Quarantine (26 page)

irritation, and the big man on the precipice would be no angel

out of hell. His shouted words would only be another earthly

test ofJesus's patience, simple to combat, safe to ignore.

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Jesus, though, was young and inexperienced. His life so far

had been unGreek. It was cheerless and demanding. Death was

still far enough away - and too improbable - for him to want

to believe that there might be no reckoning. He was, besides, a

villager, too direct and untutored to take much comfort from

abstract notions that life was finite or that the devil was not flesh

and blood. For him - although he could not put the words to

it - the living devil was just as real as god. Indeed, the devil was

the living proof of god, for everything that god had made was

weak and blemished and imperfect by design. God's pot had

cracked inside the kiln, so that his sons and daughters could by

their labours and their prayers restore perfection to the pot. The

devil occupied the crack, and lay in wait like a thief God put

him there. To deny the presence of the devil was to turn against

the perfect blemishes of god.

So Jesus was in little doubt that, should the devil choose, he

could easily appear as Musa on the precipice. He could produce

a thousand leather bags. He could invade his soul and jostle for

a perch inside his heart as truly and as tangibly as a raidingjackdaw

could invade an open nest and jostle out its chirping innocents

with its black wings. That was the drama and the cruel romance

ofJesus's theology. That's why he clung so greedily to god. This

was not the Galilee, with its flax fields and walnut groves and

rain, its cousins and its fig-shaded yards. He only had to stare

out of his cave to know for sure. The evidence was large. This

was the devil's kingdom. Hot winds. Hard rocks. Dry leaves. A

barren universe, and death disguised.

Jesus, then, could not be calmly Greek and radical in this

demonic scrub. How could he be when the devil called him

from the precipice, when the jackdaw's matted wing was hard

against his face? He was alone, exposed, a chirping innocent.

And yet he felt triumphant too. Thank heavens for the devil,

even, for the devil was the herald of god. 'The devil and the bee

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obstruct the way to heaven and to honey. The path to sweetness

is a stinging one,' according to the country psalm. As he grew

closer to his god, the devil's fat hand would wrap itself round

Jesus's thin wrist. The devil's lips would press against his ear.

God would watch and bide his time, and ifhis Galilean son stood

firm, god's cushioned fingers would take him by the elbow and

the hand and ease him from the devil's grasp. Why else had Jesus

come into the wilderness? To be the chosen one. To be the

battleground. To be eased to freedom from the devil's grasp.

So even though Jesus was distressed by Musa' s daily visitations,

he understood that god was watching him at last. That gave him

strength, and helped him to withstand the chilling offers from

the promontory and to see the devil's plan more clearly. Musa's

offers were too crudely tempting; his summonses for Jesus to

vacate the precipice and heal the sick were too bespoke to be

remotely innocent. The scriptures said, The devil comes and offers

you your heart's desire, beware; he promises a boat to fishermen, and

proffers horses to a man that hopes to ride; he places cushions at your

back and brings in figs on silver plates, and wine. And that had always

been Jesus's greatest, maddest hope, his heart's desire, to serve

god by driving out illnesses and spirits, to cure and to heal. He

did not see himself a hermit, engaging with his god forever in a

cave. He did not see himself a scholar, poring over texts. He did

not have the learning or the self-regard. He did not see himself

a priest. He was too shy.

He wanted most to serve his god in simpler ways which did

not require either confidence or reading, ways which could be

witnessed by his family and his neighbours. More cowardly ways,

perhaps? At best, he'd preach to villagers and children, anyone

who would not challenge him and not call out, 'Your head's in

heaven, Gally. Full of clouds.' He'd even be prepared - and

glad - to defile himself on those kept out of temples - lepers,

menstruating women, prostitutes, the blind, even the uncircum-

cized - if they would listen to him, if it would cause discomfort

to the priest. These were the ones, he thought, that god had

created weak and blemished and imperfect by design. These

were the chirping innocents that he should rescue from the

devil's claw, for he himself was weak and blemished and imperfect

by design. These people were his family.

