by Batya Gur
“I don’t agree with you,” said Sergeant Ya’ir pleasantly. “I actually think that there could be chemistry between Theo van Gelden and Chief Superintendent Ohayon.”
Shorer pushed the pathologist’s report aside. “Do we really have to go into the psychology of interrogation now?” he grumbled.
“I don’t know if he’s right,” said Michael, glancing at Sergeant Ya’ir. “I really don’t know if I could get him to the point of needing me to listen to his self-justifications. Even if he doesn’t really think I’m stupid. For him I’m just an object. If he doesn’t need something specific from me, I barely exist. But that’s something that could change during the course of the interrogation.”
“No such situation could ever exist between the two of you. This guy’s much too full of himself,” protested Balilty. “You’d never get on the kind of footing with him that you did with that Air Force officer, Colonel Beitan. And that wasn’t murder, only embezzlement, but there you really did . . .” He shook his head with reluctant admiration. “There you did a really nice job. When you listen to the tapes of the interrogation you can see exactly where you were leading him and what was going on between the two of you. The whole thing really depended on his trust in you, and on how important it was to him what you thought of him.”
“I’d like to hear those tapes myself,” said Sergeant Ya’ir fearlessly. “I’d like to know exactly how it happened. I came across Colonel Beitan myself, in the early stages of the investigation, and he, too, as my father says about him, was one of those ‘born unto trouble, like the sparks that fly upward.’”
Balilty looked at him in astonishment mingled with incomprehension. He leaned back in his chair, opened and closed his mouth, rolled his eyes, sat up, and cocked his head as he did when he was about to say something particularly caustic. “What kind of sparks?” he said nastily. What really bothered him was not the biblical reference but the unusual combination—also impressive to Michael, even in these moments of extreme tension—of naivete and assertiveness.
But before Ya’ir could go on, Shorer interrupted, saying firmly: “In that case—how should I put it?—Chief Superintendent Ohayon succeeded in becoming for the subject, at least in that particular context, a figure with moral authority. One capable of granting absolution. After you’ve worked for years in our profession, as we have,” he explained, “you see that people have a great need for moral justification in general. And sometimes, with some luck, the interrogator can turn into someone who in the suspect’s mind’s eye can insure forgiveness, pardon, or moral legitimization. He becomes an authority figure. It doesn’t always work, but in that particular case it worked very well.”
“Sometimes you have to do terrible things,” said Balilty, sinking into reflection. “You wouldn’t believe the things I myself have done. I’ve even cried with suspects. About their lives and mine. And about their crime. Once I even told someone . . .” A gleam flicked for a moment in his eyes as he lowered them and said: “Never mind that now.”
“And Michael,” Eli suddenly intervened, “during the interrogation of Colonel Beitan, spent hours talking about their divorces and their relationships with their children! A quarter of the interrogation was spent on that. Remember?”
Michael bowed his head. Even now he felt uncomfortable remembering those interrogations and the enjoyment with which his colleagues had listened to the tapes. He remembered only too well the moments when there was no pretense in those dialogues, and it seemed to him now that everyone had sensed the exact moment when he had been tempted to really open up, that they knew it as well as he did. And as if he had read Michael’s thoughts, Eli added: “And it isn’t just a trick, it isn’t only cunning, it’s a relationship between two people coming into being.”
Michael shifted in his chair. He had to say something now, to put an end to the embarrassment and shame overwhelming him. Especially at the memory of sharing with the colonel a crisis in his relationship with his son, Yuval. So he quickly brought the discussion back to the theoretical level: “What prevents criminals from confessing isn’t fear of imprisonment,” he heard himself explaining to Sergeant Ya’ir. “They don’t always have enough imagination for that. They don’t really see themselves in prison. What frightens them, surprising as it may sound, is actually the moral aspect. Their difficulty in living with moral guilt is what enables us to communicate with them. They long, most of them at any rate, to attain a state, a sense, a confirmation that from a moral point of view they’re in the right. In this case before us now, getting moral support for the right to have a father’s love. That’s how one can get through to Theo van Gelden. And if the interrogator is prepared to accept the suspect’s position, he’s on the way to getting a confession. In other words, if Theo van Gelden feels that, from the moral point, I accept his motives, understand them, maybe even justify them, we have a chance with him. The question that bothers Danny is whether I can be a significant enough figure for Theo van Gelden to grant him legitimization.”
