The Judges

by Elie Wiesel

  “He’s told me a great many things about a great many people in a way that made me think he was talking about himself. Was his mother a whore? Was his father a saint? Why should he tell me so? Did his wife and his daughters really die in a fire? With the proceeds from the insurance, he began to gamble. He hasn’t stopped since. And, see here, even about this I’m not absolutely sure. You never know with him. Anyone, apart from me, can make him change his mind at any moment for no apparent reason. It’s happened to him lots of times. Believe me, I could tell you some stories. . . . Only last week he sent me to the pharmacy to bring him some very strong sleeping pills. ‘But what about the prescription?’ I said to him. ‘The pharmacist knows me,’ he replies. ‘Tell him to call me.’ So I put my boots on and walk through the snow. I get out of breath, stumble and fall down, I pick myself up, I curse him for ever having taken an interest in me, and there I am in front of the pharmacy. As always, my poor heart is thumping twice as fast as usual. Am I going to see the pharmacist’s wife again? No luck; it’s her husband who serves me. I tell him why I’ve come, and he says to me, ‘I see. So your boss has no desire to live anymore.’ But when I got back I found out: Those sleeping pills, he didn’t want them for himself; he didn’t need them. He wanted them for me! Can you imagine? For me— and I sleep even when I’m not asleep. He wanted to make me take them! As I can’t refuse him anything, I was about to obey him. I already had a glass of water in my hand. Then at the last minute he informs me that his masters have set aside the sentence.

  “What can you do? That’s how he is, the Judge. So? If I were you I would be careful. First of all, if he gives you drugs, refuse them. Second, don’t rule out the possibility that, with you, his game isn’t a game at all.”

  Was the Hunchback worried about Claudia, thanks to whom he had suddenly felt capable of love? Of course, he knew that she could never love him. He had no illusions. But in his mind, if someone loved a person, it was as if he loved the whole world. And to love is also to inspire love, to make yourself loved.

  “For somebody here,” he said, more softly, “tonight is the first night of his life. Don’t ask me who it is. But for somebody else, if the Judge is to be believed, tonight is the last. Once again, don’t ask me who it is. I don’t know myself. All I know is that I want to be your friend.”

  Surreptitiously glancing at the woman, so beautiful and so close, he left the room with a sigh.

  For whatever reasons, the survivors took the Hunchback’s words seriously. In effect the Judge was forcing each of them to respond to the question, at once so simple and so complex: Why do you want to live?

  “Let’s do something, anything,” said Claudia frantically. “Doing nothing drives me crazy. Look, the Judge wants to sit in judgment. So let’s make believe we’re in court. What do we have to lose?”

  “But we’ve been doing nothing else all night,” Bruce protested.

  “We need to go further.”

  And Claudia explained. To respect the rules of the game, they needed to act as if it were not a game. They all needed to take it seriously and go along with the Judge. In other words, each of them had to consider his or her death to be close at hand. “Since we’re all in the same boat, each one of us should cite the most important reasons why he or she should be spared.”

  Why not? thought Razziel. After all, isn’t it incumbent on us to justify every hour, every moment of our lives?

  “Since it’s your idea,” said Bruce, still hostile, “I suggest you start.”

  “I love a man,” said Claudia.

  Bruce burst out laughing. “Bravo! Congratulations!”

  Claudia had tears in her eyes, she felt vulnerable, something that did not often happen to her. “His name is David.”

  “You’re in love with David, fine. And you believe this gives you the right to live, is that right?”

  “It’s very recent,” said Claudia, embarrassed and unhappy. “We haven’t had time to experience our love to the fullest. We’ve only lived its first few moments.”

  She fell silent, regretting that she had confided in the others. To regain her composure she started to bring out her lipstick but resisted the impulse. David hated seeing her wearing makeup.

  George, too, could have spoken of his love—for Pamela—but he said, “I have a mission to carry out. It’s of the highest importance, I assure you.”

  “A mission? What kind of mission?” asked Bruce.

  “I’m not at liberty to tell you.”

  Bruce made a face. “In that case, it doesn’t count.”

  George pointed to Yoav. “Ask the officer. He knows.”

  “It’s true. I know what it’s about,” said Yoav.

  “So does that give him more of a right to be spared than the rest of us?”

  “I didn’t say that. That’s not up to me or you to decide. You’re eager enough to stay alive yourself, if I’m not mistaken. Tell us, Mr. Schwarz, what entitles you to special consideration?”

  “I have an injustice to make right,” Bruce admitted, ill at ease. “It’s an injustice no one else can redress.”

  Next all eyes focused on Razziel.

  “And your reason for wanting to preserve your life tonight?” He could have answered, I have loved, yes, I have loved a woman. Her name was Kali. She is dead. Is that a good reason for wanting to live? Instead he said, with a little cough, “I must meet somebody.”

  “Somebody. That’s a bit vague,” parried Bruce. “Is it a relative? A client who owes you money? An enemy you want to destroy?”

