György Spiró - Captivity

Wherever a quorum of ten Jews are together, God is present; to be more precise, the Shechinah, or Divine immanence, is present in everyone, and for that reason the place is holy. Thus, the house of the owner of the sawmill had become holy simply by virtue of their male presence — at least as holy as the house of prayer itself. Indeed, they were even able to take a dip in the basin again before prayers, whereas in the house of prayer the faithful would only have been able to dip their hands in a bowl of water placed there for that purpose, and perhaps splash a little water casually on themselves. They too were able to partake of a big meal, which after all is the very essence of the Sabbath, because the Omnipotent arranged that on the seventh day even Jews who might have been starving until then should finally have access to food that was adequate to man.

Uri ruminated on whether the nearby brothel did not also become a holy place on the Sabbath. There were almost certainly ten men in the building who were praying right then in the prescribed fashion. Maybe most of them were even present together with Cornelius and his family for the regular Sabbath service in the house of prayer, and also said the “Amens” in the right places, and overate at the free meal. Maybe they even took along with them yesterday’s wives, whom they would be divorcing that day; for after all women and children were of equal rank, it was just that they only had to say the Sh’ma twice, once in the morning and once in the evening.

The sailors and wenches were beyond reproach: they observed the law.

It was a wise ordinance of the Lord that the Torah was the centerpiece of the religion rather than the house of prayer in which it was read out from. Since the Diaspora came into existence it is permissible to read from the Torah anywhere if ten men were present, and there would usually be that many assembled.

As a result, they did not meet with the shuttling priest, who had nothing to say on the matter of the brothel but was all the more a windbag on other matters, or with the local Jewish beggars who would overrun the courtyards and gardens of prayer houses in excessive numbers on such occasions (just as they did the surroundings of synagogues in Rome). Still, when all is said and done, and in spite of sleeping through the Sabbath service in the house of prayer, they too, worthy members of the Jewish delegation from Rome, observed the law nonetheless.

At first light on Sunday the ship was loaded, along with the galley slaves, with all sorts of precious cargo, half of which were luxury goods that the rich of Judaea craved, their wives especially: oils, paints, and balms with which it was the latest fad to daub the body in Italia; caskets of jewels; small mirrors; little jars. There were also medicinal herbs guaranteed to cure all manner of ills, either moist in barrels that kept them fresh or in sacks, dried and powdered: rejuvenating salves, aperients to loosen constipated bowels, emollients to calm loose bowels, remedies to inhibit hair loss or counter balding, potions to regrow split nails or banish pimples and warts — all in copious quantities.

The other half of the cargo consisted of Sicilian wine and sizable sacks of almonds. Before now, Uri would have been unable to conceive of that amount of almonds. He had eaten them once before: the roast fish at his bar mitzvah had a thin sprinkling of roasted almonds.

Uri himself also carried a number of smaller parcels over the plank onto the skiff that plied between the ship anchored in the bay and the shore; squinting sideways, he marveled meanwhile at the slaves, who, without a word of complaint, carried barrel after barrel, their eyes dull, apathetic, as if they were oxen or mules driving a mill. When they had finished, they seated themselves in comfort, insofar as their chains permitted; they were chained together in groups of ten, thanks to the newfangled Roman decimal system, which the Jews of Judaea had also adopted, so it seemed the chain gang was an Italian product. It was obviously more comfortable if the shackles were not unfastened when they prayed. Uri got to thinking whether it was pleasing to the Lord to be prayed to by people who had been clapped in irons, although of course He must have gotten used to that sort of thing down the millennia.

The slave driver and his assistant arrived and doled out the rations into small dishes, which were produced from under their leather-belted tunics. The slaves slurped greedily and dug into their food with dirty hands. Uri wondered what he would do if he had been born a slave; he would die of hunger if he could not wash his hands.

I didn’t say goodbye to Aaron’s slaves, it crossed Uri’s mind, and he felt an unpleasant twinge in the pit of his stomach. What must they have thought of the delegation? What had his grandfather, Thaddeus the slave, thought of masters?

When the sailors, sleepily, tottering, put in an appearance, the captain, who had not been with them at the brothel but had celebrated the Sabbath together with the slaves and some of the slave drivers, issued the order to set sail. Uri wondered if a wench had been rowed out to the boat for him, or maybe he had a male lover among the slaves.

The travelers were dead tired by the time they came to say dawn prayers, bowing to the prow of the boat in a southeasterly direction, or, rather, more to the east. The stem had an odd appearance; the curved beams on the two sides were arched gracefully toward each other and upward, as if seeking each other out proudly at the front, yet they met merely in a stubby, thick stump. Uri gazed at the stump with tightly screwed eyes before gradually realizing that a figurehead of some kind must once have been placed there, a god or goddess, as was customary on Roman ships, but when it was bought by Jews they had it sawed off. They circumcised the ship, thought Uri sardonically, before chiding himself.

The ship had been late, waiting for a consignment of balsam that had not arrived in time for some reason. They had also been waiting for a substantial cargo from Galilee, and things from there were always delayed; people there were never in a hurry. The timber had been loaded a long time ago, but balsam now fetched a high price, so it was worth waiting for it.

The captain had also heard about there being a demonstration of some sort at the stadium in Caesarea, but that had not been organized by local Jews; they were very sober-minded and calm and had nothing to do with it. These were people from Jerusalem, not in the hundreds or thousands, just a few dozen angry vagabonds; they had come to no harm and had gone home peacefully. That was not the reason for their being late; it was because the balsam had not arrived.

The ship was pervaded with the aroma of balsam. Nauseated by it, Uri tried vainly to rid his nostrils of the smell. Their quarters were in the belly of the ship, but the dreadful stench there proved, if anything, even more penetrating, so he went up on deck at the stern, sat down with his back against the wall of the bridge, and went to sleep, seated in the open air.

He woke up to find his hands were freezing and felt a tickle. He grabbed and got a yelp in response. He opened his eyes to see a squat, short-legged, short-coated, odd-looking, long-snouted, light brown dog leap away. It came to a stop about three feet away and watched expectantly. Its legs were not just stubby but also bowed, and its long tail whisked right and left. Uri had not had much to do with animals, having at most had to chase away cats, of which there were a great abundance in Rome; a few of the residents of Far Side had kept goats and sheep, out of respect for tradition, but only a few, because there was nowhere to graze them.

“He’s called Remus,” said in Aramaic a sailor who had just shinned down one of the masts.