The Devil in Jerusalem

by Naomi Ragen

  Everything he had done, except this, went against all her ideas about a man’s responsibility to protect his wife and children, to nurture and care for them. Could it possibly be that Shlomie Goodman deserved the benefit of the doubt?

  “When is Batlan being brought in?”

  “As soon as the traffic on Highway Six allows.”

  “Traffic? Tell them to put the sirens on all the way!”

  * * *

  To her surprise, Kuni Batlan was nothing like either Hod or Goldschmidt. Tall, slim, in an expensive tailored black suit, he was neatly shaven, his long side curls tucked up into his expensive Borsalino hat so that they were hardly visible. Also, unlike the others, he was visibly shaken, like a branch from a young tree not accustomed to storms, ready to crack from the gentlest breeze. There was no need to be harsh. All she needed was to blow on him like a birthday candle, she thought.

  “So, that’s quite a shiner you have there.” She smiled sympathetically.

  He seemed surprised at the friendliness of her tone. He studied her. “I’m an Israeli citizen. Shlomie Goodman assaulted me. He should be arrested.”

  “Absolutely, Mr. Batlan. I’ll see to it. Please don’t worry about it. If you cooperate, I will personally see to it that you are treated the way you deserve.”

  “So, you’ll let me go?”

  “Let’s not run ahead of ourselves. But as I said, if you give us something valuable we can use … So, let’s start by my asking you a few questions, that is, if you don’t mind?” She smiled once more.

  “Of course. I’m happy to help.”

  “You know, the children of Mr. Goodman have been injured and we’re investigating. If you could tell me anything useful about that, I can guarantee the police would be very grateful,” she began.

  He nodded. “I understand there was a fire—”

  “No,” she cut him off briskly. “We’ve established that there was never any fire. The child was held against a spiral heater until his skin peeled off, and then someone rubbed salt and alcohol on his wounds and forced his feet into his shoes.”

  “It wasn’t me! I would never do such a thing! I would never—”

  “We already have evidence that you were involved with Menchie Goodman.”

  He began to shake so hard, she thought he would come apart.

  “Can I get you a glass of water?”

  “Please,” he said. He could hardly hold the glass, the water swishing in waves, spilling over the top of the glass on either side until he finally emptied some of it into his mouth. He swallowed, noticeably, as if he were trying to get down a giant pill, then put the glass down carefully on the desk, as if cognizant that one false move would herald disaster.

  “Whatever they tell you, none of it was my idea. I would never do anything like that on my own!”

  “Anything like what, Mr. Batlan?”

  “Like what they say I did to Menchie … and the others.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “You know. What they told you. Now they are going to try to pin the whole thing on me. But there is only one person responsible for all of this. And that’s Menachem Shem Tov.”

  She took a sharp intake of breath but calmed herself. “And who might that be?” she asked indifferently.

  He was suddenly silent, staring at her. “You mean, I’m the first … that the mother, the children … no one has mentioned…?” His eyes showed panic along with the recognition of the seriousness of his miscalculation. But there was no going back. “We called him Messiah. He was our rebbe, our teacher. Everything we did, we did because he told us to. He forced us.”

  “What do you mean, ‘forced’?”

  “We were all afraid of him! All of us. We’d seen what he could do to those who didn’t obey him. We couldn’t take that chance.”

  “Tell me about what you did because of Shem Tov.”

  “He told us the children were crazy, that demons—the Evil Inclination—had taken them over and that they must be ‘fixed.’ It was enough for him to just nod his head at one of us to make us understand what needed to be done.”

  “And what exactly was that?” she asked mildly, almost sick with anticipation. It was like opening some disgusting test tube in a lab filled with deadly organisms. She realized that she didn’t really want to know, to be infected with this ugly knowledge, the way that people can’t stand to hear about what inventive horrors the Nazis came up with. It tainted your view of the world and mankind forever.

