Текст книги "Quarantine"

Автор книги: Jim Crace

Соавторы: Jim Crace
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

28

Miri was not interested in visions or prophecies, or in a god. She’d never called on him for help, not even in the fist of the storm when her mother’s loom was breaking into pieces. But she was praying now for Marta. She ran from cave to cave, and then from bush to bush, in a panic, yelling for the woman, anticipating all the joys of finding her, yet fearful that Marta was already dead. She’d seen the death or something just as bad in Musa’s eyes.

It was a barking fox that finaily led her to Marta’s hiding place. Something tasty must have tempted it to show itselfin daylight. Some easy carrion. Miri feared the worst. But it was only following the spots of watery blood which Marta had spat out as she ran for safety in the rocks when she’d seen Musa and the line of mourners climbing to the caves.

Miri pulled her, trembling and limping, into the sunlight. Her clothes were torn. Her wrists were bruised. Her lower lip was split and swollen on one side, still bleeding. She had to brush away the flies. That was an injury that Miri recognized. She’d had a mouth like that herself. She still had the scar. Musa liked to grip her lips between his teeth.

‘What happened to you?’

Marta hadn’t got the courage to speak.

‘It’s Musa, isn’t it?’

She shook her head.

‘Who then? There’s no one else … I know it’s him. It’s him!’

Miri punched her hands together. ‘That man’s made fools of everyone. Again! He wasn’t even ill. All lies. He’ll bring the heavens down on all of us. .’

‘No … I feU.’

‘Musa must have pushed you then. Look what he’s done.’

‘It was the wind. .’

‘The wind? How could the wind do that to you?’

‘Threw stones and bits of stick at me. I fell. .’

‘It’s him.’

‘No. Don’t make me say.’

‘Listen, Marta. Give me your hand. Just say you didn’t fall. Be brave. TeH me. I know my husband, what he can do. He leaves his thumbprint everywhere.’

‘He doesn’t know I’m here? Don’t let him come.’

‘It’s over now. He’s finished with you now. Just tell me what the demon’s done.’

‘Can’t teH. There’s nothing left to tell. .’ She was sobbing, pushing Miri away yet still holding tightly to her wrists. Her face was dry. No tears. ‘Don’t make me say.’

Miri put a finger on the uninjured side of Marta’s mouth. Miri’s cheeks were wet with tears. ‘Don’t say. I know what he can do. You haven’t got to say. Don’t say.’

‘What can I do?’

‘You can’t stay here. You have to come back to the caves. .’

CT».>

I can t.

‘You must. You’re safer there. There’s five of us, and only him. I’ll take good care of you. He’ll stay away, I know. What can he do to you with us around? He’s frightened of you now. ’

‘I’m scared … to go.’

‘Come on. I need your help. The Gaily’s dead. You saw the body they were carrying?’

Now Marta could not stop the tears. ‘The Gaily’s dead?’

‘We’ve got to bury him. Come on. Be brave.’

Marta did as she was told. She followed Miri. Held on to her arm. Entwined her fingers into hers until they reached the caves. She’d find an opportunity to teH her sister what the wind had reaily done.

Musa did not even look at them. He sat in conversation with the men, facing across the valley, with no expression on his face, his fat neck creased, a stack of twenty grimaces. He called to Miri only once, without turning to face her. ‘We’re waiting.’ ‘What for?’

‘For you to get the Gaily. ready for the burial.’

Preparing bodies was women’s work, in his opinion. The men could sit and pray, while Miri and Marta – glad to be busy and out of sight – gathered the leaves and bark of trees to make their shrouding ointments. They picked morning star and hyssop, dill pods, and the yeilow spices from solanum stems to perfume the body. Then they pulled back the smouldering fire and thorns, lit cups of candle-fat, and took refuge inside the smoky cave with Jesus.

They stood hand in hand in the ducking candlelight and the plumes ofclearingsmoke looking at the wrapped body, uncertain where to start. Only his hands and feet were visible, and so they cleaned them first with water taken from his grave. His skin was cold and dry. Despite the broken nails, the blisters and the sores, his hands and feet were still beautiful, as polished and unyielding as sculpted wood. The fast had thinned and lengthened his toes and fingers, so that the bones and joints were round and ripe like nuts in pods. The women unwrapped him from his curtain, removed the poppy petals from his eyes, and stood back to let the candles light his face. Marta gasped. She touched the Gally’s cheeks and lips, and shook her head. She was almost smiling, for the first time that day.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Miri. ‘Are you all right? Sit down. I’ll do it by myself’

‘No, let me help. I want to help.’ Marta touched his cheeks again. ‘I’m not afraid of him. He’s only skin and bone.’

