by Batya Gur
“Chief Inspector Ohayon,” shouted the veteran reporter from the most widely circulated daily in the country, and Eli Bahar quickly corrected him: “Superintendent, Shmaya; it’s time you got used to it. Superintendent, okay?”
Without knocking, the two men entered the room.
Despite the open window, the air in the room was stuffy and full of the undefined body odors that were always present, thought Michael, when frightened people were crowded into a closed space.
Among the smells Michael distinguished a trace of a sweet perfume and, above all, the odor of decomposition that had pervaded everything since he had been in the room with the corpse.
He looked around him in silence and within a few seconds had taken in the picture in all its details. Sometimes he felt at these moments like a cameraman obeying the instructions of the director of a well-made movie.
Opposite the door he saw Yael, still sitting next to the window, in the same position as before, and behind her Klein, standing and with his thick lips quivering. Adina Lipkin sat at her desk, rhythmically wiping her face with a tissue that she had apparently taken out of the open drawer on her left.
The only people in the room whom he remembered from his university days were Ariyeh Klein, the medieval-poetry professor, and Shulamith Zellermaier, who specialized in popular literature and folklore. She sat there, her heavy legs spread, her dark skirt drawn up to her knees. Her feet in their padded orthopedic sandals stamped on the floor as she began to protest. She was the first to speak, and with a restraint that failed to hide her anger, she asked if they could leave now. When he did not reply at once, she burst out in a loud, breathless voice, delivering a speech that began with the words: “This is an unheard of outrage! Detaining people for hours like this, without water or air or any way of notifying their families, and it’s already five o’clock!” When she paused to take a breath, Michael cut her speech short by asking if any of them had seen Tirosh on Saturday.
Zellermaier fell silent, and in an instant the room’s atmosphere of shock and depression changed into something else. Michael sensed the electricity, the new energy galvanizing the people in the room. But no one answered his question.
They looked at each other, and finally Adina said: “I tried to contact him on Saturday night to tell him a terrible accident had happened, but I couldn’t get hold of him,” and she crushed the tissue in her hand and burst into tears.
Nobody had seen him on Saturday: they all shook their heads no or blinked their eyes, and Kalitzky pronounced the word “No.” Balilty and Raffi were already on their way to Tirosh’s house, thought Michael, and wondered whether he should begin with the personal questions at once, before the tension relaxed. He asked if anyone had seen Tirosh on Friday.
Adina said that there had been a department faculty meeting on Friday. “Anything special?” inquired Michael, and was told that there was a faculty meeting every three weeks, “always on a Friday,” said Adina.
Michael looked at her and asked if anything unusual had happened at the last meeting.
“I don’t know. I haven’t had time yet to read the minutes; the secretary doesn’t attend the meetings.”
Michael recalled the stories Tzilla used to tell about the department secretary, and he almost smiled. Adina Lipkin’s face expressed bitterness at not being in a position to control all areas, but it also showed determined resignation.
“But I saw him, of course, before the meeting and after it. Only Professor Klein didn’t see him; he only returned from a sabbatical yesterday,” and Adina again burst into tears, issuing loud sobs between which fragments of sentences were audible: “What’s going on? . . . Is everyone going to die . . . one after the other? . . . There’s someone here among us. . . . I’m afraid to be here at all. . . .”
“There’s no connection, Adina, there’s no connection,” said Sara Amir sharply, but Aharonovitz blinked his eyes, looked at Adina in horror, and said: “Is it conceivable? Could there be some conspiracy?”
“And who,” asked Michael, rapidly scanning their faces in order to register as many reactions as possible, “who else saw him after the meeting?” And again it was Adina who replied, saying that Dr. Shai had had lunch with him.
“She means me,” said Tuvia Shai from his place next to the wall.
Michael had taken note of the bluish veins on this man’s face when he first opened the door. Now he signaled Shai to step outside with him. “When was this?” he asked him. A police sergeant stood behind them, at the ready, in the corridor, opening his note book.
