Текст книги "Quarantine"

Автор книги: Jim Crace

Соавторы: Jim Crace
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11

As soon as Shim and the badu had begun to drag away the donkey’s carcass, the women – separated from the two remaining men by the customary seven steps – set to work themselves. They searched the camel panniers inside the tent for the rods and beams to assemble Miri’s loom. They laid the pieces out in order of size – the largest breast beams and shed sticks at the back, then the warp and heddle rods, and then, closest to hand, the beating hook, the stick spools, the leashes and the pegs.

Miri was glad to be distracted by something other than Musa’s pipingvoice. Her husband was sitting in his blanketed emporium, a pyramid within a tent, his flask of date spirit half consumed, his goods displayed on the mat in front of him, his stomach folding on his thighs like dough expanding into dough. He was biding his time. He knew his tenants would be tempted by the prospect – once their daytime fast had ended – of some of Miri’s fig cakes or dried fruit, some salted meat, some herby cheese. Fasting’s hungry work. He judged the old man, Aphas, would be the first to be enticed. Old men near death have no one to indulge, except themselves. Then, where Aphas had succumbed, the other three – perhaps the missing fifth as weH – would follow. They’d have to understand they could not simply plunder the free food of the scrub. This was his land, he would remind them. The birds and roots were his. They had to buy their food from him or go without until their forty days were up. They had to pay his price. He owned the water and he owned the sky. A sip, a sip, the merest sip, could not be had for nothing. He chuckled at his own audacity.

This was Musa’s quarantine. He would not fast or pray. He’d rest. His wife would milk and bake and cook; he would display the goods; his tenants would walk down from their caves each day for their supplies; and he would drink his spirits and his wine and dream of future caravans. So this detainment in the hills was working out unexpectedly well, he thought. Bad luck had almost turned to good. He had his health. He had some rent. He had some modest trade. He had some porters for the journey down to Jericho. He’d have the woman, Marta, to enjoy, if he was patient. In the meantime there was a skinny second-best at hand who would require no patience. He’d take hold of Miri’s wrists that night and press her bony little thighs into his lap. He’d close his eyes and rub the fabric ofher clothes against himself and cail her Marta underneath his breath.

Miri was as nervous as a doe. She did her best to be invisible. She could see and smell that Musa was in a skittish mood. Date spirit had revived him. His veins were full of blood and drink and mischief He was playful and expansive for the moment, but that could change. So far the spirit had only reached his heart and mouth but it would travel to his cock and fists, and then there would be danger. She would have to keep out ofhis reach once the donkey had been disposed of and these four visitors had gone back to their caves, unless she wanted to be pu^rruneUed by his hands and mouth or forced to masturbate him with a ball of wool or made to kneel.

Miri hid behind the woman Marta from Sawiya, and concentrated on the loom. She kept her face as blank and still as clay. But Marta was as open-faced and undefended as a young girl. She did not seem afraid of Musa’s eye. She touched Miri’s arm and hand and back; she was a sister for the day. She smiled to herself – and once she even laughed out loud – at the datey monologue that Musa was imposing on Aphas. The old man would have dearly loved to sleep, she saw. Instead, he had to listen to their landlord’s endless, hypnotizing tales of profits, bargains, deals, the buy-move-sell ofmerchant life, the mysteries of trade. Here was a man who knew the wider world, the land behind the middleman where everything was cheap, the hill behind the hills, the village that you reached when al the villages had ended, the sky beyond the skies where blue was silver and the air was heavier than smoke. That was where (according to Musa’s narratives that day) he’d seen deserts which made this scrub seem like paradise, where he’d survived on nothing else but camel leathers for his meat, the mist of mirages for drink, and promises for merchandise.

‘Nothing you have seen compares to what I’ve seen,’ he said to Aphas. But he was watching Marta while he spoke. He did not want to miss her bending over with the pieces of the loom. How would the fabric of her clothes spread on her back and thighs? How would her buttocks spread?

If only Musa had been talk and nothing else, Miri thought, then he might have been mistaken for a tolerable man – for there was something admirable about him, on first encounter. Everybody was agreed. When he was fuelled by drink, still good-humoured and teHing stories about the market-places of the world, the gourds and henna, ivory and olive oil, the grain and chalcedony he’d bought and sold; the carbuncles he’d traded for ambergris, the gold for slaves, the aggry beads for ostrich feathers; how he’d turned honey into salt and salt into silver, then, yes, he was captivating. ‘Like a snake,’ in Miri’s view.