  “He made them stand up for hours, and if they tried to sit down, they were beaten with sticks or fists. Some of them even got their teeth knocked out. He made us lock them in cellars, and sometimes he wouldn’t let them sleep. He made us give them arak until they vomited up the evil.…” He wiped his glistening forehead.

  For a few minutes, she said nothing. “So,” she suddenly began, “you tortured children to save your own, worthless, cowardly hide? Is that what you’re telling me?” Her voice rose.

  He was shocked at her sudden transformation. It was as if someone else had taken over the investigation, someone who meant him harm. He squirmed uncomfortably. “No, no. We didn’t think of it like that. He told us we were helping them, the children. The mother wanted it! She saw everything and said nothing! We only did exactly as he told us, no more, no less. We felt it was a great privilege to help him in his work. It was like following a religious commandment. We were only following orders.”

  She was finding it hard to breathe as he uttered the infamous phrase. Was he brought up under a rock that he didn’t understand the connotations? Had he never heard of the Eichmann trial or read about the interrogation of SS officers? Was he really that ignorant and cut off from the world and his own people’s history?

  “Anyhow, it was Shem Tov that did the most violence. I only held the children as Shem Tov beat them. As soon as he suspected the Evil Inclination in a child, he just went crazy, beating the child the way you’d beat a devil or a wild animal. And when he used them for kabbalistic ceremonies, no one was allowed in. If you’re looking to blame someone, blame Shem Tov, blame the mother, blame Shlomie Goodman!”

  She felt her head splitting and an urgent desire to upchuck her lunch. She hid it, picking up a pen. “And where does this Menachem Shem Tov live?”

  “In Beit Shemesh Heights, just outside of Jerusalem.”

  No surprise there, she thought grimly. It was a suburb with a reputation for black-coated religious extremists. How many times had the police been called to protect little girls going to school from grown men who shouted and threw things at them because they didn’t think the five- and six-year-olds were dressed modestly enough? How many times had they rescued Modern Orthodox women who had been ganged up on and threatened in broad daylight because a few hairs were sticking out of their headscarves? Morris called it “little Teheran.” These guys were no different than the mullahs, he often said.

  It was the perfect neighborhood for a Menachem Shem Tov.

  “Can you give me the exact address?” She wrote it down. Now there was no time to lose.

  “So, can I go now, Detective?” He gave her a toadying smile, which she longed to smack off his face with a lawn mower. Yes, he really was that ignorant.

  “I’m afraid it’s not up to me.”

  “But, you said if I cooperated, if I gave you something valuable…”

  “I’m sorry,” she answered. “But I’m only following orders.” She nodded at the two-way glass. Two burly policemen with children of their own slammed open the door. Picking Batlan bodily off his feet, they roughly handcuffed him behind his back, a little higher and more tightly than was strictly necessary. His face went white as they dragged him briskly back to his cell.

  Morris was waiting for her out in the hall. “We should get backup.”

  They sped through the busy afternoon streets toward the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv highway, sirens blaring and lights flashing, followed by four other police cars. People walking their dogs and pushi
ng baby carriages stopped and stared worriedly, wondering if there’d been a terrorist attack they hadn’t yet heard about. In twenty-five minutes, the detectives were already riding up the wooded path to Beit Shemesh Heights. As instructed by Morris, all vehicles shut down their lights and sirens, making their approach as quietly as possible.

  They found it quickly, a modest attached cottage with an oddly empty front porch bookended on either side by porches filled with red bicycles, a children’s colorful playhouse, and a pink doll carriage.

  A woman answered the door. She was short and heavy with a large scarf wound elaborately and intricately around her head, which dwarfed the rest of her body. Her dress was a dull brown that reached almost to her ankles, the sleeves dangling over her wrists. Oddly, she didn’t seem surprised to find six policemen at her door. “What do you want?” she asked belligerently.

  “Who are you?” Bina asked her, brushing past her into the house. She heard an infant’s wail and glimpsed two small children playing on a living room floor cluttered with toys. Bina searched in vain for the crying baby, only then noticing there was a staircase covered with balding carpeting leading to a second floor.

