by Galia Albin
Chapter 7
She left the house just as she had entered it an hour earlier, in the same clothes that now clung to her skin, clutching the same, small suitcase. Her face and her hair were an unkempt mess of dirt and tears. For a long time, Udi’s bitter crying echoed in her ears. The street was still sleeping at this pre-dawn hour, but Talia thought she sported her next-door neighbor peeking from behind a curtained window, that same “benevolent soul” that studiously watched all her comings and goings and then sold her findings to the tabloids for a tidy sum.
Talia was put in a patrol car, squeezed between the policemen like a common prostitute. The young policeman drove the car, with the siren blaring, as if transporting a dangerous criminal. Talia could not help thinking about the life she had led just two weeks earlier. Could it be only two weeks since she was a pampered lady, the owner of a posh villa in a fashionable suburb of Tel Aviv, and a respectable tenant living with her family in a spacious, elegant house in St. John’s Wood in London?
She, who together with her loving husband used to be a welcome guest in the houses of the highest in the land, was no entering the portals of the detention center at Abu-Kabir. Incredulously, she looked at the barbed wire that surrounded the monstrous building, at the walls, at the huge Iron Gate. Until Jonathan’s death, she was hardly aware of the existence of such a place, and now she, herself, was being led inside trying to match her pace with the broad footsteps of the heavy-set policeman.
Talia was led to a room with a small metal sign on the door reading “Investigation Room.” An officer was sitting at a desk, absorbed in his papers. He raised his head and looked at her.
It was him—the same, handsome man who had attended the funeral and watched her impudently, the same man who had sat in the police car near her house. His eyes were riveting, with their cold, blue gaze, and his thick, black hair framed a square-shaped face that could have come straight from a painted portrait.
He looked at her for a moment in feigned surprise, then got up and offered his hand. “Hello, Mrs. Schwarz. I’m Larry Koren, the investigating officer.”
Halfway to grasping his hand, she let hers drop. Was this the man in charge of Jonathan’s investigation? If so, he is the one responsible for his death. She watched him with fear and revulsion. She seemed to despise him more than she despised Manfred Goldberg and his henchmen. He had joined the people who persecuted Jonathan. But why? What motivated him? Was he driven by a desire to discover the truth? Was it dedication to his job? Or was it some narrow, personal motive; a quest for money, power, fame?
“Sit down, I have a few questions to ask you.”
“You can ask any question you want.” She remained standing behind the uncomfortable, armless wooden chair. “But first, I have a few questions for you. What do you want from me? I’ve just come back from London, you haven’t even let me see my children! I’m being treated like a common criminal!”
“Mrs. Schwarz, I know you are not a criminal. We only want to check a few things. There are rumors, suspicions, that your husband...”
Without thinking, she sidestepped the chair and moved closer to him. Her pale cheeks became flushed. Her bosom heaved with agitation. “Don’t you dare talk like his about my husband!” she hissed balefully. “Did you know him at all? Did you ever speak to him? Whoever was familiar with him knew what a gentle, kind person he was, a real prince! And you killed him! You murdered him in cold blood!”
He was staring at her. In her great agitation, she paid no attention to his eyes, and even if she had, she would not have known how to interpret his look. He rose from his chair and offered it to her, sitting facing her on the armless one. “Mrs. Schwarz, may I call you Talia? It suits you better. Jonathan, too, let me address him by his first name, and he called me Larry. I knew your husband. I was the last person to talk to him, here in this very room.” This is too much. I can’t take it anymore, she thought. Knowing that Jonathan sat in this room, perhaps on this very chair, interrogated by this very person, was more than she could bear. She covered her face with her hands and cried hot tears.
