“Full backing!” Rubin said. “There’s no connection at all between my ratings and suspending me, none whatsoever! There’s no connection between Benizri’s supposed infraction and—but never mind, that doesn’t matter. When we’re talking about tyranny, the authority of a despot, there doesn’t need to be a connection, or real reasons. Ladies and gentlemen,” he called to the small crowd gathered around him,
“please welcome the new tyrant, the Despot of Israel Television!
Please welcome the little dictator, welcome—”
“I don’t need to listen to this bullshit,” Hefetz said with loathing.
“Did you want to talk to me?” he asked, turning to Michael. “Here I am. Where do you want me?” Before Michael could answer him, Hefetz looked at Rubin and said, “The show’s over, and the good life, too. Not everybody around here is going to get to do whatever he pleases. This is a new era. Do you understand that? Do you or don’t you understand that?”
“And what’s going to happen with Iddo and Eynam? ” Hagar blurted.
“Are you planning to dump that too?”
“Don’t worry, Hagar,” Hefetz said in a fatherly manner, “we’re planning to honor all existing contracts. Let’s wait and see how things fall when matters quiet down a little. In the meantime you should know that the director general is very much in favor … he even said—”
“Hefetz, excuse me, excuse me,” said Eliahu Lutafi, the correspondent for environmental affairs, who had pushed himself from the crowd and readjusted the skullcap on his head. “Don’t you think you could wait to the end of the thirty-day mourning period, or at the very least until the seven-day shiva for Zadik has ended? There’s something not quite—”
“Lutafi,” Hefetz said, his face pinched and drawn. “Now you’re starting up? What are you worried about? You’re staying right where you are.” Without waiting for an answer, he looked to Michael, who motioned Hefetz to join him in his office.
“Tzilla will be questioning you,” Michael told Hefetz. “She’ll be in in a moment and she’ll speak with you, and you’ll sign a statement, and then you’ll be free to leave.”
“Not you?” Hefetz asked like a child expecting to speak with the principal and instead getting the very last of the substitute teachers. “I thought that you yourself—”
“Tzilla,” Michael said into the intercom, “Hefetz is waiting for you in my office.”
After listening to Tzilla for a moment, Michael said, “I’m coming to get him, I’ve wasted enough time here. You can divide up the people waiting next to my office. I want signed statements by the morning.”
To Hefetz he added, “Wait here, please. Don’t move until she arrives,”
and with that he left the room without waiting for a response.
“He hasn’t said a word, sir,” said the policeman on duty outside the interrogation room on the ground floor. “He’s just sitting there, hasn’t even lifted his head. Maybe he’s sleeping, I’m not sure. Peretz is in there with him, but—”
Michael nodded. “All right,” he muttered. “Don’t worry about it. Go drink something, eat something. Your shift is already over.” The policeman curled his lips into an awkward smile and made way for Michael to pass by.
Michael opened the door in one swift motion. Benny Meyuhas did not even lift his head, but Peretz, the interrogations officer, jumped up from his seat, startled. Michael placed his hand on Peretz’s shoulder, and the policeman sat back down in his place. He tugged at the sleeve of his thin blue sweater, frowned as if to say he had failed, and said, aloud, “He won’t eat or drink. Or talk. I don’t—”
“You’re doing fine,” Michael said encouragingly. He approached Benny Meyuhas, who was sitting at the opposite side of the table.
“Benny,” Michael said. “You’re coming with me now. We’re waiting for you.” While speaking he took hold of his arm, and Benny Meyuhas looked up at him, heaved himself to his feet without a word, and followed Michael out. “Come along with me, Peretz,” Michael said to the policeman. Without speaking they ascended the stairs and exited to the parking lot, where Michael’s car was waiting.
