The Judges

by Elie Wiesel

  In his hand, Yoav holds the letter that was found in Shmulik’s pocket: “To be given to Captain Yoav or his wife, Carmela, if something happens to me.” It contained his truth. It had to do with Lidia.

  The only and spoiled daughter of well-off Hungarian parents, Lidia had laid claim to her future husband in a seaside café in Tel Aviv. Young people, all from “nice” families, used to the good life and partying, often gathered there to discuss their pressing affairs of the heart, half seriously and half in jest. Some of them were just back from some kind of ashram in India; others were describing their adventures in Europe.

  Shmulik happened to be there one evening with Yoav, both of them in uniform. Sitting in a corner of the terrace, they were discussing a political play they had just seen at the National Theater. Suddenly a tall blond girl appeared before them. Her hands on her hips, sure of herself and of the effect she was having on the men, she stationed herself in front of Yoav.

  “My name’s Lidia. And you? What’s your name?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I find you appealing.”

  “Thank you, I’m flattered. But—”

  “But what?”

  “I’m not free—”

  “Free to do what?” She dared him. “To love me? Not even for an evening? An hour? Men don’t usually turn me down.”

  Yoav felt himself blushing; she was beautiful and attractive, this blond girl. Everything about her suggested voluptuousness.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, repressing a sigh. “I don’t wish to offend you, but—”

  “But what?” She stamped her foot. “You’re married? And she keeps you on a leash like a dog, is that it?”

  “No, that’s not it. I’m engaged. I love my fiancée, and I love her freely. Because I love her I am free.”

  The girl stared at him angrily, contemptuously, and turned to Shmulik.

  “I like the look of you too. Don’t tell me that, unfortunately, you too are stupid.”

  “No,” replied Shmulik, laughing. “No girl has succeeded in catching me yet.”

  “None? That’s fine. Say goodbye to your bachelor life. Hey, you haven’t told me your name. And as for you, Mr. Freedom, you’ll pay for this, I promise you.”

  Shmulik and Lidia became inseparable. Finally they married. They became neighbors of Yoav and Carmela. Their houses in the village of Herzliya became havens of happiness, until the fateful day when Lidia found a way of exacting her revenge.

  It was a Saturday. Yoav walked over to see Shmulik, who was not at home.

  “He’ll be back any minute now,” Lidia told him. “Come and wait for him in the living room.”

  He sat down in his usual spot on the sofa, near the telephone, with his back to the window. Lidia brought him a glass of orange juice and settled on his left. They talked of vacations, concerts, tensions on the Lebanese border, the election campaign. Then, suddenly, Lidia grew somber.

  “Do you think Shmulik’s happy?”

  “Yes, I think so. Thanks to you, he’s a happy man.”

  She fell silent, listless, and finally burst out, “Well, I’m not, I’m not happy!”

  Taken by surprise, all Yoav could do was to stammer. “Why . . . why do you say that?”

  “Because I can’t take it anymore. You hear me? I can’t take it anymore. I can’t keep on bottling it all up inside me: my desires, my fears, the real me. I don’t love him, I don’t love myself, in fact, I’m sick of myself. I want love, my body wants love. I’ve had enough, you hear me? I’ve had enough of living like this.”

  Yoav had never seen her like this: hysterical, as if possessed by a dybbuk. She was out of breath, her face contorted. To calm her he took her hand but let go of it at once. He felt embarrassed and, vaguely, at risk. He got up and made for the door, murmuring childish excuses and words of appeasement, whereupon, with one furious motion, she barred his way.

  “Oh, no. Don’t think you can turn your back on me this time!” she screamed. “You rejected me once. You humiliated me. Don’t you think once is enough? Once is enough, I tell you!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Yoav. “You must have had too much to drink. Go lie down; take a nap; you’ll feel better. . . .”

  He tried to break free but she resisted, flinging her arms around his neck. Yoav was surprised by her strength, as she drew him to her. A moment later he felt her lips on his. And then, as in a vaudeville routine, at this precise moment Shmulik appeared. Thunderstruck, he stepped outside, as if he did not wish to appear indiscreet. Overcome with fright and perhaps with remorse, Lidia ran after him, crying out, “You don’t understand. . . . I can explain everything!” They disappeared into the garden and Yoav went home stunned, as if in mourning.

  “What’s happened? Have you had an accident?” Carmela asked him. “I’m afraid I may just have lost my best friend,” he replied.

  Some hours later, after dinner, Shmulik came to see him. Carmela was clearing the table. She withdrew to let them talk. Shmulik took a chair and sat down facing his friend, then changed his mind.

  “Lidia has told me everything,” he said stonily.

  Yoav waited to hear what followed.

  “She says you’re in love with her, madly in love with her, and always have been.”

  Yoav listened aghast.

  “She also said it wasn’t the first time you’d tried to kiss her.”

  Yoav remained silent. As he stared into space in front of him, his head began to feel as if it were caught in a vise of steel. What should he say, what should he do? Condemn his friend’s wife at the risk of breaking up their marriage? Take it all upon himself and lose the friendship of a man he respected and whose respect mattered to him as much as his own true love for Carmela? He was at sea, his head seething with words and images. He, who always knew what to do and what orders to give his men in the most unexpected situations, now felt helpless, barren of any idea or initiative. He knew only one thing: He needed a miracle.

