Текст книги "Quarantine"

Автор книги: Jim Crace

Соавторы: Jim Crace
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5

There were eleven caves above the poppy line – a decent choice for these four visitors. Enough room even for the fifth when he or she arrived. The caves were not hard to see. Their darkly shadowed entrances made a constellation of black stars against the copper of the cliff There were two easily accessible caves at the cliff foot, partly obscured by salt bushes and fallen debris, and then a further four above, opening on to a sloping terrace. Higher still, and less inviting, were three more caves, set far apart. And then, a hundred paces to the left, a further two, halfway up a seam of darker, stony soil.

The first of the cave-dwellers to arrive and startle Miri had been the oddest of them all. Was that the word? Not odd, perhaps, but out of place. He was a gentile, blond-haired and narrow-faced; quite beautiful, she thought. And a touch sinister. A Roman or a Greek perhaps, a traveller. But there was nothing Greek or Roman in his quality of clothes. He wore a local tunic and a high, woven cap which made his face seem even thinner than it was. His skin was dry from too much sun. But he seemed strong, like leather thongs are strong. Designed to carry loads. And he was heavily and well equipped – a large goatskin for water, a rush bed-mat, a cloak, a walking staff made from an elongated piece of tarbony with ram-horn curls halfway along its length so that when he rested on its nub his weight had to drop and spiral twice before it reached the ground. He’d taken the smallest and the wa^est of the middle rank of caves.

The second chose the middle rank as well; his cave was twenty paces from the Roman or the Greek, the furthest to the right, and in a shaUow declivity of the terrace which would protect the entrance from his neighbour’s gaze, and from the evening sun. He was an elderlyJew, wearing a felt skull-cap; yellow-eyed and yellow-skinned, frail and timid beyond his years, shortsighted, tired, rnnning short of time. He busied himself, peering nervously amongst the stones and scree, collecting thorn roots and branches for a fire, and carrying small rocks for his hearth. He talked out loud to no one in particular. Himself? The lizards? Not prayers or incantations as you might expect. But remarks on everything he saw and found. A good supply of wood and that’s a blessing. . We’ll live like kings, old friend. .

The third was – surprisingly – a female Jew of Miri’s own age, though tall and stout and obviously not used to walking. And obviously not used to cleaning out a cave. She could not bear to touch the bones and carrion inside. She couldn’t make a decent broom from any of the bushes. She’d chosen her shelter badly, too – one of the two caves on the lower level of the scarp, the first she’d found, easy to reach, but hard to protect. The bushes at the front would encourage flies, and worse. The entrance was a little higher than the chamber itself. It wasn’t likely there’d be rain – but if there were she’d have to sleep in it.

The fourth? A badu villager from the deserts in the south, with silver bracelets and a hennaed beard and hair. He was more familiar. The caravan had often traded with such men; some silver for a dozen goats, some perfume for a roll of cloth, a tub of dates for unimpeded passage through their land. They’d sell their children too, it was said. And their wives. He stood outside his cave, one of the two set at a distance from the others in the darker seam of rock. He pulled and twisted his hair, so tightly that the skin on his skull came up in peaks, and stared at Miri.

Finally she had to reach for her discarded headscarf, cover up her hair, and duck into her grave. Why such a man would choose a cave and not a tent was inexplicable. The badus only went into caves to die, and this man – small and unrelenting – seemed too wild to die.

Miri watched the four of them until she and her bladder were set free by darkness. She did not see the fifth.

6

The fifth, a male, was far younger than he might have seemed from a distance. Not much more than an adolescent, then. Bare feet make old men of us all, on stony paths at least. But even when he reached the softer and more accommodating track above the landfall, he walked not from the shoulders like a seasoned traveHer intent on vanquishing the rocks and rises in his path, but cat-like from the hips, his toes extended, pointing forwards, and put down with caution before his heels were committed to the ground. He’d learnt the single lesson of the thorn. His feet were already tom and bruised. So: long legs, long neck, long hands, short leopard steps. And like a leopard he paused frequently, not to rest but to sniff the air as if he could locate – beyond the sulphur rising on the vaHey’s thermals – that a caravan of camels had passed, that there were gazelles feeding in the thorns, that there was someone dying in the wilderness ahead.

