The event ended at midnight.The hug that Eyal gave her made her realize that he was no longer angry with her and that he was willing to establish a friendly relationship between them. She did not know what was more difficult, hostile relationship or defining their relationship as ‘friendly.’ The two options meant one thing - there was no longer room for love between them.
On the drive back to the hotel, Shahar fell asleep and Eyal carried her into the room. "Which room should I put her?" He asked when he noticed that there are two bedrooms.
"In my room, on the right," Sherry said. He put Shahar into bed and then turned to Sherry in his soft voice, the same voice when they were lovers. "I need to to talk to you."
She sat in the kitchen next to the table. Eyal pulled a chair and sat down in front of her, close to her. He put his elbows on his knees and slightly leaned towards her. He looked at Sherry for a while. "Sherry, I'm sorry for everything."
Sherry looked at him without a word.
“I’m sorry for the way I treated you. On my way here, I didn’t stop thinking how all these years, you didn’t tell me what happened to you because you were afraid of my reaction. In the end, I did exactly the thing you were afraid of. I abandoned you when you needed me most.”
Sherry felt suffocation in her throat. Although months had passed, the memories of Ofek’s injury and Eyal’s abandonment still hurt her. “I guess the timing was not good, but a lot of water streamed down the rivers since then.”
Eyal nodded. “I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry.” After a long pause, he added, “And, I miss you a lot.” He sent her his beautiful smile and she smiled back at him.
She felt a tear of joy in the edge of her eyes. His face was so close to her, begging for her touch, her closeness. She put her hand on his cheek. Her lips made their way to his, answering her softly and gently at first, and then with deep longing.
He stood up and pulled her into his arms. He ran one hand under her shirt, craving for her body. His tongue moved from her lips down to her neck.
"I think we should go into the room." She pulled him.
Sherry lay down in bed next to Eyal. She couldn’t sleep. The event of the day was overwhelming. Her family was around. All the people who are close to her were with her in the event that she dreamed all her life. She didn’t want this day to end.
She got up and went to the balcony of her suite that was on the fifth floor. She put her arms on the railing and looked into the peaceful darkness, just like the day when her family moved to Nazir’s warehouse. Years had passed since the same star fell until this moment. The planet Venus was big and bright, and she searched within it the silhouette of her sister Esther, as she did throughout the years. This time, Esther did not appear. But Sherry didn’t need her silhouette anymore because Esther found her serenity somewhere.
ALSO BY NAVA DIJKSTRA
VANISHED WITHOUT A TRACE
CHAPTER TWO FOR BEGINNERS
ONE DECISION LEFT
A SECOND CHANCE FOR LOVE
TIME TO FORGIVE
Part one of
Vanish Without a Trace
By
Nava Dijkstra
Moshe Kowalski stood in front of a closed window in his spacious office on the twelfth floor of the building. His cigar filled the room with a cloudy thick smoke as he enjoyed the breath-taking scenery through the window. This masterpiece was an amazingly manicured twenty six acres of land, with beautifully engineered high-tech building establishments and a newly renovated rail station next to it. When the old station was transformed into a new one, the value of these assets had risen dramatically.
The investment firm that bought Kowalski’s old offices, which covered a four acre land area, was amazed when they learned that he had purchased a twenty six acre piece of land at the same price. It was no wonder he was in a hurry to sell his property to them at such a low price. A week later, a computer company bought an acre of land from him for construction. He sold it at ten times the total price he had paid for the entire lot. "When you’re on top," he told himself, "there are millions of opportunities to be rich."
In the last couple of years, he hadn’t been able to find anything useful in his office anymore. In fact, his presence was not even needed in the business. He then spent most of his time travelling around the world enjoying the comfort of his luxurious yacht. His son, Naor, had taken total control of the business and eventually dragged himself into the communications industry in the United States, proving that talent is hereditary. However, there were times that Moshe had to step in, unbeknownst to his son that his father’s helping hand was behind everything.
Moshe sat on his desk and looked at the picture of his son as a little boy. He was wrapped up with the memories of those days when the door suddenly opened. He felt that he lost his sanity. He blinked his eyes and was shocked out of his imaginary state. "What the Hell do you think you are doing here?" He found himself roaring in English, as the lady entered his office. The small boy who was holding her hand politely approached him, but Moshe pushed the boy away from him.
"Why are you so mad? Did you not miss your grandson?" she replied in a Romanian language while pulling a chair for the boy. She sat right in front of Moshe trying to ignore his anger. She opened her purse and took out a cigarette and lit it. She crossed her legs while blowing the smoke in Moshe’s face: "One cigarette stick will not change anything with the stinky smell of your office".