The women covered Jesus’s face with a cloth, to protect his mouth against the devil and to protect themselves from the dangers oflooking a dead man in the eye for too long. That was the superstition, ‘Dead eyes looking, Bad luck cooking.’ But neither of them felt ill at ease withJesus. Nor did they feel much reverence for him. His body was too damaged and degraded. Only his feet and hands had caused any wonder. The rest had been more cruelly treated by the fast and was not beautiful. But touching him was not distasteful. It felt more like a blessing than a chore. They’d have good luck, not bad. Miri and Marta did not talk while they were preparingJesus. Their task was far too sole^rn and distressing. He was so young and disfigured. But they were glad they could at least share and halve the task with each other. They washed his body, wiped away the dried blood, the film of dust and ash, and cleaned his eyes and mouth and loins. They shut his eyes and pulled his lips over his teeth as best they could. His gums were so badly swollen that his mouth would not close. His grin was wide and mirthless. They anointed him with the herbs and ointments they’d coUected, and burnt the seeds for incense in the candle cups. Finally they bandaged his feet and hands, and wrapped him in the curtain once again. They’d done as much as any woman could. Now it was men’s work to carry him down to the cistern, and bury him. No woman should come near the grave. Miri and Marta stayed inside the cave, watching candle flames while Jesus was interred.

‘What was the matter, when you saw his body?’ Miri asked. ‘You gasped. You seemed surprised by him.’

‘I knew his face,’ Marta said. ‘Dear lord, how well I knew his face. That’s how I always knew his face would be.’

‘How could you know his face? You never saw him. You always said he wouldn’t come out ofhis cave.’

‘I know his face from dreams. Ifit was dreaming.’

‘You dreamed his face?’

‘A hundred times. Even this morning. Outside the cave. .’ ‘He was dead this morning! You’ve seen yourself how dead he was.’

‘I watched somebody walking up. I hid. I thought it was your. . Don’t make me even say his name. You know. Then I saw him.I knew it had to be the Gally. The same dead face. Just skin and bones. He was as near to me as you are now. I could have touched him. But he touched me. He touched my cuts and bruises. And then he kissed my feet.’

Miri laughed. ‘That only happens in a woman’s dreams.’

‘He touched my stomach afterwards, like a priest. He said, This is a son for Thaniel. How could he know my husband’s name? He said he’d given me a child, with just his fingertips.’ ‘That’s something else that only happens in a woman’s dreams.’

Outside, there was no wailing at the funeral or any ululations to ala^ the women. The men did not tear their clothes, or chastise themselves, although chastisement was deserved. But each of them, including Shim, touched the Gaily’s bandaged foot, which still protruded from its curtain shroud. They prayed for further miracles. They had to treat his death not as a setback but as an opportunity, a chance to be restored by the blessing ofhis spirit passing through them on its voyage to his god. Musa prayed the hardest of them all. A touch, a touch, the merest touch, to save him from the world.

The grave had been ankle-deep in water, but the badu, always happy to amuse himself with stones, had lined the bottom so that the bed was hard but dry. They lifted Jesus – all four men as bearers, a limb apiece – and lowered him into the grave, face down. They could presume he was a bachelor, without offspring. He seemed as weightless as a child. What married man or father would leave his family to starve himself to death like this? They sacrificed the wheatear with Musa’s ornamented knife. Its blood pumped on the curtain shroud. Musa dropped its body at the healer’s feet. They filled the grave with earth and stone, hardly speaking to each other, and not looking in the grave until the body was entirely covered. Even Musa kicked a little earth into the grave and sighed as often as he could.

‘This death is hard for me,’ he said, not entirely without truth. ‘I was the only one who really knew the man.’

