16

God had not provided a ready-dug cistern for his Galilean son to take his water from. There were no rock pans by the cave for the dew to gather. Or any salt shrubs within reach, so that Jesus could tear his nails off digging for their liquid roots. There were no barrel bushes with their wax skins, or tamarisks with hoHow, swampy trunks. Ifthere had been any spring plants, vain enough to defy the precipice’s nude and excavated rocks, then they had already flowered, seeded and retreated underground into their bulbs. Jesus searched inside his darkened cell but he could not find any sopbugs, their knapsacks full ofpap, which could provide some short-lived moisture for his tongue with their sweet explosions. There were no nesting birds, or bats, or even any ants to eat, so far as he could tell. There was no rain. He thanked the lord. He’d found a place opposed to sin and nourishment, and he could starve himselfofboth without distraction. God in his generosity had removed all earthly sustenance and cleaned the cave ofal temptations.Jesus only had to conquer his tormentors on the promontory — and time, of course.

A single silver bush was growing in a seam of marl above the cave, scarcely showing leaves. It spread its skeleton across a rock as if it meant to suck the quartz from it. It drank its colour from the stone. Jesus jumped to snatch the lowest leaf, an oddly adolescent act, but men are boys when they are bored. He was surprised and gladdened by the effort that his jumping took, how tired and jarred he felt. It meant he was already weakened by his fast and that much closer to god, therefore. He hardly touched the leaf, but it snapped its stem and fell into his hair as dryly and as heavily as furnace scale. He would not put it in his mouth. He would put nothing in his mouth for al the quarantine. He would not even break his fast at night, unless it was with help provided by his god, a meal placed at his head by angels while he slept (as god had provided a cake baked on hot stones and a pitcher of water for Elijah’s forty days of fasting). But even though he would not place the leaf on his tongue he was still curious to see what sustenance the precipice might give to him. The moist leaves of a pair bush, common in the scrubland by the tent, could be rubbed on to the lips or sucked for sweetness. A sprig of morning star, tucked between the teeth and lower lips, would taste of peaches for a day. But this was only canker thorn. He snapped the silver leaf It fell apart like ash. No sap.

By now he had no sap himself He’d urinated two or three times on that first evening when he’d climbed down the precipice and taken up his residence, and that was normal. He’d always had a nervous bladder, forever wanting to pass water in the middle of the night or as soon as the priest began his readings from the written laws and no one could leave the temple without offence. He’d learnt to put his discomfort to good use: his bladder was a messenger from god, a sign ofhis unrighteousness. It was said by some of the older family that possession by spirits or by unclean thoughts was marked by such an excess offluids. Sneezing, vomiting, a salivating mouth, diarrhoea, passing too much water — these were all signs that evil was in residence. It should be first resisted, then forced out. His bladder woke him in the night with a purpose, he told himself- it was an opportunity to say more private prayers, to practise tongues, to quietly endure the ache, the guilt, until dawn for fear of waking up his parents or setting off the hens if he went outside to urinate. Likewise, his bladder plagued him in the temple when he sat cross-legged before the speaking scroll so that he had the opportunity, not given to the other worshippers, to battle with his imperfect body for the glory of his god.

It was in part a pleasure, then, and in part a self-indulgence devoid ofany glory, to be able to empty his bladder as he pleased. Once he’d settled on the precipice, he could obey his impulses at once, and edge along the cliff-face as far as was safe, to pass his water where it would not contaminate his cave but without regard to parents, temples, hens. Such open privacy had not been possible in the Galilee.

Here was a manwho was in the mood to divine grand meanings in the simplest acts. There’d be no god without such men, prepared to make the little cause responsible for large effects, quick to find the lesson in the most everyday events. So it did not go unnoticed that his first day’s urine was produced by drink stolen from the merchant’s water-skin which he had lifted from the awning of the tent. It had only been a sip, the merest sip, andJesus had drunk nothing since. But ifthere had been any sin or lack ofcharity on his part, then it would show its stains. There would be murkiness. These early waters had been copious, though, and odourless, and clear, and free of guilt. But by the end of the second day offasting his urine was already dark brown, like pitch water. It sank into the ground too thickly and with cloudy bubbles. Even Jesus, whose sense of smell had not recovered from the journey, could recognize the eggy fragrance of sulphur. This was the devil’s urine and Jesus’s bladder had become a battle-ground. The patch of watered dust dried within a few moments. He scuffed it with his heels. He was contaminated by himself but he could not expect a ritual bath for weeks.

On the third day of his quarantine, he had to go along the cliff a dozen times. He stood and waited with his back turned to the sun to no avail, and then he tried again, facing outwards towards the sea, but he was completely drained already. He strained himself until it burned and stung. He pressed his bladder with his fingertips. The impulse to pass water did not go away, but he showed nothing for his efforts, except, again, the thinnest trace of sulphur in the air. He could not wet the soil. His body was an empty bag.

This was a lesson he would not forget: water is more valuable than gold. He hunted for the well-shaped proverb. That was the line that he could preach when he got back to the Galilee. He briefly saw himselfoutside the temple gates on market day, raised on a cart, with se^ons for the multitude. An empty purse is better than an empty pot, he’d say, and his neighbours in the audience would put their hands across their mouths and whisper, It’s Gaily, see. Listen to him now. We never knew him after all. But for the moment he was more concerned with his own empty pot. Perhaps he had been arrogant and profligate. He almost wished he’d saved the urine that he’d passed so easily on the first day. To break his thirst, ifhe grew desperate. Let god forbid that he was ever as desperate as that. He’d heard tales ofbadu who in a drought would drink their own waters and the acrid waters of their camels and think nothing of it, but badu lived close to the earth, like animals themselves. The water that they normaily drank from wells was bladdery, and shared with ail the desert creatures anyway. The badu had no god to satisfy, or rituals to obey. They did not have to wash their taints away.Jews, though, were a people governed by the laws brought down by Moses from the mountain, and cleanliness of body and of spirit were the paving stones to god. Those that forsook the laws, Isaiah said, would be consumed.

Jesus was determined that he would not be consumed so easily. He shook his head and stamped his feet and beat his shoulders with his fists until all thoughts of water went away. He would not let his hunger and his thirst lay traps for him. The spirit had to beat the flesh. I am not hungry, he told himself This is not thirst. The dryness and the stomach pains are false. I do not want to eat. It is the nourishment ofhome I miss, not bread and water. It is the nourishment of god I seek, not wine or meat.

That’s what he told himself, but in his heart and in the middle of the night he was less certain. He was plagued by thoughts of rolling back the days, back to the shepherd’s where he’d left his overcloak, back to his father’s carpentry, a chisel in his hand, back to the times when he was small and unremarkable and prayers had been more comforting than food or sleep. Here, in the scrub, his prayers were fickle; sometimes a single verse would strengthen him, but more and more he found no courage in his prayers. The cave had swallowed them. The precipice diminished them. The darkness muttered to itselfwithout pause but was not listening to him. At those times, he turned away from prayers and concentrated more on finding some reclusive strategy by which he could survive his quarantine.