Asylum City: A Novel

by Liad Shoham

  The car slowed to a stop.

  Liddie’s mother had pleaded with them to leave. “There’s no future for you here,” she said over and over, urging her children to flee. Her poor mother. She had no idea where she was sending them.

  Ahmed opened the door and tugged at her dress. “Yalla, yalla,” he barked, pulling her out of the car. She prayed every day for God to release her from Ahmed’s prison cell. Now that it was finally happening, she was frightened. What was waiting for her outside?

  She landed painfully on a hard surface. “Move,” Ahmed said, punctuating his order with a kick. Liddie cringed, readying herself for the next blow. There was a lot of noise. Where was she?

  The second blow never came. She heard Ahmed walk away, but she continued to lie there without moving, shivering from the cold. She could hear voices nearby. Traffic in the street. Horns honking. She thought she heard the car drive away. If she could only get the blindfold off her eyes she could see where she was, but her hands were tied behind her.

  “Here, let me help you,” a man said in Tigrinya.

  Liddie tried to pull away from the voice. She could sense more people around her. What did Ahmed do with her? Where did he take her? Who did he sell her to this time?

  Abruptly, the blindfold was removed. Liddie saw four men standing over her. They were going to rape her. Ahmed had tossed her like a wounded animal into a pack of hungry wolves. She looked at them in terror. No, not again.

  A hand reached out to her and she flinched. Her teeth were chattering. The cold night air penetrated down to her bones. Liddie looked around for Gabriel, but she didn’t see him.

  “Gabriel?” she shouted. “Where are you?” He didn’t appear.

  “It’s okay, Liddie. I’m Arami, Gabriel’s friend.” A man she’d never seen before reached out and touched her face. Ahmed had known her name, too. He’d waited for the Israelis to take out the baby, waited for her to get better, and then he’d come for her and made her one of his whores. She wasn’t going to go through that hell again. This time she’d fight back. She didn’t care if they killed her. Her life wasn’t worth living anyway.

  “Liddie.” She could feel his breath on her cheek.

  “No,” she screamed, and bit down hard on his hand.

  Chapter 46

  ANAT rang the bell of Apartment 3 at 122 Stricker Street. No one had spoken to her since the item appeared on the Internet news site. Even David hadn’t called. As far as Anat was concerned, until she was officially notified otherwise, she was still the acting chief of the Special Investigations Unit and would continue to work the case as she saw fit.

  A dog barked on the other side of the door. The last time she’d seen Shmuel Gonen was at the lineup, when he failed to ID their suspect.

  Mrs. Gonen cracked the door open.

  “Shmuel’s resting,” she said with a sour expression.

  “I just need a minute,” Anat promised, reaching out to pet the mastiff that was rubbing up against her leg.

  “You said he got it wrong at the lineup. He took it very hard,” Dvora Gonen said accusingly, blocking Anat’s entry.

  “I’m very sorry,” Anat said gently, although she didn’t feel she had anything to apologize for. “It happens. People make mistakes. It’s fine. No one’s blaming him. It wasn’t some kind of test.”

  “That’s exactly what I told him, Inspector Nachmias. But he really wanted to help the police, to feel useful. You don’t understand what that means to people like us,” Mrs. Gonen scolded. She stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her, making it clear that as long as she had anything to say about it, Anat wasn’t coming in.

  “I do understand, but I have a few more questions to ask him. It’s important,” Anat said with as much empathy as she could muster. She found Dvora Gonen’s protectiveness a little ridiculous.

  “I think you’ve asked enough questions,” Mrs. Gonen answered, not conceding an inch. “What else do you need? Shmuel told you what he saw. Why do you have to talk to him again?”

  Anat remained silent.

  “Is this how you spend the taxpayers’ money?” the old lady said in a loud whisper. She doesn’t want to make a scene for the neighbors, Anat thought, struggling to keep a straight face. “You’ve got enough. Throw the African in prison and move on to something else. There’s no reason to keep harassing law-abiding citizens. That politician, what’s his name, Regev. He’s right. You should be making sure they get what they deserve instead of protecting them.”

