those ultra-Orthodox, especially the ones with the black skullcaps? Boy, did she!
But she had no intention of sitting quietly and waiting for the powers-that-be to find it in the goodness of their hearts to let her pursue it.
There was no way a young woman like herself wasn’t going to find a way on this, her only real opportunity. After all, she knew how to handle situations far more hopeless than this one. Hadn’t she managed to catch a flight to Israel—the only woman on board, no seats available—
in the middle of the Gulf War, just as SCUD missiles were falling?
Hadn’t she started working as a reporter when there had been no job opening? True, they hadn’t even given her a job as a researcher—only freelance: hourly wages, no benefits—but not just anyone could have gotten to where she has. And it wasn’t because of Hefetz, it was on her own. If anyone at all had helped her, it was Schreiber. Hefetz had only entered the picture later, and he hadn’t done her any good, he’d only screwed things up with his jealousy. Like, what was there to be jealous about her? She wanted to know what it was she had going for her; if she knew, then maybe she, too, would believe she was lucky. There was nothing to envy: quick sex in his office late at night, telephone calls all the time from his wife, who is always looking for him. Had he ever taken her anywhere? Given her anything? Nada, he hadn’t even helped pay her rent, hadn’t even taken her out for a good meal for fear they’d be seen together. No perfume, no flowers, nothing on her birthday. She didn’t mean to say he was a miser, because she’d seen how sometimes he paid for a meal out of his own pocket—not with her, with other people—but with her only one thing was for sure: he hadn’t spent a shekel on her. And now, wasn’t she the one who’d succeeded in getting the secret address of the apartment where Rabbi Elharizi met with that lawyer who everybody says is super-close to the prime minister? And wasn’t she the one who had filmed him dressed as a Greek Orthodox priest at the airport? No one could tell her she didn’t have first-rate journalistic instincts. She only needed the right opportunity, then everything would fall into place. And this was just that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, she knew it. The frightened voice of that woman who had phoned her and assured her of the address and the appointed hour. That woman—when this was all over, Natasha would track her down and thank her properly. She’d even send her flowers. Well, it wasn’t clear how she’d find her; on the phone she’d refused to explain how she’d reached Natasha, how she’d gotten hold of her mobile phone number, why Natasha in particular. But Natasha was not worried; she knew that at the end of the day, whatever information needed to surface would surface. If they would only put her on the air today, at least with that business about the allocations being paid to yeshivas for students who were actually dead. She needed to make her report before the Knesset finance committee had its meeting and it was too late. This was something she had heard about by chance, not from that woman, but from a guy who had once been religious and had left the fold. She didn’t know why he’d come to her with the story; he had simply told her the facts, hadn’t told her why she was the one. “Nathan told me to contact you,” he had explained. She didn’t know anyone by that name, but she hadn’t let on because this could be the opportunity she’d been waiting for. She would go on air with this business about the allocations, and then everyone would let her move ahead with the big stuff. If she didn’t get it on air today, they’d be able to continue collecting money on dead people. Everyone knew it was true; she was in possession of documentation, death certificates, the names of people who were supposedly living but were really dead. So who was going to tell her to go on television with it that night? And who was going to give her a crew, a soundman and a lighting technician and a cameraman, to film her at night? No one. She was certain of it.
“Thanks, hon,” Aviva said. Natasha left the office and returned to her corner at the end of the hallway, next to the bathrooms. Now she could hear Zadik’s voice, so she peeked. He had left his office without Rubin or Hagar and was standing in the hallway calling to passersby, then opened the door to the little office and said, “Come here, Nahum, Schreiber, Assaf, come, come see what a work of beauty we’ve created here, the splendor of the Orient, roots, we’ve got a rough cut of a new dramatic series here … Agnon, gentlemen, Agnon—” and everyone
filed in. Hefetz entered—he did not notice her—and someone else, Max Levin, that nice man from Props, and Avi the lighting technician, too. They were probably there about the stolen spotlights. She had heard in the newsroom that along with the business with Tirzah, they were investigating the thefts.
Schreiber ducked out for a minute, on his way to the bathroom.