She’d been captivated once herself. A short and bitter memory. She’d first encountered Musa in her father’s camp less than a year previously. He’d made her laugh. The way he looked. The words he used. The stories that he told. His self-esteem. He’d promised her that she would marry him and travel to the hems and pockets of the world. He’d show her valleys with so many flies that all the cattle had two tails. He’d take her to a land where al the chiefs had jewels so large that visitors could tether horses to them. He’d find her viHages where women gathered gold by dipping pitch-smeared feathers in their lake. They spread the gold like honey on their bread.

How gold and sweet his voice had been that night.

Now his voice was pitch for her. She’d never seen the jewels, the lakes of gold, the cattle with two tails. She’d seen the flies. She’d seen the wind-whipped camel tracks, the dusty camps, the stultifying market towns. She’d felt her husband’s fingers and his fists. What was there captivating in the life she led with him, other than his talk? How simple it would be, she thought, to earn some instant silence and some widowhood with a single blow from a loom rod. Musa’s head was round and red and tufted like a pomegranate. And it would split as easily. The man was full of pips and piss. She and Marta could drag the body to the precipice and push it off to join the little jenny on the valley floor. Two donkeys, yes. Both lame. Both dead.

Thank heavens that there was the loom to think about instead. Miri was the sort of woman who could be stoical only if her hands were busy. Then she could endure the heat, her aching thighs, the aimless gossip of the goats, her husband even. She couldn’t simply be inert like Musa, her fingers twined across her lap, talking, drinking, dreaming wealth and luxury and lies. If there was nothing else to do, she’d rather scratch herself or pick her broken nails than keep her fingers still. Why should she dweH on the misfortunes of a marriage in which even fever could not intercede?

But, for Miri, there was never nothing else to do. Her life was knuckles marching, fingers-on-the-move: making bread, sieving cheese, seeing to the needs ofgoats and men, a thousand tasks and still a thousand more to do. . She had to find the time as weH to carve the wooden talismans which Musa sold for prices beyond sense as the propitious work of holy men. Now she would take the opportunity, while her husband was sweet– tempered and loquacious with his drink, while there was a break from caravans and market-places, to work for once on something for herself which even Musa would not dare to sell. She’d peg the loom in some cool spot. She’d beg some yam from Musa’s store of wools. She’d weave and embroider a birth-mat for her confinement. She’d have the best part of forty days to weave a birth-mat fit for queens.

Marta, her daytime sister, could not help to build the loom. She’d hardly ever touched a loom before. In Sawiya the looms were fixed, in workshops, and there were fa^milies of weavers to provide everything from birth-mats to shrouds. But she was glad to do what Miri asked, carrying the wood and putting down the pieces. It was neighbourly to help a pregnant friend. She’d known of women who had miscarried because they had bad neighbours who hadn’t helped with heavy loads. Yet though Marta was no good with looms she could choose wools. She had an idle eye for colour. A birth-mat should be white, of course. But white wools do not travel very well. They pick up flies and dirt, as Musa had discovered to his cost on one occasion. He’d bought a length of fine-weave cotton cloth which he meant to sell for shrouds (‘Moon white,’ he said. ‘Spun in the sky at night’) and carried it for too long in the camel bags on a journey to the Sea-meets-sea for the spring markets. He’d roHed the cloth out for a Greek who was preparing for the burial of his son. The moon was yellow streaked with fungal green. The urine in the bleaching lye had activated on the camel’s back. ‘First came the stench, and then the cloud ofthread-flies,’ Musa said. ‘Then fled the Greek.’ So from then on Musa only bought and sold the darker-coloured wools with well-fixed dyes, and cloths which could stand a little dust and were not bleached.

Musa was indulging his two women. He let them pull out his stock of wools from the dark recesses of the tent and smiled as sweetly as he could while they sorted through the yams. This was a combination that Musa enjoyed – the fabrics and the flesh. He liked his wife to lift her clothes and straddle him, sometimes facing his huge chest, sometimes looking at his toes. He liked her clothes to fall on to his naked thighs and chest. Fabrics were more sensual than skin, he thought. He was a merchant, after al.

Marta shook her head and pushed aside al the rusts and browns, the wools which Miri seemed to prefer. A birth-mat which could not be white should try at least to be distinctive. She took Musa’s sample rod and let the coloured yams drop loose. She showed them to the sun, but they were not transfo^ed by light. These were the colours of a Roman’s robe. There was nothing worthy of a birth.

