by Batya Gur
Theo’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. Stiffly he said: “I simply don’t know what you’re talking about. He certainly didn’t talk to me about Vivaldi. Not that day, anyway. We’ve been arguing about Vivaldi all our lives. About him and about Corelli and about Bach and Mozart and also about Mendelssohn. Vivaldi really was his field. If you’re trying to find something significant that he supposedly said to me then, just before he died, first of all he didn’t say anything to me because we didn’t talk to each other at the time, and anyway, people generally don’t say such significant things before they die. Especially if they don’t know they’re about to die.”
“Why don’t we go back to what we were talking about at the beginning,” suggested Balilty, raising his eyes inquiringly to Michael over the cup of coffee pressed to his lips.
Theo, too, was noisily drinking the coffee Michael had placed before him, and he nodded eagerly. “Do you mean Herzl?”
“You said this isn’t the first time. How many times were there before?”
Theo looked thoughtfully out the window. “Maybe four, or five. I don’t remember exactly.”
“And every time he hospitalized himself?” asked Michael, tapping the point of his pencil rhythmically on the table.
“I think the first time my father signed him in,” said Theo slowly, as if he were trying to remember. “We weren’t told anything, but I learned about it somehow. It was twenty years ago, or maybe a little less. He hadn’t come to work. He couldn’t be reached on the phone. Father went to his house. We never visited him there. He didn’t like it. Maybe I was there once. It was dark there, with only one dim light. The whole place was cluttered with all kinds of junk he collected. You could see right away that he lived alone, a dog’s life.” Suddenly he caught himself. “I live alone, too,” he said. “But it doesn’t have to be like that. My apartment is always clean.”
“There was no woman in his life?” inquired Michael, putting the pencil down.
“There was no one. No one. I don’t know anything about his parents or family. Only that he came to Israel alone, after the war. As a young man, or even as a boy. I think he was fifteen or sixteen when he arrived here. He came from Belgium. He met my parents during the war and looked them up when he got here. We never spoke to him about the past. That’s all I know. We were all the family he had in the world, but we never talked about it. He almost lived in the shop, and he lived for the shop. It was he who found rare scores and unusual recordings. All kinds of music nobody here had ever heard of. I remember . . .” He fell silent.
“And the madness, his illness, began twenty years ago?” asked Balilty, returning to the subject.
“My father took him to a doctor. I remember him explaining it to my mother. I overheard them one night. They thought I wasn’t home. I was already grown up, on vacation in Israel with my first wife. They were talking about depression. That was the diagnosis. After that my father took him to the psychiatric hospital in Talbiyeh, to the emergency room, because Herzl wouldn’t get out of bed or eat or speak or react to anything. My mother told me this later. It was a long time ago. She spoke in a general way, not going into detail. She couldn’t decide whether or what to tell Nita. Nita was always oversensitive, and Mother didn’t want to upset her. I think that all she finally said to Nita, who was still a young girl then, was that she needn’t be afraid of Herzl, that he wasn’t dangerous to anyone, except maybe to himself. To me my mother said that he wanted to die.”
“And later?” asked Michael. “After that first attack?”
“Once every few years he would disappear. For a month or more. He was on medication, but I don’t know if it helped him. My father told me last year that he was in remission. That his attacks were milder. After that first time he would go to the emergency room by himself. He was afraid he would harm himself. I think he got electric shock treatment twice. And he said that it helped him.”
“In other words, you spoke to him about it?” asked Michael. “You said—”
Theo seemed confused. “Two or three years ago, just once,” he admitted.
“The doctor told me,” Balilty intervened, “that he walked pushing an empty supermarket cart all the way from Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem to the center of Jerusalem. He walked down the main road in his white hospital pajamas. He must have been in danger of being run over. He finally ended up in Talbiyeh Mental Hospital.” Balilty leaned forward. “The doctor in Talbiyeh said that he was hearing voices. I don’t know much about it, but does that sound like more than depression?”
