Quarantine

by Jim Crace

  No wonder Jesus was a clumsy carpenter. He would have built a leaking ark. He concentrated on the large and inexplicable, and neglected what was on his bench. He cut or hit his fingers far too many times. God’s patterns on his fingertips were scarred. But he was happy to have wounds. The wounds were prayers, and answers to his prayers. His prayers drew blood.

  The wilderness was large and inexplicable as well. Only an innocent would try to tackle it with nothing on his feet, and leave his water-skin and overcloak behind. But Jesus had to put his trust in god’s provision for the forty days, and could hardly pack a bag with clothes and food as a reserve against shortfalls. He did his best to persuade himself that god was at his shoulder at that very moment, supplying all the courage that it took to get up from the woven comforts of the dying merchant’s tent and set off in the falling light towards the cliff-top. But he had found it difficult to pray, away from home. It was hard to concentrate on god when his feet were so sore. He found it easier to summon up his parents and his brothers, and his Galilean neighbours, and their priest. They were transported to the scrub to witness him. At first, they would be laughing at his foolishness. Their god-struck, visionary boy, too shy to look them in the eye, who’d hid himself in gabbling scriptures, had gone off in a temper to the hills. Their Gally was absurd. Look at his bleeding feet. Look at his flaking lips. Observe that holy, love-lorn look across his face. See how he hardly manages that little climb up to the ridge. They would expect him to be weak, to turn back at the challenge of the landfall, to take the easy path up to the poppy caves, to fall asleep inside the merchant’s tent. But when they saw him persevere they would wonder at his fortitude and say, ‘We never knew him after all.’ He could not quite admit it to himself but Jesus took more courage from the thought of surprising his parents than he took from satisfying god.

  But, in these final moments of his journey, between the tent and cave, Jesus was a tired and disappointed man. He did not feel much welcomed by the scrub. Its textures were harsh and colourless. Its skies were far too large and low. He’d been naive. He’d hoped for greater hospitality, that the path would rid itself of stones and sweep away its thorns for him. God’s unfinished landscape would provide a way, he thought. The scrubland would recognize his simple dress, his solemn purposes, his modesty. Its hills would flatten. Its rocks would soften. It would protect his naked feet. This, after all, was the path that led to god, still at work on his creation. So the path should become more heavenly, more freshly formed, safer at every step. It should become an infant Galilee. The winds should be more musical. The light should shiver and the air should smell of offerings. But god had left the thorns and stones in place across the scrub.

  At last, in the approaches to the cliff-top where Jesus had to find the way down to his lodgings for the night, the scrub began to slope, eroded by flash floods and centuries of wind. There were no plants. Here, the soil was smooth and crumbling and dangerous. All the loosened stones of any size had rolled away and fallen to the scree pans on the valley floor. Somewhere along the precipice, the latest rock fell free. It made its noisy, tumbling farewell to the slope, and bounced into the weightless silence of its fall. Any nervous man like Jesus, only used to Galilean heights and daunted by the receding ground, would feel afraid of being like that stone. He should not, therefore, have felt ashamed of getting down on his hands and knees and edging forwards on all-fours, like a sheep, towards the fragile brink of the cliff. But Jesus was ashamed, and frightened, too. Frightened that he would end up amongst the scree. Frightened of the night ahead. Frightened of his quarantine.

  This was the final opportunity for Jesus to turn around and go back to the tent. It would not be hard to justify such a short retreat — his religious duty was to help a dying man. Perhaps he ought to settle for the easy caves up in the hills. That might have been god’s intention all along. But Jesus was too nervous to stand up and flee. He felt like Yehoch, perching on the temple roof, calling out for angels and for ropes, because he could not tell if he should put his trust in god or men. The optimist and innocent who had set off that morning from the shepherd’s hut had now become a pessimist. Jesus had persuaded himself earlier that day that creation was continuing in these hills. Look at the lack of trees, he’d told himself, the thinness of plants and grasses. God would be at work still. This was the edge of god’s unfinished universe. But what on earth could god complete on this despairing precipice? Where were his fingerprints? What work was there to do? Every Galilean knew that vegetation was the fruit of god’s union with the earth. There was no vegetation on these slopes. Perhaps there was no god either. Perhaps this was the devil’s realm. The stones were sinners. And the scree was hell.

