“They’re not doing a very good job of suffocating, are they!” Uri heard from one side.
He stepped closer. Two women and three children, still alive, were choking in the smoke. Fresh branches were laid on the fire, there were no flames.
“Don’t do that!” burst from his lips.
“But they’re Jews!” he heard. “They were resisting!”
Someone grabbed him by an arm. Uri tore himself loose and raced off shrieking. He could hear footsteps taking up the pursuit, but they tailed off: over short distances Uri was a quick sprinter.
The alabarch’s palace was closed up. He pounded on the door was to no avail. He was watched from the other side of the street by some loitering Greeks. He pounded again. No answer. It was locked up tightly, or maybe everyone had made themselves scarce.
Uri turned around. Several of the Greeks slowly headed toward him. Uri raced off to the east but was not followed.
He had no money, nothing except the sandals, tunic, and loincloth he was wearing. August nights in Alexandria were warm, so it would be perfectly feasible to sleep out under the heavens — only where? Something else he bore was his tribal identification: his sexual organ. He should have left that at home!
Philo’s summer residence was a long way off. Anyway, it was far from certain that the guards at the city gates would allow him to leave the city.
I ought to get into the Serapeion, he thought. They know me there.
That was the trouble: they knew him.
He then realized that he had no idea what might be lurking in the mind of any Greek priest, editor, or copyist: they might offer him refuge, but it was just as possible that they would hand him over.
He made his way slowly to the southeast as if he were out taking a stroll. Day was breaking. The neighborhood was peaceful, just like in Alexandria’s old days.
He inspected the Serapeion from a distance. The main gate was open, with a couple of people entering, then more arriving either alone or in groups. They were Greeks going to offer prayers — to thank their god that they were able to batter Jews.
He spent the rest of the night in the old necropolis to the southwest of the Serapeion, outside the old city wall but inside the present one, where the graves slumbered among the well-trimmed gardens and villas of the rich. Fruit trees bowed over the garden fences above the paths, so that Uri was able to eat his fill and quench his thirst. He sucked at an orange and nibbled olives, then propped his back against a thick tree trunk to catch a nap in the seated position. He clutched a stick that he had found on the ground and stripped of its smaller branches. He tried to calm his racing heartbeat by slowly and rhythmically repeating: “I won’t die here! I won’t die here!”
He awoke with a start at dawn: a family of four were settling down near him behind a marble gravestone. It was the grave of a dog: the owner must have been very attached to it. The children were so scared they were unable to cry. Jews, no doubt, Uri supposed. He picked up a few oranges, clambered to his feet and went over to the family, offering them the fruit. The woman stared at him in terror, the man looked on warily.
“I’m Jewish too,” said Uri.
The children were trembling.
The woman was Jewish, her husband a Greek convert; they had their own house in the south of Gamma, but in the middle of the night it had been set alight by the rioters. They had managed to escape by the garden gate, the children still asleep when they had snatched them up.
“They knew who they were looking for,” said the man. “They set alight every single Jewish house, and there aren’t many in that neighborhood.”
“Sleep now,” the woman said to the children. They were still trembling.
“Where will you go next?” the man asked Uri.
“I don’t know.”
“They’ll come for us here,” said the man. “I had myself circumcised… Better that I hadn’t…”
It had to have been a deep passion. Uri mused that were he to find himself in such a position he would have to have his foreskin sewn back on. He laughed to himself.
“My son is also circumcised,” the man groaned.
By the morning another four families had moved to the cemetery — eleven children altogether, wailing, weeping, or mutely trembling. Two of the families had fled from Gamma, one from Delta (they had things to attend to at the harbor and were unable to get back home), one from Beta, where the rabble had also run riot and lit a huge bonfire, though that pyre had smoked rather than burned. On the way, they had seen a heap of charred corpses in the southeastern part of Alpha — probably a whole family. There were stray dogs sniffing around, to say nothing of cats, of course.
“Even the dogs!” wailed one oldster.
Homeless Greek vagrants foraged sleepily amid the graves, pretending that they had not noticed the Jews.
“They’ll report that we’re here,” whispered one of the women.
The young men set off in search of food; returned, bowed to the east to say their prayers, then shared out the fruit. Those who did not pray sternly pointed out that cemeteries were unclean, people should neither eat nor pray there; only after they had left the place. You must not eat, it’s not pure! You mustn’t eat! Four of the children were immediately forbidden from eating by their parents. An argument then broke out over whether it was permissible to pray in a ritually impure place, and to eat without praying in a cemetery. A few who were already eating stopped doing so. Uri took the view that in an emergency life came before everything else, but others argued that this was no emergency, no one was dying of thirst or starvation, that would only come days later — then it would be permissible. The refugees disputed with revulsion in their hearts.
Uri reasoned that they would be able to stay until midday at the latest for by then the rabble would arrive at the cemetery; they had no doubt been reported on long ago, not necessarily by the homeless but more than likely by their wealthy neighbors for pilfering their fruit. He did not know what to do. A fresh dispute broke out among the fugitives: some disparaged Flaccus, others defended him, saying that he’d always been fond of the Jews, he had almost certainly already mobilized his army to put down the rebels, they were probably already restoring order. Women were sobbing and squabbling. It would be better for him to move on alone.
Uri made a quick count of the people: fourteen adults and thirteen children.
He asked for their attention. He said that he believed they would be safest in Delta, where there were many Jews and would be able to resist even without weapons. They ought to make their way there by the alleyways in the southern part of the district. The mob cannot be everywhere, and anyway they would be likely to approach Delta from their own stronghold down toward the harbor. If they all advanced from the south, the small bands would not dare to attack them, their own group was too large. They should go by the back streets; the mob was rampaging on the main streets, safety in numbers. Together they ought to get to Delta.
That too sparked an argument. The young men were all for leaving the city. Away, away from here. Someone reminded them that there were armed gatekeepers. Well, they’d simply climb over the city walclass="underline" eight feet tall, certainly, but they would piggyback for one another. What about the children, then? Throw them over? Yes, throw them over. Would they be any safer outside? But the rumors must already have reached the countryside, they would be hunted down one by one. Just get out of here, out of this damned city!
Uri waited until noon for them to reach a consensus then struck out on his own toward the west. Rachel, the wife of the Greek convert, thanked him with tears for giving them the oranges that morning.
Uri found it easy to climb over the city wall to the west: it was crumbling and the stones jutting out made an easy purchase. He dropped down on the outside without being spotted by anyone. With his eyes screwed up, he spied the shoreline, where and skiffs moored to jetties rocked on the tide; the Western Harbor was a long way from here, some two miles or so to the east.