because—” the security officer started to say, but Hefetz ignored him and stood examining the identity card that one of the young men, his dark jacket draped over his shoulders, had handed him. The man was smiling into his beard, and in a voice filled with wrath asked, “Do I look dead to you?” The other two stood behind him.
“What is this?” Hefetz shouted as he looked at the identity card.
Perturbed, he lifted his eyes and looked at the ultra-Orthodox man, then read aloud: “‘David Aharon, 33A Kanfei Nesharim Street, identity card number 073523471.’ You’re alive?”
The man spread his hands as if to say, Yes, it’s a fact, to which Hefetz responded, “I am sorry, sir, we will correct this mistake.”
Natasha raced upstairs from the recording studio, and Schreiber was already there next to the security officer, waving his hands trying to grab her attention, but she went to stand in front of Hefetz, who was holding the faxes Niva had brought him. Niva herself was standing by the stairs, pale, wiping her brow. “We’ve never had anything like this before,” she said, horrified, though it was not clear to whom she was speaking. Still, there was a hint of satisfaction in her voice when she added, to Schreiber, “I told you people, she’s young and inexperienced,” to which he replied, the loathing on his face clear, “You viper,”
and he moved to Natasha, who was examining the identity card that Hefetz was showing her and the face of the bearded man in front of her. He said, “I’m David Aharon, I’m David Aharon, you heretic!”
“Natasha, Natasha,” Michael heard Schreiber whispering to her. “This will blow over, Natasha.” “Forget it, Schreiber,” she said, her mouth dry. “Nothing doing. Can’t you see I’m screwed?!” She took to the stairs leading to the newsroom and ran into Rubin, who was racing down them. “Natasha,” he cried, “where are you going?” “To clear out my stuff,” she answered, her voice lifeless. “You’ll do no such thing,”
Rubin said as he grabbed her arm. “Hefetz,” he said. “Hefetz, did you hear her? Zadik, please—”
But Zadik did not even glance at him; he was bent over the telephone on the security officer’s station, saying, “Yes, sir,” and “I am sorry, sir,” and “Yes, rabbi.”
“Leave Zadik out of this, Rubin,” Hefetz said. “Can’t you see he’s busy trying to mop this mess up?”
“She was set up, Hefetz,” Rubin cried. “What are you shouting at her for? Can’t you see she was set up? You yourself sent her to cover this story.
“Zadik,” Rubin said, “tell him.” He turned to Natasha, pulling her back toward the entrance. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” And to Hefetz: “Why don’t you tell him they set her up because of the other matter? Why aren’t you telling him about it? After all,” he said, turning to Zadik, “it’s precisely so that you’ll read her the riot act and you won’t agree to air the other matter. Why don’t you get it, it’s the other matter that’s got them scared. That’s why they set her up, to get her into trouble.”
“No way,” Hefetz said. “That’s why we’re journalists. That’s what journalism is all about. News journalists can’t be set up. It only happens if they run ahead too fast without thinking, without checking and rechecking and rechecking again.”
“I was with her there myself,” Schreiber interjected, “I stood there knocking on doors. We talked to the neighbors. This guy doesn’t live there, this could be a fake ID—”
“Schreiber, Schreiber, forget about it,” Natasha said, her voice fatigued. “I am finished here, I’m washed up, no two ways about it.
Just leave me alone,” she said as she turned and made her way slowly up the stairs.
“Wait here for me until the end of the broadcast,” Hefetz instructed Michael, and raced after her, calling, “Natasha, Natasha.” She did not turn her head. Schreiber followed her as well, and Michael hesitated a moment: since when did he take orders to wait? He glanced at the double glass doors at the entrance to the building, where a large group of ultra-Orthodox men had gathered and were shouting. Suddenly a tall, lean, middle-aged man in a large, torn overcoat burst in, wisps of his thinning gray hair sticking out from under the large embroidered skullcap that covered his head. His arms were flailing, his hands in tattered wool gloves, and he shoved the security officer with his outstretched arms as if pleading. He shouted, “Where’s Arye Rubin? Arye Rubin is expecting me!”
