The Judges

by Elie Wiesel

  The Judge consulted his watch, made a vague gesture, picked up his papers, and went out. He instructed the Hunchback, who was waiting for him in the corridor, not to leave his observation post.

  Outside, the snowflakes were dancing lightly, like drunken images in the incandescent minds of the prisoners.

  The document, what can I do about the document? pondered George, with a pang of anguish. If something happens to me there’s a risk of its falling into the wrong hands, and that would be a disaster. What can be done? Absentmindedly, he took part in the others’ conversation. Trying to conceal his anxiety, he focused on his recent discovery in the National Archives, a serious and sensational discovery that implicated an important political personality in Europe. He was due to discuss this in Israel with a historian, a colleague whom he trusted, a man who had access to Mossad.

  Suddenly, something made him pay attention. Once again Razziel had uttered a strange name that opened a forgotten door in his memory. He sat up straight and asked, “Paritus? Did you say Paritus? ”

  “Yes,” replied Razziel, in astonishment. “Does that name mean anything to you? You haven’t come across him by any chance? ”

  “Sure, I’ve come across him. Many times.”

  Razziel could not control his excitement. “When? How? In what circumstances? Where did you meet him? ”

  “At the National Library, of course,” George replied with a laugh.

  “He came there? ”

  “He’s there now.”

  Razziel looked so dumbfounded that George had a moment of doubt. “Are we talking about the same person? ” Then he explained. He had read and studied the writings of Paritus. The first of these dealt with “The Mystery of Absence” in medieval Jewish theology. The second was a mystical poem evoking God’s nostalgia for the time before time that had preceded the Creation. The third was a meditation on the Apocalypse. Intrigued by the author, George had sought to know more about him. It seemed he had lived in Safed in the fifteenth century, visited Spain, traveled through the Rhineland, and ended his life somewhere in eastern Poland.

  Fascinated, his lips half open as if to catch the words as they flew past, Razziel uttered little cries, swiftly suppressed, as he listened to the archivist. “Are you certain? Tell me, are you really certain of this? ”

  “Certain? Yes, I’m certain the author of these texts was called Paritus. He’s the ‘one-eyed Paritus’ referred to by a contemporary of Spinoza. He wrote his works as he traveled through distant lands—” He broke off and lowered his voice, “I’ve even managed to get hold of a manuscript by this grievously little-known writer. It’s very short, only twenty pages, but its value is inestimable. The subject? You’d never guess: immortality.”

  The others chattered away, but Razziel and George were in a world of their own. Brought together by the name, if not the person, of Paritus, nothing could separate them now.

  “You must come and visit me one day,” said George. “I’ll show you his work. But what am I saying? You must know it, because I think I heard you say you had come across him . . . but is it the same man? Is it possible? The Paritus I know lived five centuries ago.”

  Razziel, lost in thought, did not reply immediately. He broke his silence by asking another equally disturbing question: “What if Paritus were immortal? ”

  George smiled. “Isn’t that true of all mystics? I mean, doesn’t their quest make them immortal? ”

  In his mind Razziel continued this line of inquiry with yet another question: Can’t one say the same thing of the profane and of criminals, the enemies of mankind and God? Do they not all outlive their victims? When I see Paritus again, he said to himself, I must ask his opinion.

  I WAS BORN at the age of eighteen,” Razziel confided to George Kirsten. “I don’t say that as a provocation but because it’s the truth. The truth has nothing to do with numbers.

  “In point of fact, I may have been seventeen. Or twenty. I no longer know. I’m no longer sure of anything having to do with my childhood and adolescence. When I think about my early years I’m lost in a fog. But I know I was born long after my actual birth. A remarkable man told me this. He’s the only person in the world who can help me. In fact, he already helped me in the past, and now I’m waiting to meet him and he’s waiting for me. He will return into my life. He has promised me. It is either his surname or his given name, I never knew which, that I bear within me and that sustains me.

