by Batya Gur
“Yes!” Levy raised his voice to a shout and banged his fist on the desk. “That’s just it! It’s exactly the ‘at last’ that worries me! All that time they’re going to waste, when it’s obvious the investigation should be conducted here. And the credit they’ll take after we do their job for them!” He spread out his little hands, which had wisps of fair hair sprouting on their backs, and looked at the wedding ring glittering on his thick finger.
Sometimes Michael tended to forget that behind the hefty figure of the subdistrict commander lay something deeper than a placard. He remembered the stories about him, how he had supported himself as a boy, how he struggled to complete his education. He was fifteen years older than Michael—that is, fifty-five—and he would climb no higher than he had already reached in the police hierarchy. “I don’t have to remind you who the departmental investigations officer of the Southern District is now, or do I? In short, I want you to put pressure on your old pal, Commander Emanuel Shorer, to use his position to talk some sense into the people down there.”
As soon as he heard the emphasis on the word “you,” Michael knew what was coming. “And I also want to point out to you,” continued Ariyeh Levy, “that even though you may be the pet of the media, it doesn’t mean that five minutes after I appoint you head of the SIT you have to run straight to the television cameras to say something clever.”
Michael lit a cigarette to gain time and then asked what, exactly, his chief was referring to.
“You didn’t see the news last night?” asked Levy. The bitterness in his voice softened slightly when Michael said that he had worked until the small hours.
“So ask and you’ll hear all about it. A close-up of you all over the screen, with your whole CV, on the twelve o’clock news! ‘Superintendent Michael Ohayon, in charge of the special investigation team, the man credited with successfully solving this and that murder.’ Ohayon, you don’t work alone!”
“I didn’t chase them,” Michael began to say angrily, but the C.O. wasn’t interested. “If you want credit,” he went on furiously, “you’d better get this case out of the hands of the Southern District and into ours, exclusively! And don’t think I’m going to go crawling to your ex-boss, Shorer, who’s grown so big for his boots that his secretary told Gila three times that he wasn’t in his office! Three times! What am I supposed to think? That as long as he was here, under me—” The sentence was cut off by the opening of the door. Gila came in with two containers of orange juice; she smiled at Michael as she left.
“Right, I’ll speak to Shorer today, but I think that one word from you would be enough. I know he regards you very highly,” said Michael, and Levy’s suspicious look bored into him for a long moment, until it softened and he said in a damp, juice-saturated voice: “Anyway, it’s your case, and you have to see to it that you’re fully in the picture.” Michael nodded, and then, as if he had just remembered, Levy asked: “What did she want, that girl of yours, what’s her name, when she came in before?”
“Who—Tzilla? I asked her to see you today because Azariya’s going to be in the hospital for a few weeks and I don’t know who’s going to coordinate all the other teams; not that I want to be completely out of the picture, but we have to be realistic.” Michael, his voice worried, looked directly at Ariyeh Levy, who rolled his pen between his fingers and scribbled something. Then he said absentmindedly: “Okay, I’ll speak to Giora; he can transfer the information to you, but you have to stay in the picture, understand?” And he wiped his thin mustache with the back of his hand and carefully stroked his bald spot.
It was only after Michael had left the room, and smiled at Gila, brushing her cheek with his finger, that he remembered: the sentence with which Levy usually concluded their conversations (“This isn’t a university, you know!”) had not been uttered even once, and for some reason this omission worried him. Perhaps, he thought, his chief had begun to regard him as a normal human being—a possibility that had its advantages, but not a few disadvantages too.
Tuvia Shai still sat outside Michael’s office door, his face buried in his hands and his elbows propped on his knees. After arranging a meeting with Commander Emanuel Shorer, his predecessor as superintendent, Michael emerged from his office and invited Tuvia Shai to come inside. He had to touch his shoulder in order to awaken him from his trance; startled, the man got up and followed Michael into the room. For a moment, his face became animated, but then it immediately resumed its mask of detachment.