The security officer wobbled for a moment, trying to grab on to the man’s arm. He said, “Hang on, sir, you can’t—” But the man shook him off in one swift motion.
“Who is this?” the security officer shouted to two of his colleagues, who had dashed in behind the counter in an attempt at taking hold of the interloper, but he shook them off as well, with great strength, as he wept: “Let me see Arye Rubin. He … he … he’s expecting me, he made an appointment with me!” Rubin approached the man, stood in front of him, and said, “I’m Arye Rubin. Here, I’m right here.”
In an instant the man relaxed, as though his strength had seeped out; he seemed ready to crumple into a heap. The security officer grabbed hold of his arms and pulled him backward.
“Let him go, Alon, can’t you see who—” Rubin said, holding the man’s shoulder.
The security officer looked hesitantly at Rubin but did not release the man.
“I’ve come to talk with Arye Rubin, he knows me, he knows—he’ll tell me—” The man’s voice trembled with a thick Russian accent.
“Let him go, Alon,” Rubin said again. “It’s all right. I’m here, I’ll take care of this.” He removed the security officer’s hands from the interloper’s arms.
“Here I am, sir,” Rubin said pleasantly. “How can I be of service?”
The man stared at Rubin, confused. He tried to say something, but his words caught in his throat and his eyelids fluttered and his large, burning blue eyes were set with fear, and he pleaded with Rubin, at first repeating himself: “I’m here to see Rubin, I made an appointment with him, I’ve got material for him, lots of material to show him—”
The female security guard standing next to Alon chortled, and Miri the language editor, who was passing by on her way outside from the canteen, a doughnut in her greasy fingers, said, “That’s the way psy-chotics behave. They don’t mean anything they say. And if you show them something, they won’t see it. That’s just Psychology 101.”
“That’s Rubin,” Alon shouted, pointing at Rubin, while Arye Rubin himself, his arm still draped over the man’s shoulder, said, “Good, good, very good, nice job,” as if he were speaking to a frightened child.
“What’s your name?” he asked, releasing his grip.
“I … my name is David, David Gluzman,” the man said, wiping his forehead and his narrow, ashen face with the palms of his hands. “I …
I have … I want to … I have a complaint against … ,” he said, and then fell silent.
The three ultra-Orthodox men standing in the doorway, their identity cards open as if expecting to have to prove their identities once again, moved backward toward the glass doors.
“Where do you live?” Rubin asked. The man stretched his arms at his sides and stood soldier-straight, then recited the details of an address on the far side of town—including the entrance and the floor and the apartment number—like a child in a kindergarten pageant.
Rubin fished around in his pants pocket and extracted a twenty-shekel note, which he placed in the tattered gloves on the man’s hands.
“You’ll need this for the bus ride home,” he said quietly as he curled the man’s fingers around the money, then placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and guided him to the door. “Go home,” Michael heard him say. “The best thing for you is to go home.”
The moment the double glass doors opened, several yeshiva students standing quite close to Rubin hoisted large placards above their heads: ZIONIST APOSTATE! JEW-HATER! These were written in black, while in red there was a poster that read, ISRAEL TV IS SHEDDING OUR
BLOOD!
“Everyone here is nuts,” Alon said, “this whole city is full of crazies.
The whole country, in fact.”
Rubin returned to the building, examined his hands, and sighed. He looked at the clock and said to the security personnel behind the counter, “I’ve got to go see Benny Meyuhas, I can’t leave him alone. If Zadik is looking for me, have him leave a message on my beeper.”
Michael looked at the large wall clock and at the monitor hanging opposite the security station, which was broadcasting MTV. A shirt-less, rain-splattered young man was kissing a crying girl while five backup singers crooned in the background. Even though the volume had been turned quite low, the backup singers could be heard singing,
Could you be my girlfriend, words that would follow Michael up the stairs to the newsroom.
