by Adiva Geffen
“What kind of amount are we talking about?”
“She started by asking for a hundred thousand shekels. Then she wanted more. I think during that year we wired her more than five hundred thousand shekels. God only knows where the money went. We went to the bank and found out her checking account was empty. Even the saving account we had opened for her was gone.”
“And you weren’t suspicious?”
“By that time, she was someplace else. When we were finally able to meet with her, she said she had been enlightened.”
“Enlightened?”
“Yes, and she demanded more money. She said The Prophetess needed to embark on a ‘spiritual outfitting journey.’ When we asked her who The Prophetess was, she said it was the woman who had given her a second birth. When we asked her to introduce us to The Prophetess and her people, she pitched a terrible fit. It was just awful. We couldn’t even recognize our daughter. She just stood there and screamed at us as if we were her enemies and not her parents.”
Dina’s sobs got a little louder. Avi bent down, hugged her, and then continued.
“She said she was finally free of us, had finally found the essence of her real self. That’s when we realized our Hadas no longer existed. She belonged to the cult, and all her actions and thoughts were dictated by it. She had no right to make her own decisions and no freedom of choice. She was completely enslaved — body, money, and soul.
“A few days later, we found out she had forged my signature and withdrawn a large amount of money from our bank account. After that we lost all contact with her. Until two weeks ago.” Avi finished up and stood quietly, twisting the wedding ring on his finger.
Dina straightened in her chair and picked up the story. “She came to the house in the middle of the night — Avi was out of the country on business. The door opened, and I asked who was there. I couldn’t understand why the alarm hadn’t gone off. Then I heard her.
“‘Hadas,’ I shouted, ‘is it you, is it really you?’ She came upstairs to my bedroom. I wanted to turn on the light, but she asked that we sit in the dark. That was the last time I saw her. My little girl… She didn’t resist me. She sat with me, rested her head on my shoulder, said she knew she’d hurt me. I told her it was all right, that everything was forgiven. I told her our house would be hers forever and ever and that her dad and I would always do anything for her.
“I asked her if she was in trouble, and she said it would be best if I didn’t ask any questions, that she didn’t have a lot of time, that she needed to go, and that no one could know she had come to see us. Then she made me promise to deny she was ever there if anyone came looking for her.
“I offered her money, but she said she didn’t need anything, that she only wanted to go to her room for a few minutes, smell all the childhood scents, and remember what being a child felt like. ‘Sure,’ I told her, ‘it’s still your room. We haven’t touched it since you left. It’s waiting for you.’
“When she came out of her room she had a strange look on her face. Then she went away, and we never heard from her again. We were hoping she would take care of whatever unfinished business was still troubling her and then come back home. We didn’t leave the house for a week. We just sat next to the phone and flew to the door at any little sound from outside, but we never heard from her.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Cooper asked.
“That time we did go to the police,” Avi answered. “What good did it do us? They said that as an adult she was entitled to make her own decisions. They even hinted perhaps she’d had a good reason to take off like that, can you believe it?” Avi turned away for a moment. When he looked back at us, anguish was written across his face. “Besides, we don’t trust anyone. They’ve got people everywhere, influential people, lawyers, doctors, policemen.”
“When did you find out about…?”
“At first we didn’t even realize it was our Hadas. We heard about it on the news, but the name Daria didn’t mean anything to us. It was only when we found out what happened to Udi that we started to connect the dots.”
“Udi?”
“Ehud Gal. He’d come to talk to us while he was working on a big story about Deborah and Barak’s cult. We met with him and other parents whose children had fallen into the Magidal trap. When we saw in the paper that he had been beaten and was in the hospital, we went to see him. It was from Ehud that we heard about—” Dina broke down in tears again, and her husband held her and caressed her fragile-looking body with touching gentleness.
“Did she have any friends?” Cooper asked.
Avi continued to embrace Dina tenderly while he answered Cooper’s question. “Yes. I mean, she wasn’t the sort of girl who… Yes, she did have a few, but she gradually stopped keeping in touch with them. But there was Avital—”
“Ehud’s sister?”
“Yes.” Avi patted Dina on the shoulder, got up and took out a photo of his pocket. Two young women hugging. One was tall and slender, her lovely face turned to the sky, and the other, Hadas, was looking at her friend.
“Hadas told us that Avital was mentoring her, that she needed to empty herself first if she wanted to become full again. We turned to Avital’s parents and shared our concerns with them. We wanted to try and join forces, but Avital broke off all contact with them soon after that.
“After Avital committed suicide, her brother tried to expose the Magidals, to warn the public about their group and the traps they lay for vulnerable girls, but as you already know they got to him. We have no doubt they were the ones who hurt him.”
Next it was time to tell my part of the story. I hid nothing from them. The visit to the bar, the pizza, drifting into sleep, the big boom that had changed everything.
