Jim Crace - Quarantine

But in the scrub, the native marl stayed almost dry. The clouds and lightning moved away, banging on their shields. The sky grew soft with moonlight once again, and then sharp with stars. And with the stars, the wind came in, glad to range around the empty forum of the sky; a gladiator, looking for a fight. It was an angry wind. See me, it cried. I’ve chased the clouds away. The thunder and the lightning have run off. I’ve stripped the night ofany warmth it had. There’s nothing I can’t do to you.

This wind had no agreement with the scrub. They were old enemies. The scrub exposed its rocks and ridges to blunt and bruise the wind. And in return, the wind picked up the dust and thorns and threw the loose stuff of the scrub about, and tore the dead wood from the trees like some mad boy. But on this night the wind was not prepared to settle for dead wood. It pitched itselfagainst the scrub. The brittle trees could not withstand the wind at all. A tree can only bend so much, and then it snaps or comes up with its roots.

Shim would have stayed much longer on the promontory had it not been for the wind. There was enough moonlight now to give him the courage to remain outside al night. He’d like to prove himself against the darkness. He’d like to be a colleague of the stars. And then — if anybody looked across at dawn — they’d see him as a tranquil silhouette, sat on his rock against the rising purples of the day, half flesh, half stone. A noble sight — more noble, surely, than the Gaily, hiding in his cave. Then Shim would walk up to the tent, the low sun at his back, the shadows of his body and his staff cast out in front of him like cloaks thrown down by worshippers to make a path. He would take his time. His steps would be reflective. His face would not betray how long the night had been, how close he’d come to death. My husband’s dead, the wife would say, with any luck. Or, Aphas passed away. Or, there’s been an accident; the badu fell and killed himself. A lion came. There’d be a funeral, and Shim would be the one — who else? — to lead the rituals and then to recommit his neighbours to their last ten days of quarantine. They’d all defer to Shim until the end.

Except there was a cruel, defiant wind, and it was cold. Shim could not stay a moment more. It was not safe or sensible. He had not come on to the promontory because he’d wanted to, he reminded himself. He had been sent. He had been tricked. ‘Cal out until your voice has gone,’ Musa had said. ‘Stay through the night and pray to the Gaily. He saved my life before. Say that I’ll die unless he comes. This is my final wish.’ Then die, thought Shim. That is my final wish. He would not pray as he’d been asked. Who’d know? Instead, he only whispered at the wind, as it attacked the precipice, ‘Galy. Fat Musa says he’s dying. Says you’ve got to come and save his life, up at the caves. Have pity on the man, he says. There now. That’s it. I’ve done. Go back to sleep.’

Shim wrapped his cloak around himself and left a little after midnight, when the wind began to loosen stones and earth around the promontory, and sent them sliding down the slope into the silence of a fall. He was surprised how hard it was to walk. The wind picked on his knees, and lifted up the cloak around his head. It bruised his cheeks and ears.

It was not easy climbing in the dark, but at least it was obvious at first what route he had to take. Each of his steps should go a little higher than the last. He fell forward and felt his way with his hands. But once he’d reached the flat top of the precipice, he lost all sense ofwhere he was. The air was even more blustery than on the cliff, and even though the night had sharpened he could not see the outline of the hilis. His eyes were watery and almost closed against the wind. He squatted on the ground, and felt about him with his staff. The storm was strong enough to blow him down toJericho. He tried to remember which direction it had been coming from while he was sitting on his rock. It was, he thought, blowing roughly in line with the precipice, hugging the cracks and rifts and stretch-marks of the valley sides, as if the valiey had been shaped itselfby wind. So, if he kept the gusts blowing on his left cheek, then he was bound to walk inland, away from the cliff edge. He felt his way like some blind beggar with his feet and staff. His hair was tugging at his head. His face was struck by bits ofleaf and thorn, and stung by dust. His clothes and straps reached out towards the waters of the north.

He might not have found the tent at all, if he hadn’t stopped to shelter, curled up in his cloak, behind a rock. He’d spend the rest of the night right there, he thought. It was not cold enough to freeze. There was no rain. The rock provided some protection. He ran his staff along its base and into any crevices he found. He might not be the only creature which had taken refuge from the wind. He hugged himself. He was surprised how much he missed his cave; his neighbours even.

It was not long before he heard the cries beyond the wind, a woman’s voice, a man’s, six goats’, the buffeting of cloth. He gladly left his rock and battled with the wind towards the sounds that could be mistaken for the vast percussion of the storm- pressed, canvas billows of a ship. He could almost taste the salt, and hear the panic of the conscripts on the oars. And there, at last, was Miri clinging to her flattened tent, a little fisherwoman hanging on to sails with broken rigging, amongst the snapped and wayward masts and poles. Her house of hair, so flexible of build and lifestyle, had bent before the wind too much.

Aphas, a shadow, darker than the night, was too slow and weak to grip the tent cloth fi^rmly enough. He ran around at first, grabbing everything that moved, a length of rope, a tumbling loom, a bolt of cloth, some clothes, a round ofbread. But when he made a pile of them, they only rolled away before he had a chance to find a rock to weigh them down. He did not try again. He was too old to set himself against the drumming antics of this wind. He found some shelter amongst some rocks. He didn’t care what happened. He’d rather die than spend a night like this.

Shim had to hurry now. It didn’t matter if his steps were not reflective, or if his face betrayed how long the night had been. He was no tranquil silhouette. He was at best a moving shape, two bending legs, a flagging cloak, but one that ran to Miri’s aid and helped to pull the untamed tent cloth in, and tugged the ropes and tent poles out of the flying darkness of the night. At last they made a pile of goat-hair cloth, the four sides of the tent, the roof, the coloured curtain that had divided Musa from his wife. They lay on it, spread-eagled, deafened by the flapping edges of the cloth. What could they do? They waited for the light to drive away the wind.

A metal pot set off across the scrub, between the maddened goats, its flight powered by a fist ofwind. It was a tuneless, leaden beil which tolled itself and found new notes on every rock it struck.

The Gaily knew what wind this was. This was the wind on which to fly away. Its gusts and blusters came looking for him in the cave, bursting in like rowdy boys to shake him from unconsciousness. Get up, get up, it’s time to go.

He had prepared for them. His fast had made him ready. Perhaps he’d served his thirty days just to be equipped for the wind. Quarantine had been the perfect preparation for his death. His body was quiescent and reduced; dry, sapless, transparent almost, ready to detach itself from life without complaint. A wind this strong could pluck him like a leaf, and sweep him upwards to the palaces and gardens that angels tended in the stars. It was a wind of mercy, then, for al its bluster, sent by a pliant god who was prepared to bend the rules. His god, praise god, had not insisted on the forty days. He had not left Jesus in his coma, wasting and unclean, until the final moment of his quarantine. He’d taken pity on his Galilean son. Come now.