György Spiró - Captivity

Pancharius slapped Joseph familiarly on the shoulder, but before he could utter a word Joseph growled at Uri, hurried over to the nearest table, opened his sportula, and started to pack food into it. Uri followed his example. Joseph, atypically for him, crammed food indiscriminately into his sportula; Uri tried to be a bit more selective and went over to a nearby table to pick some fruit, but his father went after him and grabbed him by the arm.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Uri squeezed a couple of dried figs into the basket and followed his father.

The guards at the entrance gazed at them in astonishment; on such occasions no one left this early.

In the street Joseph almost broke into a run so that Uri, who had become used to idleness, had a hard job keeping up and panted. Joseph came to a halt, wheeled around to face his son and, staring into the distance past his ear, announced, “The day before yesterday, Agrippa sent for me and saw me. He told me he had heard that several years ago I scraped together a few hundred thousand sesterces. He asked me to scrape together for him two hundred thousand sesterces as a matter of urgency.”

Joseph fell silent; Uri, feeling dizzy, held his peace.

Agrippa!

Agrippa was a notorious individual, a grandson of Herod the Great, a favorite of the senators — he would invite them to his carousals where he would scatter gifts around. Indeed, the emperor was in the habit of having him as his guest on the island of Capri.

“So what did you say?” Uri queried.

“What could I say?”

“So what happened?”

“I scraped it together. I handed it over to him yesterday morning.”

The world went into a dizzy spin around Uri.

His father had run up an immense debt. Who could say when Agrippa would pay off the loan, and how much interest would have accumulated by then on the money that his father had borrowed. No doubt the loan that was given to Joseph would have a fancy high-interest tag attached to it; his father would be paying off the capital and the interest on it to the end of his days, and the family would do without.

“Agrippa asked the bankers for a loan, but they refused; after some deliberation they suggested me, and that’s when he sent me word. No one would dare have asked Agrippa to pay interest; they are too scared of him, but me they are not scared of.”

Uri shivered.

“How much is the interest?”

“Twenty percent.”

They might well have crewed the interest even higher, but even so it was a full eight percent above the officially allowed rate.

“I suppose it wouldn’t be possible,” Uri started off, “to ask the knight for the money…?”

“No!” Joseph groaned and threw a sad glance at his son. “A reputable man doesn’t do things like that.”

He ought to ask for a loan from Gaius Lucius at ten percent interest and use that to pay off the bankers, but his father had already taken the hint. Uri blushed: the idea must have crossed his father’s mind, he could guess what Uri had been intending to say: “And I’m disreputable! It’s Agrippa who’s disreputable, always in debt!”

They fell silent. The whole thing was unbelievable.

“I don’t know who your companions on the trip will be,” Joseph said, “but they’ll know about the loan, and they aren’t going to like you for it. Be prepared for the very worst.”

After a short pause, he added, “I can’t help it, son. I had no choice.”

Uri wanted to say that Agrippa should have been given what he wanted, otherwise he would have his revenge, but he did not even bother because he saw that his father was paying no attention to him.

Joseph sat on the ground and, hunched over, started nibbling on a date. Uri took a seat beside him, and it ran through his mind that his father must have asked Agrippa in return that his son be made a delegate. Agrippa must have sent a message to the Elders and they quickly forgot that someone from the same clan had gone to Jerusalem no more than five years before. Agrippa was a big wheel, and bankers feared him.

My father does love me, after all!

That encouraged him, so he dipped into his sportula and took out a fig.

Passersby did not so much as glance at them; two Jews sitting in the street, even if they were ripping each other apart, were not a cause of any interest. Yet something major had happened, Uri considered: his father had just reconciled with his son.

“Did he say when he would give it back?”

“It doesn’t matter. What’s more important for you is to figure out how you are going to persist.”

His father must be aware that he would rather stay home.

“Never let yourself become stuck-up,” Joseph said. “Even if you know better than others, keep quiet about it. Better for people to think that you are stupid. They hate you anyway, so don’t give them any reason to show it.”

It was the voice of old times, when he had still seen clearly, and his father had treated him as a friend.

They chewed silently.

“It’s a big thing, getting the chance to go to Jerusalem,” said Joseph. “That is something I shall certainly never do.”

Uri did not dare sleep, he was afraid he would not wake in time; but he must have dropped off anyway, because his father shook him awake.

His first thought was the tessera, which he must not forget to hand over to his father, since it could be transferred, but his father muttered that he had already passed it on the previous evening. Uri clutched at his neck: the tessera was not there. Then a memory drifted back of those hours before he had gone to bed: he had handed over the lead token as if he were making a last will and testament.

As he tugged on his loincloth under his tunic in the dark, the thought running through his head was that the tessera was worth more without him than with him.

His father draped his gown over him. Uri protested, but his father squeezed his shoulder. It was a seamless, rectangular outer garment of cloth with a blue braided tassel dangling in approved fashion at each of the four corners. Uri had not owned a gown before; Joseph would get another for himself. If he could spare the money.

Outside, they dipped their feet in the brass bowl, dried them, splashed a bit of water onto themselves, or rather onto their clothes, then, bowing to the southeast, recited a Sh’ma. Uri did not take the teffilin off his forehead and set it back on the ground, but wound it around his left hand, after which Joseph placed his right hand on Uri’s head by way of a blessing. They stood like that for a moment and then Joseph went back in the house and pulled back the curtain over the entrance. Uri looked at the curtain, touched the mezuzah affixed to the door post; tears sprang into his eyes, but he quickly turned away and set off.

I am going to Jerusalem, after all. To Him in His Land.

He tried to be happy.

There were five standing in front of old Simeon’s house; they were purple in the moonlight. Barely had Uri reached them when they were joined by a seventh.

“I will be your leader,” said a tall, middle-aged man. “Matthew’s my name. I live in Ostia. To date I have taken five delegations to Jerusalem. You must do whatever I tell you to.”

The six of them murmured consent.

Matthew then handed out the packages lying by the house. He said this was the community’s gift and reminded them emphatically that anything durable would have to be given back on their return, so they should take care. The cloth sacks were not large or especially heavy. Uri tapped his and felt some sort of jug, then rounder forms, fruit perhaps, and a matzo biscuit cracked between his fingers.

“I have the money for travel expenses,” Matthew announced. “I’ll be the one who pays at the inns, at customs, for wagons, and for the ship. When we get back, I shall have to account for everything, and anything that is left, I shall have to hand back.”