Dina sat quietly with her lips clenched, and Avi stood next to her, looking at the floor. When I finished telling them everything that had taken place during their daughter’s final hours, Avi thanked us. An awkward silence followed.
“What would you like us to do now?” Cooper asked quietly.
“We want to know… We have to know why she…” Avi took a deep breath, gathered himself, and started again. “Sammy promised that you’d be able to help us recreate the final days of her life. We want to know what made her run away from there. And when she ran away, why didn’t she come back to us? We told her over and over she could come home at any time.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to get you involved?” I suggested.
“But involved in what? We want to know who she was afraid of, why it was so important to Eve and Barak to find her, and, most important, anything you can find out that can help us put a stop to the cult’s activities.”
“We’ll do what we can,” I promised them.
Dina went into another heartbreaking fit of crying.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to keep your child safe,” I whispered. “I still don’t know what happened there. What came over her while she lay by herself on my sofa… Maybe if had I stayed with her…”
“You have nothing to feel guilty about. She was lost when she tried to escape from them. I have a feeling she broke one of their rules, and they decided to punish her,” Dina said.
“You think this was about punishing her?”
“She wouldn’t have jumped on her own, I know that. I feel it deep in my heart and down to the roots of my soul that someone or something made her jump.” Dina spoke with confidence and gave me a look both courageous and tormented.
I looked at her and two words echoed in my head — solar eclipse.
I remembered the scraps of crumpled paper scattered on the sofa. Lots of suns — that was what she had drawn and then destroyed.
A solar eclipse — when the evil dragon would devour the sun, and the world would come to an end.
34
Cooper’s hand was in mine, and his head was turned toward me. It w
as already 11:30 am. Almost midday, and we had too many things to do to be spending the day in bed, even though that was the only place in the world I wanted to be. I wanted to press myself up against him and let him pamper me, love me, remind me just how good we were for each other.
Now there was only Bender standing between us. I knew that sooner or later I’d have to let Cooper know. Not that I thought I had anything to apologize for, but I’ve always enjoyed a good confession. If Madi, my sister—God rest her soul — who knew everything there is to know about guys, were there with me instead of hovering above the clouds, she would have repeated the first and most important of her Ten Commandments of Being Successful with Guys: never confess. He catches you in bed with someone else — tell him it’s an acting class, an exercise in intimacy; he finds a suspicious message on your phone — tell him it’s just a code to remind you of your bank account password. Only idiots confess. Even when he has a moment of insanity and decides to come clean about a blowjob he got from some hitchhiker, act like a mortified nun and don’t offer up any sins of your own. That is what she would have told me. That is what I was going to do.
I released myself from his embrace, quickly slipped out of bed, went to the kitchen, and made the world’s strongest cup of coffee. I touched him gently on the shoulder and moved the mug back and forth under his nose.
He sat up in my bed, as if he’d never left, took the cup, and sipped silently, suddenly seeming embarrassed. “We were both dead tired last night.”
“We sure were.” I stroked his arm lazily.
He put down the mug and cupped my breasts.
“Cooper,” I scolded him and tried to brush his hands off me. “We have a crazy day ahead of us. We need to get up. We have a girl to rescue. Galia, remember?”
“One of us is up already,” he said and placed my hand on his proud erection. The morning was certainly starting off in a promising way. Too bad we didn’t have more time.
“Cooper, we have a girl in trouble and that Jasmine at the Carmel thing.” I pulled my hand away.
“Whatever you say, boss.” He got out of bed and returned to efficient army veteran mode.
When he got into the shower, I called Sammy and updated her with all the details. She listened with uncharacteristic patience.
“Now do you finally agree that we have to talk to your ‘innocent’ Evie, or do I need to go to the police and tell Nirit who the nice people that—”
“No need for the police. Eve is coming to see me this evening”
“Why? So you can grovel at her feet again because you called her the Princess of Czardas a million years ago?”
“You think that’s why I’m helping her out?” She squealed in frustration. “You don’t know anything!”
“That’s because you won’t tell me anything!”
Neither of us spoke. It was like a Mexican standoff or a game of chicken. Sammy flinched first.
“Back when she was still called Shosh, Eve and I got tangled up in a stupid childish prank that turned into a criminal act. She took all the blame and helped me stay completely clear of it. I owe her for that.”
“Did you kill anyone?”
“What? God, no! Are you crazy? They caught us stealing. I was afraid I’d end up with a criminal record.”
“Dear God, Sammy, how old were you? That must have been a hundred years ago. Just move on! She and the Duchess of Hell are a pair of crooks who poison tender souls, and you’re torturing yourself over a stolen lipstick?”
“It was a Nina Ricci perfume. We were thirteen.”
“Anyway, there’s something you have to ask her.”
“Which is?”
“Yesterday, we heard a child crying in her house.”
“A child?”
“A child. Ask her what a child was doing in their Herzliya house.”
“I will. Anything else?”
