Jim Crace - Quarantine

They made slow progress. The desert proved itself to be as fickle as a carpet, smooth and welcoming if stroked with the pile, but tough to drag the fingers through against the lay of the wool. Their little caravan had stroked the pile on its journey out. Now it was travelling against the nap of the wools. The sun was at their backs, and baking hot. The monkeys gibbered, screamed as ceaselessly as crickets, even when the camels snapped and spat at them. They only quietened when his cousins gave them water. His cousins gave them water all the time.

After fifteen days, said Musa, they realized that they were lost: ‘No prospect of enlightenment, no sign of any god.’ That had never happened to their caravan before, although they’d crossed a hundred deserts. One of his cousins, cailed Habak the Hawk because ofhis long nose, normally could be blindfolded and only had to sniff a palmful of soil to recognize the smell of every place they’d ever visited. He put this desert dust and powdered rock against his nose, but could not put a name to where they were or point towards their destination. They span him round to sniff the air; he couldn’t say if he was standing on his head or feet. They looked for signs of any caravans. But there had been high winds, and even the tracks that they had made themselves on the journey out had been swept away, together with the smell. They persevered, hoping to encounter other travellers, or find horizons broken up by trees, or recognize some star beyond the dust-filled night, or see a bird.

After twenty days they found their own tracks again. But no goat tracks, just four men walking and five camels, and the channels made by monkeys trailing their long fingers in the sand. They’d travelled in a five-day circle to this place, and now their bullock-skins were running out. The monkeys, with hardly any water left to keep them quiet, coughed and cackled through the night. It didn’t bother them that their heads were full ofblood.

Musa paused to pull his own empty water-bags across, and hold them up, an illustration for his listeners. This is what a shortage of water looks like; this is thirst; this is what I had in mind for Shim. He wasn’t sure quite where his tale was leading him. He had no end for it, not yet. There was no point to it, except to charm. But Aphas and Marta didn’t seem to care. They nodded to the story-teller to urge him on. This was better than any parable. It didn’t matter that it had no point, except to make them wonder at the world. Even Shim was listening, despite his tightly fastened lips and eyes.

‘We had to save the monkeys and ourselves, though there was not enough water there for both of us,’ continued Musa, glad to see how loose of posture and how opened-eyed the woman had become. ‘What would you do? Don’t say. You’d throw the monkeys on the sand; you’d club them al to death, and drink the water all yourselves. Admit it now. Of course you would. But then you are not merchants. And you do not understand how trading is the truest test of man. It shows his strength, his worth, his piety. To buy and sell is just as spiritual as prayer or going without food. Will any of you say it’s not?’ He looked at Shim. ‘A merchant’s never-ending quest is not for things that you can’t touch or buy, like Shim’s enlightenment — what use is that? — but for something. .’ He had to stop to recall the exact words he’d heard his eldest uncle use a hundred times.

‘. . but for something new and real and grand. And valuable, of course. To make the world a richer place. We’re gods, we’re little gods. We’re big. And so. .’ He looked at al the faces there, except Miri’s, obviously, and would not look away until he’d won a smile and nod from each of them. ‘. . we could not go back from the desert to our uncles with nothing to show for our long efforts, with nothing to sell except the bloody remnants of the monkeys. Who’ll buy those? A merchant never goes with empty panniers. That shows a loss of faith.’ He paused. He smiled, a real andjoyous smile. ‘What wiH you have to sell when you go home? What will you show your uncles after forty days of quarantine?’ He held his hand up. They should not reply.

Musa told how he and his cousins had persevered against the desert’s grain. They’d travelled forward, day by day, in hope of finding weHs or springs or dry river-beds where they might dig for water. They blindfolded their cousin Habak, to concentrate his sense of smell. They put him on his hands and knees to sniff the sand in search of moisture, but all he smelled was barrenness and heat. They hunted without luck for any evidence oflife but they found nothing apart from themselves. They dreamed of finding tamarisks with lakes of water at their roots, and honey- dew along their stems, but there was nothing to be found, excepting thirst.

‘Still our monkeys laughed,’ said Musa. ‘They were glad to see us lost. They liked to watch us frying in the sand. It suited them. They didn’t want to go to Nabatee and end up in a pot. Who would? They’d rather starve. Never trust a monkey on a camel’s back. That’s good advice. . Never trust a thirsty woman or a dog.’ He laughed, but turned the laugh into a sudden cry of pain. He held his chest, and winced. A little indigestion, possibly. ‘Perhaps, I ought to rest a while,’ he said. He touched his brow. ‘I’m hot.’ He closed his eyes.

‘You’re teasing us,’ said Aphas. ‘I hope you’re teasing us. What happens to the monkeys now? Of course, do rest ifyou’re unwell. We wouldn’t want you to be unwell. .’

‘Ah, so our neighbour would trade the ending of the storyteller for the ending of his story,’ said Musa, breathing heavily. ‘The monkeys matter more than me. .? I would have hoped a sick man such as you would have more feeling for a fellow invalid.’

‘No, no, do rest. .’

‘I will not rest. There is some respite to my pain, thank god. Bring water then. Put that good shawl the woman has around my shoulders. I will continue while I can.’ The shawl was warm and sweet, and smelled a little gingery from Marta’s balm.

The time had come, Musa said after he had drunk the water and clutched his chest a few more times, when he and his caravan hadjourneyed through the desert to death’s door. Drink something, anything, or die, that was the choice. They’d have to take a knife to Musa’s camel. He’d have to walk like his cousins, ankle-deep in sand. They’d cut into the camel’s hump and stomach. They’d have to drink her waters, blood and milk, and let the monkeys find what sustenance they could by dining on her entrails and her fat. The monkeys would have to swallow camel upside down.

‘But no one makes me walk,’ said Musa, rubbing his side. ‘A clever merchant never walks. I closed my eyes. I put my head to work. I thought, let’s kill a couple ofthe monkeys. Let’s take our meat and drink from them. The meat’s already nicely hung, it should taste good. But think of it. What did I say about the monkey meat? Why do they savour it in Nabatee? It makes a man thirsty for his wife. What use would that be for the five of us, with nothing there to comfort us but sand? It is a sin for a man to waste his seed with camels. Our sons would have two toes.

‘And so I didn’t take a monkey by the throat and use my knife on it. I cut one monkey free. I held its tail. I whispered in its ear, I said, Find water. You’re a bee. I didn’t have to put it in a hollow stick or block its backside with an apricot. You should have seen it run. It knew its only chance of getting away, back to its river with three banks, was first to find some water and then be off My quickest cousin, Raham, followed it into the dunes until he lost it. Monkeys move like rats. So does my cousin Raham. But the monkey soon went out ofsight. It didn’t buzz. We couldn’t follow that. But we could track its little steps in the sand, its tail, its swinging hands, until we found it once again, exhausted by the running and the sun. Half dead. No water yet. We tied it up, we hung it by its ankles with its brothers and its sisters. Then we let another monkey go … I whispered in its ear, Enjoy your run, you monkey boy. .’