Galilee (10 page)

PART TWO

The Holy Family

T
wo souls as old as heaven came down to the shore that ancient noon. They wandered, accompanied by a harmonious baying of wolves, out of the forest which in those days still spread to the very fringes of the Caspian Sea, its thicket so dense and its reputation so dire that no sane individual ventured into it more than a stone's throw. It was not the wolves that people feared meeting between the trees, nor was it bears, nor snakes. It was another order of being entirely; one not made by God; some unforgivable thing that stood to the Creator as a shadow stands to the light.

The locals had legends aplenty about this unholy tribe, though they told them only in whispers, and behind closed doors. Tales of creatures that perched in the branches devouring children they'd tempted out of the sun; or squatted in foetid pools between the trees, adorning themselves with the entrails of murdered lovers. No storyteller along that shore worth his place at the fire failed to invent some new abomination to enrich the stew. Tales begot tales, bred upon one another in ever more perverted form, so that the men, women and children who passed their brief lives in the space between the sea and trees did so in a constant state of fearfulness.

Even at noon, on a day such as this, with the air so clear it rang, and the sky as polished as the flanks of a great fish; even today, in a light so bright no demon would dare show its snout, there was fear.

As proof, let me take you into the company of the four men who were working down at the water's edge that day, mending their nets in preparation for the evening's fishing. All were in a state of unrest; this even before the wolves began their chorus.

The oldest of the fishermen was one Kekmet, a man of nearly forty, though he looked half that again. If he had ever known joy there was no sign of it on his furrowed, leathery face. His warmest expression was a scowl, which he presently wore.

“You're talking through your shithole,” he remarked to the youngest of this quartet, a youth called Zelim, who at the tender age of sixteen had already lost his cousin to a miscarriage. Zelim had earned Kekmet's scorn by suggesting that as their lives were so hard here on the shore, perhaps everyone in the village should pack up their belongings, and find a better place to live.

“There's nowhere for us to go,” Kekmet told the young man.

“My father saw the city of Samarkand,” Zelim replied. “He told me it was like a dream.”

“That's exactly what it was,” the man working alongside Kekmet said. “If your father saw Samarkand it was in his sleep. Or when he'd had too much wine . . .”

The speaker, whose name was Hassan, raised his own jug of what passed for liquor in this place, a foul-smelling fermented milk he drank from dawn to dusk. He put the jug to his mouth, and tipped it. The filthy stuff overran his lips and dribbled into his greasy beard. He passed the jug to the fourth member of the group, one Baru, a man uncommonly fat by the standards of his peers, and uncommonly ill-tempered. He drank from the jug noisily, then set it down at his side. Hassan made no attempt to reclaim it. He knew better.

“My father . . .” Zelim began again.

“Never went to Samarkand,” old Kekmet said, with the weary tone of one who doesn't want to hear the subject at hand spoken of again.

Zelim, however, was not about to allow his dead father's reputation to be impugned this way. He had doted on Old Zelim, who had drowned four springs before, when his boat had capsized in a sudden squall. There was no question, as far as the son was concerned, that if his father claimed he'd seen the numberless glories of Samarkand, then he had.

“One day I'll just get up and go,” Zelim said. “And leave you all to rot here.”

“In the name of God
go!”
fat Baru replied. “You make my ears ache the way you chatter. You're like a woman.”

He'd no sooner spat this insult out than Zelim was on him, pounding Baru's round red face with his fists. There were some insults he was prepared to take from his elders, but this was too much. “I'm no woman!” he yelped, beating his target until blood gushed from Baru's nose.

The other two fishermen simply watched. It happened very seldom that anyone in the village intervened in a dispute. People were allowed to visit upon one another whatever insults and blows they wished; the rest either looked the other way or were glad of the diversion. So what if blood was spilled; so what if a woman was violated? Life went on.

Besides, fat Baru could defend himself. He had a vicious way with him, for all his unruly bulk, and he bucked beneath Zelim so violently the younger man was thrown off him, landing heavily beside one of the boats. Gasping, Baru rolled over on to his knees and came at him afresh.