“I think it was about half past eleven, because we finished the meeting at eleven, and it took a while until we got moving. We ate here, in Meirsdorf, and he said something about going to Tel Aviv, but nothing definite.”
“And how long did your lunch take?”
“Until half past twelve.”
“And after that? You didn’t see him again?”
“No. I went up with him to his office for a minute, to get something, and I left him there.”
Michael looked at Tuvia Shai for a moment, the lifeless voice in which he had spoken echoing in his ears, and asked him what time he had parted from Tirosh.
“A few minutes after half past twelve, I think, or maybe closer to one.”
Michael called Eli Bahar out of the room and whispered something in his ear.
“Did anyone here see Tirosh or speak to him after one o’clock on Friday?” Bahar asked the people in the room.
Tuvia Shai stood in the doorway, and Michael walked past him into the room. His eyes again rapidly scanned the faces. They all looked at one another; nobody said anything. Shulamith Zellermaier sighed loudly. “Maybe I’ll be next?” she asked, and Michael noticed the sharp look Dita Fuchs gave her, and he also registered that there had been no irony in her voice. She really looked frightened, and as if to excuse herself, she added: “It’s too much to take, two violent deaths at once.”
“Did he have a car?” asked Michael, and again he noted the change in the atmosphere, as if he had drawn their attention to a detail they had not yet considered.
“Yes,” said Tuvia Shai, and everyone looked at him. “I suppose he came in his car. You’ll probably find it in the university car park downstairs—you can’t miss it, it’s a 1979 Alfa Romeo; there are only two of them the whole country.” Dita Fuchs burst into tears, and Michael noticed her pallor, her swollen eyelids, when she said between sobs: “He loved that car. Perhaps you could let us go now? The policeman outside the door wouldn’t let us leave. I’m thinking of my children. I just want to go home,” and Michael was aware of the suppressed hysteria, the fear hidden in the childish tone.
Eli Bahar opened the door and murmured something into the ear of the uniformed policeman who was still standing beyond it. Before the door closed, Michael saw the policeman hurrying off in the direction of the blue wing.
“What was he going to do in Tel Aviv?” Michael had turned again to Tuvia Shai, who said in embarrassment: “I don’t know exactly.”
He looks like a corpse himself, thought Michael.
“Something to do with gender, no doubt” said Kalman Aharonovitz dryly, sitting up in his chair. You could see fear giving way for a moment to malice.
It was only then that Michael asked if Tirosh had a family.
“A confirmed bachelor,” replied Shulamith Zellermaier, “with not a single relative in the country.”
And then he asked the inevitable question that always made him feel like a television detective: “Can any of you think of anyone who might have wished him dead?”
There was a tense silence in the room. Again Michael glanced from face to face. Some expressed hesitation, others disgust, and still others knowledge they had decided to withhold. But behind the facial expressions Michael perceived the true, hidden feeling: fear. He looked straight into Adina Lipkin’s eyes, which reflected a mixture of outrage and discretion.
Who? his eyes asked the secretary, and she clasped her damp hand
s and said: “I really don’t know,” and looked imploringly at the others.
“Do any of you know anything about his political opinions?” asked Eli Bahar, and the tension relaxed as Shai replied: “I imagine everybody knows what his political opinions were, everyone knows he was active in Peace Now and wrote political poetry.”
Michael asked if he was an important figure in the movement, if there had ever been threats against his life.
“Enough!” groaned Shulamith Zellermaier impatiently, raising herself to the full height of her corpulent body. “A lot of people would have been glad to see him dead, and I don’t understand why we’re all so silent all of a sudden. There are students he tormented and women he had affairs with, and their husbands, and poets and writers he humiliated, and there are dozens of people who would have been only too happy to see him dead. We’re taking leave of our senses here—there’s no connection between the fact that both of them are dead, him and Iddo. It’s a coincidence! Nothing but a coincidence, can’t you understand?” Silence ensued.
