by Batya Gur
“Not even to the grocery store,” Izzy Mashiah assured him, and he spread a big, narrow hand on his chest. His long, delicate brown fingers stood out against the black sweatshirt he was wearing, and the ring on his finger glittered greenly. And only then, as if waking from a dream, he removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, which immediately turned faintly pink, and asked carefully and pleasantly why Michael had to know, what actually had happened today. His shoulders tensed, and he sat up and moved away from the back of the soft sofa.
Michael told Izzy the facts. He was careful not to mention the string, the gloves, the position of Gabi’s body. “A cut on the throat” was the phrase he used to describe the cause of death. He made an effort to mobilize the detachment necessary in order to examine Izzy closely, to identify any trace of falsity in the outburst of emotion, in the breakdown he was now witnessing. One day he would have to collect all his impressions of the first moment at which people heard of the death of loved ones.
They could be classified into categories. First, the restrained as opposed to the unrestrained. In this classification, there was perhaps a hint of the origins of the mourner—the silent and restrained, but so manipulative, grief of those of Polish extraction, as opposed to the vociferousness of those from Morocco, for example, where it sometimes seems that the exact moment when a scream is required is dictated by the etiquette of the rites. There should be a subgroup of the restrained weepers, and a subgroup of the frozen, those who not only don’t shed a tear, but it seems that at the moment they hear the news their souls detach themselves and fly off to some distant place, their faces looking like masks. If you ask them what they feel, they don’t know what to reply. These were the ones the psychologist Elroi meant when he talked about absence. There was also a distinction between those who cried without tears and those who shed them. There were those who talked—ceaselessly, compulsively, like Theo—and those who were completely silent. And there were those who cried soundlessly, the ones whose tears got to you despite the force of habit and despite your efforts to remain detached. They tore at your heartstrings, like Izzy Mashiah now.
Izzy’s shoulders shook, his face was buried in his hands. Twice he asked if it was really true, and how exactly had it happened, and when and if Gabi had suffered.
Michael refrained from going into details. He replied briefly and vaguely. He again reminded himself, in the light of Izzy’s determination to know the details, that every alibi could be refuted, that everyone was a potential suspect. You couldn’t allow your likes and dislikes to dictate who was a murderer and who wasn’t. His sympathy for Izzy in his grief was a weakness. It was like a warning he himself could have formulated, and that he also could have heard from Tzilla, and Eli, and of course from Balilty.
“We had so many plans!” sobbed Izzy, and he buried his face in his hands again. His voice was muffled: “I was sure that of the two of us I would die first, and now I have to bury him, and go on living.” Suddenly he took his hands away and said in a hard voice: “I don’t know who or what did this, but I swear to you on my life that Gabi didn’t kill himself. Of that you can be sure!” He shook his head and tried to catch his breath.
“Let’s say that he didn’t commit suicide,” said Michael slowly, “and we have no grounds for assuming that he did. Do you have any idea who could have murdered him?”
Izzy let out a hoarse snort of laughter and shook his head. “No one, no one could have wanted to kill Gabi,” he said in a tone of profound conviction, and he fell silent.
“It wasn’t an accident,” said Michael. “It was planned, deliberate murder, and the person who did it was taking a very big risk. We have no alternative but to assume that someone wanted very much to kill him.”
Izzy again buried his face in his hands, removed them after a few seconds, sniffled, wiped his face, raked his hand through his hair, and nodded. “We have no alternative,” Izzy repeated Michael’s words. “But I have no idea!” he said with sudden vehemence. “I can’t even imagine it! Could it be connected with his father?” He shuddered.
“In what sense?” Michael asked, leaning forward attentively.
“I have no idea!” said Izzy. “It just seems logical, but I don’t know how.”
“I’ll put the question differently, and ask you directly: Who could have gained from Gabi’s murder?”
“I don’t know, I really don’t. I can’t believe it.”
“Could you have benefited from it?”
“Me? Benefited?” Again Izzy let out a hoarse snort of laughter. “You don’t understand anything,” he whispered in a husky voice, bowing his head.
“Who owns this apartment?”
“What do you mean? Officially?”
Michael nodded.
“Gabi, but we intended . . .” He looked at Michael with alarm, and then he smiled bitterly. His voice changed as he said softly and disbelievingly: “Are you interrogating me now?”
Michael said nothing.
“You’re here on duty!” he exclaimed, astonished. “Is that possible when you’re living with Nita? Is that allowed? Pardon me for asking, is this an official interrogation?”
“An interrogation, but not official.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“An official interrogation takes place after a cautioning, in my office. This is more of a talk, but I can’t honestly tell you that this talk is unrelated to the investigation.”
“In that case,” said Izzy as he sat up, “there are a few things I have to tell you. Even though the apartment is registered in his name, he treated it as our common home. As for insurance, for instance, Gabi bought life insurance, a large amount, about a year ago. And I’m the beneficiary. I got a policy too, at his wish, but he’s not the beneficiary, that too at his express wish. He himself filled out the forms for me, all I did was sign them. He’d been given the opportunity of a good deal, his insurance agent . . . Anyway, I pointed out that I was only forty-three, but he insisted. And he insisted that my daughter, not he, be the beneficiary . . .”
