György Spiró - Captivity

By then Uri was heartily sick of the whole thing, and he said as much.

“It will be fixed…”

The response was a general shrieking. The room full of servants, plowmen, and sheaf-binding women now set up a panicked cry: “Fix the yoke? Fix the yoke?”

Master Jehuda drove them away from his house with his yelling.

The only one left screeching about the yoke was the old woman. Master Jehuda began belaboring her with his fists and with great difficulty removed her from the room.

He seated himself, disheveled, sweating, panting, next to Uri on the edge of the bed, which sank under his weight, sending shooting pains through Uri’s shoulder.

“That’s big trouble you’ve brought, Theo!” Jehuda said disconsolately. “Big trouble you’ve brought on us!”

“I only wanted to plow to be able to eat,” Uri responded angrily. “I’m hungry!”

“I’ll give you something to eat,” said Jehuda, “but the yoke, the yoke!”

“They’ll repair it,” said Uri.

Master Jehuda cried out. Uri sat up on the bed and looked in amazement: the massive body of the man was shuddering as he sobbed.

“It’s forbidden to repair a yoke!” he cried out. “That’s big trouble you’ve brought on us, Theo! There’s going to be a drought because you’ve broken a yoke. An easterly wind has been blowing up till now as it is, and now it’s sure to keep blowing until the autumn! The yoke’s broken! The yoke’s broken!”

Oxen were held in such esteem in Judaea that whenever any of them turned wild and gored a man to death, not only the owner but also the oxen itself had to be present, chewing the cud, when it was sentenced; it was forbidden to sit in judgment in the absence of the ox in question, and if it was not there, then the hearing had to be postponed. That was what Uri learned as his hand and shoulder were being poulticed. He also learned that it was never permissible to repair a broken yoke and that although a wooden yoke was more fragile it was not permissible to employ a durable yoke made of metal, as it would signify eternal slavery, which should not be inveighed against either man or beast, blessed be the Almighty, who set this into law. It may not be written down, so one wouldn’t find it in the Torah, but it was the tradition dictated by the Eternal One, the protector of enslaved people and animals, blessed be He for this forever. The crack when the yoke broke undoubtedly reached the all-hearing ear of the Everlasting Lord, no doubt deaf to many prayers, and He was angry that men were tormenting his animals, and that was why as a punishment he will send a drought to the land of his chosen people. On account of that crack there would be drought and famine throughout Judaea and maybe even Galilee too!

This was all explained by Master Jehuda, who had been driven from his own bed and was obliged to sleep in the bed of the screeching old woman, who was his lawfully wedded wife, while Uri recuperated. The two beds had been put some way away from each other, although in Palestine, in principle, or so it was claimed in Rome, husband and wife were supposed to share the same bed. Maybe there was a different custom in Judaea, or perhaps the two of them had long not been a true man and wife.

The shoulder hurt, it was true (the puffiness and bruising of the hand had started to subside), but Uri still took great delight in stretching himself out on the hard couch and gazing through the tiny window overlooking the yard at the blue and green lights glinting outside as his stomach peacefully made music. He was given food: leavened bread, which at his request was not dipped in vinegar, along with greens and fruit and even wine — only raisin wine, admittedly, but it tasted good. The Lord might be justifiably angry about the yoke breaking, but not at Uri.

He was treated like an uncommonly welcome guest whose very presence was seen as an honor.

Uri inferred that it was for purposes of instruction that Master Jehuda had let him go hungry for two days when he first arrived, but it was not his business to roast his guest over a slow fire and eat him. There was something forced about his solicitude; he smiled and joked more than Uri would have allowed himself had he been in the same position. Might he be acting under instructions, he speculated, but then when, and from whom?

Uri was well aware that he had been banished to this village despite the fact that no punishment of the sort existed in Judaea; on this, the living puppet in Jerusalem must have been right. Still, Uri did not understand how a message would have gotten from Jerusalem to the master, unless, perhaps, his escorts had dropped in after they had parted with Uri. That, however, was not very likely, as Uri had quickly located Jehuda’s place, and there was no sign that his escorts had been there before him.

This evening marks the onset of the Sabbath, he mused. He would certainly not be asked to work tomorrow, by Sunday even his shoulder might be better, and it was rather unlikely that he would be entrusted with plowing anymore.

On the Sabbath two weeks ago he had been alone in the prison; the two rogues who were charged with robbery and the third man had been taken away. He had been alone in the prison cell for one week, and he had not known that he would be dining with the prefect. Now here he was, lying in a godforsaken Judaean village, the name of which he did not know; the hunchbacked official had told him, but it had not registered and now he was being looked after well even though he had committed a capital offense by breaking the yoke and because of him there would be a drought this year. He was damned if he could understand any of it.

There were occasions when time intensified; at others it stood still for years on end or barely trickled ahead. He could not say what had happened in this or that year in Rome since Sejanus and his children had been executed, but over these past three weeks in Judaea time had intensified, Uri concluded, and he strongly sensed that with every particle of his being, though he was well aware that time in Judaea, here in the country, had been standing still for centuries and millennia, and would do so forever; whatever might happen in Rome or the capital city of the next empire, sowing and reaping would be done the same way here.

Jehuda turned up at noon, puffing as he took a seat at the table, beside which there was a small bench. The elderly woman was cooking at the fireplace, while Jehuda peered in Uri’s direction.

“You’ll get lunch if you can get up,” Jehuda said.

“It’s not my legs that hurt,” said Uri, dragging himself to his feet and across to the table.

“Sit down, then — here, next to me,” said Jehuda, so Uri sat down there.

“Are you good at anything at all?” Jehuda inquired.

“That would be hard to say.”

“You must have been included in that delegation for some reason,” Jehuda exclaimed.

“I know a few languages,” said Uri.

Jehuda pondered that hard.

“For what purpose?” he finally asked.

“Well, so I can read this and that,” said Uri hesitantly.

“Except for the Torah there’s no need to read,” Jehuda declared. “All a person needs is there. Or do you hold a different view?”

“Yes, all a person needs is in the Torah,” Uri let it go at that, nodding enthusiastically. “A person only reads anything else to see what kinds of errors also exist, and if one wishes to convince someone that all a person needs is in the Torah; it’s better to know in advance what sort of silliness he is going to utter. It’s easier to refute arguments if one knows them in advance.”

Jehuda knitted his brow, chewing that answer over for some time. His spouse set down before them large earthenware plates with large helpings of noodles with raisins before returning to the fireplace. Jehuda was still chewing on Uri’s words, and Uri was glad that Jehuda clearly had no sense of humor.