Quarantine Read online

  ‘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 telling 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 all the chiefs had jewels so large that visitors could tether horses to them. He’d find her villages 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 dwell 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 of goats and men, a thousand tasks and still a thousand more to do … She had to find the time as well 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 yarn 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 families 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 rolled 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 of thread-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 yarns. 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 all.

  Marta shook her head and pushed aside all 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 yarns drop loose. She showed them to the sun, but they were not transformed 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 yarns 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,’ Mu
sa 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. If Miri 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’ll 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 yarns. 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 yarns 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 himself on 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 all 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 sell. ‘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 yarns 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 of purple 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 light 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 swallow 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 fellow 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 of boy?’ 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 off every 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 still 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 all 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. We 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 of the 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 of a piece of roasted 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 will have gone by now,’ he said at last. He did not recognize the tremor in his voice. ‘It was a shepherd. Just collecting eggs. Or looking for a stray.’

  ‘G
o 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. If he allowed this Shim to succeed in challenging him just once, then he would challenge 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 of tenancy. 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 pulled. The dates were heavy on his breath. His breath was heavy on her face.