Tuvia Shai stared at her in dismay, opened his mouth, and propped his skinny body against the wall again. Ariyeh Klein looked at her as if she had gone mad, and he said in a trembling bass voice: “I think we’d better try to restrain ourselves, Shulamith; as you see there’s quite enough drama here already. No need to add any more. Maybe there are a lot of people who might have thought they would be glad if he were dead, and maybe there are some people who really will be glad to hear that he’s dead, but I can’t think of anyone who would actually have done it with his own hands, and you’ll agree with me: that’s a significant difference. And finally”—he turned to Michael—“we didn’t do it, none of us murdered him, so maybe you’ll let us go now and ask us for our help later in a civilized way?”
Eli Bahar looked at the people in the room and then at Michael with a critical expression. “You break all the rules,” he had once complained to him. “Why do you question witnesses in a group, together? Why don’t you wait and question them one by one?” But Michael glanced at his watch, quickly calculated his plans for the rest of the day, and looked questioningly at Eli Bahar. Eli nodded. “Okay,” said Michael in a tired voice. “Please leave your addresses and telephone numbers here and be available during the next two days. This evening, or tomorrow morning at the latest, we’ll get in touch with you and let you know when each of you will be invited to come in and be interrogated.”
“Interrogated?” said the gentle voice of Yael Eisenstein, and everyone in the room looked up. Michael too, who had grown accustomed to seeing her sitting still as a statue, staring straight ahead as if blind and deaf to everything, was startled.
“Interrogated, questioned, have a statement taken—you can take your pick,” said Michael slowly, without taking his eyes off her, his hand on the door handle.
“What does it mean? And where is it done?” asked Yael in a whisper, and even when she whispered, her voice rang like an alarm bell in Superintendent Ohayon’s mind; he answered her immediately in a voice that sounded horribly brutal to him: “At the police station in the Russian Compound. You’ll be told the exact place.”
The sergeant who had been standing outside the door came in to report that the university security officer had found no sign of Tirosh’s car in the car park. Michael was about to leave, when Yael slipped off her chair and dropped to the floor like a rag doll.
“When she comes to,” said Michael roughly, “take all their particulars. She’ll help you,” and he pointed to Adina Lipkin, who was bending over Yael, muttering that she probably hadn’t had anything to eat or drink all day. Yael recovered consciousness and opened her blue eyes, and Michael hurried out of the room and crossed the corridor to press the elevator button. As he drove the Ford Escort out of the underground garage and onto the main road outside the university, the windows wide open, he took a long breath and said half to himself: “We’ve emerged from Hades.”
“What?” asked Eli Bahar. “What did you say?”
“Nothing; something from Greek mythology. Like coming out of hell. I keep on having these mythological thoughts—it’s probably because of the Literature Department. We have to make contact with Eilat, first thing, and find out if the two cases are connected. Let’s think who we know there.”
“Just a minute,” said Eli Bahar, “just a minute. Don’t you think we should bring one of them in for questioning today? The one who saw him last, who had lunch with him, for example?”
“It’s half past six; I still have to meet someone from Eilat. What’s the point of starting interrogations tonight, before the pathologist’s report, before we’ve spoken to Forensics, before we have a report on his house? On second thought . . . ” Michael picked up the transmitter and asked them to find out if Balilty had finished his search. A few minutes passed before Control called back: “They haven’t finished; you’re invited to join the party. You want the address?” Eli pulled a crumpled paper out of his pocket and laid it on the dashboard, and Michael said: “Not over the radio. It’s okay. We’ve got the address.”
“Okay.” Eli sighed. “We’ll wait for the reports from Forensics and the pathologist. You’re always slow at the beginning. I always have a hard time getting used to it. I know, I know.” He sighed again, loudly. “You have to understand the essence of things first, the milieu, get to know the characters—all those ideas of yours. Don’t tell me, I know, and I hope the pathologist will give you enough ‘essence of things’ to get up some speed—I can’t stay in first gear too long. And will you speak to Tzilla, or should I?”
“Why shouldn’t Avidan speak to her?” said Michael ingenuously.
