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
28
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
29
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
3 0
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
3 1
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
3 2
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
3 3
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