  “Your husband told me he heard shouting the night Michal was killed. I just want to ask him about it,” Anat said quietly. It’s hard to go on attacking somebody if they don’t fight back. That was one of the first lessons she learned when she was working as a patrol officer.

  “That’s absurd,” Dvora said, waving her hand dismissively. “Shmuel doesn’t hear anything at night.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He sleeps like a log,” Mrs. Gonen went on. Leaning in closer, she whispered, “You should hear him snore.”

  “But he told me that the night of the murder, he heard . . .”

  “It was me. I heard it,” Dvora cut in.

  “What exactly did you hear?” Anat hadn’t even questioned Mrs. Gonen. They’d focused all their attention on her husband. He was the one who said he’d seen Gabriel. They’d canvassed the neighbors, but no one had thought to ask Mrs. Gonen. She was playing bridge when Shmuel ran into Gabriel.

  “Shouting . . . someone was calling her name . . . yelling obscenities at her.” She was no longer whispering.

  “Was it a man or a woman?”

  “A man, definitely a man.” There was a trace of condescension in her voice. “Women don’t shout like that in the middle of the night. And they don’t use that kind of language, either.”

  “Did you recognize the voice? Did you see who was shouting? Do you know who it was?” Anat fired at her.

  Dvora Gonen shook her head.

  “What happened after that? Did you hear anyone else? Did you see anything?”

  “No. The noise was so loud I couldn’t hear the television. I had to turn up the volume. It’s none of my business what goes on in other people’s homes.”

  Anat gave her a skeptical look.

  “There was a good movie on, I didn’t want . . .” For the first time, Anat sensed a hint of embarrassment in her voice.

  Anat stared at her in silence. Something she said was niggling at her. What was it? All of a sudden it came to her.

  “You said he was shouting obscenities at her?”

  Mrs. Gonen nodded.

  “In Hebrew?” She had to be sure she wasn’t wrong.

  “Of course. I’m old, but I’m not deaf.”

  Chapter 47

  MORE and more people were crowding around Liddie. She looked up at them in fear. What did they want from her? What were they going to do to her?

  She was afraid the man she bit would hit her. She could see the pain on his face. But he didn’t raise a hand to her. He didn’t even shout at her or curse her. He just told everyone else to move back.

  No one obeyed.

  The man bent down to her. “I’m Arami, Gabriel’s friend,” he repeated.

  A chill went down her spine at the sound of her brother’s name.

  “Where’s Gabriel?” she asked, her voice breaking.

  “He’s not here. He asked me to take care of you,” the man said in a gentle voice.

  No! It was a trap. Ahmed had spoken to her nicely at first, too. When he came up to her outside Dahlia’s shelter, he invited her to go for a ride in his car. He said he’d show her the city. She refused. That’s when he grabbed her and dragged her to the car.

  Liddie tried to stand up, but everything was spinning around her. The man held out a piece of paper.

  “This is a letter from Gabriel. He asked me to give it to you. It explains everything,” he said, urging her to take it.

  Liddie shifted her eyes uncertainly from the man to
the paper in his hand. He’s trying to entice me, she thought. Alarm bells were ringing wildly in her head.

  “It says here he wants you to stay with me until he gets back. I’m a friend of his.”

  Liddie shook her head vehemently. She’s wasn’t going anywhere and she wouldn’t agree to take anything from him. She’d learned her lesson. She made another attempt to stand up and fell back down again.

  “Take this, it’s water,” the man said, holding out a bottle.

  She didn’t want to give in, but the temptation was too strong. Her throat was so dry. She took the bottle from his hand. While she drank thirstily, he kept asking the other people to go away, to give them some privacy.

  “Thank you,” Liddie said, returning the bottle.

  The man smiled. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had smiled at her.

  “Come with me, Liddie. I’ll take care of you,” he said, reaching his hand out again. The look in his eyes seemed sincere.

  “No!” Liddie screamed. Whatever happened, she wouldn’t let him touch her. She didn’t want anyone to touch her ever again.