“Just some more food for thought: Two words — solar eclipse — were enough to push Daria to her death. All it took was getting that subliminal message into her head. That was enough for her to decide she should save the world by killing herself.”
Just as we finished talking, my man came out of the bathroom, a few stray beads of water clinging to his broad back, sliding down the slippery slope, his hair wet and dripping with diamonds, and a tiny towel tied around his waist. I was barely able to restrain myself from untying it.
Twenty minutes later, my not-so-trusty Kia hurtled toward Rokah Boulevard. Cooper was behind the wheel, and we were on our way north. At the sign pointing to Kfar Yona, Cooper turned right.
“Where are you taking us?”
“Paying a visit to Yoash.”
“Boot camp, officer school, reserves…?”
He smiled. “Something like that. He’s expecting us. And wipe that smile off your face — he’s a psychologist, and he specializes in treating cult victims.”
◊◊◊
Yoash’s place was the sort of house an accidental visitor would never understand but whose charms he or she would still be unable to resist. The sort of house that invites you to take your shoes off and doze on one of the pillows five minutes after you walk through the door.
“Pleased to meet you,” Yoash shook my hand. “Cooper sure knows how to pick ’em.”
◊◊◊
We were sitting around the dining room table ready to get down to the purpose of our visit.
“Talk, I’m listening,” Yoash said after we had finished our bitter coffee and the granola cookies he claimed he had baked himself.
Once upon a time, guys used to be boast about their bike engines or the number of minutes they could stay underwater — now their self-esteem is measured by their ability to bake date-honey cookies or prepare Chicken Melanzane.
“Could you give me a good definition of a cult?” Cooper started us off.
“In the modern world, a cult is a closed group whose leader or leaders use psychological tactics that are a kind of coercion — a mental, emotional, and spiritual imprisonment achieved by lying and brainwashing. The object is to enslave the cult members and use their resources. Such exploitation could be financial, spiritual, and even sexual.”
“What if someone tries to leave the cult?”
“That’s not an easy question to answer. I’m making generalizations here. No one likes losing members, not even our cellular and cable companies, right?” He smiled, pleased with the comparison. “Don’t forget that members mean money, and those who leave endanger the cult. There are many cases on record of people who have lost their lives while trying to leave a cult.
“And it’s important to understand that anyone can get involved with a cult, sometimes because of a personal crisis, but mostly as part of a spiritual search. Cult leaders easily recognize their members’ weaknesses and vulnerabilities and know how to exploit them.
“Look, people come to me suffering from depression, panic attacks. They need a steady supporting hand. They feel a sense of betrayal, rejection, and alienation from their new family. Mainly, they fear they will need to pay a price for their own betrayal. It takes many months before they can truly feel free and liberated.”
“You mean to tell me that even months after they’ve left, those miserable souls can still be influenced by the cult leaders?” I asked in amazement.
“Yes. They have all sorts of techniques. Sometimes it is a mantra that can be triggered from afar, like an explosive device with a remote detonator.”
“What about specific word combinations and phrases?” I asked.
“Such as?”
“Such as solar eclipse.”
“It’s interesting that you mention a solar eclipse. Such use of heavenly bodies is definitely widespread. The solar eclipse played a significant part in various ancient beliefs involving the punishment of mankind and terrible doomsday prophecies. There are those
who believe that, in order to prevent such a disastrous punishment dealt by the gods, a sacrifice must be made.”
I looked at Cooper. My mouth was dry. “You think there’s a chance Daria sacrificed herself?”
Cooper shrugged. “This means someone activated Daria from afar…just triggered some hidden delayed response implanted in her mind,” he said thoughtfully. “A murder without a murderer, the perfect crime.”
“Yoash, have you ever heard of a cult called Magidal?” I asked.
“You’re talking about the cult that settled in Yokneam? We know them as The Children of Deborah.”
“Yes, Deborah Magidal, The Great Mother.”
“I only have a little information about her and her brother, Dr. Barak Magidal. We’ve been approached by a few families asking us to help them recover people who have been sucked into the group, but I haven’t met anyone who left and sought professional help. Deborah must be a very strong woman with a magnetic personality.
“It is my impression that people follow her blindly and make generous financial contributions. This must be a rich cult whose believers continue with their normal lives, and some likely occupy important positions in Israeli society. Think about how they’ve managed to get their preschool network recognized by the Ministry of Education.”
“Unbelievable,” I whispered.
“Preschools are uncharted waters in Israel,” Yoash continued. “Today, there are various types of unsupervised preschools and kindergartens. Parents apply pressure, politicians make demands, and the system has no choice but to accept them. A few even get official government support.
“Starting school at an early age is an ancient idea and, unfortunately, they are not the only cult that operates schools. Even Scientology, which is officially designated as a church, has active classes. And understand how sophisticated this is — there aren’t any laws forbidding cults in Israel, unless criminal activities are involved. The moment they’re exposed, they simply change their names and the name of their organization.”
