György Spiró - Captivity

Uri patted Theo on the head.

“This isn’t Athens,” he said. “Maybe before that.”

“But, father, if you have been expelled through voting by potsherds, that means you must be an important person!”

“Quite possibly I am,” Uri chuckled, “but I’m the only one who doesn’t know.”

The answer tickled Theo. Marcellus bored his way between them, and Uri also patted him on the head, though he felt bad, realizing that this was the first time he had given the boy a pat on the head.

He started to tell them about how many important men had been subject to ostracism.

Among those expelled from Athens had been Phidias, the greatest sculptor the world had ever seen or was likely to see, who had been accused of pilfering the gold that had been used to cover an ivory statue of Athena in the Parthenon. Phidias had deliberately put on easily removable gold leaves, perhaps counting on the malice in advance; when it was stripped off and weighed none was found missing, but even so he was forced to flee.

Another who had to leave his hometown was Diogenes, who was loathed in Sinope because he invariably told the truth. He was accused falsely of forging the Sinopean currency, but all the same he was driven out. His was not an easy voyage: he settled for a while in Athens, but on a trip to Aegina he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave in Crete. He was lucky to be bought by a decent family; he tutored the children and managed to get to Corinth. He even ridiculed Alexander the Great and the Athenian assembly; upon hearing Alexander had been identified with Dionysus, he is said to have replied, “Then call me Serapis.”

Diogenes came in very handy as an example for Uri since the philosopher had voluntarily made a virtue of extreme poverty, practiced it with a view to spiritual improvement, and attained the considerable age of eighty, at which he was only able to die by holding his breath.

“Does that mean we have become dogs?” Marcellus asked.

Uri told him that no, they were not dogs, nor was Diogenes, he was a fine, upstanding man and a great thinker, and the term cynic, derived from the Greek word for “doggie,” was just a term of derision, which sounded phonetically similar to the place Antisthenes, supposedly Diogenes’s master, favored for his lectures.

Uri was able to tell many tales like that, and they talked and talked as they made their way, small bundles on their backs, along the busy, noisy streets toward the city gate west of the obelisk that towered proudly in front of the Circus Maximus.

They left the city and took the road to Ostia; those going on foot did not need to pay any toll, only mounted messengers or those traveling on carts. They made slow progress on account of the women and children; Uri’s legs and back hurt, he was overweight. A spot of starvation would do wonders for that.

The money was no longer burning his skin under his loincloth; he had thrown Narcissus’s rag out that evening and instead tied up the cone in one of his own cloths. He had not counted it, but figured it must be a tidy sum: it was mostly dinars, but there were some aurei as well. The jangling protrusion under his paunch would not be apparent to anyone else.

He chirpily related how on good days with the delegation, fourteen years before, he had covered a distance equal to two marathon runs; it had been hard to begin with but one got used to it.

Then he let them in on a big secret: the reason they were heading for Ostia was because he had acquaintances there. He would be able to conduct his business from there, probably more successfully than from Rome, and anyway Ostia had a much better climate than Rome.

Marcellus was fearful of robbers, but Uri reassured him that they were not going to be slaughtered for the sake of a pair of dice.

“It’s better to have nothing, then they leave you alone.”

Theo cogitated.

“We didn’t have all that much and we were still expelled. Why was that?”

“We have a lot of things that can’t be seen,” Uri said.

“What have you got?” Marcellus asked.

Uri pondered.

“Knowledge — that’s what I’ve got,” he responded, “that’s what they envy me.”

“Still you didn’t know beforehand that we were going to be thrown out!”

Marcellus is not so dim after all, Uri was delighted to note.

“No one is clever enough to be able to foresee the future.”

“Soothsayers see ahead!” yelled Marcellus.

“But soothsayers tell lies.”

“No they don’t!” Marcellus protested. “I’m going to be a soothsayer!”

They walked, stopping from time to time when the girls needed to pee, then Hagar needed to pee, then Sarah, then Hermia; then the boys felt hungry and Uri kept their spirits up with the idea that they would stop for a meal at a hostelry. Hagar was carrying the rest of the family’s money tied to her waist under her smock.

“Let’s go back!” Marcellus wailed. “I want to go back home!”

“Our house is no longer standing,” said Uri.

“But it is!” Marcellus bawled. “We’ve done enough walking. Let’s go home!”

Uri sighed:

“We’ll have a pretty house in Ostia, much prettier than the one we had.”

Theo tried to calm his brother:

“This is the first time we have been out walking, the first time we have been outside Rome. Now we have a chance to see a bit of the world!”

“But I don’t want to see a bit of the world!” Marcellus howled. “I don’t want a prettier house! I want our own house!”

Out of exhaustion he finally went silent, lay down on the road, and fell asleep. They pulled the boy aside so that he would not be trampled on by carts or mules.

They sat under the shade of a tree; it was midsummer and stifling hot. The two girls, Irene and Eulogia, were crying and thirsty. Uri and Hagar stood by the roadside hunting for a carriage which was delivering food, and finally along came a cart drawn by a pair of oxen from which they were able to buy for a few asses a flatbread which was split up among them.

“Let’s go home, son,” Sarah chimed in. “The children are tired.”

Uri looked at his mother. A knot of matted hair was dangling over her unprepossessing face — cloddish features, hook nose, the bristles poking out of her chin, her dull eyes.

It was because of her, her dumb stubbornness, that we didn’t go to Caesarea. Now she had lost what little brains she had.

He looked at Hermia, her mouth agape, snoring as she slept on her back, with Theo brushing away the flies. How hideous and old she looked: her mother’s daughter. For what purpose are people like her brought into the world, he wondered? What pleasure does the Creator find in them? How come He does not inspect the womb? That should be His job.

Theo snuggled up to his father. He, by contrast, is marvelous, and smart, Uri meditated. One sound individual to seven relatives — but no, that was not right, because Joseph’s looks had been pleasant enough, and he had also been smart. The ratio was more like eight to two. The Lord must have some intention behind that.

“We need to go more quickly,” whispered Theo. “That way we get there and they settle down sooner.”

Uri stroked the boy’s golden locks.

Get there? But where?

“I owe you an apology,” Uri said softly. “I promised you that we would never be banished.”

Theo looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“When was that?”

Uri could see that he genuinely had no recollection of how scared he had been when the refugees had been driven out.

“You said that if our house were able to swell, we would take in all the refugees,” he reminded him.

Theo, who had a capacious memory, shook his head: he did not remember.

He had been born with a healthy mind and did not retain memories of the bad.