György Spiró - Captivity

“Am I going to come back here?” Uri asked, thinking now of the tidy sum that he had buried under the tree next to the privy.

Neither the messenger nor Menachem had an answer.

He was not even able to take proper leave of his colleagues.

This time they proceeded northward along the Valley of the Cheesemakers and entered a smaller building a bit to the east of the Xystus, which Uri had by now learned used to be where the Sanhedrin had held its sessions. The building was known as the Hall of Hewn Stones, as the judges, all seventy of them, had at one time sat in several semicircular rows around a stone platform reserved for the accused or the petitioner.

Uri was curious to see whether he would be received by Joseph or the hunchback whose name he did not know.

It was a Jewish military officer. He was a middle-aged, stocky man, bald and with strongly protruding eyebrows.

“The reason I asked you to come, Gaius,” he said, “is that I would like to make a deal with you. At Rosh Hashanah a delegation will be setting off for Galilee, and I would like you to be a member. You would be passing through Samaria under the leadership of an experienced commander.”

Uri held his peace, not knowing what to make of the matter.

“Who would I be representing?” he inquired.

The officer did not understand.

“I’m a Roman citizen,” Uri added. “Is Rome sending me?”

“You are a Jew,” said the officer, “and you’ll represent Judaea, if you prefer. But like I said, we are offering a deal. You are an experienced delegate, and if you return we would reward you by sending you to Alexandria as you wish.”

Uri’s heart leapt. Alexandria! To swap this dusty provincial small town, sleepy Jerusalem, where nothing ever happened, for the true center of the world!

This meant that Joseph ben Nahum had indeed passed on his request.

“Fair enough,” Uri said. “When do we set off?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

I won’t have time to pick up my money, Uri thought. Never mind.

He was already walking off to the meeting-place in the company of three taciturn Jewish soldiers when he was struck in retrospect by the odd way in which the officer had expressed himself. “ If you return,” he had said, though he might equally have said “ upon your return.”

Samaria was dangerous. Why are we not avoiding it, as those traveling between Galilee and Judaea customarily do? They had time to choose a detour, and maybe we are now taking an urgent message to someone.

And anyway, who’s this we ?

Uri established that he was more thrilled by this new assignment than by spending the whole day laying mosaics in the company of familiar workers, as much as he truly enjoyed that.

I’m an adventurer, he reflected, both remorsefully and proudly.

They cut across the square at the Temple, went down the serpentine path, exited the City through the Jericho gate, and took a northeasterly route. Uri was quite certain that his escort had no idea what kind of mission they were sending him on, so he did not try to interrogate them. That reticence seemed to meet with their approval, as they did not try even once to prod him into saying something.

They came to a rest by a village house that was bigger than usual and had two soldiers on sentry duty in front.

His escort handed him over, took a draft of water, and headed back toward the City.

There were eight mules grazing in the yard. There will be eight of us, including me, Uri reflected. A mule is an elegant beast compared to an ass, appropriate for longer journeys. He was quite sure that his backside was going to get saddle-sore over the first few days.

One of the guards ushered him into the house.

There in the gloom sat a throng of people, a mix of soldiers and civilians.

“Pax to you, Gaius Theodorus!” said an officer.

“Pax to you too! Pax to you all!” said Uri.

“He’s the last of your companions,” said the officer, turning to the civilians. “Gaius Theodorus, young though he may be, is an experienced traveler; he was a member of this year’s Roman delegation, and he has spent time as a peasant and a worker in Judaea to cleanse himself.”

There was a murmured welcome. The officer did not introduce any of the other members of the delegation to him, and they didn’t say anything themselves. Uri had no wish to converse with anybody and spent the night squatting in one corner. During the long trip he would get to know them.

The next morning they went northward on mule-back.

They did not carry any weapons, only a sack with bread, olives, and fruit.

Uri took special note of two figures clothed in white. He at first thought them to be priests, but they did not behave like priests. Their mantles were short, hardly reaching their knobby knees, and they did not give a priestly benediction; indeed, they did not engage in conversation with anyone. Each had a trowel dangling from his belt.

Riding his mule at the back of the procession, Uri saw that his companions, with the exception of the officer, were seated clumsily on their mules. Not experienced travelers, then.

Uri’s thighs ached, but he was familiar with the feeling, and by tomorrow they would no longer be aching. His companions would not become acquainted with the feeling until that night, the skin of their behinds broken-skinned and bleeding, but that would also clear up with time. Uri sat rigidly upright; if he were ever to get a crick in his back, as had happened once on an ass in Sicily, his life would be sheer misery for days on end. His back was the one thing he needed to watch out for, nothing else.

They carried on northward, first crossing the road to Damascus, then advancing across fields. It was a journey that Uri was now familiar with, having done it twice before — once to Beth Zechariah and once back, only those times it had been on foot. Even carried by mules they did not make faster headway.

None of the other seven gave any sign of knowing one another, but for all Uri was concerned that did not exclude the possibility that there might be old alliances among them. They exchanged no words, maybe fearing that there might be squealers among them. My companions might just as easily be disagreeable figures who don’t know what to do with people, just like me, Uri thought, then chided himself: he knew nothing about his companions, so it was wrong to presume anything about them.

When they rested and ate, Uri reclined on his side and did not touch the smarting calluses that had formed on his thighs; in two days’ time they would no longer hurt. The others despondently felt at and squeezed the calluses and blisters on their backsides; as they were close to him, Uri could see them all too well. I rise above them all in traveling, he thought blithely, notwithstanding the fact that he was the second puniest of the lot. He had noticed earlier a young man even punier than himself, with colorless hair and watery eyes, his entire frame in poor condition. The lad took the bruising surprisingly well, however; he may have had an opportunity to ride a mule or ass before. True, his feet did not touch the ground, so there was no need for him to make an effort to keep them lifted. He also had long arms and thin fingers, so what might he be? A pickpocket? He did not look fit for anything else.

Uri scrambled to his feet and went behind the bushes to relieve himself. He heard a noise of something rustling about and looked up. One of the white-garbed men was squatting, while the other was carefully scooping earth over his own turd with a trowel. The other then finished, stood and, started to dig, strewing the earth he dug in a nice little mound over the feces. Both took care, making sure that the shovel did not touch the excrement. Uri could only wonder.