György Spiró - Captivity

He was left to enjoy it for a while, but then a whistle shrilled. Uri climbed out; he was swathed in a white sheet and rubbed down, then led into a room next door, and his limbs and body were massaged with oils. That was something Uri had never previously experienced; he was amazed at how pleasant it was. His hair was also sleeked with oil and his scalp was massaged vigorously before the nails of his fingers and toes were attended to, being carefully polished with a coarse, granular material. When they were done with that, he was taken into the next hall, where he was also able to take a dip in a pool of water; it was cold, and he was not permitted to soak for very long. With another whistle he was ordered out, rubbed down once more in a thick white blanket of fine wool, and escorted back to the first room, where he again had oil smeared over him, this one with a different scent from the first.

An elderly officer inspected the results, with Uri standing there naked. The officer walked around him as if he were a statue. He nodded and went away. Uri was then slipped into a crisp, fragrant, newly laundered tunic and over it a toga, a real toga like the ones worn by Roman patricians. Uri would never have been able to drape the single sheet of the garment into complicated folds on his own, but that was the task of practiced hands, finishing up with one end of the toga being put into his right hand to grasp. Like a statue of the emperor Augustus, that’s how I look, thought Uri. He was given a pair of sandals of the finest leather for his feet, with the straps delicately laced around his ankles, hardly being pulled at all when they were knotted.

This time it was a younger officer who scrutinized the result, tugged the toga a little higher, slung the end to point to the side on Uri’s right arm so that he only had to grip the rolled-up tip in his fist.

“Walk about a bit,” the officer said in Aramaic.

Uri did what was bidden.

“Straighten up!” the officer said.

Uri drew himself up and walked around like that. It was hard to believe that a pair of sandals could be so comfortable.

“Wait here, you lot, until we come,” the officer said before going off.

Uri was left there, done up, dolled up, and generally made ready in the company of five soldiers. Rank-and-file soldiers, he supposed, gazing at them with screwed-up eyes until all at once he noticed a young, fair-haired man.

He was the one to whom Matthew had shown the safe-conduct. Uri looked defiantly at him, and he turned away.

He recognized me too, Uri thought.

“Where are you going to take me?” he asked.

He got no reply. Uri nodded. It had been a silly question; it would become clear soon enough.

His stomach rumbled. However much he asked for something to eat, though, the high-ranking officer had forbidden that he be given anything.

It was then that the officer who had smelled him reappeared. The others all saluted like Roman soldiers, though this was the Jewish army, the Jerusalem division. It’s Rome that sets the fashion in everything, thought Uri, the Roman citizen. He almost broke into a laugh, so grotesque was the whole business he was being put through; true, many big adventures would be in store for him.

The officer set off out of the room; the five soldiers stepped up alongside Uri and marched him out into the yard, then onward.

He was awaited by a palanquin with four slaves amid a team of torchbearers, and he was ordered to get into the litter. He turned around inquiringly but was pushed forward. Someone opened the door of the litter, and Uri, head bowed, had to scramble in. He barely had time to find a place to seat himself when, all of a sudden, there was a lurch as the litter was picked up. With that, they were on their way.

There was a drumming of hooves from both sides. Not only was the palanquin itself magnificent, it also had a guard of honor.

The window of the litter was curtained. Uri pulled back one of the curtains but all he found behind it was a wooden board; it was not possible to look out of the litter. He grunted in irritation; now was the first time he had become impatient since he had been knocked out. I shall never see Jerusalem, he thought to himself.

He was carried for a while, and then the litter was again set down on the ground. The horses also halted.

“Make way for the Sagan!” he heard the cry.

The litter was lifted up again and carried onward. The escort of a clattering hooves did not accompany them any farther.

Sagan?

That young high-ranking officer had been the Sagan, or strategos , no less! The Levite commander of Jerusalem, head of twenty-four divisions who at every sacrifice stood at the altar at the right hand of the high priest and handed him the Torah scroll! The captain of the Temple guard! The bodyguard! The highest secular Jewish potentate!

The strategos himself had smelled him all over with his own nose!

The litter must conceal some VIP if the strategos were proceeding at the head of the procession.

Who are they mistaking me for?

The litter was set down and the door opened. Uri climbed out and drew himself up. He strove to grip the end of the toga less tightly in his right hand. Torchbearers surrounded him. The strategos glanced at him, then turned away. They were standing at the entrance gate to some palace, with a multitude of guards on both sides. Uri came to notice that the palace was made up of two conjoint wings.

“To Pilate, for dinner!” announced the strategos before turning around and setting off. The empty litter was picked up and carried behind him, with the escort also setting off in its wake. The boots drummed loud; Uri looked down and saw that he was standing on marble slabs.

He looked around him. Off to his right was a stone wall at a man’s height and before it a long and graceful row of Greek-style columns lit by torches. Above it were sky-scraping bastions, exceedingly high, three of them, one after the other. He turned back and discerned the outlines of a massive palace. What could it be?

He was shoved from behind and found himself obliged to enter a gate.

They took an impressive marble staircase upward; masses of big torches lit the way and they passed a larger-than-man-sized statue — Apollo perhaps — at the turn in the stairs.

If they were leading him to Pilate, then this must be the palace of Herod the Great, where the governor lived when he was in Jerusalem. And one of the three towers that he had seen outside was no doubt the tower of Phasael, named by Herod after his younger brother, but what were the other two called? Let’s see, he had read about that. Yes, that was it: Hippicus and Mariamne! The first was one of Herod’s friends, the other a wife before he had her killed. Forty, thirty, and twenty cubits high, but which was which? Yet that too was something he knew…

Fragments of thoughts, pages that he had read, whizzed through his mind; he tried to compose himself. He would have to be careful, to keep his wits about him. This was not the time to be deliberating about that sort of thing. It had been interesting to sample the life of a prisoner, but why get oneself put back in prison when there was no need?

At the top of the stairs they came to a standstill in front of a huge oak door decorated with gold leaves. Servants on each side held it open.

Uri entered. The door was closed behind him.

He could see a long, uncovered table, a hand’s span in thickness, and a great many low, ornamental couches. There were big torches burning around the walls. On the table were some gigantic ornamental candles. Three people turned toward him; they were reclining on one side at the left end of the table, and they were looking at him. Uri was unable to pick out their faces.

He stopped and bowed deeply.