He was open-mouthed. He looped his tongue from side to side, circling his lips, tasting the atmosphere for smells. In fact his sense of smell had been so bludgeoned by the heat and by his thirst that he could not detect the sulphur even. He was parched and faint. His lips were cracked. His legs and back – unused to heat and effort such as this – were aching badly. If he paused to sniff so frequently, that was because he could smell nothing. It worried him. He hoped to clear the blockage in his nose, and shift his headache too.

He was a traveller calledJesus, from the cooler, farming valleys in the north, a Galilean, and not one used to deprivations of this kind. He’d spent the night in straw, a shepherd’s paying guest, and had that morning left his bag, his water-skin, his sandals and his stick where he’d slept. His quarantine would be achieved without the comforts and temptations of clothing, food and water. He’d put his trust in god, as young men do. He would encounter god or die, that was the nose and tail ofit. That’s why he’d come. To talk directly to his god. To let his god provide the water and the food. Or let the devil do its work. It would be a test for all three of them.

First he had to find a place where he and god could meet in privacy. He’d say, ifasked, that god had told him where to go, the details of this very route. He had been standing at the window of his father’s workshop and godhad called his name. Every time the mallet hit the wood, his namewas called. Andeverytime the mallet hit the wood he took a further step along the road in his mind’s eye, down from the living sea in Galilee to the salt-dead waters in the south, and then ascending to the desert hils and caves.

There were nine days of mallet hitting wood before he found the courage to argue with his family, tie his bag, and leave. The hills were beckoning, he’d said. But as he walked up into the wilderness – his nostrils blocked, his feet raw, another mallet striking on his skuU relentlessly-he could not find much evidence of god. The Galilee was full of god at that time of the year – new crops, flowers on the apricot, the lambs, the warmer nights … It was not hard to worship god in the Galilee. But here the spring had hardly made its mark. Jesus was an optimist. Look at the uncompleted land, he told himself, dry-tongued, enfeebled by the labours of the walk: the vaHeys waiting for their rivers, the browns and yellows waiting for their greens. Creation was unfinished here. This was where the world was not complete. What better place to find his god at work?

Unlike the four who had preceded him that afternoon and set up home amongst the poppies, Jesus did not follow any of the carvings in the rocks which indicated where hermits would easily find caves. He did not mean to leave his imprint softly in the clay. He was looking for much harder ground. He preferred the pious habitats of lunatics and bats where he could live for forty days, hanging by his toes if need be, and not have any excuse for shifting his eyes from heaven for an instant. He’d seen that there were caves set in the crumbling precipice which fell away abruptly below the camel trail, beyond the ambition even of goats. He’d choose one which was hard to reach and inhospitable, exposed to the sun and wind and cold. He set his sights on the remotest and the highest of the caves, a key-shaped hole. It had no more than a sloping rock as its yard, hardly bigger than a prayer-mat, the perfect perch for eagles. And for angels. But Jesus hesitated at the point where he should start to climb down. He surely had the right to drink before he embarked on his trials. It was not dusk. There was, as yet, no thin and bending moon to mark the onset of his fast. God would not come before day one. So he could drink. It was not a sin to drink. It would not be a sign ofweakness, either, if he prepared for quarantine with, say, a simple meal, a wash, a rest.

He’d seen the batwing outline ofMiri’s goatskin tent, pitched on the flatland of the valley head. He walked towards it. There was no one to be seen in the open. But there were goats. Ifthere were goats then there was water too. And milk and meat.

A tethered donkey announced his arrival while he was stiil fifty paces away. Jesus stood, as was the custom, a little distance from the open awning of the tent and waited for the greetings from within, and the invitation to come forward. He could not pay for food and drink. What little money that he had he’d left behind that morning in the keeping of the shepherd. But there are traditions, even in the wilderness. A traveller can wet his face and lips for free.

He coughed. He clapped his hands. He called out greetings of his own. But no one came. That was strange – the tent was unattended, and yet the awnings were still raised. Jesus took a step or two towards the tent, so that he could see inside more clearly. There were the usual signs of domesticity; the rugs and mats, the pots, some bread and dates discarded from a meal and being finished off by ants, the sacks of grain, the remnants of a fire, the skins of water hanging in the shade, the bundled blankets on a bed, the row of shoes. But no one there, as far as he could teH. Jesus looked around for signs of someone approaching, but there were none. He called again, without reply. His patience was not endless. He was keen, he told himself, to reach the cave before darkness and to begin his fast. He was afraid as well. Mraid that he might lose his nerve the moment that he reached the precipice, and go back home at once.

