Quarantine (22 page)

the stone. Jesus jumped to snatch the lowest leaf, an oddly

adolescent act, but men are boys when they are bored. He was

surprised and gladdened by the effort that his jumping took, how

tired and jarred he felt. It meant he was already weakened by his

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fast and that much closer to god, therefore. He hardly touched

the leaf, but it snapped its stem and fell into his hair as dryly and

as heavily as furnace scale. He would not put it in his mouth.

He would put nothing in his mouth for all the quarantine. He

would not even break his fast at night, unless it was with help

provided by his god, a meal placed at his head by angels while

he slept (as god had provided a cake baked on hot stones and a

pitcher of water for Elijah's forty days of fasting) . But even

though he would not place the leaf on his tongue he was still

curious to see what sustenance the precipice might give to him.

The moist leaves of a pair bush, common in the scrubland by

the tent, could be rubbed on to the lips or sucked for sweetness.

A sprig of morning star, tucked between the teeth and lower

lips, would taste of peaches for a day. But this was only canker

thorn. He snapped the silver leaf It fell apart like ash. No sap.

By now he had no sap himself He'd urinated two or three

times on that first evening when he'd climbed down the precipice

and taken up his residence, and that was normal. He'd always

had a nervous bladder, forever wanting to pass water in the

middle of the night or as soon as the priest began his readings

from the written laws and no one could leave the temple without

offence. He'd learnt to put his discomfort to good use: his bladder

was a messenger from god, a sign of his unrighteousness. It was

said by some of the older family that possession by spirits or by

unclean thoughts was marked by such an excess of fluids. Sneezing, vomiting, a salivating mouth, diarrhoea, passing too much water - these were all signs that evil was in residence. It should

be first resisted, then forced out. His bladder woke him in the

night with a purpose, he told himself- it was an opportunity to

say more private prayers, to practise tongues, to quietly endure

the ache, the guilt, until dawn for fear of waking up his parents

or setting off the hens if he went outside to urinate. Likewise,

his bladder plagued him in the temple when he sat cross-legged

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before the speaking scroll so that he had the opportunity, not

given to the other worshippers, to battle with his imperfect body

for the glory of his god.

It was in part a pleasure, then, and in part a self-indulgence

devoid of any glory, to be able to empty his bladder as he pleased.

Once he'd settled on the precipice, he could obey his impulses

at once, and edge along the cliff-face as far as was safe, to pass

his water where it would not contaminate his cave but without

regard to parents, temples, hens. Such open privacy had not been

possible in the Galilee.

Here was a man who was in the mood to divine grand meanings

in the simplest acts. There'd be no god without such men,

prepared to make the little cause responsible for large effects,

quick to find the lesson in the most everyday events. So it did

not go unnoticed that his first day's urine was produced by drink

stolen from the merchant's water-skin which he had lifted from

the awning of the tent. It had only been a sip, the merest sip,

and Jesus had drunk nothing since. But if there had been any sin

or lack of charity on his part, then it would show its stains. There

would be murkiness. These early waters had been copious,

though, and odourless, and clear, and free of guilt. But by the

end of the second day offasting his urine was already dark brown,

like pitch water. It sank into the ground too thickly and with

cloudy bubbles. Even Jesus, whose sense of smell had not recovered from the journey, could recognize the eggy fragrance of sulphur. This was the devil's urine and Jesus's bladder had

become a battle-ground. The patch of watered dust dried within

a few moments. He scuffed it with his heels. He was contaminated

by himself but he could not expect a ritual bath for weeks.

On the third day of his quarantine, he had to go along the

cliff a dozen times. He stood and waited with his back turned

to the sun to no avail, and then he tried again, facing outwards

towards the sea, but he was completely drained already. He

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strained himself until it burned and stung. He pressed his bladder

with his fingertips. The impulse to pass water did not go away,

but he showed nothing for his efforts, except, again, the thinnest

trace of sulphur in the air. He could not wet the soil. His body

was an empty bag.

This was a lesson he would not forget: water is more valuable

than gold. He hunted for the well-shaped proverb. That was the

line that he could preach when he got back to the Galilee. He

briefly saw himself outside the temple gates on market day, raised

on a cart, with sermons for the multitude. An empty purse is

better than an empty pot, he'd say, and his neighbours in the

audience would put their hands across their mouths and whisper,

It's Gaily, see. Listen to him now. We never knew him after all.

But for the moment he was more concerned with his own empty

pot. Perhaps he had been arrogant and profligate. He almost

wished he'd saved the urine that he'd passed so easily on the first

day. To break his thirst, ifhe grew desperate. Let god forbid that

he was ever as desperate as that. He'd heard tales of badu who

in a drought would drink their own waters and the acrid waters

of their camels and think nothing of it, but badu lived close to

the earth, like animals themselves. The water that they normally

drank from wells was bladdery, and shared with all the desert

creatures anyway. The badu had no god to satisfy, or rituals to

obey. They did not have to wash their taints away. Jews, though,

were a people governed by the laws brought down by Moses

from the mountain, and cleanliness of body and of spirit were

the paving stones to god. Those that forsook the laws, Isaiah

said, would be consumed.