  “I’m Rebbetzin Ruth Shem Tov. How dare you break into my house! What do you want?”

  “We’re asking the questions. Where is your husband?” Bina screamed at her.

  Her belligerence quickly faded under the assault. “He’s … he isn’t … not home right now.”

  “When will he be home?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Can you call him?”

  “I’m not sure where he is.”

  “Call his cell phone then, Rebbetzin.”

  “My husband is a saint. He doesn’t have a cell phone. It’s an abomination.”

  The baby’s cries got louder, but it didn’t seem to affect Ruth Shem Tov in the least, Bina noticed, a chill going up her spine. The children in the living room included a dark-haired, nervous boy about four with long payot who sat on the floor surrounded by puzzles and Legos, which he moved around listlessly, making little progress, and a tiny little girl who sat near him silently holding a doll. Neither looked up or smiled as she walked in, exhibiting none of a child’s normal curiosity at the sudden appearance of strangers. They seemed unnaturally detached, indifferent. In the pit of her stomach she felt a heaviness descend as she wondered what they had experienced that had made them this way.

  “Here is our search warrant. I suggest you cooperate,” Morris said, offering it to Ruth, who sized him up, suddenly getting her courage back. She waved the paper away, refusing to accept it.

  “You have no right to just barge in here and threaten me! I’ll call my lawyer.”

  “Your baby’s crying,” Bina pointed out.

  The woman walked off in a huff to fetch the child.

  Police swarmed through the small house, turning everything inside out. Just off the living room was a small, dark room filled with books and a sofa. It had kabbalistic symbols on the wall: the Tree of Life, a hamsa, and posters of bearded scholars. It felt damp and cold, Bina thought, hugging herself.

  Then she saw it. “Morris, come look at this.”

  He walked in and stood beside her, staring at the spiral electric heater up against the wall, the twisted coils red-orange with intense heat. He grimaced. “Come into the living room, Bina.”

  There, spread out on the table, were hammers, knives, ropes, plastic ties, metal handcuffs, turpentine, alcohol, guns, heaters of various sizes, and bottles of arak, just the beginning of what the police had turned up. She had a sudden vision of Lilach, her little girl, her soft skin so easily bruised and scratched. She felt sick.

  Ruth Shem Tov suddenly appeared with a baby. “Don’t you have a knife and a hammer in your home?” the woman screamed at them as she looked over the collected items. “Don’t you have heaters? Don’t you drink arak? We helped the Goodman family! We took care of them out of the goodness of our hearts, in all innocence!”

  “Tell us more,” Morris said mildly, indicating she should sit down on the couch.

  She seated herself comfortably, taking her time. “They lived with us. We tried to save them from their insane father, who spent all of his time in cemeteries. He’d lay down on top of saints’ graves and pray to them. Then he ran away and left his family without a penny! My husband gave them refuge. They stayed with us for months. Who gave food to these children? I did. Who checked them for lice while their mother was gallivanting around shopping malls? Me and my husband.”

  “I see. It was a kindness. But it couldn’t have been easy for you, with three small children of your own. They were probably a handful, no? Did you ever have to discipline them?” Morris asked gently.

  She turned to him gratefully, as if he could be made to understand. “They were. They were terrible, undisciplined, wild, nothing like my own children. But we only used personal example, that of my husband, who is a cultured and supportive man who radiates light! For twenty-four hours a day, we gave these children love, hugs, kisses, as if they were our own. We hardly got any sleep! We spent every moment cooking, cleaning up after them, doing their laundry … me, my husband, and friends, who all worked together, joyously, harmoniously. Here we believe in a loving way.”

  Her speech patterns were stilted, the words unnatural, stiff, something learned by rote. This had nothing in common with normal human conversation, Bina thought.

  “And what about Daniella Goodman? How do you feel about her?” Morris asked.

  The woman hesitated, her flow of words suddenly backing up in her throat. After a few moments of silence she said “She was a very good friend of mine. I still love her. But she came too far into our lives.”