9
Tuvia Shai sat opposite Michael Ohayon and answered all his questions. His answers were brief and to the point, his language clear and precise. In a monotonous voice, he described the hours of that Friday that he had spent with Shaul Tirosh. At first Michael focused on lunch. Tirosh had eaten vegetable soup and schnitzel with potatoes, reported Tuvia Shai, blinking his eyes; he himself had eaten only clear soup. He had no appetite because of the khamsin, he explained in reply to Michael’s question. He remembered that it had been half past twelve when he accompanied Tirosh back to his office. He went inside, he said, again in reply to a question, because he had to get something.
When Michael asked him exactly what it was that he had to get, he didn’t hesitate, didn’t protest or ask “Why is it important?” but answered promptly: it was an exam Tirosh had prepared for his students, “because Shaul had asked me to give it to Adina on Sunday to be copied.” To the question of whether he would be ready to take a polygraph test, he replied indifferently: “Why not?”
But despite the direct, to-the-point answers, Michael experienced an increasing tension as the interrogation progressed. He had the almost physical sensation that Tuvia Shai wasn’t there. The man sat throughout in the same posture—body slumped, hands on the table—and didn’t look at Michael even once. He stared at the little window just above the policeman’s shoulder, as if he were listening to other voices, as if there were another, parallel conversation going on. Michael felt there was a shadow sitting opposite him, the body of a man whose nature was a mystery. Things Michael said, such as: “I’m told that you were very close to him,” were answered with a noncommittal nod. Even when he said, “In that case, the murder must have affected you very deeply, no?” Tuvia Shai didn’t move a muscle, except for the same mechanical nod.
When Michael asked about diving, Shai produced a tired smile and shook his head. He had never dived. After an entire hour spent in an effort to get Tuvia Shai to be present and involved, he decided to try shock tactics.
“You know,” he said, and lit a cigarette, registering the fact that his own voice, too, had begun to sound lifeless, “Iddo Dudai’s death wasn’t a tragic accident.” He looked at Shai and noticed that his shoulders shrank, narrowed, as it were, and then he raised his voice and added: “He was murdered!”
There was no sound in reaction to Michael’s bombshell other than Tuvia Shai’s breathing.
“Was this information already known to you?” asked Michael, aware of a growing nervousness that made him clamp his jaws. Shai shook his head.
“And what do you feel now that I’ve told you?”
Tuvia Shai didn’t reply.
“Don’t you want to know the details of the murder?”
Shai bowed his head.
“Or perhaps you already know how Iddo Dudai was murdered?” Michael, angry now, had to restrain himself from shaking the man’s shoulders. But then Shai raised his head and looked into his eyes for the first time.
Michael saw the tears behind the thick lenses of Shai’s glasses. They did not blur the terrible expression in his eyes, which seemed to see in Michael’s eyes the image of Iddo Dudai’s death, his fight for breath, the body spread out on the sand. He groaned but said nothing. Then, ineffectually, he inserted a skinny finger behind one and then the other thick lens to wipe his eyes.
When he listened to the tape later, Michael discovered that the silence lasted only half a minute. At the time, in his office, it seemed endless. But all his waiting was in vain.
Tuvia Shai was not tempted to speak.
“On second thought,” Michael finally said, “you don’t have to know how to dive in order to introduce carbon monoxide into a tank that is supposed to be full of compressed air. Do you have any background in chemistry?”
Shai shook his head. When he finally spoke, his voice came out in a muffled croak: “You don’t understand, I was very fond of Iddo.”
“You were very fond of him,” repeated Michael, and then he asked: “And you have no idea who wasn’t very fond of him?”
Again Shai shook his head. Then he said: “I don’t know who murdered him.” The dampness disappeared from his eyes, and they went back to gazing behind his interrogator’s shoulder.
“What, exactly, happened at your departmental seminar?” asked Michael, and Tuvia Shai sat up in his chair. Again his eyes burned for a moment and flickered out.