This was not theft. He took a few more steps towards the awning and lifted the nearest and the smallest of the water-skins off its wooden peg. He stooped and picked up the wasted heels of bread, the dates. He rubbed the ants off on his arm. Not killing them. Not trying to, at least. They dropped into the dust and went about their business, unperturbed. He picked some pieces of straw and the small stones from between his toes and off his heels. He squeezed out what thorns he could find. His feet were bruised and sore. His head had not improved. His body ached. Perhaps it would not matter ifhe went inside, out of the sun, if he sat cross-legged within the tent, those blankets as a seat, and took his final supper in some comfort. Again – with water, bread and dates held in his hands – he took some further steps. He left the sun. His eyes were baffled by the darkness. While he waited to become accustomed to the gloom he heard a whistling throat, as if the bunched-up blankets at his ankles were calling out for drink.

‘Who’s there?’ he said.

Again a whistling throat.

‘Who’s sleeping there?’

Fevers wil aUow a period of short lucidity before their victims die. Musa became conscious for long enough to hear that one word sleeping,and then to register the pains throughout his body. His head was spongy like a mushroom. He could feel each vein and pipe, each gut and artery, each bone and nerve, highlighted by his agony. He was a parched and desert landscape, illuminated by lightning. And in that moment when he heard the word he saw the face as well. AJewish face, young and long and womanly. A Galilean face. A peasant face. A robber’s face, for sure, because the man had helped himself to water and was standing with their water-skin held in his hand. Musa would have struck the man if he’d been well enough. It would have been his duty to make it clear that theft, especially of water, deserved some bruises and a bloody nose. It would have been his pleasure, too. But he couldn’t even clench his fist. He tried to caU out Miri’s name. He hadn’t got the breath to make a sound.

‘Alow me water, to soak these little crusts and wet my lips,’ the Galilean said in that compromise of tongues where Aramaic flirts with Greek. He sensed the silent answer he received was No. He knelt into the darkness of the tent, located Musa from the cursing sounds he made, and sat down at his side. ‘Do not deny me water, cousin,’ he said. ‘Let me take a mouth ofit, and you’H then have forty days of peace from me. I promise it. The merest drop.’

He put his fingertips on Musa’s forehead. He stroked his eyelids with his thumb. ‘Are you unwell? I am not well myself.’ He laid his hand on Musa’s chest and pressed so that the devil’s air expressed itselfand filled the tent with the odour of his fever and expelled the one word Musa had already formed, ‘Mi Ri.’ The cloth that Miri had put across his mouth to keep the fever in almost lifted with the power of her name. His tongue was black. Again the Galilean put all his weight – which wasn’t much

– on Musa’s chest and pressed. The sulphur of the hills. The embers of the chesty fire. Even Jesus could smell it. No further calls for Miri, though.

‘A sip, a sip. And then I’m gone,’ Jesus said. ‘The merest drop.’ He poured a little water on his hands and smeared the dust of his journey across his face. He was immensely cold, but glad to have this respite from the sun. He wet his hair and massaged the water into his scalp so that his headache was somewhat dampened. He resurrected the softness in the bread and dates with water. He ate, hardly touching his lips with those long, craftsman’s fingers. He drank some more. Then – an afterthought – he tipped a little water on Musa’s cheeks and lips. He felt inspirited, newly released from pain, and powerful. He wet the cloth and put it back in place on Musa’s mouth. He shook the water from his hands over Musa’s face, a blessing. ‘So, here, be weli again,’ he said, a common greeting for the sick.

What should he do? It didn’t matter much. There were no witnesses or anyone to reckon with. There was as yet no thin and bending moon to mark the first night ofhis rendezvous with god. So he was unobserved. There is no choice, he told himself He had to leave this sick man on his own to die. Otherwise he’d never reach the cave; he’d miss the start of quarantine.

He would have run away, except his feet would not allow him to. He hobbled out, an old young man, letting go the water-skin and pulling down the open awnings as he passed. He was embarrassed by his selfishness, perhaps? But Musa did not witness it. He did not witness anything. His eyes were closed. He was asleep at last, and dreaming plumply like a child.

