Marta did not like the badu much. He’djumped in the cistern with no regard for anybody’s cleanliness. She did not trust the way he squatted on his heels, rocking like a crib, twisting his hennaed hair between his fingers, and ready to spring up. He was too smal and catlike, with far too many bracelets on his arm, she thought, to be much of a threat to her. But there was something devilish and immature about his face. If he had any body hair, it would not match his hennaed head.

Marta had her numbers and her seeds for company. She watched the men, and waited for the sun to warm her up. The badu did not speak at all. He dropped pebbles in his mouth. But the old man was glad to talk, and the blond, though he hardly turned his head, seemed resigned to listen. The old man did not whisper, but spoke up loudly — in self-conscious Greek — so that everyone could hear, perhaps. He gave his name, his place of birth, his trade. He was Aphas the mason, from Jerusalem. He reported on the complications of his journey to the caves, his attempts to light a fire, the discomforts of the night. Al unimportant, unrevealing, reassuring facts. What other intimacies than these should be exchanged by strangers in the wilderness? Finally, when no one offered to reply, he turned towards the badu and asked for his name and his place of birth. But the badu only smiled — bad teeth, wet pebbles — and shook his head. He didn’t want to give his family name, perhaps. He did not know his family name. What badu did? Or else he had no Greek. Aphas turned to Marta now and, with a chuckle at the badu’s silence, tried to implicate her in his amusement. ‘Some chatterbox,’ he said. He almost asked her name, but then had second thoughts. Was it polite? One could not simply ask a woman’s name, or say, ‘Who are your husband’s family?’ or ‘Why have you come here alone? What do you want?’ Instead, he tapped the blond man on the knee — an old man can assume such intimacies — and said, ‘Yes, yes? Let’s hear.’

The honey-head, as Marta had thought, was from the north. He knew some Aramaic and some Greek, though many of the words he used were unfamiliar. Unlike the gabbling stonemason, he spoke as ifhe had eternity. She didn’t recognize the name he gave for his home town, but she knew his own name well enough. It was Shim. An almost Jewish name. Though he was noJew, he said. His grandfather had been aJew, however, who’d left the valley ofJezreel in one of the dispersals, sixty years ago. Now he’d come back to the land ofhis forebears, Shim said, to seek something that he could not name. ‘Perhaps there is no word for it. As yet.’

‘To meet with god,’ suggested Aphas, keen to show he was a man of culture.

‘No, no, the word “god” is hardly strong enough for what I seek.’ He would not look at the old man, but only concentrated on his staff and his own voice. ‘My god is not a holy king, an emperor in heaven. He’s immanent in everything. In things like this. .’ he shook his staff, ‘. . and in the human spirit. He will absorb us when we die. If we are ready. But first we have to find that something for which I have no word. .’ ‘Enlightenment’s a word. .’ ventured Aphas. ‘Enlightenment comes to the ignorant. That is their candle in the dark and their salvation from the sensualimpulses and appetites ofpublic life. But for myself, I am looking more for. .Tranquillity, perhaps. That’s not so easy to acquire.’ He rubbed his fingers on his thumbs, as if his words were cloth. ‘I can encounter god at home. I can find enlightenment in tiny things. I do not have to leave the house. But here. .’ again he felt the cloth ofwords, ‘what better place to look beyond enlightenment and god for nameless things than here, in caves, far from the comforts and distractions of the world?’ Aphas nodded all the while, though men like Shim — scholars, mystics, sages, ascetes, stoics, epicureans, that holy regiment — were a mystery to him. Why punish your body voluntarily when the world and god would punish it in their good time? It would not do to argue, though, with someone of Shim’s undoubted class and dignity. ‘I’ve understood,’ he said, although to Marta’s eyes, he looked ala^ed. ‘I know it, though there is no word for it. .’

‘As yet.’

He had not turned his back on god, the emperor of heaven, Shim continued. Not on one god. Not on any of the gods. But he was Greek in his beliefs. He worshipped every living thing. ‘I worship this,’ he said, picking up a stone. ‘I worship those.’ He pointed at the birds. ‘I worship this.’ Again he turned the spirals of his staff.

‘That’s good. That’s very Greek,’ said Aphas.

‘I worship everybody here,’ Shim continued. His voice was slow, and hardly audible. ‘Excepting one of course.’ He lifted a hand from his staff and pointed at himself.

Aphas could not claim to have such selfless motives as Shim, he said. He could not claim to be so Greek. He’d come for quarantine because (‘No need to wrap it up in complicated words’) he was dying. These forty days were his last chance, his priest had said. He hoped to make his peace with god and with himself, of course. But most of al he hoped for miracles, that all the fastingandthe prayers wouldmake himwell again. Tranquillity was easy to acquire, compared to that. He had a growth, he said. ‘A living thing, inside ofme. No one could worship that. Bigger than my fist.’ He showed his fist, and pointed at his side. ‘You can feel how hard it is.’ He waited for a volunteer to press a finger into his side. Shim leaned forward on to his braided legs, put his finger on the growth, and nodded: ‘Like you say,’ he said.

‘Come on.’ Aphas waved the badu over, and caHed to him in both Greek andAramaic, and thentranslated it into finger-mime. ‘Feel this.’

The badu sprang on to his feet and padded over as nimbly and as silently as a cat, grinning aH the time. He lifted up the mason’s shirt. Marta could see the stomach was distended. The skin was stretched. It looked as if the old man had an extra knee-cap placed between his thigh bone and his ribs. The badu spat out pebbles, laughed, and cupped the growth in the flat of his hand. He shook his head from side to side. He tapped the cancer with his fingertips and put his ear to Aphas’s chest and grabbed hold of his hand. Nothing that he did made any sense. Aphas had to tug quite hard before the badu would let go. He wanted sympathy, or miracles, not this.

‘He doesn’t understand a word of it,’ Aphas said, retreating into chatter as he’d done for all his life. His nose was running and his eyes were wet. ‘Here, Master Shim, this fellow’s yours. You love all living things, you said. Love him.’ He forced a laugh and wiped his eyes. He then repeated what he’d said, almost word for word. . ‘ Love him, I said. ’ He turned to Marta, only looking for a nod or smile from her to rescue him from his embarrassment. She laughed for reasons of her own. Her three companions were absurd. Even the honey-head. Perhaps he was the maddest of them all.

They had hardly noticed that the sun was up and their forty days were underway. But soon — once Shim and Aphas had agreed that everyone would gather at dusk when they would light a communal fire and break their fast with Marta’s scrub fowl and the free food of the wilderness if any could be caught or found — they fell silent, even Aphas. They concentrated on themselves. FinaHy, they sought the shade and privacy of their caves. The badu wandered along the scarp, crying out and kneeling down once in a while to pick up stones. Marta was relieved to stay alone, sitting in the sun, counting seeds. The birds that had been waiting in the thorns flocked back into the water, dipping beaks and wings. But very soon they were outnumbered. The water in the cistern smeHed so mossy and the birds, excited by the unexpected boon of water, sang so unremittingly, that every living creature in the hills could smell and hear the summons to drink.