György Spiró - Captivity

The big heat wave was prevailing, with a dry easterly wind bowing. I brought this on, Uri contemplated. He was waiting for one of his companions to make some comment and curse the east wind, which was associated with drought, but no one said anything. Maybe they were all town dwellers. Uri felt an urge to vilify the east wind if they wouldn’t, but he resisted the temptation. I’m schooling myself not to disclose what I know, he thought, but then he mused that his knowledge of easterly winds was not truly thorough. Some people had told him that this brought drought and he had believed them, but maybe it was not so; he had no personal knowledge of it, so it was better to keep his mouth shut.

The officer stood, mounted his mule, and set off. The others followed without a word being said.

As evening drew in, they reached the edge of a village. Uri narrowed his eyes to try and make out whether this was a village he had seen before, but nearly all the villages looked alike. The scattering of houses, the settlement with no wall — that is what made it less than a town. With the officer leading they slowly jogged among the houses, before which old crones and children were seated, staring at them. The officer asked which was the master’s house, and they pointed it out.

The master was a short man with a wrinkled face. The officer dismounted from the mule and drew the master to one side. He explained something, slipped a hand under his tunic, and gave a handful of coins to the master, who bowed, accepted the money, and hid it under his tunic in a pouch of some kind.

“Are we going to get something to eat, or maybe even quarters for the night?” asked the scrawny youth.

Uri shook his head but didn’t say anything.

We haven’t been pestered for two days by robbers, the thought occurred to him, but he hadn’t said anything. The day after tomorrow another master will have to be sought out and he too will have to be paid off. It will not be possible to pay him any less than the first, because by then he will know for sure how much his colleague got — if no other way, via message by fire.

Uri’s suspicion proved correct; they simply had a drink of water before moving on, and they only stopped when even Uri felt weary. He tethered his mule to a tree, recited the long Judaean version of the Sh’ma, pulled out his loaf of bread, spread his blanket, and lay down on it. He set about his meal with relish, his body pleasantly tired by the travel. The officer watched him, then he too said his prayers, followed by the others.

“Is this where we’re going to spend the night?” came a tremulous, horrified voice.

“Yes,” said the officer.

“But we might get robbed!”

“No one is going to rob us,” said Uri. “Quite the opposite, the robbers will be keeping watch over us as we sleep!”

Whether that was true or not, the next morning all their belongings were still there.

They prayed, had breakfast, and resumed the trekking on muleback.

Uri screwed his eyes up, now beginning to sense that the countryside was familiar, that they were somewhere in the neighborhood of Beth Zachariah.

My village, Uri thought, and he laughed at himself for feeling so emotional about it. He wiped the tears from his eyes with a snicker. What a dolt I am!

He felt a strong temptation to lead the party to Master Jehuda; his companions would be amazed to see that he was on home ground here, and it would do wonders for his prestige. All the same, he decided against doing so: he was not on intimate terms with them, and he was not going to betray to them those whom he regarded as his kinsmen. The thought also ran through his head that Master Jehuda and the others, even the young girl, were part of a long-gone past; it now belonged to somewhere else, locked in the realm of memories. It would not be right to disturb the passage of time; one had to move on.

The officer moved to one side to wait for Uri at the back of the line; the rest kept on trotting northward.

“Have you been around here before?” he asked.

“I have,” Uri replied. “But no farther north.”

They swayed along beside each other on their mules.

“I’m Aaron,” the officer said. “I already introduced myself to the others before you arrived at the house.”

The mules trod slowly but surely; there was no need to spur them on.

“These mules are experienced travelers,” commented Uri. “Same as me…”

Aaron gave a snort of laughter.

After hesitating a little, Uri asked, “Where are we headed anyway?”

Aaron did not answer immediately but eventually came out with, “Tiberias.”

“Why are we not avoiding Samaria?” Uri asked.

Aaron sighed.

“Because that’s the order,” he said, and promptly moved off to the front.

They proceeded all day, not even stopping for lunch; anyone who felt hungry had to eat on muleback. We’re in a hurry, Uri thought. I wonder why.

He did a quick calculation. In four days’ time it would be Yom Kippur. Every Jew who lived within three days’ traveling distance of Jerusalem would now be preparing to set off. From this area they would reach it in two days. Tomorrow they would be passing through a region from which people were just setting off southward to Jerusalem. It’s odd, Uri thought, but we’re going in exactly the opposite direction.

He shuddered.

It was the same as the shiver that had gone through him in Rome when he had grasped that he had to reach Jerusalem for Passover, but he did not understand why he was shuddering now. This was not the same kind of journey. He nevertheless felt some presentiment; there was no knowing what it was, but it was unsettling.

The next day they reached the border between Judaea and Samaria. There was nothing marking it, but the party became tenser than they had been up till then, and Aaron was even more taciturn than before, if that was possible. That night he split them up into shifts to stand guard, estimating time from the arc of the moon across the branches of a tree. Uri was allocated to the dawn shift, but he spent much of the night awake thinking. We are creeping along like robbers, he thought. If it was necessary to stand guard, then the safe passage they’d bought from the robbers had expired, so from now on it was other robbers that had to be feared.

He still knew nothing about his traveling companions, merely that the two men in white-tunics consistently buried their excrement under a mound of earth. What could had enticed them into this, he wondered? Did they also long to go to Alexandria? Or were they, perhaps, guilty of some misdemeanor and paying for it by having to take part in this delegation?

In the morning they moved off, still northward.

At the edge of a village they noticed that people were congregating: old people and children, men and women gathered around two carts loaded with animals and produce. They must be setting off for the festival in Jerusalem, Uri thought. Aaron resolutely jogged in front as they took the path leading into the village.

When they were near the group of people, Aaron jumped off his mule.

“Peace be upon you!” he greeted them.

“And upon you!” a few of the people answered.

Uri narrowed his eyes; he could not see the faces clearly.

“For the festival?” Aaron asked.

“Yes, the festival,” they replied proudly.

“We’ll meet up there,” said Aaron.

“We’ll meet there!” they replied.

Uri’s group carried on northward.

He swayed as he walked, half-asleep when he was suddenly startled into full consciousness.

Those people were setting off southward whereas we are still headed northward. Why, then, had Aaron said that we would meet up with them at the festival? That can’t be true!

On the path they encountered a larger group, which was driving livestock and a cart, but they were headed north.