György Spiró - Captivity

Southeast Alexandria was living its own particular everyday life: asses were transporting goods, smiths smithing, cloth dyers dyeing cloth, in the gardens there were women at work in vegetable beds — this was no neighborhood for rabble from the harbor. It crossed Uri’s mind to ask to be admitted into one of the workshops; he could offer his labor and spin out the few days it would take before things went back to normal — after all, the prefect could not allow the whole city to go up in flames — but he decided not to take the risk: it would be better in Delta. He may not know anyone who lived there, but at least there were Jews.

He kept on swinging the staff until he finally decided to throw it away. Anyone who lives by weapons dies by them. But he stopped and went back for the stick. It wasn’t he who had started the carnage; this was something else.

Now he recalled that he had mislaid the scroll that he had taken to the Paneion. He was annoyed by that. It was a valuable scroll that he had taken from the alabarch’s library. Where could he have left it? He could not recall.

The staff at least was a good, strong length of walnut. He carried it in his right hand to give the impression that he was right-handed. Uri loathed all combat sports; he preferred sprinting to any of them them, though he was not too fond of that either. Now, though, he firmly gripped the staff as if he were holding onto the hand of the Eternal One.

He just has to have some goal in mind for me.

No doubt that was also the thought of those who were choked to death on the pyres before they charred peacefully away.

By now he was approaching Delta. He saw a large group drawing near coming from a side street on the left. He narrowed his eyes to get a better look, then stopped. A few characters with cudgels were driving around a dozen people before them, running at the double. As they got near Uri, one of the cudgel wielders yelled over:

“Come on, then! We’ll see how these Jews run!”

Uri joined them.

“Where are we headed?”

“Delta!”

It was two or three families they were herding on, from time to time beating them, men, women, old people and young alike. Uri brandished his own staff but did not hit anyone.

“They’ve all got to be collected,” panted one of the cudgel wielders, a large, muscular man with an intelligent look on his face, who was cheerfully, contentedly, almost amicably belaboring the Jews.” All to Delta… All… From everywhere…”

Doubts now arose in Uri as to whether it was such a good idea after all to go to Delta, but the pursuers were all strapping young men and would quickly overtake him if he were to make a run for it, so he trotted along with them.

They halted beside a pile of rubbish. Two of them waded in, flailing with their cudgels at the scraps of papyri, rags, and heaped-up debris, treading carefully, slowly, systematically. The site was drying out as the haulers had not picked up garbage for weeks now. Uri squinted first at the Jews, then the Greeks. The Greeks were standing with lowered cudgels. There were eighteen Jews and, from their standpoint, even if Uri was included, just five Greeks, the sixth and seventh still thrashing around with their cudgels in the garbage. The Jews could make a run for it, at least the young and fit could, but they didn’t. Instead they stood there, puffing and blowing, disconsolately, a couple of them even mumbling their prayers. Could it be that they, too, supposed that Delta would be a better place to be?

A dump wasn’t such a bad idea, Uri considered; better than a cemetery, at any rate.

He looked over at banks of the canal. There was no one down there, no fishermen angling for prey, no fishing boats. Anyone who could swim and could stand the stink would be able to get out of Delta as far as the lake. He regretted not having learned how to swim, but the Tiber, after all, was even filthier than this.

The two Greeks came back; they had not gone far into the trash, but they had not found anybody.

They continued toward Delta, the Jews running resignedly, the Greeks merrily, meticulously whacking them: they were glad the boredom was at an end; they, society’s scum, had become important and were fulfilling a lofty purpose.

They saw some burnt-out shops. They ran past a synagogue, its gate open, the bimah strewn with rubble; it had been ransacked. What was there to steal, for God’s sake? A Torah — that was worthless to them; the menorah — that might be sold or melted down; lamps — well yes, if it was a silver vessel. The Jews burst out into sobs as they ran.

They had recognized Delta’s boundary by the fact that the Greeks had thrown together from beams and stones a makeshift wall across the road; they were taking pains to cement the stones together, lugging over large buckets of sand, mortar and water. The group stopped.

“What’s this, then?” queried one of sturdy cudgel wielders.

“It’s going to be walled in! All the streets are being shut off!”

The cudgel wielder chortled and amicably smacked on the back of a skinny woman who was bent over by her coughing.

“Right! In with you!”

The Jews scrambled up the stones, and where the wall was still low jumped down, one after the other. Uri clambered after them and took a look behind.

“Drop dead, scumbags!” he yelled before jumping off into Delta.

On the other side several woman and an elderly man lay gasping on the ground. Uri kneeled next to the old man, who shielded his eyes with his hands.

“I too am Jewish,” said Uri. “Have you any broken bones?”

They sized him up mistrustfully. Some young men gathered threateningly around him. Uri got to his feet.

“I too am Jewish,” he repeated. “Do you want to look?”

“But you ran with the Greeks!”

“Because I wanted to get to Delta! I didn’t hit anyone!”

“Liar! You’re a spy for the Greeks!”

“Are you nuts?” said Uri, shrugging his shoulders, turning away and slowly starting off northward.

No one followed him.

In Delta, groups of people were standing around, animatedly discussing events; many were marching along with blankets, pots and pans, hammering on tightly shut house doors to no avail; elderly men of distinguished demeanor marched off somewhere or other, perhaps to confer, and firmly, with dignity, brushed off anyone who tried to join them. A long queue of people stood in front of one restaurant, perhaps waiting for food to be doled out; shops were closed, not so much on account of Drusilla’s death but because of the conflict. Uri picked up his pace; he knew that Delta had a big population, but not as big as this. He would have liked to get to the Basilica, because he was familiar with that neighborhood, and he would have found it reassuring to find a haven there, only the streets to the north were now sealed off; the industrious Greeks had built walls everywhere, cutting the northern and southern sections of Delta apart.

Uri stood by the northern wall; stonemasons were still working on the far side.

“What are they doing that for?” Uri burst out in Aramaic.

“Because the houses of the rich are to the north,” came a response in Aramaic. The man was standing nearby, watching in leisurely fashion, chewing papyrus bark.

“You mean these people here have been thrown out of there?” Uri asked.

“Certainly,” said the man. “This makes it easier to rob the houses.”

“But you can’t do that without the prefect’s permission.”

“You said it,” the man nodded.

Uri took a closer look at him. He had a black beard, black hair, and swarthy features, a fine figure of a man, maybe thirty or so. The man in turn sized Uri up; his eyes narrowed as he was plunged in thought:

“I’ve seen you somewhere before,” he said.