The Judges Read online

  “So far we have been speaking about words and, above all, about silence,” said the Judge, fixing him with a cold stare. “One day I would like to be able to consult your archives. Is there one in which silence is preserved? Let us say: the silence of memory?”

  George had a moment of alarm—am I going to be able to deceive him?—but managed a smile, in which pride and sorrow were mingled, and remained silent. Once again, Razziel decided to speak for him.

  “If you will allow me, Your Honor. In reply I should say that silence can certainly be found in archives. The memory of silence is something we crave and seek. But as for the silence of memory—that, never.”

  This was when George chose to display his erudition. He devoted five minutes to explaining the importance of archives, the way they sustain the culture of mankind and its civilization. Without them, justice, for example, would be an empty word.

  Surprised by his eloquence, Claudia could not help remarking with some warmth, “My goodness! For someone who deals in silence you certainly can be eloquent.”

  Razziel couldn’t explain it to himself, but he felt a pang of jealousy; Claudia was showing herself to be too well disposed, almost admiring, toward this somber, balding archivist spewing platitudes. Then a flush of shame rose to his cheeks.

  Meanwhile, the Judge was staring curiously at Yoav. “So, young warrior, you have chosen the role of a mute? Say something.”

  “You know the basic facts. As they say back home, the rest is commentary.”

  “Well, it so happens that this court is extremely interested in commentary. It often defines the defendant better and more fully than he thinks.”

  “I do not consider myself to be a defendant,” Yoav said firmly. “An unwilling visitor, no doubt. A guest, perhaps. But nothing else.”

  The Judge did not conceal his irritation. “Why do you think you’re so special? Is your own life history so different from that of your companions? By what right do you expect special treatment?”

  “Everyone is free.”

  “Free to do what?”

  “To speak or to remain silent.”

  “If you are so eager to remain silent, it must be because you have things to hide from us. What are they?”

  Yoav made a gesture with his hand as if to indicate his disdain for the interrogation. Claudia tried to calm his fears.

  “Don’t be difficult, Yoav,” she said, in a friendly tone. “Do as we do. Tell us anything that comes into your head.”

  A melancholy light appeared in Yoav’s brown eyes. “What do you want? For me to tell the story of my life in front of people I don’t know? It’s still mine, so far as I’m aware. And so are its secrets. I choose whom I confide in.”

  Claudia leaned toward him. “Imagine you’re telling me, just me alone.”

  “In other words, the rest of us just don’t exist,” said Bruce.

  Yoav paid no attention to the interruption. Without looking away from Claudia, he said, “I have had parents, friends, unworthy enemies, devoted allies, some less so. And friends I would like to have kept alive. . . . I’ve been through two wars; I managed to survive, but I’ve doubtless killed people like you and me with my bombs and my machine guns. In a word, I’ve encountered death more than once and turned my back on its hideous face. And sometimes, for the enemy, I was Death. Is that enough for you?”

  Again Razziel felt a twinge of sorrow. Claudia’s mischievous smile reminded him of Kali’s at the time when they first knew each other and the girl was bent on creating distance between them rather than bringing them closer together. In those days he had sought comfort in telling himself that Kali was no more than a tease, a man-eater. So what was Claudia?

  The Judge wrote something in the notebook that lay in front of him; then, without looking up, he began to speak again.

  “The only one left is Raz-zi-el. Razziel Friedman.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is that your name?”

  “No. It was given to me.”

  “And your real name, your true name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know your own name?” said the Judge incredulously. “Didn’t you have parents? Didn’t they give you a name?”

  Razziel chewed his lip. “I don’t remember my parents. I don’t know anything about my childhood.”

  “What do you do in life?”

  “I wrote it down. I’m the head of a boys’ school, a yeshiva in Brooklyn.”

  “What is a yeshiva?”

  “Many things.”

  “Be more specific.”

  Razziel had a moment’s hesitation: Should he go into detail, talk about how the Zohar was taught to a chosen few? It would be blasphemy.

