about it,” Shorer had said, “you’ve got to stop. Look at the color of your face, it’s gray. Your face is gray. Have you had any tests done?”
Michael had shrugged in response. “Do me a favor,” he had said, “let’s talk about something else,” and so, in order to take his mind off the smoking issue, Shorer had regaled him with stories of the director general’s policies at the IBA, how he was demanding the use of a new broadcasting lexicon, having proclaimed, in the latest Director General’s Directive, that use of the expression “the other side” was no longer acceptable. “You know why?” Shorer had asked him, and then, without awaiting an answer, explained: “Because we can’t let ‘the other side’ write history for us. That’s why it’s no longer permissible to use the term ‘Intifada,’ only ‘uprising’ will do. Same with ‘territories,’
only ‘Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip’ is acceptable now. Taste this, Michael, take a taste of this matboukha, he learned to make it from his grandmother. Right, Menash, this matboukha is your grandmother’s recipe?” Menash was standing next to the table, rubbing his palms together. “Pour yourself some more araq, ” Shorer instructed Michael,
“it’ll make you feel better. Listen to me, I’m talking like Balilty. How’s Balilty? I haven’t seen him for a few days …”
They drank to Menash’s health and to a successful marriage with his new, third bride. “She’s Russian,” Menash told them, “but she’s got the soul of a Sephardic Jew. None of this liberated woman stuff, look at her back there in the kitchen.” Proudly, he pointed to a very young woman with golden hair standing behind the wooden counter, watching them.
“Zadik may not be the genius of his generation,” Shorer had told Michael when Menash took his leave of them, “but he’s got a lot of integrity. And balls, too. I sat with him at the Peleds’ one Friday night, just after the article came out. He tells me, ‘They may be able to control the use of this word or that in radio news broadcasts, but do they really expect me to instruct people what not to say on a political affairs program? Can you imagine everyone sitting around the table shouting, and we’ll stop the discussion to remind them not to say ‘the territories,’ but rather, ‘Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip’? Now Zadik may not be the genius of his generation, but there’s something very true about his practicality, his sincerity. So then Aliza Peled, you know her, the one with the white hair, teaches at the Hebrew University? You met her at Mumik’s wedding”—Michael nodded—“so she says that her friend, a language editor, told her that in written Hebrew you’re not supposed to write Palestinian with the letters samekh and tet but with the letters shin and taf, so as to recall the ancient Philistines.”
“That’s all they talked about the whole evening.” Shorer sighed.
“You go out for a nice dinner, hoping to have a good time, and these people can’t let it rest, they get right to politics. We were four couples sitting around the table, and Zadik started talking about the cutbacks, complaining how Ben-Asher wasn’t even willing to pay for taxis for guests anymore. How can you invite someone to appear on your program when you can’t even send a taxi to fetch him? No wonder everyone’s making a beeline for Channel Two.”
“We’ll announce it on the evening news,” the director general was telling Hefetz. “You’ll deliver a eulogy, say whatever you want to, but I want a copy beforehand. And then you can announce that you’ve taken it upon yourself …” Michael clamped down on the toothpick in his teeth and was staring at Shorer, when suddenly there was a sharp rapping at the door to the office and Eli Bachar stepped in. He motioned to Michael to come with him. Michael hurried out of the room and returned a moment later, his eyes on Shorer and the police commissioner.
“What is it?” the commissioner asked impatiently. “What else could possibly have happened?”
“Benny Meyuhas has disappeared,” Michael said. “They can’t find him anywhere.”
“Meyuhas the director?” Ben-Asher wished to clarify. “He’s the one they can’t find?”
“He’s been missing since yesterday, nobody’s seen him,” Michael said.
“So this could be our man,” the police commissioner said. “We’ve got to put out an APB on him and make a public announcement, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Shorer said. “Absolutely.”
“What?” Hefetz said, taken aback. “You mean like, ‘Israel Police requests assistance in locating’—and all that?”
“More than that,” Shorer responded. “We’ve got to get his picture out there. You must have a photograph we can use. We’ll need you to put it on the news, too.”
“The news?” Hefetz exclaimed. “The news? Do you really believe—
Maybe something’s happened to him!”
Natan Ben-Asher said, “They don’t believe any such thing, my friend.” He glared at the police commissioner. “We will not present him as a suspect, we shall simply announce that he has disappeared and that we are requesting assistance in locating him. That is what we shall do.”
c h a p t e r e l e v e n
Michael sat in Arye Rubin’s office at the end of the second floor, slowly stirring coffee in a pale yellow mug. “I used to smoke,”
Rubin said wistfully as he moved an ashtray full of cigarette butts aside. “These belong to an editor who was sitting with me. It’s been four years and two months since I quit.” Arye Rubin sat in a chair next to the large table, his back to the wall, and stretched his feet out in front of him.
Facing him, Michael was afforded a view of the wall and the large corkboard hanging on it, which was covered with photographs, clippings, and notes held up by red and blue thumbtacks. In the hours that had passed since Zadik’s body was removed from the building, Michael had managed to pore over the secret files that had been found in a locked drawer of the dead man’s desk, and while the forensics team was busy emptying the contents of Zadik’s office into large black bags, he had examined the safe that had been opened at his request and in which he found additional files, files absolutely no one knew a thing about. Michael had taken these and sequestered himself for a while in the little office next to Aviva’s. He flipped quickly through the thin plastic files: in one he found a copy of a secret personal contract between the Israel Broadcasting Authority and Hefetz; in a manila envelope he found the results of Zadik’s medical examinations; and finally he came across a yellow file—nothing was written upon it— sealed with masking tape. He carefully slit the tape and found a single page, handwritten in a tiny print on both sides, detailing the budget f
Iddo and Eynam,
or producing
as well as the donation that
made it possible. He had just managed to finish reading the document and examining the signatures, and had his hand on the phone, poised to share his findings with Balilty, when he was summoned from the end of the hallway. Eli Bachar informed him that initial questioning of Arye Rubin had been completed, and that Rubin had been unable to shed any light on the disappearance of Benny Meyuhas. He claimed not to know a thing about his whereabouts (“He sounds trustworthy,” Eli Bachar said reluctantly. “That doesn’t seem logical, but when he talks to you, he’s very persuasive”) but expressed willingness to do anything to help find Benny, including accompanying Michael to search his home.
An atmosphere of anxiety and distress pervaded the building, along with an unnatural hush; among the staff, people spoke quietly if at all.
Even the newsroom, which Michael passed on his way downstairs, had been quieter than usual. In the canteen—now bereft of employees—
sat a dozen policemen, listening to Yaffa from forensics describe the circumstances surrounding the murder “from the traces left behind.”
Several times she stated that because of the manner in which Zadik had been killed, it was highly likely that they would find—“If we are diligent in our pursuit”—clothing spattered with blood. Policemen could be heard in every corner of the building—employees were forbidden from entering rooms that were in the process of being searched; indeed, the entire area surrounding the site of the murder had been sealed off—and their footsteps resounded down empty hallways as they searched through closets and cubbyholes and storerooms and rubbish bins, increasing the paralyzing anxiety that had settled on the staff, who left their offices only when absolutely necessary and only with police approval. No one left or entered the building without the permission of Michael,
