The Judges Page 10

  The “hostages” began to believe it. Bruce’s theory had the advantage of explaining a lot of things: the mutation of their rescue into an incarceration, the Judge’s interrogation, his seeking to learn everything about their private lives, his threats. But if they really were among terrorists, their identity had yet to be discovered. Palestinians? Abu Nidal’s gang? Possible. After all, the plane had been headed for Israel. But the objections made a moment before remained valid: How could terrorists have foreseen the weather and the forced landing on a deserted airstrip near this isolated house? Another possibility: The Judge and his men might be part of a network of Brazilian gangsters. In Rio and São Paulo, kidnappings were common, often followed by ransom demands. If this was the case, they should be offering a large sum of money. But to whom? To the Judge? To the Hunchback? And how much? Only Bruce had money on him: more than $5,000. “I have my checkbook with me,” said Claudia. “But I imagine terrorists prefer cash.” But what if they were Irish nationalists? Members of Sinn Fein? Should they offer to intervene politically? None of the five had connections in high governmental spheres. Statements to the press? Their authority in this field was nil. Such is the power of autosuggestion, thought Razziel. We’re reacting as if the imagined situation were true. He himself found it hard to believe. Something did not fit. A real terrorist doesn’t act the part of a judge but that of a terrorist, so what was the Judge playing at?

  “If we’re hostages,” observed Claudia, looking at Razziel, “and if our jailers are terrorists, we’re finished. We’ve seen their leader’s face. He can’t run the risk of letting us go free.”

  Razziel nodded. Why did Claudia, so attractive, so sure of herself, address her remarks to him? Was she looking for a protector, an ally? Was she attributing to him a strength that he himself had no inkling of? An intelligence capable of solving insoluble problems? Razziel remembered that, when airplanes were hijacked, the Palestinian terrorists separated the Jews from their fellow travelers. What if that were to happen here too? Were Yoav and he the only Jews? What about Bruce Schwarz? And the archivist, how would he react? And Claudia?

  “For the love of heaven,” yelled Bruce, his anger rising and falling in successive waves, “we must do something! Whether it’s a game or not, once and for all we must get out of this goddamned whorehouse of a prison!”

  He twisted his red scarf and made it into a running knot, as if he intended to strangle the Judge.

  “I just love it when you say ‘once and for all,’ ” replied Claudia. “But would you care to explain how you propose to set about knocking down these walls and making the storm abate?” She turned to Yoav. “And you, brave officer of an invincible army, what do you think? What do you plan to do? Do you have a plan for liberating us from this prison? Because we needn’t kid ourselves any longer. We’re sure as hell in prison.”

  The word prison on the young woman’s lips made Razziel shiver. He knew prison.

  “Miracles can happen, according to the Hunchback,” said Yoav.

  “When soldiers start talking about miracles it’s a bad sign,” Claudia said.

  “Are you telling us to get down on our knees and pray?” said Bruce furiously.

  “There are also human miracles,” remarked Razziel, “made by men for men.”

  Bruce gestured despairingly. “He’s off his head.”

  “Terrorists are men, too,” said Claudia. “They’re vulnerable. And mortal, thank God.”

  Yoav leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. “Right now the best thing to do is wait. Wait for the Judge to make the next move. Sooner or later he’ll make a mistake. If he comes back alone we’ll take him prisoner.”

  Meanwhile, George went on writing meticulously, with a serious air, as if he were drawing up his will.

  Once more it was the Hunchback who brought the hot tea. Suddenly all eyes were focused on him. Was he a terrorist too? Razziel stared at his disfigured face, Claudia at his hands. What part did this misshapen man have to play in the Judge’s scheme? Bruce asked him if it was still snowing, George asked if he could have coffee instead of tea, and Yoav asked if the Judge would come back soon. Razziel took refuge in silence.

  “Well, now,” said the Hunchback, without addressing anyone in particular, “what do you make of all this? And of the Judge? And of his judgment? Which one of you will sacrifice himself for the sake of your holy community? For you do form a community now, don’t you?”

  “We might choose you,” joked Bruce.

  A look of alarm, quickly dissipated, appeared in the Hunchback’s eyes: “No, not me. I’m part of the court.”