Theo shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe,” he mumbled. “I’m not a psychiatrist. From the looks of his apartment you could see he was crazy. Everything was neglected. It was a mess: papers and music and old instruments all mixed up, along with empty bottles, all kinds of debris. And the dirt! There were whole days when he ate nothing. He’s a sick man, but I don’t think he’s dangerous. He wouldn’t harm anyone.”
“You didn’t inform him about the death of your father,” said Michael.
“How could we?” said Theo sullenly. “It turns out he was in the psychiatric hospital. As you know.”
“But you could have spoken to him.”
“In the first place, I had no idea where he was,” protested Theo. “It was your job to find him.”
“You didn’t give us much help. None of you, including your brother, volunteered the information we needed,” said Balilty maliciously. “You could have spoken to him after your father died. Didn’t you try?”
“I didn’t look for him. I had other things to think about. I had troubles of my own. That my father was dead. And the way he died. And my work with the orchestra. I have to work, you know,” said Theo bitterly. “You couldn’t always succeed in talking with him,” he admitted. “He was closer to me than to Gabi, and certainly more than to Nita. But the one he was most attached to was my father. He would have died for Father. Quite literally.”
“In that case, what was their quarrel about?” asked Balilty, pulling a burned match from the box lying on the table, and scratching with it on the white paper lying in front of him. The tape recorder vibrated. “And why did they close the shop?”
“I have no idea,” said Theo. “My father wasn’t prepared to talk about it. He said, ‘Leave it alone’ whenever I tried to. And I never talked about it at all with Herzl, because I wasn’t here. In recent months I’ve had concerts abroad. I participated in a festival and I never had a chance to . . .” His voice died away. His eyes darted guiltily around the room. “I didn’t behave correctly toward Herzl. I should have taken more of an interest in him. I should have pressed him. He’s completely alone in the world. He has no one.”
“We’re searching his apartment now,” said Michael.
Balilty stared at him with surprise, which turned to astonishment and then to undisguised anger at this disclosure of confidential information without discussing it with him first. But before he turned his head away there was also a gleam of understanding, and in his nod, which was accompanied by a soundless chuckle, there was also appreciation and admiration of the kind he had not shown toward Michael for a long time. He lowered his head as Theo froze.
Theo’s arm held still in midair. His mouth gaped. “But why?” he demanded in a mixture of incomprehension and anger. “Why search there? In that room full of junk? What on earth are you looking for there? You never found anything when you searched my house. I was still too shocked then to ask you what you were looking for. I gave you permission to search my office, and all the musicians’ lockers, but now I demand to know. What are you actually looking for?”
“We’re looking for a certain Dutch painting,” said Michael. “And maybe for something else that will explain things.”
“It’ll be impossible to find anything there,” Theo protested weakly. “You’re wasting your time. And anyway, he was in the hospital that day.”
“We’re not at all sure of that,” said Michael.
“What do you mean?” pro
tested Theo. “The doctor said that he was in the hospital. That’s clear.”
“Yes, he was,” agreed Michael. “But precisely on the evening when your father was murdered he disappeared. He isn’t in a closed ward. He can come and go. He only returned late that evening.”
“How do you know a thing like that?” Theo said, banging his hand on the table. “How do you know? Is that definite?”
“It’s definite. No doubt about it.”
“And where was he?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. He’s not cooperating,” explained Balilty. “We thought that you might be able to get him to talk.”
“Me?” said Theo, alarmed. “Why me?”
“Well,” said Balilty, “there’s nobody else. And you yourself said that you’re closer to him than the others. Your father is no longer with us. And we don’t want to frighten Herzl. We haven’t told him yet about your brother. He doesn’t read the papers. The psychiatrist told him about your father. He said that it was part of the attempt to return Herzl to reality. But he also said that Herzl didn’t react. It was as if he wasn’t hearing anything new.”
