a cup of coffee, sir? Three teaspoons of sugar, right?”
“No, no, not for me, thanks,” Michael said; coffee suddenly had no taste without a cigarette. Then after glancing at Benny Meyuhas’s face, he said, “On second thought, bring in a nice big cup of coffee with milk,” to which Bublil nodded as he left the room, returning from the newsroom a minute later with a large, steaming mug. Bublil set it on the desk, removed three packets of sugar from his pants pocket, and placed them alongside the mug. From his jacket pocket he extracted a spoon and laid that, too, on the desk before going out to the hallway to deter curious onlookers from besieging the office.
Eli Bachar seated Benny Meyuhas in the chair facing the desk and without saying a word pointed to the mug of coffee and removed the handcuffs. He went to stand in the corner of the room, near the door.
Michael sat across from Benny Meyuhas, who tore open each packet of sugar, one by one, spilling the contents of each into the mug, stirring slowly, without raising his eyes.
“Where have you been?” Michael asked. Benny did not so much as glance at him.
After a long silence, Michael asked, in the grave, quiet voice one would use for a terminally ill patient who had disobeyed his doctors’
instructions, “Don’t you have anything to tell us?” Benny Meyuhas stared at his coffee mug and said nothing.
“You know, in the end you’ll talk,” Michael said, struggling to maintain his composure in spite of the anger that Benny Meyuhas’s passiv-ity provoked in him. “Don’t you think this is a waste of time?”
It appeared as if Benny Meyuhas had not even heard the question.
His hands were wrapped around the mug of coffee, and he leaned over it, inhaling the vapor without raising it to his lips.
“For thirty-six hours you’ve had the whole world concerned,”
Michael said, as Benny moved the mug to his mouth slowly and sipped. “Quite a few people were worrying about you. At the very least, we want to know where you were.”
Benny fixed his gaze on the darkened window behind Michael’s back and remained silent.
“You don’t want to tell us where you’ve been?” Michael asked, adding,
“We want to know, for example, whether you were in the building this morning, or next door at the String Building, or anywhere in the vicinity, for that matter.”
Benny Meyuhas did not remove his gaze from the blackened window. Aside from rapid blinking, there was no sign that he had heard what had been said.
“Are you aware that Zadik was murdered?”
Silence.
“Didn’t you hear about that?” Michael asked.
Benny Meyuhas said nothing, but the twitch in his eye and the sudden shiver that passed through him made it clear that he knew. It was impossible to know whether he had only learned about it upon seeing the death notices.
“Do you know where and how he was murdered?”
Benny Meyuhas covered his face with his hands, rubbed his pale cheeks, closed his eyes, then opened them and stared once again at the window. Lightning illuminated the darkened skies, followed by a single burst of thunder, and for a moment the bluish light given off by the round neon lamp was blurred, imparting a jaundiced hue to his pale face.
To Michael it was clear that Meyuhas was aware of his surroundings, perhaps even more intensively so than everyone else. He understood from the strange dichotomy between the frequent changes in Meyuhas’s expression and his slow hand movements that this highly sensitive man was gripped by great turmoil or extreme anxiety. “All right,” Michael said with a sigh, “for the time being I am going to have to put you under arrest. We’re going to bring you in for questioning under oath. You have the right to request legal representation.” He paused for a moment, waiting to see Meyuhas’s reaction. Benny Meyuhas seemed completely at ease, and Michael added, gently, “I’m sorry. If you were willing to talk, to cooperate, we could …” Again he looked into the face of this man who looked as though his soul had taken up residence elsewhere, far away.
Eli Bachar waited for Benny Meyuhas to return his mug to the table, then handcuffed his wrists and led him downstairs to the police van.
Michael accompanied them to the ground floor, where Hagar placed herself in front of Eli Bachar and said in a shaky voice that rose suddenly to a hysterical shriek, “If you take him, I’m coming with you, I don’t care what you —”
“You are welcome to come along,” Michael said, cutting her off.
“Your turn would come up sooner or later anyway. But just take into consideration the fact that you’ll be interrogated now, too.”
“You people don’t scare me,” Hagar grumbled, frustrated at being denied a good excuse for an outburst. She rushed over to Benny, nearly grabbing his arm, but one look at the somber expression on his face caused her to lower her hand. The van was already waiting outside; Bublil escorted Benny Meyuhas into it. Hagar bent over as if to enter the van as well, but Bublil stopped her, casting a questioning look in Eli Bachar’s direction. Eli waved his arm to say it was all right, and Bublil, with a shrug, climbed into the van and sat in the driver’s seat.
In the hallway, on his way to the canteen, Michael saw Hefetz and Natasha, deep in conversation. Hefetz extended his hand to touch Natasha’s cheek, as if trying to remove a mark or a crumb in a familiar, friendly manner. Natasha brushed his hand away. As he drew near, Michael could see the anger in the burnished blue of her eyes, could hear the venom in her words: “Ah, I get it. You’re taking care of me, is that it? Looking out for me? Who else would take care of me, if not for—” At that moment she caught sight of Michael and fell silent.
Hefetz, whose back was turned to the hallway, turned his face to Michael, casting him a look of utter helplessness. “I don’t know what to do with her,” he complained, as if speaking about a child who was their mutual responsibility.
Natasha grabbed a lock of her hair and gave it her full attention.
“You get it?” she said to Michael. “He’s taking care of me, looking after my well-being, making sure nothing bad happens to me. You get that?”
Then she added, without looking at Hefetz, “Well, if that’s the way it
is, why doesn’t he just bring me home with him? How would that be?
At least there, nobody would lay a hand on me, and he’d be looking after me, right?”
“That’s not funny,” Hefetz said in protest. “I really am concerned with your welfare. Why don’t you believe that? Why do you treat me like I’m some kind of … of criminal?” He appealed to Michael: “She doesn’t believe me, she thinks I just want to clear my conscience or that I only act in my own self-interest. But really, like I told you before, I just want to know what I can do… . I hear about this slaughtered sheep hanging in front of her door, at night, twenty-four hours later, and even then only by chance, thanks to a couple of policemen I overheard talking. Nobody thinks to tell me these things, and she? She treats me like a stranger. When all is said and done, what do I want? I know her so well, like … we’re so close … we’re …”
“Hefetz,” Natasha said quietly, emphasizing each syllable. “I’ve told you a thousand times, Hefetz, there’s no more ‘we.’ There’s me and there’s you, each of us completely separate. You know that expression, Two of us together, each of us apart? Well, that’s us to a tee. Believe me, not just us. And if you, if you think that—” She turned to Michael.
“He says he loves me,” she said with wonder mixed with open desperation. “So what does that mean? What does it mean to love somebody?”
Hefetz shifted his startled gaze from Natasha to Michael. “Natasha … ,” he said in warning, “Natasha—”
“Don’t you … I’m asking you what it means to love someone.
Answer me.” To Michael she said, “I’m asking you, too. Two men, older and smarter than I am, I’m asking you what it means to love somebody.”
Michael said nothing, but looked at Hefetz, who was shifting his weight from foot to foot and wiping his brow. It seemed he was about to answer, but instead he merely said, “Natasha, do me a favor—”
“Does loving someone mean wanting the best for him?” she said, persistent. “Yes or no?”
Hefetz cleared his throat but said nothing.
“So you can help me. You can give me permission, you can help me… . I want to get that report on the air,
