Quarantine

by Jim Crace

  ‘That’s good. That’s very Greek,’ said Aphas.

  ‘I worship everybody here,’ Shim continued. His voice was slow, and hardly audible. ‘Excepting one of course.’ He lifted a hand from his staff and pointed at himself.

  Aphas could not claim to have such selfless motives as Shim, he said. He could not claim to be so Greek. He’d come for quarantine because (‘No need to wrap it up in complicated words’) he was dying. These forty days were his last chance, his priest had said. He hoped to make his peace with god and with himself, of course. But most of all he hoped for miracles, that all the fasting and the prayers would make him well again. Tranquillity was easy to acquire, compared to that. He had a growth, he said. ‘A living thing, inside of me. No one could worship that. Bigger than my fist.’ He showed his fist, and pointed at his side. ‘You can feel how hard it is.’ He waited for a volunteer to press a finger into his side. Shim leaned forward on to his braided legs, put his finger on the growth, and nodded: ‘Like you say,’ he said.

  ‘Come on.’ Aphas waved the badu over, and called to him in both Greek and Aramaic, and then translated it into finger-mime. ‘Feel this.’

  The badu sprang on to his feet and padded over as nimbly and as silently as a cat, grinning all the time. He lifted up the mason’s shirt. Marta could see the stomach was distended. The skin was stretched. It looked as if the old man had an extra knee-cap placed between his thigh bone and his ribs. The badu spat out pebbles, laughed, and cupped the growth in the flat of his hand. He shook his head from side to side. He tapped the cancer with his fingertips and put his ear to Aphas’s chest and grabbed hold of his hand. Nothing that he did made any sense. Aphas had to tug quite hard before the badu would let go. He wanted sympathy, or miracles, not this.

  ‘He doesn’t understand a word of it,’ Aphas said, retreating into chatter as he’d done for all his life. His nose was running and his eyes were wet. ‘Here, Master Shim, this fellow’s yours. You love all living things, you said. Love him.’ He forced a laugh and wiped his eyes. He then repeated what he’d said, almost word for word … ‘Love him, I said.’ He turned to Marta, only looking for a nod or smile from her to rescue him from his embarrassment. She laughed for reasons of her own. Her three companions were absurd. Even the honey-head. Perhaps he was the maddest of them all.

  They had hardly noticed that the sun was up and their forty days were underway. But soon – once Shim and Aphas had agreed that everyone would gather at dusk when they would light a communal fire and break their fast with Marta’s scrub fowl and the free food of the wilderness if any could be caught or found — they fell silent, even Aphas. They concentrated on themselves. Finally, they sought the shade and privacy of their caves. The badu wandered along the scarp, crying out and kneeling down once in a while to pick up stones. Marta was relieved to stay alone, sitting in the sun, counting seeds. The birds that had been waiting in the thorns flocked back into the water, dipping beaks and wings. But very soon they were outnumbered. The water in the cistern smelled so mossy and the birds, excited by the unexpected boon of water, sang so unremittingly, that every living creature in the hills could smell and hear the summons to drink.

  Swag flies, mud wasps and fleas blistered the surface of the water, dipping their bodies at both ends; one dip to drink and one to drop a line of eggs. Centipedes and millipedes, lonely lovers of the damp, gathered at the edges of the cistern in rare communion. Whip bugs and round worms celebrated in the mud. And slugs and snails, descending to the water and the bobbing body of a roach, signed the stones and rubble of the gravesides with their mucous threads. Star lizards blinked and turned their flattened heads in search of easy food. Overhead and in the thorns, more birds were gathering to breakfast on the throng.

  Marta was still reluctant to go back to the cave. She hoped the little woman would return: ‘Hello, it’s me. The woman yesterday.’ But all she saw were birds and insects, drawn to the water in the cistern. She was drawn as well. She went to watch them drinking and, perhaps, to catch a second bird. Her shadow fell across the grave. Again the birds shook out their wings and fled. She ducked and dodged. She did not scream. The lizards scuttled behind stones, and shut their eyes at her. The insects exercised their wings. Snails shrank into their shells, and mimed the secret life of stones. It seemed to Marta that she’d dipped her fingers into and drunk some holy essence. It was the fourth day of creation when god directed that the waters teem with countless living creatures and that the birds fly high above the earth, across the vault of heaven. She did not feel elated by god’s work, but — like any other lukewarm Jew — she was repulsed. She’d have to overcome her fear of insects and suppress the edicts of Leviticus (‘These creatures shall be vermin unto you, and you will make yourself unclean with them’) before she’d find the heart to drink again.