  “He is all I can remember. As for the rest, I’ve forgotten everything except the place: a prison cell. And the time: dawn. Or dusk. What difference does it make? It’s the same struggle: for or against the light. For it to break through or to fade. At a certain moment, a human voice made its way into me and caused me to be born into the world. Why a human voice? Are some voices not human? Certainly there is the voice of God, but it is made of fire and silence. There is the voice of the nocturnal beast, harrying its prey before striking it down, but that voice is a harbinger of death. There is the voice of the tree, calling to the wind, and that of the rocks. And that of the madman plowing furrows in time. No, the voice I heard was a human one. At first it caused me pain; I felt an unfamiliar tugging at my insides. Should I shout? Yell? I didn’t yet know how.

  “When did the voice become as pleasant and soothing as balm? Later, much later. It made me understand that I was no longer alone. There was someone there in my cell, someone who breathed as I did and who, like me, was embedded in the darkness. I didn’t know who it was, but I knew it was a human being. I knew this not from having been told by someone but from having understood it for myself. I knew it, just as I know I should have a face, a voice, and a place in the sun, just as I know that in my neighbor’s eyes I am certainly a stranger, perhaps an intruder.

  “In fact, it took me some time, first to locate him and then to identify him. He had a beard. Instinctively I put my hand to my chin, convinced that, like his, it was covered in hair. Disappointed, I lowered it. At once I felt myself reeling. I recognized my state of inferiority. A beard—a real one—apparently has to be earned. Or won in battle. To dispel my malaise I closed my eyes. In the dark everything should feel better. Like before, prior to my birth. But nothing now was like before. The darkness into which I plunged was no longer the same. It no longer protected me; I was no longer alone.

  “The man observing me, shrouded in shadow and silence, was someone I had never met. Would he be a brother to me? My enemy perhaps? Where did he come from? How had he managed to arrive in this cell before I did? Should I ask him? Certainly not. Despite my lack of experience of life, I knew that the more you ask certain questions, the more dangerous they become. What if this other one, facing me, were simply my double, my real me? On no account should I make a fool of myself. Fortunately, he spoke first. He cleared his throat several times and asked, ‘Do you recall?’

  “I didn’t understand the meaning of his question. Since I was no longer— or not yet—in possession of a past, I had no idea how I could have remembered it. Surprised by my silence, he repeated his question.

  “ ‘So? Tell me if you recall.’

  “I was suddenly struck by the soothing quality of his voice. I would have liked it to be mine. To verify whether this was so, I thought it best to open my mouth.

  “ ‘No, yes,’ I said, very quickly.

  “ ‘Yes or no?’

  “ ‘Both,’ I replied, speaking faster and faster. ‘I start with no and end with yes. But the two are the same.’

  “He began nodding his head, as if overcome by great joy or terrible sadness. ‘If it’s yes, who and what do you recall?’

  “ ‘Someone who only knows how to say no.’

  “Why did I utter these words? There was an obscure urge in me that made me say no, always no. No, no, a thousand times no. No to what and to whom? Until when? I had no idea.

  “The stranger was silent for a while. His whole body was swaying, as if he were shaken by a fever. A shiver ran through me: Perhaps he was sick; was he g
oing to die before my eyes and leave me alone here? Was he going to die in my place or take me with him? I was relieved when he began to speak again.

  “ ‘Do you remember who I am?’

  “I didn’t remember.

  “ ‘Do you remember who you are?’

  “I didn’t remember.

  “He sighed deeply. ‘Do you really recall nothing?’

  “ ‘Nothing.’ Was he disappointed? It was clear he was in distress. My inability to satisfy his curiosity distressed him. How could I explain to him that it was not my fault? That a being who has only just been born has no memories? ‘Give me time to breathe,’ I told him.”