“You have a daughter?”
“Yes. I was married . . . I was married for ten years before. . . . before I knew, before I understood that—”
“And have you had relations with other men besides Gabi?”
Izzy nodded slowly, as if in dawning comprehension. “I think I understand what you’re getting at, but our story wasn’t the ordinary kind.”
“There are no ordinary stories,” said Michael, and he hated himself for the patronizing tone. “When you approach an intimate story, it’s always special,” he said, trying to soften his words.
“No,” said Izzy, “you’re not understanding me. You probably . . . I don’t know your preferences. I imagine you prefer women. What with Nita . . .” Michael restrained a spontaneous impulse to put the record straight with regard to Nita. “Anyway, I assume you harbor the usual stereotypes about homosexual love, and you probably think that I hung around parks and had all kinds of . . . But it wasn’t like that. First I met Gabi, and only then did I grasp . . .”
“Really?” said Michael, surprised. “Until then you thought you loved women?”
Izzy squirmed in his seat. “It’s not so easy to explain. I don’t even know if I love men. Sometimes I think that I just love Gabi, but apparently that isn’t the whole story, because I always had difficulties with women, I was always problematic . . . but not in the stereotypical sense. I never had relations with men before Gabi. But I don’t suppose you believe me, because of your prejudices about gays,” he concluded on a note of indignation.
“We’re speaking frankly,” said Michael, “and I can tell you in all seriousness that I don’t even know what prejudices I possess. I’ve hardly ever had any contact with homosexuality, that is, in my life outside work.”
“But in your line of work you come up against the most sordid side of it, I imagine.”
“Everything becomes sordid in my line of work,” said Michael. “When you’re talking abou
t murder there isn’t much room for beauty or elegance. But I have to tell you that I’ve never before gotten to know a couple of men living together. I simply haven’t come across that kind of relationship. Not personally, that is. And to tell the truth, I can’t see any difference in principle between your reaction and the reaction of a woman . . .” embarrassed, he immediately corrected himself, “or a man. I mean a spouse,” he concluded uneasily. He himself was surprised by his frankness and the simple directness with which he spoke.
“You see, the way you’re searching for words exposes your prejudices.”
“It’s a matter of habit, too,” said Michael. “I’m simply not used to speaking frankly to . . . about this subject with someone who’s involved in . . . I’m not used to talking to a man who loves another man about his relationship.”
“What I’d like you to understand,” said Izzy with the same passion that had erupted previously, “is that we lived as a couple in every respect, a full partnership, love and friendship and concern and . . .” Again he sniffled, wiped his eyes with one finger inserted behind the thick lenses of his glasses, and took a deep breath before he went on. “And there’s a good relationship, not just correct but good, between me and my ex-wife, and my daughter, she’s sixteen now, she comes to visit us, and everything’s open and aboveboard. That’s what we decided. And this apartment is registered in Gabi’s name because it was his before I turned up, before we met and I came here to live with him. I don’t even know if he has a will, and I loved him, I would never . . . never . . . What are you talking about—gain?” He suddenly flared up. “I have nothing to gain from Gabi’s death! Only to lose. It’s . . . it’s utter ruin for me. Gabi’s death for me is . . .”
He looked at Michael and his eyes grew damp again, his expression softened. “You can’t help it, it’s your job. I understand. I’m trying to understand. But you mustn’t . . . I’d like you to rid yourself of stereotypes and prejudices and not think that every homosexual is a . . .” He looked at Michael expectantly. “And anyway,” he remembered, “I haven’t been out of the apartment all day, and . . . What time did Gabi? . . . What time did you find him?” he asked, groaning.
“In the afternoon,” Michael said, avoiding an exact reply. “And we’ll have to go into things here—his papers, and so on, and get more details from you, and I’d like you to take a polygraph test, with your permission, of course.”
Izzy shrugged his shoulders. “Is this the moment when I should ask for a lawyer?” he muttered. “But I don’t need a lawyer,” he said, and he raised his head high. “I tell you: I loved him. He loved me. We were close. Really close. You wouldn’t understand. I’ll take your polygraph and do whatever you want. I have no problem with that,” he said, “only with the fact that Gabi . . . I don’t know how I’m going to . . .” He removed his glasses again and buried his face in his hands.
“There hasn’t been any crisis in your relationship recently? Differences of opinion?”
“No,” said Izzy, after removing his hands from his face and sitting up. “I’d like . . . What I’d like now is to be left alone,” he said softly. “I can’t—”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
“Can’t you wait for a day? A few hours? To give me . . . I’ve already told you all I know.”
“We’re investigating a murder. The murder of the man you lived with. Whom you loved. He was murdered.”
“I loved him . . . love him. That’s all I know now.”
“And you have no idea who didn’t love him?”