  The man said nothing. Most of the crowd had dispersed, losing interest in the little drama. If he was planning to grab her, he could have done it already.

  Liddie pushed herself up. Her legs were shaking. She wasn’t sure they would support her, but she had to force herself to walk on her own if she wanted to get away from him.

  People moved aside, letting her pass. Even the man who called himself Arami didn’t try to stop her.

  Liddie looked around, desperately trying to figure out where she was. During her time at the shelter, Dahlia had taken her for a walk a few times. Other than that, she’d hadn’t been outside.

  “Where are you going?” the man asked, following at a safe distance.

  She ignored him, concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other, struggling not to fall, not knowing where she was going. The light hurt her eyes and the noise of the people and cars was painful to her ears. She’d been locked in a cell for months. Now she was in the middle of a bustling city. She was terrified.

  “At least tell me where you’re going so I can let your brother know,” the man pleaded.

  Liddie turned to look at him. He didn’t seem like a bad person. And as long as she was out in the street with other people around, she felt safe. Was he telling the truth? Did Gabriel really send him?

  Before she had time to regret her decision, Liddie blurted out the address of the shelter.

  “You’re going to Dahlia’s place? You know Dahlia?” he asked in surprise.

  Liddie nodded.

  Chapter 48

  ANAT jumped out of the car and ran into the building. The rain was coming down hard. She’d been in such a rush, she’d forgotten her umbrella. What she’d learned from Dvora Gonen had given her a renewed sense of urgency. Her gut feeling was right. Maybe now she could prove it.

  They’d only done the most basic tests on the blood found on the outside of the door, checking for no more than blood type. It was time to dig deeper.

  Anat had decided to go to Abu Kabir and talk to Grisha in person. They’d sat next to each other in a seminar a couple of months ago. She’d hardly been able to concentrate on the speakers because Grisha was constantly whispering in her ear, mostly making cynical comments that had her in stitches the whole time. At the end of the seminar, he invited her to come see what he described as the “state-of-the-art labs” at Abu Kabir. His heavy Russian accent made her smile. “You won’t believe it, zero cool, just like CSI on TV,” he said with a serious expression in response to her skeptical look. Anat was meaning to go, but she kept putting it off, like everything else that wasn’t directly connected with the case she was working on at the moment.

  When she walked in, Grisha was leaning over a microscope that looked exactly like the ones they used to have in the biology lab in high school. She knew what kind of pressure they were under here. The lab Grisha ran was the only one in the country that was responsible for identifying victims, body parts, and bones. It was also the only one that conducted DNA tests in major felony cases. “That’s why the government gives me such a large staff,” Grisha had told her, explaining that it consisted entirely of himself and two assistants.

  “Hey, Inspector Nachmias. How nice of you to drop by. We’ve missed you,” Grisha said when he caught sight of her standing next to him.

  “I came to see what’s new in the world of science,” Anat said in an attempt to butter him up. She sensed the words had come out wrong.

  “Of course you did. That’s why you all come here. Everybody knows cops are science lovers.” As always, Grisha maintained a poker face, but Anat already knew him well enough to tell when he was teasing.

  She wanted to come up with a clever retort, but she couldn’t think of anything. The same thing happened to her when she went on a date. She tried to be funny and witty, but in the end she came out with some lame remark that earned her a forced smile at best.

  “And as part of your interest in science, you said to yourself, Grisha might do a little DNA test for me. Am I right?” Apparently he’d decided to make it easier for her.

  “You can read me like a book,” Anat said, smiling. She needed answers, and she needed them fast, before David got back and she was kicked off the case.

  “It’s something urgent that can’t wait, right?” Grisha went on.

  Anat nodded.

  “You’re all the same,” he said with a deep sigh. “It’s always rush, rush, rush with you people. But money for Grisha to hire another assistant, that you don’t have.”

  Anat remained silent. If she’d learned anything in the short time she’d known Grisha, it was that there was no stopping him when he started grousing.

  “Go on, get it out. I heard you’re on an important case. I bet the brass are breathing down your neck. It’s not easy when you’re a lady cop,” he said, adding, “or a new immigrant.”