7

Musa woke again. The cloth, stiff and twisted like a loose root, was heavy on his mouth. He spat it off He spread his a^s to free himself of al the wrappings. He tried to sit up, never quick or easy for a man his size. First he’d have to tum his weight on to an elbow, push with the other hand, get on his knees. . Camels were more gainly and less cumbersome. Musa did not like to be observed rising with so little grandeur from his bed, though no^ally Miri would be there to pull him by the wrists and elbows to his feet, to wipe him down, to hold his clothes. But now he could not even shift his weight. His head was loath to leave the tent mat. He couldn’t quite remember where he was. Nor could he recognize the sickly smells of herbs, honey and incense. Emb^rning smells. He felt cold, no doubt of that. Baffled, too. Why was he bruised and powerless? Why was he stil in blankets? Why was he feeling so melodic and so calm? More to the point – he tried to lift his head and look around – where was his wife? He clapped his hands. He wanted water straight away. ‘Miri. Miri.’ No reply. ‘Miri? Are you corning now?’ The words were dry and splintery when normally his voice was reedy, adolescent almost. His saliva was caustic and his lips were cracked. His throat was wilderness.

He clapped his hands again and listened for some sign that she, or anybody else who had some water, was nearby. It didn’t matter who, so long as it was free and fast. But there wasn’t any sign. He should have heard the voices of his cousins and his uncles, and the blaring of the camels, the usual waking noises of the merchant camp. He could only hear goats, and the wheezings of the tent skins. Finally he found strength enough, though it was painful, to roll across the mat and peer out below the tent’s heavy skirts. He recognized what he saw. Some of it, at least. This was the unembracing spot where, caught out by the dusk, they’d had to pitch their tents the night before. A scrubland in the wilderness too far from Jericho. There was the broken soil where Habak’s tent had been. And Raham’s tent. And Aliel’s. Those fools. There was the blackened circle of their fire. The camel dung. The tom and broken bushes where the goats had fed.

There was – thank heavens – liquid within reach. Someone deserved a slap around the ears for carelessness. They’d dropped a water-bag by the awning of the tent. Musa dragged it across, pulled out the stopper, and wastefully – he hadn’t got the strength to be more frugal – tipped water on his hair and down his face. Then he drank. He had to spit the water out at first. His mouth made it sour. But then the water went to work, reanimating him. He could almost trace the flow and billow of its irrigation; the freshet coursing through his mouth and throat into his stomach. At last the water percolated to his head. His breathing and his vision cleared. He was restored: a man of twenty-six or so, wedded to a life of bargaining, whose preferred self-image had him sitting neatly and cross-legged beside some market booth dispensing deals and judgements like a priest, implacably, too dignified to haggle with. It had him trading crackware lamps for damaskeen silver, figs for wine, wedding figurines for Roman cloth, papyrus for salt; there was no merchandise which could not be mated and transmuted in his hands. It had him envied and admired. And rich.

Indeed he was admired, but only in the market-place. He was a sorcerer with goods and prices there, the kingly middleman with his blued hair, his fringed and pampered cheeks, his crisp and spotless tunic, his swollen elegance, his cunning. But he was graceless in the daily commerce of the smile and hug. His embraces were the bruising sort. His punches and his kisses could not be told apart. It seemed that he both loved and loathed the trappings ofhis life; Miri his wife, the market-place, himself, his drink, the endless halt and harness of the caravan. He was their master and their slave at once. Two men in one; opposing twins, they’d said when he was a boy and couldn’t reconcile his bossy tantrums with his bouts of weeping. No wonder he was large even as a child – two hearts, two stomachs, twice the bones, twin temperaments.

Now that Musa was a merchant and an adult, fearful of derision and defeat, he had learnt to suppress the lesser, tearful twin. Life was too hard and unforgiving for such a weakling. Anyone could drive that tender sibling to an easy bargain. Anyone could trespass in his tent. Anyone could make a fool of him. So Musa kept him hidden, a lost companion ofhis childhood, and showed the world his tougher self, the one which beat and bargained like no other, the trading potentate, the fist, the appetite. Why was this splendid fellow feared but not much liked by his cousins in the caravan? It baffled Musa, and it made him fierce. They are simply envious, he persuaded himself. But during those late and bitter drinking vigils outside his tent, his judgement was more fiery, and much simpler; They hate you, Musa. Hate them back!