“The subject was ‘Good Poem, Bad Poem,’ and Shaul Tirosh, Iddo Dudai, and I were the speakers.”
“And did anything special happen?”
“What do you mean, ‘happen’? It was a departmental seminar—maybe I should explain what a departmental seminar is?” said Shai, and a hint of vitality came into his voice.
Michael shrugged his shoulders as if about to say “Go ahead,” then silently scolded himself for the childish impulse that prompted him instead. “That won’t be necessary. I once lectured at one myself, on my M.A. thesis, which by the way was highly praised and won a couple of prizes. . . .” He was usually obliged to forgo what he called “narcissistic gratifications.” As a rule, when he exposed himself he did so consciously and deliberately, in order to impress a witness or a suspect, and sometimes in order to instill respect and confidence in a subject prejudiced against the police. His present failure to restrain himself was due to his assumption that the university people related to him with a certain contempt, although simultaneously it was clear to him that Tuvia Shai would not be impressed by his academic past.
“The departmental seminar,” Shai proceeded to say, in a businesslike manner, “is the forum in which theoretical subjects are dealt with. People can present articles before publication, or a chapter from a doctoral dissertation or an M.A. thesis. We hold the seminar once a month, more or less.” Suddenly Michael could imagine Tuvia Shai in front of his students, how he succeeded in arousing their interest and even spoke with passion.
“I understood that there was something special about the last seminar, the one that took place Wednesday,” said Michael. “The TV and the other media were there, no?”
Tuvia Shai looked relieved. It was only later, after Michael had seen the film footage and watched the events with the hindsight provided by the deaths of two of the three speakers, that he understood why. The unedited footage made Shai’s explanations superfluous. Seeing the film, Michael felt for the first time sympathy mixed with pity for Tuvia Shai, but at their first meeting, when he was questioning him, he didn’t understand him, and couldn’t tell for certain whether the expression he noticed was one of relief.
“Yes, the media,” said Shai thoughtfully. “That was because of Shaul. The media, as you call them, were very fond of Shaul.” And then he sank back into himself again and stared at his feet.
The misery surrounding Tuvia Shai, like impenetrable armor, again aroused Michael’s helpless anger. The desire to hurt turned into a decision that he could find a dozen rational reasons for, but even then Michael was aware that the wish to hurt came first, without any apparent reason. Something in the man’s reactions—he didn’t know what—gave rise in Michael to embarrassment and confusion. Perhaps, he thought afterward, it was the lack of horror at Iddo Dudai’s murder. Though it was evident that the information was new to him, it did not arouse his anger or dread, as if he knew the principle but not the facts.
“But it seems,” Michael said—and his voice sounded sharp to him, loud and hard, “that you weren’t so fond of Tirosh.”
Tuvia Shai didn’t react immediately, but then he lifted his eyes to Michael again, and there was a flicker of interest in them.
He’s got some curiosity, at any rate, thought Michael, and waited for the question that didn’t come. “Perhaps it was you who murdered Shaul Tirosh?” asked Michael, looking at the thin arms, the narrow shoulders, the slack body.
“You’re at liberty to think so, of course,” said Tuvia Shai wearily. “But I’ve told you the exact facts.”
The obvious question: “What motive could I have had for murdering him?” was not asked, and Michael, for a reason not clear to himself, put off the question of motive for the time being. When the rest of the team listened later to the tape and saw the draft of Tuvia Shai’s statement, which Michael had scribbled down—and Tuvia Shai had signed without even reading—they all commented, in their different ways, that Michael had been too soft with him, that he hadn’t brought up the question of motive at the right time. “Well, that’s your method,” said Eli Bahar doubtfully, “to seem soft at the beginning. Why is it so important to you to seem soft?” he asked in an aggrieved voice. “In the end it seems more cruel to me than my method—to start right in on the motive.”
But Michael Ohayon put off the question of motive and asked instead: “Did anyone see you leave the university?”
Tuvia Shai shrugged his shoulders and said indifferently: “I don’t know.”
