“What are you so surprised about?” Rubin asked. “I spent the civilian service portion of my army duty on Kibbutz M.,” he said, mentioning the murder that had taken place there. “While a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, and you could say that today the kibbutz as an institution is anachronistic, back then it was the first time the police had investigated a kibbutz murder, the first time in fact that they had entered the gates. I could tell you about two or three other cases that didn’t make it to the police, that were solved locally. Natasha, come meet Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon. It won’t be the last time.”
Michael shook her dry, bony hand and introduced Eli Bachar as well.
“Can we go in?” Rubin asked Aviva. “I’m sure Benizri won’t mind if we’re there, and it’ll speed things up a bit, don’t you think? What do you say, Aviva? We made an appointment for ten o’clock, and in the meantime people are dropping like flies around here.”
Aviva shrugged. “I don’t know what’s so urgent, Rubin,” she said, tossing a cool look at Natasha. “People are dying, and you people are wrapped up in your own affairs. Anyway, go ahead and try.”
Rubin put his hand on the doorknob, but Zadik beat him to it and pulled open the door from inside. He was standing there, one hand on the shoulder of the correspondent for labor and social affairs, his puffy face unusually ashen. “Rubin,” he said gravely, “we have another funeral, have you heard?” Rubin nodded. “What a tragedy,” Zadik said, mopping his brow. “But what do you say about this guy, huh, our own Benizri?” he asked, trying to sound festive. “In the midst of all these tragedies, what do you say about him?”
“Well done,” Rubin said absently. “Mind you, you’ll have to follow up on those workers,” he told Benizri. “Reporting during a crisis, at the height of the drama, is no big deal; the real work will be afterward. But you showed a lot of courage out there.”
“Not courage,” Benizri said modestly. “That’s the job, I learned it from you. Absolutely from you. What you said about follow-up, well, I just came from police headquarters. Shimshi’s wife and the other wives are already there, what a mob scene! I promised them I’d speak with the minister about dropping the charges, otherwise they’ll be up on criminal charges.”
“Don’t waste your time,” Rubin said. “They’ll be up on criminal charges no matter what, it’s not in her hands. Kidnapping and intent to kill? It’s already been handed to the State Prosecutor’s Office, you’ve got nothing—”
“I promised,” Benizri said, “I have no choice.”
“Where’s the minister hospitalized? Hadassah? Matty Cohen’s wife Malka is there, too, with their son,” Zadik said. “I’ll go over there with you. Wait for me a minute, will you, I just have to finish up with—”
The telephone on Aviva’s desk rang just as Zadik pointed to Rubin and Natasha and moved aside to let them pass into his office.
“What? Who?” Aviva was asking into the phone. “I can barely hear you. Who is this?”
She listened for a moment in silence, a disconcerted look on her face. “Zadik,” she called out, “Zadik, hang on a minute, it’s—”
“Don’t bother me now, Aviva,” Zadik said, his hand on the doorknob.
“Take care of it yourself. Make decisions, for once be a self-starter, okay?”
Without looking at her, he entered his office and closed the door.
Aviva looked at the telephone and said into the mouthpiece, “Hello?
Hello?” But the line had gone dead. She laid the receiver gently in its cradle, sat down, and looked around her. “I haven’t eaten a crumb today, haven’t gotten a single thing into my mouth yet,” she said aloud to the silent room, which was momentarily empty. Listlessly, she removed a plastic container from her large purse, placed it in front of herself on the desk, opened it, and peered inside as if she did not know what was there. After a moment she sighed, pulled out one carrot stick and then another along with two thin stalks of celery, gave them a piteous look, stared straight ahead, and began, slowly, to chew.
c h a p t e r s e v e n
No one seemed to notice the mobile unit as it made its way to the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem. Schreiber examined the signature he had scribbled on a request form—for equipment, a cameraman, a soundman, and a lighting technician for an interview by Arye Rubin with Dr. Landau, the physician on whom Rubin was focusing his report about doctors who cooperated with and abetted the Shin Bet—then shoved it into the glove compartment. The interview had actually taken place—there was documentation to prove it—but Schreiber had stolen time from a second interview, with the hospital spokesman. When the spokesman had caught sight of Arye Rubin and the camera behind him at the entrance to his office, he had listened to a single question before slamming the door shut. That was why there was extra time, unaccounted for, that enabled Schreiber to commandeer the mobile unit.
