Quarantine (12 page)

of Miri, nevertheless. The woman was enslaved perhaps, but

sinewy and spirited . . . and pregnant. Here was the person that

Marta would like to be herself, the one that took her place in

dreams, whose warp hung heavy on the weft. Marta had held

Miri briefly by the hand when she had come to show her broken

fingernails. Their touching skins could not have been more

different, the one as full and oily as an olive, the other parchmenty.

Marta longed to put her hand on Miri's stomach and feel the

wing-beats of her child. Would that be parchmenty as well? If

only babies were contagious, like a fever . . . If only she could

pass her hands through flesh and cup the child inside her palms

. . . If only Miri would agree to sell . . .

Marta pulled up the little bag tied into the material of her

tunic top, and felt its weight of coins. She could pay. She could

pay for Miri's baby, if only four months could be compressed

into the forty days and there was a child for sale. She was prepared

to pay for water and for rent, as well, so long as Miri was around.

In fact, it was a comfort in some ways to pay, because it guaranteed

she would not starve or freeze to death, and it would buy her

access to Musa's little slave. She let the bag drop down again on

its drawstring, into the warmth and darkness of her clothes. It

made the slightest bulge, and made her blush, because she knew

that Musa watched the dropping bag and that his eyes had

travelled with it underneath the folds of cloth. She pulled her

hair veil down across her face and waited for the old man and

Shim, the honey-top, to finish their negotiations and make their

bid to Musa.

Musa often claimed that seeing inside the heads of his adversaries was, for him, as easy as judging melons by their skins. He knew when they were sweet and ripe. He knew if they held any

juice, and where and when to squeeze. He knew when they

were cavernous and dry. It was an easy game to play. He was

the champion. He judged and squeezed his clients in the marketplace, and knew, before they even knew themselves, how much they'd offer as their initial bid as well as what they'd end up

paying as the final price. They nearly always gave the game away.

Their fingers moved, and spelled out twos and threes and fours.

They smiled too much or met his eyes too levelly if they were

cheating him. Their breathing changed if they were feeling

pressurized. There was a whole vocabulary of casual coughs,

finger-tapping, tongues on teeth, false frowns, which told the

emperor of trade ifhis suppliers or his buyers were underbidding,

backing off, or ready for the deal.

So Shim and Aphas were no contest for a man like Musa. He

watched their conversation from his mat - the old man urgent,

pressured, volatile; the blond one shamming his indifference to

money, numbers, water, rent. If they had any sense, Musa

thought, they'd recognize their trading weaknesses and not

attempt to better him. How could they better him? They were

townspeople, by the looks of it, and far from home. They

wouldn't know the customs of the scrub. Their reasoning would

be that every stretch ofland inside a town was owned by someone.

All land was good for goats or corn or rent. Why not the country

too? Why not the wilderness? And so they'd end up paying for

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the water and the caves. They'd not make any fuss, or ask for

any proof, not with a hundred cousins in the hills. They might

plead poverty at first, and ask that Musa earn a place in their

devotions by showing them some charity. But he'd refuse.

Charity and loans were the commerce of a fool. No, no, they'd

either have to pay, or start their quarantine again, elsewhere,

he'd say. No other choice. Perhaps they'd like to gather up their

things and go? He'd tell Miri to prepare the donkey for burial

in their water cistern. That's when they'd start to empty out

their purses like prodigals and wedding guests.

Musa put his fingers in his lap and tried to calculate what his

profit on the day might be. What was the going rate for muddy

water and for caves? What could he charge? As much as he could

get. The badu with the hennaed hair could hardly contribute,

of course. He couldn't pay in cash. That much was obvious. He

couldn't even talk. 'He doesn't have a tongue,' the sickly Jew

had said. But what about the sickly Jew himself? A purse-proud

little working man, too dignified to beg for anything, too dull

to ever shirk a debt. Such a man would never travel far from

home without some silver pieces for the journey. He'd have a

money-belt beneath his cloak like every artisan, containing coins

and, perhaps, some salt crystals for good luck, plus a twist of

sweet resin to catch his fleas. Musa even smiled to himself, though

Musa's smile was thinner than his lips. No fleas on me, he

thought. They can't afford the rent.

This Aphas, though, according to Musa's reasoning, would

do his best to pay the rent. He looked exhausted by the journey,

and withered by his sickness, too. He wouldn't want to move

elsewhere. He couldn't move elsewhere. For this - the water

and the cave, the right to rest and stay, the licence to breathe

desert air - he'd pay out eight pieces, Musa judged. He'd pay

out ten, if pressed. But not, perhaps, a coin more. The blond

one would pay eight as well. He'd say it made no difference to

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him whether he was rich or poor. He would not wish to argue

over rent. He'd claim he didn't need the shelter or the water,

that he would settle for the stars and dew, that a thousand cousins

did not bother him. And then he'd get his money out and pay.

The woman? Musa peered at her again, and ran his tongue

along his teeth. She could afford as much, or more, as the two

men. Look at her clothes. Look at her unmarked hands. But let

her pay the eight as well. Musa looked up from his calculations.

Three eights were twenty-four. That was enough. He'd drop to

twenty if he must. He coughed, and motioned to the two men

with his chins. 'Yes, yes,' he said. He didn't have all day.