‘Take these,’ said Musa who, now that Aphas was asleep, had been commenting, with unusual animation for a man, on every sample that the women fingered and rejected. But he did not want them wasting decent wools on Miri’s mat. He reached across and pulled two half-hidden, remnant hanks of wool on to his knees – the vibrant, eggy orange, and the purple that he’d considered prostitutes might wear. He freed the yams a little and spread the strands across his hands, so that the women could inspect them. They were his customers.

‘Good wools,’ he said. ‘The brightest in the market-place. Find a brighter wool. Or one more flattering.’ He could imagine Marta, reclining like an empress on a purple-orange mat, and he the emperor. Too late he saw the wool was badly spun. He tried to hide the broken strands, but too many pieces fell loose, like unpinned hair. ‘Good wool,’ he said again. ‘Some threads have snapped. You see? But you can knot the ends and weave them in. It’s free. No need to haggle for a sweeter price. Be quick.’

He flicked the purple wool at Aphas’s sleeping head. ‘This fellow here might want to show his purse and take a bargain home.’

The women laughed at first. Musa had surprised them. Was he teasing? They recognized poor wool. Besides, his colours were comically ill-judged. The orange and the purple were bickering on sight, a florid uncle and his gaudy niece. The women frowned and rubbed their chins, and tried to visualize the finished mat. This wouldn’t do. They shook their heads.

‘What do you want for nothing then? Gold thread?’ asked Musa, raising his voice and narrowing his eyes at Miri. ‘Don’t shake your head again. A wife should never shake her head.’ He shook the wools. ‘It’s these or nothing. Go without a mat.’ He closed his eyes, and wiped his face dry with the wools. His wife had slighted him. In front of Marta. There was a price to pay. The wine was draining from his heart. He’d beat his wife for this.

‘Give birth on straw,’ he said. He half-opened one eye, like a lizard, to see what effect his firmness had. His wife, of course, had no expression on her face. But Marta seemed embarrassed. Perhaps, for Marta’s sake, it would be wise to seem more generous. ‘Miri does not want to bear her child on straw,’ he said to Marta. ‘Speak to her. She’s stubborn when she wants.’ He held the remnants up, the merchant and the liar once again. He’d have their custom yet.

‘Take, take,’ Musa said, feigning impatience. He threw the wools down at Marta’s feet, so that she had to bend to pick them up. At last, the lizard opened up its second eye. He ran his tongue across his lips. IfMiri was a skinny goat, he thought, then Marta was a horse. ‘Those colours bring good luck,’ he said, back in the market-place. ‘You’ll have a boy. You’il have two boys, Miri. As strong as bulls. Two little gods. An orange god, a purple god.’

A good luck mat that promised sons? Marta pushed the wools together. She bunched the yams. Perhaps the orange and the purple were not incompatible, after all. These were the fertile colours of the darkness and the day, the harvest sky at night, the ready, outer leaves of maize. She smiled at Miri. Helping Miri with the weaving might bring good luck to both of them. Miri shrugged and took the wools. Her husband had decided on the purple and the orange. That was that, and not another word to say. There wasn’t any point in bargaining for better wool, or any of the yams in the earthy colours that she preferred. She’d have to bear her child on the sort of mat that a perfume-seller would use to lay out his wares.

‘The orange one. You see? Your choice is good,’ Musa said, congratulating the women and himselfon their good taste. ‘This is the very best. It’s from the swamps. Beyond the swamps. A hundred days by camels, then a hundred days by boat. And then you have to walk, up to your knees in weed. They take the colour from the plants. Everything is orange there. The sky. The leaves. The people’s eyes. . They ail wear cloaks of orange wool and disappear against the land. They are invisible. The purple one? It’s Tyrean. The weavers there take dyes from fish. It’s fish or snails. They never say.’

He told them how each year he went to Tyre to buy and seil. ‘They only have the purple wools,’ he said. ‘The women can’t stand the constant smell of fish or snails. But when they see my orange wools, and put them to their noses, they run to fetch their husbands or their fathers. It doesn’t matter, Miri, that the yams are thin. Who cares about a broken thread when the colour is so strong and sweet?’ The women didn’t disappear when they wore orange cloaks in Tyre, Musa explained. They were as madly visible as butterflies. As were the women in the south when, on his return from Tyre, they bought his stock ofpurple wools and could be seen at last against the orange leaves and sky.

