Quarantine (6 page)

had him sitting nearly and cross-legged beside some market booth

dispensing deals and judgements like a priest, implacably, too

dignified to haggle with. It had him trading crackware lamps for

damaskeen silver, figs for wine, wedding figurines for Roman

cloth, papyrus for salt; there was no merchandise which could

not be mated and transmuted in his hands. It had him envied

and admired. And rich.

Indeed he was admired, but only in the market-place. He was

a sorcerer with goods and prices there, the kingly middleman

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with his blued hair, his fringed and pampered cheeks, his crisp

and spotless tunic, his swollen elegance, his cunning. But he was

graceless in the daily commerce of the smile and hug. His

embraces were the bruising sort. His punches and his kisses could

not be told apart. It seemed that he both loved and loathed the

trappings ofhis life; Miri his wife, the market-place, himself, his

drink, the endless halt and harness of the caravan. He was their

master and their slave at once. Two men in one; opposing twins,

they'd said when he was a boy and couldn't reconcile his bossy

tantrums with his bouts of weeping. No wonder he was large

even as a child - two hearts, two stomachs, twice the bones,

twin temperaments.

Now that Musa was a merchant and an adult, fearful of derision

and defeat, he had learnt to suppress the lesser, tearful twin. Life

was too hard and unforgiving for such a weakling. Anyone could

drive that tender sibling to an easy bargain. Anyone could trespass

in his tent. Anyone could make a fool of him. So Musa kept

him hidden, a lost companion ofhis childhood, and showed the

world his tougher self, the one which beat and bargained like

no other, the trading potentate, the fist, the appetite. Why was

this splendid fellow feared but not much liked by his cousins

in the caravan? It baffled Musa, and it made him fierce. They

are simply envious, he persuaded himself. But during those late

and bitter drinking vigils outside his tent, his judgement was

more fiery, and much simpler; They hate you, Musa. Hate them

back!

For the moment, though, the lesser twin had been briefly

resurrected by the water. Musa grovelled on his stomach like a

temple slave, his hair and beard still wet and mossy, and thought

of Miri and his uncles, the market cries, the camel snorts, with

some degree of fondness. He was aware that he had almost lost

them all, that he had nearly died, and that their loss would be

insufferable. He peered out of the tent again, for signs of relatives

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and friends, a wisp of smoke, a shout. But there were none.

Perhaps he had died after all, and this was hell.

What had occurr�d? Musa had to concentrate. A face was

haunting him. A throbbing voice. He could not recognize it,

though. He could remember his last journey, how the caravan

had come out of the hills, delayed by badu herdsmen to the

south, who'd wanted to trade yarn for copperware. He'd used

his size and his impatience to force a bargain. He could shake

profits out of sand, someone had said, and Musa had been proud

to hear it. He could recall setting camp, and then the meal, the

fires, the chill of night. He'd felt both hot and cold when he'd

gone in to sleep the night before. Was it the night before? Or

ten, or twenty nights? He'd told Miri to massage his shoulders.

He'd sent her off for blankets. He'd almost vomited and had had

to sleep on his back because his chest was sore and shivering.

He'd had diarrhoea.

So that was it! He'd caught a fever, then. That much was

obvious.

What was now becoming cruelly obvious as well - there was

the evidence outside - was that he'd been abandoned by his

comrades and his family to battle with the fever on his own.

And that was pitiless. Left in the desert with . . . He counted

what he saw. That useless donkey with the limp. And five, six

goats. Camel dung. No bolts of cloth, none of the larger bulks

of wool, no decorated copperware. No Miri, even. His feelings

of melodic calm did not survive his growing dismay and anger.

The lesser twin took flight.

The sun by now was fairly low in the sky, sinking and red-faced

from its exertions like any other traveller who had passed a day

in the desert. Musa knew it was late afternoon. The caravan

would be too far away to chase. How could he chase it anyway?

Ride the limping donkey? Ride a goat? He couldn't even lift

his body off the ground. He lay - his shoulders in the tent, his

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head protruding out - and dreamed of chasing them on a relay

of goats and catching them in some green valley to the north.

He'd pull his merchandise from off the camels' backs, the copperware, the cloth, his wools. (He loved the sensuality of wools, particularly the orange and the purple wools. They were the

colours prostitutes would wear.) Those loving uncles and their

sons would hide their faces with shame. Would he forgive

them for abandoning him to snakes and leopards? Would he

congratulate them on their thieving business skills? He'd sneeze

at them. He'd drive them off with stones. He'd stand amongst

them with a heavy stick and crack their heads. They'd know

how dangerous he was. They'd seen him swing a stick before.

Then he'd go to where the women were. He'd have a reason

to attack his wife for once, and nobody would dare to lay a

calming hand on his and say, 'Be easy, Musa. Let her go. ' What

could they say in her defence? He could disown her there and

then. He had the right. Divorce her on the spot and tum her

out. But he would take her to their tent instead, and everyone

would hear her cries right through the night. The different cries

which came when he was slapping her, the ones when he had

pulled her tunic off and was laying leather straps across her back,

and those when he had opened up her thighs and, with her hair

held in his fists, was pushing into her until there was a trinity of

pain and tears and fear. Kisses, punches? They were all the same

to him. And then he would divorce her on the spot.