They marked his grave with forty stones. It seemed appropriate. Their mourning ought to last for three days at the least, they knew. No one should walk or make a fire or cook. They should not wash or shave. They should wear dirty clothes, if they were truly dutiful. But they were not his fa^mily and need not spare three days for mourning. His was a stranger’s death despite their vigils at the precipice and aH the hopes they’d spent on him. If they were at all despondent, it was because his death showed how much they’d failed themselves. This was only the thirty-first of their forty days, but it would be their last. How could they boast of that, down in the valleys, in the towns? The healer was a disappointment. He’d betrayed them all by dying. Their water cistern had been sacrificed. The tent was flattened. So were they. They’d leave at dawn and put an end to quarantine. There was no choice. The wind had blown all the spirit out of them. The scrub was telling these six trespassers to go.

29

The badu disappeared that night. So did the goats. When everybody came down from the caves at dawn to salvage what they could from the tent for their descent to the valley, the only sign of any animals was dung. Musa checked his store of treasures with which he planned to reassert himselfin the summer markets to the north. He opened up the saddle-pack with shaking hands. He halfexpected to find the badu had replaced his treasures with a rock, but everything was there, untouched. The twist ofBerber cloth containingjewellery, some coins and a little gold; the seven perfume bottles.

‘Some thief!’ said Musa.

But still the landlord and his tenants were surprised by the badu. He wasn’t quite as mad as they had thought. He hadn’t had to hand over his silver bracelets to Musa on the last day, as Musa had intended. He hadn’t paid a coin for his food or rent or water. He hadn’t even worked for them, by portering his landlord’s goods down to the road forJericho as he had promised. And now he had six goats to milk or eat or sell. A decent profit on his thirty days of idleness.

Musa cursed the hundred comers of the sky, and prayed that every demon of the scrub would lie in wait for the little thief with snares and thorns and traps, that he would fail into some pit and starve. But no one really thought the badu would come to any harm. They’d seen him clamber on the precipice. The deepest pit could not imprison him. They’d seen him come back to the caves with deer, and wheatear, and with honeycombs. He couldn’t starve. Besides, he had six goats as his companions. It was almost pleasing, to think of them, the hennaed badu and the swart-haired goats, their bleating conversation and their dainty steps, making their escape across the scrub. Aphas and Marta, Miri even, wished the badu well. He’d bettered Musa. They’d dreamed of doing something similar themselves.

But it was Shim who seemed most angry and betrayed. Had he perhaps become fond of the badu, or was it simply that he felt a little safer with him in their company? What could the old man or the women do to intervene, if Musa caught him by his ankle again and decided to pluck his toes off his foot like unripe berries? They were too weak and frightened of the man to do anything but watch. The badu, though, had seemed disturbed and kind enough to give some help, and now he’d disappeared. Shim called for him, just in case, but he didn’t answer or appear. Shim even went down to the promontory to see if the badu was sitting there, or climbing on the precipice, but there was no sign of any living thing. Even the Gaily’s cave seemed untouched. It seemed unreachable, in fact. No one with any sense would try to climb down to it without a ladder and some rope. ‘A stupid boy, a very stupid boy,’ he thought, to soften the defeat of not remaining on his own up at the caves until the end ofquarantine. He ought to stay behind, but the truth ofMusa’s challenge from two days before was ringing in his head: ‘Take your chances like a fox. Pray for water to appear. Let’s see how you live without a water-bag.’ The Gaily hadn’t lasted very long without a water-bag.

No, Shim would not waste another day on this mad enterprise. He’d take no risks. He’d stay as quiet as possible. He’d do as he was told for a change. And by the evening he would be released from his landlord and the scrub for ever. He was not happy when Musa asked to borrow his curling staff for the long walk across the plateau and the descent down to the valey road, but it was a sacrifice that Shim would make without a protest. A man of education and enlightenment should not attach himselftoo madly to a mere possession. Tranquillity and self-respect were more important than a length of wood. He’d not relinquish those to Musa. But let him have the wood.

Musa sent the two men ahead. They had been given heavy loads. Their progress would be slow. In addition to his own possessions – his rush bed-mat, his cloak, his water-bag – Shim had to carry two saddle-packs of Musa’s goods, strapped across his back, a rug and bedding on his shoulders and a half-full woven sack of grain in his hands. Aphas, in deference to his age and illness, only had two bags of utensils to transport. Bulky but not weighty. The women would have to carry what was left. Some clothes and wools, dried fruit and another woven bag of odds– and-ends for Marta. The heavy water-bags and two camel panniers for Miri, draped round her neck on ropes, with the still-unknotted birth-mat between the ropes and her skin to prevent chafing.

