“There’s this place in French Hill, I’m not going to tell you where, that’s like, well, it’s not exactly a restaurant, it’s sort of a coffee shop,
and that’s where he meets once a week with these people. I don’t know who they are. But he goes in and comes out of there with this sort of black briefcase, like … here, have a look,” Natasha said as she rewound the video, stopping at a frame in which Rabbi Elharizi could be seen holding a small, thick black suitcase. “Like that,” she said, “no, not like that, that’s exactly the one. And look: the suitcase is attached to his wrist with a metal chain, did you see that?”
Rubin nodded; he had seen it. “So they meet in this restaurant, and—?”
“That’s just it,” Natasha said, “I don’t know exactly what. But a lot of money passes hands there. I peeked inside once. Money, bills, dollars, everything. And I also know that Rabbi Elharizi has been traveling regularly to Canada, he’s been there three times in three months and he always takes the suitcase with him. So what do we learn from that?
Somebody’s giving him money, which he then moves to Canada!”
“So?” Rubin said, looking at Natasha expectantly.
“What do you mean, so?” Natasha said, annoyed. “Like you really think that’s normal. What’s so normal about getting money and transferring it to Canada?”
“Maybe he came into an inheritance. Or sold his house.”
“No way!” Natasha shouted. “I know exactly where he lives, he hasn’t sold his house and he hasn’t come into any inheritance. And anyway, look,” she said as she fast-forwarded the tape and stopped at a frame showing Rabbi Elharizi in priestly garb again. “He’s moving money to Canada for something big—big and illegal—look at this getup, that means something, doesn’t it? I’m telling you, it’s something big and illegal. That much I’m sure of.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Rubin,” Natasha said with a laugh, “you yourself taught me: I do not divulge my sources, I’ve got my source and I’m sure not giving it out. But I need you to help me. I need you to persuade him to give me a crew, I want to get to the bottom of this thing.”
“Persuade who? Hefetz?” Rubin asked, surprised. “You want me to persuade Hefetz? Who could possibly persuade him better than you?
You certainly don’t need any help when it comes to Hefetz. You know that nobody has more influence over him than you do.”
“Listen, Rubin,” Natasha said, her lips trembling as if she were about to burst into tears, “you’re wrong. And as one who … never mind, you’re totally wrong. That’s insulting. I don’t have any influence over him, you’re talking stereotypically.”
“Ah,” Rubin said with a wan smile. “Stereotypically? I get it …”
“Don’t patronize me, Rubin,” Natasha said, pulling on the sleeves of the oversized sweater she was wearing. “You’re thinking in terms of stereotypes, like in American movies or something, but it doesn’t work that way in real life. On the contrary …”
“Enlighten me,” Rubin said, folding his arms across his chest and pushing his chair back. “Explain how it works in real life.”
“All right. I know you have experience, I know that you yourself have already … never mind,” she said, slapping her thigh as if to close the subject. “I didn’t say that … never mind, Hefetz won’t ever help me, he won’t help me—”
“Natasha,” Rubin said, making an effort to sound fatherly and patient, “how can I possibly bypass the news chief to help you? Explain that to me. Especially when you and he—”
“On the contrary,” Natasha implored him. “It’s exactly the opposite of what you think: if a man like Hefetz sleeps with a woman, he doesn’t think she’s worth much anymore. He knows how to talk nice, I guess, but you’ll never catch him taking me seriously, treating me like my work has any value. I think that … in general, if a person of his rank screws around with a nobody, a new reporter, do you really think he’s going to promote her because of that?!”
Rubin grimaced. “I don’t like … why are you talking like that? Why do you talk about yourself with such disdain? This isn’t a matter of getting it on the sly, it’s totally clear that you two have had something serious going for quite a while.”
“It’s not important what we have going,” Natasha said, cutting him off. “It doesn’t matter what Hefetz says, he can talk about love from morning to night. I’m telling you, if a married guy messes around with a girl half his age it’s called screwing, that’s all it is, and I don’t have any intention … in your case maybe it … but in any case, it’s over.”
“Aha. Over. Now it’s all clear to me,” Rubin said, raising his eyes to the ceiling.
“What’s clear to you?” Natasha demanded to know, and with a trembling finger she pressed the button that slowly ejected the videotape. “Because it’s clear to me … that you don’t want …”
“Oh, come on, Natasha, don’t be so touchy, at least spare me that,”
Rubin said, grabbing tightly the bony hand that held the tape.
“So do you admit it’s explosive?”
“Explosive?” He pursed his lips as though tasting the word. “All right, I’ll give you that. Or at least it’s the start of something explosive, if we must use such words. But an explosion is also destructive, they may not even let you screen it, especially if that’s all you’ve got—”
“I got two more,” Natasha said, bending down to her canvas bag.
“You have two more,” Rubin said, correcting her. He gazed toward the window pensively. “Since when?”
Natasha stood next to him, gazing out the window. “Look,” she said, alarmed, “what is all this? All those flashing lights, police vans, maybe … something must have happened, something awful. Look,”
she said, moving aside.
Rubin looked. “I really don’t know,” he said. “It’s hard to see from here. Shall we go down and check it out?”
“Maybe we can just call and ask. Here you go,” she said, holding out the videotapes. “I have two tapes that I am now giving you, I know how much you like it when I speak properly. What do you mean, ‘since when’?”
“Since when is it over between you and Hefetz?” he asked, ignoring the tapes in her outstretched hand.
“Since today, since now, a half-hour ago,” she answered as she inserted the video into the monitor and rewound it. “Anyway, his wife is coming back tomorrow. During the two weeks she was gone I understood … okay, never mind. I’m already twenty-five, I can’t waste my whole life on …”
In her worn jeans, her thighs seemed gaunter than ever, the look on her face vacant.
“You’ve got something there,” Rubin said. “I’m in favor of family, kids.”
Natasha chuckled. “Sure you are,” she said with a smile. “That’s why you’ve got a family and children.” As soon as she said it, she shut up and looked at him with misgivings. She had overstepped the boundary.
Rubin did not respond.
Natasha was dismayed. She knew that since the breakup of his marriage to Tirzah eight years earlier, there had been no other woman in his life. Everyone noticed that he was careful not to get mixed up in any kind of binding relationship with a woman. Rubin, who had been known at Israel Television throughout his marriage to Tirzah as a real Don Juan, as someone who always maintained two or three relationships with women “of every age and every color,” as Niva, the newsroom secretary, put it, had been uncharacteristically discreet in the past few years. No one knew to whom he was giving “limited, no-illusion pleasure,” as Daphna from the film archives quoted him as describing it. With all the women he had had affairs with, according to rumors, Rubin maintained good, cordial— even friendly—relations.
With everyone, that is, except perhaps Niva; Natasha had twice glimpsed Niva trying to speak with Rubin, who would brush her off.
Everyone—in the canteen and the newsroom and the hallways—
everyone talked about the child, how he resembled Rubin. Rubin thought no one knew about the boy, and Natasha had no intention at all of being the one to tell him what people said behind his back. Only a few days earlier Niva had said something about a gift for the kid’s seventh birthday. Natasha wondered whether Tirzah knew about the boy. People said Rubin refused to see him. They said Niva had tricked him, set a trap, that she had thought if she had a baby, Rubin would agree to live with her. But the opposite had happened, sometimes that is
