Quarantine (21 page)

her cave. They were being neighbourly. 'Come out and drink,'

they said. 'It's almost dawn.' So she would tie her hair veil tightly

round her head to make herself invisible and join them at the

grave. Even when Aphas begged her to reach down into the

water to fill his cap, she did not speak to him beyond the common

courtesies, or show her face. She did her best to close her wings

against them all, to hide away the mothy colours of the night,

to keep her ardours to herself

No one there gave Marta much thought, to tell the truth.

The men thought only of themselves. The badu grinned at her

with an expression which seemed both childish and lascivious -

but then he grinned at rocks as well, and rocks could have no

reason to be nervous of a grin. The old man wheezed and limped

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as if his illness was only real if acted out. And Shim had greater

matters on his mind than floating into Marta's cave by night on

draughts of air. It was his habit, as soon as there was any light,

to impose himself upon the largest rock on the sloping ground

below the caves and meditate, his chin too high, his back too

straight, his eyes and tongue just visible. He would not speak if

spoken to. He let the flies stay on his eyes and lips. He let the

lizards run across his hand. He set himself the task of staying still.

Marta hardly recognized the man by day. The light was cruel to

him. How unexciting he'd become. She would not want his

hair in hers. He was a better man in dreams.

She understood, of course, that Shim had reasons to be proud

and petulant. Their landlord had humiliated him on that first

day. Shim had nearly had his little toe pulled off. She'd seen him

shaking with defeat as he hobbled back towards the tent. Musa

had the curling staff behind his back. It looked as if he meant

to strike Shim down, and when he did not strike him down

but chose instead to win with words, then Shim's abasement

seemed complete. Even anger had looked comical and weak on

him.

Shim should despise their landlord, then. That made sense.

What Marta did not understand, and what neither she nor Aphas

could bear to listen to, was Shim's dismissal of the healer. He

hadn't even spoken to the man, the boy, as far as she could tell.

He'd only seen him for a moment, from the brink of the precipice.

Yet Shim took every opportunity to ridicule Gaily (that had

become the name that everybody used) and anyone who took

his side.

'What saintly person would squander a miracle on such a man

as Musa?' he asked Aphas one morning at the cistern when the

old man had called a verse for Gaily in his prayers. Aphas merely

shook his head and shrugged. It was too early in the day and he

ached too much from sleep to grapple with the wisdom of the

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Greeks. Even shrugging made him wince; the pain ran up his

veins like fire up oil-soaked thread.

'Come, come,' persisted Shim. 'Won't you agree with me?'

Their landlord's story of his rescue from the fever was not

believable, he insisted. Musa was a man who would not tell the

truth unless there was a price on it. The donkey they had dragged

away and dropped was more honest than Musa, and more saintly

than Gaily. Perhaps it was the donkey, according to Shim's

mischief-making, that had come to Musa in his tent and passed

some of its holy water on his head, and pressed its holy hooves

on to his face, and plucked the devil out between its teeth. 'What

can you say to that?'

Another shrug from Aphas. And then, 'There is, at least, a

mystery . . .'

'Where is the mystery?' asked Shim, unused to any judgement

but his own. 'It was an animal, perhaps. Or one of our landlord's

cousins put in the cave to make fools of you all.'

No, Aphas would not be shaken from his latest faith. He was

sure he'd seen a shape, quite tall, and hardly making any sound

as if it floated on the ground. It must have floated down the

precipice to reach the cave because, so far as he could see, the

entry was beyond the reach of normal men. It was beyond the

reach of goats.

'I felt . . . ' he said, but did not finish. He dared not use the

word enlightenment again. He'd used it once before, only to

hear it mocked by Shim: Enlightenment comes to the ignorant.

'I felt uncertain . . .'

'You felt uncertain if you saw a man at all,' said Shim, beginning

to enjoy himself Aphas was not a scholar and the only other

audience was a blushing woman and the madcap badu, who

betrayed no sign oflistening, but at least here was an opportunity

for greater wisdom to prevail: 'A floating shape is not a man. If

it were, then - look around - this little valley would seem as

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populated as a market-place. It's only the sun and wind that

make the rocks and bushes seem to float and tremble. No

mystery.'

'She saw it, too,' protested Aphas.

'Our neighbour, yes. The nearly-shadows and the humming

rocks that she claims as her experience are not evidence of

anything beyond the natural.' He didn't point at Marta or even

say her name. 'Who else then? Our fine landlord? You cannot

cite his narrative, even if he really thinks he tells the truth. At

best, his were the visions of a fever. Hot dreams and make-believe.

Who hasn't had a fever, and then seen shapes? But why blame

fever when he's so obviously a drunk? So what is left? The badu's

word? We'll take his word for it.' Shim laughed. The badu

couldn't speak a single word. 'Whose testimony should we trust

that there is anybody there at all?'

'Your own testimony,' Aphas almost shouted. Had Shim

forgotten what he'd said to Musa? 'You saw him from the top.

There's someone there, you said. You almost dropped the donkey

. . . didn't . . . ?'

'It was the truth. The donkey hardly missed his head,' said

Shim. 'He looked at me. I looked at him. You see, I have the

final word. My logic has you trapped. I'm the only one whose

testimony is more substantial than a shape or a shadow or a

dream. And this is strange. What should one make of this? Those

three of you who did not see him quite, convince yourselves that

he's a healer and a holy man. While I, who stared him in the

face, who can describe his nose and chin and ears, can tell you

he is not. It seems I have to persevere with what I said. The

man's a boy, at best, collecting eggs or chasing sheep . . . What's

holy there? And where's the mystery?'