Musa would not carry anything himself, except the staff That was his golden rule for travelling, to have his hands free in readiness for trade and conversation. A merchant must not seem to be a camel. He had to come and go without encumbrance. He wanted, ifhe had the chance, to make his peace with Marta. That was really why he’d sent the men ahead, to give him time alone with her. Yesterday seemed such an age away. He’d buried what he’d done to her along with Jesus. The wake was over. They should begin anew. But Marta stuck closely to his wife, like some shy girl. Ifhe came close to her, then she moved away. She would not even look at him, he’d noticed, or answer him with anything beyond a whisper, passed through Miri.

Musa understood her awkwardness, ofcourse. A woman guilty of adultery, willingly or not, would be embarrassed for herself, or fearful that her husband might find out and have her stoned. But he would tell her that she had nothing to be frightened of. What happens between people in the privacy of night is hidden even from the scrutiny of god. For god must sleep. And men and women ought to make the most of it. He’d give her one of the little phials of perfume, well, half a phial, if she’d only lift her head and look at him. That should be enough to make amends.

What should he do about the tent? It would not satisfy him to leave the wreckage there, as Miri suggested, and aHow their misfortunes with the wind to benefit some undeserving traveHer or provide free shelter for the badu, should he still be in the scrub. So Musa had the women pile up the poles and walls of the tent, and throw on anything that would bum – the bits of damaged cloth, tom curtains and rush beds, the pieces of the broken loom, even uprooted bushes.

‘Go on ahead,’ he said to Miri. Marta turned away. ‘And wait for me when you get to the top of the scree.’ He was a small, spoilt boy who wanted to light a fire and enjoy the damage and the flames aH by himself.

Musa took his flintstones from their pouch and struck a spark on to a little pile of kindling. There was, thankfully, no wind. The flame seemed eager to oblige. He added twigs, and soon had sufficient heat and flame to make himself a brand of sticks and cloth.

The bushes were the first to flare. Blue flames, and then grey smoke as what little sap there was inside the stems bubbled out of the wood. The loom and tent poles soon joined in, but were made from harder woods and burned more slowly and with whiter smoke. Then the goat-hair tent sides gave in to the heat. They did not bum. There were no flames from them. They blackened, reddened, glowed and fell apart. They smelled like sacrificial meat. Their smoke was yellower and more detennined than the thorns’. It hung above the ground like a sulphur mist at first, but finally was lifted up in narrow braids into the cooler air above.

There was no one to help Musa now. His uncles and his cousins were as insubstantial as the smoke. His two porters were out of sight. The women were too far away to caU. The silence in the scrub was so deeply brewed that Musa did not know if he should cry out loud for joy or for help. He left the fire to itself and set off, across the scrub, and through the wind-blown remnants ofhis life. There was a copper pot he recognized. Some cloth. A scarf He walked as quickly as he could to seek the company of women.

And there his fever devil stayed, below the caves, its feet in flames, its body shrouded in the yellow smoke. It curled above the salty scrub, shivering and abandoned, insubstantial and attached to no one, biding its time.

30

Marta and Miri had not stopped to watch the smoke. They were too busy walking. They hardly talked. The path was difficult and narrow, and kept them apart for much of the time. Even when they reached the wider tracks worn by the many caravans which came across these hills to Jericho they did not walk side by side. Marta led the way, nervously avoiding any vegetation and rocky ground where there might be snakes or scorpions, but she hurried nevertheless, hastened by a mixture of fear and excitement. Ahead was better than behind.

Miri needed space around her to cope with the panniers and water-bags which she was carrying. The birth-mat, wrapped round her shoulders to stop the ropes from cutting into her, soaked up the sun and soon was wet and heavy with her sweat. She was a bit annoyed with Marta. She had expected her to take her time, to stay as close as possible, so that they could at least stretch out to touch each other once in a while or exchange a word or two on their last day together. Miri knew that she and Marta would have to go their separate ways as soon as they had reached the trading road. Sawiya was a village near Jerusalem, towards the west. The summer markets where her husband would want to go were beyond Jericho, far to the north. But Miri’s friend was rushing ahead far too quickly and was impatient if Miri walked too slowly or started to chatter.