That gave her an idea.
“Schreiber,” she whispered to him, “come here a minute.”
He stopped next to the door to the men’s room and gazed at her with surprise. “Come where?”
She pointed to the door of the ladies’ room behind her.
“Are you crazy, Natasha? I can’t go into the ladies’ room. You want to get me in trouble? They’ll say it was sexual harassment.” He passed a large hand over his shaven head, and the gold ring on his pinky finger sparkled.
“Schreiber,” she said in the small voice that always worked with him, “do me a favor.”
He looked up and down the hall and opened the door to the office of the director of the Drama Department, which was right next to the ladies’ room. No one was there, and Schreiber was allowed everywhere because he was a cameraman. What could they do to him, fire him? He explained this to her as she looked around suspiciously before they entered the room. Now they were both inside. He tilted his head to the side and regarded her carefully, as if he could look into her head and see exactly what she was thinking.
“What’s going on with you, Natasha?” he asked, his voice filled with something … full of goodness, it almost made her cry … in fact, it made her feel how alone she was, like that time he had questioned her and held her while she cried and then he had taken her, without anyone knowing about it, to that doctor on Palmach Street and had gotten rid of the problem, just like he had promised. He’d even paid, and never once brought it up to her.
“Schreiber,” she whispered to him, “you’ve got to help me with this business with Rabbi Elharizi.”
“What business are you talking about?” he asked her with studied patience, prodding the back of his head. She knew that even mentioning the name of the rabbi made his blood boil, so she quickly recounted what she had found out. “Come on, I’ll show you the video, I haven’t shown it to anybody, only Rubin, and he went nuts. But now, because of Tirzah and Benny Meyuhas and all that, he doesn’t have time to—”
Schreiber looked at her as though she had fallen from the moon.
“Natasha,” he said in a hoarse voice as he lit a cigarette without taking his eyes off her, “don’t even dare talking about it. Do you know what they’ll do to you if they hear about it? And don’t you dare ask anyone to help you, either. Do you want me to get suspended? Do you think this is a game? They told you not now. So that’s it, not now. They told you the police are running around here, and it’s not the time to be dealing with these religious fanatics. Don’t you understand that this isn’t the time for that?”
And even after she repeated her explanation and pulled him over to the monitor in the room and stuck the cassette inside and showed him Rabbi Elharizi dressed as a Greek Orthodox priest, and even though Schreiber whistled and laughed and shut the machine off, he sounded no less resolved and said, “No, no way. I don’t take risks like those.”
“What risks?” she said. “It’s like the only thing we need to do is stand behind the door when the money is changing hands and watch. That’s all. After that we film them, and I bring the lists. You don’t need to come to Givat Shaul with me where the fanatics have their yeshivas and you don’t have to come to the Interior Ministry for proof that those guys are dead, ’cause I already have all that stuff, that’s all ready for my report this evening. I’m going on the air this evening with the names of the fictitious yeshiva students. You only need to bring a camera and come with me to see that apartment in Ramot. What’s the big deal with that?”
“Natasha, you need a crew and a mobile unit, you need a soundman and a lighting technician, the works —”
“Schreiber,” she said, cutting him off, “get me a mobile unit without a crew and bring—you be the crew. The dead-live yeshiva students I’m taking care of myself, don’t forget—”
“I don’t get it,” Schreiber said as he opened the door and looked down the hall. “Wait, wait, now I understand: there are two different things here, you’re talking about two different issues, aren’t you?”
“If you ask me, they’re connected,” she replied. “First there are the
fictitious names that I need to … it’s … I told you, I did it all on my own with a video camera. But that’s peanuts compared with—”
Drops of sweat glistened on Schreiber’s bald head as he cut her off with a warning: “Natasha, you can’t go against the wishes of the workers’ union. If somebody gets wind of the fact that you’ve filmed it yourself without a proper crew, well, you have no idea what grief you’ll be bringing on yourself. I’m forbidden from going out without a soundman or a lighting technician, absolutely forbidden. They’ll shut the whole place down. Does Hefetz know