  Jesus hung on with his naked hands and feet. He was ashamed. His neighbours and his family were watching him. They were his witnesses. ‘Ah, yes,’ they’d say. ‘He’s fallen now, down on his knees. Look at him crawl.’

  He had no choice. He hung his head over the precipice, and looked from left to right, for a descending path, and any evidence of caves. The light was poor, but he was lucky. He could not see his cave, or any cave, but he could see a sloping rock similar to the one which formed the front deck to his chosen sanctuary. The perfect perch for eagles, and for angels, he had said. Except there were no eagles nor any angels, just ravens and the falling debris of the cliff.

  One of the ravens landed close to Jesus, turned its head a dozen times, inspecting him for food, and then flew off, calling out its disappointment – tok-tok, tok-tok, tok-tok. Its voice was unmistakable, more like a carpenter’s than a bird’s. He’d made the noise himself a thousand times — the impact of a tool on wood. But, although he tried his best, Jesus could not take it as a sign that god was calling him. He had expected signs all day, it’s true. Some shaft of sunshine, picking out a rock. Some burning bush. A distant voice, perhaps, to tell him how he ought to reach his cave. A white dove, yes; or the elated song of a warbler might carry messages from god. But tok-tok-tok? God would be more eloquent than that. Jesus had to wait for quite a while, clinging like an insect to his slope, before a better sign was offered him. A steady flight of storks, coming up from Egypt to the north – the Sea of Galilee, perhaps – were passing overhead. A sign of spring. One dropped below its companions and flew along the massive, sheer cliffs of the valley. Its white shoulders and body were briefly highlighted by the sun against the greys and browns. Then it shrank away so far that it became a duck, a dove, a fading speck of white, a mote of sawdust in the window light. The moment that it disappeared, Jesus told himself, would be the moment that he moved.

  So Jesus took his courage from the stork to edge along the cliff on hands and knees, looking for a way down to his cave. It was not difficult. It was not long before the ground grew rougher underfoot and underhand. There was a rockfall, where the land had split and slipped, like a broken crust of bread. Jesus started to climb down. The marl was soft enough to crumble between his fingers. There were struggling signs of god’s creation, at last. A few opportunist plants – morning star, hyssop, saltwood – had taken root in the crevices and on the leeward side of rocks. They lent their odour to the climb and left their muffled blessings on his palms whenever he took hold of them. Hyssop was familiar, a herb for eggs and fish, but now it was the smell of vertigo and fear. When the rockfall steepened, Jesus descended on his thighs, facing outwards. The ground was loose but firm enough to take his weight. He did not trust his feet. They were already torn and bleeding from the walk and now were further scratched and battered by the earth. He tried to put as much weight as he could on to his hands and thighs as he went down below the level of the slope on to the precipice. He had to hurry. It was almost dusk. The cliffs were facing east. The sunlight ended sharply. He was climbing on the dark side of the world, his back pressed hard against the earth.

  He reached his lodgings for the night more easily than he had expected. The route was steep but well provided with handholds and platforms for his feet. His fear of heig
hts and falling rocks made him quick and nimble for a change. He was propelled. He almost found the climbing pleasurable. He was the boy he’d never been.

  The entrance was much larger than he’d thought. The cave was deep. There was no sign of life, not even any bird lime on the rocks, or sand-fish burrows. No screaming bats. No perching angels. He called out from the rocky platform at the cave’s mouth. The echo of his nervous greeting came back twice. ‘Is anybody there ody there ody there?’ He wept, of course. What young man, alone in such a wilderness, wouldn’t weep to hear his own voice mocking him and reassuring him? No echo would be worse. He couldn’t light a fire or lamp. There wasn’t any food or drink to comfort him, but he had eaten anyway, in the merchant’s tent and in the shepherd’s hut. Two meals that day. He couldn’t think what he should do. Give thanks? Protect the entrance of the cave with stones? It was too cold to sit outside and watch the stars come out. He hadn’t brought a cloak to wrap around himself. So he found a pocket of warm air, out of the draughts, and curled up on the dry clay in the cave, in his thin clothes. He made a pillow of his open palm, still smelling of the hyssop, and protected his body with his elbows and his knees as if he thought he might be kicked by demons. Would there be scorpions or snakes? Would there be nightmares? He closed his eyes. He brought his lids down on his fear. He put his trust in god; an optimist again. He could rest. He could rely on god’s provision, yes. The travelling was over. He fell asleep, almost at once.