“We haven’t got much time,” Balilty suddenly warned. “We haven’t got time for philosophy now.”
“In this kind of interrogation,” said Shorer, “you always wonder about what kind of person you’re up against. You suddenly find yourself talking about yourself. You look for points of contact. Just as you would with anyone. One of the reasons Michael gets such surprising results is that he’s really prepared to open up and understand the person opposite him.”
“Not always,” Michael heard himself saying. “Not with Tuvia Shai, for example, and not in other cases, where I simply had to lay a trap.”
“Murderers,” said Shorer, “have to be understood just like everyone else. Their motivation, how they think, how they feel.”
“What makes them tick,” said Balilty in English.
“Why do you think he can’t do it this time?” persevered Sergeant Ya’ir. “Ohayon is even connected with the family, if I understood correctly. That might give him an edge.”
“That’s exactly the problem,” said Balilty, pounding the table with his fist. “He’s introducing irrelevant personal considerations. We should work in two stages, her first.”
“What have we decided?” demanded Shorer impatiently. “Can you put it to her in a way that will make her want to do it, or not?”
Michael nodded and stood up. He couldn’t speak.
“Take Nita to the blue room,” he heard Balilty call after him. “We’ll put him there first.”
The blue room was as gray as all the others. Rumor had it that its name came from a blue curtain that once covered the one-way mirror behind which witnesses sat to identify suspects.
Three times Michael was on the point of jumping up and bursting into the room to rescue Nita. Each time he sat down again between Balilty and Shorer, gripping the metal frame of his chair and looking around without otherwise moving. From the moment he had touched her arm and led her into the blue room, he felt as if he had put her on a path that would make her incapable of surviving. For a few moments he even had the feeling that she was in actual physical danger, that she would not emerge from the blue room alive. He had submitted meekly to her accusations of cruelty, accusations she had made in a cold, unfamiliar, openly hostile voice in Shorer’s office. Now, through the one-way mirror, he again was struck by the flush covering her face. He had expected to find her in a state of collapse in Shorer’s office, to which he had hurried from the conference room. But he hadn’t expected this face, radiant with a rosiness he had never seen on it before, the deep gray eyes glittering with fever. She had listened to him attentively when he told her about the requiem and its discovery, about the conversation with the Belgian expert, about Theo’s exploded alibi. “There’s no such thing,” she said firmly. “I simply don’t believe it.”
Michael sighed. He picked up the phone and asked for Izzy Mashiah and the Forensics documents expert to be sent in, along with the manuscript.
“Is it true?” she asked Izzy Mashiah,
after she put the manuscript down on the sofa. “He says . . .” she said in a choked voice that she then raised somewhat. “He says it was found in Theo’s office.”
Izzy bowed his head.
“He says that Theo . . . Gabi . . . Father . . . is it true? Do you know anything about it? Do you believe it? Do you believe him, Izzy?”
Izzy Mashiah looked at the manuscript and at Michael. His breath came in short, rapid gasps. “Gabi didn’t tell me about it. He didn’t share it with me. But it’s by Vivaldi. It’s definitely by Vivaldi. And it was in Theo’s office, inside a score of Les Troyens.”
“What he seems to be implying,” insisted Nita, “he doesn’t say it directly, but the implication is that because of it Theo murdered Father and Gabi.” She averted her eyes from Michael, to whom she referred coldly and caustically, as if he were her worst enemy.
