György Spiró - Captivity

Eventually they too reached the line of guardians of the law. One of them, fair-haired and young, gave them a once-over before nodding his head to indicate that they could move ahead.

Matthew stepped up to him, took out the letter of safe-conduct, and said something.

The fair-haired Jew flicked his eyes down at the safe-conduct, then looked up at Matthew.

“Which one?”

Matthew pointed to Uri.

Strong hands seized Uri under the armpits, and whisked him off behind the police cordon. Uri found it amusing that he was able to beat the air with his legs, he even laughed out. He was hit on the head. Everything went black: that much he could still see, and he was amazed that such things could also exist.

His head ached, but the cold was worse. He shivered, curled up, and noted that he was lying on a thin layer of straw on a stone floor. He opened his eyes.

It was mostly dark in the high, vaulted chamber. Two robust figures were seated on the stone, legs drawn up, backs to the wall, looking at him.

“What’s this?” Uri asked in Greek.

“Prison,” one of the figures replied in Aramaic.

Uri hauled himself up onto all fours, stretched his limbs, and wiggled his neck. Nothing broken. The nape of the neck ached a lot, but dully.

The builder had left a gap of a palm’s width to admit light very high up between the ashlar blocks. On the left wall, next to the wall opposite the slit, he spotted a wooden door with iron bands that could obviously only be opened from the outside. Uri stood up and inspected the slit; it had been cut into the middle of the wall, directly below the arch of the vault. As was his habit back home, he knocked on the wall, even smelled it. Blocks stacked beneath the slit were smaller than on the other walls, and moreover the wall only stretched up to the vault. The gaps between the stones had been liberally filled with a cement-like material, the mortar having trickled down before drying. It was quite possible it was laid later than the rest.

He tapped on all the other walls as well. All along the base of the wall opposite the slit there was a protuberance on which one could sit. Nearly rectangular ashlars of identical height had been placed next to one another, the gaps being plugged with gravel and earth.

What on Earth might the cell have been before it was converted into a prison?

He sat down and took a better look at the two figures. They were young men with coarse features; even seated it was clear that they were strong. Both were wearing tunics and cloaks, which was why they had been able to rest their backs on the cold wall. Where was his own cloak? It was in the sack. His father’s cloak. He regretted not having that.

“How long have I been here?” he asked in Aramaic.

“You were brought in the evening.”

Uri looked up. Beams of light were playing at the top of the wall above the door, but only above the door, grazing the wall diagonally, the rest being left in shadow.

“Is it morning now?”

“It will be noon soon.”

The slit must be facing east, or rather northeast.

Uri rubbed his belly.

“Do they feed you here?”

“You slept through breakfast. Next will be supper.”

“Just great!” said Uri.

He tested his eyes one after the other, but his sight had gotten no better from the blow. But it hadn’t gotten worse either.

He felt relief. He was only grateful when he thought of Matthew, who had informed on him and gotten him thrown in prison. I’m now in the right place for me, he considered, and laughed out loud.

The two figures exchanged looks.

The whole thing was now clear to Uri.

There would have been time before they left Rome to have his name added to the safe-conduct; after all, Plotius had said he was brought into the delegation even later, yet they had managed to get his name included. It was only Uri’s name that had been missing. Matthew had not so much as mentioned his name to the magistrate on the day before they had set off, as that was his last chance to declare that he would be traveling with six companions, not five. Plotius’s name had been added to the list even though it was only decided later that he would be coming. He, Uri, had been added to the list two days before, at Agrippa’s request, yet even so Matthew had not reported that; he could have done so at the time he was making the arrangements for Plotius. He had not.

Matthew must have planned in advance that he was going to inform on Agrippa’s presumed spy when he got to Jerusalem.

As a matter of fact, he had said so beforehand, in Caesarea, that evening when they had drunk wine together with Plotius. Of course, he had not been explicit, but Plotius had almost certainly understood. Plotius had also known what was going to happen, but he had said nothing — obviously because he agreed.

It did not pain Uri that he had been betrayed by precisely the two men he had thought most highly of among his companions.

I’m not suited for a delegation like this, he thought. Even prison is better; at least my position is clear-cut.

Uri realized that he was not afraid; he was quite sure he’d get out, and didn’t think that he was in true peril. There were adventures in store for him beyond his wildest dreams. How many Jews in Rome could tell a story of having been imprisoned in Jerusalem, of all places?

Uri laughed out loud.

He would no longer have to feel awkward among staid people of tawdry character and dubious intentions, prompted by petty political and venal commercial calculations.

I shall never again be a member of any delegation, he decided; no power on Earth can compel me.

He was glad that his instincts had not deserted him; he had sensed all along that something was wrong. He would have liked to think that he was simply imagining things, but he wasn’t. On the contrary, he had always sensed what he should have done.

I am perfectly sound.

He breathed deeply. The back of his neck ached, but he still felt strong. He would tell his father that he had grown up overnight: that was what had just happened to him.

“What’s typical here? Are prisoners interrogated at all, or just left to rot?” Uri inquired brightly.

There was a short pause before the one sitting under the slit spoke.

“Where are you from?”

“Rome.”

“You don’t say! Pay attention, then. A sentence has to be passed, so you get a hearing. The first thing to do is say this and that, you did nothing wrong, quite the opposite in fact, then someone weighs in with the accusations, and if there are any witnesses, they are heard, then the members of the court of law, the Beth Din, come to a verdict. In the villages three judges are enough, and in the towns it can be anything up to twenty-three, and verdicts have to be reached by a majority vote of at least two. The verdicts are given from the youngest, at the end of each row, to the oldest in the middle. While that is going on, you have to stand facing them, your hair has grown long out of remorse, and you are grieving, and you stand there penitently, your head hung low, even if you have pleaded innocence. If anyone has spoken on your behalf, they can say another word before the verdict is reached, but anyone who was a witness against you cannot speak again. After that, they cast votes. If you are acquitted, you are immediately released, but if you are condemned, they do not pronounce the verdict right then, only the next day… But if the next day is a holiday or the Sabbath, then only after that.”

“I don’t get it,” said Uri. “If three judges are enough, how do you get a verdict with a majority of three?”

“You don’t, in that case,” the other said. “The verdict is either unanimous or else they call in two more and from that point the two-vote majority applies.”