“I'm going to tear off your balls, you little prick!” he said. “I'm sick of hearing about you and your dog of a father. He was born stupid and he died stupid.” As he spoke he reached between Zelim's legs as though to make good on the threat of unmanning, but Zelim kicked out at him, and his bare sole hit the man in his already well-mashed nose. Baru howled, but he wasn't about to be checked. He grabbed hold of Zelim's foot, and twisted it, hard, first to the right, then to the left. He might have broken the young man's ankle—which would have left Zelim crippled for the rest of his life—had his victim not reached into the shallow hull of the boat, and grasped the oar lying there. Barn was too engaged in the task of cracking Zelim's ankle to notice. Grimacing with the effort of his torment, he looked up to enjoy the agony on Zelim's face only to see the oar coming at him. He had no time to duck. The paddle slammed against his face,
breaking the half dozen good teeth left in his head. He fell back, letting go of Zelim's leg as he did so, and lay sprawled on the sand with his hands clamped to his wounded face, blood and curses springing from between his fat fingers.

But Zelim hadn't finished with him. The young man got up, yelping when he put weight on his tortured leg. Then, limping over to Barn's prone body, he straddled the man, and sat down on his blubbery belly. This time Baru made no attempt to move; he was too dazed. Zelim tore at his shirt, exposing great rolls of flesh.

“You . . . call me a woman?' Zelim said. Baru moaned incoherently. Zelim caught hold of the man's blubbery chest. “You've got bigger tits than any woman I know.” He slapped the flesh. “Haven't you?' Again, Barn moaned, but Zelim wasn't satisfied.
“Haven't you got tits?”
he said, reaching up to pull Barn's hands away from his face. He was a mess beneath. “Did you hear me?' Zelim demanded.

“Yes . . .” Baru moaned.

“So say it.”

“I've . . . got tits . . .”

Zelim spat on the man's bloody face, and got to his feet. He felt suddenly sick, but he was determined he wasn't going to puke in front of any of these men. He despised them all.

He caught Hassan's lazy-lidded gaze as he turned.

“You did that well,” the man remarked appreciatively. “Want something to drink?”

Zelim pushed the proffered jug aside and set his sights beyond this little ring of boats, along the shore. His leg hurt as though it were in a fire and burning up, but he was determined to put some distance between himself and the other fishermen before he showed any sign of weakness.

“We haven't finished with the nets,” Kekmet growled at him, as he limped away.

Zelim ignored him. He didn't care about the boats or the nets or whether the fish would rise tonight. He didn't care about Baru or old Kekmet or drunken Hassan. He didn't care about himself at that moment. He wasn't proud of what he'd done to Barn, nor was he ashamed. It was done, and now he wanted to forget about it. Dig himself a hole in the sand, till he found a cool, damp place to lie, and forget about it all. A hundred yards behind him now, Hassan was shouting something, and though he couldn't make sense of the words there was sufficient alarm in the drunkard's tone that Zelim glanced back to see what the matter was. Hassan had got to his feet, and was gazing off toward the distant trees. Zelim followed the direction of his gaze, and saw that a great number of birds had risen from the branches and were circling over the treetops. It was an unusual sight to be sure, but Zelim would have paid it little mind had the next moment not brought the baying of wolves, and with
the wolves, the emergence of two figures from the trees. He was about the same distance from this pair as he was from the men and the boats behind him, and there he stayed, unwilling to take refuge in the company of old Kekmet and the others, but afraid to advance toward these strangers, who strode out of the forest as though there was nothing in its depths to fear, and walked, smiling, down toward the glittering water.

