György Spiró - Captivity

He tried to recall what he had written in the two letters. Maybe nothing of any importance. Pray God that was the case.

Between organizing Pulcher’s affairs and the impending wedding, Uri rushed into his new life in Rome, glad that he had a lot to do and would not have time for deliberating.

Visiting one of his customers, who had come from Rhodes, he noticed an amphora of exactly the sort he had seen in Alexandria, so he asked where he had obtained it. Well, it was relatives who had sent it. Did he think they might be able to send more? Almost certainly, but wine from Rhodes was not in high repute in Rome.

“I’m very fond of it,” said Uri, very excited. “I’m prepared to make an order.”

“How much?”

“Fifty amphorae? Or should I make that sixty?”

The merchant, a young man, was astounded.

“Wouldn’t it be cheaper by the wine-skin?”

“Why, is that expensive, the amphora?” Uri queried in all ignorance.

“No, it’s not expensive, but all the same it costs more. It might break in transit… A wineskin can only puncture, and that can be patched up.”

“Never mind,” said Uri. “I’ll order sixty.”

The merchant did a calculation, then handed Uri the total. Uri had a lot of money on him and paid instantly. They drew up a contract, which included the statement that it had been paid for.

“You’ll have to pay any customs duty,” said the merchant.

“I’ll undertake to do that.”

That too was put retroactively into the contract.

All the relatives were present at the wedding: from the groom’s side, Sarah and Hermia, from the bride’s side around twenty people, including all sorts of artisans and suspicious types from the harbor. Uri assumed his sunniest manner and joked with everyone, except his future wife; her family found Uri extremely attractive. During the wedding feast he whispered to his mother to ask his bride’s name, at which Sarah frowned disapprovingly. It turned out she still did not know.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Uri asked his wife once he had taken her back home afterward. Her family was not with them, having themselves gone home straight after the wedding ceremony, glad to have fobbed this daughter off on someone at last so they’d no longer have any need to be concerned about her.

Sarah had cleaned the house in advance, making a place for her own daughter in the nook, now that the sole room would belong to the man and wife.

“I know what you’re called,” the wife replied grimly.

“So, what’s my name, then?” Uri quizzed.

“Gaius.”

“Actually, it’s Gaius Theodorus,” Uri informed her.

The woman gave him a black look:

“Is that what you want — for me to use both names?”

“No, to you I’m just Uri.”

“Uri…”

The woman looked at her husband, whom she was supposed to address as Uri.

“Now then, sweetheart, so what’s your name?”

“Hagar.”

Uri was startled: it was not usual in Rome to give a woman a Hebrew name.

“It’s a shame I’m not called Abraham.”

Hagar was totally nonplussed.

“Hagar is a woman who bore a son to Abraham,” Uri explained, “and from him came another people.”

“Which people is that? And who is Abraham?”

Hagar’s eyes were blank.

“Don’t you know anything about the Scriptures?”

“No.”

“And you can’t read either?”

“No.”

Uri sighed but then said indulgently:

“It’s enough that I can.”

Uri took the lamp off the table and placed it on the floor, and they undressed in near-total darkness before slipping into bed. Uri pulled over himself the threadbare blanket his father and mother had shared; Hagar was prostrate, unmoving, her eyes wide open. It crossed Uri’s mind that in Rome it was not the custom for relatives to inspect the bloodied sheets the next morning, so he could even put it off, but he sensed that this was not an option.

He turned on his side, by which time his eyes had accommodated to the gloom, with the light of the lamp’s flame flickering tauntingly across the ceiling. He looked at his wife’s face from close up, the shadows now growing, then becoming smaller. His wife closed her eyes, as she still lay there motionless.

“Who gave you the name?”

“I don’t know.”

This spells big trouble, my Lord, Uri thought to himself as he set about the matter at hand.

“You’ve been with a woman before,” Hagar said when it was nearly dawn.

“Yes.”

“A dirty beast, that’s what you are! You should be ashamed of yourself! May God curse you!”

Uri was lost in thought.

Abraham’s wife was Sarah, and Hagar a concubine; he had a Sarah as his mother and Hagar as his wife. Abraham had the better deal in every respect.

In the first month, Uri earned very good money, but he still had difficulty making the loan payments, which amounted to even more, so he was forced to resort to the dowry. Irrationally, he did not touch the money he had received from the alabarch, as if it mattered from what purse he paid.

When the amphorae arrived at the port, it was spring, and Hagar, still taciturn, was starting to round out. Uri went off to pay the customs duty, calculating the sum beforehand to make certain how much he needed to take. An amphora of that kind was worth at least twenty sesterces, and if the duty was twenty-five percent here as it was in Alexandria, then that would come to three hundred sesterces altogether for the consignment — a lot of money! He needed to haggle that down, and he also needed to rent some warehouse space until he had sold the amphorae.

The excisemen were Roman and so discussed the matter in Latin.

“That’s good wine,” said the customs official. “That puts it at a value of at least 120 sesterces for the lot.”

“Come off it!” said Uri.

“Well, all right, the duty will be twelve sesterces!” said the official. “Or else we’ll pour out a bit from each amphora.”

Uri breathed a sigh of relief, though he was careful not to let it show. He announced that he was more interested in the latter option.

“But that will make it harder to measure what’s left,” the customs man pondered more deeply.

“At worst you’ll pour out more than a bit,” said Uri generously.

“The other way would be to hand over six amphorae to us, and that’s that.”

“I’d rather you poured some away,” said Uri.

“But like I said, it could be that will cost you more.”

“So be it.”

“You water it down, don’t you?” the excise man laughed, “You fill it back up afterward and sell it like that, eh?”

“You could be right about that…” Uri also laughed.

Quite a lot of good wine was poured out of the sixty amphorae into other vessels, leaving Uri with the entire lot. He was very surprised that not even one of the amphorae had been smashed; even the wax seals on the spouts were undamaged, which he considered to be a heavenly portent. He offered the customs official a separate measure on top of the rest, also taking a drink himself; the two of them savored the wine, and the customs man remarked that it wasn’t bad, but spit it out and asked, rather amazed:

“There are people who go specifically for that taste?”

“There are.”

“Rome’s overrun with nutcases,” the customs official declared with feeling.

For two sesterces Uri rented from the customs man a warehouse for three weeks, and he and his colleagues carried the sixty amphorae themselves; it was a treasury warehouse, and in principle the customs official had no claim on its use, but then he knew how to open the lock. Uri and he parted on the friendliest possible terms.

They’ve no idea what an amphora from Rhodes is worth!