Murder in Jerusalem

by Batya Gur

  “What would you have done?” Michael hastened to ask. “What?”

  “I would have spoken to her, I would have told her—never mind.”

  “Are you certain she did not tell you she would be at work?” Michael persisted.

  Benny Meyuhas shook his head. “I did not know.”

  “I understand that there was some…disagreement…crisis…rift between you two?” Michael said, venturing a guess.

  Benny Meyuhas’s amazement was visible. “We—how did you know that?” A note of suspicion entered his voice. “Nobody knew,” he said, wiping his face with his hands. In the ensuing silence, the only sound was his heavy breathing. Arye Rubin laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “Generally speaking, did you two get along well?” Michael asked, studying Benny Meyuhas’s face and ignoring Arye Rubin’s look of reproach.

  “We got along beautifully, beautifully,” Benny Meyuhas said. “God…how…” and he pressed his hands to his face.

  “You yourself were there,” Michael said to Arye Rubin.

  “When?” Rubin asked, surprised.

  “Last night, when Tirzah…you were at the television station, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, I was, but in the editing rooms. They’re in the main building, nowhere near…. I had no idea, I didn’t see Tirzah, I was busy working,” Rubin said.

  “There’s no connection between the two buildings, no passageway?” Michael asked.

  “None,” Rubin said emphatically. “There’s practically no connection between floors of the same building. Anyway, there are always people around. Apart from the security guards, there are rooms manned twenty-four hours a day. The broadcast monitoring room, for example: you can check who was on duty monitoring local and foreign transmissions, the place is never unmanned.”

  Michael asked suddenly, “What was the disagreement about? Did something specific happen?”

  Benny Meyuhas glanced at him, dismayed. “It’s something personal, it’s not relevant—something personal.”

  Michael looked at the newspaper. A headline at the side of the page caught his eye, the story of an explosive device planted at the door of a West Jerusalem apartment occupied by three female Arab university students. Apparently the bomb had been placed by some ultra-Orthodox fanatics, and the police sapper sent to defuse it had been slightly injured when he touched the bag. “You can never know,” Michael said after a few long moments of silence, “if it’s relevant or not. Sometimes something that seems relevant—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Benny Meyuhas sputtered.

  “Was it a serious argument?” Michael said, groping. “Was it something important, something that might affect the future of your relationship? Was there some talk of a separation?”

  Benny Meyuhas slumped until he was lying on top of the bed, pulled his knees to his chest, and burst into tears. Arye Rubin’s face wore a look of astonishment; after a moment he leaned over and touched Benny’s shoulder.

  “Did you know about all this?” Michael asked Rubin, as though Benny Meyuhas were not in the room.

  Rubin shook his head. “I had no idea.”

  Hagar pushed the door open with her shoulder, carrying a cup of tea on a saucer with a teaspoon clinking inside. Michael hastened to make way for her to pass and went to stand by the window, where he could observe her placing the cup and saucer on the nightstand next to the bed, and where he could watch her as she threw an inquisitive and accusatory look at Rubin. Rubin shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “I don’t know.” When she touched Benny Meyuhas’s arm, he removed his hands from his face and glanced at her as though he were seeing her for the first time in his life.

  Michael stood watching the window and the side of the bed near it and noticed a pair of black velvet embroidered boots shoved underneath, partially hidden by the bed. He wondered if they belonged to Tirzah, but there was something coquettish and juvenile about them which did not quite jibe with the impression he was forming of her.

  Michael was still pondering this when he heard Rubin say, “Drink up, Benny, otherwise we’ll have to put you on an IV; you’re dehydrating. You don’t have to eat, but you’ve got to drink.”

  The sound of Benny’s head butting the wall behind him sickened Michael. “She’s left us, Arye,” he wailed. “She didn’t want to be with me anymore.”

  The door opened again. Eli Bachar stood for a moment watching the two men on the bed, then said to Michael, “They say that Arye Rubin has to sign. If he agrees.”

  Rubin regarded him, stunned, then nodded his consent. To Benny he said, “I’m going to give my consent to an autopsy, if that’s okay with you. Do you agree?”

