György Spiró - Captivity

By the next day Hermia’s leg had swollen up to the knee and turned purple. Uri, thinking back to Judaea, tried to get her to understand that he would have to cut the foot open with his knife to release the pus otherwise it would lead to real problems, but Hermia would not agree, and Sarah also protested that to thrust a knife into living flesh was against the Law. Hagar, for her part, lay there and dropped off to sleep, wailing every now and then, while the children chased after one another.

By the evening the leg had swollen up as far as the thigh.

Uri could see before his eyes the medical tables they had learned in Alexandria. A swelling like this would spread farther until it reached the lungs, where it would be fatal. It was now imperative to cut off part of his sister’s foot, and not with the knife he had but with a sharp scalpel.

Hermia died at daybreak, having been in agony for hours, rasping and choking with the whole of her tumid right side burning. Her eyes rolled back hideously, she was slack-jawed, she tossed and turned, and in the end her back was frozen, arched taut in a spasm.

The family scratched at the earth, Uri with his knife, the children and the two women with their hands, and when the pit was deep enough they slipped in the dead body. It was no easy task as they were unable to break the corpse’s rigid back. They scattered earth over her, but could not cover her entirely, so they had to dig elsewhere, carrying that dirt over to add to what they’d excavated. Theo rambled a fair distance in search of a decently sized stone and with much effort located and brought one back on his own. Uri put on grandfather’s liberty cap, the women knitted a shawl, and the children pulled their little cloaks over their heads. Uri uttered a mourners’ Kaddish, the others added muttered “Amens,” and they all rent their ragged clothes.

They then ate all that they had; they had no wine or even water but swallowed their tears.

They sprinkled soil on themselves, their heads and clothes, washed their hands and feet in earth, then, bowing to the southeast and seated on their heels, they glorified the Eternal One. Uri glorified Him fervently and drunkenly until he suddenly realized that he was unable to recall his sister’s features — neither her face when she had been alive nor the face she’d displayed after her death.

That day they did not move on. Uri went off a little way and started sketching with a twig in the ground. He sketched portraits of all the people he had known who were now dead. Joseph, Philo, Marcus, a few of the Jews who died of starvation in Alexandria and whom he had seen once only — all except Hermia. The remaining two women and the children did not disturb him, thinking he was praying.

“He’s writing a letter to the Lord,” Hagar told the children with an air of mystery.

“Me too! Me too!”

All the children wanted to write letters, and they kept on pestering Theo until he had written down their wishes in the dust. They asked the Eternal One for their aunt to become an angel on the other side, to give her nice clothes, to get her a lot of honeyed flatbread to eat, and for her to be boundlessly happy, though none of them asked the Lord to guide her back to Earth.

There was no work to be had in Puteoli, with Claudius having done such a good job on developing the large harbor at Ostia, so much nearer Rome.

Uri paid rent on a dwelling in a suburb some distance from the port, at the foot of a hill not far from the villa at which Caligula had given an audience to the Jewish delegation, when Agrippa had suffered a stroke and all but expired. Cheap though it was, the dwelling was of course expensive for them, but Uri could not countenance leaving his own family without a roof and having to sleep out on the streets like true beggars. They got two rooms, with the children happily taking possession of theirs — after all, it had beds in it, real beds! They bounced on them and, try as Uri might to discipline them, he found that even Theo would not obey him. Uri had to concede that his paternal authority had dwindled since he had proven unable to drive death away from Hermia.

Hagar, sensing she was finally and permanently installed in a dwelling, now livened up and started to nag and nag at a husband who had kept quiet about carrying a fortune around on him. Uri let her rant, but the children took notice. “What a liar you are!” Uri went with Sarah to the market and bought everything the children needed, including sweets. Sarah asked a neighbor for a live coal to light their own fire then set to work happily cooking and washing, as cooking and washing were all she could do.

Theo had the job of calming his mother down, but even he was unable to stem the flood:

“You killed Hermia, you brute! We could have hired a boat and she would still be alive to this day!” Hagar shrieked.

“You never liked my sister,” Uri retorted.

“You don’t like anyone, you selfish beast!”

Uri looked for work, but no one was taking on anybody.

He would have preferred to avoid the company of Jews, but that was not possible on account of the Sabbaths and feast days; it was true they could offer no work, but they did send around a three-man team to assess the circumstances in which all newcomers were living. They sniffed around in the rented dwelling then, after a certain amount of whispered consultation, they announced how much Uri would have to contribute to the synagogue’s half-shekel Temple tax: two sesterces a month.

This was a stupefying amount.

“You have a large family,” was their explanation.

“But we don’t even have a menorah! Not even a crummy little lamp!” Uri expostulated.

“That we can give you,” was their answer.

They did not ask why they had turned up in Puteoli from Rome: the Jews of Rome had evidently not sent a courier out this far from Rome, so it seemed Plotius had been right about that. They didn’t inquire because it was not in their interest to do so. After all, unless they had good reason no one would withdraw from Rome to a declining town like Puteoli.

There was no work.

Uri tried to capitalize on his tessera, but the local magistrate did not wish to get involved even though he had a duty to do so: Romans were envied by the inhabitants of Puteoli even though most of them made their livelihood from letting summer cottages to them. Instead they asked for all manner of identification papers that could only be obtained in Rome, so Uri gave up trying. Only services catering to vacationers operated in the town, and even those only during the summer: whores, boatmen, bath attendants, restauranteurs, masseurs, musicians, and singers made a good living, but they ran closed shops, and never took in newcomers.

He took his children out to the coast to show them where Caligula’s bridge had once stood; now that no trace of it was left. The children were astounded and did not believe a word of what he said; Theo took a dip in the sea while the others, not daring to follow him, collected sea shells and took them home to make into necklaces.

Three whole months went by without any work; by autumn he was left with money for just two more weeks.

Uri even tried to sign up on a ship, asking for half the money to be paid in advance so that he could leave it to his family during the months he would be absent, but he was judged by his toothlessness to be too old.

The Jews had no need of a scribe or cleaner in the synagogue; they needed taxpayers.

“This is not a good place to come to,” grumbled an elderly, half-blind dyer. “This is a place that people escape from. My children and grandchildren have scattered in all directions across the big wide world. My own legs are too poor.”

“If I learn how to dye cloth, will you take me on?”