It would be difficult to go down the landfall. He knew how treacherous the scree could be for anyone as large as him. He had already pictured how stones would fall out beneath his feet and slide away, how larger rocks would tumble at him from above. He’d need the women to take him by the elbows and help him down. Marta would refuse, of course. She would not want to touch him.

‘I need more help than you,’ he’d say to Miri. He’d lift his chins at Marta. ‘She has to help as well. Come here.’

CT >.»

‘I won’t.’

He pictured ways of making her.

But when he was just a few hundred paces from the women, so close that he could see the colours of the mat, Marta suddenly stood up, wrapped her fingers round Miri’s wrist and pulled her to her feet.

‘We have to go,’ she said. ‘Don’t look at him. Bring that.’ She pushed the mat into Miri’s hands. ‘We’ll finish it another day. Get water.’

Miri grabbed one of the water-bags — not a moment of bewilde^ent or hesitation — and began to gather the other panniers and her own belongings.

‘Leave those.’ Marta pushed the panniers away, and added Musa’s clothes and wools, the sack of dried fruit and the woven bag of odds-and-ends to the pile. They’d have to leave it aH behind. She pulled the other water-bag to the edge ofthe descent and threw it down as far as she could on to the rocks. ‘Let’s see how he manages,’ she said.

With only the smaHer water-bag and the birth-mat to carry, the women were able to move quickly. They did not have the time to laugh or cry, or answer any ofMusa’s threats and promises. He was too close and dangerous. He was throwing stones at them. They would not stop their hurtling descent until their landlord and their husband and the father of their child was out of hearing and out of sight. They were light-limbed like adolescent girls. They had no need of anybody now. They had no need of miracles.

Marta and Miri hurried on in silence down the landfall, concentrating on the loose rock and the uncertain footing. The scree grew softer as the temperatures increased, closer to the vaUey floor. The earth was gypsum, spiced with salt. It smelt of eggs. But by the middle of the afternoon — already covered in a yellow film of salt — they’d reached more gently sloping and more sweetly smelling ground, a landscape of soft chalk which a child could pull apart in its hands as easily as breaking bread. The land was more reliable, at last, and they could walk side by side down towards the trading road, where travellers and caravans and soldiers were going to and coming from the gated cities of Judea. They walked amongst the donkeys and the men, and only then could exchange their tears and smiles.

‘Where can we go?’ said Miri.

‘To Sawiya.’

‘What will you say to them?’

‘I’ll say you are a widow, abandoned in the wilderness. I’ll say your husband was a merchant who died of fever. I’ll say the wind took all your things away and that it was my duty to offer help to you, because you’re pregnant and you have no one.

‘It’s almost true.’

‘It’s true.’

‘How will I live?’

‘You’ll weave. I’ll be the baby’s aunt.’

Marta’s lip was still a little sore, her body ached, but she felt untroubled for the first time in ten years. Al the bad things in her life had been abandoned at the top of the landfall. The vultures picked them clean. Was she a foolish optimist, made rash and heady by their escape from Musa? Most probably. But, for the moment, she was sure her fortunes had reversed. She’d started running down the scree and everything had changed. Everything outside of her. Everything within. She felt she was not barren any more. She’d heard it said that women knew instinctively when they were pregnant, almost from the moment of conception. They didn’t have to wait for periods or pains. Their faces tingled, as iftheir cheeks had been touched by angels.

With Miri at her side, Marta felt as if she’d already plucked a star out of the sky. One more would not be difficult. Perhaps another star was already brightening inside ofher. It didn’t matter whose it was, if it was Musa’s or the scrub’s or even granted to her in a dream, by the Gaily with his single touch. Her husband, Thaniel, wouldn’t know or care so long as she grew fat. He’d said that she should go away and pray for miracles. She’d been obedient. He had commanded that she should give birth. And now he could rejoice with her.

It was bad luck to look behind. They concentrated only on the way ahead. Even when they saw the thin, blond head of Shim in front of them, and spotted Aphas walking with a new authority beside him, seemingyounger than he had and vigorous, they did not call out a greeting. They kept themselves entirely to themselves, as they had planned to do. Two women with the fleshly scriptures of at least one pregnancy imprinted on to them. Two women blessed with god and child. They walked until the evening closed in. It did not matter where they spent the night. They were back in the world of the sane and would be safe. Only their faces ached, from smiling.

In the morning, they would carry on along the valley towards Jericho and then take the hilly route through Almog. Green hills. In two days they would reach the approaches to Jerusalem and skirt around the city, through the mud-faced houses on the mud-faced hills, towards Sawiya. They’d join Marta’s neighbours, raising voices, raising sheep, competing for the shade beneath the fig trees in their yards, fighting for their places by the fire. The uneventful world of villages.

They’d be in Sawiya before the end of quarantine. Quite soon, they’d share a table in a room, colourless except for candle flame and the orange and the purple of their mat. They would be dining well on fish. It would be stil, the stillness of the small and tired. If there was something in the world that was bigger, stronger than their table-top, they would not care. It had not spoken to them yet. They were not listening. They were contented with their grainy universe of candlelight and wood and wool.

31

Musa did not waste his energy. He could not vent his anger on the scree. He rested for a while to catch his breath, then gathered his possessions in a pile, the goods abandoned by the men, the goods abandoned by the woman and his wife, the wools, the bedding, all the fabrics of their life. He could not leave them on display for anyone to help themselves. He’d rather have another fire. But there were huge rocks a little lower down the landfall where he could hide his merchandise. He didn’t have to carry anything. He only had to let it slip and roll, and then push the goods into a crevice. When he left, he’d block it off with stones. He could come back, or send someone, to claim his property at any time, so long as the scree did not give way and claim his treasures for itself

The water-bag which Marta had thrown down the scree was too far out to reach, beyond his climbing skills. He had no water, then. He’d be a fool to try to carry on in the heat of the afternoon. The sun would finish him. Certainly he could not attempt to give chase to the women. Instead, he sat beneath the crevice of the rock with his possessions at his back, hiding in the shade. When the sun went down, he wrapped himself in bedding clothes and sat, cursing his misfortune, not getting any sleep. He’d never known a longer night.

In the morning, as soon as there was any light, but before the sun had any strength to it, Musa forced himself to stand and resume his descent to the valley. He only carried the blond man’s staff. He hid the perfume bottles, the gold, the coins and the jewellery in his underclothes. He pushed the ornamented knife into his sash. He was surprised how even-tempered he was feeling. He’d been restored by a night of cursing. Now he only saw one chaHenge in his life. If he could safely get down to the bottom of the landfall, then what could stop him getting into Jericho, and who could stop him there from trading up his bad luck into good? Who’d dare?