  “I’ve got to get going,” Eli Bachar said impatiently. “Someone will call you and bring the forms around, okay?” Without waiting for an answer he left the room.

  “Benny,” Rubin said hesitantly, “do you consent? Is it all right with you?”

  “She’s left us, Arye, she didn’t want to live with me anymore. I don’t have…I didn’t have any reason to go on…”

  “That’s the way he’s been the whole time,” Hagar said from the corner of the room, her brows knitting to the point where the crease between them deepened even further. “That’s the way he’s been talking the whole time,” she said, and left the room.

  Michael followed her. She was standing in the foyer, next to the kitchen door, her arm on the door frame and her head resting on her arm.

  “It’s my impression that you’re the person closest to him,” he said, looking at her unabashedly. “Do you think you might know what was going on with them?”

  She lifted her head and stepped away from the doorway. “With who?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Benny and Tirzah.”

  “Going on? Who says anything was going on? When?”

  “Rubin told me you’d know the details,” Michael said, “about the rift between them lately. He said you would know, that you’d certainly felt it, even if Benny had never mentioned anything about it to you. He says you’re the only person who always knows what’s happening with Benny.”

  Her face softened. “Believe me, I have no idea. I was very close, I mean, pretty close, but…he never talked to me about Tirzah.” She scratched at an invisible spot on the door frame with the tip of her fingernail. “I was close to him in matters of”—she gestured toward the maquette—“anything related to work. In those matters I’m an expert. But where his private life is concerned I’m not, not where his life with Tirzah was concerned.”

  “But you certainly must have felt something, perceived something. Sensitive people can recognize things in people they’re close to even without talking about it explicitly, don’t you think?”

  She looked down the hallway as if to verify that no one was listening. “Where’s Sarah?” she wondered aloud. “Her coat is here, so she hasn’t left yet. Maybe she’s in the other room watching television,” she said, indicating the living room. “There was tension between them lately, something was weighing heavily on Benny, that much was clear to me. I know him like the palm of my hand; there’s no question that something was going on. I didn’t ask him because I didn’t dare to, but it was clear to me also from the way Tirzah was behaving, even from the way she talked to me lately. But I don’t have a clue what—” She glanced at her watch, startled. “Are you planning to be here for a while?” she asked quickly, and without waiting for an answer added, “because if you are, I’d like—look, I’ve got to get back to the station to talk to Zadik about continuing filming. We can’t stop now, there’s only a little more to wrap up, we’ve got to—I’m going to Zadik with Rubin…. Sarah,” she said, turning to the young woman who had suddenly appeared from the next room. “Can you stay here a little longer? I don’t want to leave Benny alone.”

  “No problem,” Sarah said, rubbing her feet one against the other.

  “Where are your shoes?” Hagar asked, surprised, and the young woman blanched.

  “Over th
ere,” she said, pointing to the living room. “I took them off in there. I’m going to—it’s cold in here, but there was mud on them…” She fell silent. But Hagar was already putting on her coat and made no response.

  “Arye,” she called toward the bedroom. “Arye, let’s get moving.” As she spoke, she moved toward the room.

  “Where are your shoes?” Michael asked in a whisper, and Sarah blushed, indicating with her head the room she had just emerged from.

  “Black boots? Embroidered?”

  She cast him a suspicious look and nodded.

  “Know where they are?”

  She shrugged, her answer unclear.

  “I actually know where they are,” Michael said. “Shall I tell you?”

  “That’s not necessary,” she whispered, her frightened eyes on the bedroom door. “I just don’t want Hagar to know. If she did, she’d—” Sarah did not complete her thought.

  “Yes, what would happen if she found out?”

  “She would think that we…that I…” She spread her arms wide.

  “That what? That you what?”

  “That I, you know, like, like that I was with him,” she said, averting her glance.

  “And the truth is that—”

  “Nothing. I mean, yes, I…he…he was crying so hard and asked me to…and Hagar wasn’t here…so I, not that I, I just lay down next to him. He put his arms around me and cried and talked and I…what could I do? I let him talk.”

