Quarantine Read Online Free PDF

because
    the man had helped himself to water and was standing with their
    water-skin held in his hand. Musa would have struck the man
    if he'd been well enough. It would have been his duty to make
    it clear that theft, especially of water, deserved some bruises and
    a bloody nose. It would have been his pleasure, too. But he
    couldn't even clench his fist. He tried to call out Miri's name.
    He hadn't got the breath to make a sound.
    'Allow me water, to soak these little crusts and wet my lips,'
    the Galilean said in that compromise of tongues where Aramaic
    flirts with Greek. He sensed the silent answer he received was
    No. He knelt into the darkness of the tent, located Musa from
    the cursing sounds he made, and sat down at his side. 'Do not
    deny me water, cousin,' he said. 'Let me take a mouth of it, and
    you'll then have forty days of peace from me. I promise it. The
    merest drop.'
    He put his fingertips on Musa's forehead. He stroked his
    eyelids with his thumb. 'Are you unwell? I am not well mysel£ '
    He laid his hand on Musa's chest and pressed so that the devil's
    air expressed itself and filled the tent with the odour of his fever
    and expelled the one word Musa had already formed, 'Mi Ri.'
    The cloth that Miri had put across his mouth to keep the fever
    25
    in almost lifted with the power of her name. His tongue was
    black. Again the Galilean put all his weight - which wasn't much
    - on Musa's chest and pressed. The sulphur of the hills. The
    embers of the chesty fire. Even Jesus could smell it. No further
    calls for Miri, though.
    'A sip, a sip. And then I'm gone,' Jesus said. 'The merest drop.'
    He poured a little water on his hands and smeared the dust of
    his journey across his face. He was immensely cold, but glad to
    have this respite from the sun. He wet his hair and massaged the
    water into his scalp so that his headache was somewhat dampened.
    He resurrected the softness in the bread and dates with water.
    He ate, hardly touching his lips with those long, craftsman's
    fingers. He drank some more. Then - an afterthought - he
    tipped a little water on Musa's cheeks and lips. He felt inspirited,
    newly released from pain, and powerful. He wet the cloth and
    put it back in place on Musa's mouth. He shook the water from
    his hands over Musa's face, a blessing. 'So, here, be well again,'
    he said, a common greeting for the sick.
    What should he do? It didn't matter much. There were no
    witnesses or anyone to reckon with. There was as yet no thin
    and bending moon to mark the first night ofhis rendezvous with
    god. So he was unobserved. There is no choice, he told himself
    He had to leave this sick man on his own to die. Otherwise he'd
    never reach the cave; he'd miss the start of quarantine.
    He would have run away, except his feet would not allow
    him to. He hobbled out, an old young man, letting go the
    water-skin and pulling down the open awnings as he passed. He
    was embarrassed by his selfishness, perhaps? But Musa did not
    witness it. He did not witness anything. His eyes were closed.
    He was asleep at last, and dreaming plumply like a child.

    1
    Musa woke again. The cloth, stiff and twisted like a loose root,
    was heavy on his mouth. He spat it off He spread his arms to
    free himself of all the wrappings. He tried to sit up, never quick
    or easy for a man his size. First he'd have to tum his weight on
    to an elbow, push with the other hand, get on his knees . . .
    Camels were more gainly and less cumbersome. Musa did not
    like to be observed rising with so little grandeur from his bed,
    though normally Miri would be there to pull him by the wrists
    and elbows to his feet, to wipe him down, to hold his clothes.
    But now he could not even shift his weight. His head was loath
    to leave the tent mat. He couldn't quite remember where he
    was. Nor could he recognize the sickly smells of herbs, honey
    and incense. Emba.lm.ing smells. He felt cold, no doubt of that.
    Baffled, too. Why was he bruised and