Jesus had always been ashamed of his ambition, but this is

what he'd dreamed since he was young. There was a congregation

on a hill slope in the Galilee. He was the tallest, and he looked

down on their heads. He recognized his brothers' hair, his

neighbours' hair, the baker's and the priest's, the leper's, and the

prostitute's uncovered hair. But they were tired of listening to

sermons. 'Come up to me, the sick, the troubled and the blind,'

he'd say. He'd put his hands on eyes and foreheads, rub out

pains, press his fingers into hardened flesh, remove their swellings

with a touch, kiss sores. Erase their sins. He'd cure them. They'd

be restored, through him, by god. And, yes, he'd find a boat for

fishermen, and horses for the men too weak to walk. They'd say

- a phrase he loved - 'We never knew our Gaily after all. He is

the bread of our short lives. He is the good shepherd who will

lead us out of suffering.'

He'd never boasted such a dream to anyone - not to his

parents or the priest, not even to his god in prayer, and hardly

to himself This was his smothered heart's desire, unspoken and

invisible. Yet here was someone - this resurrected fat man,

dangling provisions from the sununit of the precipice - who

called him by his other name and seemed to see inside his heart.

Someone who heard what was not said. Someone who saw what

was not on display. No one had ever offered Jesus such perfect

blandishments before, or such flattery. Yes, he was tempted to

go up and test his healing prayers at the tent, to sacrifice his fast

for them. He felt he had the cure in his fingertips. They only

had to touch. They trembled at the thought of it. The hands

that could remove the knots from wood, release the pigeons

pinioned by the twigs, could drive out fevers and disease. He'd

be the carpenter of damaged souls. But god was watching him,

beyond the devil and the bees, and saying nothing. He gave no

sign to Jesus. And no sign was the sign that these appeals to

vanity could only be the devil's work. He'd have to learn to

block his ears and eyes for fear of joining them, the demons on

the rock.

So Jesus closed himself against his tempters. He would not be

seduced or fooled by the contents of a leather bag. He half-heard,

through his fingertips, Musa calling from the rim, his voice

unnatural: 'Gaily. Gaily. Look outside. There's water. And some

food. Dates. Some bread. My wife. Has baked for you . . . Gaily,

Gaily. Speak to us.' He did not move. He hardly breathed. He

was beyond temptation now. His appetites were dead.

It was hard to concentrate, but he managed to expel Musa

from his thoughts and shut their voices out. He set his mind on

future, better times: his quarantine had ended; he had proved

his worthiness. He saw himself walking through Jerusalem

towards the temple, through the trading tables and the booths

which filled the outer courts. The merchants and the dealers and

the money-changers, the people who wore soft clothes and ate

wheat bread and reclined on couches like the Greeks, would all

call out to him in their high voices, 'Gaily, Gaily, eat our cakes

and drink our wine. Buy pigeons and dates from us.' Musa would

be there, with leather bags for sale. But Jesus could not be

seduced, not by the devil in the scrub, not by the devils crowding

at the temple walls. He'd turn their tables over, empty out their

bags, drive off their animals. He'd put his foot in Musa's flesh

and kick him through the gates.

But first he had the opportunity to kick a bag. It held the

devil's water and the devil's bread, the devil's finest dates. How

much he'd love to open up the bag and sup on it. How much

he'd be relieved to break his fast, and flood the valley of his

throat.

He managed to get up on to his feet, although his ankles ached

alarmingly and all his bones protested at the effort. He could not

swing his foot to kick the bag. He reached his arm out into the

early evening light. There was no sun to warm him; how foolish

and how strong he'd been to jettison his clothes. He wrapped

his fingers round the plaited rope. He pulled the bag towards

the cave, and caught it in both hands. He smelled the bread -

the water too - in those few moments that he held the bag. He

smelled the blood, the mildew and the carrion that lingered on

the leather. He tugged on it. The rope tightened for an instant

and came free as Musa or one of his accomplices let go of the

far end. He sensed their triumph. He would make it brief Before

the rope could slither from the rim and fall at the entrance to

the cave, Jesus had tossed the bag away as if it had claws and

teeth, a rabid bat. He hadn't got much strength. He was surprised

how heavy it had seemed, but still it cleared the platform of the

cave and fell towards the valley, bouncing on the precipice until

the water-pouch inside, unseen, split open from the impact of

the rocks. The leather bag became too empty and too light to

fall much more. It lay - forever; kippered by the sun - between