It was easy for Marta to hurry, thought Miri. She only had one bag to carry and some clothes. Her load was relatively light for such a tal and wide-boned woman. And she was not six months pregnant with a child. Her hips and back were not oppressing her. ‘Slow down, slow down,’ she said a few times to herself. But not too loudly. She was increasingly annoyed and tired, but beyond al that she understood why Marta seemed so selfish and distracted. She had been raped. She was weighed down with twenty panniers offear. The fattest man inJudea was sitting on her back. Of course she’d want to break away from him.

Miri could have stopped and rested had she wanted to. She couldhavefound some block ofshade andwaited for herhusband. Then she could have walked at his slow pace and made Marta wait alone for them at the summit of the landfall where the scrub collapsed into a steep ravine of scree. But Miri wanted time alone with Marta. She wanted to recapture, if it were possible, the cheerful times when they had worked together on the loom. The landfall was the final opportunity for them to finish what they’d started. While her slow husband laboured like a swaying cart across the scrub, she and Marta could sit cross-legged, facing each other, with the purple and orange birth-mat stretched between them. They’d spread the still untied ends across their laps. They’d bunch the warps in fours and each complete the birth-mat with a hundred knots. They’d finalize their bold, unlikely friendship by tying it into the bold, unlikely wools.

So Miri did her best to keep her friend within sight. It didn’t matter that her arms felt stretched and that her shoulders ached almost beyond endurance so long as she could still see Marta walking ahead of her. By early afternoon they had crossed the plateau and were waiting side by side, at last, at the su^mmit of the landfall as Musa had instructed. Below them, Shim and Aphas had already begun the descent. They could see Shim’s blond head and hear the tumbling scree as he slid through the stones. Aphas was a little way behind, using all the larger rocks to steady himself but moving quickly for a man who’d been so faltering and il. They were not carrying their loads.

‘Look there,’ said Marta, pointing to a ledge of rocks a few steps from the summit of the scree. There were Musa’s saddle– packs, the rugs and bedding, the sack of grain, the two bags of utensils. The men had simply dumped them there and fled.

Miri dropped her bags and panniers where she stood and stretched her a^s and shoulders to relieve the pain, and drank a little water from the bag. It was too warm to be refreshing. Now she had an extra worry. Her husband would be furious when he discovered how his porters had betrayed him. Who’d pay for that? Who’d have to add the saddle-packs, the rugs and bedding, the sack of grain, the two bags of utensils to her load? His wife, ofcourse. But she kept her worries hidden. She couldn’t bringherselfto speak to Marta yet. She did roll out the birth-mat, though. She sat with one end on her lap, as she had planned, and began to bunch and tie the threads. She’d see if Marta volunteered to help without asking. She’d not forgive her otherwise. But Marta did not volunteer to help. She stood and looked out across the valey to the peaks of Moab. Her lip, in profile, was still fat and misshapen. Her hands were trembling.

‘Come on,’ said Miri. ‘Sit down with me. Let’s finish this. Before he comes.’

They had not finished it when Musa finally came into view. He waved Shim’s staff at them from the sloping plateau which led down to the landfail, and called, ‘Wait there.’ He was tired of his own company. He hadn’t spent so much time alone and without assistance for years. The journey so far had been unnerving and exhausting. His ankles ached. His chest was tight. He had to pause after every few steps to catch his breath. He’d not been born for walking. Just one more day, and he’d be back with camels where he belonged. Only the landfall stood between him and the markets ofJericho.

It would be difficult to go down the landfall. He knew how treacherous the scree could be for anyone as large as him. He had already pictured how stones would fall out beneath his feet and slide away, how larger rocks would tumble at him from above. He’d need the women to take him by the elbows and help him down. Marta would refuse, of course. She would not want to touch him.

‘I need more help than you,’ he’d say to Miri. He’d lift his chins at Marta. ‘She has to help as well. Come here.’

CT >.»

‘I won’t.’

He pictured ways of making her.

But when he was just a few hundred paces from the women, so close that he could see the colours of the mat, Marta suddenly stood up, wrapped her fingers round Miri’s wrist and pulled her to her feet.

‘We have to go,’ she said. ‘Don’t look at him. Bring that.’ She pushed the mat into Miri’s hands. ‘We’ll finish it another day. Get water.’