  Sleep is a medicine. When he woke up on his first day of quarantine, his spirit was repaired, as was his confidence. There was no walking to be done that day. He did not have to climb. He only had to shake the stiffness from his limbs and go outside to meet the day. The rosy epaulettes of light on the peaks of Moab which Marta was admiring at that same moment from her own cave entrance, seemed heavenly to Jesus. He sat cross-legged on his angel perch. He could hear the bluster of a wind, blowing on the cliff-tops and the hills, but not descending to his cave. God was taking care of him. Jesus would explore the cave when it was fully light outside, but for the moment he simply waited for the epaulettes to spread into a cloak, and for the cloak to throw its warmth across his shoulders. Time was slow, of course. He filled it with prayer, and thinking of his parents watching him pray. They couldn’t come and shake him now.

  There was nothing else for Jesus to do, except to simplify his life. Repentance, meditation, prayer. Those were the joys of solitude. They had sustained the prophets for a thousand years. And they would be his daily companions. He started rocking with each word of prayer, putting all his body into it, speaking it out loud, concentrating on the sound, so that no part of him could be concerned with lesser matters or be reminded of the fear, the hunger and the chill. He seemed to find his adolescent rhapsodies. The prayers were in command of him. He shouted out across the valley, happy with the noise he made. The common words lost hold of sound. The consonants collapsed. He called on god to join him in the cave with all the noises that his lips could make. He called with all the voices in his throat. He clacked his tongue against his mouth, Tok-tok tok-tok tok-tok.

  He must have recited a hundred prayers that morning, before the sun obliged and warmed him through. His prayers brought up the sun. His prayers suppressed his appetite. His prayers picked out the sunlight on the dead and silver sea and hardened it. It turned it into jewellery. The water was as solid as a silver plate. It rose from the distant valley into the mid-air haze. Jesus had to look at it through half-closed eyes, it was so bright. The more he looked, the more transformed he felt. He could have taken this to be the natural way of water and light. But Jesus had not come this far to witness only godless routines of the sun and sky and sea. He had to take each shift of light, each colouring, each shadow of a bird to be the evidence of god. He had to persuade himself, before the forty days were up, that he’d been awarded a brief view of god’s kingdom. Let the silver plate be paradise. Let god be calling out to give to him his new commandments, as he had given all his laws to Jews in this same wilderness. What would his parents and his neighbours say when he went back to preach the word of god? They would not shake his shoulders, send his brothers to distract him, use the stick. They would rejoice in him. He could congratulate himself, and did. He was shoeless, homeless, without food. He’d slept on naked ground. But he was at last without fear or sorrow. ‘Am I not free?’ he asked himself. ‘Am I not blessed?’

  Finally it was too warm to sit out in the sun, and he was thirsty. He put a pebble in his mouth. He went back to the cave and slept again, just inside the entrance. He dreamed he was a common fly and climbing down a crust of bread. It broke away. He fell with crumbs of bread between his legs. His wings weren’t any use. He fell awake. Flies on his face were feeding on the mucus of his nose and eyes and lips. There was indeed a noise of falling without wings. A few stones dropped outside his cave. A little further along the cliff a new landslip was underway. God’s footfall made its mark on earth.

  The earth had quietened by the time that Jesus went outside. There was nothing on the precipice to see, but there were voices and movements on the rim above. He turned his back to Moab and looked towards the summit of the cliffs. Dust fell on his face and hair. A pebble hit his shoulder. His company had come at last; his guide, his god, his friend. He would not pass his quarantine alone. He waited for a face to show itself. Perhaps there was a face already; he was not sure. He thought he saw the blond hair of an angel and a face the colour of a honeycomb. He thought he heard a joyful voice call out, in a mocking echo of his dream, ‘Fly, fly …’ Were they the words? There was a further fall of earth and then there was a vision that he could not understand. Its meaning was obscure and dark and troubling. A donkey seemed to come out of mid-air, falling through the sky at him. It dropped down the precipice to the right of his cave. It turned. It hit the rocks and bounced once more, high above the valley. Then it fell towards the silver plate. A sacrifice towards the silver plate. Its legs were wings. It seemed to have no weight, no eyes. Its head was loose like cloth, as if the bones along its neck were less substantial than the air.

  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 piping voice. 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 well — 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 of her clothes against himself and call 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 of his reach once the donkey had been disposed of and these four visitors had gone back to their caves, unless she wanted to be pummelled 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 of merchant 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 all 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.