Jesus was determined that he would not be consumed so easily.

He shook his head and stamped his feet and beat his shoulders

with his fists until all thoughts of water went away. He would

not let his hunger and his thirst lay traps for him. The spirit had

to beat the flesh. I am not hungry, he told himself This is not

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thirst. The dryness and the stomach pains are false. I do not want

to eat. It is the nourishment ofhome I miss, not bread and water.

It is the nourishment of god I seek, not wine or meat.

That's what he told himself, but in his heart and in the middle

of the night he was less certain. He was plagued by thoughts of

rolling back the days, back to the shepherd's where he'd left his

overcloak, back to his father's carpentry, a chisel in his hand,

back to the times when he was small and unremarkable and

prayers had been more comforting than food or sleep. Here, in

the scrub, his prayers were fickle; sometimes a single verse would

strengthen him, but more and more he found no courage in his

prayers. The cave had swallowed them. The precipice diminished

them. The darkness muttered to itself without pause but was not

listening to him. At those times, he turned away from prayers

and concentrated more on finding some reclusive strategy by

which he could survive his quarantine.

First of all, he set himself what Achim the psalmist called 'the

Task of Not', the discipline of wanting nothing from the world.

Seek wakefulness instead of sleep, the psalmist said, and pain

instead of comfort. If you are offered apricots or galls, then put

your fingers in the bitter dish. And look only for the peace that's

found in wretchedness and not the peace that's found in love.

There were hermits even in the Galilee that lived to Achim's

recipe: they put ashes in their mouths; they would not let

themselves sit down, even at night; they broke their finger-bones

with rocks; they stripped themselves of clothes and walked about

like animals. Jesus had seen such men himself. He'd watched

them hardly flinch when they were stoned by villagers.

Jesus, then, would be an achimite. He had to look for peace

in wretchedness. He took a young man's pleasure in the prospects

of his suffering. There was no other choice but to embrace

discomfort as a friend. The scrub had offered him few hospitalities,

little sleep, no love, but it could readily provide all the suffering

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that he might seek along its paths, and show him torments in a

thousand shapes. He could not bring himself to smash his hands,

not yet. He would not break his fast, even with dust or ashes.

But he could at least be naked like an animal. Angels go naked,

he reminded himself He hardly wore any clothes, and only those

for modesty, but he removed the few that he had - a tunic, and

a cloth, the prescribed undergarment of the Jews - and took

them to his rocky perch and set them free like doves, the poor

man's sacrifice, to wing their way down to the valley floor where

Musa's donkey lay without a shroud. The words of Achim called

to him again: Come for me now, come for me in a thousand

days, for I am naked, I am yours, and all I had is thrown to the

wind.

Jesus - naked on the precipice, his garments irretrievable -

felt both foolish and triumphant all at once, and even briefly

aroused by his own nakedness. What would his parents say?

What would his neighbours make of him? Look at their Gaily

now. He had reduced himself to flesh, when he had expected

and boasted that the fast would subjugate his flesh and cause his

spirit to be clothed in gold. But jesus really felt no shame. There

were no witnesses. The air and sun were satisfying on his skin.

He was a child again, and he had entered into Eden.

It was not long before his body grew too hot to stay for long

in Eden, and the first of many headaches started. He withdrew

into the cave where the borrowed light and temperatures were

more forgiving, at least by day. He leaned against the inside wall,

the perfect achimite, until his arm went numb, and then he

squatted on his heels. Not sitting, quite. It was a compromise.

He muttered resolutions to himself, rocking with each word,

although his feet were cut and painful. He bore the cramp and

deadness in his legs as if they were a blessing. But he gave up

on Achim within a day, although - too late - his clothes were

gone for good. The darkness undermined his appetite for

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wretchedness, and he had reached the point in his fast when he

was vulnerable.

Now he made himself more comfortable, and did his best to

drive all thoughts of Achim from his mind, although the psalmist's

songs were thumpingly insistent. He devised a second strategy

for himself, to deal with quarantine, to conquer thirst. It was

more kindly and more homely than the Task ofNot. He would

not embrace discomfort, after all. That was a vanity. Instead he'd

be a resting camel, aimless and unthinking, and with no memory

or hope to complicate his life. Every boy in the Galilee who'd

ever run out of his yard at dusk to watch the caravans arrive

knew that a camel could travel with its panniers full without

water for ten or twelve days before its hump began to hang. A

resting camel with no pack to carry could stay for twenty days

at camp with nothing in its mouth but teeth and tongue and still