  “A yeshiva is a school where the Talmud is studied,” he blurted out, lowering his head.

  “The Talmud? And what is that exactly?”

  “A body of laws, interpretations, legends, and teachings, whose authors lived in Jerusalem and in Babylon both before and after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans.”

  “So you’re living in the past as well, like the archivist here. What connection can the past possibly have with our age, with your life, with this night?”

  “The connection exists. I study. I teach. I help my pupils find within the ancient texts guidance for living in a constantly changing society. I belong to a tradition that holds that everything that concerns the activities of men and their destinies can be found in the Talmud.”

  “That’s too abstract. For a Christian like myself, the Talmud sounds like a collection of dull and disagreeable ideas. Am I wrong?”

  Razziel swallowed hard and shrugged. Was this the time to launch into learned exegesis? To recall the respect the Talmud displays toward minority opinions? To relate the lessons in tolerance offered by Shammai and Hillel, who, despite being passionate adversaries, remained friends and allies?

  Claudia came to his rescue. “Leave him in peace,” she said to the Judge. “Can’t you see he’s exhausted? We all are.”

  The Judge eyed her severely. “I am simply doing my duty.”

  “Perhaps he’s not in a mood for games,” Claudia replied dryly.

  The Judge stared at her with his unnaturally cold and impassive eyes. “And suppose this were not a game?”

  Startled, they wondered if they had heard correctly. Was the man really serious? If it was not a game, what was it? What could it be? Not all games are innocent. Some come dangerously close to cruelty. They can cause suffering. Others lead to remorse.

  And death.

  Throwing her head back, Claudia was the first to respond. With a forced laugh she said, “You seem absolutely determined to frighten us. But I suppose that’s part of the game too. In life, dear Judge, everything comes down to play-acting. Don’t you know that? Ever since Sophocles and good old Bill Shakespeare, people have never ceased repeating it: What is life if not a drama? Some plays are long, others short; some comic, some tragic.”

  “And what about tonight’s?” asked the Judge.

  “It’s for you to reveal it to us. Aren’t you the director? Aren’t we in your hands?”

  “Very true. You are.”

  “So, tell us: What is this play we are acting in?” Claudia asked.

  The Judge shook his head. “Patience, dear lady. For the moment all I can do is to disclose what is at stake in this inquiry.” He frowned and went on. “What is at stake is life.”

  “And therefore death,” said Bruce angrily.

  “Death as well,” replied the Judge.

  A heavy, stunned silence fell upon the survivors. There are some words that explode in your brain: at stake, life, death. Once they are uttered, time becomes unstable. It is impossible to go on as if they had not been heard. From now on they have a power of their own, a power no other force can negate.

  OUTSIDE, it seemed as if a giant hand were stirring the snow, so as to join the earth with the heavens. The survivors stared intently at each other—Bruce sniggered, Geo
rge scratched his head, Razziel chewed his lip, Claudia rubbed her hands together, and Yoav clenched his teeth. They all tried to convince themselves that it was all a dream. But no. On this white winter’s night what was in itself quite an ordinary incident had taken a fateful turn. Though still obscure, a threat was taking shape.

  Razziel looked at his watch. So did George and Yoav. Thirty-two minutes past midnight. The storm still raged, the snow still swirled. Claudia folded her arms across her chest and looked indignant. George tilted his head, sometimes to say yes, sometimes to say no: He found the young woman’s resemblance to Pamela more and more striking; both of them had an aura of sensuality he found provocative. Bruce lit a cigarette, removed his red scarf, and put it on again. Razziel thought about his great and strange friend far away.

  “My throat’s dry,” said Claudia. “May I go find some more tea? There’s none left in the teapot.”

  “I’ll take care of it myself,” replied the Judge. “I’ll send someone.”

  “But I can—”

  “You can do all kinds of things,” the Judge interrupted, “but you cannot leave this room. You will all remain here. Until the end.”

