He had no choice. He hung his head over the precipice, and looked from left to right, for a descending path, and any evidence of caves. The light was poor, but he was lucky. He could not see his cave, or any cave, but he could see a sloping rock similar to the one which fo^ed the front deck to his chosen sanctuary. The perfect perch for eagles, and for angels, he had said. Except there were no eagles nor any angels, just ravens and the falling debris of the cliff.

One ofthe ravens landed close toJesus, turned its head a dozen times, inspecting him for food, and then flew off, calling out its disappointment — tok-tok, tok-tok, tok-tok. Its voice was unmistakable, more like a carpenter’s than a bird’ s. He’d made the noise himself a thousand times — the impact of a tool on wood. But, although he tried his best, Jesus could not take it as a sign that god was calling him. He had expected signs all day, it’s true. Some shaft of sunshine, picking out a rock. Some burning bush. A distant voice, perhaps, to tell him how he ought to reach his cave. A white dove, yes; or the elated song of a warbler might carry messages from god. But tok-tok-tok? God would be more eloquent than that. Jesus had to wait for quite a while, clinging like an insect to his slope, before a better sign was offered him. A steady flight of storks, corning up from Egypt to the north — the Sea of Galilee, perhaps — were passing overhead. A sign ofspring. One dropped below its companions and flew along the massive, sheer cliffs of the valley. Its white shoulders and body were briefly highlighted by the sun against the greys and browns. Then it shrank away so far that it became a duck, a dove, a fading speck of white, a mote ofsawdust in the window light. The moment that it disappeared, Jesus told himself, would be the moment that he moved.

So Jesus took his courage from the stork to edge along the cliff on hands and knees, looking for a way down to his cave. It was not difficult. It was not long before the ground grew rougher underfoot and underhand. There was a rockfail, where the land had split and slipped, like a broken crust of bread. Jesus started to climb down. The marl was soft enough to crumble between his fingers. There were struggling signs ofgod’s creation, at last. A few opportunist plants — morning star, hyssop, saltwood — had taken root in the crevices and on the leeward side ofrocks. They lent their odour to the climb and left their muffled blessings on his palms whenever he took hold of them. Hyssop was familiar, a herb for eggs and f ish, but now it was the smeil of vertigo and fear. When the rockfall steepened, Jesus descended on his thighs, facing outwards. The ground was loose but firm enough to take his weight. He did not trust his feet. They were already tom and bleeding from the walk and now were further scratched and battered by the earth. He tried to put as much weight as he could on to his hands and thighs as he went down below the level of the slope on to the precipice. He had to hurry. It was almost dusk. The cliffs were facing east. The sunlight ended sharply. He was climbing on the dark side of the world, his back pressed hard against the earth.

He reached his lodgings for the night more easily than he had expected. The route was steep but well provided with handholds and platforms for his feet. His fear of heights and falling rocks made him quick and nimble for a change. He was propelled. He almost found the climbing pleasurable. He was the boy he’d never been.

The entrance was much larger than he’d thought. The cave was deep. There was no sign of life, not even any bird lime on the rocks, or sand-fish burrows. No screaming bats. No perching angels. He called out from the rocky platform at the cave’s mouth. The echo of his nervous greeting came back twice. ‘Is anybody there ody there ody there?’ He wept, of course. What young man, alone in such a wilderness, wouldn’t weep to hear his own voice mocking him and reassuring him? No echo would be worse. He couldn’t light a fire or lamp. There wasn’t any food or drink to comfort him, but he had eaten anyway, in the merchant’s tent and in the shepherd’s hut. Two meals that day. He couldn’t think what he should do. Give thanks? Protect the entrance of the cave with stones? It was too cold to sit outside and watch the stars come out. He hadn’t brought a cloak to wrap around himself So he found a pocket of warm air, out of the draughts, and curled up on the dry clay in the cave, in his thin clothes. He made a pillow of his open palm, still smelling of the hyssop, and protected his body with his elbows and his knees as if he thought he might be kicked by demons. Would there be scorpions or snakes? Would there be nightmares? He closed his eyes. He brought his lids down on his fear. He put his trust in god; an optimist again. He could rest. He could rely on god’s provision, yes. The travelling was over. He fell asleep, almost at once.

Sleep is a medicine. When he woke up on his first day of quarantine, his spirit was repaired, as was his confidence. There was no walking to be done that day. He did not have to climb. He only had to shake the stiffness from his limbs and go outside to meet the day. The rosy epaulettes of light on the peaks of Moab which Marta was admiring at that same moment from her own cave entrance, seemed heavenly to Jesus. He sat crosslegged on his angel perch. He could hear the bluster of a wind, blowing on the cliff-tops and the hills, but not descending to his cave. God was taking care of him. Jesus would explore the cave when it was fully light outside, but for the moment he simply waited for the epaulettes to spread into a cloak, and for the cloak to throw its wa^th across his shoulders. Time was slow, of course. He filled it with prayer, and thinking of his parents

watching him pray. They couldn’t come and shake him now.

There was nothing else for Jesus to do, except to simplify his life. Repentance, meditation, prayer. Those were the joys of solitude. They had sustained the prophets for a thousand years. And they would be his daily companions. He started rocking with each word of prayer, putting all his body into it, speaking it out loud, concentrating on the sound, so that no part of him could be concerned with lesser matters or be reminded of the fear, the hunger and the chill. He seemed to find his adolescent rhapsodies. The prayers were in command of him. He shouted out across the valley, happy with the noise he made. The common words lost hold of sound. The consonants coUapsed. He called on god to join him in the cave with all the noises that his lips could make. He called with all the voices in his throat. He clacked his tongue against his mouth, Tok-tok tok-tok tok-tok.

He must have recited a hundred prayers that morning, before the sun obliged and wa^ed him through. His prayers brought up the sun. His prayers suppressed his appetite. His prayers picked out the sunlight on the dead and silver sea and hardened it. It turned it into jeweUery. The water was as solid as a silver plate. It rose from the distant valley into the mid-air haze. Jesus had to look at it through half-closed eyes, it was so bright. The more he looked, the more transformed he felt. He could have taken this to be the natural way of water and light. But Jesus had not come this far to witness only godless routines of the sun and sky and sea. He had to take each shift of light, each colouring, each shadow of a bird to be the evidence of god. He had to persuade himself, before the forty days were up, that he’d been awarded a brief view of god’s kingdom. Let the silver plate be paradise. Let god be calling out to give to him his new commandments, as he had given al his laws to Jews in this same wilderness. What would his parents and his neighbours say when he went back to

preach the word of god? They would not shake his shoulders, send his brothers to distract him, use the stick. They would rejoice in him. He could congratulate himself, and did. He was shoeless, homeless, without food. He’d slept on naked ground. But he was at last without fear or sorrow. ‘^m I not free?’ he asked himself, ‘Am I not blessed?’