half an hour ago.”
A tremor passed through her, and she covered her mouth with her hands as though suppressing a scream. Benny Meyuhas’s face showed no signs that he had heard. Slowly he rose from where he had been bending over the screen and, without uttering a word, walked in the direction of the bedroom.
c h a p t e r s i x
Natasha had already been standing for nearly half an hour, again, in the corner next to the ladies’ room at the end of the hallway on the second floor, where she could watch everyone who entered Aviva’s office and could know who was inside with Zadik.
Twice she had passed through the hallway as if by chance, and peeked in. Aviva was talking on the phone and did not notice her; Natasha returned to her post by the bathrooms, and every time someone approached, she rushed inside the ladies’ room. It wasn’t that she cared whether someone saw her there or not; it’s that she didn’t have the energy to talk to people and explain what she was doing there. In fact, she herself did not exactly know how to explain it; she only knew that at first she had been waiting for Rubin to arrive, and now, after he had arrived, she was waiting for him to leave Zadik’s office, even though she knew quite well that he was not speaking with Zadik about her, since she had seen Hagar arrive with him and understood that the only thing they had on their minds was Benny Meyuhas and his film.
She could speak with Hefetz, light a fire under him as they say, but she did not have the courage to talk to him. How could she ask him to give her a crew after having said to him, “You disgust me”? It really did disgust her just thinking about Hefetz. She could not bear to hear one more time about his wife’s flight, how she was supposed to have arrived in another two days but had come home early. She had not even heard him out, had walked away in the middle of his sentence. She was tired of being his plaything. And she was no idiot; she knew Hefetz well. If he knew what she was onto, he would take the whole thing away from her and give it to someone else. He would promise, as always, that she—and only she—
would broadcast it, but in the end he would take away both the report and the credit: with Hefetz, there was no mixing love and business. He would even say he was motivated by concern for her welfare. And anyway, he would never dare to allow her, no one would now; hadn’t Zadik himself told her, “Everything’s on hold now, Natasha”? If the head of Israel Television had told her this, surely nobody else would take it lightly.
A couple of policemen and one accident, and everyone was peeing in their pants. True, it wasn’t just any old accident, it had been fatal. And she had better stop acting like she was indifferent, as if she didn’t care about Tirzah. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, in fact she cared a lot, even though she had barely known her; you don’t have to know somebody to feel bad for them. It was a shame about anybody who died before their time, and an even bigger shame about Rubin. She knew him well and liked him and knew how important Tirzah was to him. But there was no doubt that for her personally, Tirzah’s death had ruined everything. It was clear that nobody would talk to her now; like Zadik said, as soon as the police got involved, he had to maintain a low profile. Everyone had to maintain a low profile. He wasn’t willing to risk complications with anyone: “That’s all I need right now,” he had told her as he rooted between his teeth with a toothpick he had removed from his shirt pocket, “trouble with the ultra- Orthodox. As if I don’t have enough grief as it is.” She had tried to tell him again, had chased after him down the hall like some puppy, explaining, when Rubin was already at Benny Meyuhas’s place with the police and everything, that if not today, then who knew when she’d have another opportunity to catch them red-handed, “in real time,” she had said, using his own language. But he had said, without breaking his pace or even looking at her, “Listen, sweetheart, nothing can be done right now, this isn’t the time.”
From the end of the hallway she had first heard Rubin’s voice and then seen him and Hagar entering Aviva’s room, and after that they disappeared into Zadik’s office. She strolled down the hallway two more times, peering in at Aviva. The first time Aviva had not even noticed her, but the second time she had said, “Hey, Natasha, come here a second.” She had entered the office and stood next to Aviva’s desk, straining to hear, without attracting Aviva’s attention, what was happening in Zadik’s office. But it was impossible to hear anything, not without putting your ear to the door, which she obviously couldn’t do
with Aviva there and people from the On the Circuit program entering and leaving the little office next to Aviva’s and shouting like crazy about the lineup for that evening’s show. Aviva said, “Do me a favor, Natasha, I can’t take it anymore.” She cast a furious glance in the direction of Zadik’s office. “He won’t let me budge, as far as he’s concerned I could live here and everything. He forgets that human beings have needs occasionally. I swear, it’ll only be a minute. Just one thing,” she added, indicating the little office with her head. “Don’t let anybody from the crew, from On the Circuit, make phone calls from here.
