Quarantine (38 page)

of charity.

But Miri was exceptional. She had bewitched the scrub on

her first day. They were equals in their plainness and their

endurance. Usually it was a less forgiving, more dogmatic host,

despising doubt and mocking faith at once, and favouring the

predatory, whatever their beliefs. It was even-handed in its

cruelties. It did not normally discriminate between the donkey

and the mule. It did not prefer the vulture to the crow. It did

not favour hennaed hair over blond. It did not hang its trees

with food or fill its hollows up with drink to make life easy for

its guests. The scrub required its passengers to take care of

themselves or go without. The scrub was economical, as well,

like some old man, and boundless in its barrenness and poverty.

Its air was thin; its earth was pale; its weeds were frayed; its

moods were fractious and despairing.

But there was also something rich, at times, about the scrub,

despite itself. Something sustaining, unselfish, fertile even. Perhaps this was because it made no claims. It did not promise anything, except, maybe, to replicate through its array of absences

the body's inner solitude and to free its tenants and its guests

from their addictions and their vanities. The empty lands - these

very caves, these paths, these desert pavements made of rock,

these pebbled flats, these badlands, and these unwatered river

beds - were siblings to the empty spaces in the heart. Why

else would scrubs have any holy visitors at all? Ten thousand

quarantiners had come to these parched hills and passed their

days, some delirious with illness; others feverish with god, and

guilt and lunacy, unravelled from themselves by visions of a

better and eternal world; the rest made mad by fasting. Yet, at

the end of their forty days, the scrub sent all of them away

enriched and dryly irrigated. Even Aphas. Even Shim.

2 1 9

But the chosen one or two, the very few, were rewarded for

their quarantines with sacred revelations. The scrub allowed

them up its steep and narrow tracks, and through the softened

silhouettes ofhills, to their attending gods. And there it stretched

its grey horizons to reveal what far-off armies were approaching

with their spangling phalanxes of spears, what distant kings

and preachers came with gifts and prophecies, how slow and

never-ceasing was the world. And there it gave its voyagers their

glimpse of paradise.

Jesus had achieved these sacred fields and seen horizons on

horizons without end. He was still there.

And Musa, too. Yes, even Musa - especially, Musa - had had

his glimpse of paradise and felt the fingers of his preacher king.

He would not go back with nothing to declare. The scrub would

not return him empty-handed to his market-places. What greater

generosity than that?

Miri was not interested in visions or prophecies, or in a god.

She'd never called on him for help, not even in the fist of the

storm when her mother's loom was breaking into pieces. But

she was praying now for Marta. She ran from cave to cave, and

then from bush to bush, in a panic, yelling for the woman,

anticipating all the joys of finding her, yet fearful that Marta was

already dead. She'd seen the death or something just as bad in

Musa's eyes.

It was a barking fox that finally led her to Marta's hiding place.

Something tasty must have tempted it to show itself in daylight.

Some easy carrion. Miri feared the worst. But it was only following the spots of watery blood which Marta had spat out as she ran for safety in the rocks when she'd seen Musa and the line of

mourners climbing to the caves.

Miri pulled her, trembling and limping, into the sunlight. Her

clothes were torn. Her wrists were bruised. Her lower lip was

split and swollen on one side, still bleeding. She had to brush

away the flies. That was an injury that Miri recognized. She'd

had a mouth like that herself. She still had the scar. Musa liked

to grip her lips between his teeth.

'What happened to you?'

Marta hadn't got the courage to speak.

'It's Musa, isn't it?'

She shook her head.

'Who then? There's no one else . . . I know it's him. It's him!'

22 1

Miri punched her hands together. 'That man's made fools of

everyone. Again! He wasn't even ill. All lies. He'll bring the

heavens down on all of us . . . '

'No . . . I fell.'

'Musa must have pushed you then. Look what he's done.'

'It was the wind . . .'

'The wind? How could the wind do that to you?'

'Threw stones and bits of stick at me. I fell . . . '

'It's him.'

'No. Don't make me say.'

'Listen, Marta. Give me your hand. Just say you didn't fall.

Be brave. Tell me. I know my husband, what he can do. He

leaves his thumbprint everywhere.'

'He doesn't know I'm here? Don't let him come.'

'It's over now. He's finished with you now. Just tell me what

the demon's done.'

'Can't tell. There's nothing left to tell . . .' She was sobbing,

pushing Miri away yet still holding tightly to her wrists. Her face

was dry. No tears. 'Don't make me say.'

Miri put a finger on the uninjured side of Marta's mouth.

Miri's cheeks were wet with tears. 'Don't say. I know what he

can do. You haven't got to say. Don't say.'

'What can I do?'