  Razziel was at a loss. How could he describe Paritus? How could he define him? How could anyone measure objectively the importance of their meetings? The last time they had seen each other the old mystic had given him his blessing: “Keep your fervor, even in suffering.” He had said “fervor,” not “faith.” And then he had added, “One day I’ll tell you about the prophet, the artist, and the madman. Do you remember? In prison I said a few words about them to you, but not enough; the time was not ripe.” Razziel had not understood: Who was he talking about? But he was used to not understanding his old friend. How would Paritus have advised him to answer Bruce? That every life is of divine essence? That the life of the prophet is worth exactly the same as that of the madman? That the very mystery of existence is what makes it unique and irreplaceable?

  “You wouldn’t understand,” he said with a shrug.

  “That’s your problem,”was Bruce’s comment.

  Yoav was the last to have to defend his right to life. Should he tell them he was ready to sacrifice it? He remembered a story his mother told him. He was five years old. Injured in a car accident, he was taken to the hospital. While they were operating on him, his father prayed and offered God a bargain: “If you need a life, take mine.” On whose behalf would he, Yoav, offer God a similar bargain? Carmela’s, certainly. His mother’s, naturally. But the people in this room, what did he owe them? What did he know of their lives and why they wanted to save them? Even if he said, Fine, I’ll die for you, they would want to know why. And he did not want their pity.

  “I’m just like you,” he said finally. “I have the same rights as you. But I have an idea: Suppose we draw lots?”

  The suggestion, though logical, seemed to frighten them. To agree would mean to admit that a line had been crossed and that they were close to the inevitable outcome.

  They withdrew into themselves to give free range to ghosts held prisoner by the past.

  For Bruce, life was nothing but a game. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. What matters is to be ready to start playing again the next morning. That’s what he had done all his life.

  At school he used to amuse himself by being friendly to his classmates one day and contemptuous the next. To his parents he showed anger: “You want me to be a good student; that’s your problem, not mine. I learn, I go on learning—what for? I can never learn everything. First, life will prevent me from doing that and then death will.” As a teenager he continually
challenged his father’s authority; later, the rules of society. The game that fascinated him the most? Love; not his own but other people’s. In fact, the concept of love was so intolerable to him that he invented a thousand tricks to corrupt it by the very act of laying claim to it.

  He did not look like a Don Juan, precisely because he tried too hard. He was built like a boxer, with a flattened nose and bushy hair. He had an aura of brute physical strength that should have kept women away rather than attracting them. The strange thing was that only women already in love, married or engaged, were attracted to him. His intuition helped him seek them out. He recognized them from their way of walking, dreaming, listening. Sometimes he addressed women in the guise of a disinterested friend, or a psychologist, or else a novelist in search of subject matter—in other words, a confidant—to whom everything can be confessed without fear. He got them to talk about their studies, their favorite pastimes, their fiancés, their problems. He took them to the theater, gave them birthday presents, and did his best to entertain them, persuading them that he was doing all this to enrich their lives. It amused him but he himself had no stable relationship.

  He had succeeded in breaking off innumerable engagements, causing countless young people to shed countless tears.

  The first time it was his tailor’s daughter. They went to the same high school. A quiet, gifted, beautiful girl, Laura had fallen for Johnny, the dunce of the class. If she but looked at Johnny he felt less of a fool. Jealous of their friendship, Bruce decided to destroy it. He sent the girl flowers, love letters, and pleaded with her not to commit “the greatest folly” of her life.

  This first attempt at diverting love was crowned with success; now Laura only had eyes for Bruce. She broke with Johnny, who became ill and never returned to school. A few weeks later Bruce abandoned her. She was devastated.

  To his parents, who decried his boorish conduct, Bruce replied with a shrug, “The stupid girl didn’t understand it was only a game.” When his parents finally understood, it was too late.

  Similar games followed. There was an unmarried woman who had finally found a suitor. A widow who was planning to remarry. The only daughter of an elderly mathematics teacher. A Spanish dancer who divorced her husband in order to follow him, only to return, devastated, to her own country when he abandoned her.

  The teacher’s daughter took her own life. After a week of mourning, her father came knocking at the door of the man he knew to be the cause of his misfortune.

  “Look at me,” he said. “You have killed my only daughter and, through her, other human beings yet to be born. She would have married and had children I was ready to love. Did you know that my entire family died in the turmoil in Europe? By killing my daughter, by stealing her love, you have destroyed my hopes. You didn’t even love her. Tell me, why did you do it?”

  There was no trace of anger in his voice, no hatred in his eyes. Only a terrible sadness, mingled with resignation.

  Bruce was about to launch into his usual refrain, that it was only a game, a game whose cruel consequences were not his fault, but faced with this father in mourning, bowed by loneliness and grief, he could not open his mouth; the words turned to ashes in his throat. If only he could say something, do something, to banish the grief that confronted him. If only the earth, which he felt giving way beneath his feet, could swallow him up. That was the moment he faced the abyss and knew that he had to retrace his steps.

  Now Bruce was on the way to Israel to find Stacy, his would-be latest victim—and his love. He had met her at a students’ reunion. He had liked her joie de vivre. They spent several nights together in the Arizona desert before going on to New York. Then she left him to spend several weeks in a religious kibbutz in Galilee.

