György Spiró - Captivity

Other patrons treated their clients haughtily, seating them at separate tables and serving them food and drink of lower quality than they themselves consumed. Gaius Lucius was wont to say that his clients should not flatter him to get better fare; flatter him if they wished, but even in their dreams they would not be able to imagine better fare.

Joseph and Uri would always set aside fruits and fish dishes that Sarah and the girls liked; they would only think of their own stomachs if there was space left in the baskets and anything left on the tables. Joseph in particular would never take anything that he truly relished: he was born a hedonist, and this is how he would mortify the flesh. He would overlook it if Uri placed a delicacy in the basket, but Uri would feel his gaze, and in more recent years he too chose the more mediocre foodstuffs for himself. He would look enviously at the non-Jewish clients savoring crabs, snails, and shellfish; unfortunately, any creature that had its bony frame on the outside and did not have scales or fins was ritually unclean in Jewish eyes.

Had Gaius Lucius not been so generous, Joseph and his family would have gone hungry.

A price had to be paid for that gift; every other morning they had to make conversation with the other clients and the slaves who had not yet been able to manumit themselves, or else — and this was most common — had not the slightest intention of purchasing their freedom. They were not held back from freedom by their long years of scrimping so much as by seeing that freedom was burdensome, irritating; it meant solitude and independent decision-making, and they preferred leaving their fate to the whims of their lords and masters. An emancipated slave did not automatically become a Roman citizen, a civis Romanus, merely a metoikos, a tolerated foreigner. Even a son did not acquire full rights of citizenship, including the tessera and its guarantee of gratis food rations; that was only granted to grandchildren. Uri sometimes imagined that he had been born a slave, and he caught himself thinking that this would not have been so bad; he would be given lighter work, reasonable for his poor eyesight, bad back, and bad legs — cleaning up or cooking, for instance — and in his spare time he could recline on a couch in some corner or other and read to his heart’s content. He would do everything that he did as a freedman, and yet better; he would no longer feel the pangs of conscience that whatever he was doing was not quite right — in other words, he was not making anything of his freedom.

It was no pleasure to chat with these narrow-minded simpletons, to nod approvingly at their opinions and hosanna their sagacity. One had to feign cordiality, lest they take umbrage, lest their jealousy and envy be provoked, because other clients and slaves, if nothing else, could do harm: whisper this or that into Gaius Lucius’s ear and suddenly they were no longer welcome at the grand man’s tables. Uri had seen that sort of thing more than once by now.

It was best to appear gray in this colorful mob — stupid and harmless. Much as back home, on Far Side, among the Jews.

Ever since Joseph had become the silk purveyor to the court of knight Gaius Lucius, other clients and the older slaves never missed an opportunity to pester him for tiny, insignificant, negligible sums of money, as a token of the years of servitude they had shared with his father, Thaddeus, the many, many years of shared suffering, and also in requital for purported support and assistance given many years ago. They too, like the Jews, supposed that Joseph was rolling in money, but keeping it quiet. Gaius Lucius himself was not loath to encourage that impression, as he would proudly announce that he had talked Joseph into importing silk for him, and within two weeks Joseph had done so. It was not true, but it sounded good and served to boost the prestige of Gaius Lucius that he had such a talented client.

Hitherto the silk had hindered jealous clients, and the even more jealous acquaintances among the slaves — friends — from being able to harm him: Gaius Lucius valued highly the services that Joseph had rendered him, and even more highly that he could boast to other dignitaries about being blessed with a Jewish client who had such business expertise. As long as Gaius Lucius took delight in this ridiculous tale, trotted out a hundred times and more by now, they could never put a knife in Joseph, and everyone was well aware of that; but the moment Gaius Lucius hinted that he was would wear linen or wool, starting tomorrow, there would be wretched times ahead for Joseph and his family.

Joseph withdrew into a corner and did his best to make himself as inconspicuous as possible; Uri stood beside him and, eyes blinking, stared into thin air. They were waiting until Gaius Lucius worked his way around to them. Uri would have made a start on filling his sportula, but his father growled; Uri stopped, and Joseph shook his head. Uri did not understand but shrugged his shoulders and waited beside him.

Accompanied by a gaggle of clients, the knight, freshly bathed, freshly shaven, and clothed in one of his marvelous silk togas of shifting color, smiled benevolently at them.

“Ah! My dear Joseph! Uri, my dear boy!” he declared, pulling them in to embrace them. He prided himself on knowing the names of all his clients without fail, and not just the office they filled but also the nickname by which they were called within the family, and he never had to resort to the help of nomenclatures — that is, slaves who prompted him with the names.

Unbearable wafts of rare salves swirled around them, with Uri picking out balsam among the scents, which he particularly loathed — not because it was a product from Judaea but simply because his eyes did not tolerate it.

His father departed from custom in announcing to the parting knight, “Sire, my son will be absent from your hearth for several months: he is setting off for Jerusalem tomorrow.”

Gaius Lucius swung around in surprise:

“Jerusalem, indeed? That is a long way off.”

“He is being sent there for the big feast,” his father carried on.

“That’s as it should be,” said Gaius Lucius, and turned away to move on.

“Sire!” Joseph addressed the knight again. Gaius Lucius, now astonished and fast running out of patience, turned back once more. “May I ask you, Sire, not to mention this to anyone else; my son’s trip is of a confidential nature. He is making the trip for the feast of Passover.”

“Yes, of course,” Gaius Lucius said distractedly, and it was clear that he had no idea what Passover was, and that he was dithering for a second before asking, but seeing the pack that was with him, he chose to go onward. Joseph’s request was superfluous: the knight had already forgotten the whole thing.

Uri kept quiet. He had inferred correctly that he was going to be a delegate, that’s what his father had said. His father also kept quiet, but then he spoke:

“Bring him a gift — most definitely! Some unusual specialty. Don’t forget!”

“I won’t,” said Uri.

Some people stepped up to Joseph. Uri respectfully greeted them, and on Joseph’s face appeared a smile of forced attentiveness, as always when he had to speak to people with whom he had no business. It started off with household gossip, with servants and clients earnestly expounding and Joseph smiling, nodding, and feigning interest. Uri could see from his face that he was very tense; it must be something serious, he supposed. What is he worried about, and why do I have to go to Jerusalem?

A plump, jovial, slit-eyed, bald man joined the group. Uri looked across at him with loathing: this was Pancharius, also one of Gaius Lucius’s freedmen, a slave-trader. Unwanted children — especially girls, who were worthless, but also a good numbers of boys — would be turned out of families by Romans, Italians, all kinds of peoples, with only the Germanic races and Jews forbidding this. That is how the unwanted progeny of wealthy citizens, equites, and senators became slaves and never learned about their true descent. Ever since peace reigned in the world, because Augustus had abandoned further invasions and set his sights on maintaining the imperium’s borders, a policy that Tiberius, his son-in-law and successor, had wisely adhered to, prisoners of vanquished peoples no longer flowed into Rome like Uri’s ancestors of old had; indeed, people were now even willing to pay parents money for surplus children.