He let them have their say. They were intemperate. They

offered twenty-five between the four of them, fifteen at once

and ten in forty days. Musa was more easily persuaded by their

case than they had expected. Twenty-five was not enough, he

said. He was insulted by their twenty-five. But it was wrong,

perhaps, to deny them water for the sake of principle. That much

he would concede. There are traditions even in the wilderness.

A traveller can wet his lips and face for free. So, yes, he would

accept just the twenty-five pieces of silver, but they would have

to pay it all at once. He could not have them in his debt. And

he accepted, too, their inconvenient request to leave the donkey's

grave unfilled. And in return for his forbearance? The three men

could come down to his tent and help to drag the donkey to

the precipice.

'Be friends with me,' he said. 'Stay here for forty days. Drink

all the water that you want. Pray till you have a camel's knees. '

H e would b e neighbourly and could supply them with their

daily needs. He had some dates and olives he could sell. Fig

cakes. Dried fruit. Goat's milk. Goat's meat, if they could match

his price. And there was grain which she - his chin was lifted at

his wife - will grind and bake for bread. There were rugs and

rush bed-mats which they could hire. Lamps, with oil. Camel

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dung, for fuel. Everything to make their stay more comfortable.

Best of all, they could be sure that they were well protected.

With Musa as their landlord, no one would dare to come and

trouble them, or take advantage of their devotions. His name

was known and respected by everybody in the hills and far

beyond. Everybody was his cousin, even the scorpions.

Musa spat on to his hand and called the three male quarantiners

forward to close their deal. 'Just one more thing,' he said, 'and

then it's done' : when the forty days were up, then they could

show their thanks by helping him to carry his possessions and

the tent down to the track which led to Jericho. They could be

his donkeys for a day. In return, he wouldn't make them pay

him any passage tax for travelling through his territory. That

much was free.

'What do you say? Is this not better than you hoped?'

Musa felt - as ever - pleased to be himself He had found the

morning unexpectedly amusing, and satisfying, too, despite the

absence of the Galilean man. Already his retinue and his clientele

had grown. His wealth increased. His dreams came true. The

caravan and his deceitful uncles could be buried beneath

the pleasures of the day. Everyone he met, it seemed, except the

badu (and he would have to pay some other price) was opening

a purse and inviting him to put his fingers in. And why? To pay

for earth and air and water that was the property of god. If every

market-place was full of fools like these three fools, he'd only

have to dig a pit and watch while people threw their money in.

All this - and all within a day of riding fever to the open gates

of death. He was invincible.

He made Shim lend him his staff for the walk back to the

tent. It was downhill but hardly easier than coming up. His feet,

unseen beyond his waist, descended into empty space. Musa had

to place the staff ahead of him, feel for solid ground, and send

his weight along its spiralled length, before he dared to shuffle

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forward. His fever had weakened him. He was immensely slow.

But languor was the right of merchant kings when they were

weighed down with the prizes of the market-place.

Luckily, his five companions were in no hurry for themselves.

They had forty days to fill. This interlude with Musa was, at

least, less wearying than unbroken prayer. Aphas, anyway, was

glad to be as slow as Musa, but his steps were weightless. He did

his best to listen to Shim's teachings and expostulations, to nod

with recognition at the places that he named, but he could only

concentrate on his increasing pain. His ankles felt as fragile as an

unfired pot. His cankered liver nagged and lobbied without

cease. The heat was punishing. He'd been a stonemason all his

working life, perhaps, but none of these stones in his path offered

any solace. They were only nuisances. A little distance to the

side, and behind the men, Marta walked with Miri, their bodies

brushing, their hems in unison. The badu ran ahead and cleared

the path. He was a volunteer. He seemed to find the rocks and

stones amusing, laughing at them as he turned them on their

sides. The badu's cries were strange - unformed and blustering.

A vulture looking down on them and smelling death and fat and

pregnancy, as they left their thousand footprints in the clay and

emerged from the little valley on to the plateau of the tent,

would be hard pressed to guess which one would be its carrion.

Musa was exhausted when he reached the tent. He went inside

for rest, and for some private moments with his flask of date

spirit. He felt the fabrics of the bed. He ran his fingers through

his wools, and thought of Marta, naked, waiting to be draped

in narrow lengths of cloth. The women sat cross-legged in shade,

outside. They were whispering, but Musa didn't care what

women had to say. He lay back on his cushions, looked out

through the open awning and watched the three men circling

the donkey's carcass, holding their noses, shaking their heads

like undertakers. Aphas shook his head because he did not want

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to help with burial. He was too old and tired and ill. A Jew that

touched a donkey corpse would be unclean until the night, and

then would have to purify himself in water that should, at least,

be cleaner than the water in the cistern.

The other two shook their heads because they'd never seen

an animal so bludgeoned. Musa smiled. So now they'd understand

what kind of man he was, what sort oflandlord he could be. He

watched the badu and the blond man stoop to test the donkey's

weight. Miri had been right. The carcass was too heavy for a

woman to move on her own, despite the loss ofblood and eyes

and entrails. But these two men were strong and evidently not

concerned about the weight or smell. The blond one, Musa

noticed, was more powerful than he appeared to be at first. The