Quarantine Read Free Page B

It was a comfort to have some
    help close by. By the time they'd clambered up the shifting
    landfall to the plateau at the top of the precipice and were walking
    through the flatter scrub towards the tent, they had become
    separated by only a few hundred paces. They were more hesitant
    and slow. Exhausted, obviously; but also uncertain of the way,
    uncertain even if this quarantine were wise. They were searching
    for the wayside marks, carved in the largest rocks by some holy
    traveller years before and now much eroded, which indicated
    where the caves were found. The marks directed them towards
    the higher ground. They had to leave the camel tracks and the
    cliff-top path before they reached or even saw the tent, with its
    abandoned invalid. They walked along the flood-beds of the
    little valley, and none of them could miss the opportunity to
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    make their own marks by stamping on the soft clay before they
    headed for the scarp and for the dry and warmer caves behind
    the poppies and the grave. So Miri woke, startled by sudden
    noises. The first of the temporary hermits was scrambling through
    the loose stones of the scarp to choose his place to sleep. Miri
    could not see who had disturbed her, but she recognized the
    sound of human feet, slipping in the scree. She could hear others
    approaching from below.
    Miri curled into a ball, a porcupine without the quills. She
    was no longer undisturbed. Whose unsteady feet were these?
    She wished that she could disappear into the ground. That was
    possible. There was an open and inviting grave for her, within
    arm's reach. She only had to roll the once. A few stones clattered
    into the grave with her, but they were not noticed. Four pairs
    of climbing feet were making greater noises of their own and,
    anyway, no wild land is ever entirely still and silent. It has its
    discords and its detonations. Earth collapses with the engineering
    of the ants; lizards smack the pebbles with their tails; the sun
    fires seeds in salvos from their pods; pigeons misconnect with
    dry branches; and stones, left loosely to their own devices, can
    find the muscle to descend the hill. So Miri settled in to Musa's
    grave and, for the moment, was not seen or heard.
    She had been dreaming about her child, of course. The usual
    mix: anxiety and joy. Her sleep had shut her husband out. But,
    in those alarming moments when she woke, became a porcupine,
    became percussion in the scrub, became the first trembling
    resident of her husband's grave, she had convinced herself that
    it was Musa who'd woken her. Who else? He had disturbed her
    sleep so many times before. So it had been his stiff and bloodless
    feet which sent the small stones tumbling. He'd died, alone, with
    no one there to mediate. That was the fate that's worse than
    death. Now he'd come to find his wife. She wasn't hard to find.
    There was the recent kicked-up trail which led out from the
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    tent across the flat scrub, into the valley, up to the scarp. There
    was the abattoir of stones, clawed out for him. There was her
    mocking headscarf, thrown off, snagged on a thorn, and left to
    flag him to her. There was the grave, and Miri crouching in it,
    hardly hidden, the tiny sobbing woman in the fat man's hole.
    How could he miss her? And, then, how could he let her go
    unpunished? Musa was no mystery to her. He'd use his fists and
    feet. He'd pick up rocks and earth to finish her. The living would
    be buried by the dead. That's what the prophets said. The world
    would end that way.
    But minutes passed. There were no rocks. She was not stifled
    by his body pressing down on hers. Finally she found the courage
    to crouch in the corner of the grave and peer out, a rodent
    peeping from its burrow. Of course she did not recognize the
    people that she saw, but neither was she frightened of them now.
    They were, at least, the living. No Musa then. Not even death
    and its three partisans. She was exposed to nothing worse than
    strangers.
    Miri felt too