‘Sometimes it seems to me that I am trading only in colours, not in wools,’ he said, keen to end the transaction on a magic and unworldly note. ‘I am like someone who sells sounds instead of drums and pipes. I deal in smells instead of food. Old man, wake up. Here’s something wonderful.’ He tossed his empty flask into Aphas’s lap. ‘Imagine it, old man. A caravan of colours, music, smells. So Jight a cargo. Watch how the camels run. A man could make a fortune out of that. Ask her. She’ll see.’ He pointed at Miri. What did he mean, ‘She’ll see’? Would Miri see her husband make a fortune? Or would she travel to the south with him, a hundred days, a hundred days, and then a walk, her baby strapped across her chest, his camel panniers leaking sounds and colours on the path, shedding smells into the knee-deep waters of the swamp?

12

‘That’s it. The donkey’s gone,’ Shim said, when he and the badu came back to the tent and joined the others amongst the wools in the shade of its awnings. Then, ‘There’s someone there. A boy, I think.’ He wiped the perspiration from his forehead. He ran his tongue around his lips. He puffed his cheeks and blew out air. He wanted everyone to see how tired and thirsty he’d become. When Musa offered him the water-bag, as hospitality dictated that he should, he could firmly shake his head, the handsome man of principle and fortitude. He’d hold his hands up, palms out, as if the very sight of water in a bag offended him. He’d spit, to show he would not even swaliow phlegm to ease his thirst. Here was an opportunity to gain respect and admiration – some recompense for the rent and water tax which the landowner had exacted from him. He was beyond temptation, they would see. He would not break his fast until the sun was down. He would not cheat, as evidently they had done. He saw the range of food and drink at Musa’s feet, the empty flask in Aphas’s lap, and held his feliow cavers in contempt.

Shim did not have the chance to spit. Musa snapped his fingers for the women to be quiet. He waved the blond forward impatiently. He wanted to hear exactly what he had to report – not because he cared that Shim was tired and dry and beyond temptation, or that the donkey was gone, or that the badu, swaying like a hermit in a trance, had twisted his hanks of hair so tightly that there was blood – and flies – on his scalp.

‘What boy? What sort ofboy?’ he said. ‘What do you mean, There’s someone there? Say where.’

‘Below the top,’ said Shim. He vaguely gestured at his toes. ‘A good climb down. .’

‘What did he say? Was he the fifth that you saw walking? Was he a Jew? The one I saw was just a villager. Is that the one? He had an accent from the Galilee,’ said Musa.

Shim shrugged. What did it matter who it was? ‘Such heavy work,’ he said. ‘Animals weigh twice as much when they’re dead. I’m parched. .’ He remembered the badu. ‘Him too.’ ‘A skinny man. Was he a skinny man?’

Another shrug from Shim. ‘Not. .’ He paused. He didn’t like to say ‘Not fat’ to Musa. ‘Not fat like you.’ ‘Not strong,’ he said instead. ‘We didn’t speak to him. We only dropped the donkey off That’s what we promised you. It fell. .’ Again, a gesture with his hand. ‘It missed him by a whisper. But it was thirsty work.’

‘Describe him, then. What kind of person, do you think?’ Shim spread his hands and laughed. How should he know? His landlord was a tiresome man, obviously obsessed with taking rents and picking profits offevery creature on his land. He’d not co-operate with such a cormorant. ‘Someone who hasn’t any wealth, I’d say. Don’t waste your time on him. .’ He held his hands up, palms out. He shook his head. ‘You’ll not get rich.’ At least Musa was silent for the moment. His mouth had fallen open and his eyes were wide. Here was Shim’s opportunity to have his say. He stepped three paces further into the tent and stood where he could speak softly and with dignity, and stiH be heard by everyone. ‘And do not think to offer me your water– bag,’ he said. ‘The spirit of my quarantine is that I must refuse aH food and drink while there is any light. Others might be less exacting with themselves. An older man, perhaps, might be forgiven for his lapses. And women by nature cannot be as spiritual as men. They are false treasures, as the scriptures say. And who can blame them for their modesty? But for me denial and enlightenment are twins. We only meet the god within our true selves through suffering. V e seek the wilderness because in this solitude we can hear ourselves more clearly. .’

Perhaps this was the moment he should spit, and then deliver them a homily on the higher disciplines of fasting. He rolled the phlegm inside his mouth, looking for an uncovered patch of ground, but once again he did not have the chance to spit. Musa, with surprising speed, had fallen forward and was holding the handsome man of principle and fortitude by the ankle, pressing with his nails into the hollows ofthe heel. ‘How does that hurt? Is god here yet?’ With his other hand, he pulled the little toe out of Shim’s sandal, bent it back from the other four, and tugged, like someone snapping the bone out ofa piece ofroasted chicken.