Izzy Mashiah turned pale. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. His breath whistled weakly.
“What do you say about it, Izzy? You loved Gabi, what do you say about it?” Her voice was cold and resolute.
“I didn’t mean him any harm,” said Izzy fearfully. “They showed me the Vivaldi. . . . Who could have known where it would lead?”
“He says that Theo didn’t meet the woman before the concert that day. He says that Theo . . . the string . . . he says that . . .” Her voice broke. Now she looked at Michael. Pain and hatred were mingled in her look.
It wasn’t me, Michael wanted to say, I only happen to be here. But he maintained his reserved expression and said nothing.
As if she had heard his mind, she said: “It’s not your fault. You didn’t cause anything. You just went behind my back and . . . It doesn’t matter,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “You’re only doing your job.”
Izzy Mashiah sat down, dropping into the chair next to where Michael was standing. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “It really is hard to believe. I don’t know what to say.”
“For this! For this?” She pointed to the manuscript. “For this, Theo, Gabi’s neck with a cello string? Father, for this?”
“Nita,” Izzy Mashiah whispered, panting for breath. “It’s a requiem by Vivaldi!”
“It’s not really because of that, not only because of that,” said Michael.
“He says,” she said, ignoring Michael, “that Theo was always sick with jealousy of Gabi. Always. And of me. And he couldn’t forgive Father for loving Gabi more. He also says that Father loved me, too. And then he says nothing. He lets me reach the conclusion by myself that Theo could kill me, too. As if he’s a dangerous lunatic or something. Some kind of Macbeth. What do you think, Izzy? Is that possible?”
“There’s only one person who can answer that question. And of all of us the only one he really owes an answer to is you. He owes you an answer,” said Izzy in a clear voice. “And from the minute the question’s been asked you won’t have any peace anyway, and neither will I, and neither will anybody else.”
“I wish I were dead. I wish the earth would swallow me up,” said Nita.
Izzy looked at Michael helplessly, Michael gestured, and Izzy quietly left the room.
“Don’t treat me as if I were crazy,” Nita warned him, raising her head as the door closed behind Izzy. “There are families with curses on them. It’s a fact and you don’t have to be crazy to believe it.”
“I don’t believe in family curses,” said Michael Ohayon. “I always assume that anyone is capable of anything. I’ve learned that lesson in my life. Do you think there’s no hatred in families? Think of the accounts of the Black Plague in Europe in the Middle Ages. How mothers abandoned their babies, running away from them the moment they recognized their children’s symptoms. Do you think they didn’t love their, babies? Husbands left their wives, wives their husbands, lovers their beloved, children their parents—they all ran away in order to survive. Even if they themselves no longer had a chance to survive. Everything fell apart and all bonds were broken because a great horror threatened them. Greater than any love or devotion or responsibility. There’s nothing certain in the world. It’s impossible to think that anything in it is eternal. I’m very sorry to have to be the one to bring you the news. But believe me—you can’t live in the world without knowing this truth.”
“I wish I’d never met you,” she said suddenly in a lamenting voice. “I wish I were dead.”
He was silent.
“All you want is to . . . to impose order. To be right.”
He was silent.
“I have no choice,” she said suddenly, with less hatred. “I have to talk to Theo, but alone. And before you do. Before you talk to him. I don’t want you there when I talk to him,” she said threateningly.
He nodded.
“I want to be alone with my brother. Even . . . even if . . . He’s still my brother. He doesn’t stop being my brother. And if you’re right, if there’s anything, anything at all, to what you say, he’s still my brother. And you can’t have a relationship with the sister of . . . of a murderer. It’s the end for us. If you’re right, and also if you’re wrong. You left me alone in this and went over to their side.”
He sensed how pale he was and how shallow and rapid his breathing. Every word she said was like a stone aimed straight at his chest, straight at the inside of his head.
