He'd come for

quarantine because ('No need to wrap it up in complicated

words') he was dying. These forty days were his last chance, his

priest had said. He hoped to make his peace with god and with

himself, of course. But most of all he hoped for miracles, that all

the fasting and the prayers would make him well again. Tranquillity

was easy to acquire, compared to that. He had a growth, he said.

'A living thing, inside of me. No one could worship that. Bigger

than my fist.' He showed his fist, and pointed at his side. 'You can

feel how hard it is.' He waited for a volunteer to press a finger into

his side. Shim leaned forward on to his braided legs, put his finger

on the growth, and nodded: 'Like you say,' he said.

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'Come on.' Aphas waved the badu over, and called to him in

both Greek and Aramaic, and then translated it into finger-mime.

'Feel this. '

The badu sprang on to his feet and padded over as nimbly

and as silently as a cat, grinning all the time. He lifted up the

mason's shirt. Marta could see the stomach was distended. The

skin was stretched. It looked as if the old man had an extra

knee-cap placed between his thigh bone and his ribs. The badu

spat out pebbles, laughed, and cupped the growth in the flat of

his hand. He shook his head from side to side. He tapped the

cancer with his fingertips and put his ear to Aphas's chest and

grabbed hold of his hand. Nothing that he did made any sense.

Aphas had to tug quite hard before the badu would let go. He

wanted sympathy, or miracles, not this.

'He doesn't understand a word of it,' Aphas said, retreating

into chatter as he'd done for all his life. His nose was running

and his eyes were wet. 'Here, Master Shim, this fellow's yours.

You love all living things, you said. Love him.' He forced a

laugh and wiped his eyes. He then repeated what he'd said,

almost word for word . . . 'Love him, I said.' He turned to Marta,

only looking for a nod or smile from her to rescue him from his

embarrassment. She laughed for reasons of her own. Her three

companions were absurd. Even the honey-head. Perhaps he was

the maddest of them all.

They had hardly noticed that the sun was up and their forty

days were underway. But soon - once Shim and Aphas had

agreed that everyone would gather at dusk when they would

light a communal fire and break their fast with Marta's scrub

fowl and the free food of the wilderness if any could be caught

or found - they fell silent, even Aphas. They concentrated on

themselves. Finally, they sought the shade and privacy of their

caves. The badu wandered along the scarp, crying out and

kneeling down once in a while to pick up stones. Marta was

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relieved to stay alone, sitting in the sun, counting seeds. The

birds that had been waiting in the thorns flocked back into

the water, dipping beaks and wings. But very soon they were

outnumbered. The water in the cistern smelled so mossy and

the birds, excited by the unexpected boon of water, sang so

unremittingly, that every living creature in the hills could smell

and hear the summons to drink.

Swag flies, mud wasps and fleas blistered the surface of the

water, dipping their bodies at both ends; one dip to drink and

one to drop a line of eggs. Centipedes and millipedes, lonely

lovers of the damp, gathered at the edges of the cistern in rare

communion. Whip bugs and round worms celebrated in the

mud. And slugs and snails, descending to the water and

the bobbing body of a roach, signed the stones and rubble of the

gravesides with their mucous threads. Star lizards blinked and

turned their flattened heads in search of easy food. Overhead

and in the thorns, more birds were gathering to breakfast on the

throng.

Marta was still reluctant to go back to the cave. She hoped

the little woman would return: 'Hello, it's me. The woman

yesterday.' But all she saw were birds and insects, drawn to the

water in the cistern. She was drawn as well. She went to watch

them drinking and, perhaps, to catch a second bird. Her shadow

fell across the grave. Again the birds shook out their wings and

fled. She ducked and dodged. She did not scream. The lizards

scuttled behind stones, and shut their eyes at her. The insects

exercised their wings. Snails shrank into their shells, and mimed

the secret life of stones. It seemed to Marta that she'd dipped

her fingers into and drunk some holy essence. It was the fourth

day of creation when god directed that the waters teem with

countless living creatures and that the birds fly high above the

earth, across the vault ofheaven. She did not feel elated by god's

work, but - like any other lukewarm Jew - she was repulsed.

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She'd have to overcome her fear of insects and suppress the edicts

ofLeviticus ('These creatures shall be vermin unto you, and you

will make yourself unclean with them') before she'd find the

heart to drink again.

Musa was tired and disappointed. When Miri had told him about

the four cave-dwellers, he had presumed that one of them would

be the Galilean man. Why else would he have followed Miri

away from the comforts of the tent to walk uphill into the heat

and scrub? There were better things to do. He could be resting,

eating, taking stock? He had the bruises ofhis fever to shake off.

And he had plans to make. How to turn his bad luck into coins.

How to catch up with the caravan with only one pack-animal

- and that one pregnant- to carry the tent and all their possessions.

How to get to Jericho where he could buy a camel, trade some

of his goods, and lay claim once more to the title of merchant.

But first there was unfinished business with the water thief. He

wanted to see the man again. What for? He couldn't say. But,

if Miri's querulous reports could be trusted, the Galilean had