Again there was a silence, which Michael broke by asking: “Perhaps you can tell me what usually stands on Tirosh’s desk on Mount Scopus?”
And without a word about the irrelevance of the question, Shai began to list the items: the little Persian ashtray, the square paper-weight, the big office diary, the seminar papers in the right-hand corner, and, finally, the Indian statuette.
“What statue is that exactly?”
“The god Shiva, quite ancient, about the size of a forearm, made of bronze and copper.” Michael examined the expression on Tuvia Shai’s face carefully and was unable to detect any change in it, or in his voice either. “And what did you do afterward?” he asked, and again he noted that Shai made no attempt to evade the question, that he didn’t ask, “After what?” or try to gain time.
“I went to a movie.”
“Where?” asked Michael, and began to scribble something on the paper in front of him.
“At the Cinematheque,” said Shai, as if it should have been obvious.
“What film did you see?” asked Michael, his pen poised.
“Blade Runner.” A light flickered in Shai’s eyes for a moment.
“Whom did you go with?” asked Michael, pressing his ballpoint pen on the paper.
“I went by myself.”
“Why?” asked Michael.
Tuvia Shai looked at him incomprehendingly.
“Why did you go alone?” Michael repeated the question.
“I always go to the Cinematheque alone on Friday afternoon,” he said, and then, as if to explain: “I often go to the movies alone. I prefer it.”
“And the film you saw, Blade Runner—was that the first time you saw it?”
Shai shook his head. “No, the third,” he said, and once more the light went on in his eyes and immediately died.
“I gather that you like the film,” remarked Michael casually, and saw him nod in confirmation.
“And who sat next to you?”
Tuvia Shai shrugged his shoulders. “I really don’t know.”
“Didn’t you meet anyone there? Did anyone see you?”
After some thought, he said: “I didn’t notice.”
“Perhaps you kept the ticket?”
“No,” asserted Shai.
“How can you be so sure?” asked Michael.
“Because it bothered me all through the movie, and finally I threw it away.”
“Maybe the usher remembers you? The ticket seller? Somebody?”
“I don’t know. I shouldn’t think so.”
“Why not? You go there often, you say.”
“Yes, but it’s not a social
occasion,” and Shai dropped his eyes.
“In any case, we’ll look into it,” warned Michael, and Tuvia Shai shrugged his shoulders.
“When did the movie end?” asked Michael.
“Half past four, a quarter past four, I don’t remember exactly, but you can check the theater.”
“Yes. We will. And what did you do after the movie?”
“I went for a walk,” said Shai, and staring at the window behind Michael’s back.
“Where?” asked Michael impatiently. Though the man didn’t offer any information without being asked, there was no sense that he was holding something back, only the ominous feeling that he wasn’t present.
“I went home on foot, I walked up past the Jaffa Gate and all the way to Ramat Eshkol.”
“What about your car? Do you have a car?”
He did, a Subaru, but that morning he had left it at home, in the parking lot.
“Do you always walk to the university?”
Not always, but sometimes he walked on Fridays.
Michael waited for additional explanations—about physical exercise, about the city’s visual splendors—but they weren’t forthcoming.
“I want to understand. You walked on foot from Mount Scopus to the Cinematheque and then from the Cinematheque home?”
Tuvia Shai nodded, then he replied to the next question in the same mode, without any anger. “I didn’t meet anybody. But perhaps I didn’t notice.” Then: “I don’t remember exactly what time I got home. In the evening. It was already dark.” He lowered his head again and stared at the space between his feet and the table. Michael saw only the fair lashes, the pink, inflamed eyelids, and the sparse, colorless hair. “My wife was home, but she was sleeping,” he replied to the next question.
“And speaking of your wife,” said Michael, “how did you feel about the special relationship between her and Shaul Tirosh?” He had lit another cigarette, hoping it would cover the eagerness with which he asked this question. From his point of view, the interrogation was only now beginning. He was prepared for the man sitting opposite him to jump up in protest, for indignant, dramatic questions.