  9

  Musa was tired and disappointed. When Miri had told him about the four cave-dwellers, he had presumed that one of them would be the Galilean man. Why else would he have followed Miri away from the comforts of the tent to walk uphill into the heat and scrub? There were better things to do. He could be resting, eating, taking stock? He had the bruises of his fever to shake off. And he had plans to make. How to turn his bad luck into coins. How to catch up with the caravan with only one pack-animal — and that one pregnant — to carry the tent and all their possessions. How to get to Jericho where he could buy a camel, trade some of his goods, and lay claim once more to the title of merchant. But first there was unfinished business with the water thief. He wanted to see the man again. What for? He couldn’t say. But, if Miri’s querulous reports could be trusted, the Galilean had passed the night in caves. She’d pointed to the coppery, pockmarked cliffs. ‘Not far,’ she’d said. Not far, perhaps, for someone built like her. A chicken, all skin and bone and beak. No meat on her, except for the slight, high swelling of her stomach. But for Musa, this outing was hard work. He was a duck to Miri’s chicken, flat-footed and ungainly. His thighs were so thick that they required him to walk in opposing quarters: his right foot took him to Jerusalem, his left foot set off for Negev. He tacked his way across the scrub, with tiny steps.

  At first Miri was required to walk behind with the water-bag and a mat, throwing her narrow shade across his back. Musa was not pleased with her. Everything had been her fault; the fever, his abandonment, his immobility, his loss of goods. He’d ordered her to pull the donkey carcass out of sight. It smelled. It bothered him. Even the vultures had only circled it, and gone away without tasting its disease. Something, though, less discriminating than a vulture had chewed its stomach out during the night. The scrub dogs, probably. Its eyes had gone. And there were flies. But Miri claimed the body was too heavy for her to move alone. She had refused to even try – and that was something she had never done before. For fear of a clout. What was happening to his wife? He’d caught her weeping in the night. Crying for the donkey? Surely not. Now she was sulking like a disappointed child, throwing things about the tent, making too much noise, complaining that her buttocks ached. Not that she had buttocks worthy of the name. Perhaps that was the price of pregnancy – disobedience, bad temper, aches. Did she expect that he would tolerate such disrespect for four more months?

  ‘Keep out of sight,’ he’d said to her when they began their walk. But the ground was stony and uncomfortable. He did not see why he should suffer first, and so he sent his wife ahead to simplify a path for him. She had to clap her hands to scare off any snakes. She had to kick away scrub balls and snap off any thorny branches in his way. She had to find the softest ground, and pull aside the loose rocks which might block his path. She hardly made a difference. It would have taken twenty men to clear a path. For Musa, though, his little chicken wife, clapping as she led the way for him, would have to do. He had his dreams. There would be twenty men at his command when he was rich. He’d be preceded everywhere he went by twenty men. They’d clear the path of stones. They’d throw down rushes. There’d be twenty girls as well — and non
e of them would look like chickens.

  At last they reached the valley bed with its soft clay. Musa didn’t have to stamp to make his mark. His feet sank in. His ankles twisted when he walked. He summoned his wife to his side, and leaned on her. His buttocks and calves were aching now. Compared to Miri’s, his were buttocks ten times worthy of the name. So his pains were ten times worse than hers. His lungs were bursting. He wasn’t built for hiking. He was built for litters, or for camels. Perhaps he had been hasty when he killed the donkey. He could, perhaps, have ridden on her back to meet the Galilean or got Miri to assemble a donkey cart. That would have been more dignified.

  Except there was no Galilean there, as far as he could tell. When Miri had finally pushed him up the last few steps of the scarp, through the rash of poppies, to the shaded foot of the cliffs, and he had settled down with his exhaustion on the mat, there wasn’t any sign of life at all, except the congregation of birds.

  ‘Call out,’ he ordered Miri. ‘Unless, of course, a call’s too heavy for you.’