  “How about the Judge?”

  “Judges survive executions. That’s the law.”

  Bruce persisted with his questions; the presence of the Hunchback among the hostages could only be useful to them. With a bit of luck he might let slip some useful scraps of information about the life, character, and personality of the Judge. Bruce was right; the Hunchback began confiding expansively.

  “The Judge? What can I say about him? Well, I don’t know very much myself. They say his wife and daughter were brutally raped and murdered. It’s best not to say how. . . . They say so many things here in the village. Everyone has some particular odd thing to relate about my master, this man of mystery. They never caught up with the murderer. Was he a prowler looking for shelter? A drug addict with withdrawal symptoms? A sex-starved prisoner on the run? They say his daughter was mentally sick. Oh, yes, there’s plenty of things they say, plenty of things. Some folk think the Judge spent years tracking down the murderer and finally caught him. He may even have killed him with his bare hands. But there’s no proof.”

  He looked at Claudia and blushed. Did the others notice? He felt at a loss. He wanted to add something, warm words addressed to her alone. But they stuck in his throat. He experienced a powerful urge to laugh, to weep, to leap in the air. It had just dawned on him that he was in love with her, and that his love was rare, unique. The whole world had only been created for this moment, for this encounter, so that he, sole survivor of his family, might love this woman. Even if she did not love him, what mattered was that he loved her; he was capable of feeling love and perhaps worthy of inspiring it. He felt a warm glow; he was becoming a man.

  A memory rose in him. He’s going to the drugstore. The pharmacist is away. His wife, her hair untidy, her eyes wild, stares at him, as always, in a way that makes him uneasy. “We’re alone at last,” she says, moistening her lips with her tongue. “We’re going to make love, my little Hunchback. Do you want to? They say it brings good luck.” He feels the blood coursing faster through his veins and a fire burning his eyes. What can he do to breathe normally? He experiences something unknown that resembles thirst. As good luck—or bad luck—would have it, a customer appears. The pharmacist’s wife laughs, hands a tube of something or other to the Hunchback, and pays him no further attention. And the Hunchback runs away like a thief after his first failed robbery.

  “Your judge,” said Bruce. “You’re very attached to him, aren’t you?”

  “I’m devoted to him. I owe him my life. He’s a curious character.”

  “So are you. You’re a curious character.”

  “It’s not surprising. We have a lot of memories in common.”

  “Tell me about them?”

  “It’s for him to tell you. I don’t have the right.”

  “And he does?” asked Bruce.

  “He has all the rights. He’s like God.”

  “Like God in the suffering he metes out?”

  “In the fear he inspires.”

  “Is he religious?”

  “Yes, he is. He has his own religion. It’s awesome.”

  “What are you to him?” asked Bruce.

  “It’s for him to tell you.”

  “What is he to you?”

  “A master. A power. A divinity.”

  “Do you do everything he tells you?”

  “Everything.”

  “W
ithout argument?”

  “You don’t argue with the Judge.”

  “So you’re his slave?”

  The Hunchback bowed his deformed head. “Yes, I’m his slave.” And two tiny tears began to trickle down his firescarred cheeks.

  IS IT MY fate that I cannot love you anymore? That you no longer love me? That I must live far away from your grave in repentance and without hope of expiation? Father, forgive me. Yesterday at the cemetery I asked your forgiveness. I’m thirty-five, and I need to know you’re reconciled to my future. What unseen road were you following when you were my age?

  Standing before the mirror, Yoav had stared at his face without recognizing it. Was it the beard? Carmela thought it made him look uglier but Yoav had refused to shave it off during the week of mourning. In fact, he disliked it as well. It reminded him of his commando operations; on his return he was always bearded.

  He had shaved yesterday morning but looked pretty awful already. I’ve changed, he thought. I won’t change anymore. No more chasing the thrill of nocturnal confrontations with the enemy. Shmulik keeps coming back to me bloody and open-mouthed. I’m past all desires; too many dead people dwell within me.

  Yoav no longer wanted to lose himself in the memory of friends now dead and in his dread of the unknown.