“You drive, please,” Michael said to the policeman, bending toward him and whispering the address. Peretz sat behind the wheel, and Michael opened the back door and invited Benny Meyuhas to have a seat. Benny Meyuhas did not budge for a moment, but Michael held the door open and gave him a gentle shove, causing the director to bend down and fold himself into the car. They drove the whole way in silence, Michael’s eyes constantly on Benny Meyuhas; he paid special attention as they passed the Oranim gas station. It seemed to him then that Benny Meyuhas sat up in his seat, but he did not shift or raise his head or look out the window. Only when Michael told Peretz to stop the car next to the apartment building and then said to Benny Meyuhas, “Here we are, Benny, you can get out of the car now. You know this building,” did Benny Meyuhas raise his eyes for the first time. As if the spotlights were blinding him, he shut his eyes and covered them with the palms of his hands.
“Yes,” Michael said sympathetically, “I know you’re familiar with this building. Sroul is waiting for you inside.”
Benny Meyuhas regarded him with wonder. “Sroul?” he blurted suddenly. “He’s still there?”
“Why?” Michael asked with forced affability. “Where did you think he would be?”
Benny Meyuhas did not answer, and Michael stepped out of the car, leaving the door open for Benny to join him.
After several long minutes, Benny Meyuhas emerged from the car, his body stooped. He did not completely straighten up even when he raised his head to look at the building. “I’m waiting here,” he said to Michael. “Tell Sroul to come to me.”
“He’s waiting for you inside,” Michael said softly. “He can’t come outside to meet you just now. Don’t you know that?”
“Why not?” Benny Meyuhas asked. “Is he too weak?”
Michael looked into the man’s face in search of a trace of sarcasm, but the bluish light of the spotlights showed only a tortured face outlined in deep creases that seemed to have deepened in the two days since Michael had first met him, giving him the look of a man filled with so much pain and sorrow that Michael found it hard to keep his eyes on him. Benny Meyuhas gazed up toward the second floor. “He was feeling better,” he said. “He told me he’d be fine, well enough to speak with you people.”
Benny Meyuhas began to speak again, then fell silent, pursing his lips like a small child who refuses to eat another spoonful of soup and shaking his head stubbornly.
“Come with me,” Michael said, pulling him gently toward the building. At one point it seemed as though Benny Meyuhas’s legs would give way and he would collapse, but Michael, who was tensed in anticipation of any possibility, held his arm tightly and coaxed him toward the path.
Balilty, who had returned ahead of Michael, was standing with Shorer at the entrance to the apartment. They nodded in Michael’s direction but did not look at Benny Meyuhas as they made room for the two to pass by on the way into the bedroom. Nina was waiting just outside the room, a smile forming at the edges of her lips until she caught sight of Benny Meyuhas’s face, and she stepped aside. “Ronen’s in there,” she warned Michael quietly, and Michael nodded, pulling the director into the room after him. Inside the room, quite close to the door, Benny Meyuhas stopped in his tracks and gazed at the bed.
Without a word he drew closer and looked. He knelt down and pressed his face into the dead man’s arm. A moment later he lifted his head and looked at Michael, who nodded in affirmation, but Benny Meyuhas continued to regard him with a questioning look.
“He’s dead,” Michael said after a long silence.
Benny Meyuhas jumped up and threw himself on the emaciated body, then burst into a loud and piercing wail. In the midst of his crying he called out, “Sroul! Sroul! It’s all my fault! My fault!” He continued to sob, his voice now faint and stifled as though bubbling up from the depths of his body. Sergeant Ronen looked at Michael in shock, poised to pull Meyuhas from the bed, but Michael held his hand out to stop him. They stood waiting: Nina near the door, Sergeant Ronen in the corner, and Michael next to the bed, waiting for the wave of sorrow to subside.
They waited in silence as Benny Meyuhas pulled himself up from the body and knelt next to the bed. He covered his face with his hands as though in prayer, until finally he stood up, with great difficulty, turning around to look at Michael, his eyes drained of color as though they had suddenly been gouged out, leaving only emptiness behind.
