Fire in a Haystack: A Thrilling Novel

by Erez Aharoni

  FIRE IN A HAYSTACK

  Erez Aharoni

  FIRE IN A HAYSTACK/ Erez Aharoni

  Copyright © 2015 Erez Aharoni. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.

  Contact: erezaharonibooks@gmail.com

  To my father, Aharon, may he rest in peace,

  and my mother, Yael,with love

  “If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.”

  Exodus 22:6

  Prologue

  May 2005

  Who would have believed it would be the hands of Joshua Fliegelman, the physics teacher that would decide destinies many years in the future?

  During that tiresome afternoon hour, his freckled hands forced open a rusty iron spring that matched the shade of his pointy beard. His checkered shirt refused to remain tucked in his belt, and the edges of his corduroy trousers made a considerable effort to maintain their distance from his sandals.

  The Tel Aviv high school ninth graders who sat in front of him stared hollowly at the veins projecting from his hands and found it difficult to understand what the “shpring conshtant” meant.

  It was neither Fliegelman’s speech impediment nor the spring elongating in his hands that occupied the thoughts of Ofer Angel. His eyes moved back and forth across the legs of Gali Shviro, who was sitting only a hairsbreadth away from his yearning eyes. The school uniform skirt she wore was the size of a handkerchief. Two tanned and slender legs spilled their way from the hem of the tiny piece of cloth. The kind of legs you remember well, even ten years later.

  Suddenly, a tiny, nimble creature emerged out of nowhere and dashed across the laboratory.

  Gali was the first to see it and erupted in a scream:

  “Mmmm…mouse! Mmmm…mouse!”

  A chorus of throaty voices joined her. All the students sprang to their feet and stood on the high lab chairs. The grayish mouse, startled by the loud welcome it received, maneuvered its escape path quickly and returned to the hiding place it had emerged from.

  Moments after the commotion died out and Fliegelman returned to struggle with the stretching of the “shpring,” Yoav Tzuri, the nerdiest, brightest student in the class, could not contain himself any longer. The second the teacher and his orangish beard were turned towards the blackboard, he secretly snuck behind Gali Shviro’s crossed feet. His thumb and forefinger collaborated to decisively pinch her right ankle.

  Gali, certain that the mouse had come back because it coveted her slender ankles, produced out of her body a cry that made the walls of the laboratory tremble and continued to roll down the school corridors.

  Fliegelman shuddered all over. For the first time in his life, he realized a mouse could cause a girl to utter noises he himself, no matter how hard he might try, would never be able to induce. The chalk shot from his hand in a wide arc and flew backwards as his face grew as white as the flying chalk.

  Just when it appeared that Gali’s screaming was gradually subsiding, the door opened.

  None of the students saw her at first, but none of them had any doubt who it was—the vice principal, Mrs. Shoshana Schultz, stood in the doorway, her head reaching only the surface of the laboratory counters. The class grew silent as Schultzi neared Fliegelman, who had to bend down in order for her mouth to reach his ear, and exchanged whispers with him.

  “Ofer, come outside with me, please.” Schultzi approached Ofer Angel when the whispering ceased.

  Angel thought for a moment to get ahead of things and say that he was not the one who caused the commotion, but he immediately realized the futility of it. There was no chance that Schultzi, the midget-like, yet terrifying vice principal, would believe that Yoav Tzuri, the most distinguished and diligent student in the class, had impersonated an uninhibited rodent and performed the prank.

  Angel went out of the class filled with shame and walked beside the vice principal. They entered her office, a room in which he knew well each and every painting on the walls. Mrs. Schultz was silent for a long time before she said, “Ofer, you need to go back home immediately. Sarah, the civics teacher, will accompany you.”

  The softness in her voice surprised him. A day before, in that very same room, she had roared in his father’s ears, “Your son thinks that baring his behind in an amphitheatre in front of all the other schoolchildren is an act which indicates a developed sense of humor…well, not in our schooooolll!” She had a regular habit of echoing her vowels loudly to ensure that no other sound entered her listener’s ears.

  Mordechai Angel, Ofer’s father, had lowered his head and closed his eyes. He had clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.

  Angel did not yet fully comprehend Schultzi’s meaning, when her voice returned him to the reality around him, “Ofer, they’re waiting for you at home. There’s a problem with your father.”

  For a moment, he wanted to ask what that had to do with anything, and how will Sarah Bejerano, the substitute teacher who couldn’t even control the classroom during a civics lesson, be able to accompany him home and solve his father’s problems. Eventually, he decided to keep his mouth shut and go outside to breathe the air of the free world.

  No more than ten minutes passed before Sarah Bejerano and Ofer Angel reached his home.

  The small apartment was crowded with people.

  Ofer’s mother, Naomi, sat in the warmly furnished living room. Her eyes were as red as the anemones bunched in the vase on the living room table, and she burst into tears as soon as she noticed their entrance. Angel saw that her clothes and face were considerably more wrinkled than he remembered them being when he left for school in the morning. His older sister, Dana, rose towards them, a heavy paleness on her face.

