Judge Barak Golan stood to the left of Judge Sabat. He was the youngest of the panel of judges. He was nearly fifty-seven years old and, like Sabat, was born in Israel. He was slightly shorter than Sabat, with a head of thick, black hair and a black beard. His small, brown eyes reflected empathy and warmth. Golan had completed his law studies at Bar-Ilan University. He had served as a prosecutor and investigating officer with the police force, where he had also done his internship. At the start of his professional career, he had worked as an independent attorney and, after several years, was chosen to serve as a judge. Actually, Golan was the only one of the three judges on the panel who had climbed the rungs of the ladder of judgeship: He had served as a judge of the Magistrate’s Court in Rishon LeZion for six years, sat on the bench of the Nazareth District Court for seven years and, for the past three years, has served as a Supreme Court judge in Jerusalem. Sabat, on the other hand, landed in the Supreme Court directly from the world of academia, after having served two terms as Dean of the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University. Israeli law enables the Minister of Justice to appoint a judge to the Supreme Court if that person is registered as a member of the Bar Association and has been teaching law at university for at least ten years. Sabat, a luminary in his field, met these requirements, and even some not written in the law books, such as his outstanding relationship with the minister. Judge Kedem had also skipped over the Magistrate’s Court. She was dispatched directly to the Lod District Court after twelve years as a senior partner in one of the country’s leading law firms that was situated close to the Old City in Jerusalem. Afterseven years in the Lod District Court, she was promoted to the Supreme Court.
Sabat glanced at his watch. The court hearing was set for eight-thirty a.m. and he was determined to start it precisely on time. The audience fell silent when the Chief Justice began to speak in an authoritative, chilling voice.
“Please be seated,” he turned to all those present. “On behalf of the State…” he looked at the indictment, “Attorney Posner and Attorney Geva?”
“That’s correct, Your Honor,” Yiftach shot up from his chair, with Melody following suit. He looked at them with disdain or, at the very least, with indifference.
“The defendant—Love. Represented by Attorney… Heart?”
There was dead silence in the courtroom. The seat of the defendant and her counsel remained empty and desolate. People began whispering and exchanging glances.
Yiftach breathed heavily. “Melody, she is going to show up, isn’t she?” he whispered to her anxiously. “We’re not going to become the greatest joke in history…” Panic began to creep up from his feet and spread throughout his body.
“Of course she will show up,” she calmed him as she kept looking directly at the judges.
“You know… you have to see it to believe it.”
“You may be surprised. Sometimes, you have to believe it to see it.”
Weissman sat at the back of the room. He looked anxiously at the main door. If Love doesn’t appear, if, in the end, nothing real stands behind this strange move, it will remain etched in the conscience of the legal world as his personal failure as well, for it was he who facilitated all this. Doctor Kena looked at his watch with obvious displeasure.
Suddenly, a short man burst into the courtroom. He was slovenly dressed, his small beer belly protruding from hiscreased white shirt. His long, gray beard hid half of the pink tie he was wearing, and his cheeks were flushed red. He paced the full length of the courtroom, his black robe sweeping the floor.
“My apologies for being late, Your Honors,” he addressed the judges, but his voice did not express sincere, deep regret. With his right hand, he pulled behind him a black trolley suitcase, which had one defective wheel that made nerve-wracking sounds. When he reached the defendant’s bench, he began taking out countless binders from the suitcase, humming to himself the whole while.
Judge Sabat glanced at his two colleagues, then turned to the man.
“Sir… are you Attorney… Heart?”
“Oh…” the strange man scratched his head. His clumsy movements were actually quite charming. “Yes, yes, of course, you can begin,” he answered distractedly, waving his hands to signify that the judges should continue.
“And you represent… the defendant?” Sabat wanted to confirm.
“Of course…” Attorney Heart arranged the many binders on the table in front of him in some intrinsic order known only to him. The tall pile of binders nearly covered his smiling face.
“And where… may I ask, where… is your defendant?”
“Who? Where?” he squinted.
“Love…” Judge Sabat felt his anger rising.
Heart glanced to the right and to the left, to the left and to the right. “She’s doing it again,” he slapped his hands on his knees in a somewhat affected manner. “You just look away for a minute and she already causes everyone around her to fall in love... that’s how she is… spreading love and warmth throughout the world…” he giggled foolishly and glanced towards courtroom entrance, where the door remained half opened, as he himself hadn’t bothered to shut it properly when he had burst into the courtroom with his foolish heroics. In the hall near the door,the receptionist was talking with one of the security guards standing there. The two were gazing at each other with shining eyes, clearly smitten with one another. Not far from them stood a woman with her back to the courtroom. “There she is!” Heart called out. “Ms. Love!” he raised his voice. “Ms. Love! Would you be so kind as to stop wielding your magic and come here? We wish to begin.”
And then it happened. Yes—it happened. Yiftach was not mistaken, he did not concoct these things from his tired heart or his raging imagination. The defendant indeed appeared in court for the hearing. That same woman who stood outside now turned around and hesitantly entered the courtroom. While gazing at her, Yiftach felt a fear rising from something unknown and undefined. Her hair was like shining copper and she had big, round, brown eyes. She had a chiseled nose, full red lips and gleaming white teeth exposed by her self-conscious smile. Her cheeks were blushed and her dark skin was smooth and glistening. She was beautiful. She was divine. She was a femme fatale. Love took hesitant steps as an aura of light enveloped and protected her. She was like the sun on a rainy day. When she reached the end of the aisle, she sat down in the defendant’s chair as the audience followed her every move without making a sound. The glow that emanated from her was immense—and there was no hiding from it.
“Now listen to me, and listen really well,” Attorney Heart whispered to her. “If you want me to continue as your counsel,” he reprimanded her quietly, “you must stop disappearing on me. I don’t care that you think it’s for a good cause and that those two suit each other.”
“Miss, are you Love?” Professor Sabat asked skeptically. The woman nodded, her lips tightly closed. Yiftach and Melody exchanged glances with obvious excitement. The trial began with a reading of the indictment to the defendant by the court.The Chief Justice cleared his throat, as if to imbue his words with importance.
“What makes this a very special trial,” the Chief Justice announced in a low, ceremonial voice, “is the fact that the defendant here today does not represent herself alone, but also the personal, amazing stories of billions of human beings who populate our planet Earth.”
“Excuse me? Your Honor?” Love suddenly interrupted. “I don’t represent anyone but myself. You humans decided, for whatever reason, to position me, Love, at the top of the ladder of feelings. You could have just as well placed Joy, or Hatred, or Jealousy at the top rung of the ladder, or any other human emotion. But you chose me, Love, above all others, to be your queen. And now you seek to place your queen on trial? Then do it with courage—don’t turn my personal trial into your national day of mourning.”
“That is what we shall do,” the Chief Justice responded, regretting his melodramatic opening remarks. He began reading the indictment aloud in a monotonous yet festive tone.
“A.The facts: From the dawn of mankind, throughout planet Earth, the defendant has caused—and continues to cause—men and women to fall in love with each other, to feel that they are linked to one another and to believe that they were destined to be together forever. The intense feelings of love that the defendant planted, and still plants, in the hearts of human beings have led to countless stories of unrequited love, of which there were those that ended with the death of the lover, the death of the loved one or the death of them both. At times, these instances of unrequited love were swept into the abyss of death by third and even more distant, parties.
B.Statutory provisions: The offense of which Love is accused is murder—an offense under section (300A) of the Penal Law 1977.