  I have memories. But they only concern things that happened later. I am willing to talk about them. Isn’t that what the Judge demands, for me to tear away the veil covering everything that is hidden or nebulous in what he calls my past? He claims he wants to understand. To understand in order to judge better. Will he accuse me, convict me, repudiate me, before eliminating me? Suppose I were to plead guilty? Should I invite punishment as the ultimate way out? No. My friend will come to my aid. Paritus will liberate me, I’m sure of it. He will come; he promised me. I’ve learned a lot from him. I’ve learned that man’s special capacity is for waiting, his ability to reconcile his own time with that of God.

  You’ve guessed it. My great friend, the friend of my lost youth, is my former cellmate. One day he said to me, “Living outside the law is neither good for the mind nor good for the heart, but does not living in itself make one guilty—I mean, guilty of living? ” I had an impulse to reply to him, But if all living people are guilty, can’t we deduce from this that no one is? I said nothing. I said nothing because I was struck by the strange reality that, even if I was right, no one has the words to express it.

  I think about my friend; I know he’s waiting for me where we agreed to meet, in Jerusalem, close by the Wall. So is he far away? I know that, even when we first met, he was distant from me. Even when, feeling my way, I tried to come closer to the corner where he was crouching, the distance between us did not diminish. When he uttered a question here, a remark there, his voice became dense; it blinded me. I was too small, almost a newborn babe; I could hardly see him; I saw him without knowing who it was I saw or even that I could see. This lasted for a time that today seems both inexplicably short and infinitely long. On his lips, words became corporeal and were transmuted into objects, but these objects had a life of their own that made them pulsate, leap in the air, and fall to earth, exhausted. It was only later that I understood. In friendship the ego is not dissolved in the other; on the contrary, it blossoms. Unlike love, friendship does not declare that one plus one makes one; rather, that one plus one makes two. Each of the two is enriched by and for the other. “In some religions,” my companion would tell me, “man must die in order to be reborn. I am opposed to this. I am against death, and against those who bring death, and against those who love death. One must never use death as a means—not even in the name of life.”

  Sometimes he spoke little. He listened. He spoke only to oblige me to reply—so he could continue to listen.

  “What is your name? ”

  “I don’t know.”

  It was the truth; I did not know that men give names to one another.

  “Don’t you have a name? ”

  “What is a name? ”

  “It’s the first gift a child receives from its parents.”

  “I have never received a gift. I never had any parents. Look: I’ve just been born and there’s no one to give me any warmth.”

  “I’m here.”

  “You’re there, but I can’t feel you. I don’t remember you. I don’t remember anyone.”

  “Try to remember. Make an effort. Think about the word before. It’s an important word.”

  Very well. With eyes closed I seized upon the word and began to cradle it gently, then to feel it, then to grip it with all my strength. Before—before what? Before whom? I was looking for a face, just one, no matter whose, a human face, not a mask. I ended up feeling a sharp pain in my head, the first in my life. Since then it has never left me.

  While I was rummaging within myself, he kept up a commentary. He strove to convince me that every man is born of parents; that every man is attached to a childhood; that we all have a memory, which may sometimes resemble a bedroom, sometimes a castle in flames. Both can be unlocked; all you need to do is find the key. He repeated these last words several times, so much so that I cried out, “Fine, fine, the key. All I need to do is find it. But where is it, this key? ”

  Astonished by the vehemence of my question, he got up. Now, even in the half-light, I could see him better. He was tall; his head touched the ceiling. I could see his face as well; it was etched with a nameless grief. What was the light that glowed in his somber eyes? And why did he keep his lips shut even when he was speaking? I studied him for a moment and thought, This is a man.

  Suddenly he leaned toward me and spoke to me slowly, separating each syllable. “The key that you seek, that we will seek together, is hidden within yourself.” Then, after taking a long breath: “No. The key you seek is not only within you; it is you.”

  Leaning back against the wall, he let himself slide down to resume his seat on the ground.

  We talked all night— or was it day? When had I seen the sun rise or set? Our cell was located in a basement. A dusty lightbulb hanging from the ceiling gave off a feeble light. I later learned that, in order to disorient the prisoners, the jailers deprived them of all points of reference. “Meals” were always passed to us through the spyhole by an invisible prisoner—I never saw more than an arm—and always at different times.

