Musa did not know what he should do. Salute the man when he arrived like an old friend? Fall down on his knees, or run, though both were difficult for someone of his size and in mud that deep? Pretend to be still ill and in need of healing? Could he fool Jesus with his tricks? Musa compromised. He took one step backwards, held his side and winced, and almost crouched, not quite a deferential bow, not quite a posture of defence, not quite an ambush. He was stooped too low to see the Gally now. He waited for the figure to come closer, oddly fearful of it but triumphant, too. Another victory. Here was the one who’d tipped the water on to Musa’s lips and cheeks. Here was the face that he’d last seen a whisper from his nose, inside the tent. The peasant’s and the robber’s face. The healer’s face. From that distance in the open scrub, it had not seemed so young as it had been when they first met. The hair was pale. The body was the colour of the land behind.

What should Musa say to greet his Gaily? It was embarrassing. He could hardlycall out, ‘Good morning, cousin. Know my face?’ as ifthey were chattering acquaintances from some market-place. Or, ‘I’m the one that comes for you each day. At last we meet again. .’ or, ‘Speak to me, then. We were good cousins thirty days ago. This is my land.’ Such pleasantries were not appropriate for one so holy and so thin. But Musa need not have worried what to say. His Gally would not cross the mud to stroke his eyelids with his thumb or talk to him or pass his judgement on the landlord’s weaknesses. When Musa stood and looked again, the man was at a greater distance and almost indistinguishable from the shadows and the bushes. He had taken a lower path, through a sloping basin of thorn and rock, and was walking away from Musa with the confidence of someone who was full of god at last.

Musa watched — relieved, rebuffed — as Jesus set off up the scarp, his body bones combining with the scrub rocks and the sunlight to make a hard-edged pattern which pulsed and slanted all at once. Musa put his hands up to his mouth. ‘What do you want?’ he called. The Galy did not seem to hear. He was too far away. He pulsed and slanted, disappeared, became a man again a few steps higher up the slope, was lost between the landscape and the sun. Who was he looking for, if not the merchant king? Had he come for the water in the cistern? Or was he heading for the woman in the cave?

The air became much colder than it ought to have been. Musa barely dared to breathe. He could have sworn the man was glowing blue and yellow, like a coal.

26

It was Aphas who saw Musa first, a little after dawn, coming slowly through the rocks towards the flattened tent, wearing his boots of mud, his hair heavy with sweat. He did not seem so big somehow, as if a single night of quarantine up at the caves had been enough to shorten and to narrow him. Even the goats could tell he had improved. They did not scatter when he walked amongst them as they usuaHy did. He did not try to kick their legs.

‘Your man is back,’ said Aphas, ‘Look.’ Mira looked, and so did Shim. They did not run to greet him, glad that he’d survived another illness and was well enough to walk. Their day-dreams perished at the sight of him. They stayed on the panels of the tent as if they thought the wind could strike up again at any moment, and waited for him to rage at what had happened to his home. Miri knew what he would do and say. He’d twist her wrist: ‘What use are you? Look what you’ve done in just one night.’ He would not be ashamed to slap her ears, even with Shim and Aphas looking on. He’d slap their ears as well, if he had half a chance.

But no, he merely shook his head and rolled the broken tent poles with his foot.

‘You’ll have to make another one,’ he said, ‘when we get down to Jericho.’ He looked at Miri, sitting amongst the few possessions she had rescued from the wind, the finished birth-mat on her lap, untied, her broken loom in pieces at her feet, her face and hair made ashen by the dust. ‘You’ll have to get another loom.’

‘How is your stomach, then?’ she said, still nervous of the man. ‘We prayed for you, I promise. We sang for you al night. . ’

‘Your prayers were answered. See? I’m well. The wind has blown all the pain away. My wind in here. .’ he rubbed his stomach, ‘. . became the wind outside. See what it’s done.’ He shrugged again, and spread his hands above the tent, a stoic almost. ‘This is the price we pay.’

What should they make ofMusa now? To those survivors at the tent, he seemed transformed. They all had been transformed by the bombast of the winds, of course. There’s nothing more dispiriting than clinging to a flattened tent at dawn with nothing looming up to help beyond the scrub except more scrub. They had been circled seven times in the night. The wind had sounded seven fanfares on its hom. And their skin city had been levelled to the ground. There are no kinder winds than that. There isn’t one that comes along and puts up tents. But Musa, they supposed, had more reason to be dispirited than any of them, if he was human. Even though he’d missed their dramas with the tent. He had been badly ill, and must be more humbled and exhausted by his struggles. The idea that the midnight wind had originated in Musa’s stomach did not seem far-fetched, to Aphas at least. His stomach was large enough to lodge a storm. And demons could take many shapes. A demon driven out of Musa’s gut where it was warm and comfortable might want to take revenge on Musa’s tent. That much was logical. He sympathized with that. What had his landlord said, those many days ago? ‘I only have to belch for there to be a storm.’ Perhaps he’d belched so great a storm that all his rage was spent against the scrub, and he was left as harmless and as fragile as a blown egg. An empty sheH.

Certainly, none of them had ever known the man so quiet. They had not thought that he could be pensive or melancholy. It hardly suited him. His heavy jaw seemed heavier. He’d lost the teasing chalenge in his eyes. He was distracted and reduced. Perhaps, his second meeting with mortality had made a better, lesser man of him.

Even so, Shim and Aphas kept their distance, and even Miri

— unwidowed for a second time — was slow to offer Musa her assistance, or to run around and find his food and drink amongst the scattered trappings. At last he said, ‘Bring me the flask.’ Perhaps date spirit would restore him, and give him courage. For reasons he could not understand, his passing encounter with the Gally had been frightening.

‘I don’t know where it’s gone,’ said Miri.

‘Hunt for it, then.’

Miri had still not found the flask amongst the salvaged remains of their property when there was a warbling noise, and the badu came running up, covered in dust and scratches. He was talking for a change, but not a language anybody knew. He seemed unusualiy excited, his tongue too small for what he had to say. He’s seen the Gally, Musa thought. Or else he’s seen me coming out of Marta’s cave. He’s seen her bruises. It’s just as well that he can’t talk. But the badu was not pointing to the valley of the caves. He was pointing to the precipice. He caught hold of Shim’s wrist and tugged.

‘What is it, now? Let go.’

He pulled Aphas to his feet, and tugged him for a few paces towards the promontory. He did the same to Shim. And when Shim shook him off, the badu got hold of the curly staff and handed it to Musa. Again he pointed to the precipice, and mimed a prayer. He waved his hand towards the precipice, walked off a dozen paces, beckoned them to follow him across the scrub.

‘He wants us to walk,’ suggested Shim.

‘What for?’ said Musa. ТП not walk another step today.’ ‘Something to do with the Galilean boy.’

‘The Galilean boy has gone already. I saw him walking. This monung. ’