Quarantine (40 page)

round her shoulders to stop the ropes from cutting into her,

soaked up the sun and soon was wet and heavy with her sweat.

She was a bit annoyed with Marta. She had expected her to take

her time, to stay as close as possible, so that they could at least

stretch out to touch each other once in a while or exchange a

word or two on their last day together. Miri knew that she and

Marta would have to go their separate ways as soon as they had

reached the trading road. Sawiya was a village near Jerusalem,

towards the west. The summer markets where her husband

would want to go were beyond Jericho, far to the north. But

Miri's friend was rushing ahead far too quickly and was impatient

if Miri walked too slowly or started to chatter.

It was easy for Marta to hurry, thought Miri. She only had

one bag to carry and some clothes. Her load was relatively light

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for such a tall and wide-boned woman. And she was not six

months pregnant with a child. Her hips and back were not

oppressing her. 'Slow down, slow down,' she said a few times

to herself. But not too loudly. She was increasingly annoyed and

tired, but beyond all that she understood why Marta seemed so

selfish and distracted. She had been raped. She was weighed

down with twenty panniers offear. The fattest man in Judea was

sitting on her back. Of course she'd want to break away from

him.

Miri could have stopped and rested had she wanted to. She

could have found some block of shade and waited for her husband.

Then she could have walked at his slow pace and made Marta

wait alone for them at the summit of the landfall where the scrub

collapsed into a steep ravine of scree. But Miri wanted time

alone with Marta. She wanted to recapture, if it were possible,

the cheerful times when they had worked together on the loom.

The landfall was the final opportunity for them to finish what

they'd started. While her slow husband laboured like a swaying

cart across the scrub, she and Marta could sit cross-legged, facing

each other, with the purple and orange birth-mat stretched

between them. They'd spread the still untied ends across their

laps. They'd bunch the warps in fours and each complete the

birth-mat with a hundred knots. They'd finalize their bold,

unlikely friendship by tying it into the bold, unlikely wools.

So Miri did her best to keep her friend within sight. It didn't

matter that her arms felt stretched and that her shoulders ached

almost beyond endurance so long as she could still see Marta

walking ahead of her. By early afternoon they had crossed the

plateau and were waiting side by side, at last, at the summit of

the landfall as Musa had instructed. Below them, Shim and Aphas

had already begun the descent. They could see Shim's blond

head and hear the tumbling scree as he slid through the stones.

Aphas was a little way behind, using all the larger rocks to steady

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himself but moving quickly for a man who'd been so faltering

and ill. They were not carrying their loads.

'Look there,' said Marta, pointing to a ledge of rocks a few

steps from the summit of the scree. There were Musa's saddlepacks, the rugs and bedding, the sack of grain, the two bags of utensils. The men had simply dumped them there and fled.

Miri dropped her bags and panniers where she stood and

stretched her arms and shoulders to relieve the pain, and drank

a little water from the bag. It was too warm to be refreshing.

Now she had an extra worry. Her husband would be furious

when he discovered how his porters had betrayed him. Who'd

pay for that? Who'd have to add the saddle-packs, the rugs and

bedding, the sack of grain, the two bags of utensils to her load?

His wife, of course. But she kept her worries hidden. She couldn't

bring herself to speak to Marta yet. She did roll out the birth-mat,

though. She sat with one end on her lap, as she had planned,

and began to bunch and tie the threads. She'd see if Marta

volunteered to help without asking. She'd not forgive her otherwise. But Marta did not volunteer to help. She stood and looked out across the valley to the peaks of Moab. Her lip, in profile,

was still fat and misshapen. Her hands were trembling.

'Come on,' said Miri. 'Sit down with me. Let's finish this.

Before he comes.'

They had not finished it when Musa finally came into view.

He waved Shim's staff at them from the sloping plateau which

led down to the landfall, and called, 'Wait there.' He was tired

of his own company. He hadn't spent so much time alone

and without assistance for years. The journey so far had been

unnerving and exhausting. His ankles ached. His chest was tight.

He had to pause after every few steps to catch his breath. He'd

not been born for walking. Just one more day, and he'd be back

with camels where he belonged. Only the landfall stood between

him and the markets ofJericho.

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It would be difficult to go down the landfall. He knew how

treacherous the scree could be for anyone as large as him. He

had already pictured how stones would fall out beneath his feet

and slide away, how larger rocks would tumble at him from

above. He'd need the women to take him by the elbows and

help him down. Marta would refuse, of course. She would not

want to touch him.

'I need more help than you,' he'd say to Miri. He'd lift his

chins at Marta. 'She has to help as well. Come here.'

'I won't.'

He pictured ways of making her.

But when he was just a few hundred paces from the women,

so close that he could see the colours of the mat, Marta suddenly

stood up, wrapped her fingers round Miri's wrist and pulled her

to her feet.