For the moment, though, the lesser twin had been briefly resurrected by the water. Musa grovelled on his stomach like a temple slave, his hair and beard still wet and mossy, and thought of Miri and his uncles, the market cries, the camel snorts, with some degree of fondness. He was aware that he had almost lost them all, that he had nearly died, and that their loss would be insufferable. He peered out ofthe tent again, for signs ofrelatives and friends, a wisp of smoke, a shout. But there were none. Perhaps he had died after all, and this was hell.

What had occurred? Musa had to concentrate. A face was haunting him. A throbbing voice. He could not recognize it, though. He could remember his last journey, how the caravan had come out of the hiUs, delayed by badu herdsmen to the south, who’d wanted to trade yarn for copperware. He’d used his size and his impatience to force a bargain. He could shake profits out of sand, someone had said, and Musa had been proud to hear it. He could recall setting camp, and then the meal, the fires, the chill of night. He’d felt both hot and cold when he’d gone in to sleep the night before. Was it the night before? Or ten, or twenty nights? He’d told Miri to massage his shoulders. He’d sent her off for blankets. He’d almost vomited and had had to sleep on his back because his chest was sore and shivering. He’d had diarrhoea.

So that was it! He’d caught a fever, then. That much was obvious.

What was now becoming cruelly obvious as well – there was the evidence outside – was that he’d been abandoned by his comrades and his family to battle with the fever on his own. And that was pitiless. Left in the desert with. . He counted what he saw. That useless donkey with the limp. And five, six goats. Camel dung. No bolts of cloth, none of the larger bulks of wool, no decorated copperware. No Miri, even. His feelings of melodic calm did not survive his growing dismay and anger. The lesser twin took flight.

The sun by now was fairly low in the sky, sinking and red-faced from its exertions like any other traveller who had passed a day in the desert. Musa knew it was late afternoon. The caravan would be too far away to chase. How could he chase it anyway? Ride the limping donkey? Ride a goat? He couldn’t even lift his body off the ground. He lay – his shoulders in the tent, his head protruding out – and dreamed of chasing them on a relay of goats and catching them in some green valley to the north. He’d pull his merchandise from off the camels’ backs, the copper– ware, the cloth, his wools. (He loved the sensuality of wools, particularly the orange and the purple wools. They were the colours prostitutes would wear.) Those loving uncles and their sons would hide their faces with shame. Would he forgive them for abandoning him to snakes and leopards? Would he congratulate them on their thieving business skills? He’d sneeze at them. He’d drive them off with stones. He’d stand amongst them with a heavy stick and crack their heads. They’d know how dangerous he was. They’d seen him swing a stick before. Then he’d go to where the women were. He’d have a reason to attack his wife for once, and nobody would dare to lay a calming hand on his and say, ‘Be easy, Musa. Let her go.’ What could they say in her defence? He could disown her there and then. He had the right. Divorce her on the spot and tum her out. But he would take her to their tent instead, and everyone would hear her cries right through the night. The different cries which came when he was slapping her, the ones when he had pulled her tunic offand was laying leather straps across her back, and those when he had opened up her thighs and, with her hair held in his fists, was pushing into her until there was a trinity of pain and tears and fear. Kisses, punches? They were al the same to him. And then he would divorce her on the spot.

But Musa, if the truth was told, for al the bombast of his dreams, was feeling fearful and ill-used. He’d thrown water in his eyes, but there were tears as weH. He was shivering, not only from the chill inside the tent. His prospects, frankly, were not promising. What kind of merchant was he now? A laughingstock. An ass. A dupe. He’d been discarded like the casing of a nut. His mood was murderous, but there was no one there to murder, except himself

His anger made him stronger, though. He tried again, turned on his side, brought up his knees, and found that he could stand, unsteadily. He shuffled round the inside of the tent as best he could, a cover on his shoulders, using the tent poles for support and taking stock of what they’d left behind. The goats, but not the best. His family goods. Rugs, bedding and utensils. Two woven sacks of grain. Salted meat. Dried fruit. Fig cakes. A flask of date spirit. A remnant hank of orange wool, some purple, his sample rod of coloured yams, his clothes, his wife’s, her loom. Some fragrant wormwood for the fire. He hurried to his saddle– pack, and was relieved to find his ornamented knife, the seven bottles of perfume that he’d traded earlier that year, and the little hoard ofgold, coins andjewellery tied up in a twist ofberber cloth. Abandoned, yes, but hardly destitute. He’d resurrecthimselfwith trade.