They’re not allowed to tie up the lines. These people are all I needed this morning,” she mumbled, “but they’re doing renovations downstairs, so I couldn’t very well toss them out. Where else could they hold their staff meeting?”
As if on cue, Yankeleh Golan, chief producer of On the Circuit, let out a roar; there was no mistaking his deep bass: “A whole week of work, and that’s all you people have to show for it?! I am not opening with the chairman of the Israel Aircraft Industries’ workers’ union; that’s not an item! It’s practically noon and you don’t have anything better than that?!” Aviva dashed out of the office, the phones on her desk ringing, but Natasha did not answer them. She stood between Aviva’s desk and the door to Zadik’s office. Ringing telephones and loud voices were issuing from the little office, along with a woman complaining: “Don’t smoke here, Assaf, do me a favor. You can’t manage for ten minutes without a cigarette?” The door to the little office flew open and Assaf Cooper marched out to the hallway, failing to notice her. He stood outside, close by the door, his back to her, speaking into a cellular phone he had lodged between his shoulder and his ear. “I don’t want a lot of screaming, I want it to be painful and sensitive … you’re representing a murderer … talk to me about it …” He was speaking very loudly, lighting a cigarette with one hand and pulling his belt tight with the other. She glanced at the skullcap threatening to drop from his head. “If any dilemmas arise …” he was saying into his phone. “What, no dilemmas? How do you explain that? What did you say? It’s all a matter of money? That doesn’t sound too good, just money …”
Natasha crept toward Zadik’s office, her back to the window and her eyes on the doorway, making sure no one would catch her with her ear to the door. That was how she managed to hear Rubin say,
“Zadik, come on, just watch one little bit—just one little bit of the rough cut, do me a favor, that’s all I’m asking. Look, just look, it’s a series about the splendor of Eastern Jewry. Think about how ‘in’ that is these days.” She could also hear how Hagar was butting in, cutting into Rubin’s words as if she was his equal; in that artificially sweet voice of hers, like a kindergarten teacher, she said, “Zadik, it’s Agnon!
Nobel Prize, Zadik, during your tenure, the credit will go to you, and Benny will dedicate it to Tirzah’s memory.” It was hard to comprehend how people dared to be so transparent. How could Hagar speak to Zadik as if he was some kind of idiot? What did she think, that Zadik didn’t understand why she was saying those things?
Zadik was saying something, but Natasha could not understand exactly what, and then she couldn’t hear anything at all. Then suddenly there came the sound of a woman singing in a clear, truly pure voice that gave her the shivers. Whenever she heard Mercedes Sosa sing, she got hot and cold and trembled all over. Now, too, such a tremor passed through her. But this wasn’t Mercedes Sosa, this was a different, unfamiliar language and a strange melody, sad as a lamentation. Natasha backed away from the door and sat down at Aviva’s desk, which was quite lucky since at that very moment, as she sat down and answered the telephone, Niva appeared in the doorway. She was waving a sheet of paper in her hands, and without looking into the office said, “Aviva, there’s a fax here that Zadik has got to see.” Only then did she look inside. “Oh, Natasha,”
she said with an air of disappointment. “Where’s Aviva?” Without waiting for an answer, she said, “Gone to the bathroom? Tell her I’m looking for her,” and she turned to go, then turned back again and added, “I totally forgot, Hefetz has been looking for you, a few times this morning already. Why aren’t you answering your beeper?” Before Natasha had a chance to answer, Niva had rushed on, her clogs banging heavily down the hall. Her voice rang out: “Benizri, Benizri, where are you off to?
Danny Benizri, you’re not leaving here without a word with Hefetz. He’s waiting for you!”
Natasha didn’t expect life to be easy; she was willing to work hard and engage in first-rate journalism. Like Danny Benizri. It was great,
what he’d done, going straight into that tunnel with the laid-off strikers, fearless. That’s how reporting should be done. But they’d let him do it, he hadn’t had to convince anyone to let him. She wasn’t afraid either, she was willing to risk a lot to do the job right. A real lot. Like what, she didn’t know how dangerous it was dealing with
