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 marketplace, 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 ifhis suppliers or his buyers were underbidding,
backing off, or ready for the deal.
So Shim and Aphas were no contest for a man like Musa. He
watched their conversation from his mat - the old man urgent,
pressured, volatile; the blond one shamming his indifference to
money, numbers, water, rent. If they had any sense, Musa
thought, they'd recognize their trading weaknesses and not
attempt to better him. How could they better him? They were
townspeople, by the looks of it, and far from home. They
wouldn't know the customs of the scrub. Their reasoning would
be that every stretch ofland inside a town was owned by someone.
All land was good for goats or corn or rent. Why not the country
too? Why not the wilderness? And so they'd end up paying for
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the water and the caves. They'd not make any fuss, or ask for
any proof, not with a hundred cousins in the hills. They might
plead poverty at first, and ask that Musa earn a place in their
devotions by showing them some charity. But he'd refuse.
Charity and loans were the commerce of a fool. No, no, they'd
either have to pay, or start their quarantine again, elsewhere,
he'd say. No other choice. Perhaps they'd like to gather up their
things and go? He'd tell Miri to prepare the donkey for burial
in their water cistern. That's when they'd start to empty out
their purses like prodigals and wedding guests.
Musa put his fingers in his lap and tried to calculate what his
profit on the day might be. What was the going rate for muddy
water and for caves? What could he charge? As much as he could
get. The badu with the hennaed hair could hardly contribute,
of course. He couldn't pay in cash. That much was obvious. He
couldn't even talk. 'He doesn't have a tongue,' the sickly Jew
had said. But what about the sickly Jew himself? A purse-proud
little working man, too dignified to beg for anything, too dull
to ever shirk a debt. Such a man would never travel far from
home without some silver pieces for the journey. He'd have a
money-belt beneath his cloak like every artisan, containing coins
and, perhaps, some salt crystals for good luck, plus a twist of
sweet resin to catch his fleas. Musa even smiled to himself, though
Musa's smile was thinner than his lips. No fleas on me, he
thought. They can't afford the rent.
This Aphas, though, according to Musa's reasoning, would
do his best to pay the rent. He looked exhausted by the journey,
and withered by his sickness, too. He wouldn't want to move
elsewhere. He couldn't move elsewhere. For this - the water
and the cave, the right to rest and stay, the licence to breathe
desert air - he'd pay out eight pieces, Musa judged. He'd pay
out ten, if pressed. But not, perhaps, a coin more. The blond
one would pay eight as well. He'd say it made no difference to
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him whether he was rich or poor. He would not wish to argue
over rent. He'd claim he didn't need the shelter or the water,
that he would settle for the stars and dew, that a thousand cousins
did not bother him. And then he'd get his money out and pay.
The woman? Musa peered at her again, and ran his tongue
along his teeth. She could afford as much, or more, as the two
men. Look at her clothes. Look at her unmarked hands. But let
her pay the eight as well. Musa looked up from his calculations.
Three eights were twenty-four. That was enough. He'd drop to
twenty if he must. He coughed, and motioned to the two men
with his chins. 'Yes, yes,' he said. He didn't have all day.
He let them have their say. They were intemperate. They
offered twenty-five between the four of them, fifteen at once
and ten in forty days. Musa was more easily persuaded by their
case than they had expected. Twenty-five was not enough, he
said. He was insulted by their twenty-five. But it was wrong,
perhaps, to deny them water for the sake of principle. That much
he would concede. There are traditions even in the wilderness.
A traveller can wet his lips and face for free. So, yes, he would
accept just the twenty-five pieces of silver, but they would have
to pay it all at once. He could not have them in his debt. And
he accepted, too, their inconvenient request to leave the donkey's
grave unfilled. And in return for his forbearance? The three men
could come down to his tent and help to drag the donkey to
the precipice.
'Be friends with me,' he said. 'Stay here for forty days. Drink
all the water that you want. Pray till you have a camel's knees. '
H e would b e neighbourly and could supply them with their
daily needs. He had some dates and olives he could sell. Fig
cakes. Dried fruit. Goat's milk. Goat's meat, if they could match
his price. And there was grain which she - his chin was lifted at
his wife - will grind and bake for bread. There were rugs and
rush bed-mats which they could hire. Lamps, with oil. Camel
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dung, for fuel. Everything to make their stay more comfortable.