  And the miracle took place. Thanks to Carmela, who had heard and understood everything.

  “Shmulik,” she said, returning to the dining room, “there’s something I want you to know: Lidia loves you. She adores you. She has never loved anyone but you.”

  The two men turned to stare at her at the same moment. “Don’t look so stricken,” she went on. “The situation has always been crystal clear to me, and I’m not going to change my mind today. Yoav is your best friend, so he can hardly help feeling fond of Lidia, but it’s the fondness of a friend, not of a lover, and this is what Lidia must have misinterpreted. My love for Yoav is not affected. Nor should your friendship for him be. Yoav has done nothing wrong, nothing irreparable, and neither has Lidia, believe me. What happened just now never happened before. And will never happen again. I give you my word.”

  She talked for a long time, determined at all costs to convince Shmulik of the truth of her explanations. Finally she sent him home. “Your wife is waiting for you. Go and reassure her. She needs you.”

  Shmulik, who had been watching her, almost in a trance, was transfigured and had to make an effort to come back to reality. He went to Carmela and kissed her on the cheek.

  “You are simply wonderful,” he told her. “You are extraordinary. Yoav is very fortunate to have you as his ally.” And he added with a smile, “What amazes me is that I haven’t fallen in love with you myself.”

  Once the door had closed behind him, Yoav was about to say something but Carmela stopped him.

  “I know. I know what you’re going to say to me: I’m mad. Of course I’m mad: madly in love with you. Why do you think I became involved in this silly business? Not just to save their marriage but, above all, to save your friendship. I thought my explanation would be less painful for him.”

  Yoav looked at her hard. “But you do know the truth, don’t you?”

  “Of course I know.”

  “It was Lidia who —”

  “Please don’t say
another word, my love. I know you. You have never left me, not even in your dreams.”

  Yoav taunted her: “Aren’t you being a bit too sure of yourself? Sure that I have never lied to you? ”

  She took his head in her hands. “Well, that would mean that our truth was a lie, and that would be stupid, ridiculous, and completely crazy.”

  They began laughing like happy children.

  The next day Lidia brought them a bottle of great vintage wine to thank Carmela for her “understanding.”

  “Thanks to you, we’re drunk with our love.”

  The two men never again referred to the incident that could have put an end to their friendship, but in his posthumous letter Shmulik revealed to his friend that he had not been deceived.

  Carmela is an angel of kindness, affection, and understanding, but I know the truth for I know Lidia. She would be vexed with me for telling you, but in the end she confessed everything to me. This only made your own action all the more meaningful. You were ready to sacrifice yourself and our friendship in order to protect my illusory happiness. Thank you, my friend.

  At the bottom of the page there was a postscript.

  You know how much I have loved dreaming and fighting by your side but don’t be in a hurry to join me. Take your time.

  Confronting Lidia, Yoav could not bring himself to speak. He would have liked to talk about her husband’s heroism, tell her that he shared her grief, talk to her about the real Shmulik, but, as ever, he could not find the words. Face-to-face with the young woman, he agonized over what words to use. There was no need. Lidia took one look at him, and naked, brutal grief covered her face like a mask. She sank into a chair and remained there motionless for hours, feeling the sap draining from her world. . . .

  Bent over his files, the Judge addressed Razziel without looking at him. “It’s your turn.”

  A turning point? Which one? An episode, an event? From what period? His days in prison? Earlier? But his earlier life was veiled in darkness.

  “What do you expect of me? What do you want me to say to you? ”

  “Speak.”

  “What about? ”

  “Whatever you wish.”

  “About whom? ”

  “Not just anyone. Tell us about someone who has mattered in your life.”

  “Very well,” said Razziel. “His name is Paritus.”

  “What was he to you? ”

  “A support. A voice in the shadows. A reflection of the secret universe. A Master. A storyteller. A kind of well digger, one who knows how to detect the springs that water the soul.”

  Razziel recalled a story that Paritus had recounted to him.

  “In the street, the celebrated Maharal of Prague meets his noble friend the Emperor Rudolph, who asks him where he’s going. ‘I do not know, sire,’ replies the Jewish sage. ‘Come now, are you making fun of me? You have left your house to go somewhere, and you really don’t know where you’re bound for?’ ‘No, Your Majesty, I do not know.’ Incensed, the king has him arrested and put in prison for high treason. But when he comes before the judge, here’s how the Maharal justifies his remarks: ‘What did I say to His Majesty that was not true? I told him I did not know where I was going. Was I not right? When I left my house I thought I was going to the synagogue—and yet here I am in prison.’ ”

  Razziel told this story not to obey the Judge but to please Claudia, who reminded him distantly of Kali. At this moment of uncertainty, he had only one thought, one wish: He longed to be able to begin all over again with Kali, to see her again. Perhaps to follow her into death.

  “I like listening to you,” Kali used to say to him, taking his hand.