  “Is it true DNA can tell you if a person is Caucasian or not?” Anat asked, although she knew the answer. She’d give Grisha the opportunity to explain it to her. She might not be witty, but she’d been on enough dates to know that men like women who make them feel smart. Especially men with an inferiority complex.

  “DNA can tell you everything, Inspector Nachmias. There’s an allele that’s present in ninety-nine-point-nine percent of Caucasians and almost never in Asians or Africans.”

  “So you can find out if the person whose blood was found at the scene is white or black?” Anat asked with wide eyes and an innocent look on her face.

  “Absolutely. That’s why they pay me the big bucks. Six thousand shekels a month,” Grisha grumbled. Still, Anat could see she’d succeeded in stroking his ego.

  Dvora Gonen said that the man banging on Michal’s door was swearing in Hebrew. Normally, she’d report that information to Yochai immediately, but in view of the circumstances, she’d decided not to risk it until she had proof. Witnesses are unreliable. They can change their story. When Anat went to Yochai, she wanted something more solid than the statement of a peevish old lady. She wanted irrefutable scientific evidence.

  “How fast can you do the test?” Anat asked with a pleading look in her eyes. “I really need it, Grisha. As soon as possible,” she said softly when she got no answer.

  If the results confirmed her suspicions, Michal Poleg’s killer might not be an African migrant. He might be a white Israeli. And not any Israeli, but a man Michal knew and had no qualms about letting into her apartment late at night.

  Chapter 49

  “I thought you quit smoking,” Itai said to Dahlia. They were standing outside the shelter. It still hurt where the gorilla at the restaurant had punched him, especially when he made any sharp movement. There’s no telling what would have happened to him if the waiter hadn’t dragged him outside. He told the staff at OMA that he’d run his bike into the curb and taken a fall. His mother, who had never understood his fondness for bi
kes, snatched at the opportunity to launch another attack. “Who’s going to want you now?” she said, raising her arms to the heavens and letting out a deep sigh. “You earn a miserable salary, and you’ve got a limp. You’ll be the death of me one day.”

  Dahlia and Itai were taking advantage of the break in the rain to get some fresh air. There were parts of the city where people delighted in the smell of the air after the rain, but here it still stunk of garbage.

  Dahlia had called him a couple of hours after Liddie showed up on her doorstep. She didn’t stop asking about Gabriel. Itai had told Dahlia about Gabriel the last time he was here, and Dahlia had put two and two together.

  She shrugged her shoulders in despair. “Every day there’s something new and I tell myself this is as bad as it gets. There can’t be anything more appalling than this. And the next day I see something worse,” she said, exhaling smoke.

  A half-naked baby crawled out of the shelter toward them, her hands dirty from the unwashed floor. Dahlia tossed away her cigarette and picked up the infant. The baby smiled at her and then turned her head to smile at Itai. He made a face and she laughed.

  “Poor thing. What that girl must have been through,” Dahlia said, bouncing the baby in her arms. The tiny bundle was leaving black stains on her clothes.

  “Did she say anything?” Itai asked as he continued to make funny faces at the baby. He’d come as soon as he got Dahlia’s call, but by the time he arrived, Liddie was already asleep.

  Dahlia shook her head. “She just kept asking for Gabriel.”

  “Does she know where they were keeping her?”

  “No. She was blindfolded both times, when they took her away and when they dumped her in the street.”

  The two aid workers fell silent, watching the baby who was holding on tight to Dahlia.

  Gabriel had spoken to Itai about his sister. As far as he knew, the Bedouins killed her in Sinai. Her suddenly turning up like this was no accident. Her jailers wouldn’t let her go without a reason. Someone had paid them, and that someone had to be Gabriel. But he couldn’t have raised the money on his own. He must have gotten it from somebody else. Who? Itai might be tempted to accept the cops’ theory that Gabriel killed Michal for the money, if he didn’t know for a fact that she didn’t have it to give him. All the work she did was on a volunteer basis. He himself had lent her money a few times when she was strapped for cash.