— the devil’s go-between was deaf. For everything that god had made was weak and blemished and imperfect by design.
Jesus laughed. How dull and unprepared the devil was.
21
No one need be thirsty in the scrub, unless they choose, said Musa. He and Miri had exhausted all the water in their bags, and so had come up to their cistern at the caves to drink and to refill the empty skins.
Without the open cistern to provide their drink, her husband would have dragged Miri from her loom, just when the purple- orange birth-mat was almost complete. She only had to loosen the warp, a little at a time, and then her mat could be cut offthe loom and the four hundred ends tied. Tying these umbilicals was the guarantee that her pregnancy would be successful. But Musa only cared for mats that he could sell. He would not have put up with thirst rather than separate Miri from a mat which would produce no profit. He would have sent her out to hunt for water.
There was, she’d already noticed, little sign of any water in the scrub, apart from the soft clay in the flood beds of the valley below the caves. She’d not persuade her husband to drink clay. There were no converging gazelle tracks, or stones piled up in columns to mark where someone else had found a weli or spring, or any tell-tale, spongy pit of greenery. She would have had to uproot salt bushes for the meagre store of water in their roots, or dig out tamarisks which always had their little fingers planted in a patch of damp. But, thank heavens for the cistern at the caves. Digging into that had been a bit of luck, Miri thought, though she would rather it were filled with Musa than with water.
She did not resent the brief break from the birth-mat to go up to the caves. She’d have a chance to talk to Marta, and she might succeed in walking the pain out ofher thighs, and exercising her back and neck. She could not tell if it was the weaving or her pregnancy that made her ache so badly. But she was most aware of her growing bulk around the waist when she sat cross-legged at the loom. The baby neatly filled the space between her legs. Her clothes were tight and she was hot, even at night. Her breasts were hurting, and there was an amber discharge from her nipples to mark the coming ofher milk. She had nosebleeds, and sudden cramps in her legs and feet which even crampbark could not relieve.
Yet stili she’d concentrated on her loom, and the retreating treliis of colours. She’d sat on the woven fabric, helping to maintain the loom in tension, and she’d found comfort in the intimacy ofweaving, her pregnant body on the birth-mat wool. She’d lost herself in it. She’d shut out Musa and the discomforts ofher life. She felt somehow that finishing the mat would free her of the man. Perhaps she’d fly away on it, her baby sitting neady in her lap.
Miri was content, when they had clambered up the slope below the caves, to sit and rest for a while before she filled the water-bags. It was mid-afternoon, but there’d been very litde sun to keep her and her husband in the tent. It was not hot enough to sleep. The salt sea valley was still sharp with light, but in the hills solid clouds were stacked like unworked slate, as sturdy as the land itself.
Despite the heavy coolness of the afternoon, Musa was too short ofbreath to go back to the tent straight away, although he had appropriated Shim’s walking staff to help him get about and he had Miri to carry all the water for him. Besides, he had an unperfected plan which required that he should stay exactly where he was as long as possible, at least until he saw a way of getting what he wanted and deserved. It was a question, not of wickedness but pride, he told himself He had to tum a profit at the end of this forced stay in the scrub. He couldn’t go down to Jericho with no successes to boast about. No merchant would. A merchant always wants a victory. Musa had had no luck down on the precipice. Perhaps he’d have a little luck up here. Bad luck for someone else.
He felt that he’d been split in two by his short stay in the scrub. Those twins again. It was the weeping, lesser twin who went in search ofluck down at the promontory. The twin who prayed. The twin who hoped to feel the healer’s touch again. It was the trading potentate, the f.st, the appetite, who came up to the caves. Each step that Musa took towards the cistern, put Jesus at a greater, safer distance. The landlord left his superstitions in the tent. He took his irreligion to the perching valley in the hills. He was ambitious. He would make his mark. He would surprise them ail.
So, he sat down in the shade of rocks, next to the lower cave where Marta slept, and demanded hospitality. He did not care that his tenants were fasting, concentrating on their prayers, and — by this thirtieth day of quarantine — short-tempered and depressed. He had Miri clap her hands and cail out, ‘Gather, gather,’ as she’d done on that earlier occasion when Musa had first come up to the caves.
The badu did not answer Musa’s cail and show himself, but Aphas and Marta were more obedient; Aphas because he always hoped that Musa would seduce the healer to come up to their caves, and Marta because the sound ofMiri’s voice was irresistible. Finaily, even Shim responded and came down to his landlord as slowly as he could to find a spot, a little distance from the rest, and safely out of Musa’s reach, where he could show how calm he was, and unperturbed.
‘What do you have? I’m tired,’ said Musa. They brought their landlord dry dates to eat — the same dates that he’d sold to them a day or two before — and the stripped-meat remains of a slipper deer which the badu had brought back the previous evening. Musa was not satisfied with that. He had a nose for something sweeter than a deer. ‘What else?’ He noticed Aphas would not look him in the eye.
‘What have you got you shouldn’t have?’ he asked the old man. Just a hunch. But, if the hunch paid off, he knew it would seem frightening and magical that he could read their minds. Aphas blushed. He stammered even. ‘We’ve got a little honey, if you want.’ And so, reluctantly, they offered him some of the dripping honeycomb which they were keeping for themselves, wrapped in some damp cloth. It gave them what little energy they had and should have lasted till the end of quarantine.
Musa ate his honeyed meat and dates. He held his hand out while Marta poured a little water from a bag on to his greasy, sticky fingers.
‘Where did you find the meat and honeycomb?’ he asked. He was feeling dangerous and mischievous, and excited, too — because the nearness of the woman’s lap, the slightly rancid taste of meat, had given him the idea which would perfect his plan. He belched. He rubbed his stomach. Just practising.
‘The little badu got them,’ Aphas said. ‘Somewhere around.’ He waved a hand about.
‘Somewhere around? Not on my land, I hope. I told you once. This isn’t common land. Anything you see is mine. What should I do? Put wooden gates on those. .’ he pointed at their rows of caves, ‘ … if I can’t trust my guests. Give me the comb, what’s left of it. Miri, bring it here! I am not pleased. You’re dining on my honey, now. And stealing meat.’
‘It was the badu,’ Aphas said again. ‘Not one of us.’
‘Might have found it anywhere,’ suggested Marta, speaking to herselfa shade too loudly. She half-suspected from what she’d heard from Miri that Musa’s claims to any of this land were bogus.
‘What, is the woman speaking now? Let’s hear. What have you said?’
‘They might be bees from anywhere. .’
‘What anywhere?’ asked Musa. He turned to Marta, cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. What kind of woman argued with a man? This kind; square-faced and large; broad-backed. ‘Beyond my land there is my cousin’s land. And then my uncles’ land is after that, and then my land begins again. That’s further than a bee can fly. That’s further than any one of you can run before you’re caught. Let’s not fall out.’ He spoke the last line with his sweetest voice. He turned to Aphas again. He had to hide his smiles. ‘Where did your neighbour find the nest? Near here?’