But Musa, if the truth was told, for all the bombast of his

dreams, was feeling fearful and ill-used. He'd thrown water in

his eyes, but there were tears as well. He was shivering, not only

from the chill inside the tent. His prospects, frankly, were not

promising. What kind of merchant was he now? A laughingstock. An ass. A dupe. He'd been discarded like the casing of a nut. His mood was murderous, but there was no one there to

murder, except himself

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His anger made him stronger, though. He tried again, turned

on his side, brought up his knees, and found that he could stand,

unsteadily. He shuffled round the inside of the tent as best he

could, a cover on his shoulders, using the tent poles for support

and taking stock of what they'd left behind. The goats, but not

the best. His family goods. Rugs, bedding and utensils. Two

woven sacks of grain. Salted meat. Dried fruit. Fig cakes. A flask

of date spirit. A remnant hank of orange wool, some purple, his

sample rod of coloured yams, his clothes, his wife's, her loom.

Some fragrant wormwood for the fire. He hurried to his saddlepack, and was relieved to find his ornamented knife, the seven bottles of perfume that he'd traded earlier that year, and the little

hoard of gold, coins and jewellery tied up in a twist ofberber cloth.

Abandoned, yes, but hardly destitute. He'd resurrect himself with

trade.

He took the long wooden pestle with which Miri crushed

their nuts and grain and, using it to help him walk, went outside

past the tethered donkey into the fading light, with the water-bag

hung round his shoulders. His knuckles whitened on the pestle

with his weight. He turned in a full circle. Just in case. No sign

of anyone who'd stayed behind. No sign of anyone to kiss and

punch.

The donkey - an ageing jenny, older anyway than Musa had been tethered by his wife. He recognized the kindness of Miri 's knot. The creature had been lamed by her pannier harnesses

which had rubbed to form a sore and then a boil at the top of

her hind leg. The boil had hardened on the muscles so that the

donkey limped, and was in pain. Her breath was bad. Her nostrils

seemed inflamed, perhaps by the circulating poison of the boil.

Musa leaned forward and looked more closely, not at the boil

but at the donkey's nose, for signs of pus and infected membranes.

Her top lip drew back like a baboon's and curled at the man's

smell. She wanted him to keep away. He wanted to keep his

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distance, too. Ulcerated nostrils were a symptom of glanders.

Glanders could be caught by men, and not only by jackassing

the jenny as some people claimed. He was not sure if they were

ulcers that he saw, or simply mucus. If they were ulcers the

donkey would soon die. Then what use would she be, this legacy

ofhis kind cousins and his uncles? He couldn't eat the meat; he

couldn't even skin her for shagreen, unless he wanted to risk

catching donkey fever himself

That thought made Musa step away. Perhaps that was the

illness that he'd caught already. Donkeys, it was known, were

full of demons keen to set up home elsewhere. He lifted up his

hand to check for the tell-tale swelling of the underjaw. But

Musa's underjaw, beneath the beard, was loose and heavy anyway

and it was difficult to tell if there was any swelling. He pushed

his little finger into his nostrils. They were not clear, but then

they were not painful either. Had he caught glanders then? Or

had there been some other devil in his lungs? He was only sure

of one thing, that both he and the donkey had been abandoned by

his caravan companions with equal regard. They were considered

worthless and infectious and as good as dead.

Musa loosened the donkey's knot and began to lead her away

from the tent and the goats. Her illness angered him. It would

be better if she died where her contagion was not dangerous. If

he could make her move, that is. The animal was uninspired by

Musa's prodding foot. She was reluctant to engage with him.

She must have sensed his illness, too. He wasn't any stronger

than she was herself She knew that she could pull as hard as he

could tug. Besides, a donkey is quite used to being hit. It is a

condition of service almost, part of its contract oflabour. A slap

of the driver's switch on the donkey's cheek is rewarded with a

shuffle forward and a bray. Beating donkeys is as innocent as

beating mats. A hearty slap across its back brings out the dust.

But this old jenny, for all the native half-smile on her lips, was

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made doubly obstinate by her ill-health. When Musa kicked her

on the shanks, she did not move and bray. She'd seemed to

buckle like a colt. She fell on her haunches, and dropped her

head on to the ground, chin down.

There is something ill-conceived and comic about a standing

donkey; the narrow hooves too dainty for the bony head, the

long black dorsal cross that makes her coat appear as roughly

stitched as patchwork, the fraying fly-swat tail, the pitcher ears.

But lying down, her head between her forelegs like a dog, this

donkey seemed neater and more dignified, and even with the

pinkish overtones ofher grey sides exaggerated by what was left

of the sunlight - more beautiful.

Musa lifted up the pestle in both hands. It seemed as if his

body was the only thing that moved in that shy universe of thorn

and stone. It was too late and dusky for the high and beating

flocks on their migrations. Yet he was not entirely without

witnesses. Three hawks were arcing high above the scrub. Birds

which could spot a vacillating beetle from such a distance could

hardly miss a donkey sinking on to its chin, not in a landscape

such as this where life was slow. There would be carrion, and

there would be a fight. Three hawks to share two donkey eyes.

They circled calmly, with rationed wing beats, above the narrow

strip, then out over the tumbling precipice, across the side-lit

hills, and never took their eyes off the scrub and its small drama

- smaller and paler even than its shadows. Here - viewed from

the dying thermals of the day - malice was at work, irresistible

and rarefied: the man, a donkey, the two raised arms; the goats

that couldn't give a damn; the stretched and brutal angles of the