Missing

by Adiva Geffen

  “I don’t see a restroom here.”

  “Just ring the bell, and someone will come to take you.”

  When the door closed behind her with a metallic click, I realized I was imprisoned until the time came to show them whatever it was they were looking for. I had no idea where it was. I tried to reconstruct the preschool in my mind. Was there any way for me to escape from there? To call for help? Was there anyone in the world who knew what Daria had done with that thing she had taken? Did Ehud Gal know what it was, and was just waiting with the information until the time came for one final, deadly blow that would take down the cult?

  The only means of communication I had in that prison room was telepathy. Not something I ordinarily believe in, but that was all I could do. Pray for a miracle. Because the moment the group found out Daria hadn’t turned her secrets over to me, the wrath of that deluded Queen of False Hearts would rage over me. And I’d already had the dubious pleasure of witnessing the outcome of her fury.

  I went to the window. I had to carefully climb on the credenza to take a good look at the backyard. Flower beds seeded before winter stretched across the yard. At the end of each flower bed was a sign detailing the type of seeds planted. Now and then, a pigeon landed on one of the beds, looking for stray seeds. Disappointed, each one took wing and flew off, clearing the way for the next hopeful fowl.

  Time passed. I began to get nervous. I started to feel like Jonah in the belly of the whale — alone, isolated from the world.

  Jonah. What was it about Jonah that set my alarm bells ringing?

  A fragment of a memory. “Go to Jonah,” I suddenly heard Daria’s voice in my mind.

  Daria had told me about Jonah.

  Daria had sent me to see Jonah.

  During the last few hours of her life, in the midst of all the terror and confusion, Daria had mentioned someone named Jonah. One of the residents at the nursing home, someone to whom she had felt especially attached, her only friend during that terrible time. She said he was a special man, a lonely man who had told her she was like a daughter to him.

  “I called him my soul keeper. He knows but doesn’t understand.” Her words echoed in my mind. “You go see him, please — this is important to me,” she had pleaded.

  Does her secret lie with Jonah? Is that why it was so important that I go see him?

  Some movement caught my eye in the garden. Two teenage girls were supporting Sammy, who had been led outside for a walk, leaning her heavy body on a walker. Poor thing, this adventure was the last thing she needed after her operation.

  Sammy spoke loudly to the girls who accompanied her, even louder than usual. “Of course she deserves to be punished, is that any way to behave? Where did they take her?” she roared.

  I couldn’t hear their answer.

  “There? To that little shed?” Sammy continued to shout. “Where? The one over there? And how long will they keep her in that little shed behind the house?”

  Why were they keeping Galia in that shed? What were they waiting for? They had already snuffed out her soul. Were they intending to take her up to the roof and make her jump as well? And what could I do with that information? There was no way I could get there. I was isolated from the world and under watchful eyes. I was a task force of one, obviously not enough at the moment.

  I heard some more chatting from the garden, then silence. When I looked again, I saw Sammy with the walker shuffling down the path with the girls by her side. For a moment, she stopped and turned her head back as if seeking a hint of my presence.

  I found the bell and rang it as hard as I could. Sammy nodded with an almost imperceptible movement. She heard me.

  The door opened with surprising speed.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” I told the girl wearing light blue standing in the doorway.

  She gave me an angelic smile. “I’m Metania. Come with me.”

  I followed her to the end of the hall. She opened a white wooden door for me and motioned for me to go in. The small room was windowless. I sat on the toilet and considered my options. How do I get to that shed?

  “Are you all right?” Metania knocked on the door a few minutes later.

  I left the bathroom, groping at the wall for support. “I feel like I’m choking. I can’t breathe,” I said, putting on an Oscar-worthy girl-about-to-faint performance. She hurried to support me. “Air, I need some fresh air. Take me outside, please, I don’t feel well.”

  “Come,” she said pleasantly and held my arm. “Let’s go outside to the garden.” Out in the yard, she directed me to a wooden bench not far from the little shed.

  “Thank you,” I sighed. “Perhaps you could get me a glass of water? Maybe a sugar cube too? That always helps.”

  As soon as she was gone, I got up and ran to the shed. There were no windows, and the door was locked. I pressed my head against the door and whispered, “Galia, are you there?”

  The shed remained silent.

  “Galia! It’s me, Dikla.”

  I heard someone moving.

  “Dikla?” Barely a whisper.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Please. Get me out of here,” she pleaded.

  “Just hang in there, everything will be all right.” I made the promise without knowing how I’d actually keep it.

  “I can’t take it anymore. I’m lost,” Galia wailed.

  “Yes, you can, Galia. You have to hang in there.”

  The girl wearing light blue came back out of the house. “Here you are,” she said, and a hint of suspicion narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing there?”

  “I heard a noise from the shed. Maybe there’s a cat trapped inside?”

  “Maybe. Drink your water and let’s get back inside.”

  She took me back to the room and the door locked behind her. I lay in bed. Slowly, the angels of sleep came and led me to their happy kingdom.

