György Spiró - Captivity

“Will the gentleman be staying in Alexandria for long?” the woman wanted to know.

“I very much hope so,” said Uri.

“This is a decent town,” said the woman. “It doesn’t matter who is what, or what you were born as. We’re Hellenes, for example, but we have a good life here, among the Hebrews. No one cares what god you worship. It’s a decent town, though the competition is cutthroat. My husband and I started next to the Gymnasium, but that’s no way to make a living: there are so many places to eat. It’s good here, though; one can hang on here.”

Uri drank half the wine, but he could not manage even one third of the barbel. It was a long time since his belly had last groaned so contentedly; his blood seemed to be bubbling, and his head felt heavier by the minute.

“The gentleman can take a nap,” said the woman. “We’ve got a room for that purpose with a nice big bed for two in it.”

Uri was unable to make up his mind. He still had some time, having arrived a day earlier than expected because the wind had been favorable, but on the other hand he wanted the reassurance of having fulfilled his mission, so he shook his head. He paid in Attican drachmas and the woman gave the change in Egyptian drachmas, so he automatically ran a mental check, but the woman had not cheated him.

Uri asked the way to the Jewish Basilica.

It was four blocks away.

It would, indeed, have been hard to miss.

The Basilica was, in effect, an enormous market hall, though it had no roof. There were long double rows of columns three stories high, with gorgeous Greek capitals; over the two rows of columns there were strips of roofing, but the vast rectangular space between the columns was open to the sky. The edifice did not have an entrance as such — it was possible, in principle, to pass between the columns at any point, though in most places the stall keepers had blocked free circulation. Anything grown or made by all the peoples around the Great Sea could be purchased here; compared with this, the Upper Market in Jerusalem — the biggest in the city — was just a village jumble sale. Uri could not imagine what might be in the Emporium if all manner of goods were already to be had here. And on the main street in the middle of the city there was supposedly an even bigger market — the biggest in the Greek world.

In the inner space of the tidy rectangular covered walkway, which was paved with sheets of ornamental marble, there stood a timber platform on which lay costly carpets. To the east and west of the platform stood rows of stone benches with gilded edges: Uri counted seventy-two rows. He nodded: there were supposed to be that many, because there had been seventy-two translators of the Bible into Greek, working right here, in Alexandria, three centuries ago. Uri looked at the bronze plaques that were fastened to the outside stone benches. In each row places were reserved for Jews of different occupations. All that was inscribed on the end of the first row of benches looking east was alabarkhos . That must be some very elevated rank indeed.

Bronze plaques? Uri was suspicious and leaned a bit closer. The bronze plaques were gold. Uri shuddered. What lavishness, and coupled to such trust! Anyone might pry off one of the plaques, and if he managed to get away with it, he would be rich for the rest of his life. And it was left here unguarded! This city of Alexandria was quite a strange place.

Then he spotted the armchairs standing by the northern entrance, and he went closer. He was dumbfounded: the armchairs too were solid gold. He counted them: seventy-one. He did not dare try to move the one that his hand was touching, because there were people coming and going around the Basilica, but he would not have been surprised if the chairs were fixed to the ground.

He had heard in Jerusalem that Jews also prayed in this Basilica, in addition to many hundreds of synagogues that were scattered throughout all parts of Alexandria (because Jews lived not just in the Delta, the fourth district, but also in the other four districts as well). Uri looked over the eastern double stoa, or colonnade, to see where there might be an ark or cabinet in which Torah scrolls might be kept, but he saw no fixture that might have served that purpose. Maybe it was delivered here on Friday evening and for any feast days. That would mean the platform in the center of the stoa acted as the bimah, the “elevated place” from which the Torah readings were made. To hold divine services outdoors, under the open sky, was a fine, even sublime idea. He looked at the interior space and estimated that each row of stone benches might hold as many as a hundred people, which would come to 7,200, plus there was a lot of free space between the benches and the columns, while lots of people would also fit in between columns, so several tens of thousands of Jews might cram in if need be, assuming the poorer ones stood, of course. He felt a strong urge to take a seat in the middle of the first row of stone benches to the west of the rostrum, but not now — later on when a divine service was in progress. I’m going to win that right for myself, Uri vowed; it was his duty to conquer Alexandria.

He would have been more than ready to make a votive offering, but that was only possible at the Temple in Jerusalem, whereas here there was only a Basilica — a marketplace which could also be used as a house of prayer.

Scattered here and there on the rows of benches were small knots of Jews discussing various things, either doing business or gossiping in unhurried, contented fashion; around them women were chatting, their faces not made up, while children were running around freely and kicking up a racket. Whoever had power and prestige in Alexandria stood closer to the head of the Jewish populace than the priests in Jerusalem, to say nothing of the Roman Jews.

Under one of the arches a group of master jewelers had set out their merchandise; Uri went over and immersed himself in the sight. One master and his assistants were producing settings, the silver for which was heated up over the flame of a small oil lamp and bent with tweezers; the gemstones, standing nearby in a small container, must already have been cut. Anyone with the nerve could have snatched up a few of the sparkling gems and run off into the crowd, yet nevertheless no one stooped to this level, and the masters seemed to have no apprehensions on that score. Uri looked at them, and once again the thought crossed his mind that this would be a craft worth learning: it suited him better than cabinetmaking or laying stone floors. Who could know? Perhaps he might somehow get the chance.

In the end, he asked where he might find the stargazer Heraclitos.

On the third try, he was informed that the Jewish stargazers resided on the island of Pharos — that was where their synagogue stood, and anyone on the island would be able to tell him which building that was, and anyway it had a massive marble menorah over its entrance; Uri should go back to the harbor along the Heptastadion, to the island, you couldn’t go wrong. It wasn’t far, nothing in Alexandria was. He would reach it by evening.

Holy Moses, Uri sighed as he passed under the bridge at the southern end of the Heptastadion, the causeway that separated Alexandria’s two harbors, connecting the island of Pharos to the mainland. If I could only lay my hands on a shack in this wonderful city!

Stepping onto the causeway, he could see skiffs heavily laden with goods being rowed out of the Great Harbor into the Western Harbor, the port of Eunostos, through the seawater channel that ran under the tightly curved stone bridge at the Heptastadion’s northern end, nearly a mile away. The traffic was dense, with boatmen bawling at one another and occasionally even colliding or clashing with their oars. There was also traffic in the opposite direction, with all kinds of bales being moved from the Western Harbor into the Great Harbor. Boats, skiffs and other watercraft also plied a broad channel that fed from the southwest into the Western Harbor, which to Uri’s squinting assessment was a great deal larger than the Great Harbor. Might that be the channel that connected Lake Mareotis to the Western Harbor? No doubt. But he could not see the lake itself, since the tall edifices rising toward the south blocked off his view of the horizon.