‘I feel responsible for you,’ Musa said, when she stood at his bed end one morning to offer her respects and money. ‘A landlord and his tenants are like cousins. Brothers, sisters, even. And now you worry me. Look at yourself. You’re losing weight,’ he said. ‘And that won’t do. We have to keep you plump and strong. Don’t be like her. My wife’s a stick.’ He turned his head towards the curtain and the rattle of the loom, and called out to his wife,
‘Feed her, Miri. She is my guest. She is my sister for today.’
‘I mustn’t eat,’ Marta said. ‘Not now.’
‘Who’ll know?’ he asked. He wasn’t pleased. He wished that he could puil her to the ground and make her eat. He’d stuff her mouth with bread, not clay, and pick the crumbs off with his tongue. He turned away from her, and fell back on his cushions. An insult to a visitor. ‘You do not have to be our sister for the day if you don’t want. The choice is yours. Be thin.’
The thought of Marta — thin or plump — made his mouth go dry. The fleshy twist ofleavened dough, tucked in his lap, began to uncurl, bake and form a crust. Patience, patience — she’d be his within the forty days. She was alone. Who, or what, could stop him going to her cave one night? His plans for Marta kept him busy for a while. But otherwise, he only thought ofbeing in the market-place, the centre of the crowds again. He wished that he could simply clap his hands and be elsewhere. He’d leave tomorrow if it were possible, except he could not make his escape out of the scrub until those three fools at the caves would put his bags and tent on to their backs and take him to the river valley. He was the warder of other people’s quarantines. He was the prisoner, as weH.
He entertained himself with thoughts ofleaving Miri behind inJericho or, better still, exchanging her for Marta. What would he do when he got north, apart from looking for his uncles and his cousins? He’d have no trouble getting restitution for the merchandise they’dtaken-they’d think he was a ghost-although it might be many seasons before he traced his old companions. How would he live, what would he buy and sell until that day? He asked the question to himself a thousand times, and every time, it seemed the Gaily’s face imposed itself on Musa’s mind. ‘Be well,’ he’d said, and driven out the fever.
Yes, patience was the watchword now. Everything would turn out well if Musa could only wait until he found the healer for a second time, and enticed him to his tent again. In his dreams and in his drink, he’d lured the Galilean from his cave and asked, in lieu of rent, to be taught the trick of healing. He learned to fill his saddle-bags with prayers and spells, to dig up roots, pick leaves. Then he travelied to the pleats and pockets of the world and sold long life, and health. He was mistaken for a holy man, and people emptied out their purses in his lap. He drove out fevers for a price, turned water into wine. He made barren women pregnant with his Galilean tricks, and caused the lame to dance for him. At last he was respected for himself.
He could not stop himself inventing new, unholy miracles. He knew — let’s say — the art of seeing through the women’s clothes, so he could watch them naked as they lined up at his stall. He practised this new skili on Marta. He’d find some task for her close to his bed, so that he might see her bend or lift her arms and watch her fabrics shift across her skin, so that he might enjoy the smell ofher. He made her wait at his bed’s end, while he made plans.
But for the most part of the day, Marta and Miri had their privacy in the screened end of the tent and with the goats. They hardly spoke at first. What should they say? You only had to read the parchment of their skins to know these women had little in common apart from their age, perhaps. Marta’s face was hardly marked, except for a few lines around the mouth, and two almond-shaped wedding scars on her cheeks. But Miri’s face was an empty water-bag — squint lines round the eyes from travelling too long and often in the sun; dry skin across the forehead and the nose; chewed lips; and battle scars.
On the first occasion that Marta had gone beyond the curtain, Miri’s face was bruised. Her smile was puckered by the swelling at her mouth; one eyebrow was bluey-grey and swollen. Hers was a beggarwoman’s face. The elders of Sawiya would drive her sort out of town, with Thaniel leading them. There was, nevertheless, somethingjaunty and unquenchable about the little woman that Marta found irresistible. She had to reach across and touch the bruise, a healing gesture ofher own. The two embraced, and held each other’s hands like sisters. It did not matter that they did not talk at first, for women always find some soundless intimacy with which to occupy themselves.
Marta simply followed Miri. Sat when she sat. Watched when any work was done. Smiled when stared at. Passed the hanks of wool. She held the nannies by their ear tufts during milking. She helped to shake and separate the curds. She took her tum with blowing into the goatskin from time to time to clarify the yoghurt into butter, and collected herbs from the scrub. She learned to slap the unleavened dough against hot fire-stones to make platter bread, cooked in moments. She learned to check and block the pegs on Miri’s loom, and to tie the smallest knots in the broken yarn. She was like a child in some aunt’s yard, clumsy, willing, slow, engrossed, her tongue between her teeth, eager to be praised, and quite content to be ignored. But soon the intimacy of weaving, of sitting side by side on the woven fabric as the mat progressed and lengthened, to help maintain the loom in tension, turned the women into twins. A muttered conversation started. Their shoulders and their fingers touched. Their knees collided on the wool. They talked about their lives, about their marriages, and Marta wept — sad for herself and sad for Miri — on the day that Miri asked how many children she had got at home. Not one.
They shared a bowl of water when they washed. Behind the curtain, Marta let all her clothes drop to her waist and took her underlinen off, while Miri brought a dampened cloth for her to wipe herself, and a head of lavender to make the water sweet. Then Miri matched her nakedness, though less majestically, and washed. She let Marta put her fingers on her stomach and feel for heels and heartbeats. Once they heard the curtain drop. It was still swaying when they’d pulled their clothes back on. They knew that Musa had been watching them. But still they laughed. These were the fullest forty days they’d ever lived.
Late in the afternoon, the men arrived and readied Musa for his daily walk. They left Miri preparing bread behind the tent, and went off through the falling scrub to look for signs of Gaily. A path was worn where there had never been a path, between the caves, the tent, the precipice. Musa with the curling staff. Aphas with a bending stick he’d made from sapbush. Shim, safely at a distance, lost-or hiding- in his meditations. The badu, following and leading, low-shouldered, like a herding dog. And Marta last.
Again there was no sign of anyone in the cave. No healer waved at them. No Galilean shouted out for food. There were just shades and shapes. The rocks were shivering.
Aphas could hardly breathe, he was so disappointed. His lungs felt squeezed. ‘I’m not a very devout man,’ he said, when it was almost time to leave. ‘Ifl’d prayed more, and bathed and followed rules, observed the sabbath better, I might’ve not got ill. Who knows? I might’ve not got this.’ He touched his bulging liver, and gasped several times. The constant pain was wearying. It took him to the edge oftears. ‘But this is what I feel when I am here. This air is … sweet. . There is someone.’