Natasha silently picked up her canvas bag and tapped Schreiber’s arm as he walked toward the door. She waited for Michael to exit, locked the door, and put the key under an empty planter. She followed Michael obediently to his car.
In less than ten minutes they had reached police headquarters at the Russian Compound. Michael led her to his office, first removing the cardboard files piled on the chair facing his desk and then motioning her to have a seat. “Coffee?” he asked, to which she nodded. “Sugar? Milk?”
“Black,” she answered. On his way to the hot water dispenser in the hallway, he glanced at her bony hands and her gaunt body and was tempted to say she could afford a little sugar.
When he returned with two cups of coffee, he found her resting her head on the desk atop her folded arms. In the wake of the silence after he closed the door, he listened to her measured breathing; he was certain she had fallen asleep, so he sat facing her as quietly as possible and stirred his coffee. As he peered into the cup, he could not resist the thought that a cigarette would be just the right thing at that moment: desired, craved, long-awaited. It seemed to him that since he gave up smoking, coffee had lost its flavor. Natasha raised her head, her eyes wide open. “I woke you up,” he apologized.
“Not at all,” she said. “I wasn’t sleeping, I was just resting a minute.”
Suddenly she smiled, exposing her small, white teeth, the teeth of a child. “This is actually a place somebody could rest in,” she said with wonder. “You feel safe here.”
Michael laughed.
“What’s so funny? What could happen to me here?”
“No one has ever said about my office that they feel safe in here.
‘Safe’ is not a word I’ve heard used in this room,” he said, pondering the idea. “You’ve got to be really, well, you can’t have any misgivings.
In short, you can’t feel guilty.”
“What should I feel guilty about?” Natasha asked with surprise.
“What? Did I do something wrong?”
Michael smiled. “Since when do guilt feelings have anything to do with having done something wrong? It’s enough to be alive just to feel guilty.”
She held the cup of coffee tightly between her hands and stared at a spot on the desk.
Michael said, “A person has to have been wronged pretty seriously in order for him not to have guilt feelings.”
“Oh, I’m an expert at that,” Natasha said. “But I can’t stand when people feel sorry for themselves. You’re responsible for most of what happens to you after childhood. I hate it when people bawl about what was done to them without ever considering their own responsibility.”
“Even when their lives are threatened just doing their jobs?” Michael asked. He took a sip from his coffee without taking his eyes off Natasha.
Natasha looked into her coffee cup and then peered at him. She said coolly, “What an elegant way to get back to the topic.”
Michael spread his hands as if to say there was no choice in the matter. “I said we needed your statement. You can’t keep your sources a secret when—”
“I sure can, and I will. I have to,” Natasha said. “I have no choice.
My career really will be over if I say something now. And anyway, what can you possibly do to me? Toss me in jail?”
After a short pause Michael said, “Well, how about at least, without giving away any details, why don’t you just tell me who might be interested in leaving you a token of his affection like that sheep’s head? Do you have any enemies? Is there anyone who hates you?”
Natasha chuckled. “Who doesn’t have enemies?” she said. “It’s enough to—how did you say it? It’s enough for a person to be alive to have enemies, to be hated. Even if he hasn’t done a thing wrong. But if you want to be a journalist and you’re, like, young, and you have this thing with the director of the News Department at Israel Television, then, wow—”
“You think you made people jealous?” Michael asked quietly.
“Yeah, but there’s no connection to—” she began, then decided against it.
“To the sheep’s head?”
“Yes, that’s because of, because of the investigation I’ve been conducting. It’s like, they want to scare me off because I’m onto something really important, you know? I’m not afraid. On the contrary: I know I’ve really got them nervous.”
“With that kind of money at stake,” Michael said, “I’m really not surprised. We should even consider putting you under police protection.”
“Police protection!” she shouted. “Like, a bodyguard? Like someone’s going to follow me everywhere and know everything I do every moment of the day?”
“We’ll consider it,” Michael repeated. “We’ll see.”
After a quiet moment Natasha asked in a childish voice, “Can I take off my boots in here?”
Michael nodded and watched as she struggled to remove her boots.
“Natasha,” he said suddenly. She shifted in her chair and regarded him, her eyes wide open. “Do you think Tirzah Rubin’s death was an accident?”
“Me?” she asked, surprised. “I have no clue—I don’t know anything about her.”
“All right,” Michael persisted. “But what do you think?”
She said nothing.
“Because you know Rubin so well,” Michael said.
“Rubin, yes, but he—” She stopped, searching for a word. “He is the most, really, there’s nobody else like him. Believe me, I know some personal stuff about him,” she said with pride.
“Oh, yeah?” Michael asked, like a child on a dare.
“Yeah. Like how he helps Niva out financially. I mean, he couldn’t acknowledge the kid publicly or anything, but he didn’t abandon the boy either. And then there’s Rubin’s mother.”
“What about his mother?” Michael asked.
“She’s in a nursing home in Baka’a. You know the one? On Bethlehem Street? It’s like for old folks who came from Europe. You know how much that place costs every month? And who do you think pays for it?”
“He’s an only child,” Michael noted.
“And there’s nobody else, because the whole family perished in the Holocaust. She’s not in good shape either, his mother. He has to run over there every day, deal with doctors and all that. Just the other day she ran out of some prescription and he had to dash around—he left everything in the middle, in the middle of preparing his report, and he went over there to bring it to her.”
“What was the prescription?” Michael asked.
She looked at him, surprised. “How would I know? What difference does it make? Something for her heart, I don’t remember what. Just that it was urgent. I happened to be in his office when they called.
Never mind, it’s not important. I just wanted to tell you that he’s a great guy.”
“And what about Benny Meyuhas?”
“I don’t really know—but he’s Rubin’s best friend, so I’m sure he’s—”
“And Hefetz?” Michael asked.
“Hefetz?” Natasha rolled her eyes. “He’s another story altogether.”
“How so?”
“He’s a guy who—it’s hard to say; he’s complex. People will tell you about his drive and ambition, but he can also be really sympathetic and warm. I didn’t just—anyway, it’s complicated.”
“You’ve had a close relationship,” Michael reminded her. “Intimate.
Perhaps you were in love?”
“No,” Natasha said adamantly. “I never loved him, not for a second.
He’s just—it’s like, if someone so much older and more important than you takes you like seriously—I just couldn’t remain, like, indifferent.”
“Like, or for real?” Michael asked.