Theo recoiled as if Balilty had slapped his face. “You’re wasting your time,” he said finally. “It’ll take you years to search that place. And you won’t find anything.”
“We have no choice,” said Michael. And you have to help us communicate with him.”
“He’s never done anything wrong,” said Theo passionately, as if he was trying to convince them.
“But maybe he knows something we don’t know,” said Balilty coldly. “Like who has done something wrong.”
“Is that supposed to be a hint?” asked Theo with hostility. He again ran his long hand through his silver hair, and he shook it as if it weighed heavily on his head.
“A hint at what?” asked Balilty ingenuously. “What do you think I’m hinting at?”
Theo was silent.
“You’re not prepared to take a polygraph test,” Balilty reminded him. “Do you also object to talking to Herzl?”
“I never said I wasn’t prepared to take a polygraph test!” Theo protested. “I only said I couldn’t do it during the next few days. I’ve been through a great deal, you know. And tomorrow I have to be in good shape.”
“What’s happening tomorrow?” inquired Michael.
“I have to be at a music workshop at Beit-Daniel. The commitment was made more than six months ago, and I can’t possibly break it. Johann Schenk is coming over specially for one day, and it’s the only day that—”
“It’s less than forty-eight hours since your brother was murdered!” exclaimed Balilty.
“Do you think I can forget that?” Theo compressed the corners of his lips in the same way Nita did. Only his cheeks, which weren’t hollow like hers, gave his face a sulky, cruel expression, rather than her suffering, childlike one. “In my profession such events are paramount. You may not know it, but I’m not just anybody in my profession. That may not mean much to you.” It was impossible to mistake the note of conceit accompanying the contempt of his words.
Balilty ignored it completely. His face took on an almost pitying expression. His small eyes sank deep into the chunky folds of his broad face, which shone with sweat. He turned his attention to a tiny stain at the bottom of his striped shirt and examined it studiously.
After Theo had given Balilty time to react, and realized that he was not about to do so, he continued: “Don’t imagine that Gabi would have behaved differently. We can’t just cancel our engagements or postpone them. There isn’t really any reason to do so,” he said disdainfully, running his hand through his hair. “Public mourning and all those rites and rituals are narcissistic—they’re not serious. Just because someone died, even if he’s close to me, even if he’s my brother, doesn’t mean that I have to drop all my obligations. Should I take a vacation because Gabi’s dead?”
Balilty sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“It would be insane to cancel a day with Johann Schenk,” said Theo van Gelden quietly. “It’s an international event, French television is sending a crew, and I’m giving an important lecture to all the gifted youngsters on the Classical period in music that is going to be recorded by our educational television. And Johann Schenk, whose calendar is completely booked up, do you know who he is?” He turned demonstratively toward Michael, who maintained an inscrutable expression. “Why should you have heard of him?” muttered Theo bitterly. “He’s not some athlete or pop star.”
“Apparently you admire him very much,” said Balilty.
“Not only I!” said Theo indignantly. “There are young artists who’ve been waiting a year for this day, if not more. The best musicians are coming from all over the world. We have some very gifted youngsters here. Johann Schenk is one of the greatest baritones in the world. Maybe the greatest. Nita is supposed to be there for a master class, too. Part of the day will be devoted to song accompaniment.”
Balilty eyes blinked rapidly.
“Accompanying lieder—art songs—is an art in itself. We’ll be working on Die Winterreise, a song cycle by Schubert with piano accompaniment.” He glanced at Michael again as if he were expecting the nod of a musical connoisseur, and again Michael’s face remained expressionless. To betray his familiarity with the Schubert work at that moment would have been to join ranks with Theo against Balilty. “We’re devoting half the day to that. And then there’s my lecture, which was scheduled months ago. I also have to be there in order to select new singers for an opera production. I’ll have my work cut out for me!”
“Isn’t this Schenk a human being?” inquired Balilty. “Can’t he understand that someone’s in shock because his brother was slaughtered the day before yesterday?”
