The Seventh Heaven

The Reception Hall

Today is my birthday. The feast of life renewed. We gather in the grand reception hall and our emotions warm it in the full force of winter. All that is delicious and delightful in food and drink and sweet song surrounds us. We come singly and in couples and in groups. Love guides us forward and good camaraderie binds us together. Differing moods and tempers blend in our hearts. We have no need to hire entertainers, for among us are excellent singers and glorious dancers — and what are these but our joy of life bursting out? Our joking evening banter is completely informal and unrestrained. The fragrance of flowers wafts through the room, which glitters with pleasure and contentment. The soirée stretches on till the coming of dawn, when we go out little by little, the same way we came in,eyelids sagging with satiety, throats hoarsened by laughter and loud talk, as dreams draw us on to happy slumber.

We are decreed from birth to be divided only by the Destroyer of Delights — but he seems quite far away. Security, it appears, is granted us. Of course, our numbers dwindle and faces disappear in the passing of days. The span of life has its dominion, and circumstances have their dominion, and what lasts forever but the One who is eternal? In the flood of pleasure and its warmth, we overlook the losses and savor what is fated for us, but with a deep sense of grief.

“That beautiful, bewitching face!”

“And her girlfriend who would never stop laughing!”

“And that self-important character who made himself the maestro at every party!”

We philosophize and say, “Well, that’s life and we must take it as it is. It’s been that way since the age of Adam, always treating people in the same fashion…. So where’s the surprise?”

But the debate subsided as the hall was emptied of its heroes. Today, no one comes, not a man or a woman. I wait and wait in hope that maybe … but it’s no use. I am tortured by loneliness, as my loneliness is tortured by me. I am unaware of what goes on beyond my sight. Nothing remains but mummified imaginings in the sarcophagi of memory. Sometimes I believe — and sometimes I do not. There was nothing in my heart but bruises and wounds, and affection for that One who dwells within me, when he asked me, “Shall I tell you the truth?”

“Please.”

“They have all been arrested,” he said. “The Guardian executes his duty, as you are aware.”

“But they’re all so different. How can he arrest them all without distinguishing between them?”

“He is not concerned with differences.”

“Do you foresee when they will be released?” I asked, with intense distress.

“Not one of them shall be freed,” he answered, his voice frigid with finality.

Ah! He means what he says. None of them shall be spared. The period of my loneliness shall linger and lengthen. But the matter didn’t stop there. Motion is eternal and unceasing. I was watching a moth fluttering about my lamp when he breathed in my ear, “Be warned…. They are looking into you.”

Really? No matter how long your voyage, your mission keeps growing with it, an old saying goes. But anxiety did not grip me as it did of yore. I listened to him as he whispered, “There is a chance for survival.”

I heard without heed. He was goading me toward the impossible. He often teased me this way — but I felt neither fear nor a desire to protest. Nor was I without a certain strange pleasure.

“No,” I told him.

And I occupied myself with packing my bag.

I alternate between packing my bag and amusing myself by watching the comings and goings.

I wrap myself in my robe against the cold of winter. I stand behind the windowpane, the glistening earth shaded by the boughs of trees, the sky obliterated by clouds. My eyes observe closely. More than once I spot him as he crosses the road, his tall, slender figure untouched by age. But he has not yet headed toward my house. In my youth I was deceived by his friendship with my father and his praise for him, and then … what was the result? That amazing man! During the days when I was deceived with what there was between him and my father, I came upon him unexpectedly on the street near my home. In all innocence, as courtesy demands, I invited him to visit us.

“Not today — thank you, my son,” he said, smiling.

How often people are confused by his kind reputation and his sadistic acts! In an interview a woman journalist asked him about his preoccupations.

“That I execute my duty to perfection,” he explained.

She pointed out examples of iniquity that sometimes occur.

“My work is carried out with perfect justice!” he rejoined.

“Have you never once loathed your duty?”

“Never — I execute a law that is absolutely just.”

“Aren’t there incidents that deserve explanation?”

“If we get into these legalistic details, the readers will lose all patience with me!”

And so the reporter ended the interview by noting his complete self-assurance.

Such is the man whose name breathes terror into hearts, who once declared publicly, “I do not go to people to arrest them. Rather, it is they who come to me by themselves.”

He added, “Likewise I deny with vehemence all that is said about the torture practiced in prisons.”

And so, here I am, looking out from behind the window-pane, during the brief moments in which I pause from packing my bag.