“After I’ve talked with him, even if you’re right, I’ll never see you again. Even if you’re right. And now I can’t even ask you if you want me to talk to him. I can’t not talk to him. That’s what you’ve done. And even if you didn’t do it, it’s the way things are.”
He wanted to ask her if things would have been different if he hadn’t told her, if he had questioned Theo himself, on his own initiative, if he had only faced her with the facts afterward, if he had spared her. He wanted to touch her and tell her how much he had actually been at her side, and how there simply hadn’t been any other way. He wanted to explain to her that it wasn’t the way that mattered here, but the facts. But even as the thoughts shaped themselves into words he knew that he wouldn’t say anything. At this moment he had no right to divert attention to himself. She and the interrogation were the main thing. And there was no point in saying anything to her, since the facts couldn’t be altered. If she chose to see him as chiefly responsible for the need to acknowledge them, there was nothing he could do. Now, the thought suddenly surfaced, that’s how she sees it now.
“You could have helped us,” she suddenly said in a despairing, childish voice.
He spread out his arms in the gesture of helplessness he hated so much.
“Your work and your achievements are what’s important to you now,” she said bitterly. “You chose them.”
He wanted to protest, he longed to tell her that there was no other way, but there was no point in talking. With his head bowed he saw how she was evading the main issue, outflanking it, circumventing it as if she were circling a ring of fire. How intent she was on hurting him, how her lips were sucked in, how her teeth dug into her lower lip, how finally her facial muscles and her body relaxed, and she leaned back with her eyes closed. Her lips moved, over and over again saying soundlessly, as in prayer: “I wish I were dead.” Until, suddenly and unexpectedly, she sat up, straightened her back, and said: “I have no choice. I have to know. I can’t go on living like this. After I know the truth from Theo, and only from Theo, we’ll see if I can go on living. If there’s anything left at all.”
The first time Michael wanted to rush into the blue room was when Theo put his hands on her shoulders. At that moment he suddenly had a horrifying vision of those hands encircling her neck and squeezing with all their strength. But Theo only looked into her eyes—again Michael was amazed at the discrepancy between the identical structure of the siblings’ eyes and the complete difference of their expressions. Theo’s face conveyed only remoteness and coldness, without any fear, while Nita’s blazed with a terrible knowledge, with a pain that was hard to look at even from behind the glass. Theo took his
hands off her shoulders. For a moment Michael closed his eyes. When he opened them he heard her say: “They found the requiem.”
He saw Theo recoil and look around in terror.
“We’re alone here,” said Nita, “you have nothing to fear, Theo. They found it in your office.”
Theo sat down with a thud in the chair next to him.
“You didn’t tell me anything about it,” said Nita frostily. “Now you have to tell me everything.”
Theo shook his head from side to side. Then he raised it and raked his hand through his mane of silver hair. In a strangled voice he said: “They’re listening to every word.”
“There’s nobody here,” said Nita. “He promised me.”
“He’s lying. They’re all lying,” said Theo. “You were always naive.”
Michael stood up and approached the glass wall so closely that his breath left a mark on it. He saw her eyes narrow for a moment and then open wide again.
“Maybe I was,” he heard her say simply, and he saw the pink spots on her cheeks darkening, “but I’m not anymore. I can’t afford to be.”
Theo grunted unintelligibly and looked at her in silence.
“You can tell them whatever you like, Theo,” said Nita, putting her hand on his arm. They were sitting opposite and very close to each other. There were only two other chairs and a green metal table in the blue room. “But you have to tell me the truth. Everything.”
Theo’s eyes darted from corner to corner. He raised them to the ceiling as if looking for hidden microphones. At last he stood up and surveyed the room, as if he were about to begin pacing from wall to wall. But when he realized how small the room was, he sat down again.
“Everything. You must. About Father, too.”
“Nita,” said Theo angrily. “What can I tell you about Father? You heard yourself that I was with . . . a woman, two women, that day. I feel uncomfortable talking about such things with you.”
