Chapter Eleven #2
Suddenly, a short man burst into the courtroom.
He was slovenly dressed, his small beer belly protruding from his creased 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.
“Is the indictment clear and understood by the defendant?” Sabat asked Love firmly.
“Clear, lucid, coherent…” her counsel replied. “C’mon, guys, let’s move on and get straight to the point…”
“Attorney Heart,” Sabat was enraged, “I am the one running this trial.”
“I know, Your Honor…”
“And when I put a question to the defendant,” Sabat berated him, “she, and she alone, answers it. I will not say it again. Are we clear on this?” Sabat leaned towards him, overbearing and threatening.
Heart nodded, saying not a word. The Chief Justice turned to the defendant and his harsh tone quickly became placating.
“Miss, is the indictment clear to you?”
“I believe so, Your Honor,” she replied.
“That is, the accusation is serious and very focused, whereas the indictment is rather short and laconic, but it seems to me that everything is pretty clear, to all of us.” She didn’t look as upset as one might have expected her to be.
“There is just one small thing,” she remarked, “love has many faces: the love of a mother for her children, the love of siblings for one another, the love of man for his god, and the love of man for his land. If I’m not mistaken, this trial addresses only one aspect of love—romantic love—and it focuses only on that. Am I right?”
The judges looked at each other and then at Yiftach, who remained speechless. There was no hint of softness in Sabat’s eyes. Yiftach nodded in agreement.
“Okay, I just wanted to make sure, because it wasn’t quite clear from the wording in the indictment. Apparently, whoever wrote it didn’t fully think it through…” she looked at Yiftach and winked tauntingly. He held his tongue while imagining that he was choking her to death.
Sabat looked at the audience and said gravely, “There is a procedural matter that I am asking you to maintain. This trial will not continue forever and, at its end, I intend to reach decisions. Therefore, I will allow each side to present no more than three testimonies. Pay attention,” he continued before letting any lawyer interrupt him, “I am not limiting you to the number of witnesses, but rather to the number of testimonies. In other words, in each of the three rounds of testimonies that each of you is allowed, you will be able to call upon more than one witness to the stand.” Even after he had made this clarification, it remained uncertain as to whether Sabat had the right to place this limitation on the two sides.
However, ever since he was born, he has been allowed to do whatever he wishes.