'We have to go,' she said. 'Don't look at him. Bring that.'

She pushed the mat into Miri's hands. 'We'll finish it another

day. Get water.'

Miri grabbed one of the water-bags - not a moment of

bewilderment or hesitation - and began to gather the other

panniers and her own belongings.

'Leave those.' Marta pushed the panniers away, and added

Musa's clothes and wools, the sack of dried fruit and the woven

bag of odds-and-ends to the pile. They'd have to leave it all

behind. She pulled the other water-bag to the edge of the descent

and threw it down as far as she could on to the rocks. 'Let's see

how he manages,' she said.

With only the smaller water-bag and the birth-mat to carry,

the women were able to move quickly. They did not have the

time to laugh or cry, or answer any ofMusa's threats and promises.

He was too close and dangerous. He was throwing stones at

them. They would not stop their hurtling descent until their

landlord and their husband and the father of their child was

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out of hearing and out of sight. They were light-limbed like

adolescent girls. They had no need of anybody now. They had

no need of miracles.

Marta and Miri hurried on in silence down the landfall,

concentrating on the loose rock and the uncertain footing. The

scree grew softer as the temperatures increased, closer to the

valley floor. The earth was gypsum, spiced with salt. It smelt of

eggs. But by the middle of the afternoon - already covered in a

yellow film of salt - they'd reached more gently sloping and

more sweetly smelling ground, a landscape of soft chalk which

a child could pull apart in its hands as easily as breaking bread.

The land was more reliable, at last, and they could walk side by

side down towards the trading road, where travellers and caravans

and soldiers were going to and coming from the gated cities of

Judea. They walked amongst the donkeys and the men, and only

then could exchange their tears and smiles.

'Where can we go?' said Miri.

'To Sawiya.'

'What will you say to them?'

'I'll say you are a widow, abandoned in the wilderness. I'll

say your husband was a merchant who died of fever. I'll say

the wind took all your things away and that it was my duty to

offer help to you, because you're pregnant and you have no

'

one.

'It's almost true.'

'It's true.'

'How will I live?'

'You'll weave. I'll be the baby's aunt.'

Marta's lip was still a little sore, her body ached, but she felt

untroubled for the first time in ten years. All the bad things in

her life had been abandoned at the top of the landfall. The

vultures picked them clean. Was she a foolish optimist, made

rash and heady by their escape from Musa? Most probably. But,

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for the moment, she was sure her fortunes had reversed. She'd

started running down the scree and everything had changed.

Everything outside of her. Everything within. She felt she was

not barren any more. She'd heard it said that women knew

instinctively when they were pregnant, almost from the moment

of conception. They didn't have to wait for periods or pains.

Their faces tingled, as if their cheeks had been touched by angels.

With Miri at her side, Marta felt as if she'd already plucked a

star out of the sky. One more would not be difficult. Perhaps

another star was already brightening inside ofher. It didn't matter

whose it was, if it was Musa's or the scrub's or even granted to

her in a dream, by the Gaily with his single touch. Her husband,

Thaniel, wouldn't know or care so long as she grew fat. He'd

said that she should go away and pray for miracles. She'd been

obedient. He had commanded that she should give birth. And

now he could rejoice with her.

It was bad luck to look behind. They concentrated only on

the way ahead. Even when they saw the thin, blond head of

Shim in front of them, and spotted Aphas walking with a new

authority beside him, seeming younger than he had and vigorous,

they did not call out a greeting. They kept themselves entirely

to themselves, as they had planned to do. Two women with the

fleshly scriptures of at least one pregnancy imprinted on to them.

Two women blessed with god and child. They walked until the

evening closed in. It did not matter where they spent the night.

They were back in the world of the sane and would be safe.

Only their faces ached, from smiling.

In the morning, they would carry on along the valley towards

Jericho and then take the hilly route through Almog. Green

hills. In two days they would reach the approaches to Jerusalem

and skirt around the city, through the mud-faced houses on the

mud-faced hills, towards Sawiya. They'd join Marta's neighbours, raising voices, raising sheep, competing for the shade 23 7

beneath the fig trees in their yards, fighting for their places by

the fire. The uneventful world of villages.

They'd be in Sawiya before the end of quarantine. Quite

soon, they'd share a table in a room, colourless except for candle

flame and the orange and the purple of their mat. They would

be dining well on fish. It would be still, the stillness of the small

and tired. If there was something in the world that was bigger,

stronger than their table-top, they would not care. It had not

spoken to them yet. They were not listening. They were contented with their grainy universe of candlelight and wood and wool.

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Musa did not waste his energy. He could not vent his anger on

the scree. He rested for a while to catch his breath, then gathered

his possessions in a pile, the goods abandoned by the men, the

goods abandoned by the woman and his wife, the wools, the

bedding, all the fabrics of their life. He could not leave them on