Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

györgy spiró

was still in effect. Uri had tried to persuade his father to apply for citizenship, on account of his children; he would no doubt be granted it with his patron’s intervention, which would mean that he too could have a tessera. Joseph, however, was unwilling to do that. Things are fine the way they are, Joseph said. Uri kept nagging until his father finally said he would rather work for themoney, because some very big issue might come up one day, some really important business, and he would call for Gaius Lucius’s assistance on that, but until that happened he did not want to pester him, lest they resent him for asking unnecessary favors. Uri saw that it was no use arguing and never brought the matter up again. He wondered what the very big business

might be. Did his father fear another expulsion? Often Uri would take a stroll on his own over to the far bank of the Tiber to Rome, the “true Rome,” and gaze around. He made his way there from beyond the river. For some strange reason, the Jews always lived beyond some river or other; their very names, the Hebrew, one from beyond the river, said as much. In Babylon they had also lived on the far bank of the Euphrates, before they were allowed to head home, to the West. He sauntered around and stared out with nothing to do, being unfit for physical labor. People finally gave up on him when the congregation’s members persuaded Joseph to try him out as a roofer: that was easy work. Uri was acrophobic, though, with no

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