  My cellmate explained the oddness of my condition to me this way: My inquisitors had succeeded in stealing my memory. That’s it. They had simply filched it and carried it off to another prison within this prison. To what end? To this question my cellmate, though he was very well-informed, had no answer. “One day you’ll know,” he said.

  How many days and weeks had I been there, confined within those leprous walls? “For seven times seven nights,” replied my cellmate, who was becoming my guide and companion. The official interrogations had long since come to an end. Now it was he who asked the questions. “It may well be that they have inadvertently left behind a fragment of an episode, a snatch of a phrase that could give us a clue.” He made vague mention of a plump policeman who hissed like a snake when he was out of breath: Did I remember him? A sadistic guard who played with a razor, as if preparing to slash the flesh of the accused? A silent nurse with a syringe she always carried; the first torture by means of prolonged insomnia—no, no, I had no memory of those. I remembered nothing. As soon as I looked into the past I felt I was hovering over a dark, opaque ocean. And a familiar anxiety arose within me, stopping my breath: I was afraid I was slipping, falling, drowning in myself. Refusing to be discouraged, my protector threw both simple and complicated words at me, sharp and blunt words, pausing after each of them, as if in permanent expectation of a miracle that did not, in fact, occur, that was not going to occur. The start of a dream, a vague image? Nothing, always nothing. Finally, exhausted, sadness overcame him and he remained silent for a long time before admitting defeat.

  “Since you cannot remember who you are, I shall tell you who I am and, more precisely, who I shall be for you.”

  He leaned toward me and clasped my shoulder with his two hands.

  “My name is Paritus. I repeat: Pa-ri-tus. You say it now: Pa-ri-tus.”

  I took a breath and said, “Pa-ri-tus.”

  “Good. Now, my given name: Razziel. I repeat: Razziel. You say it now: Raz-zi-el.”

  I took a breath and said, “Raz-zi-el.”

  “Very good. Paritus is only a nickname. My real name, Razziel, was given me by my parents. When we part you will keep it for yourself. You will keep it until the day you find your own name again. Agreed? ”

  “Yes, agreed. But who are you? ”
>
  “A messenger.”

  “Where do you come from? ”

  “I was born in the mountains far away.”

  “Are you alone? ”

  “My parents were killed.”

  “Brothers? ”

  “Massacred.”

  “Sisters? ”

  “Assassinated.”

  “And you are their messenger? ”

  “Yes, but they are also mine.”

  “And I? Who am I? ”

  “One day you will know.”

  “When? ”

  “When you meet a mad prophet.”

  “And you, who are you?”

  “You will know one day.”

  “When?”

  “When you are free. Free as I shall be. Free as artists are, artists who see farther than prophets.”

  This exchange exhausted me. I found it hard to breathe. I asked to rest a moment. I closed my eyes and called upon sleep, which only came in fits and starts. Razziel Paritus slept as well, but he seemed to be keeping his eyes open. What could he see when there was nothing to see?

  That night, or that day—how can I tell which?—he told me of my arrival in the cell: I had a quite deathly appearance; my body and my gaze were drained of life.

  “There were several of us who saw you,” my friend said. “An impatient one, who was angry because the letter he was waiting for had got lost in the mail, and a silent one, who understood everything but only responded with his eyes. You were different. You were not only outside language but also outside the passage of time. Time washed over you, maybe even flowed through you, without leaving a trace. The silent one stared at you intently; you paid no attention. The impatient one shook you; you let him do it. I myself dreamed up a thousand devices for rousing you from your torpor. To no avail. Were you somewhere else? You were nowhere. I understood that it was better to abandon the attempt: In prison you always pay a price for vain efforts. A few days later we were separated from the silent one and the impatient one; either they were put in another cell or they were taken to the cellar to be shot in the back of the neck. I was left alone with you—which is to say, more alone than without you.