  He went out, leaving a sense of dread behind him. What exactly did “until the end” mean from this lover of enigmas? The end of the storm, perhaps? Or simply the night? In a gesture of bravado Bruce hurried after him and tried to open the door. In vain. It only opened from outside.

  The room exploded.

  Bruce: “He’s crazy. This guy’s a raving maniac.”

  Claudia: “Did you say that to raise our morale? If so, you failed.”

  George: “Maybe he’s a dangerous criminal on the run. A murderer.”

  Bruce: “In other words, we’re hostages? That’s absurd.”

  George: “The main thing is not to irritate him. On this point science and history agree. Madmen and criminals should never be crossed.”

  Bruce: “Let’s grovel before him. Kowtow to him. Flatter him and abase ourselves. Let’s satisfy all his whims. Is that what you propose?”

  Claudia: “George didn’t say that. He simply said—”

  Bruce: “I don’t give a damn what he said. What interests me is to find a way of getting the hell out of here as soon as possible, before this lunatic really attacks us.”

  Claudia: “Stop shouting! In this place the walls very likely have ears.”

  Razziel: “Keep calm, my friends. Let us try to keep calm.”

  Bruce (to Claudia): “Stop him!” (to George ): “Tell him to stop! When he tells us to keep calm it gets on my nerves. If he doesn’t shut up I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

  Razziel turned to Yoav, who remained silent, remote, as if the danger did not concern him.

  “You’re an officer in the Israeli army. You can’t be lacking in experience—or imagination. What should we do?”

  At once they all fell silent and looked at Yoav, who waited a moment before replying, “Let me think.”

  “Take your time,” said Bruce ironically.

  Yoav did not deign to respond. With his hands in his pockets and a furrowed brow, he circled the room, inspecting the walls and the one window, which looked out onto a courtyard. Suddenly he returned to his chair, took a sheet of paper, and dashed off several quick sentences. Then he smiled and invited Claudia to read what he had just written. “It’s a love letter. I felt it was the right moment to write it,” he said.

  Claudia tried not to betray him as she read his message:

  Take care. We are doubtless being observed and overheard. I have a plan. I will tell you what it is. Pass the word discreetly. For the moment, act naturally.

  Razziel wondered what the plan could be. If they were dealing with a madman he might drive them all insane too, before . . .

  His thought remained incomplete.

  To pass the time, each related the circumstances of his or her departure from Kennedy. With the exception of Razziel, they had all taken the fateful flight by chance. Claudia had missed the earlier flight; a monstrous traffic jam had held up her car for an hour just after crossing the Triboro Bridge. Yoav had been due to leave the day before and George on the following day, but last-minute events had caused them to change their plans. Bruce loathed the competing airline, which had the only early-morning flights.

  As for Razziel, he had been eager to spend the day alone, delving into readings of Talmudic and medieval texts, getting his bearings in the labyrinth of his memories, as a prelude to meeting his beloved long-lost friend. Why had the latter suggested a meeting in Jerusalem, a city at once so close and so far away? And why at the time of Hanukkah, when there were urgent administrative problems to resolve at his yeshiva? Razziel did not know. But he was convinced that his very special friend knew what he was doing. Paritus never did anything without a reason. There had always been reasons for the times and places of their encounters. In Paris it was to take part in a rabbinical court that had to resolve the case of an aguna (a woman abandoned by a husband who refused to grant her a divorce). In London they had taken part in a circumcision ceremony. In Montevideo they eagerly sought the opinion of the celebrated Rav Shushani on an obscure text from the time of the Gaonim. Each time Razziel had been surprised to find himself face-to-face with Paritus: Had his Master orchestrated these events with the sole purpose of meeting him again? Razziel was growing older; his friend was not. Their conversations always unfolded in the same way: Paritus talked about current problems, while Razziel evoked the dark and blurred shadows of the past. “Talk to me about my father,” Razziel would say. And his friend and Master would reply, “Of course, of course, I’ll tell you about your father, whom you never knew,” while continuing to analyze the letter that Hasdai Crescas, the fourteenth-century Judeo-Spanish philosopher, sent to the Jews of Avignon, telling them about the martyrdom of the Jewish community in Barcelona—a pogrom long before the term existed. Two hundred and fifty dead in a single day, among them the philosopher’s son, who had just married. Was it so Razziel would stop thinking about his father that the old Master directed his attention to the tragedy of the Sephardic Jews in the Middle Ages?

