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captivity
balsam was expensive.
Uri was relieved and also
despondent.
He could read all right;
indeed, if he screwed his eyes
up tight he could even see
further away as well, and if
he looked through a funneled
hand he could even see for
quite a distance, albeit only
over a tiny area, but honestly
quite a long distance. He tried
that out a lot when he was
alone, because, bit by bit, he
retreated to the little hovel,
rarely even stepping out into
the courtyard, which he could
see quite well, everything
being so close. He would stare
out at the yard through the
cracks between his fingers,
which also helped him to see
the far-off corners.
It was a spacious courtyard,
impossible to tell where it
ended; in truth it had neither
beginning nor end.
Houses on the far side of
the Tiber—the Transtiberim
in Latin, though the Jewish
population referred to it
simply as Far Side, as if
they were looking back at
themselves with pity from
somewhere else, from
the true Rome, even a bit
disparagingly—had originally
been built contiguous with
their yards. They had formed
a single elongated, complex,
erratic, winding system of
dwellings and alleys on the
old-time Far Side. Because the
Jews constructed their houses
as they had in Palestine, with
the windows and doorways
opening only onto the inner
courtyard, all that existed
to the outside world was an
interconnected wall. As a
result, what had come into
existence was an endless,
seemingly impervious single-