György Spiró - Captivity

Uri felt faint and fell silent.

“People in Ostia don’t take kindly to Nazarenes,” said Plotius, taking his seat again. He tried to pull a friendly face. “No one will put Nazarenes up. You’re frozen out. I’d never have believed that you are one too!”

“We aren’t Nazarenes,” said Uri. “I don’t even know what they stand for!”

“Scum!” growled Plotius. “The Jews in Rome are scum… But what can we do? The news has preceded you.”

They fell silent. Plotius Fortunatus had not taken the water out, so Uri drank that. He had not eaten or drunk anything all day, and his stomach was rumbling very audibly.

“This room would do for us overnight.”

Plotius sighed.

“I’m ready to put anyone up!” he protested. “I put up refugees from Alexandria, gave them food free of charge… I did the same for the Nazarenes at first, but they’re intolerable: they keep on pressing and trying to convert you. They do it even when they’re asleep. Totally mad! The Alexandrians at least did nothing more than wail and curse, that’s quite in order… But not Nazarenes — never again.”

“But I’ve told you: we aren’t Nazarenes,” said Uri.

“They believe you are!”

“Who’s they?”

“The Jews of Ostia! They got a clip on the ear from Rome; they even dropped a word with me. You have no idea how hard it was to come to terms with them! They wanted to demolish my house of prayer just when it was ready! There was a battle raging here on the shorefront — you’ve got no idea what they’re like! I enticed the faithful from the synagogue in the town — that was what I was charged with! There was something in that. I barely got through it!”

“We haven’t eaten all day.”

Plotius stood up and paced up and down.

“They’re on the beach,” Uri said. “Come and have a look. Mother’s gone crazy, my younger sister is a bit crazy as it is, my wife dumb as a dead person… I have two sons and two daughters.”

“With your describing them so nicely, what I am supposed to look at them for?”

Plotius went on with his pacing. Uri remained seated.

“Go to Puteoli,” Plotius suggested, taking his seat again. “I doubt they would have sent a messenger that far from Rome. They’re too lazy. You might even get work there: everyone is getting out right now, so if only because of that…”

It was dark by now, with a cold draft coming through the window.

“Just one night…”

“You can’t!” Plotius yelled. “They come to check! Take it from me that you can’t!”

“At least give us some food and drink! You’ve got that much.”

“All right, but you’ll have to leave and go as far away as you can.”

Uri got to his feet.

“We’ll do that,” he said with a smile. “We’ll leave and go as fast and as far as we can, don’t you worry!”

He reached under his tunic, pulled out the linen bag from under his loincloth, took out a sesterce, and plonked that down on the table. He then retied the bag, pushed it back under his loincloth, and smoothed his tunic. Plotius stared without a word.

“Matthew gave me that at Syracusa,” Uri explained. “Pass it on to him when you next see him.”

Plotius held his peace.

It would have been simplest to take a boat to Puteoli, but that would have cost a fortune, and Uri was unwilling to reveal that they were not exactly penniless. Let them get used to it — and to going by foot.

He took Irene and Eulogia, by turns, on his shoulders; the others carried on their backs a bag he had obtained from Plotius for the purpose of carrying what was left of their dried provisions. They had spent the night in the open air next to the synagogue as Plotius had not allowed them to come inside. The flask of water was entrusted by Uri to Hagar with the exhortation that water was the most precious of all: she should make sure not one drop was spilled. He had hoped that he would be able to coax a drop of solidarity out of Hagar by this display of trust, but her eyes remained blank, keeping her feelings to herself and resigned to enduring whatever she had to endure.

It was fine, it was summer; an exhausted person could have a marvelous sleep wrapped up in a blanket.

That was how Uri tried to buoy their spirits: Puteoli was a nice city, he had been there before, and by the winter they would have their own house there.

Theo was happy to walk, and with his hungry eyes he took in the whole spectacle; he even said expressly that at last they were taking part in a great adventure, and he reassured everyone that he could not care less about Rome. Marcellus no longer cried but marched, clutching his dice and looking straight ahead, doing whatever Uri told him. The women stumbled on; they did not quarrel and did what Uri ordered them to do.

Uri endeavored to spell out the advantages of a vagrant life: the whole thing would be a shared experience for the children, which would serve to bond them together even when had grown up and were left on their own; they would learn about wandering and doing without; they would count their blessings even more when the opportunity arose.

Uri led them southward across the meadows, away from the more obstructed coast; his goal was to get onto the roads in Campania that he had walked on fourteen years before.

He gave them permission to steal fruit from deserted orchards. The womenfolk said nothing; not even Sarah raised a peep in protest.

The blisters on their feet burst, but the skin on the soles of the feet gradually hardened. By then all of them were walking with their sandals slung around their neck. At times the girls would race ahead and set themselves in the grass and weeds, squealing with excitement, as they awaited the others. Marcellus would be in eager pursuit of them.

On the Sabbath it was forbidden to do work of any kind, including journeying by foot, so Uri marked out a distance of one hundred paces beyond which the children were not allowed to move, but the girls cried so hard that he allowed two hundred. Irene then went off two hundred paces from the bush under which they had settled and climbed up into a tree, on a branch of which she obstinately spent the rest of the day. Uri tried to coax her down by whistling to her but the rebellion was in earnest, with Marcellus and Eulogia jumping with joy and Hagar irately asserting that making music was also forbidden on the Sabbath, though Uri was of the opinion that whistling did not amount to working but was rather a prayer without words, and that was allowed. Hagar grouchily stomped off to one side.

They resumed marching until Uri all of a sudden sensed rather than saw that they were proceeding on what seemed like familiar soil. He halted.

That agreeable family with whom the delegation had been given lodging lived somewhere near there. He told his own family so: he had acquaintances there: happy, friendly people who made everything for themselves — sowing the soil, tending fruit-trees, shearing sheep, as well as spinning and weaving — he was quite sure they would be put up there.

Some buildings could be seen at the foot of the hill they had just summited: Uri shouted out that this was it.

Theo raced down the hill, with Marcellus hurrying after him. Uri and the women slowly caught up.

Four big, burnt-out houses stood next to one another, and sooty stones were all that was left; there was no sign of any roofing and the main beams were all charred. Any furniture had either been removed or had been burned to ashes. Where the stables had stood the ground was dark and greasy; in the former gardens only weeds pushed up through the soil.

“Jews were living in just one of the houses,” said Uri, by way of indicating that it was not only Jews who had been overtaken by the same fate.