  He remembered one of Paritus’s sayings: “We derive our grief, as the artist does his inspiration, from the most mysterious point in our being.” But Razziel also recalled thinking that one must first ascertain whether grief, like art, is truly within us. Another of the old mystic’s sayings: “One day in Jerusalem I met a great kabalist who refused to reveal himself to the world. As I trod on his shadow he uttered a cry, ‘You’re hurting me!’ It was the shadow of a cry, not a cry. Then I understood why he wanted to stay away from other men.” Razziel pictured himself in Jerusalem with Paritus, and for a moment he forgot the danger that might be lying ahead for him and his companions.

  The Hunchback reappeared, empty-handed, with a sullen look on his face. “The water’s been put on to boil. It’ll take some time. I can’t help that, but don’t worry, I’m still at your service.”

  “I’d prefer a hotel,” grumbled Bruce, growing more and more belligerent.

  “There are no hotels near here.” The Hunchback turned to Claudia. Eager to please her, the best he could do was to parody Shakespeare. “My kingdom for a hotel room. . . .”

  Claudia shrugged. Standing beside Yoav, her thoughts were on the man she loved, the only one she had ever loved with such an all-consuming passion.

  “What does that mean?” protested Bruce. “You mean there’s not a single hotel in this godforsaken place?”

  “There is one. But it’s a long way off. In fact, even the closest house isn’t very near. In weather like this, no car will take you there. And I wouldn’t advise you to go on foot.”

  “What are we going to do?” asked Claudia. “Your judge goes too far. Suppose I threw a first-rate fit of hysterics? Would that do any good? The way things are going—”

  The door opened, and it was the Judge who answered her. “No, it would do you no good at all.”

  Having retu
rned to his seat at the table, he clasped his hands together so as to look more solemn.

  “Let us continue. As we shall all be closeted here for some time, it’s the best thing we can do.”

  “And suppose I say I’m not playing?” Yoav said coldly, a veiled threat in his voice.

  “That will be duly noted in the report. But that too is part of the game.”

  “Have I the right to leave, yes or no?”

  “To go where?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “On foot?”

  “I’m in good shape. I train every morning. I go jogging. I do karate; kung fu as well.”

  “Take a look at what’s happening outside.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  Yoav got up and put on his overcoat. He went to the door and, like Bruce before him, tried to open it without success. At an order from the Judge, the Hunchback pressed an electronic device he kept with him; the door opened, and he left the room with Yoav, observed anxiously but enviously by his companions. Claudia was making ready to follow them when Yoav reappeared alone several seconds later, took off his coat, and let himself sink into a chair.

  “I’ll wait with the rest of you,” he said, assuming an air of resignation.

  Claudia offered him her warmest smile in appreciation of this act of solidarity.

  “You have done well to return,” said the Judge. “But I would not have let you risk your life. You are my guests here. Do not forget that I hold myself responsible for what befalls you. If something is to happen to one of you, it will occur within these walls, under my eyes.”

  Razziel had the urge to put a simple question to him. How did he see them: as visitors to be rescued? strangers to be conciliated? guilty people to be condemned? He decided to remain silent, as he had done once before, in a different prison. But on that occasion he had had a point of reference, a friend.

  As he busied himself, the Hunchback was reflecting on his own situation. He had lived through more or less similar events before. But why did he feel vaguely uneasy this time?