Moshe took a deep breath. "Julia, we had an agreement. You are not allowed to come here. You have already done enough damage. Be fair and go back to Romania."
Julia looked at him with sarcastic smile and blew another breath of smoke from her mouth. "It’s time for you and your son to take responsibility for the child. I prefer my freedom over the money that you are paying me," she said while caressing Daniel’s head. Daniel pulled his head away from her. He stared at his grandfather. The excitement he had earlier was gone. His grandfather didn’t like him. He knew it. It was obvious.
The portrait of anger ran through Moshe’s face. He was upset, and the muscles in the face became tense. He resented people who simply dragged him into a situation where there seemed to be no way out. He felt cornered. "Okay, do you need more money? You can have more. You can have anything you want but don’t ruin Naors’ family. Take that kid with you and I will take care of everything. I will make sure that you will have everything you need and you will live like a princess all your life."
"Mmmm…that sounds so interesting and tempting…" Julia raised eyebrows as she replied. "But I have a little bit of a problem. I met an American guy. He wants me to move in with him alone, without the kid. I was thinking that it’s not too bad for the little boy to stay with his father or his grandfather. Don’t you think so, Mr. Moshe Kowalski?"
Moshe ignored the sarcasm in her voice. "Is there someone in your family who will agree to take care of the kid with the same condition?"
She smiled. "Do you want to send him to Hell? I will go there myself for sure if I do something like that". She twisted her cigarette into the ashtray then got up. "Oh, you are some sort of Hell actually." She laughed and seemed to be enjoying his torture.
"Where do you think you’re going?"
"I need to go somewhere. I need some professional advice. I’m sure they will tell me what to do. After all, this is your grandson. I already have a plane ticket and I will be in a plane in two days."
"Where do you intend to go?" Moshe asked.
"To the Department Of Social Welfare." She took out a small piece of paper and slowly looked at him. "I have the address here."
Julia didn’t know that Moshe was so scared of her. He tried the hard way. "Julia, no one threatens me, you should know that."
"I’m sorry, but this is your grandson. That’s your problem." She took Daniel’s hand. "Say goodbye to grandpa". She could not help but laugh as she saw the anxiety on Moshe’s face, but he did not notice Daniel’s frozen expression while looking at his grandfathe
r as they walked out towards the door.
She got into a taxi called by Moshe’s secretary and only then that she see Daniels’ face. He was always a very serious child, but now he sat stoic in the car with his eyes fixated on an imaginary point across the window.
"Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Honestly, I never thought that your grandfather would not want to take you. If things won’t work out, I myself will take you to your dad. But before that, we will try one more way to convince your grandfather. I know that you are upset right now, but in the end, you will see that everything will be okay and you will be even happier than you are with me.”
Daniel kept looking outside the window until the cab stopped in front of the Department of Social Welfare.
Julia went to Deborah’s office. She was a woman with curly black hair, didn’t appear well-groomed, and kept her hair pony-tailed with a simple rubber band. Julia and Daniel waited while Deborah talked on the phone. Deborah answered angrily to the man on the other line and Julia was afraid this meeting would be worst than her confrontation with Moshe. She decided to keep it short.
"Look, this is the grandson of Moshe Kowalski". Julia opened in English, noticing the softness the social worker’s face as she heard the name of Moshe Kowalski. She described the situation thoroughly and was surprised to see the kindness in the face of a government official, but a part of her knew that it was just some kind of façade.
"I understand why you came to us, but it's not within our jurisdiction. I would suggest you to contact a lawyer. Besides, you know that the grandfather is not responsible for the child, the father is the legal guardian. I’m afraid we can’t do anything to hold the grandfather accountable." Deborah kept her voice calm, masking her shock at the discovery of this situation.
Julia remained silent. She had already prepared an alternative plan, but she had to make sure that Deborah would take part in her action. "Look, I understand that you don’t take care about such things, but can I just leave her a note? I'm going to fly to America in two days, and if the child will be left alone, it’s good to have some basic information about him, right?"
Deborah looked up. "You can leave me a letter, but I still suggest that it would be better if you give it to a lawyer."
Julia had already thought about that alternative, but since she was leaving in two days, she thought it would be more effective to give the letter to a social worker than to a lawyer.