He took the long wooden pestle with which Miri crushed their nuts and grain and, using it to help him walk, went outside past the tethered donkey into the fading light, with the water-bag hung round his shoulders. His knuckles whitened on the pestle with his weight. He turned in a full circle. Just in case. No sign of anyone who’d stayed behind. No sign of anyone to kiss and punch.

The donkey – an ageing jenny, older anyway than Musa – had been tethered by his wife. He recognized the kindness of Miri’s knot. The creature had been lamed by her pannier harnesses which had rubbed to form a sore and then a boil at the top of her hind leg. The boil had hardened on the muscles so that the donkey limped, and was in pain. Her breath was bad. Her nostrils seemed inflamed, perhaps by the circulating poison of the boil. Musa leaned forward and looked more closely, not at the boil but at the donkey’s nose, for signs ofpus and infected membranes. Her top lip drew back like a baboon’s and curled at the man’s smell. She wanted him to keep away. He wanted to keep his distance, too. Ulcerated nostrils were a symptom of glanders. Glanders could be caught by men, and not only by jackassing the jenny as some people claimed. He was not sure if they were ulcers that he saw, or simply mucus. If they were ulcers the donkey would soon die. Then what use would she be, this legacy ofhis kind cousins and his uncles? He couldn’t eat the meat; he couldn’t even skin her for shagreen, unless he wanted to risk catching donkey fever himself

That thought made Musa step away. Perhaps that was the illness that he’d caught already. Donkeys, it was known, were full of demons keen to set up home elsewhere. He lifted up his hand to check for the tell-tale sweiling of the underjaw. But Musa’s underjaw, beneath the beard, wasloose and heavy anyway and it was difficult to tell if there was any swelling. He pushed his little finger into his nostrils. They were not clear, but then they were not painful either. Had he caught glanders then? Or had there been some other devil in his lungs? He was only sure of one thing, that both he and the donkey had been abandoned by his caravan companions with equal regard. They were considered worthless and infectious and as good as dead.

Musa loosened the donkey’s knot and began to lead her away from the tent and the goats. Her illness angered him. It would be better if she died where her contagion was not dangerous. If he could make her move, that is. The animal was uninspired by Musa’s prodding foot. She was reluctant to engage with him. She must have sensed his illness, too. He wasn’t any stronger than she was herself She knew that she could pull as hard as he could tug. Besides, a donkey is quite used to being hit. It is a condition of service almost, part of its contract oflabour. A slap of the driver’s switch on the donkey’s cheek is rewarded with a shuffle forward and a bray. Beating donkeys is as innocent as beating mats. A hearty slap across its back brings out the dust. But this old jenny, for al the native half-smile on her lips, was made doubly obstinate by her ill-health. When Musa kicked her on the shanks, she did not move and bray. She’d seemed to buckle like a colt. She fell on her haunches, and dropped her head on to the ground, chin down.

There is something ill-conceived and comic about a standing donkey; the narrow hooves too dainty for the bony head, the long black dorsal cross that makes her coat appear as roughly stitched as patchwork, the fraying fly-swat tail, the pitcher ears. But lying down, her head between her forelegs like a dog, this donkey seemed neater and more dignified, and even with the pinkish overtones ofher grey sides exaggerated by what was left of the sunlight – more beautiful.

Musa lifted up the pestle in both hands. It seemed as if his body was the only thing that moved in that shy universe of thorn and stone. It was too late and dusky for the high and beating flocks on their migrations. Yet he was not entirely without witnesses. Three hawks were arcing high above the scrub. Birds which could spot a vaciliating beetle from such a distance could hardly miss a donkey sinking on to its chin, not in a landscape such as this where life was slow. There would be carrion, and there would be a fight. Three hawks to share two donkey eyes. They circled calmly, with rationed wing beats, above the narrow strip, then out over the tumbling precipice, across the side-lit hills, and never took their eyes off the scrub and its small drama