György Spiró - Captivity

The festival was not over. That evening, oil lamps were lit, and they all traipsed out to a field at the edge of the village where a bonfire was already crackling. They sang psalms, and the young men began capering. The girls grouped together and giggled as they watched them. The girls did not dance, only the young men, who were also allowed to drink. They pranced around barefoot, in their festive best, waving around sticks and whooping. The elderly reclined, supping, and watched them with forgiving, sage smiles: let them jump around until they drop. Uri was also invited. He was at first reluctant, but he eventually joined in the leaping around. He knew he looked stupid, but he capered determinedly.

There were some villages where people would walk on lit coals, but this was not a Jewish custom. It came from Persia, and it was nothing special: lit coals make no impression on feet with thick soles.

A few days later the Levites’ carts again made an appearance, this time for the early summer tithe. Now there were eighteen carts, some already fully laden with produce and poultry, four-footed livestock trotting in their wake.

The people again gathered at the outskirts of the village, driving the animals, lugging open sacks of grain, fruit, and vegetables in large bowls. The law — not the law of Moses but the one in force — told them that “anything edible is to be tithed.” They did not bring any firstborn or best animals or the best produce; those had already been allocated and were guarded and nursed, with care being taken that they personally should be able to carry the offering up to Jerusalem for Sukkot, thereby removing the burden of transport from the shoulders of the Levites.

One Levite with a long stick paced in front of the animals and counted them. When he got to every tenth one, he pointed at it with the stick and a second Levite dipped a brush in a bucket of red paint and daubed a sign on the animal’s brow or wing. It might happen that an animal would jump impatiently out of line, in which case the Levite would gesture that it should be marked and the counting would start again at one.

The Levite might also do the counting, but then he would have to count in pairs for the rest of the day, Uri learned.

One of the sheep that had been marked raced back among its fellows. There was a mix-up, and the Levite gestured and the sheep next to it was also marked. The mark was washed off with a damp rag from the one that had rejoined the flock. Animals also had rights, they too having been created by the Almighty.

Uri stood in the crowd. This time the mood was not festive, because there was no priest present. He looked at the produce that the village had gathered: grain, shorn fleeces, oxen, cattle, poultry.

It wasn’t much. It was a poor village.

Then he looked at the three laden carts and the livestock that were tethered behind them, the tithe that fell due the village at the beginning of summer.

It was a lot.

It was not the wish of the Eternal One that Uri should become proficient in all aspects of carpentry, and around the middle of Av, Master Jehuda summoned him to say that he had received a message from Jerusalem that Uri was to return. There was no knowing why, but Uri was to go now.

The wheat was still being reaped and fruit gathered in. They had already started on the vintage, with the grapes being trampled in big tubs. There really would have been a need for his hands and feet too, Uri thought as he and two others set off back south. He curtly took his leave of the master and even more curtly of the assistants; they were able to breathe a sigh of relief that Uri had finally gone.

I didn’t make any friends, Uri concluded, but he was not sure whether he should lament the fact.

He walked with practiced tread and did not converse with his companions; he used a mantle Jehuda had given him to cover his head. Two younger boys accompanied him with great respect and did not dare to address him. His exile must have given off a different impression than Uri imagined.

Master Jehuda had instructed them that Uri was supposed to report to a certain Joseph, son of Nahum, in the Upper City when they got to Jerusalem, and the youths had promised to ask without fail for a written acknowledgment of receipt from this Joseph when Uri was handed over.

They saw traces of abandoned construction work with weeds growing over some parts of it, but there was no city wall to the north. Stunted hedging had been planted all around the City, including the north, not so much on account of possible attacking armies as of fresh arrivals who could be extorted. Everyone had to enter via one of the gates and pay a toll, and even though the hedging was such that it was easy for anyone to step over, a Jew simply did not do that, and the toll would be paid. Uri remembered that from the north the Damascus Gate was the only one through which he could have left the City weeks before, but he was wrong; there was another northern gate, the Jericho Gate, at the beginning of the road leading straight and steeply to the Temple Mount, but they were not headed that way.

Before entering the gate, Uri paused to look back. Hills, downs, fruit trees, all green, all peaceful, all sleepy. He peered as the youths respectfully waited. Earlier they had shouted out that they could see the Temple, and no doubt they did because they were approaching the City along the spine of a high elevation. One of the youths kept asserting that they were now passing over Mount Scopus, which is to say Mount Lookout. Those heading for the festival would pass this way, but they were going on still farther in the Kidron Valley, to the east of the City.

Uri could not see the Temple, try as he might. Perhaps it was a phenomenon like some sort of cloud.

Yet I seem to have better eyesight than ever, Uri mused.

And veritably he could distinguish individual trees and bushes from each other better than before. That was impossible, he thought. Still, in the village he had been able to look at, touch, and smell plants as never before; what from afar continued to be uncertain contours now filled with content. In fact, as he had to recognize, he had been seeing from memory, and he was surprised that such a phenomenon existed.

One of the youths tugged out from under his robe a leather satchel tied to his waist. This was the money. He was hugely relieved when the boy had counted out the toll for the guard, and nothing more remained in the satchel. By then their two days of provender had run out; the two youths would be walking back home without food or drink, but for them two days of hunger was not a great price to pay if they could enter Jerusalem.

His escorts prostrated themselves and wept as they prayed.

Uri was unmoved, but he too knelt and murmured a prayer.

It was approaching noon when they reached the City. People ambled slowly in this residential area of the City. It was a strange hodgepodge of new and older housing, seedy buildings and guarded palaces surrounded by high fences, broad boulevards, and narrow alleyways, and, in its center, ditches separating it from the Antonia Fortress. This was Bezetha, the Jewish name for Kainopolis or New Town, through which Uri had been led by the two guards when they had set off for Beth Zechariah. Uri did not remember a single street or house; he may well have been confused then.

The youths did not dare accost anyone; they were awestruck just to be walking through the Holy City and could only gape in astonishment. Before now they had only reached the neighborhood of Jerusalem, never the City itself. Uri had to make inquiries himself as to whether anyone knew a Joseph ben Nahum. The passersby shook their heads and carried on strolling. Uri by now was hungry and thirsty, since they had finished off the provisions for the journey yesterday evening. On top of that, he wanted to be rid of the youths.