‘Don’t speak,’ he said, though Shim hadn’t got the breath to do anything but whine. ‘Be quiet. Do what I say. Go back and bring him here, the fifth.’

‘He. . might not. .’

‘Go back and bring him here.’ He gave the little toe a final, warning tug and let go of Shim’s foot. ‘Did that feel good? Is that the suffering you’re looking for?’

Shim stepped back out of reach. The pain persisted. His toe was red and oddly angled.

‘Hurry,’ Musa said.

Shim’s ankle would not take his weight. He made the most of standing on one leg. ‘He wiil have gone by now,’ he said at last. He did not recognize the tremor in his voice. ‘It was a shepherd. Just coilecting eggs. Or looking for a stray.’

‘Go back and see.’

Shim could have said, Go back yourself and see. But he didn’t want to risk more pain, another dislocated toe. He must stay calm and dignified. ‘Pain and enlightenment are twins,’ he said instead. And then, ‘Send her, your wife. Send him.’ The badu was still squatting outside the tent. ‘Send someone who can walk.’ He turned his back on his landlord. He was a holy man. He’d return to his own cave at once – if he could bear the pressure on his ankle and his toes – to continue with the solemn business of his quarantine.

Musa wished he had the pestle close at hand. He’d show what damage he could do to this man’s hands and knees. He’d never pray again. Musa did not like to be defied. Men were just like donkeys, and their memories were long. Ifhe allowed this Shim to succeed in challenging himjust once, then he would chalenge Musa at every turn. If the caravan had not gone off, and there were cousins close by, then it would be a simple matter. Musa would only have to clap his hands and there would be five men to teach the blond the rules oftenancy. But there weren’t cousins. His only ally was his wife, and she could hardly break the blond man’s fingers with a rock, as he deserved. Revenge would have to wait. Musa would pretend to compromise. He’d seem to be a diplomat – if that was what it took to see the Galilean once again.

He waved his hands at Miri. ‘Up, up,’ he said. She held him by his wrists and puHed. The dates were heavy on his breath. His breath was heavy on her face.

When he was sitting down or standing up, Musa was an imposing man – but anything in between and, like a camel, he was vulnerable and comic. Miri had only got him halfway to his feet; his legs were doubled up, his knees were spread, his buttocks were just clear of his bed-mat. She’d had to hold him like that many times before, when he was drunk or, merely lazy, he demanded help with defecating beyond the tent. If she let go on those occasions, her husband would collapse on to his own waste. A mesmerizing thought. She always wanted to let go. She never did. She didn’t now, though it was tempting. She had so many grudges to express. She held him steady while he threw his head and shoulders forward so that his weight shifted from his buttocks to his knees, and then she pulied again. Musa was standing on his feet at last, and he was slow and dangerous.

Shim was by now a hundred paces fromthe tent, and hurrying – only limping when he remembered to. His toe and ankle had survived. He had alarmed himself, and yet he was elated too. So this was why he’d travelied all these days into these numb and listless hilis, he thought. Musa was sent to test his fortitude. Musa would be his quarantine. He’d kept his dignity so far, he thought, and he’d been admired for it, by the old man and the Jewish woman at least. But he would need to be alert and cautious from now on. Musa would be an unremitting enemy. He was the sort who’d come up to the caves at night and smoke his tenants out, or take away their water rights, or worse. There would be no escaping him. So when he heard the fat man’s oily voice calling to him across the scrub, he stopped and turned. He felt a little nauseous, to tell the truth, when he saw Musa standing up so solidly, with one arm hidden behind his back and al his pleats and folds of flesh made smooth and monumental by the faling, heavy cloth of his tunic. What magic was afoot? He’d not be the least surprised to see the fat man running in the scrub towards him, leaping boulders like a little deer, or somersaulting at him, as fast and weightless as a tumble bush. He’d grasp his a^nkles once again and pull his toes off, one by one.

Shim’s hands were shaking. So were his toes. He could not move. He stood amongst the goats and cupped his ears to hear what Musa was saying.

‘What have you forgotten now?’ the big man called. There was, at least, no anger in his voice.

