Quarantine (7 page)

tent; and no one there to lay a hand on Musa's arm or press his

chest so that the devil's air could be expressed before the pestle

fell again.

Musa gave the donkey one more chance. 'Get up,' he said.

The throat had cleared. His voice was reedy once again. He

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kicked her side. He jabbed his heel against her inflamed boil.

No luck. He brought the pestle down on to her lower back,

experimentally. 'Get up,' again. But here Musa had met his

match. Her sickness was greater than his, and was defeating him.

She could endure his bullying, but did not have the will or

strength to stand. She closed her eyes and even dropped her ears.

Do what you will to me. You are invisible.

Musa could not stop himself, of course. A merchant always

sees his business through. He had to bargain with the currency

at nand. He knew that donkeys were like customers. They had

long memories. Camels had none. A donkey that had got its

own way once would expect it every time. It would resist the

tether and the switch. It would 'shake its panniers off and bray

for better food. He told himself he had no choice but to force

the donkey to her feet, to make her move a safe distance away

from the tent. For what purpose? Simply so that she could tumble

on to her chin again and die where Musa had commanded. This,

then, would be the final lesson of her life. There is a price to

pay for disobedience, he thought. There is always a reckoning.

He'd make her pay for his infection, too. For his abandonment.

Musa lifted up the pestle for a second time, but less experimentally. Now there were three good reasons why the donkey should be hit, and little to mitigate her punishment. He had to satisfy

his anger. Anger was like phlegm and urine - best expressed at

once. It was a shame there were no witnesses, he thought,

warming to his task. He would have liked to have had an audience

- Miri and his uncles. See what happens when Musa is upset,

he'd say. Here's how to put a pestle to good use. He would

divorce this donkey on the spot.

It was just as well there were no witnesses. When Musa swung

the pestle he lost his footing. Its weight circled too widely behind

his shoulder. His own weight was uncentred. He almost fell on

to the donkey. His temper took a shaking, too. He had to start

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again, and use the pestle like an axe, chopping at the mortar of

her head. Big men are often clumsy when they are violent. Their

venom can seem comical and soft. They are too breathless and

they have too many chins. Thin men, with bloodless lips and

hollow waists, appear more dangerous. But Musa's frenzy was

not comical. There was nothing jocular or soft about the way

he used the pestle. Indeed, his clumsiness had made him angry

with himself and that provided extra power. Killing did not

bother him. It was natural. He'd slaughtered goats a dozen times.

He'd wrung the necks ofbirds. He'd dealt with snakes. But this

was more than slaughtering. This was a settling of scores.

It took two blows to put the donkey out. Her skull was thin,

and she was old. She had sufficient spirit to bare her teeth at

Musa's leg, but not enough to roll over on her side and kick at

him. She only rolled when she was unconscious and had no

choice. Musa did not stop when she was on her side. He wanted

now to see some product for his efforts, some broken skin, some

rips, some blood. He wanted to make the stubborn creature's

head fall loose. It took him ten more blows to break the ridge

ofbones high on her neck, the vertebrae between her ears. They

were protected by her short and springy mane. Musa had to

twist the pestle as it fell so that he could strike the donkey on its

uncushioned side, along the line of sinew between the cheekbone and the shoulder. Gradually her coat was rid of dust. The skin began to soften like so much grain had softened and split

under the same pestle in Miri's hands. But the blood was slow

to rise. When it did it surfaced on the donkey's skin like wine

through bread, not running free but welling, blushing through

the hair, thickening and darkening in curtains at her throat, as

if the blood itself was so drained of energy it could not even fall.

Then Musa rested, watching while the blood-flow to the

donkey's brain was blocked by the breakages and swellings. The

nerves, first in her ears and throat, then in her flank, and finally

in her damaged leg and at the end-tuft of her tail, shook and

trembled as if the donkey felt nothing more than unexpected

cold. Musa hit her once again. Her face was fruit. It bruised and

split and wept. Her neck had broken at the shoulder-blade. Musa

had succeeded in his task: at last the donkey's head was loose.

He could not resist a final swing, although his shoulders ached

and his heart was hammering. Was this exuberance or brutishness?

He knocked her top front teeth into her mouth. They cracked

out of her gums like stones from apricots.

Musa's exertions were exhausting for a man already weakened

by the fever. He had to rest again. He put his hand on the

donkey's rump, and lowered himself on to the earth. His hands

and knees were splashed with blood, and they were shaking. He

poured some water and washed himself. He knew he should

take more care in case the blood was still contagious, but Musa

held the simple view that the glanders would have died as well

beneath the pestle blows, that death can vanquish all disease.

