“They’ll find a solution,” Uri considered. “They will find a solution for everything as long as the faith remains. From now on they’ll lie about everything.”
“They lied up till now.”
“But not as eagerly as this.”
They fell silent.
“But if you knew all that… What was the point of demolishing the Temple? Why bring so many prisoners here to Rome?”
Kainis sighed.
“Titus — the son of my Titus, that is — held a war council when Jerusalem was already in their hands as to what should become of the Temple. Tija argued against destroying it, the others were for… Young Titus supposed that as long as the Temple was standing the Jews wouldn’t be able to rest, whether they remained faithful to their old prophets or became followers of this Messiah. Tija said that if there was no ritual center for the religion any more, it would not mean the end of it, as new centers would spring up wherever Jews live.”
“Tija, the scoundrel, will be proved right,” Uri concluded after some reflection.
“That’s my view as well,” said Kainis. “Tija also disagreed with bringing the Jewish captives to Rome… He said that Rome may have won the war but the Jews will win the peace. He concluded that on this occasion they ought to have gone about it the other way around: Rome’s Jews ought to have been repatriated to Judaea, rather than bringing Judea’s Jews over here, because in thirty years time half of Rome’s plebs will be Jewish, and half of them in turn will be Nazarene.”
“So why did that not happen?” Uri asked, his flesh creeping.
Kainis gave a peel of laughter.
“Because it would have been expensive! It was cheaper to demolish the Temple… To say nothing of a matter of vanity, as usual… My Titus would only have brought a few Jewish captives over but his son was all for a triumphal procession of an immensity such as had never been seen before with as many prisoners as possible… My Titus in the end went along with it because he is fonder of young Titus than he is of his second son. Domitianus was almost eaten up with envy to see that his brother was granted a triumphal procession as big as that because it’s one that people will remember for years to come. I warned my Titus, so it did not just come from Tija, that the Jews would be the cause of a lot of trouble in Rome, but he just waved it off airily: that was not something we would live to see, let those who are alive worry about them…”
“And your historian is going to write about that?”
Kainis laughed:
“Near enough.”
Two days later Uri went back to the palace to get an answer. A guard again went inside. Uri waited a long time. Then the gate opened and the elderly woman herself stood there in a shimmering, iridescent silk tunic, ribbons in her silvery hair, a dour armed man on either side.
“It’s a no go,” Kainis said regretfully. “The emperor was furious about it. He said that a lifting device like that would rob people of work and it would not pay to keep them on a daily wage.”
“I suppose I must be thankful that he didn’t have me executed,” Uri said, bowed his head, and went away.
A person did not need a library to write a book. One needed nothing more than papyrus and ink.
What was it, in fact, that he wanted to write? Maybe things that had never been written down before, and if they had not been written down earlier, then they were new. Still, there was something different from previous ages about the present age, he supposed, and maybe it wasn’t an accident that the Anointed had not come earlier, or so the deranged zealots believed, but nowadays.
There was no necessity to write a bulky historical work replete with facts. It was possible to write, without any facts at all, letters about things of importance, or figures of importance, like Seneca’s letters to Marcia. It was just that writing like that would not provide a morally ennobling solace but quite the reverse. People should quake in their boots with fear, as Aristotle wrote.
“Letters to Kainis.”
There were a number of ongoing construction projects that he was head of; they paid well and he was able to set aside enough to support the total costs of keeping himself for a year. His daughters, even though he was supporting them, were continually asking for more; nothing was enough for them, but now they would have to make do with what they had. He ought to be able to get the essence down in one year, he supposed.
He tingled with a pleasant sense of excitement; he was about to embark on a new life.
It is hard getting going with writing; Uri would lie on his bed at night and try to figure out what to start with — who and what should he write about to Kainis.
One evening he had two visitors, Iustus and a Latin. Uri scrambled to his feet. Iustus did the talking: Uri was requested to become a member of the committee on the fiscus Judaicus—this nice man of the equestrian order was the praetor and he represented the state. With due regard to his experience and wisdom, Uri could be offered the sum of one hundred thousand sesterces for his cooperation; the other Jewish members worked for free.
Kainis is reaching a hand out for me, it crossed Uri’s mind, and he smiled.
He thanked them for asking but, given so many existing calls on his time he would have to decline. This was noted with relief by Iustus and uneasily by the praetor: obviously it was him who would be hauled over the coals by Kainis or Posides. Though he did what he could to convince Uri, the latter politely showed him the door.
The first night on which he sat down to write he found the light shed by the oil lamp to be inadequate. He needed to buy another. Nerves, perhaps, he thought.
It is hard getting going.
There were now three lamps burning on the table but still he could not see any letters. He bent his head down closer, pulled it back farther, but the contours were still uncertain, and precisely in between there seemed to be nothing. What the devil?
By day he would have to peer on the building site, examining the murals, and he noticed that in the middle of his visual field he could see nothing, only if he looked at them sideways, but if he moved on he could still see something there. His right eye had always been the worse but with that he could at least vaguely see something in the center; his left eye was the better one, but with that he could see nothing in the center.
That night he strained his eyes mightily to see his own handwriting on the sheet of papyrus but then it began to hurt and burn, and they became dried out.
Drat! There was no need to get so excited!
He took out one of his scrolls but he had a hard job making out the letters on that either. He had been semi-blind nearly all his livelong days, but at least he had been able to read. It was no use holding it closer, no use holding it farther away.
I need a long rest, Uri thought. I’ve been working too hard.
He couldn’t sleep, and it was getting on for daybreak, when he perceived the first rays of light, before he regained his composure. He tested which eye he could see better with: there was no doubt the sight in his right eye was better. Maybe it was starting to improve. It is said that the very short-sighted begin to see things at a distance more clearly as they get on in years, and people who had good eyesight find they can see nothing close at hand.
At the building site he went up close to a wall, then farther away, then he peered at it askew. He had the impression that he saw it more clearly that way. Perhaps from now on slantwise was how he ought to read as well.