  Two police officers sat at the center of the apartment on chairs that had been dragged from the dining area and stared awkwardly at the diamond-shaped decorations on the Caucasian carpet his father had brought from Turkey ages ago.

  “What happened?” asked Angel, attempting to digest the unusual reception he received.

  His mother didn’t answer. The sound of her crying intensified into an avalanche of sobs. Dana dragged him by the arm into the kitchen and whispered in tears, “Ofer, a disaster happened. Father…father is dead.”

  “How did it happen? Where?” asked Ofer, refusing to accept the meaning of her whispers.

  “In a hotel, they found him dead in a hotel next to the Tel Aviv beach,” stuttered Dana through her tears.

  From the living room, his mother’s insistent and repeated mumbles to the cops were heard, “I won’t have his body autopsied…I don’t agree to it…there’s no way.”

  Ofer swallowed his saliva and wrapped his arm around Dana’s waist.

  Whatever happened, he decided, I’m not going to cry.

  The funeral took place at noontime the following day. For the first time in his life, Ofer Angel faced the large tombstone forest of the Yarkon Cemetery. It was also the first time he truly realized people actually ended up dead. Before the funeral, he went to his mother and demanded to see his father one last time. Naomi Angel said she wasn’t sure this was possible. “Ofer, you’re barely fifteen,” she attempted to reason with him.

  Ofer joined his eyebrows into a straight and angry line and stubbornly i
nsisted until his mother yielded to his request.

  He did not delay even for a single moment and walked with Dana to identify his father’s body. A bearded man from the Chevra Kadisha, the burial society, stood watch at the door. But together they squeezed into the small room before he could say anything.

  The body of his late father, Mordechai Angel, was lying on a stretcher in the center of the room. Dana slightly shifted the shrouds from his head. His forelock was draped across his white forehead and his eyes were shut.

  Ofer was surprised to see his father’s face has lost its tan and instead was the color of the plucked chicken wings his mother used to throw into the vegetable soup pot. It was the first time he had seen the body of a dead man, his father’s body. His face appeared tortured. Ofer wanted to caress him one more time but didn’t manage to because Dana had become nauseous and demanded that they get out at once.

  The weather was warm and many members of the silent crowd gathered at the cemetery sweated heavily. The cantor who presided over the funeral shortened the ceremony and no eulogies were said. Ofer Angel stood by the grave and heard his father’s friends exchanging whispered secrets not too far from him.

  A short, broad-shouldered man, dressed in a pinkish shirt, his mouth hidden by a large mustache, suddenly barked, “It was either the shame or the stress that killed him.”

  Saul Yanovski, the accountant, a close friend of the family, smoothed his hairless pate with his hand and asked himself for all to hear, “How could it be that a man like Mordechai committed suicide without leaving anything in writing?”

  “So far they haven’t found anything… and I don’t think they should keep looking,” answered the mustached man, and his whiskers swayed nervously. “If someone decides he wants to get off the train, there’s nothing that can be done to stop him.”

  Ofer Angel bit his lips until he felt a sharp pain. Of one thing he was certain, his father wasn’t the kind of man who got off trains. He also couldn’t think of anything that should have made his father feel shame. Anger rose in him and he swore to himself to pluck that mustache the first chance he had.

  He picked up a small stone, placed it on the mound of earth over the head of his deceased father and whispered, “I love you, Dad. I promise to show everyone you didn’t get off your locomotive, wherever it was you drove it to.”

  His mother began to walk back from the grave, supported by his sister, both followed by a grief-stricken, silent procession. Ofer paced slowly, his head downcast, among the last mourners, onto the white gravel

  pathway.

  He thought about his final conversation with his father, right after they had left Schultzi’s office. They went to eat pizza together and his father hadn’t initially given him a hard time. Not a single scolding word or a hint of a complaint about the fact he was forced to leave work and go to Ofer’s school for a hearing in the middle of the day.

  Right before they parted though, his father unexpectedly lifted his hand and slapped Ofer’s right cheek. Following a deep silence, his father said, “You’re already a man, Ofer. You can’t go on behaving like a little stupid boy who shows his ass to the entire school. Where’s your sense of self-respect? It’s an Angel family ass! An ass with a proud genealogy. It’s time you pull yourself together.”

  The slap didn’t hurt as much as the insult. He was already as tall as his father and strong enough to hit him back, but he was paralyzed. His father wasn’t the type of man who hit his children, but this time he really flew off the handle.

  They didn’t see each other that evening. His father came home late, and Ofer, still feeling insulted, decided to avoid him. He felt a pang in his heart that that had been their final meeting. That those scolding words were the last words he’d ever hear from his father.

  Suddenly, he saw a pair of brownish knees rubbing against each other next to him. A hand touched his shoulder, and a warm shiver travelled down his

  spine.

  “Don’t ask what happened,” Gali Shviro whispered in his ear. “After they took you out of class, Fliegelman fainted and they had to take him to the hospital in an ambulance.”

  Chapter1

  June 2015, Ten Years Later

  Ofer Angel drove across the Tel Aviv promenade, ignoring the irritated honks of the drivers who crawled behind him. All four hundred ccs of his Kawasaki ZXR’s engine grumbled beneath him in a continuous growl. The sun slowly sank into the sea whose stormy waves became a hydra-headed monster with bushy white eyebrows.