  She had the right to know the truth, the whole truth. He would confess to her as he had never confessed before. He would show her that he was wearing the red scarf she had given him. He would ask her to marry him. And she would say yes.

  David, thought Claudia. David, my love. David who has taught me to love love, with no regrets or compromise.

  David’s voice. David’s lips. The trembling of his body at the moment when desire meets desire, when the heart is stronger than reason.

  Had it not been for David I would have lived a whole life, a thousand lives, and never tasted love. Never known the sadness and the joy of passion. I would have lived out my life, a life of solitary death, as a neutral and indifferent spectator. Thank you, David, my love. Thank you for having shown me, thank you for having allowed me to show you that one shared night can transcend its limits and become an eternity.

  Claudia had just left the theater. She was unhappy with the rehearsals. The play was dismal, lacking in fire; the language was trite; the actors’ performance poor. How was she going to sell this disaster to the critics and then to the public? She had stopped at her office to pick up her coat when her private phone started ringing. Who could that be, she wondered. She ran over in her mind the people who knew her unlisted number. Her ex-husband, who could not fall asleep? A former lover whom she no longer cared for? A newspaper publisher who doted on her? She answered the phone.

  “Yes?”

  “Claudia?” said a man’s voice.

  “Who is this?”

  “David.”

  She quickly checked through her mental file. She knew no one of that name.

  “A mutual friend asked me to contact you.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “I’ll tell you after . . .”

  “After what?”

  “After the dessert, before the coffee.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “You’ll get no dessert.”

  She looked at her watch. It was still early, and she had a free evening. Why not? An hour or two with a stranger is better than a night alone.

  “Come and pick me up here,” she said, sounding directorial.“I hope you’re not far away: I hate to be kept waiting.”

  She did not have to wait long. David had called from a hotel near the theater. She had hardly repaired her makeup before he appeared in the doorway of her office.

  What was Claudia’s first impression? She was not bowled over: not tall enough, not young enough, not macho enough, not elegant enough. In fact, you wouldn’t give him a second glance.

  What an idiot I am, Claudia said to herself. This time I’ve really goofed. But when, as in a fairy tale, he took her arm and said to her, “A truly feminine face needs no makeup,” Claudia blushed. She was about to reply, but he didn’t give her the chance. “And that’s true of life, too.” He squeezed Claudia’s arm more firmly. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  All at once, nothing was as before. There was something in the way he held her arm and in his voice that touched the loneliness deep inside her. She felt she existed “differently” for someone who, unwittingly, had already become a part of her inner landscape. Appearances can be deceptive. What she was discovering at that moment in the man at her side was a secret beauty, an unsuspected grace, an originality, and a charm to which no one else, she was certain, could be receptive: God had created them for her alone.

  They walked slowly, silently, through the little streets around New York University.

  “Let’s just look,” said David. “This is our world.”

  “There are people fighting to change it.”

  “So what? They’re a part of it too.”

  Students and tourists took notice of one another with the same interest or the same indifference. Street vendors were selling ties, carpets, watches, leather purses. Occasionally, drug dealers passed little packets with disconcerting rapidity to passersby pretending to be there by pure chance. David and Claudia went to a noisy little Italian restaurant. Claudia was about to remark that she loathed noise, but then changed her mind; the noise had subsided. Her body was speaking to her louder than the giant city. All she could hear was the pulsing of her own heart. She had not known that her body possessed so many voices.

 
“Are you hungry?” asked David, slipping his arm around her waist.

  Claudia, though not accustomed to such familiarity, took it in stride.

  “No,” she said. “How about you?”

  “Me, I’m hungry.”

  “OK, then I am too.”

  A vegetarian, he ordered pasta and green salad for the two of them. And white wine. And a fruit salad.

  “You see. No one can say I deprived you of dessert.”

  She smiled.

  “OK, now you can ask me any question you like.”

  “Let’s start with the simplest. Which of my friends asked you to call me?”

  “I can’t recall.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “He asked me not to recall.”

  “Don’t you care that I don’t believe you?”

  “No problem.”

  “About everything or just that question?”

  “About everything. But . . .”

  “But . . . ?”

  “I want you to trust me. And that’s not the same thing.”

  She smiled at him again and thought, If he goes on looking at me like that, I don’t have a chance.

  “OK. It’s not the same thing.”

  He seized her hand and held it under the table.

  “Next question?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Don’t be so nosy, young lady.”

  “I want to know. If you’ll tell me I’ll give you a kiss.”

  “Fine. But first I shall have to pry apart the jaws of time.”

  Spoken by someone else, this heavy phrase might have shocked Claudia. But it did not.

  “Right,” she said. “What are you waiting for? Pry away.”

  “I’m doing it.”

  “For yourself or for me?”

  “For anyone who has to throw off the constraints of time, ego, and imagination.”

  “Are you good at imagining things?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, imagine I’ve just given you a kiss.”

  She had thought that would make him laugh.