Best of all, they could be sure that they were well protected.
With Musa as their landlord, no one would dare to come and
trouble them, or take advantage of their devotions. His name
was known and respected by everybody in the hills and far
beyond. Everybody was his cousin, even the scorpions.
Musa spat on to his hand and called the three male quarantiners
forward to close their deal. 'Just one more thing,' he said, 'and
then it's done' : when the forty days were up, then they could
show their thanks by helping him to carry his possessions and
the tent down to the track which led to Jericho. They could be
his donkeys for a day. In return, he wouldn't make them pay
him any passage tax for travelling through his territory. That
much was free.
'What do you say? Is this not better than you hoped?'
Musa felt - as ever - pleased to be himself He had found the
morning unexpectedly amusing, and satisfying, too, despite the
absence of the Galilean man. Already his retinue and his clientele
had grown. His wealth increased. His dreams came true. The
caravan and his deceitful uncles could be buried beneath
the pleasures of the day. Everyone he met, it seemed, except the
badu (and he would have to pay some other price) was opening
a purse and inviting him to put his fingers in. And why? To pay
for earth and air and water that was the property of god. If every
market-place was full of fools like these three fools, he'd only
have to dig a pit and watch while people threw their money in.
All this - and all within a day of riding fever to the open gates
of death. He was invincible.
He made Shim lend him his staff for the walk back to the
tent. It was downhill but hardly easier than coming up. His feet,
unseen beyond his waist, descended into empty space. Musa had
to place the staff ahead of him, feel for solid ground, and send
his weight along its spiralled length, before he dared to shuffle
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forward. His fever had weakened him. He was immensely slow.
But languor was the right of merchant kings when they were
weighed down with the prizes of the market-place.
Luckily, his five companions were in no hurry for themselves.
They had forty days to fill. This interlude with Musa was, at
least, less wearying than unbroken prayer. Aphas, anyway, was
glad to be as slow as Musa, but his steps were weightless. He did
his best to listen to Shim's teachings and expostulations, to nod
with recognition at the places that he named, but he could only
concentrate on his increasing pain. His ankles felt as fragile as an
unfired pot. His cankered liver nagged and lobbied without
cease. The heat was punishing. He'd been a stonemason all his
working life, perhaps, but none of these stones in his path offered
any solace. They were only nuisances. A little distance to the
side, and behind the men, Marta walked with Miri, their bodies
brushing, their hems in unison. The badu ran ahead and cleared
the path. He was a volunteer. He seemed to find the rocks and
stones amusing, laughing at them as he turned them on their
sides. The badu's cries were strange - unformed and blustering.
A vulture looking down on them and smelling death and fat and
pregnancy, as they left their thousand footprints in the clay and
emerged from the little valley on to the plateau of the tent,
would be hard pressed to guess which one would be its carrion.
Musa was exhausted when he reached the tent. He went inside
for rest, and for some private moments with his flask of date
spirit. He felt the fabrics of the bed. He ran his fingers through
his wools, and thought of Marta, naked, waiting to be draped
in narrow lengths of cloth. The women sat cross-legged in shade,
outside. They were whispering, but Musa didn't care what
women had to say. He lay back on his cushions, looked out
through the open awning and watched the three men circling
the donkey's carcass, holding their noses, shaking their heads
like undertakers. Aphas shook his head because he did not want
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to help with burial. He was too old and tired and ill. A Jew that
touched a donkey corpse would be unclean until the night, and
then would have to purify himself in water that should, at least,
be cleaner than the water in the cistern.
The other two shook their heads because they'd never seen
an animal so bludgeoned. Musa smiled. So now they'd understand
what kind of man he was, what sort oflandlord he could be. He
watched the badu and the blond man stoop to test the donkey's
weight. Miri had been right. The carcass was too heavy for a
woman to move on her own, despite the loss ofblood and eyes
and entrails. But these two men were strong and evidently not
concerned about the weight or smell. The blond one, Musa
noticed, was more powerful than he appeared to be at first. The