  You are in my thoughts, Father, but I no longer want to die in order to meet up with you again in the hereafter. Carmela is the only person who helps me in my struggle to conquer fear and grief and find some meaning to the few weeks or months that are left for me to live. Is this enough? Can one live in a world inhabited by just one person? Forgive my pessimism, Father, but whose fault is it? Mine alone? And what is this me we are talking about? Does this me grow old? Does it on occasion tell lies, disguise itself, hide itself? What will happen to this me when I’m no longer here, when I’m nothing? You, Father, who loved philosophy so much, will you help me to direct my steps toward the light and not toward the darkness? You, who were attracted by the quest of the mystics, will you give me your hand so it may burn at their touch?

  You, who in your own way believed in miracles, can you not make one happen for me now? That’s what I need in order to breathe the freedom you bequeathed to me when you died. “Loving the unexpected,” you used to say, “is to define yourself in relation to miracles.” It was one year after you had left the army. You began to study the sacred texts you had put aside in your youth. And it was when you were questioning me about the commando’s life I was just beginning to lead that you used the word miracle. You saw the look of surprise on my face. And you explained to me the connection between the unexpected and the miraculous.

  Did I ever manage to convey to you, Father, the depth of my attachment to you? When you were present, sometimes you weighed heavy on me. Now that you’re gone, I miss you all the time. Why did I feel the need to make you suffer?

  I’m thirty-five, Father, and I still have much to learn and so little to offer. Except to Carmela: To her I offer my future happiness and my past joys. But between you and me, it’s too late. You can never receive the joy and pride a son owes his father.

  Yoav had another memory linked to his father’s death.

  There had been a knock at the door of the house. Yoav did not stir. He had no desire to see anyone. During a period of mourning everyone has the right to live as he wishes. And anyway, the door was open. Such is the custom. During the week following the funeral the door is not locked. Anyone can come in to offer you words of comfort by extolling the virtues of the deceased. The knocking came again. It must be Rivka, the cleaner, Yoav thought wearily. Rivka is polite. Yes, that’s it. Rivka has always been courteous. Well brought up. Excellent education. Good manners. She’s irritating, Rivka, always eager to come out with an appropriate remark. Now she’s going to tell me how sad she is for me. And that I must try to overcome my grief. Right, let her come in.

  But it was not Rivka. Dressed in black, a man who was still young—in his forties?—stood on the threshold. A Hasid? His face reflected sadness, his eyes melancholy.

  “I saw you at the cemetery yesterday,” said the visitor.

  “Right,” said Yoav.

  “I knew your father.”

  Yoav almost replied, I didn’t, but he checked himself. The visitor seemed devoid of malice.

  “I owe your father a great deal,” said the visitor.

  Yoav could not stop himself thinking, More than I? As custom dictated, he went and sat on his stool and waited for the Hasid to seat himself on a chair facing him.

  “I was living through difficult times,” said the visitor. “It was your father who saved me. His appearance in my life was nothing short of miraculous.”

  Fine, thought Yoav. This one too. He’s going to bore me with the stories of miracles my father served up to his listeners’ delight.

  “There were many people at his funeral,” added the visitor. “Your father was a very popular man. He loved you very much, I’m sure of that. And you—you loved him, didn’t you?”

  Impelled by an obscure fear, Yoav longed to get up and chase the intruder away. Let him be gone with his tedious tales: Let him clear off, the sooner the better. But he remained sitting there. In the Hasid’s presence he felt more alone than ever. Nothing else existed beyond his solitude. Then, without his knowing why, welling up from the depths of his being, tears rose to his eyes. He did not want to weep, but he was weeping. He wanted to blow his nose and wipe his eyes, but his hands would not obey him. No part of him obeyed him. His tears flowed and did not stop flowing. What’s happening to me, for God’s sake, Yoav asked himself. What’s happening to make me cry like this?

  “Weeping is a miracle too,” said the visitor.

  Amazed, Yoav raised his head and looked at him. But it was his father he saw. And his father was making signs to him that he did not understand.

  One morning, six months after his father’s death, Yoav took a call from his doctor at Tel-Hashomer military hospital.

  “I’d like to see you.”