  No view in the world can equal that of the Tel Aviv Sea, dancing with blue-gray shades, and no scent can match the salty smell of the waves crashing on the shore, he thought.

  He parked his motorcycle at the entrance of the Hotel Dan Panorama parking lot and took off his helmet.

  The drowsy security guard at the doorway glanced with indifference at the young man in front of him and didn’t say a word. The hotel lobby was chilly. He passed through the revolving doors and filled his lungs with air conditioned air— a welcome change after being forced to inhale the smell of Banana Beach’s overflowing trash cans from across the road. To his surprise, Jacob Rodety was not waiting for him at the entrance, even though it was precisely six o’clock. Not really like someone who’s supposed to have proper British manners, he mused to himself.

  He walked about the illuminated lobby, the hallways leading to the elevators and the restrooms, and the various coffee corners. He also peeked into the bar. Even though it was early evening, he recalled that for those who lived with the British, it was never too early for a decent drink.

  Rodety, to his disappointment, was not there either.

  He marched up to the windows overlooking the sea. The orb of the sun was already halfway below the horizon, and the evening was about to begin in earnest. He lounged comfortably on one of the velvety armchairs but was unsuccessful in his attempts to simply enjoy the tranquil atmosphere until Rodety finally showed up. Yitzhak Brick and attorney Gideon Geller awaited their arrival in the office. They weren’t very fond of lateness in the Law Offices of Geller, Schneider and Associates. Mr. Rodety, a guest of Mr. Brick—who is the firm’s most important client— should have been familiar with those rules.

  Ten more minutes passed and there was still no sign of Rodety. He had many distinguishing features that Ofer reviewed from memory—a short and rounded man with little hands and a British accent that had attached itself to his native Hebrew; he swayed unsteadily as he walked, looked and paced like a fat, pouchless kangaroo, dressed in a pale shirt and a tie decorated with dancing hippopotamuses holding umbrellas. It was easy to like the guy, but his disrespect for the schedule was infuriating.

  He recalled the time they spent together the previous night, right after Rodety arrived for the weekend on a flight from London.

  Attorney Geller had given him specific instructions. “Clear our guest’s mind a little bit. Take him to have some fun in all the appropriate places, and remind him what a city that doesn’t sleep looks like.”

  Rodety had been waiting for him in the lobby the night before, hands in his trouser pockets, an expensive, high quality brandy-brown business bag on his shoulder. A thick strap allowed him to sling it over his shoulder, and Rodety didn’t let go of it for an instant. The office had approved an open tab, and so Ofer didn’t hesitate and took him to the Red Mullet.

  They sat at the restaurant’s bar on Ben Yehuda Street. Rodety drank straight Chivas Regal, and he drank as if he were a camel taking on enough water to last for a month of travelling in the desert. Judging by the wrinkles lining her eyes, the bartender was in her late thirties and had probably seen her share of elbow-benders. But she was convinced this one could drink them all under the table.

  At Rodety’s request, she poured herself a glass of whiskey as well.

  He raised his glass and muttered a toast with a glazed stare, “To life! Even though in our line of work, no one lives forever.”

  At the time, the toast didn’t seem unusual. No one l
ives forever in any line of work.

  After an hour filled with repeated pourings, Rodety asked, “Listen, son, perhaps you could take me to a place where one could wash his eyes with some Zionist breasts?”

  Ofer wasn’t really sure he understood Rodety’s meaning. He repeated and asked twice what his firm’s client had just requested, to make sure he hadn’t misinterpreted his intentions.

  Although this wasn’t the kind of request he knew how to immediately handle, he didn’t hesitate for too long. In his mind’s eye he saw the law firm’s senior partner, Gideon Geller, announcing ceremoniously in one of the general staff members meetings, “Let this simple rule always guide you—in our office, no service request, large or small, should ever be refused.”

  Less than fifteen minutes later, they sat in front of a pile of dancing boobs and twisting bodies gleaming with sweat at the Paradise Club in the Ramat Gan Diamond Exchange District.

  Rodety immediately got rid of his jacket and hung it in the darkened entrance hall of the club, feeling right at home. They made themselves comfortable in an isolated sitting area. The dim candlelight was enough for them to notice everything around them was dark red—the furniture, the carpets, the sofas and the drapes. Rodety fished a bundle of greenish bills from his pocket and invited two dancers, one dark and one fair, to sit with them. Their buttocks were adorned with tiny G-strings and their breasts, Zionist or not, were about to explode from their bras. The two young hostesses invested some extra attention in their capering and gyrating, which became more and more teasing and steaming as the bundle of bills in Rodety’s pocket dwindled.

  “Son, let’s drink some whiskey,” Rodety suggested.

  “I’m not so good at drinking whiskey,” Ofer apologized, “gives me heartburn.”

  “I guess you never suckled it from the right breast. Without knowing something about whiskey, you won’t be able to accomplish anything in the world,” Rodety hurriedly explained. He rose, went to the entrance hall and came back with his jacket.