György Spiró - Captivity

“And your historian is going to write about that?”

Kainis laughed:

“Near enough.”

Two days later Uri went back to the palace to get an answer. A guard again went inside. Uri waited a long time. Then the gate opened and the elderly woman herself stood there in a shimmering, iridescent silk tunic, ribbons in her silvery hair, a dour armed man on either side.

“It’s a no go,” Kainis said regretfully. “The emperor was furious about it. He said that a lifting device like that would rob people of work and it would not pay to keep them on a daily wage.”

“I suppose I must be thankful that he didn’t have me executed,” Uri said, bowed his head, and went away.

A person did not need a library to write a book. One needed nothing more than papyrus and ink.

What was it, in fact, that he wanted to write? Maybe things that had never been written down before, and if they had not been written down earlier, then they were new. Still, there was something different from previous ages about the present age, he supposed, and maybe it wasn’t an accident that the Anointed had not come earlier, or so the deranged zealots believed, but nowadays.

There was no necessity to write a bulky historical work replete with facts. It was possible to write, without any facts at all, letters about things of importance, or figures of importance, like Seneca’s letters to Marcia. It was just that writing like that would not provide a morally ennobling solace but quite the reverse. People should quake in their boots with fear, as Aristotle wrote.

“Letters to Kainis.”

There were a number of ongoing construction projects that he was head of; they paid well and he was able to set aside enough to support the total costs of keeping himself for a year. His daughters, even though he was supporting them, were continually asking for more; nothing was enough for them, but now they would have to make do with what they had. He ought to be able to get the essence down in one year, he supposed.

He tingled with a pleasant sense of excitement; he was about to embark on a new life.

It is hard getting going with writing; Uri would lie on his bed at night and try to figure out what to start with — who and what should he write about to Kainis.

One evening he had two visitors, Iustus and a Latin. Uri scrambled to his feet. Iustus did the talking: Uri was requested to become a member of the committee on the fiscus Judaicus —this nice man of the equestrian order was the praetor and he represented the state. With due regard to his experience and wisdom, Uri could be offered the sum of one hundred thousand sesterces for his cooperation; the other Jewish members worked for free.

Kainis is reaching a hand out for me, it crossed Uri’s mind, and he smiled.

He thanked them for asking but, given so many existing calls on his time he would have to decline. This was noted with relief by Iustus and uneasily by the praetor: obviously it was him who would be hauled over the coals by Kainis or Posides. Though he did what he could to convince Uri, the latter politely showed him the door.

The first night on which he sat down to write he found the light shed by the oil lamp to be inadequate. He needed to buy another. Nerves, perhaps, he thought.

It is hard getting going.

There were now three lamps burning on the table but still he could not see any letters. He bent his head down closer, pulled it back farther, but the contours were still uncertain, and precisely in between there seemed to be nothing. What the devil?

By day he would have to peer on the building site, examining the murals, and he noticed that in the middle of his visual field he could see nothing, only if he looked at them sideways, but if he moved on he could still see something there. His right eye had always been the worse but with that he could at least vaguely see something in the center; his left eye was the better one, but with that he could see nothing in the center.

That night he strained his eyes mightily to see his own handwriting on the sheet of papyrus but then it began to hurt and burn, and they became dried out.

Drat! There was no need to get so excited!

He took out one of his scrolls but he had a hard job making out the letters on that either. He had been semi-blind nearly all his livelong days, but at least he had been able to read. It was no use holding it closer, no use holding it farther away.

I need a long rest, Uri thought. I’ve been working too hard.

He couldn’t sleep, and it was getting on for daybreak, when he perceived the first rays of light, before he regained his composure. He tested which eye he could see better with: there was no doubt the sight in his right eye was better. Maybe it was starting to improve. It is said that the very short-sighted begin to see things at a distance more clearly as they get on in years, and people who had good eyesight find they can see nothing close at hand.

At the building site he went up close to a wall, then farther away, then he peered at it askew. He had the impression that he saw it more clearly that way. Perhaps from now on slantwise was how he ought to read as well.

That night at home he went to bed; it was a moonlit night. He closed his eyes and then opened them: he could still see light. It had been a transient dysfunction; he needed to get a good night’s sleep.

In his dreams he could see well; pictures had been sharp in his dreams all along. When he woke up and could see only vague outlines, and only out of the corners of the eyes, he groaned.

Good God! Is this blindness?

He had to wait several weeks for true blindness. Just enough time to make some necessary arrangements. He acquired a sharp scalpel to open his veins any time. He went out to see his daughters and inform them that soon he would be unable to see anything at all, so would they be so kind as to see to his daily needs if they had a wish to receive any inheritance: there would be more or less according to how they conducted themselves.

Irene wailed and cried crocodile tears; swarthy-skinned Isaac, her husband, the one-time water-carrier but more recently a tax collector, maintained his silence. Isaac, it was said, had worked his way onto the committee which assessed and collected the Jewish tax — a consilium , as it was called, with powers to search houses and a Latin praetor at its head. Uri congratulated him. They did not understand why he was not more enthusiastic.

It’s more than possible that this Isaac will be an executioner should the occasion arise, Uri contemplated, cursing Kainis for her munificence. The stupid woman might at least leave my grandchildren out of it if she was unwilling to bear me any children.

He repeated: would they be so good as to nurse him as he would be unable to see anything. They promised.

Eulogia, the younger daughter, looked at him dopily, glancing at her mother, who lived there. Hagar muttered angrily: “Your father acting up again, is he?” They had two children there.

Uri picked up his pay at all three building sites. At home he had devised ingenious hiding-places in the floor, and he split the coins between them. What a stroke of good luck it had been to learn tiling. With great difficulty he wrote out a final will and testimony, leaving blanks for the names.

He took a deep breath, then cautiously, staying close to walls, he stumbled his way over to Salutius’s place and asked for his share.

“Certainly,” said Salutius. “Of course.”

Only he did not have it as ready money because he had invested Uri’s share so it would earn a decent return, but there was no rush to take it out now because they could get it back later on at a nice interest.

“I need it now,” Uri said.

Not now — that was the agreement.