György Spiró - Captivity

This business was cited to children in Rome’s Jewish quarter, the descendants of slaves, as a superb example of faithful devotion: “Better Jerusalem should fall, but keep true to the Law,” they would say, and tears would come to the teachers’ eyes, and all those who bequeathed the glorious memory to their descendants would shed tears, the descendants, too, valiantly shedding tears. Uri did not shed tears; the heretical thought came to his mind that perhaps it would have been better to breach the Torah and demolish the rampart Pompey had thrown up that day, then under the influence of propitiatory sacrifices, their One and only Lord would surely have forgiven them, His Chosen People, sooner or later. No doubt there were others to whom the same thought occurred, but they did not voice that opinion; Uri learned early on that it was not imperative to reveal everything that came to his mind. He said something of the sort once to his father, who heard what he was saying, because Uri still had good eyesight at the time; Joseph shook his head but did not rebuke him. Which suggested that his father had also given some thought to this sad episode.

The terror and turmoil passed, Uri’s house arrest was lifted, and he was again free to wander, which he did. The Jews escaped any physical reprisals, while most of the filthy rich Roman elite was executed and their fortunes confiscated for the state coffers, which is to say Tiberius’s private imperial coffers. But for Uri, Rome, the true Rome, had lost its allure.

Still, it was a distinctly good time to be Jewish in Rome, and not a good time to be a senator or a knight; it was good to be poor, and not so good to be rich, because anyone might be condemned, have his fortune taken and be put to death, with any denunciation given credence. There was no reason to accuse the poor, and they pulled through, unless they were made to bear witness against their patron on the rack. Although in principle it was only permissible to torture a slave, not a freedman, the law on this was widely disregarded. The retribution had been methodical, people in the true Rome later recalled, when they dared to speak; everyone had already been outlawed in advance in Sejanus’s heyday; Sejanus had shed blood freely in Rome for years, so nobody had the least pity for him or his family or his friends when Tiberius finally rid the City of him.

Everyone spoke their mind. Horror stories circulated and were embellished ever more richly. Romans had time; they did not work but gossiped and enjoyed the fact that it was possible for them to live a quiet life gratis there, in the storied center of world power. Tiberius stayed on the island of Capri; he had not returned to Rome once, running the global empire from Capri through his cronies.

The Jews lived their own lives. Joseph continued to trade, and his patron, Gaius Lucius, had managed to squeak through also, even though he was rich, very rich. His servants said that once he had invited over all the people he thought might have designs on his money; he entertained them lavishly and explained to them that it was not they who would profit from his fortune but Tiberius, and he offered them a decent monthly remittance, to the end of their days, if they did not denounce him. True or not, the main thing is that no one ever did denounce him.

Uri went over to the true Rome less and less often, closing himself up in his nook, reading scrolls in all sorts of languages, and dreaded the thought of ever again seeing those milk-white, rapidly moving buttocks, or that little girl’s bleeding abdomen and eviscerated guts, or to experience the sordid cravings evoked by that ever-present ghost.

Uri dreaded going to sleep; he had no desire to dream.

He had to go to sleep sometime, however, sometimes by night, sometimes by day. That is when he saw the ghosts, and he also saw other terrifying images in his makeshift resting place, thrown together as it was from rags and tatters; he dared not look his father in the eye, dared not look his mother and sisters in the eyes. All that showed was a troubled half-smile, which disgusted his father; he too must have been acquainted with the horrifying power of dreams.

Meanwhile Uri studied the Scriptures diligently, and he figured he was not sinning the way that Onan had done. He was not responsible for his dreams; the Creator was responsible for them. The Creator wanted all things, including evil and tormenting dreams, but the Creator was good, because the scenes in his dreams were clear and sharp, his eyesight in his dreams was good, and that too was the Creator’s will. Maybe the Creator wanted him, a Chosen one, to see Evil, to see Satan. He may have ruined his eyes but he had a purpose: so that Uri would study more scrupulously. Study the Holy Writ. The Writings.

Studying the Holy Writ was a very Jewish notion, but not studying The Writings. Many Writings existed in Rome at that time; anyone who wanted could get hold of them, and Uri wanted to; but only one Holy Writ was the Lord’s, or else none of them.

Uri collected works in Greek and Latin. Some of the goods he got through the tessera, and whatever the family did not need he would sell across the way and buy scrolls with the money. He would rather have gone without food, although at home he showed up for his share of meals, so there was no actual need to go hungry, which made it easy. He was a visitor to the splendid public libraries, where one did not have to pay much to enter, and it was possible to read all afternoon. Secretly he hoped that his father would forbid him to read, to study heathen writings, to read all the Greek and Latin poets and philosophers, but his father did not forbid him, although he must have had his suspicions about what his son was reading. He did not forbid him to do anything; he gave up on him.

Disowned him without ever saying so.

Simply because his eyesight had degenerated.

He begot me faultily, was the thought that often came to Uri’s mind; he was sloppy in begetting me, didn’t pay enough attention, and now he blames me.

Yet it was not just Uri; no better a job had been done in begetting his younger sisters either. The older of them, Hermione, was stupid, while the smaller had been born bright, but she coughed continually, snorted, and was breathless. Her hacking coughs at night would wake everybody up, and her whining drove them crazy.

However, Uri was least affected: he slept on his own in his alcove, shivering under the window, while his father and mother slept with the two girls in the main room, where there was also a fireplace for cooking. Uri thought it was no mystery why no children had not been added to the family. It was a relief, because it meant that there would be no little brother, who, if he were healthy, would stand to inherit everything if his father disowned him officially for his bad eyes. As it was, he would inherit everything, however decrepit he might be.

That small recess of four by five cubits, separated by a flimsy, rotting partition and a shoddy carpet from his sweaty parents and clammy sisters was an exceptional gift, he would have to admit, that he would never have come by had he been healthy. It was a prison cell, but a voluntary one — freedom itself.

He tossed and turned restlessly on his bed in that alcove for nights on end, an acidic sting constantly creeping into his throat, and if he eventually drifted off he would be haunted by abominable images and wake up choking, coughing, gasping for air because the sour spit would find its way into his lungs. He had nobody to cry out to, only the Lord, for whom he would gladly have been a priest, although he could not for lots of reasons, his physical ailments among them. Any one of his miseries was enough to disqualify him from the priesthood, but most of all it was that he did not descend from Aaron’s clan. His ancestors were anonymous Jewish grubbers of the land whom a blustering Alexander once press-ganged into military service. They had been taken prisoner by the Romans, just two years short of a century ago. He had no one to cry out to; even the Lord never answered his prayers. But that little cubbyhole of four by five cubits was an exceptional gift; nobody came in, he could read, dream, or ruminate to his heart’s content, peer out the window every now and then, and that too was life of a sort, and no doubt pleasing to the Lord, if he had created it.