  “But I haven’t said anything.”

  “I like listening to you even when you aren’t saying anything.”

  They were happy. They needed so little to forget all that threatened their happiness. To take walks along the Hudson River. To share a raspberry ice. To watch the children playing in the park. To listen to a record. To guess the contents of a book before opening it. What would his life have been without this woman who was like no other?

  “We love one another and yet we’re so different,” Kali remarked to him one day, pressing him to her heart. “To really fall in love, must one avoid people who resemble one?”

  “We love one another, isn’t that enough? ”

  “It’s not enough. We’re similar but not identical.”

  “How are we different? ”

  “In everything, for heaven’s sake!”

  “You’re right,” he said, mocking her, “I’m a man and you’re a woman.”

  “No, no, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about—”

  “What are you talking about? ”

  In fact she was right. She came from a large wealthy family. Her father, a pious Jew much devoted to the Hasidic world, had been a diamond merchant in Antwerp and now lived in a fine apartment in Brook lyn. She was a lawyer in a Manhattan law firm. Razziel, on the other hand, barely knew who he was.

  He often wondered how she could love him, this unattractive traveler without luggage, a wanderer who could offer her nothing.

  “I like to surprise you,” she told him.

  In truth, nothing really surprised him, though he would marvel at the falling of a leaf in the wind, a nocturnal noise, a stranger’s smile; what he lacked was a childhood, the period that prepares a man for growing up, for storing away memories in his mind, emotions in his heart. And yet, deep within, he responded to all that happened to him, good or bad, as if he had already lived through it in the past. And this was a mystery that only Paritus could resolve.

  When Razziel abandoned his nostalgic meditation, Kali vanished into the shadows. In neutral tones and maintaining his severe and taciturn air, the Judge had just made a suggestion that caused him to sit up with a start.

  “In the game we are playing tonight, one essential element is lacking: Death. Let us invite Death to join us, if only to take the game, let us say, more seriously.”

  Looking at no one in particular, he continued. “I put this problem to you: Picture, if you will, that one of my people, a seer, has read in the stars that one of the individuals taking part in this little gathering here is to die tomorrow. In consternation he has asked his Master to explain this vision to him. The latter has uttered the appropriate prayers, and the voice of heaven has replied to him, ‘Since humanity has entered into a period of moral decline, God demands a human sacrifice in order to hold back from punishing all humanity.’ The problem is: Who is to be the scapegoat? And who will assume the role of executioner? ”

  He fell silent, ran his hand over his brow, and continued. “I leave you to consider.”

  After a stunned silence Bruce burst out laughing, but his laughter sounded hollow. George stared open-mouthed at a point in space.

  “Now listen to me, Judge,” Bruce said. “You can tell your man of visions to go to the devil, and if the devil won’t have him, tell him to marry the old village witch. Let him get it out of his system and leave us in peace.”

  Looking incredulous, Claudia shook her head. “First you interrogate us. Now you give us your hallucinations. What are you getting at? I like theater, I like games, but not sick games. We’re not in a circus as far as I know. Are we by any chance in a lunatic asylum? Are you offering us a psychodrama? Generally, psychodrama is used for therapy. Whom are you trying to cure? ”

  The Judge listened impassively.

  “There’s no sick person here to be cured,” Claudia went on. “We’re all in perfectly good health, thank God. So what’s the idea? What’s the point of this performance? At least have the decency to tell us.”

  The Judge remained silent.

  Claudia resumed. “We’re dying of hunger and exhaustion, and all you’re interested in doing is playing childish games.”

  “And why not? ” replied the Judge, suddenly serene. “Whether he is in mortal danger or is simply at play, man always goes back to his childhood.
And if this is only a game, it’s an innocent one. Why not say you will take part in it, just to please me? ”

  An irrefutable argument: How could they refuse their savior a brief hour of enjoyment? Surely as his guests they owed him that.

  “All right,” said Claudia grudgingly. “Let’s get on with it.”

  “Thank you. So someone here is going to die tomorrow. It could be any one of you. To begin with, I advise you all to prepare yourselves. No doubt you have letters to write, wills to draw up, farewells to make. . . . I repeat: Do not forget that for one of you this night could be your last.”

  A stormy debate ensued: How far should this puerile game be taken?

  “What’s this madman going to dream up next? ” yelled Bruce. “He’s out of his mind, for God’s sake! What he needs is a psychiatrist! And a straitjacket!”

  “Calm down,” said George, in a weary voice. “What’s the good of losing your temper? It’s only a game. Let’s go along with it.”

  Razziel rubbed his eyes. His head was spinning, his brain was exploding, and his pen slid across the paper without leaving a mark. He took refuge in thoughts of Kali: “All the things I haven’t told you. . . .” They should have had children, but God had decided otherwise. Then he thought of his pupils: What would become of them? Of Meir, the Ilui, the genius of the group: a young man who had come from far, from the world of temptation and sin, and had succeeded in climbing rapidly up the ladder of knowledge. Would he be his successor? Does Paritus know the answer? And, even if he does, will we ever meet again?