  “And what did he tell you?”

  “Truth is, I didn’t understand most of it,” she admitted. “He said she didn’t want him anymore, that she—Tirzah—had already gone away before this happened, that she’d left him. I don’t understand why, but he said, ‘She couldn’t forgive me.’ I don’t know what it was she couldn’t forgive him.”

  Rubin and Hagar emerged from the bedroom. “We’re on our way to Zadik,” Hagar said. “Are you going to be around here much longer?” she asked Michael.

  “No, not much longer,” Michael assured her. In fact, he had no idea how much longer he would stay.

  “But you’re staying,” Hagar commanded Sarah.

  “Sure,” she responded, nodding vehemently. “For as long as necessary.”

  When the door had shut, Sarah regarded Michael with suspicion. “You won’t say anything to her, will you?” she asked.

  “Why are you afraid of her?” Michael asked. “Do you think she’s jealous? That she’ll be angry with you?”

  “Of course!” she said with a look that made it clear she thought he was thickheaded. “Everyone knows. She…he…always, right from the beginning people told me.”

  “And Tirzah?”

  “What about her? There was nothing going on between Benny and Hagar, they were just…they didn’t sleep together, people just said she always wanted to. Tirzah didn’t…well, I don’t know.”

  “What’s it like working with him?” Michael asked.

  Her face lit up. “He’s amazing, the best, everyone says so. He’s a wonderful director, teaches you everything. But he demands a lot, all the time.”

  “Who built this model, this maquette? Tirzah?”

  “Yes, it’s the model of the house,” she said, pursing her thick red lips, which gave her face a look of exaggerated earnestness. “The whole story takes place there. Do you know Iddo and Eynam?”

  Michael mumbled something incomprehensible.

  “I play the part of Gemullah,” she said, and her eyes shone with visible pride. “That’s why I had to understand the story really well. Iddo and Eynam is the story of ancient Jewish Hebrew roots,” she declaimed. “Benny says it’s about the missing link in the ancient history of the Hebrews and about the attempt by the Ashkenazi intellectuals, like, to castrate the Eastern Jews, to annihilate the missing link in the ancient history of the Hebrews. He talked to us about it before we started filming. I don’t completely understand, but Hagar says it’s about a woman, and the two men fighting for her, and in the end everyone dies because of the war between them.”

  “Everyone?”

  “No, I mean, Gemullah dies and Ginat dies and Gamzu buries them, but it’s like, spiritually and emotionally, he dies later, too.”

  “So it’s safe to say you have enjoyed taking part in this film.”

  “It’s been a real experience.” She pushed her long, shiny hair behind one ear. “It’s a big privilege,” she added, regarding him with large, black, flashing eyes. “He chose me from all those…lots of them…there were lots of girls at the audition. Singers, too. I wish it wouldn’t end, you have no idea how beautiful it is…”

  He glanced at the cassette protruding from the video player and took a gamble. “I see you already have a videotape of it here,” he said as he leaned over and pressed the play button.

  “No, no!” she said, mortified. “Don’t touch that, you’re not allowed! It’s only a working copy to help us correct our mistakes, to show us how we’re acting. I don’t—it’s not edited, and Benny will be furious if someone not involved in the production sees it without—”

  The sounds of a song in some strange language filled the room as they emerged from the mouth of Sarah-Gemullah walking along the rooftop railing, dressed in a flowing and lightweight white gown, her arms extended to the sides in sleeves as wide as wings, her black hair shiny and the moon dangling above her. Then the film cut short, and for a moment other images sped by until finally the film returned to the screen. Now a bearded man, tall and very dark, dressed in a heavy silver robe with a sort of breastplate, was carrying something in his arms; it took a few seconds for Michael to realize it was a slaughtered goat dripping blood. Gemullah in her white gown, head bent, stood next to a man in a light-colored suit and top hat before the bearded man. “Who is that?” Michael asked, pointing to the man thrusting his hands into the blood of the slaughtered goat.