  When I woke up, the room was dark. It was almost five in the afternoon. I washed my face in the little sink and waited. Soon the parents would pick up their children, and the preschool buildings would be closed. Soon I would stand before them empty-handed and with all my lies exposed. What would they do to me? To Sammy? Would someone find me splattered on a sidewalk too? What do they do to push their victims into the arms of death?

  40

  At ten past five the door opened. Eve stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. It’s not easy to carry so much weight up the stairs. She wore a white Heavenly Duchess look-alike dress.

  “Hello, Shosh,” I said, intentionally. “It’s been a while. I was wondering where you were.”

  “Eve,” she corrected me.

  “Why don’t we call you Shoshania? You all need to rhyme, don’t you? And when will I meet The Great Prophetess Deborah, queen of the heavens, the moon, and the stars?”

  “The Prophetess has no time for the likes of you. You’ve met Barak. You are going with me to the preschool. That should be enough. Come on, let’s go.”

  She motioned for me to follow her. Eve walked with difficulty, struggling against gravity. Two of the sect’s security force members waited for us in the corridor, their eyes fixed forward, and their heads held high. A car with darkened windows waited for us at the entrance. Evie sat next to the driver. The two hoodlums loaded me in the backseat and sat on each side of me.

  Up the road leading from the house to the heart of the colony was a heartwarming sight. Good old Mrs. Ford was parked by the side of the road with her lights turned off. It was impossible to identify the driver, but there was no doubt in my mind about the vehicle. I knew every inch of it — the dent on the right side, caused by Dad’s inability to parallel park, the crushed part by the headlight, and, of course, the white teddy bear dangling from the mirror. Dad was very attached to it.

  For a brief moment, I was afraid they had gotten to my dad as
well. But I immediately calmed down. I knew Cooper had to be somewhere in the area. Cooper must have called him right after he took off. And my Pops, the chivalrous knight, had broken his oath never to drive after 6:00 pm and had come all the way up here to help. That meant there was a rescue party. That meant I wasn’t alone. Suddenly, I saw not just a light, but a thousand fireworks at the end of the tunnel.

  When we took a right turn at Tel Yokneam, I touched Evie’s shoulder. “Eve,” I said in a submissive voice, “just one question.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Eve” — I became more courageous in light of the reinforcements about to arrive — “don’t I deserve to know what it is that’s so important for you to find?”

  “You just see that I get it, without trying anything funny.”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do. Trust me, I just want this entire thing to be over so I can go home. My cat’s starving, my dad is probably worried sick, I haven’t slept for two days, and my fallopian tubes are aching. Could I just know what it is?”

  “You’ve asked enough questions.”

  “Right. By the way, what did you do with her child?”

  It appeared I had finally managed to throw her off balance.

  “Whose child?”

  “Daria’s. I know she had a baby.”

  “Nonsense. Is that what the silly girl told you? She was not right in the head.”

  “I heard him.”

  “Who?”

  “The child. In your house. He was crying; he wanted her. He wanted his mother.”

  “Listen, she never had a baby. You have it all wrong. Just shut up.”

  The car sped toward the preschool complex. We drove past Baba Joe’s Cup of Joe then climbed up the mountain, quickly passing the tenements. A heavy wind blasted the road and scattered newspapers and empty bottles everywhere. At 5:50, we reached our destination.

  What would they do to me if Cooper didn’t show up in time, if… It was better not to think about that.

  ◊◊◊

  The guard standing at the preschool gate wore a gray uniform I remembered well. He smiled at us and saluted.

  That smile. Oh, thank God. Unless I had completely lost my mind, that smile looked awfully familiar. Those crazy cult members could search for their light all they wanted — I had just found mine.

  “Open up,” Eve commanded, and the gate began to creak open. “Is everything all right?” Another uniform-clad guard bent toward the window. Yoash.

  Now we were in the small parking area in front of the preschool buildings.

  “Where is it?” Evie turned to me.

  “The storeroom.” I answered without hesitation.

  “We have several. Which one?”

  “The cleaning supplies storeroom.”

  “There? That storeroom? Where exactly?”

  “In one of the detergent boxes,” I said without hesitation. “Bottom shelf, at the back, blue box. She put a Band-Aid on it. If we go there together, I could easily find it because—”

  “No, you’re staying right here. You’d better pray everything is there. You, wait for me here.” That last sentence was directed to her bodyguards. The two sitting next to me helped me outside the vehicle and surrounded me and chuckled uneasily, as if they were considering whether to invite me to the prom. The driver, another mountain-sized goon, was asked by Eve to join her.

  I tried to look properly frightened and leaned on the car. I couldn’t see Cooper or Yoash anywhere, which meant they were planning something.

  I heard someone whistling in the distance.

  The waiting brought me to the edge of a nervous breakdown. Come on already!

  “Hey, you,” one of my goons suddenly came to life, “where exactly are you going?”

  The goon on my right straightened up and turned to face them.

  “Right here,” said Cooper, gave me a wink, and rammed his fist into the stomach of the goon on the left. “Stun the enemy!” Cooper called, and the goon on my right was instantly lying on the ground with Yoash towering over him.

  Before he could open his mouth, Cooper had slapped a strip of silver duct tape over it. The guy squirmed and tried to kick his way out of Cooper’s hands.

