György Spiró - Captivity

A terracotta lamp was burning in the room, one exactly like the lamps in use in Rome. There was a couch with a blanket, a copper bowl, a pitcher containing water, another containing wine, a tumbler, and a fruit dish with dried figs, dried dates, and raisins. The room had a window, but high up and not so much a window as an embrasure that had been left between stones at regular intervals to let air into the room or to fire arrows out from. It was a windy night, as could be felt even in the room. This too was a prison, only higher class.

I’m in the Antonia, he said to himself in some amazement.

The fort had been built by Herod the Great and was named after Herod’s patron, Mark Antony. It could have been renamed, given that Mark Antony had been defeated by Octavian, who then became the emperor Augustus, but since Herod also managed to find favor with the latter, he did not do that. It was said that Augustus respected fidelity — or maybe the matter was of no interest to him.

Uri poured some water into the bowl, washed his hands and face, and as on each occasion since he had been placed under arrest, he prayed without being able to put on a phylactery. He also did not know which way was east, so he picked one of the corners at random and, bowing in that direction, recited the Sh’ma.

He begged his Lord that it would not come out that he had lied.

Now, after the fact, he broke out in a cold sweat.

The matter was not at an end.

In the morning he would be brought in front of the high priest and would have to repeat what he had said. He would have to lie again once he had started, because if he were to tell the truth, which was that no message had been entrusted to him, then he would be asked why he had lied to Pilate. That too was a sin — maybe an even bigger one. It was not impossible that Agrippa would drop by this way, he would be led in front of him, and Agrippa would be flabbergasted: he had never seen this person in his life! Fair enough, thought Uri, but then I could say that the message had been passed on by my father, and he in turn had been told by someone else whom he thought was one of Agrippa’s people… No, that’s no good. I mustn’t get my father mixed up in this; he has enough worries as it is.

For a few seconds he thought he was losing his mind: if so many people believed it, maybe he had been entrusted with a message after all, only he had forgotten. Why else would he have found his way into the delegation? He had hardly understood that before, and now he understood it even less. He racked his brain but he had no recollection of anybody entrusting him with anything at all, and his father had most certainly said nothing.

Was such a thing as torture practiced in Jerusalem? Why wouldn’t it be? He would not be able to withstand it, but they would not believe whatever he yelled out in pain, and would go on torturing him.

It was not a good sign that they were going to keep holding him in prison.

But then it was a good sign that this was a comfortable prison.

Maybe they supposed he was one of Agrippa’s important people, and they did not know what to do with him until he had been asked. But if asked about him, Agrippa would just dismiss the business, saying he had no knowledge of such a person, which would mean at best losing his head: one chop was all it took. An exchange of letters between Rome and Caesarea would take two weeks… Did that mean he had just two weeks left of his life?

He ran over the dinner again in his memory and came to the conclusion that he had not made any missteps. Pilate had struck him as being honest; Matthew had been amazed, of course; and all three of them had believed that Agrippa had sent that message to the high priest. Why wouldn’t they have believed it if Agrippa really were the sort of person Matthew and Plotius had painted? It could be that Agrippa really had sent a message through one of them; who knows, it could well be literally the one that in his misery he had made up.

He pondered what might have prompted him to say that. He did not rehearse an answer, only that he would be asked that. He had improvised and been believed, so if they had believed him, he might be capable of improvising a truth.

But why did I improvise precisely that?

There was no fathoming the workings of the human brain. He found that he was able to justify the answer that he had given retroactively: Rome would always leave local leaders in power as long as they pledged their allegiance, because it took the view that if they acquired authority, then they must be suitable people with the right local connections. Rome would only parley with rebels if it wished to overturn the local powers.

Uri’s belly grumbled. He had eaten very little, not wishing to overtax his stomach after fasting. He felt tempted to take some fruit from the bowl, but it crossed his mind that it may have been poisoned. But then again, why poison him if they presumed that he knew something? Only people who know nothing are killed… Cruel, but appropriate. What if they thought that he knew more? What if they wanted to knock it out of him?

He decided to stick with the lie for the time being. If he were to be confronted by Agrippa, he would say that it was the only way he could think of to hang on to his life. Perhaps he would be forgiven.

Life is cheap here. In Rome too, of course. Suddenly, it came to Uri’s mind: Surely it was not those two amiable scoundrels and that third prisoner, the scandalizer, whom Pilate had crucified. It can’t have been. Those were surely not capital offenses with which they were charged; scandal was most certainly not. And anyway their court hearings could not have been held yet. It must have been others who were executed; they had been taken to another prison.

He really could not imagine that his chance fellow prisoners — whom he had very little chance to get to know properly — might no longer be among the ranks of the living.

It was only around daybreak that he eventually dozed off to sleep; the blanket was warm and soft, and he bundled up snugly in it.

He awoke some time before noon. He washed his hands and feet, prayed, took some of the fruit, and drank some wine with a little water. The whole thing seemed like an improbable dream. How had he ended up here, in this room of all rooms, in Jerusalem of all places?

The guards came. They led him out to a corridor and down some stairs. He was led into a room, and the escort stepped back to the wall and closed the door. Uri blinked. The light was beating in through a wide, tall window. There were three men seated in the room on one side of a table opposite him, their backs to the light. Uri bowed and moved closer to them. On his way, he recognized the strategos. He was seated between two elderly men who were not wearing priest’s garb. Uri felt relieved: the high priest was not one of them because he was not permitted to show himself in non-priestly apparel. It then crossed his mind that the high priest would hardly be entering the Antonia anyway.

“Gaius Theodorus!” the strategos spoke in Aramaic, turning toward the elderly men in turn. “Native of Rome, nineteen years of age: you came with the Roman delegation. You were carrying a message from Agrippa to the high priest.” He looked at Uri. “You said last night to the prefect that Agrippa’s message was that he would leave Caiaphas in office if he could be king. Is that right?”

Uri sighed.

“Yes,” he said.

There was a slight pause.

“If the high priest is called Caiaphas,” he added uncertainly.

There was another pause.

The strategos nodded.

“Is that why you became a member of the delegation?” the man sitting to the right of the strategos asked. There was nothing pointed or accusatory in the question.

“It is,” Uri said.