'You can't stay here. You have to come back to the caves . . . '

'I can't. '

'You must. You're safer there. There's five of us, and only

him. I'll take good care of you. He'll stay away, I know. What

can he do to you with us around? He's frightened of you

'

now.

'I'm scared . . . to go.'

'Come on. I need your help. The Gaily's dead. You saw the

body they were carrying?'

Now Marta could not stop the tears. 'The Gaily's dead?'

222

'We've got to bury him. Come on. Be brave.'

Marta did as she was told. She followed Miri. Held on to her

arm. Entwined her fingers into hers until they reached the caves.

She'd find an opportunity to tell her sister what the wind had

really done.

Musa did not even look at them. He sat in conversation with

the men, facing across the valley, with no expression on his face,

his fat neck creased, a stack of twenty grimaces. He called to

Miri only once, without turning to face her. 'We're waiting.'

'What for?'

'For you to get the Gaily ready for the burial.'

Preparing bodies was women's work, in his opinion. The men

could sit and pray, while Miri and Marta - glad to be busy and

out of sight - gathered the leaves and bark of trees to make their

shrouding ointments. They picked morning star and hyssop, dill

pods, and the yellow spices from solanum stems to perfume the

body. Then they pulled back the smouldering fire and thorns,

lit cups of candle-fat, and took refuge inside the smoky cave

with Jesus.

They stood hand in hand in the ducking candlelight and the

plumes of clearing smoke looking at the wrapped body, uncertain

where to start. Only his hands and feet were visible, and so they

cleaned them first with water taken from his grave. His skin was

cold and dry. Despite the broken nails, the blisters and the sores,

his hands and feet were still beautiful, as polished and unyielding

as sculpted wood. The fast had thinned and lengthened his toes

and fingers, so that the bones and joints were round and ripe

like nuts in pods. The women unwrapped him from his curtain,

removed the poppy petals from his eyes, and stood back to let

the candles light his face. Marta gasped. She touched the Gaily's

cheeks and lips, and shook her head. She was almost smiling, for

the first time that day.

223

'What's wrong?' said Miri. 'Are you all right? Sit down. I'll

do it by myself'

'No, let me help. I want to help.' Marta touched his cheeks

again. 'I'm not afraid of him. He's only skin and bone.'

The women covered Jesus's face with a cloth, to protect his

mouth against the devil and to protect themselves from the

dangers oflooking a dead man in the eye for too long. That was

the superstition, 'Dead eyes looking, Bad luck cooking.' But

neither of them felt ill at ease withJesus. Nor did they feel much

reverence for him. His body was too damaged and degraded.

Only his feet and hands had caused any wonder. The rest had

been more cruelly treated by the fast and was not beautiful. But

touching him was not distasteful. It felt more like a blessing than

a chore. They'd have good luck, not bad. Miri and Marta did

not talk while they were preparingJesus. Their task was far too

solemn and distressing. He was so young and disfigured. But

they were glad they could at least share and halve the task with

each other. They washed his body, wiped away the dried blood,

the film of dust and ash, and cleaned his eyes and mouth and

loins. They shut his eyes and pulled his lips over his teeth as best

they could. His gums were so badly swollen that his mouth

would not close. His grin was wide and mirthless. They anointed

him with the herbs and ointments they'd collected, and burnt

the seeds for incense in the candle cups. Finally they bandaged

his feet and hands, and wrapped him in the curtain once again.

They'd done as much as any woman could. Now it was men's

work to carry him down to the cistern, and bury him. No woman

should come near the grave. Miri and Marta stayed inside the

cave, watching candle flames while Jesus was interred.

'What was the matter, when you saw his body?' Miri asked.

'You gasped. You seemed surprised by him.'

'I knew his face,' Marta said. 'Dear lord, how well I knew his

face. That's how I always knew his face would be.'

224

'How could you know his face? You never saw him. You

always said he wouldn't come out of his cave.'

'I know his face from dreams. If it was dreaming.'

'You dreamed his face?'

'A hundred times. Even this morning. Outside the cave . . .'

'He was dead this morning! You've seen yourself how dead

he was.'

' I watched somebody walking up. I hid. I thought it was your

. . . Don't make me even say his name. You know. Then I saw

him. I knew it had to be the Gally. The same dead face. Just skin

and bones. He was as near to me as you are now. I could have

touched him. But he touched me. He touched my cuts and

bruises. And then he kissed my feet.'

Miri laughed. 'That only happens in a woman's dreams.'

'He touched my stomach afterwards, like a priest. He said,

This is a son for Thaniel. How could he know my husband's

name? He said he'd given me a child, with just his fingertips.'

'That's something else that only happens in a woman's dreams.'