  “Why are you struggling? This is for your own good. We don’t want flies to get into your mouth,” Cooper reassured him. The guy stopped struggling.

  Yoash took care of the second bodyguard. When they were lying on the ground, hands properly cuffed and duct tape decorating their faces, Cooper whistled, and four heads emerged from the preschool windows. Thanks to Commando Cooper, the Magidal Preschool, property of The Prophetess Deborah, The Great Heavenly Duchess — was ours.

  “Hey, Dickie, are you all right?”

  All I wanted to do at that moment was fall into his arms and breathe in the scent of his neck. Finally.

  “Oh, I’m much better than all right.” I got closer without taking my eyes off him, looking for the right place to lean my head and calm down.

  “Not yet, dear, we still have a lot of work tonight. Tell me, is that thing really in a detergent box?”

  I chuckled. “I completely made up the detergent box.”

  “Got it.” Cooper raised his hand. I followed him. We walked toward the storage room Eve was in. We could hear things being tossed and broken. It was as if a raging mammoth were rampaging inside. The guardian goon standing outside didn’t even try to resist when the good guys cuffed his hands and taped his mouth.

  Cooper threw open the door.

  Evie turned to us with a panicked look on her face. Her hands quickly sought her cell phone, but Cooper was faster. She gave me fiery looks intended to frighten me, but five minutes later, after Cooper and his friends had wrapped her up with a roll of duct tape, she looked much less intimidating.

  “I’d like to introduce,” Cooper said, sounding like a real general, “my fantastic four — Hezi, Tsadok, Menash, and Sharon.”

  “And they are?”

  “The Dikla Liberation Army.”

  “Is my dad here?”

  “So you saw the Ford? I knew you’d notice it. Your amazing dad picked me up from the Yokneam central bus station and left me the car. He’s waiting for us on the road. I didn’t know who else to call. Ginger didn’t answer, and these four idiots were still sleeping.”

  The four laughed in unison.

  “What now, commander?” Cooper returned to his matter-of-fact tone. All members of the fantastic four flashed happy smiles.

  “We need to get to Jonah.”

  “Jonah?”

  I told them about Daria’s request.

  “Sounds a little strange,” said Tsadok.

  “Sounds interesting, and even reasonable,” said Cooper. “But we’re here, and he’s there. I think it’s pretty safe to assume Jonah doesn’t own a Harley he could hop on to get here quickly.”

  “Perhaps we should send one of your guys,” I suggested.

  “It would take two hours to get to Tel Aviv with the evening traffic. We need to find someone who’s already there.”

  I called Ginger. He didn’t answer. Who else could I call?

  “Ehud,” I shouted. “We need to talk to Ehud. He’ll do it.”

  “Ehud is still pretty messed up,” said Cooper, “but it’s worth a shot.”

  We called. Ehud was excited by the idea. He was willing to do anything to get his hands on that thing Daria had told him might bring down the entire cult. But, like Cooper had thought, he was in no condition to drive all the way to the nursing home.

  “Why is this so urgent?” asked one of Cooper’s fantastic four.

  “It’s urgent because they have Sammy. It’s urgent because if they find out what’s going on here…” I said, then suddenly thought of an idea. “There’s another way.” I hesitated. “I know a gu
y…a policeman.”

  “Superintendent Bender.” Cooper rescued me from my embarrassment. “If he’s still in the country.”

  “I’m checking,” I said and dialed.

  “Do you still have that monster of a motorcycle?” I asked as soon as he answered. My question turned him on, for reasons Cooper should probably never know about.

  “Yes, but I’m flying out tonight,” Bender answered. I could sense Cooper’s eyes burning holes in my back.

  Before Bender could come up with any obscene suggestions, I hurried to explain the situation and what we wanted him to do.

  “Dikla, I have a flight to catch tonight.”

  “And it’s now…6:15. You just need to go to Daria’s Jonah — everyone there should know who he is. Then bring us whatever it is Daria gave him. If it’s worth anything to the police, you’ll get an extra medal before boarding the 11:00 flight to New York. And by the way, I’m sure there are flights to New York tomorrow and every single day of the week. But I need you now. Right now, Bender. They have Sammy!”

  “Give me the address,” he said. Then he asked, “Are you all right, Dickie-Duckie? Watch your back, okay?”

  I was pretty sure Cooper had heard him.

  We left the fantastic four and Yoash to guard our booty and went down to wait for Bender at the Yokneam exit, just as we’d planned.

  I could imagine Bender flying up the roads on his motorcycle.

  “Where are you?” Cooper screamed when we called him at 6:45.

  “I’m already past Herzliya.”

  “Sounds sweet,” Cooper told me.

  “Definitely,” I said.

  “Got it.”

  “What’s there to get?”

  “That’s all right, Dickie-Duckie, you’re as transparent as a piece of glass. I accept whatever happened between you two, but I think we still—”

  “Cooper, I don’t want to have this conversation right now, I don’t feel like it.”

  “Then the conversation is officially over.” He pulled me to him.

  At 6:50 pm, Ehud Gal called us. “What’s up?”

  “We don’t know yet. We sent one of Dikla’s policeman friends over there.”