T
o Zelim's eyes the couple didn't look dangerous. In fact it was a pleasure to look at them, after staring at the brutish faces of his fellow fishermen. They walked with an ease that bespoke strength, bespoke limbs that had never been cracked and mismended, never felt the ravages of age. They looked, Zelim thought, as he imagined a king and a queen might look, stepping from their cool palace, having been bathed in rare oils. Their skins, which were very different in color (the woman was blacker than any human being Zelim had ever set eyes upon, the man paler), gleamed in the sunlight, and their hair, which both wore long, seemed to be plaited here and there, so that serpentine forms ran in their manes. All this was extraordinary enough; but there was more. The robes they wore were another astonishment, for their colors were more vivid than anything Zelim had seen in his life. He'd never witnessed a sunset as red as the red in these robes, or set eyes on a bird with plumage as green, or seen with
his mind's eye, in dream or daydream, a treasure that shone like the golden threads that were woven with this red, this green. The robes were long, and hung on their wearers voluptuously, but still it seemed to Zelim he could see the forms of their bodies beneath the folds, and it made him long to see them naked. He felt no shame at this desire; just as he felt no fear that they would chasten him for his scrutiny. Surely beauty like this, when it went out into the world, expected to be doted on.

He hadn't moved from that place on the bank where he'd first spotted the couple, but their path to the water's edge was steadily bringing them closer to him, and as the distance between them narrowed his eyes found more to beguile them. The woman, for instance, was wearing copious ornaments of jewelry—anklets, wristlets, necklaces—all as dark as her skin, yet carrying half-concealed in their darkness an iridescence that made them shimmer. The man had decoration of his own: elaborate patterns painted or tattooed upon his thighs, which were visible when his robe, which was cut to facilitate the immensity of his legs, parted.

But the most surprising detail of their appearance did not become clear until they were within a few yards of the water. The woman, smiling at her mate, reached into the folds of her robe, and with the greatest tenderness, lifted out into view a tiny baby. The mite bawled instantly at being parted from the comfort of its mother's tits—nor did Zelim blame the thing; he would have done the same—but it ceased its complaints when both mother and father spoke to it. Was there ever a more blessed infant than this, Zelim thought. To be in such arms, to gaze up at such faces, to know in your soul that you came from such roots as these? If a greater bliss were possible, Zelim could not imagine it.

The family was at the water now, and the couple had begun to speak to one another. It was no light conversation. Indeed from the way the pair stood facing one another, and the way they shook their heads and frowned, there was some trouble between them.

The child, who had moments before been the center of its parents' doting attentions, now went unnoticed. The argument was starting to escalate, Zelim saw, and for the first time since setting eyes on the couple he considered the wisdom of retreat if one of these pair—or God Almighty help him,
both—
were to lose their temper, he did not care to contemplate the power they could unleash. But however fearful he was, he couldn't take his eyes off the scene before him. Whatever the risk of staying here and watching, it was nothing beside the sorrow he would feel, denying himself this sight. The world would not show him such glories again, he suspected. He was privileged beyond words to be in the presence of these people. If he went and hid his head, out of some idiot fear, then he deserved the very death he would be seeking to avoid. Only the brave were granted gifts such as this; and if it had come to him by accident (which it surely had) he would surprise fate by rising to the occasion. Keep
his eyes wide and his feet planted in the same spot; have himself a story to tell his children, and the children of his children, when this event was a lifetime from now.

He had no sooner shaped these thoughts, however, than the argument between the couple ceased, and he had cause to wish he had fled. The woman had returned her gaze to the baby, but her consort, who'd had his back to Zelim throughout most of the exchange, now cast a look over his shoulder, and fixing his eyes upon Zelim,
beckoned
to him.

Zelim didn't move. His legs had turned to stone, his bowels to water; it was all he could do not to befoul his pants. He suddenly didn't care whether or not he had a tale to tell his children. He only wanted the sand to soften beneath him, so he could slide into the dark, where this man's gaze could not find him. To make matters worse the woman had bared her breasts and was offering her nipple to the babe's mouth. Her breasts were sumptuous, gleaming and full. Though he knew it wasn't wise to be staring past the beckoning husband and ogling the wife, Zelim couldn't help himself.

And again, the man summoned him with the hook of his fingers, but this time spoke.

“Come here, fisherman,
” he said. He didn't speak loudly, but Zelim heard the command as though it had been spoken at his ear.
“Don't be afraid,”
the man went on.