Miri grabbed one of the water-bags – not a moment of bewilde^ent or hesitation – and began to gather the other panniers and her own belongings.

‘Leave those.’ Marta pushed the panniers away, and added Musa’s clothes and wools, the sack of dried fruit and the woven bag of odds-and-ends to the pile. They’d have to leave it aH behind. She pulled the other water-bag to the edge ofthe descent and threw it down as far as she could on to the rocks. ‘Let’s see how he manages,’ she said.

With only the smaHer water-bag and the birth-mat to carry, the women were able to move quickly. They did not have the time to laugh or cry, or answer any ofMusa’s threats and promises. He was too close and dangerous. He was throwing stones at them. They would not stop their hurtling descent until their landlord and their husband and the father of their child was out of hearing and out of sight. They were light-limbed like adolescent girls. They had no need of anybody now. They had no need of miracles.

Marta and Miri hurried on in silence down the landfall, concentrating on the loose rock and the uncertain footing. The scree grew softer as the temperatures increased, closer to the vaUey floor. The earth was gypsum, spiced with salt. It smelt of eggs. But by the middle of the afternoon – already covered in a yellow film of salt – they’d reached more gently sloping and more sweetly smelling ground, a landscape of soft chalk which a child could pull apart in its hands as easily as breaking bread. The land was more reliable, at last, and they could walk side by side down towards the trading road, where travellers and caravans and soldiers were going to and coming from the gated cities of Judea. They walked amongst the donkeys and the men, and only then could exchange their tears and smiles.

‘Where can we go?’ said Miri.

‘To Sawiya.’

‘What will you say to them?’

‘I’ll say you are a widow, abandoned in the wilderness. I’ll say your husband was a merchant who died of fever. I’ll say the wind took all your things away and that it was my duty to offer help to you, because you’re pregnant and you have no one.

‘It’s almost true.’

‘It’s true.’

‘How will I live?’

‘You’ll weave. I’ll be the baby’s aunt.’

Marta’s lip was still a little sore, her body ached, but she felt untroubled for the first time in ten years. Al the bad things in her life had been abandoned at the top of the landfall. The vultures picked them clean. Was she a foolish optimist, made rash and heady by their escape from Musa? Most probably. But, for the moment, she was sure her fortunes had reversed. She’d started running down the scree and everything had changed. Everything outside of her. Everything within. She felt she was not barren any more. She’d heard it said that women knew instinctively when they were pregnant, almost from the moment of conception. They didn’t have to wait for periods or pains. Their faces tingled, as iftheir cheeks had been touched by angels.

With Miri at her side, Marta felt as if she’d already plucked a star out of the sky. One more would not be difficult. Perhaps another star was already brightening inside ofher. It didn’t matter whose it was, if it was Musa’s or the scrub’s or even granted to her in a dream, by the Gaily with his single touch. Her husband, Thaniel, wouldn’t know or care so long as she grew fat. He’d said that she should go away and pray for miracles. She’d been obedient. He had commanded that she should give birth. And now he could rejoice with her.

It was bad luck to look behind. They concentrated only on the way ahead. Even when they saw the thin, blond head of Shim in front of them, and spotted Aphas walking with a new authority beside him, seemingyounger than he had and vigorous, they did not call out a greeting. They kept themselves entirely to themselves, as they had planned to do. Two women with the fleshly scriptures of at least one pregnancy imprinted on to them. Two women blessed with god and child. They walked until the evening closed in. It did not matter where they spent the night. They were back in the world of the sane and would be safe. Only their faces ached, from smiling.

In the morning, they would carry on along the valley towards Jericho and then take the hilly route through Almog. Green hills. In two days they would reach the approaches to Jerusalem and skirt around the city, through the mud-faced houses on the mud-faced hills, towards Sawiya. They’d join Marta’s neighbours, raising voices, raising sheep, competing for the shade beneath the fig trees in their yards, fighting for their places by the fire. The uneventful world of villages.

They’d be in Sawiya before the end of quarantine. Quite soon, they’d share a table in a room, colourless except for candle flame and the orange and the purple of their mat. They would be dining well on fish. It would be stil, the stillness of the small and tired. If there was something in the world that was bigger, stronger than their table-top, they would not care. It had not spoken to them yet. They were not listening. They were contented with their grainy universe of candlelight and wood and wool.