György Spiró - Captivity

“Even the dogs!” wailed one oldster.

Homeless Greek vagrants foraged sleepily amid the graves, pretending that they had not noticed the Jews.

“They’ll report that we’re here,” whispered one of the women.

The young men set off in search of food; returned, bowed to the east to say their prayers, then shared out the fruit. Those who did not pray sternly pointed out that cemeteries were unclean, people should neither eat nor pray there; only after they had left the place. You must not eat, it’s not pure! You mustn’t eat! Four of the children were immediately forbidden from eating by their parents. An argument then broke out over whether it was permissible to pray in a ritually impure place, and to eat without praying in a cemetery. A few who were already eating stopped doing so. Uri took the view that in an emergency life came before everything else, but others argued that this was no emergency, no one was dying of thirst or starvation, that would only come days later — then it would be permissible. The refugees disputed with revulsion in their hearts.

Uri reasoned that they would be able to stay until midday at the latest for by then the rabble would arrive at the cemetery; they had no doubt been reported on long ago, not necessarily by the homeless but more than likely by their wealthy neighbors for pilfering their fruit. He did not know what to do. A fresh dispute broke out among the fugitives: some disparaged Flaccus, others defended him, saying that he’d always been fond of the Jews, he had almost certainly already mobilized his army to put down the rebels, they were probably already restoring order. Women were sobbing and squabbling. It would be better for him to move on alone.

Uri made a quick count of the people: fourteen adults and thirteen children.

He asked for their attention. He said that he believed they would be safest in Delta, where there were many Jews and would be able to resist even without weapons. They ought to make their way there by the alleyways in the southern part of the district. The mob cannot be everywhere, and anyway they would be likely to approach Delta from their own stronghold down toward the harbor. If they all advanced from the south, the small bands would not dare to attack them, their own group was too large. They should go by the back streets; the mob was rampaging on the main streets, safety in numbers. Together they ought to get to Delta.

That too sparked an argument. The young men were all for leaving the city. Away, away from here. Someone reminded them that there were armed gatekeepers. Well, they’d simply climb over the city wall: eight feet tall, certainly, but they would piggyback for one another. What about the children, then? Throw them over? Yes, throw them over. Would they be any safer outside? But the rumors must already have reached the countryside, they would be hunted down one by one. Just get out of here, out of this damned city!

Uri waited until noon for them to reach a consensus then struck out on his own toward the west. Rachel, the wife of the Greek convert, thanked him with tears for giving them the oranges that morning.

Uri found it easy to climb over the city wall to the west: it was crumbling and the stones jutting out made an easy purchase. He dropped down on the outside without being spotted by anyone. With his eyes screwed up, he spied the shoreline, where and skiffs moored to jetties rocked on the tide; the Western Harbor was a long way from here, some two miles or so to the east.

Uri staggered down to the shore. The sun was blazing hot; it was the time of day people were wont to creep into the shade for a nap. He washed his feet in the sea, noticed some mussels and sighed for the sin he was about to commit before prising them open and slurping up their contents. They tasted wonderful.

He didn’t know what to do. Perhaps he should wait until the evening before setting off southward along the city wall until he reached Lake Mareotis and could look for Philo’s house there.

Perhaps the alabarch was gathering his private army together and would return. It would be nice to think that, but then again it was clear that the lot of them had run away like cowards. The financial muscle and brains of Alexandria’s Jews — to whom he owed a debt of gratitude. He sighed with relief: he owed them nothing, they had deserted him when it came to the crunch.

Late in the afternoon a small group clambered over the city wall; they too ran toward the shore. Uri emerged from a shaded thicket. They were young Jewish men; they related how the previous day a large throng had gathered around noon at the amphitheater in the Eastern Harbor and speakers had demanded that the Jews place statues of the emperor in their synagogues exactly as Greeks did in their own shrines. Jews should observe the laws of Egypt and the empire; there should be an end to exceptionalism.

That was bad news: they had embroiled the emperor in all this. The Greeks were well aware that the Jews were not able to place any graven image in their places of worship. It wasn’t they themselves who had dreamed this up: artful ideologues had fed them. Like Isidoros, or Flaccus.

Someone brought up the idea of walking along the lakeshore as far as Marea, where the Third Legion was stationed, to place themselves under their protection. The soldiers would keep them fed and watered. Flaccus would put the revolt down for sure; the prefect would be bound to mobilize the army. Perhaps on the way there they would meet a cohort which was heading for the city.

Uri held his counsel.

At dawn the young Jews set off for the west along the shore. Uri climbed back over the wall in the same spot as before, and made his way back to the cemetery.

There were no Jews there any more. Maybe they’d been caught, but maybe they had just moved on.

He slept lightly, like a wolf, alternately fully alert and sound asleep. In that borderland between the waking state and sleep he was beset by strange visions. He saw himself from the outside: he was lying amid the bushes, but he also had a house, a marvelously splendid, grandiose house in Rome, and he was waiting for his children to get back home from somewhere: he had loads of children and he was rich, but then all at once the walls of the house disappeared, people tramped through the rooms, ate and drank, paying not the least attention to the host, Uri took offense.

I’m curious, that’s why I go back, he realized in one of the lucid moments. It doesn’t matter if it’s dangerous.

In his half-sleep he saw dogs, so he turned into a dog himself so as not to be attacked. He pitied them: being a dog meant canine captivity for life. He ought to change into a stone, but that wasn’t any good either: eternal captivity as a rock. Stars twinkle as they struggle in the captivity of their stellar existence. Nothing is able to be anything but what it is. It needs to be said.

That morning Uri got quite far to the south, keeping near the city wall so that in the event he was attacked he could quickly spring back over it. Over that way, too, the wall was neither tall nor fortified everywhere. It would have done no harm if, in the course of his long, solitary exploratory jaunts around Alexandria he had found out some more details. Why did I have no suspicions? I ought to have. The signs were there to be seen.

His thinking was that if he were to be pursued, once over the wall he would untie a boat on the lake and row off to the west: rowing single-handed at sea was not a good idea, but it was perfectly possible on a lake. But no one came along by the wall, so he carried on walking eastward. At the main canal to the east, the Taurus, he turned to the north. He passed by huts and workshops; there were few people out on the streets, and although they looked on him as an intruder, no one set upon him. Some stray dogs sniffed at him mistrustfully, they did not bite, obviously sensing that he would bite back.