Shim had no idea what best to say. Had he forgotten to ask pe^rmission to depart? He’d not apologize. Had he neglected some propriety? The question puzzled him. He could not speak. He was a fish caught on a line. He took a step or two back towards the tent. Then ten, then twenty more. He was prepared to talk at least.

‘You have left this,’ Musa said, when Shim was halfWay back. ‘Look here. Come on.’ He showed his hidden hand. It held Shim’s spirailed walking stick, his talisman, his peace of mind, his one companion on the road. It was his sign of holiness. He had forgotten it.

Shim would not be safe or comfortable without his staff It was not Greek or logical, but he loved the twisting wood, each curl a cycle ofhis life. It was as much a part of him as curls cut from his hair. It could be used, like stolen hair or fingernails, to torment him with pains and nightmares if it fell – as now – into ill-meaning hands. He had to get it back. Should he retrace his steps more slowly, to show his unconcern? Or should he hurry with a careless stride to demonstrate his fearlessness? He hurried, almost ran back to the tent. He saw that Musa held his walking stick in his two fists, ready to hand it over or to strike. An image of the donkey came to mind. He understood her bruises now, the blood, the broken bones. The donkey was his little toe.

‘Go back and get the little Gaily. For me,’ Musa said, as soon as Shim had returned and stood inside the tent,just out ofreach. Musa’s tone was meek and pacifying. He was the merchant forced to drop his price. ‘Or at least let me keep this walking stick for just a while and lead me to the place where you could see him … You are not frightened of the precipice? You are not frightened ofa fail, I hope.’ Musa reached forward and softly, oddly, touched the end of the staff on Shim’s leg. Shim neither shook his head nor spoke.

‘Miri,’ continued Musa, ‘bring honey water for my cousin. And some dates. Put cushions down.’ Miri frowned and shook her head at Shim. He’d be a fool if he came close. She could not tell if Musa meant to murder him or simply make him look a fool.

‘It is my quarantine,’ said Shim, staying put. Miri nodded at him, smiled. ‘I will not eat while there is light. I will not drink. I do not allow myself to recline on cushions. There is no compromise, no matter that the task of seeing to your donkey was exhausting.’ Here was his opportunity. He spat into the sand at last. ‘I cannot even swallow phlegm for fear that it might slake my thirst.’

‘Are you allowed to swallow words?’ asked Musa. ‘Then, perhaps, it would be well if you consume what you have said today, and start afresh. Begin again. Do what I ask. Accompany me. Show where he is. If it’s the man I think, then he’s as close as you will ever get to angels. You’re wrong, you see. He wasn’t only someone looking for his sheep or hunting eggs. Some nobody. He is a healer and his flock are men. His eggs are. .’ No, he couldn’t think ofanything for eggs. ‘There’s holiness in him. If it’s the man. He is the one who saved my life.’

Musa liked that final touch, ‘. . who saved my life.’ A useful lure, which he had used before. ‘This gemstone is blemished. That is true,’ he’d told a customer earlier that spring, and made the sale. ‘But it has healing properties as well. This is the stone that saved my life.’

Musa didn’t need to talk to Shim now, or even look at him. He could forget him. This was another market trick. Address your comments to the crowd. Ignore the buyer. Let him battle with himself. And there was a small crowd of eager listeners. His wife, of course, whose listening was dutiful; the woman Marta; the old man. Everybody lived in fear of death, and everybody was beset by age or sickness. So everybody liked to hear of healers. The badu – though he did not stop his rocking or let go of his tortured hair – turned his attentions towards Musa.

Even if he didn’t understand a single word, he recognized the storyteller’s tone.

Musa sat on his rugs again, with Miri’s help. He puUed his hands across his face, and let them drop into his lap. Where should he start? This one was hard. He only had to tell the truth. Just tell the truth and see the man again. He was hungry for the chance to see the man again. He’d even pay to see the man again. Musa did not recognize himself. Was he in love with that frail voice, those hands? Had he gone mad? Or had he simply drunk more than he’d realized?

‘Two days ago,’ he said, ‘I had the fever. I was as good as dead. Hot, cold and wet. My tongue was black. Ask her. She sang for me al night. Her voice is like a goat’s. A voice like hers could drive the devil off, and clear the sky ofbirds. But even so she couldn’t lure the fever out. Miri, tell them it’s true.’ He waited while his wife obliged with a nod. ‘What could she do? Except pray? Already she was grieving for her husband. There wouldn’t be a man to take good care of her. I was a piece of meat, and soon to be as numb and silent as a stone. I don’t remember anything, except death’s door.’