“To such an extent?” Izzy shook his head. Then he took a deep, noisy breath. Finally he looked right at Michael with an expression of resignation and said: “There weren’t a lot of people who loved him, but neither were there a lot who hated him. Gabi lived in a way that didn’t . . . that didn’t arouse extreme or powerful emotions. Except in my case, meeting him wasn’t something that . . . Theo didn’t . . . that is to say . . . it’s complicated, but not to such an extent, because Theo also loved him, I imagine. The concertmaster, Avigdor, didn’t like Gabi, and some of the musicians didn’t like him in the way that people don’t like perfectionists. And there was the business of the personal contracts with each of the musicians he was planning, that is, instead of a collective bargaining agreement. Some of the musicians were angry about this, and Theo didn’t like it either. Some people said about him that he was a hard man, demanding, uncompromising. Gabi was a very serious musician. And a lot of people interpreted his shyness—he wasn’t an exhibitionist like Theo—as arrogance. They called him a snob. And there’s that character Even-Tov, the choral conductor, who also wanted to set up a Baroque ensemble, but people preferred Gabi. Maybe he really hated him, but if you saw him you’d realize that murder isn’t an option, it’s the last thing you would imagine in connection with someone like Even-Tov, he’s . . . it doesn’t matter.”
“And aside from the orchestra and music?”
Izzy looked at him with surprise. “There wasn’t anything apart from music in his life,” he explained. “Music was his whole world, it was thanks to music . . . because of my playing . . . well, not my playing exactly. I’m not much of a harpsichord player, but he heard me playing once at the YMCA and that’s how we met. Gabi couldn’t talk to people who weren’t interested in music, even his ex-wife—who’s a terrible person, apparently, I’ve never met her, only talked to her on the phone, about money. Even she’s a musician first of all, an excellent harpist. Gabi didn’t have any other world. And we had very few friends, people from my work, and he traveled a lot, so it’s hard to keep up steady relationships. He only returned a few weeks ago from a long trip, a concert tour.”
“What’s so complicated between him and Theo?”
Izzy smiled almost dismissively. “What’s there to explain? It’s a classic case of sibling rivalry. But that’s got nothing to do with . . . Theo was jealous of Gabi, because Felix loved Gabi more. He was closer to him, always. Theo was his mother’s favorite, but that wasn’t enough for him. He always wants everything, Theo, and he wanted his father, too. But it’s impossible to explain briefly, or to describe Theo in a few sentences. He’s a complicated creature. Theo is also a considerable musician. You can’t ignore him, especially when it comes to Bruckner or Mahler or Wagner, if you care about them. He sometimes has demonic power. No one can dismiss Theo’s charisma. You can hate what he does, but you can’t dismiss him. In any event, Theo’s not a murderer. You can’t be considering that seriously. But their relationship was complicated.”
“And did Gabi love Theo?”
“Love?” Izzy seemed taken aback. “For me love is a word with pleasant associations, and there wasn’t anything pleasant about their relationship, but he was . . . Yes, maybe you could use the word love here. Maybe he did love him. They were very different, but close, too. And their childhood, in that house . . . Yes, you could say he loved him. And also repudiated him. At least you could say that he had mixed feelings about him. And Theo, Theo loved Gabi too, in the final analysis, in his own complicated way. With a lot of anger. And also jealousy, fear, admiration. Theo also tried to ingratiate himself with Gabi, and also . . . all kinds of things, but he certainly didn’t murder him.”
“Why not?”
Izzy looked at him, astonished. “Why should he have murdered him?” he argued. “The question should be why should he, not why not. I can’t imagine any motive he could possibly have had, financial or otherwise. There had been no change in their relationship recently. Nothing had happened to change anything, so why now? Theo had problems with Gabi for years!” He stopped and gasped for breath. “Since the days when they were both studying with Dora Zackheim. Maybe even before then. But she’s the one you should talk to if you want to understand them. I’ve got asthma,” he warned. “I hope I’m not going to have an attack now.”
Michael opened the window. The tape recorder went on running.
“I don’t have any idea!” cried Izzy in despair. “Not
the slightest. Maybe it was someone I don’t know. Aside from Even-Tov, who wanted to be in his position, I don’t know of an enemy. Not even that violinist I mentioned before. Don’t take me seriously, but couldn’t it have been some psychopath? A random attack? Out of the blue?” he asked naively, his round chin wobbling. “I suppose not,” he said, sighing.
“And Gabi’s ex-wife?”
“Her? Never! What would she get out of it? Who’s going to send her alimony now? And besides, she’s in Munich.”
“And your wife?”
“My wife?” said Izzy, astonished. “What’s she got to do with it?”
“Well,” said Michael, fingering an unlit cigarette. “You left her for him.”
“Five years ago!” cried Izzy, holding up five fingers. “All of a sudden? After we’ve been living together five years?”
“Five? Not two years?”
“Two years properly, here in this apartment. And before that three years. . . . Who told you it was two years?”
Michael said nothing.
“You don’t know her,” said Izzy more softly. “When you meet her you’ll understand why it’s out of the question. My wife is wonderful. An unusual person. I simply . . . it just turned out that way. I had no choice . . . It wasn’t because of her . . . I wanted to . . .” Again he buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook.