Death can heal. He dried his hands in donkey hair and shook

the water off on to the animal. He flicked the waste from his

hands over the donkey's head, a blessing of a sort. Musa was

feeling calmer, playful even, but he was never one for flippancy.

So someone else was speaking through his lips. He was surprised

to hear himself offer to the donkey the common greeting for

the sick and dying. 'So, here, be well again,' he said. Fat chance

of that!

'So, here, be well again'? The recurrence of that phrase made

Musa shiver. There was a meaning to such repetitions. There

always was. Everything that's stored will be restored, that is the

chiming pattern of the world. Whose words were those, Be well

again? Who haunted him? Whose throbbing voice was that? He

concentrated hard. And, yes, there was a half-remembered figure

now. A face within his fever. A peasant face. A robber's face.

He could recall his eyelids being thumbed and stroked: 'A sip,

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a sip. And then I'm gone.' Not Miri's voice, but someone soft

and male; his lesser twin but with an accent from the farming

north. A Galilean voice, with open lazy vowels, and consonants

which shot out like seeds from a drying pod, which shed their

stones like apricots, which snapped out of the gums like donkey's

teeth. 'A sip, a sip, a sip.' A healer's voice, belonging in the tent.

Musa looked into the tent. No unexpected shadows there.

He searched for someone moving in the scrub. He hoped and

feared to see the man again. He'd settle any debts. He'd pay the

reckoning, if it was reasonable. Together they had travelled to

the long black ridge and looked beyond into the ochre plains of

death. Be well again. Be well.

So that's how Miri found him when she came. She had to

stumble in the darkness for a lamp to see exactly what misfortunes

had occurred. There was no body in the tent, and that was

frightening. It didn't take her long to find the donkey and her

husband. The corpse's smell was bad, and there were scrub dogs

already gathered near the tent, hungry for the meat. Her husband's

head was resting on the donkey's leg, and they were black with

drying blood. At first she thought they both were dead. But no

such luck. His chest was rising. He snored. His tongue was pink

and healthy on his lips, not black from fever any more. It was a

curse; it was a miracle. So much for death's discrimination. It

had claimed the donkey, not the man.

Musa was woken by the lamplight. He wasn't feverish. He

looked at Miri, her dirty hands, her bloody knees, her tearful

eyes. 'Hah, so you returned,' he said. And just as well. He pointed

at his bloody handiwork. But Musa's anger had been squandered

on the donkey. He was relieved to see his wife. It showed. How

could he manage on his own? It had been the oddest day, and

he was tired. He did not know if he should celebrate or grieve.

He pulled her fiercely by her arms, a tender, punishing embrace,

and made her tell him everything that had happened, what his

uncles had prescribed, what their plans for him had been.

'Where were you, then?' he asked finally. 'Look at your hair.'

What could she say? That she had run away from him? That

she had dug his grave, and passed the afternoon quite comfortably

inside? She couldn't speak. She was in shock, and trembling.

Her liberation had been too short. At last she said, with what he

might have taken to be tears of worry and concern, that she had

thought that he was going to die.

'Well, you were wrong. A spirit came and brought me back.

But not with any help from you,' he said accusingly, though he

released the hard grip on her arm and dropped his hand into her

lap. 'I saw his face.'

'What face?'

'Somebody's face. The fever's face? I don't remember seeing

yours.'

'I couldn't lure the fever out,' she said. 'I sang for you. All

night. It's true. I did . . .' Musa tilted his heavy chin at her, to

let her know he hadn't heard her sing. ' . . . I climbed the scarp

to look for roots. To make a poultice. But . . .' (she opened up

her hands to show her broken nails) ' . . . I dug for nothing. The

earth was hard. It's stones . . .'

She gabbled on, but did not listen to herself. God damn the

spirit that has brought you back, she thought. Her wrist was still

smarting from the fierceness of his grip. His hand was pressing

into her and she was shrinking and retreating from his fingers.

He was unsteady still. And ungainly as ever. He could not quite

succeed - not yet, at least - in turning Miri on her back. But he

was lucky with his lips .. no longer dry and caustic. He pressed

his kisses on her face. That was the trading profit of her day.

It had been an afternoon of hope, at least. She'd raised her

hands into the unresisting air. The sky was soft for her. But now

the sky became a hard and bruising dish again. Miri was reduced

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to one of scrubland's night-time residents, its seven people and

its goats, its caves, its tent, its partial hospitality beneath the

thinnest moon of spring. She was unwidowed and unfreed, the

mistress of unwelcome lips, the keeper of a wasted grave.