György Spiró - Captivity

“They won’t even let a man sleep,” said the one sitting under the slit.

There was a silence; the new prisoner breathed heavily.

“Did they beat you up?” asked the man sitting under the slit.

“No,” replied the new prisoner. He had a pleasant, deep voice, and although he spoke softly, it seemed loud.

“Let’s get some rest, then,” said the man to Uri’s right.

There was a silence; all four of them were awake.

“What are you in for?” asked the man sitting under the slit.

“Causing a disturbance,” said the new prisoner. He must be Galilean, judging by his accent.

There was a silence.

“Not a big enough disturbance, sadly,” he added after a pause.

“Why are we not sleeping?” said the other irately.

“You go on and sleep; we’re talking,” said the man sitting under the slit. “What disturbance was that, then?”

“We went up onto Temple Mount, the women’s court, on Tuesday, to buy turtledoves, and I saw that they were cheating people. I told them not to, but they just carried on. So I tipped a few tables over.”

There was a silence.

“So where have they been banging you up since Tuesday?” the man sitting under the slit asked.

“Nowhere. We were allowed to leave. We live outside the city.”

“I don’t get it. So they didn’t even arrest you on Tuesday?”

“No, we went back the next day, and they were still cheating, and again I told them not to, but they just carried on. The guards then came over, we had a discussion, and then we went home. It was only today, in the evening, that they came to where we live, and I told the others to scatter, but it wasn’t them they were after; they only caught me.”

“I don’t get it,” said the other, the one to Uri’s right. “They went looking for you afterward to arrest you? Why didn’t they take you into custody straightaway?”

“I have no idea,” said the new prisoner.

“It can’t have been that much of a fuss,” said the one sitting under the slit, “because our police take you in straightaway for much less, especially on Temple Square. There, just one word out of place is enough. They get bonuses for making arrests there, especially around feast days — a per capita sum, I’m telling you.”

“What do you mean by cheating?” Uri inquired.

“Obviously he’s referring to the way the moneychangers charge more than a kalubon to exchange currencies.”

“What’s that?” Uri asked.

“That’s the moneychangers’ fee: a silver ma’ah,” said the one sitting under the slit. “A sixth of a zuz. Do you know how much a zuz is?”

“No, I don’t.”

The robbers were getting worked up; there were sounds of shifting about.

“A zuz is half a shekel, which to say a dinar or an Attic drachma, or in other words four sesterces… A silver ma’ah is two pondions… Now, then,” the one sitting under the slit asked, “how many sesterces to a kalubon, kid?”

Uri made an effort to calculate it, but he got mixed up.

“Give it to him in prutahs, that’s the smallest copper coin,” said the other. “Something like that would certainly be in the damn fool’s hand… Thirty-two prutahs… That’s a kalubon.”

“A prutah is also called a lepton, that much I do know,” said Uri, proud of himself.

“So far you haven’t set hands on anything else, you wretch,” the one seated in the middle weighed in scornfully.

“So anyway, how many sesterces is that?” the man seated under the slit asked again.

“I have no idea.”

The two robbers guffawed; they could hardly get over the fact that someone might not be able to do the math.

“Two-thirds,” said the new prisoner.

There was a slight pause.

“That’s right,” said the one sitting under the slit, annoyed that his little game had been brought to an end.

No one said a word.

“Why? What do they charge instead?” Uri inquired.

“In some cases,” said the one sitting under the slit, “it may be as much as seven or eight pondions! I’ve even seen them go for seven or eight tresiths, and the stupid klutzes don’t even notice! They’re from the villages, and they’re clueless! Just so you know, you moron: one ma’ah is just two pondions and three-quarters of a tresith. Instead of taking one sixth of a zuz, they may pull in as much as three quarters of a zuz! Four times as much! The fools keep coming; they know nothing about what things are worth, just the same as you; the peasants never handle any money except at times like this, so they get swindled out of a fortune!”

“Half the profits are handed on by the moneychangers to the high priests,” said the other, who, to judge from the rustling, was sitting up. “Of course they cheat, but it’s the high priests who cheat the worst, the damned foreigners!”

“They even cheat over the doves,” the new prisoner chipped in. “For a dove bought to redeem a lamb, they ask double the price, even though that is prohibited. I told them they should only be charging a flat fee, but it did no good.” His voice sounded tired and resigned. “They brazenly leech on people’s faith. And the wretched people hand over what little money they have, because at all events they have to have two turtledoves to make an offering…”

“That’s the third tithe of turtledoves,” said the other sarcastically. “That’s what it’s known as, and that too finds its way into the pockets of the high priests… They’re the biggest thieves of all, the high priests! That’s also why they live here, over the prison… They know this is the right place for them, together with us. They’re bigger villains than us; that’s why their rooms are bigger too!”

They fell silent. Uri regretted that he had never had any Palestinian money in his hands, and he had paid no attention in Caesarea when his companions had been arguing over the value of the local coins. At least now he had learned that one ma’ah is two thirds of a sestertius; if the chance were to arise, he would tell them.

He broke into a smile. Now he was unlikely to be seeing much more of them, thanks be to the Lord!

“Have you come from Galilee?” the one sitting under the slit asked.

“Yes,” replied the new prisoner, starting up from his doze.

“Do you pay taxes there too?”

“Yes, we do.”

“There you go! So you voluntarily changed money on account of the sacrificial doves, so it’s actually forbidden to charge you a kalubon! You should be getting money changed for free! Free! Didn’t you realize?”

“No, I didn’t,” said the new prisoner wearily.

“The brazen cheek of it!” the one sitting under the slit exclaimed. “The dirty, low-down scum! But they never get tossed in the can like us, because they grease the palms of the high priests! The dirtbags!”

Uri woke at daybreak. The new prisoner was quietly praying, bowing in a kneeling position toward the pitcher. The other two prisoners were both sleeping with faces to the wall, their cloaks pulled over their heads. Uri was shivering; he had no cloak, and his waist, back, and shoulders were aching. The new prisoner had no cloak either, only a tunic of white linen, but he showed no signs of being cold; perhaps prayer was keeping him warm. He looked at Uri while praying. The older man was just a pace away, his face clearly visible in the dawn light. His tousled hair and beard were turning gray, and he had gentle eyes, clear, pale, maybe gray, set in a puffy face; he must have been a handsome man at one time. He is almost the same age as my father, Uri thought, and smiled at him. The new prisoner nodded back and went on with his prayers.

The door then opened, and in came the two guards. They yanked the coverings off the sleepers, held a torch close to each man’s face, and finally stopped in front of the new prisoner. He got to his feet; each guard took him by an arm and they led him out. The door was bolted again from outside.