“If you’re frightened of her too, then I needn’t worry,” said Eli without smiling. “I thought you knew how to get around her.”
Michael smiled without replying. They had worked together five years, and Eli Bahar was only beginning to express in words, roughly, the intimacy that existed between them.
It was seven o’clock when Michael parked in the picturesque artists’ quarter of Yemin Moshe, next to Balilty’s Renault 4 and the forensics van. He stretched. Eli Bahar examined the crumpled paper and said:” “Okay, let’s begin looking.”
But Michael Ohayon looked around him and asked: “Do you know Amichai’s poem about Yemin Moshe?” Eli Bahar shook his head. “It begins with the line: ‘In Yemin Moshe* I held my beloved’s left hand in my hand.’ What do you say to that?”
Eli Bahar looked at him in silence for a while; then he said: “I don’t see what it means. It’s like saying: ‘In Kerem Avraham† I kept my wife’s orchard in my pocket.’” Michael burst out laughing.
“And the khamsin has broken,” said Eli Bahar as they began descending the broad steps leading into the quarter.
6
The khamsin had indeed broken, the haze having cleared as if from one moment to the next. A sudden breeze bore the scent of flowers as Michael hesitantly descended the wide steps into the romantic quarter that had been taken over by artists and celebrities. He stopped opposite the Music Center, while Eli Bahar, who had gone on ahead, waved his arm and broke the silence with a cry of “Here it is.” Michael looked at the houses, at the neat gardens, at the “Art Gallery” signs, and wondered what Tirosh’s house would be like.
In the little yard in front of the house, which they entered through a dark iron gate, there was no garden. Only a few rosebushes and three statues dotted the expanse of white gravel.
“He didn’t owe anybody anything. A free man, without even a garden to encumber him,” said Michael aloud, but Eli Bahar didn’t react and opened the door, upon which an Armenian tile said, in Hebrew, English, and Arabic: TIROSH. The heavy brown wooden door scraped as if there was a bit of gravel stuck underneath it, then it opened onto a large, vaulted room, whose arched windows overlooked the Hinnom Valley.
The last light of the day colored the room in gold and crimson and lent it a magical, almost fairy-tale air. The walls were lined with books, and thi
s, noted Michael, was the only warm thing about the room. A narrow white storage unit held a stereo system and a collection of records and tapes. Michael glanced at them and saw thick albums of all the Wagner operas and operas by Richard Strauss. The bottom shelf was devoted to church music. Dvořák’s Stabat Mater and Britten’s War Requiem were there, as well as a piece he had never heard of, whose composer and title, printed in curved gold letters on the spine, he deciphered with difficulty: Janáček—Glagolitic Mass. There was no chamber music in the record collection. Michael looked at the cassettes as well, noticing the exemplary order in which they had been arranged, those Tirosh had himself apparently copied carefully labeled with titles and the names of composers and performers. There was no television set.
Only two paintings hung on the walls, and one of them sent a shiver through Michael, because of the coincidence. Between the two big windows hung a painting of an angry, stormy black sea; Michael knew who the artist was, even before he looked at the signature: A. Pomerantz—Uzi’s father.
Encountering this painting in Tirosh’s house, the threads connecting Uzi, who had reappeared in his life after twenty years, to the death of Dudai, to Tirosh, aroused Michael’s anxiety. It was only later that he located the source of this anxiety in the feeling that coincidence was taking control of his life and that there was some mysterious law behind the coincidences. But when he was standing in front of the painting, all he felt was the anxiety, the wish to be rid of it, and a powerful urge to understand the world into which he had been thrust.
The second painting was smaller, a charcoal sketch of a nude woman. He did not recognize the signature.
The furniture itself was strictly functional: two cold, pale armchairs, an angular sofa, and a coffee table—mosaics in a gleaming nickel frame. There were no vases, ornaments, or any other kind of decoration in the room. On the mosaic table was a large ashtray, made of blue Hebron glass, and a copy of The New Yorker. Michael paged through it absentmindedly, still preoccupied by the painting he had seen on the wall.
