“Like hell.”
“Anything to drink?” Go to the kitchen before you make a huge mistake, go, remove yourself from his presence.
“I’d love some coffee,” he says, just when I remember I have nothing to offer but tepid tap water with a distinct metallic tang – a taste I have yet to acquire. I serve him the water in a sticky glass, which he studies at length.
“Don’t worry, everything’s kosher here.” I can’t help myself.
“It doesn’t bother me,” he replies with a curious gaze. “It’s been years since I bothered myself with such things.”
“I have a sophisticated ex-Orthodox radar,” I explain, an answer that usually satisfies them.
“You’re the first person to be on to me this quickly,” he admits.
“Really?” I ask, even though I’m not surprised. “It’s so obvious, it’s like the kipah is still on your head.”
And he reaches out, not to the top of his head to check if it has sprouted a kipah, but to the box behind the door, from which he pulls out the small baby doll. Am I imagining it, or has its closed eye opened slightly?
“You know, this doll looks a lot like the one glued to Dina Kaminer’s hands,” he says without looking at me.
“I didn’t glue anything to anyone, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
Bad answer. Very bad answer, because now he’s peering at me with that scrutinizing gaze, the one I’ve been worrying about from the moment he stepped into my apartment.
You idiot.
“If you haven’t noticed, I didn’t ask you if you glued anything,” he says. “I haven’t even asked you where you were two weeks ago on Wednesday at 10 p.m.” His voice is very quiet.
“Wednesday at 10 p.m.?” 10 p.m.!
“One of the neighbours had just stepped outside and heard Dina opening the door to her apartment and saying to someone, ‘I’m glad you came,’ but she could barely make out the voice of the person who replied. She’s almost convinced it was a woman, but…”
“But that doesn’t fit the profile of the anti-feminist-anti-childfree-woman murderer you people built,” I say.
“Good observation,” he says and courageously sips his water, pretending it’s not revolting. “So how about I ask you now where you were Wednesday at 10 p.m.? Would that be okay?”
And once again he flashes that smile of his, all too aware of its effect on me. With an expression both innocent and smug he leans back on the couch when a grating squeak suddenly sounds from underneath him, and he leaps up, spilling his water onto his trousers.
The damn doll! Her face, now squished, sends me a mocking smile.
Before he leaves he’ll get to hear that on Wednesday evening I was home watching TV, “without a shred of an alibi, but it’s a known fact that the biggest criminals always have the best alibis.” He’ll nod in agreement, ask about my relationship with Dina during our college days, hear how “we weren’t in contact at all in recent years, you know how it is, life just took us down different roads,” a line uttered in such a convincing tone I’d almost believe it myself; a few more dimple-revealing smiles. A few more of my attempts not to stare at the wet spot on his trousers, a few more gazes I’d never imagine I’d receive from the long and oh-so-young arm of the law, and that’s that, we’re already at the door.
He stands close to me, almost leaning in. I feel that magnetic field created between two people whose mere acquaintanceship will lead to disaster, and I shudder.
“So now what?” I ask.
“This is when I tell you that if you recall anything that might be of any help, call me.” He’s very close right now.
“Ah. This isn’t when you tell me I can’t leave town?” Something about his look just begs for wisecracks.
“I’ve seen those detective shows too,” he says. “And besides, you already skipped town.”
Another one of those nostril-flaring smiles, another brushing of his hand over his soft, thick hair, and he turns to leave. The door slamming behind him sends a tiny hairball hurling right into my mouth; I spit it out and hear the familiar giggle, dumb baby. The voice is Dina’s.
3
HE WAS RIGHT, obviously, the fledgling detective. I left Tel Aviv in the nick of time.
Too many women like me have walked the streets there – all of us good-looking, polished and prim, clever, sharp-edged, hovering like butterflies and prickly like a fertility-test needle, all of us ticking time bombs, tick-tock, tick-tock, no tot, no tot.
Last week, during a lecture called “Childfree by Choice: Women without Children,” held at a bar in Tel Aviv, a doll was tossed into the crowded room; it was one of those cheap, ugly ones, without eyelashes. It was naked, and the words “Mummy dearest” were written in red ink on its forehead. Once the hysteria died down, virtually every woman in the bar took a photo of the little dolly and posted it on her Facebook page, along with a withering indictment of police incompetence.
The perps were caught two days later, two boys who were so worked up about the ritualistic murder, about the growing frenzy and mostly, by their own admission, “about the possibility that finally we have a serious, creative killer in Israel,” that they decided to pitch in with their efforts. In the newspaper photo they looked like a couple of Moomins, soft and spongy, and I wondered which of the two had undressed the doll. I’d put
