I was never good at housekeeping. I remember the painfully brief period in which Maor and I lived under the same roof. I had a few reservations about it, a few fears, but they were probably misdirected, because what turned out to threaten my composure most (apart from having a very young and capricious partner) was the constant need to pretend I was adept at household chores. How often should the sheets be changed? When does the floor need mopping? What do you use to wipe the counter so it won’t be rough and grimy? What kind of mother will you be? All those rags and dusters naturally placed by the sink in every home, what are they for? What kind of mother will you be? That mysterious business of “housekeeping.”
A house doesn’t need to be kept; oh, no, it’s the one keeping you in its vice grip, chaining you to it by a string of clandestine tasks. “And that’s when it’s just the two of you,” Shirley told me at the time, “just imagine what it’s like when you have kids.”
Believe me, I did.
A quick glance in the mirror, Who are you trying to fool, Sheila? You’re not waiting for a cop, you’re waiting for a man. I run my fingers through my hair, trying to fluff it up, and consider my face. He’s twenty-seven, and you have that new crease between your eyebrows. Even if it is a fine, almost imperceptible line. It’s true what they say about us women who’ve never given birth. We maintain our youthful look. Nature is on our side, aiding us in the deception, at least until we attract a suitable male, and then, only then, will we let our bodies collapse with a loud thud into gestation.
But nature also wants us to attract males of a suitable age, which is why the face wrinkles, someone once told me. The lines reflect the womb’s biological state, so that young men can know what’s happening inside you and you won’t be able to fool them. I think it was Maor, he always liked presenting me with these fun bits of trivia. I even found it amusing at first.
I keep studying my face until a deafening knock on the door jolts me back into the present, and I realize that I forgot to hide the most important thing.
He barges in and stands in the middle of the living room; he’s taller than I remembered, and his eyes much darker, a kind of dirty green, not to mention the expression.
Silent and hostile he stands before me, and I take a step back, praying he won’t turn his gaze in the wrong direction. I try to enlist the help of polite gestures, imprinted on us by centuries of civilization, “Coffee?” My voice is warm and civil, “There’s even milk.” The image of Dina suddenly flashes before me, her small hands cradling the empty mug.
“Tell me, what were you doing there?” he asks in a churlish tone. “What were you doing at her house on the night of the murder?”
The night of the murder, the words sink deep inside me.
“I told you, she invited me over, we talked for a while, that’s all.”
“Oh, so it was a friendly conversation?” No. I don’t like that tone one bit.
“Yes, pretty friendly, I think.”
“You know what I think? That you’re a shitty liar.”
You’re wrong, I’m an excellent liar.
“Pretty friendly,” he parrots me mockingly. The impersonation, I must say, is surprisingly good. “Stop bullshitting me! She was scared to death of you, scared you’d kill her!”
“What?” I exclaim, hoping my shock sounds genuine. “Who told you such a thing?”
“Who do you think?”
I’ll never say.
“Come on, Sheila.” Even now, saying my name makes him sound a little more relaxed, but he’s still standing firm in the middle of my living room, with those squinting green eyes, like a giant boa constrictor.
“Who even told you I was over there?”
“You tell me.”
Not again with those silly cop-show games. “Has anyone ever, in your entire career, given you a straight answer to that ‘you tell me’? Does that even work?”
He smiles despite himself, although it’s definitely not the smile I was hoping for. As the venom glands begin to swell, the snake appears to be smiling.
“Ronit Akiva,” he says, “she told me.”
Thrump! Thrump! Of course it was her, and still it isn’t easy for me to hear. Ronit’s image flits before me, dark and beautiful, flashing that crimson smile of hers, a man-eater. That smile erases all other memories, apart from that final one.
“How does she look?” I can’t believe that’s the first thing to come out of my mouth.
“I have no idea, we spoke on the phone,” he says, “but she’s around your age, isn’t she?”
Okay, I deserved that: ask a dumb question, get a dumb answer – and Ronit always did make me act like an idiot.
“It turns out your…” He pauses for a moment, “friendly chat with Dina scared her so badly that she called Ronit right after you left.”
So the two were in closer contact than Dina was willing to admit, and this revelation makes me so angry I almost miss the implication of Micha’s last few words.
“But that means when I left she was still alive!” I exclaim triumphantly. He pins me with a sharp gaze.
“It doesn’t mean a thing. Maybe you went back there afterwards?”
My eyes bore into his, which have resumed their bright, soothing shade, and what I find inside them encourages me to continue: “Look at me, do you honestly believe I killed her? Come on, you actually think I tied her to a chair and glued a doll into