'No normal boy could climb down a clifflike that. It's dangerous. It's almost sheer,' insisted Aphas, defeated by Shim's reasoning but irritated too, and close to tears. At home, he had three 1 22

sons of Shim's age, and older. They had been taught to listen to

their elders, and to be respectful of every priest and holy man.

Certainly they knew it was not right to argue with a dying man,

a man in pain. He turned his head away from Shim. He did not

want to hear another word. He'd dreamed, like Marta, that the

healer's hand had come into his cave. What else would save his

life? He spread his fingers on his side, despairing at the unforgiving

ache. He should have put his fingers in his ears.

'A normal boy will take a chance to snatch some eggs,' said

Shim. 'All normal boys can climb. The stupid ones take bigger

risks. We're talking of a very stupid boy.'

Marta coughed. She sniffed. She made impatient movements

with her legs. The bees inside her melon head rose up in fury.

She was surprised that Shim could strike such a cruel note, as if

it mattered to him that she - and evidently Aphas, too - needed

to believe in healers and in miracles. What otherwise was the

point of prayer and fasting, far from home, unless the grating

noises of the world could be turned tuneful by the charms and

cantrips of some holy conjuror? Shim's god might be a god

whose greatest trick was curdling milk or taking mould to bread.

But Aphas and Marta's was a god who parted seas to take his

people out of slavery, who punished wickedness with floods,

who summoned water out of rocks, who only had to whistle

for the towers and the bastions to fall. Theirs was a god who

showed his hand through miracles.

She'd like to do what the widows of the slaughtered men in

Maccabee had done to their false prophets and stuffS him's mouth

with clay. He'd have to listen then. For once she could be angry

in ways which were not approved, a woman shouting at a man.

She would be happy for the chance to scream again. This was

the scrub. No one would come to help. She'd tell him that she

knew his mind. He was clear water. She could see the bottom

of his pot. His scoffing at Gaily was nothing more than his

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cowardly revenge on Musa. But Marta was not fooled, she'd

say. She had not travelled much, she could not read, but Marta

was not mystified by him. She even saw what hid beneath the

bottom ofhis pot. She saw the deeper level to his mockery, and

she understood that Shim was simply jealous of the Galilean

man.

Shim was a practised traveller to holy places, as he'd told them

many times. He boasted that he could read Greek letters, converse

in Aramaic, Siddilic and Latin, tell fortunes, compose and sing

his own prayers in a voice of mesmerizing evenness, and sit as

sinless and as motionless as a pyramid, possessed by half-a-dozen

gods, competing with the rocks for soberness. He said that he

was used to deference, that he was used to supplicants seeking

his advice and wisdom. At religious gatherings throughout the

provinces more simple pilgrims than himself- and that included

the likes of Marta, Musa and Aphas - would treat him as the

pious and the holy one. They'd seek him out. They'd kneel to

touch his gown. They'd give him alms and shelter for the night.

Why should he not expect the same to happen in the scrub? His

landlord and the quarantiners ought to come and stand a little

distance from his cave. They ought to pray for him to drive their

spirits and their fevers out. They ought to sit in hopes each day

that his portentous shadow would fall on theirs. Instead, he was

ignored at best, or made to look a fool, or argued with by one

- Aphas -whose character was not enhanced by travel, or another

- Musa - whose mind was not refined by study. Instead of

deference and alms, he had a dislocated toe. And all these simple

pilgrims in the scrub were seeking help and wisdom from some

meekling youth whose only credo seemed to be that it was wise

to turn his cheek against the light and cower in his cave.

'Or else we frightened him,' he said, to end his conversation

with Aphas. 'That is the measure of his holiness. He scrambled

down. He hid inside the cave and now he's stuck. He can't climb

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up. He's too ashamed to show his face. He's sucking wild birds'

eggs for food, and praying for rain. Perhaps we ought to go with

rope and rescue him.' With that, he shut his eyes and settled

down to meditate, his fingers spread out on the rock, with just

an eyelid flickering to show he was alive, like a lizard boasting

in the sun.

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God had not provided a ready-dug cistern for his Galilean son

to take his water from. There were no rock pans by the cave for

the dew to gather. Or any salt shrubs within reach, so that Jesus

could tear his nails off digging for their liquid roots. There were

no barrel bushes with their wax skins, or tamarisks with hollow,

swampy trunks. If there had been any spring plants, vain enough

to defy the precipice's nude and excavated rocks, then they had

already flowered, seeded and retreated underground into their

bulbs. Jesus searched inside his darkened cell but he could not

find any sop bugs, their knapsacks full of pap, which could provide

some short-lived moisture for his tongue with their sweet

explosions. There were no nesting birds, or bats, or even any

ants to eat, so far as he could tell. There was no rain. He thanked

the lord. He'd found a place opposed to sin and nourishment,

and he could starve himself of both without distraction. God in

his generosity had removed all earthly sustenance and cleaned

the cave of all temptations. Jesus only had to conquer his tormentors on the promontory - and time, of course.

A single silver bush was growing in a seam of marl above the

cave, scarcely showing leaves. It spread its skeleton across a rock

as if it meant to suck the quartz from it. It drank its colour from