  “And her husband, Shlomie, was he also a good friend?”

  She frowned. “From the moment he came into our house, I hated him. Those silly white robes. What was he trying to prove? It was a Purim costume. Truly devout people don’t have to wear silly outfits. He came as a friend and a student, and my husband, who really is a saint, tried to help him and his wife save their marriage. And now look, they’ve brought a holocaust down on us!”

  “Can you tell us about Kuni Batlan, Shmaya Hod, Yissaschar Goldschmidt?”

  The baby began to howl once more. “I … first, my baby. It needs to eat. I’m nursing.”

  “That’s fine. We don’t mind,” Bina told her. “Look, just put a diaper over your shoulder and you can nurse with the utmost modesty.”

  The woman blushed scarlet. “I will do it in privacy.” She went off, closing the door behind her.

  Bina walked up the stairs. There were four bedrooms. Two of the bedrooms had two sets of bunk beds with a roll-out. In the third there were two twin beds and a crib, and in the fourth, a single bed. There were only two tiny bathrooms, that’s all, for ten children, their mother and father, and another married couple, Bina thought. Why would Daniella Goodman agree to leave her beautiful, spacious home in the Old City and move herself and her children in here, with these people? Even if she’d divorced her husband, why not stay put? What, exactly, had happened to push her to make such a radical, irrational decision? And how could Ruth Shem Tov have accepted such an arrangement? It made no sense.

  In the room with the crib, there were a number of suitcases scattered across the floor. She peered inside them. There was a dark, blackish-red stain. Blood? she wondered, taking out her evidence kit and taking a swab. Downstairs, she found a small, dark closet just under the staircase.

  “Bina, come here, quick,” Morris called. “Look at these.”

  He pointed to ten bound notebooks filled with cramped Hebrew writing. “You are not going to believe what’s in them. Here, read this,” he pointed to a page.

  Question: In the matter of Rabbi Shem Tov’s feelings towards Daniella and the matter of Shlomie passing away—is this supposed to happen the way it came to my rabbi and teacher in his thoughts, that Shlomie will give a bill of divorce and go to a distant place where he will commit suicid
e?

  Answer: There is truth in this.

  Question: Is there rejoicing in heaven about the way the matter is progressing between Rabbi Shem Tov and Daniella?

  Answer: There is great rejoicing in heaven.

  Question: What does the Rabbi’s wife feel about the matter of Daniella?

  Answer: She has her suspicions.

  Question: Should the Rabbi and teacher get married to Daniella?

  Answer: Yes.

  Question: And what about her husband, Shlomie?

  Answer: He will pass from the world.

  Ruth Shem Tov walked back into the room, the baby on her shoulder. Bina snapped the notebook shut. She studied the woman. She had a sweet, young face, but frozen somehow, as if she were one of those princesses in fairy stories suffering under an evil spell.

  “Rebbetzin, I’ll ask you again: Where is your husband?” Morris asked, this time like the bad cop. His face had also transformed from its usual mild paternalism to something stern and almost frightening, which was not to be trifled with. Bina watched him, amazed.

  “I don’t know.… I can’t be sure,” Ruth answered slowly, with complacent self-confidence.

  Bina exploded. “We know all about what you and your husband and your friends did to those helpless children! How they were tortured, beaten, starved, burnt. Menchie is in a coma. You are going to be held as an accessory in attempted murder! Your children will lose both their parents!”

  “You know all about what happened? Who told you? Menchie? The baby told you?” she mocked, turning away from Morris and looking derisively into Bina’s face. She turned back to Morris. “Yes, my husband is gone. He knew they would make up lies about him, those possessed devils! You can’t believe the words of those children! They are evil! Liars! I know them much better than you! I lived with them for months! But, thank God, you’re too late. You’ll never find my saintly husband!” Her look was triumphant.

  Morris dialed furiously. “Get Border Control at Ben-Gurion. Check to see if a Menachem Shem Tov has left the country in the past few days. Don’t let him through!”