  She obeyed, and called ‘Gather, gather!’, her husband’s market cry; and soon the quarantiners came down from their caves, one by one, and stood a little nervously in line in front of Musa while he looked each of them in the face as if they were for sale. He could tell at once what they were worthy. Not much, the badu. Musa could trade two badus for one goat. Except this one had silver bracelets. The old Jew was an artisan and dying, by the looks of him. A man like him would be too proud to travel without money. The blond was carrying a walking staff, made out of spiralled tarbony. Quite valuable. Musa knew his type, a seasoned traveller and, probably, prepared for thieves. He’d have some hidden coins sewn in his cloak. The woman? Good clothes – a woven hair veil in fine material, a long sleeveless tunic, girdled twice as was the fashion, once beneath her bosom, once around her waist. Good cloth. Good skin. Good teeth. Good heavy purse, as well, he thought. And easy pickings.

  The four cave-dwellers seemed to know they should not speak. The badu tugged and twisted his hair in high strands. The other three stood patiently, glad – so far, at least – of this diversion in their day. What was it about her husband, Miri wondered, that made strangers treat him regally, defer to him? His size? Were they afraid of size? Or was their meekness more deliberate, not signifying their respect for Musa, but a token of their own tranquillity?

  ‘Just four of you,’ he said at last. The old one nodded in agreement. ‘And where’s the other one?’ The woman shook her head, and for an instant caught Miri’s eye. Just half a smile. Miri had seen smiles like that before — from people who were surprised by Musa’s adolescent, reedy voice.

  The old Jew spoke for all of them. He thought, perhaps, there’d been a fifth when they were walking to the hills the day before. It might have been a boy, a woman or a man. He could not tell. His eyesight was not good. The figure was too far away. Quite tall. It might have been a shepherd even. But there were only four of them who’d come to carry out devotions in these caves. ‘My name is Aphas. From Jerusalem …’ he began.

  ‘And you?’ Musa said, ignoring Aphas from Jerusalem. He pointed with his chin at Marta. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘To pray and fast. Like them,’ she said. ‘For quarantine …’

  ‘Why fast? What will you gain from it?’

  She shook her head. She didn’t want to say. She smiled and shrugged and blushed. Musa watched her breasts and shoulders lift. She might be Miri’s age, perhaps, but she was tall and generous, he thought. She was the kind of woman Musa would have twenty of when he was rich. She’d move a donkey without arguing. She wouldn’t make a bother of her pregnancy. He wet his lips and smiled at her. ‘Where is the other one?’ he asked. ‘The water thief?’

  ‘Not us,’ the old man interrupted. ‘We have our own.’ He pointed to the pit in the ground behind his back.

  ‘What’s there?’ asked Musa, indicating his own grave with, again, the slightest movement of his chin. Miri stepped back, out of Musa’s sight. She put her hand up to her mouth. Would anybody say, ‘That’s where your wife spent yesterday. She dug that grave for you’? Miri pinched her lips between her fingers.

  ‘Our water cistern,’ Aphas said. ‘It was already here … For god provides.’

  Already there? Musa was inspired. His mind was as quick and direct as his body was clumsy. He could see a trading opportunity at once, and a fast solution to the problems of his unsought delay in the wilderness. Here was an opening for him. God provides, indeed. He looked from face to face to satisfy himself that none of them could be the Galilean and that none of them were worldly or local enough to spot his lie. And then: ‘It’s there because I put it there,’ he said. ‘My land. My water.’ He pointed to the rows of caves up in the cliff. ‘My caves.’

  Miri took her hand away from her mouth. She had to smile. Her husband was the demon of the mat. She listened with her mouth open while he recounted how he had dug that hole himself, with some help from his wife. He turned his head as best he could and closed an eye at her. She should keep quiet.

  It was hard work, he said. The ground was full of stones: ‘My wife is pregnant. Look at her. She’s not as young as me. She isn’t fit to dig a hole in mud let alone in stones. She isn’t big enough to even lift a stone. She broke her fingernails. Show them your hands.’ Miri did as she was told. ‘Hard work,’ he said again. He wasn’t at this point quite sure why he and Miri had dug the hole. He needed time to think, and this he gained by making Miri show her damaged fingernails to each of them. By the time she’d come back to his shoulder he had found the next verse to his song. ‘My little donkey died,’ he said. She was diseased. It was a cruel kindness to end her misery. She was an animal he’d owned since he was a boy. She was his sister. ‘That pit …’ (the slightest movement of the chin again) ‘ … was to be her grave.’ He couldn’t let a donkey rot, out in the open, not a donkey so much loved, he said. She would attract wolves, or leopards. He didn’t have to tell them how dangerous that was. For everyone. What, then, should he do now? Put the donkey in the grave and bury her under stones, as he had planned? Or let his hard work come to nothing for the sake of a drop of water, and some strangers? He closed his eyes and hummed to himself as if even Solomon would be taxed by such a choice. Here was a further opportunity to think of ways of turning these four into profit.

