György Spiró - Captivity

He opened his eyes and could see human legs around him. He looked at the legs. They were all barefooted except for a single pair in sandals.

Uri sat up and studied the sandals before looking up.

There were seven dour male faces looking down at him. Two of them seemed familiar — he had been harvesting with them during the previous weeks — but he had never seen the others. He inspected the individual wearing the sandals more thoroughly, and the man inspected Uri back. Uri somehow felt he had seen that face before. Yes, that was it! He recalled the spearsman who had accompanied him from Jerusalem to Master Jehuda’s place. Uri nodded; it was the spearman’s younger brother.

Uri drew his legs up and waited for them to speak, but they remained silent. Uri looked the man in sandals straight in the eyes.

“Those were my sandals once,” he said impertinently.

Silence. Then the man in the sandals said, “I know.”

Uri was relieved. He clambered to his feet and stood there.

There was silence again.

“You’re going to have to go back,” the sandaled man said in a friendly tone. “You’re the guest of Master Jehuda.”

“I don’t care to,” Uri informed them.

Silence again as the men digested this response. Then the sandaled man, the spearsman’s younger brother, said, “You have to. We are here to defend the village. The master requested our help. We help him, and he pays us. We’ll escort you back lest there be any trouble.”

“I would prefer to stay with you in the caves,” Uri declared.

Another silence.

“That’s not possible,” said the sandaled man apologetically. “Master Jehuda didn’t say you could take to the caves, among the robbers. Or was that what he said to you?”

Uri pondered his response. “No, he didn’t say that,” he admitted.

They set off back to the south.

They were sturdy fellows, and they certainly did not give the appearance of wanting for anything. They were tidily clothed, and no ribs stuck out of their skin. Their tread was surer than that of peasants.

Uri laughed, nodded, and hummed a tune to himself.

It seemed Jerusalem was recruiting its police force from among the robbers, and out here in the country the robbers nurtured close relations with masters and acted as a local police force too. Like the master operating as a faithful representative of the Sanhedrin, they had no other choice. There was no way of escaping; the state was lying in wait behind every bush.

The robbers came to a stop at the edge of the village.

“Go back to Master Jehuda,” the man with the sandals advised. “If you try to leave again, we’ll catch you again.”

Uri nodded.

“My greetings to your brother,” he said.

“I’ll pass them on. Peace be with you.”

“Peace be with you all.”

Uri stood at the edge of the village like the spearsman and swordsman had done when, on their arrival at the village two months before, Uri had set off to look for Master Jehuda. He looked back and cordially waved. The robbers stood motionless.

Master Jehuda was gruff in his welcome.

“What do you expect from me?” he growled. Uri knew by now that his demeanor was more acting than genuine emotion. “That I kiss your ass because you were dumped on me? Isn’t this good enough for you? Can I help that? What’s your problem with me? Why do you want to ruin me?”

“I’m bored,” Uri announced. “At least let me return to Jerusalem!”

“Permission has to be granted for that,” the master grumbled.

“Get it,” Uri, the Roman citizen, urged.

“How am I to get it? From whom?”

“I’m not interested, just get it! Send a fire signal!”

“That costs! Each and every letter is three pondions!”

“So?”

“You pay for it!”

“How can I? You know very well that I have no money. You pay! You give loans at usurious interest rates and bankroll those robbers as your policemen!”

“You still pay, you good-for-nothing!” the master fumed, now with genuine passion.

“Pay yourself, you’ve got the money!”

“I don’t have the slightest intention of paying,” the master seethed. “Three pondions for each letter, vowels included! And they don’t even send those, the lazy bastards — only the consonants, but they still charge for them! I’m not willing to pay them! Lousy gougers, getting rich at my expense! I’m not letting them pinch my vowels!”

Uri could sense the bile accumulating within himself and did nothing to prevent it. Thoughts of the lovely young girl and her thrilling eyebrows had disappeared, and the throbbing in his insides he had felt each time he saw her had vanished; only a masculine desire for revenge remained, that of a murderer.

I’ll have forty other wives, Uri thought, each lovelier than Miriam.

“I’ll pay the half-shekel tax now,” said Uri scornfully, though quite unexpectedly even for himself.

The master did not understand and became flustered.

“That’s only needed at the end of winter,” he exclaimed.

“I want to pay it now!” Uri insisted with all the stubbornness of someone who wanted to grow up.

“Impossible! It’s collected in Adar!”

“And I’m going to pay in Sivan!” yelled Uri.

There was a lull. Uri took a wicked delight in all this. How on earth would he get half a shekel together now when he hadn’t a single prutah to his name? The master, though, did not think of that. He was alarmed. Never before had there been a case of someone wishing to pay the half-shekel tax in the summer. Not ever. The boy was crazy.

“Fair enough,” Jehuda said in a conciliatory tone, trying to smile. “You won’t work any more. Do whatever you please, but no trying to escape or you’ll be brought back anyway. I don’t want any scenes. What do you need? Tell me and you’ll get it.”

Uri kept quiet. There was no way now he would get what he had wanted. She had been taken by Satan, in whom he had never believed before but who existed all the same.

“I want a woman,” he whispered.

Master Jehuda was flabbergasted but pricked up his ears.

“What’s that you said?” he asked, flushed by keenness to help.

“A woman,” Uri said hoarsely.

“A woman?” Master Jehuda repeated and, as Uri could see, was highly relieved. “No problem. You’ll get as many women as you want. Which one? Just say, and you’ll get her. We’ve got slave girls growing out of our ears! I’ll call them together, all you have to do is point. Free for as long as you stay here.”

Uri gave a groan.

“I’ll set up the workshop as a dwelling,” said Master Jehuda obligingly. “Set it up just fine! Say, half of it… That’s quite a lot of space, isn’t it? Well, you know yourself… Half. I’ll partition it from the workshop with a wall… You’ll get a bed and chairs. No more sleeping on the floor. You can lounge around on that comfy bed all day long, and I’ll send you the women. As many as you want! Only don’t ruin me! I don’t deserve that. I’ve never treated you anything less than well!”

Uri was ashamed to ask Master Jehuda for a woman, but he accepted the dwelling. In a room separated from the workshop, he could lie on a pallet stuffed evenly and generously with crisply fresh straw, brushing the flies away and feeling extremely miserable. He was free, but he was bored.

He had behaved abominably, in the way that only young men can, and he could not for the life of him understand why Master Jehuda did not take advantage of that. Uri could only draw the conclusion that this fearsome, voracious, loudmouthed, red-haired, fat man, who was held in such high public esteem even far away, was even weaker than he was.

Uri gnashed his teeth. He had to do something or he would go crazy.