  “That’s Dr. Gamzu,” she whispered in response, as the man in the top hat smeared a streak of blood on Gemullah’s forehead. “That’s before their wedding ceremony. It’s not in the story, it’s an image that Benny added. You’re not allowed, nobody’s allowed yet—” The scene was accompanied by a high-pitched flute and the vague murmurings of the bearded man.

  They did not notice Benny padding down the hall in bare feet and entering the foyer. Michael only caught sight of him when he was standing next to him. Without a word he pressed the button and stopped the player. For a moment the room was filled with the sounds of an orchestra and a group of children sitting around a Hanukkah menorah shouting the answer to a question asked by the host of the show, Adir Bareket, whom Michael recognized thanks to his son. Fourteen years earlier, when Yuval was ten, he had been addicted to the programs hosted by Adir Bareket and had begged his father to take him to participate in one of them, at least as a member of the studio audience. He had mentioned the prizes the kids could win and the exciting surprises and had even used the trick that almost always failed but which he tried again and again, claiming in a teary voice that everyone else had been allowed to go. But Michael, who generally liked to grant his son’s wishes, had stubbornly refused and had not even pretended that there was some technical difficulty. Instead, he had repeatedly explained to his only son who, at that time, he saw only twice a week and every other weekend, what exactly it was he hated about that program: how a few children received prizes and gifts after degrading themselves to the satisfaction of the host and the jubilant cries of the children in the studio, how they exposed their hidden weaknesses or their ignorance or their excessive innocence to the whole world. Now he looked for a moment at Adir Bareket, who preceded the lighting of the first Hanukkah candle with greetings and an insipid joke, and noticed how his face had swollen with the years and his eyes had sunk into the folds of his copious flesh, even though his looks had apparently had no adverse effect on his success: he had become the superstar of a prime-time Friday-evening entertainment program for adults, a show devoted to exposing the intimate relations between couples, as copi
ed from a popular American television program.

  “They’re putting a stop to my production,” Benny Meyuhas said with more astonishment than bitterness. “We’re only fifty thousand dollars short, and they won’t let me film the final bits. So how much does a program like Bareket’s cost? Live, with five cameras in the big studio in the String Building, with all the warm-up performances they do with the kids beforehand and the ‘A Wish Comes True’ segment. How expensive all that is, and how repulsive,” he said derisively. “But that’s what the riffraff wants, that’s the way it is the world over. If it weren’t for the special grant for Eastern Jewish culture, they never would have given me the chance—” He dismissed the rest of what he was going to say with a wave of his hand and fell silent.

  “What I saw here was quite impressive,” Michael said hesitantly. “I imagine that—how much money are we talking about here?”

  “All in all another fifty thousand,” Benny Meyuhas repeated, adding in a mechanical tone, “for a sum like that they want to put a stop to the largest production they’ve had in the last few years. Anyway, nothing matters now, nothing matters anymore.”

  The young woman began to protest but quickly shut her mouth and lowered her head in the manner of a person who knows her place. “In the end they’ll provide the budget,” she said to Michael in a feeble voice. “In the end—”

  “Sarah told me,” Michael said, turning to Benny Meyuhas, “that you explained your interpretation of the meaning of Iddo and Eynam to the participants before you started filming, but she couldn’t quite repeat it. Perhaps you’d be willing to tell me what—”

  “Now?” Benny Meyuhas asked, amazed. “Now I can’t—anyway, why is it relevant?”

  Michael looked at him expectantly and did not respond to the question.

  “Look,” Benny Meyuhas said, fixing his eyes on the wall behind the monitor as though reading a speech written there. “I do not believe that this story, Iddo and Eynam, is about ancient Jewish documents or the tribe of Gad, which supposedly never returned from Babylonian captivity. I believe that this is a story about Jews of Eastern origin in Israel, and what Zionism has done to them. The East is Gemullah singing her songs to the moon, and Zionism is that which treats her at best like some folkloric finding, and the West is what tries to identify the grammar—grammar, can you believe it?—in these songs, which were created by a man and his daughter. And you know what’s so beautiful about all this?”