“I don’t remember exactly,” Rubin said. “I shook her. I held her by the shoulders, and then I grabbed her neck. She wouldn’t shut up, I wanted to shut her up. I wanted her to stop saying that nonsense.”
“And that’s what Matty Cohen saw,” Michael reminded him.
Rubin said nothing.
“He saw you,” Michael said. “At first he thought it was an argument, but in the morning he heard that Tirzah had died, and then he understood the connection to what he had seen. It was only in the morning that he figured it all out, right?”
Rubin said nothing.
“That’s when you put the digoxin in his coffee. Or was it in something else? Did you switch his ampoules? I haven’t figured out exactly if—”
Rubin said nothing. He felt sharply that the bubble of light and warmth between Michael and himself had dissolved. He acknowledged the gravity of the reality that had turned the tables on the feelings of friendship that had brought them close to one another for a moment, but he did not begrudge Michael returning to himself and his duties.
Rubin’s utter loneliness seemed to him more appropriate now than it had ever been before.
“You left the building to meet Tirzah?” Michael asked. “Was the meeting planned?”
Rubin’s head bobbed; it was unclear whether he was affirming Michael’s question.
“When?” Michael asked, persistent. “When did you leave the building? Before midnight or after?”
“Before,” Rubin said in a hushed, muffled voice. “At a quarter to twelve. She was waiting for me.”
“And no one saw you?” Michael asked.
“No one was there, nobody was in the editing rooms; the place was empty except for the newsroom. But they were all busy …”
“What about the guards at the entrance? How did they not see you leave the building?”
“Maybe they did. Sure they did,” Rubin said pensively, closing his eyes, “but there was a basketball game on, and they weren’t paying much attention. I come and go all the time, it wasn’t like someone unfamiliar. I left and returned.”
“How did you get into the String Building?” Michael asked. “From the back entrance?”
“Yes. I have a key.”
“And that’s how you met up with Tirzah, killed her, and managed not to be seen by a soul.”
“No one. There was nobody around,” Rubin said.
“Except for Matty Cohen,” Michael reminded him.
“Yes,” Rubin said, his voice breaking. “He passed by, and I wasn’t sure if he’d … I hoped … I went back to the editing rooms. It was raining, I’d gotten wet. I told them I’d needed to fetch some stuff from my car. In fact, I myself don’t know where I got the resourcefulness from—is that what you’d call it, resourcefulness?” he asked bitterly. “The whole time I kept thinking that … and then Natasha came along … I know,” he said, suddenly coming to life, “you think I’m some kind of monster: kill someone, commit a murder, then go back to work like … like nothing had happened.”
“And in fact that wasn’t the way it happened?” Michael asked matter-of-factly, trying to disguise any trace of irony.
“It was … it was as if I hadn’t been there, as if it weren’t really me,”
Rubin said. “I can’t explain it.”
“And what about Zadik?” Michael continued. “Did Sroul tell Zadik?”
“Zadik called me in to his office,” Rubin said, as if stunned by Zadik’s intervention, as though he thought of Zadik as unconnected to the affair; a stranger, a disturbance. “Sroul had been to see him in the morning, and Zadik told me … by telephone, he phoned my office—it was an internal call, which is why you have no record of it, why you knew nothing about this—Zadik called me to his office, and I knew Sroul had been to see him, and I already knew what Zadik wanted to say to me. That’s why I entered through the door from the hallway. I didn’t want Aviva to see me going in, even if I didn’t know beforehand that I … I didn’t know I would need to … but anyway, I entered from the hallway. He told me … he told me I would have to tell the whole world … and suddenly he sounded just like Tirzah. Suddenly … you would think that Zadik … after all, he was such a pragmatist, a guy with no principles. There’s no way of knowing about people… .”
From the end of the hallway came the sound of footsteps. Michael could make out the silhouette of Emmanuel Shorer; Rubin fell silent.
“What actually happened with Zadik?” Michael asked. “What was with the drill? Where did all that anger of yours come from?”
“It wasn’t … I … I had no choice,” Rubin explained in a choked voice, averting his gaze. “He sent me into despair, I simply went berserk—that’s the only way to describe it. He’d told me over the phone that Sroul had been to see him, he said, ‘I’ve got a clear picture of what’s happened here, Rubin. Come in to my office right away so we can decide together what to do.’ Well, I understood that was the end of me. I didn’t mean to … I didn’t know how … on a hunch I entered through the door from the hallway, I didn’t want anyone to even see me going in there. Only when I was already in the office, at first from behind, with the big ashtray … and when he fell, I bashed him again. It was only after that that I put on the technician’s overalls and picked up the drill. I didn’t have a … I can see exactly how you’re taking all this in. I think I can even explain it all, but never mind, it doesn’t matter. In any case, nobody’s going to think they have anything to learn from me anymore.” He fell silent, and his head drooped.
“And what about Sroul? Your childhood friend Sroul?” Michael asked. “Was he asphyxiated when you took away the oxygen mask, or did you actually have to strangle him?”
“He was already dying,” Rubin said in a voice that rose from the depths; “it wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“So, we started with three great guys of real quality,” Michael said as though reciting “Ten Little Indians.” “One went on to be a defender of the weak and disenfranchised, one became an Orthodox Jew, and one brings the stories of Agnon to the screen.”
He looked up to find Shorer standing in front of him. “Did you hear all that? Did you get it?”
“No,” Shorer said quietly. “That’s not the story. It just seems to you as if that’s the story.”
“What?” Michael asked, astonished. “I don’t get it. What do you mean?”
“I want to give you both, now, the official version of what happened. Do you understand me?” Shorer said, looking at Rubin. Rubin averted his gaze. “The way I’m going to tell it to you is the way it happened. The true story is that Rubin killed Tirzah because he was jealous, he couldn’t live without her. He pleaded with her to come back to him, but she refused. Matty Cohen saw the whole thing, saw him push Tirzah, knock her down, all the things we already know … so he poisoned him. We don’t yet know all the details, but we will. Right, Rubin?”
Rubin’s head swiveled, his intent unclear.
“We’re going to bring him in now for a proper interrogation, and we’ll hear about how Zadik found out about it and then had to die.
And that’s all. No Ras Sudar or any of the other stuff. Do you understand me?” he asked, turning to Rubin. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
Rubin nodded.
“Do you think something like this can be kept a secret?” Michael queried, astonished. “Why do you even want to—”
“We have a police commissioner and a state and an army and cen-sorship and enough troubles already right now without riling up the Egyptians with this story,” Shorer said, glaring at Michael.
“Forget about the moral aspect for a moment,” Michael said in a shaky voice. “Let’s be practical here. Do you really believe something like this can be kept secret now, after everything that’s happened?”
“No question about it,” Shorer declared resolutely.
“And what about you?” Michael exclaimed. “Will you keep quiet about it? Can you keep quiet about a story like this? And me? Am I capable of shutting up about it? Because what—”
“Of course you can!” Shorer said, grabbing Michael’s arm and lifting him to his feet to look closely into his eyes. “Look at me,” he commanded when Michael avoided his gaze. “Don’t you treat me like some war criminal. The good of the nation is as important to me as it is to you. Or do you think you’ve been appointed Guardian of the Truth?”