“Over there,” Natasha told him excitedly. “It’s the second building over, see it? The one with the stone fence and the sign about charitable contributions.” The whole way there a lump of apprehension had clogged her throat. What if Schreiber suddenly had a change of heart?
What if they paged him? True, he had shut off his cell phone, but they could reach him on the beeper. Schreiber, for his part, had tried to calm her fears, had told her he had left explicit instructions that he was going to sleep and would be turning his beeper off, but not for a single minute did her misgivings let up, misgivings that he would have had enough, that he would suddenly say, That’s it, I’m sick of this, and take off, dropping her at her house and disappearing. After all, what did he have to gain from all this? Just thinking about the possibility gave her a sour feeling of anxiety in her stomach. How was it that nobody believed she could bring in something important, that her work was truly serious? How was it that only by asking favors could she … why did they think she had nothing worthwhile to say?
To stop herself thinking so much, she glanced at her watch. She had another two hours until she had to report to police headquarters in the Russian Compound. The green-eyed cop had told her it was an interrogation, but the other one, the tall guy with the dark, narrow face and the thick eyebrows, the one who always had an unlit cigarette in his hand and who hid it behind his back each time someone tried to light it—“Not now,” he would tell them pleasantly, “I’m trying to cut back”—
that one had apologized, changing “interrogation” to “a chat.” And when Natasha had asked him whether it was absolutely necessary for her to come in, he had smiled at her as though she were a little girl and told her she had watched too many police shows on television. Of course she did not have to, he had said, emphasizing his words and causing her to feel slightly embarrassed, but why wouldn’t she be willing to help them shed light on the circumstances of Tirzah’s death? He was certain that she would be eager to help in the matter of Matty Cohen’s death as well. He had inclined his head to one side, studied her with interest, and reminded her that they had summoned everyone who had been in the String Building or the main building, and that everyone had agreed willingly. Why would she be unwilling to come, he had asked, staring into her eyes with that look she had already noticed earlier, a dark, sad, look, very wise but sad. It was the downward slope of his eyelids that made him look sad, she realized now as she caught sight of Schreiber glancing in the side-view mirror. When you looked into the guy’s eyes, you could see he was intelligent, and powerful too—maybe it wasn’t power, but strength. He had looked into her eyes as though he was learning her, like she’d seen once in a science fiction movie where this character is just walking along looking at people when all of a sudden everyone’s inner thoughts flash really, really fast in front of his eyes. She didn’t understand what he wanted her for anyway, why he had asked to speak with her and what he hoped to get out of her. Maybe it was all because of Hefetz, who had given her an imploring look from the corner of the room when she was talking to the two police officers. Everyone noticed how he
stared at her. On the other hand, Hefetz always stared at her like that, or at least had been for the past two days, since she’d told him it was over between them. For her, the breakup with Hefetz had been easy, she really was sick and tired of the whole complicated affair, sick of his shiftiness and his fear of his wife. “It’s about time,” Schreiber had said when he’d started the van and asked what was happening with Hefetz and she had replied, frigidly, “Who’s Hefetz?” Schreiber had laughed.
“Thank God,” he said. “It’s about time you started acting like a human being and thinking that you’re worth something, that you deserve better.” To the policeman she had explained that she would be busy the entire morning and that she would only be available later in the day.
Gnawing on the toothpick that had replaced the unlit cigarette he had thrown into the trash, the policeman had said, “All right, later,” and had added that when she came to headquarters she should ask to speak with