  “Is it urgent?”

  “Fairly urgent.”

  “My tests?”

  “Come over. I’m waiting for you.”

  Yoav leaped into his car. Carmela was still asleep; they had spent a long evening with an American army officer on an official visit who had not returned to his hotel until two o’clock in the morning.

  Carmela was not aware that his health was deteriorating. What was the use of upsetting her? So as not to worry her, he had not told her about his most recent visits to the doctor, the extensive tests.

  “Yoav,” said Dr. Schreiber, “how long have we known one another?”

  “Ten years. Maybe twelve.”

  “Fifteen.”

  Yoav looked him in the eye. “These preliminaries make it sound as if you have bad news for me. Am I wrong?”

  “No, Yoav.”

  “What I’ve got is as serious as that.”

  “It’s pretty serious.”

  “Incurable? Tell me everything. I can take the truth, you know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “So what is it?”

  “A tumor. In the brain. Rare. Very rare. In principle it’s inoperable.”

  Yoav took a deep breath. “How many years do you give me?”

  “Two. Three. Maybe less. It all depends on the treatment. In certain cases the side-effects are intolerable. And even if treatment is successful, it only alleviates the condition. It doesn’t cure it.”

  They spoke for a long time. They were friends, comrades in arms; they had lived through a lot.

  “But there’s one thing we could try,” said Dr. Schreiber.

  “What’s that?”

  “At Sloan-Kettering, a cancer research center in New York—I know one of the doctors. He’s good. Go and see him. Tell him I sent you.”

  Yoav went home and found Carmela in the kitchen.

  “You went off without drinking your coffee.”

  He made her sit down oppo
site him, took her two hands and kissed them, and gave her a heavily edited account of his conversation with Dr. Schreiber. Carmela, her eyes open wide, stared at him with grief-struck intensity. But she shed no tears. She showed no emotion. She even tried to smile.

  “Right, we’ll go to America. I always wanted to see New York in the fall.”

  “And if it goes on into the winter?”

  “So much the better. I’ve never seen snow in my life.”

  How can one describe their weeks together in America? Every day, every night, their struggle against the enemy brought them closer to one another. But Carmela, exhausted, was growing visibly thinner. She spoke less, rarely laughed.

  She went back to Israel before him to prepare for his return.

  Claudia was thinking about how she had split up with Lucien. Where was he at this moment? Doubtless in his overheated apartment. Did he still love her? And she, had she ever really loved him, ever truly been in love with him, loved him as she now loved David?

  For ten years the two of them, still young, had lived in a harmony that was at once stimulating and soothing. Even when they disagreed about the merits of a concert (she preferred Schubert to Brahms) or the worth of a promise made by a politician (she was a Democrat, he a Republican), they found fascination and enrichment in the way their opinions differed. Each one helped the other to reach out farther, to banish the malevolent demons that lie in wait for all couples. Certainly their patience sometimes ran out, they lost their tempers, but that did not affect their love, based as it was as much on mutual respect as on the passion they nourished for one another. Now she knew it had not been love— not quite love—just something that had resembled love.

  A chance incident at the theater was the trigger.

  Why had she yielded to temptation that evening? Out of pity for poor Bernard Fogelman, the unfortunate director who had just been humiliated in front of his actors? They were rehearsing an excellent play, a first play by a young author, in which a couple only finds fulfillment by tearing each other apart; happiness eludes them, cruelty and ugliness bring them closer together. A stupid and pointless argument had broken out between Bernard and Jacqueline—magnificent Jacqueline, as she liked people to call her. It arose from a scene in which she had insisted that her lover abase himself before her, so she could raise him up and restore to him his dignity as a man. Bernard had wanted her to be humbler, more malleable at the start of her long speech, while she insisted on remaining imperious and dominating throughout. At one point, Bernard had cried out, “But don’t you see that, in spite of all that makes them argue, these two characters still love each other? They love each other even when they fight, possibly because they fight! Is that so hard for you to understand?” And Jacqueline had replied to him spitefully, without raising her voice, “You talk of love but you don’t know a goddamned thing about it. Is it so hard for you to stop getting in my face? I don’t need advice from eunuchs.”