“What should I do instead? Let you poke and pry into my life? Spend my time talking to you? Sit and twiddle my thumbs? Look after my sister? I can’t help her. Work, at least, distracts me from these dreadful events. There’s been no funeral yet. I don’t intend to rot away here and hide from the reporters lying in wait for me at every door to my house and Nita’s, or even here. Do you know that they’re outside? I saw them when we came in. And the telephone that keeps ringing at Nita’s and half the time there’s no one at the other end when you pick it up. You can’t stop me from doing my work! Am I your prisoner? What do you think you’re doing, harassing people like this?” There was now a note of righteous indignation in his attack, as if he were working himself up. “Dora Zackheim, our old violin teacher, phoned me. How can you harass an old woman like that? What can you possibly learn from her? She told me you’d made an appointment with her,” he said accusingly to Michael. “What do you want from her? Do you know how many years have passed since she last spoke to me or to Gabi? She can barely walk—”
“Your brother spoke to her a few weeks ago,” said Michael. “We can’t be selective, we can’t make exceptions for anyone. This is about two murders. I’m talking to everyone Gabriel was in touch with.”
“What is this Beit-Daniel anyway? It’s in Zichron Yaakov, no?” asked Balilty sullenly.
“It’s a music center,” Theo answered unwillingly. “They do a lot of chamber music there. Festivals and concerts, and master classes for young artists. . . . How do you actually know that Gabi visited Dora Zackheim?”
“Who said that he visited her? I didn’t say who visited who. I just said that he talked to her,” Michael remarked mildly. “Do you know that he went to her house?”
Theo reddened. “She hardly ever leaves the house,” he mumbled. “I just thought . . .”
“Did Gabi tell you about his conversation with her?”
Theo shook his head.
“So is it in Zichron Yaakov?” Balilty demanded.
Theo nodded.
“If he’s going to Beit-Daniel,” Balilty warned Michael as if they were alone in the room (“Yes? Is that right? And your sister, too?” he asked Theo, who nodded), “then you’re going with them.”
&nbs
p; Michael said nothing. It wasn’t the devaluation of his image in Theo’s eyes because of Balilty’s order, rude as it was, that bothered him. It was, rather, the thought of something strange in the whole story of the mad music shop employee, about whom Nita had never said a word to him. He tried to remember her reactions to his attempts to find out about the quarrel between Herzl and her father, but it seemed to him now that he had been too distracted in the past few days to pay any attention to the evasions, vagueness, unwillingness to talk, and uneasiness the subject had given rise to in her. He had been so busy trying to guard her fragile equilibrium, he scolded himself now, and so intent on not aggravating the crisis into which she had been plunged by her father’s death, that even when speaking with her after the hypnosis, he had not asked her what exactly had happened to Herzl and who he really was.
“So you’re not taking the polygraph test,” remarked Balilty
“Not now,” Theo corrected him. “Not today or tomorrow.”
“But you will talk to Herzl for us?”
“To find out where he was on the evening of my father’s death? I might be prepared to,” Theo said, hesitatingly. “But alone. Just the two of us. Me and him. And then I’ll tell you what he said.”
“Why?” inquired Michael. “Why is it important for you to be alone with him?”
“He’ll talk to me alone in a way he won’t talk in the presence of someone else. Especially a stranger. Let alone a policeman!” said Theo, and he looked at Michael as if he had finally caught him out.
“Ah,” said Michael, “you’re concerned about the success of the investigation. Very good. I just wanted to understand,” he said with exaggerated seriousness and ignored the expression of confusion on Theo’s face.
“Okay,” said Balilty, summing up. “You’ll talk to him alone, and report to us.” He avoided looking at Michael. “Where do you want to do it?”
“I haven’t thought about it yet. Not here, anyway,” said Theo, shuddering. “Here he’ll panic.”
“How do you know?”