  ‘And then, of course, there is the other matter, too,’ he said at last. The matter of the caves. Accommodation is not free, he explained. They wouldn’t call in at an inn and expect to eat and sleep for nothing. That was not dignified or rational. This was not common land, and travellers would have to pay a tribute of some kind. A token tribute. Nothing large. A gesture only. ‘A sip, a sip, the merest sip,’ he said, and liked the sound of it. They did not have to pay, of course. They could choose to move elsewhere. And that was free. They might imagine they could stay and not pay rent. ‘You can imagine, too, how sad I’d be if you decided that,’ he said. ‘And how my hundred burly cousins in these hills might feel justified to come with sticks and turn you out. I only have to belch round here for there to be a storm. Your choice.’ He’d give them till midday to make up their minds.

  While the badu concentrated on his hair, the other two men debated what they could do about the water and the caves and Musa’s uncouth cousins. It looked as if their quarantine was doomed. Musa entwined his fingers in his lap and closed his eyes. He made himself too large and placid to defy. His world was such a shapely place. He had the sweetest, simplest plan. He’d stick around until he’d shaken all their pockets out. It wouldn’t take him forty days. He’d have his fingers on the spiralled staff, the silver bracelets, the old man’s purse, the hidden coins in the cloak, in less than ten. He’d have his fingers on the woman’s breasts, as well, if only he could bide his time. She was worth the forty days, and more. He liked her fabrics and her cloths. Her textiles made his penis twitch. His eyes were not entirely shut. He looked at Marta through his lashes. He liked the way she lifted up her
tunic hem, and ran the fabric through her fingers like a set of beads.

  Marta knew that Musa was watching her. He was as subtle as a hungry dog. Her husband, Thaniel, was a jewel compared to him. She would not want to be married to a man like that; his little wife was hardly better than a slave. But Marta was jealous of Miri, nevertheless. The woman was enslaved perhaps, but sinewy and spirited … and pregnant. Here was the person that Marta would like to be herself, the one that took her place in dreams, whose warp hung heavy on the weft. Marta had held Miri briefly by the hand when she had come to show her broken fingernails. Their touching skins could not have been more different, the one as full and oily as an olive, the other parchmenty. Marta longed to put her hand on Miri’s stomach and feel the wing-beats of her child. Would that be parchmenty as well? If only babies were contagious, like a fever … If only she could pass her hands through flesh and cup the child inside her palms … If only Miri would agree to sell …

  Marta pulled up the little bag tied into the material of her tunic top, and felt its weight of coins. She could pay. She could pay for Miri’s baby, if only four months could be compressed into the forty days and there was a child for sale. She was prepared to pay for water and for rent, as well, so long as Miri was around. In fact, it was a comfort in some ways to pay, because it guaranteed she would not starve or freeze to death, and it would buy her access to Musa’s little slave. She let the bag drop down again on its drawstring, into the warmth and darkness of her clothes. It made the slightest bulge, and made her blush, because she knew that Musa watched the dropping bag and that his eyes had travelled with it underneath the folds of cloth. She pulled her hair veil down across her face and waited for the old man and Shim, the honey-top, to finish their negotiations and make their bid to Musa.

  Musa often claimed that seeing inside the heads of his adversaries was, for him, as easy as judging melons by their skins. He knew when they were sweet and ripe. He knew if they held any juice, and where and when to squeeze. He knew when they were cavernous and dry. It was an easy game to play. He was the champion. He judged and squeezed his clients in the market-place, and knew, before they even knew themselves, how much they’d offer as their initial bid as well as what they’d end up paying as the final price. They nearly always gave the game away. Their fingers moved, and spelled out twos and threes and fours. They smiled too much or met his eyes too levelly if they were cheating him. Their breathing changed if they were feeling pressurized. There was a whole vocabulary of casual coughs, finger-tapping, tongues on teeth, false frowns, which told the emperor of trade if his suppliers or his buyers were underbidding, backing off, or ready for the deal.