Deborah took the letter from her - after all, it was just a letter, and seemed harmless. She looked at the skinny blonde woman heading out of her office. Deborah asked her to close the door after her, but the door remained open. Deborah got up and locked the door. She needed to make a personal phone call to someone, and she didn’t want to be overheard by anyone from within the office. She dialed Kowalski’s office. As expected, his secretary informed her that he couldn’t answer at the moment and instead asked her to leave a message, but Deborah insisted to wait on the line and asked her to tell him that it was an urgent call from the Department of Social Welfare. Indeed, just like Deborah thought, Moshe Kowalski answered. His voice seemed to be a sweet melody that was so pleasing to the ear. She told him about Julia's visit and the letter she left. Deborah wanted to know what would happen to the child if his mother went to America, since, according to her, he was the boy's grandfather.
Moshe admitted to himself that things were out of control, but kept himself composed. "That’s what she says… but do you know how many people like her are roaming around these days? Alright, she had a brief affair with my son but if she thinks that he is his son, there are ways to deal with it. I'm not the right person to address with and certainly not with you. I'll look into the matter more seriously and see how it goes."
"Right now, as far as I’m concerned, I’m just updating you, but if it will escalate, then I will need to notify my superior,"said Deborah.
Moshe was silent. He never thought that Julia would go to the Social Welfare office, and he certainly couldn’t believe that she would break the agreement with him and leave a letter. He needed to get it, or he would be a dead man.
"What does the letter say?" he asked, trying to find out if Deborah had opened it and read its contents.
"I did not open it. I presume she wrote the things she told me when she came by the office.
Moshe was relieved. "Listen, Deborah, I’m ready to pay a visit to your office and give you my version, and it's only because I have a great respect for your work."
Deborah was filled with a sense of importance towards her job. "I have meetings all day. I will be free from work at 8’oclock in the evening."
"Do you usually work until late hours like these?" He said, as he entered her office, which was the only office staffed at that hour.
"These are not regular working hours, but an extraordinary visitor like you doesn’t come every day." she said, smiling at him. "Would you like some coffee? You won’t believe it, but we have an espresso machine here."
"It would be great if you could make me some coffee with whipped cream," he said, hoping that it would keep her occupied longer in the kitchenette.
"I'll be right back."
Just as when she left and headed to the kitchenette down the hall, he took her bag to look for the letter. Mixed among other papers, a white envelope caught his eye. He opened it quickly, removed the contents and replaced it with another letter, adding silencing fee of Five thousand dollars. When he heard the sound of her shoes coming down the hall, he had already managed to return and found his place. The coffee was perfect.
"Well, Mr. Kowalski, what do we do about this story with Julia?"
"I came to tell you that Daniel is not my grandson. I’m willing to do a test to prove it. I admit, there was a bond between me and Julia, for some reasons I couldn’t tell, but between that and being the grandfather of Daniel..." He stood up. "Look, you are a nice woman. It was a pleasure to meet you and I'm willing to give any information you want to ask, anytime. By the way, what about the letter? Can we read it?"
"No, I'm sorry, not unless something else happens. It's nothing personal against you, I hope you understand."
"Yes, I understand. Honestly, I really don’t care. It shouldn’t be any of my business."
Deborah couldn’t understand what just happened. She was confused. It was all about Moshe. Her only role in the whole system was to make coffee. Suddenly everything seemed detached from reality. She had never been lucky enough in this gray and monotonous job to suddenly pop up a valuable story. She felt sorry that she didn’t notify her superior, but she really thought that there was a big story and she wanted to handle it herself and get the credit.
Moshe drove his car and headed to the hotel where Julia stayed, hoping that at this late night hour it would prevent passers-by from seeing him. He called from a pay phone and asked her to come down with the boy to discuss her agenda. “There is a solution,” he said.
He noticed her approaching without the boy. "Daniel is sleeping," she said, getting into the car, but while she tried to find the appropriate position in the seat, she felt a syringe piercing her neck, and the car drove off.
The next morning, the chamber maid entered Julia’s room to clean. She found Daniel alone. She tried to talk to him in Hebrew and English, but he did not answer. After cleaning the other rooms, she went back again and found him still alone. She reported it to her superiors and after a while he was taken under the care of the police.
Deborah was happy for the second opportunity that fell upon her. She knew that Julia’s disappearance would rearrange the cards and now she had the upper hand again. She hurried to call Kowalski and was surprised to discover that he was not ready to talk to her. She left him many messages again and again, but he never got back to her. Feelings of frustrations began to fill her. The letter was the only thing she could latch onto. She opened it. Her disappointment was indescribable. Dreams vanished in just a moment. All the hopes and dreams that revolved around the letter of a miserable woman
, slowly reduced into few words: "I flew to America. I ask you to find the father of my son." Letter is attached for personal information of a Romanian man and five thousand dollars that should probably help in finding his father." Deborah took the money in her pocket and tore the letter to pieces.
*****
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