The officer got up and stood next to her, speaking softly, “Come, Talia, I want to show you something.” He led her to a small window at the edge of the room. “Look down,” he told her. Obediently, she followed his directions. She could see an awning two stories below, and a parking lot a short distance underneath with several police cars in it. It was not a great height; the cars looked their real size. Talia was gripped by anxiety. She was about to receive the truth, she felt, to discover the manner in which Jonathan had been killed. But did she really want to know? In some respect, she was better off with the uncertainty of an unfinished story. If it were up to her, she would rather not know, but under the circumstances, she felt she had no choice.
“Talia, it was from this window that your husband jumped,” she heard his voice say from behind her. “He tried to escape. He did not commit suicide. You see, he thought he could get to the awning and, from there, jump to the ground. I can’t figure him out, though. Did he think he could fool us? Well, he almost succeeded, except something went wrong. Perhaps he was hit on the head, or bumped it against the gutter...”
Talia closed her eyes; Larry’s voice sounded as if it was coming from deep underwater. “Jonathan was not in good shape when he jumped. He was hungry and depressed. I went out to get him a sandwich, and when I got back he was lying on the asphalt in the parking lot...”
Larry was firing questions at her in quick succession. “Did Jonathan have bank accounts overseas? If so, where? How much money did he have in those accounts? How many companies were registered in his name? How many in yours? I’m sure you know the answers, so don’t play the fool. Which foreign banks did he deal with? Who were his partners there? Who were his friends abroad? Just toss a few names, Talia. In whose names were the overseas companies registered? Did his mother know about his businesses? She was his partner, wasn’t she? What shares did his mother own? Do you remember the names of the companies? What kind of relationship did he have with Manfred Goldberg, the son Samuel, the son-in-law, Yigai? Did Jonathan go abroad to deposit his money or did he use couriers? You must give me some names, Talia...”
In a hefty dossier marked in red “Jonathan Schwarz,” she could see newspaper clippings and photographs. First they feed the press lies and trumped-up stories, then they cut out the articles and study them, and finally they demand explanations for the lies that they, themselves, invented, Talia thought bitterly. “I don’t know, leave me alone,” she muttered. He continued his assault, until, in a moment of exhaustion, when all she desired was to get rid of him and leave the loathsome place, she answered a few of the questions. Later she regretted it and reproached herself. Why did she answer him at all? Did she want to impress him with her cleverness? Was she afraid of him? “Yes,” she told him, “the shares go by the names: Shares One, Shares Two, Shares Three, Shares Four...”
“Cut the crap! There are no Shares Three or Four!” he shouted at her, his patience wearing tin as the hours dragged on. Later, he was ashamed of his outburst and lowered his voice. He had a rich baritone that he knew how to manipulate, like a trained actor; at times he raised it to its full volume, at others he lowered it to a seductive whisper. He could easily get a job as a television announcer, with his good looks and his effective voice, Talia reflected.
“Please excuse me, Talia I’m sorry. But now what about Jonathan’s mother?” He interrupted her rumination. “She was just acting as a front for him, wasn’t she? We know she used to travel back and forth to Switzerland. Too many times, much more than the usual vacations. And a woman her age doesn’t ski anymore. Was she visiting a resort? I don’t think so. I think she was transferring money for him. And who would suspect a dignified old woman would be serving as a courier for her son? What do you say we interrogate her a bit, before she leaves the country once again?”
“Don’t you dare touch Jonathan’s mother! Leave her out of it!” Talia shouted furiou
sly. “You evil man! Murderer! Why do you want to torment a poor woman who’s lost her only son? You have no heart!” She was about to lose all self-control.
He leafed through his papers nonchalantly. “So, we lose our temper! And why are you so angry, Talia? This is something we should look into. Maybe I stumbled onto a little treasure you’d lie to keep hidden? Well, ma’am, I advise you to tell me everything about the financial connections between Jonathan and his mother. Hold on there, a minute, I haven’t finished with you yet,” he waved the sheaf of documents in her face as she fidgeted in her chair, about to rise. “If you don’t feel like talking, you don’t have to. Nobody’s forcing you. But I bet you’re really eager to spend the night in our hotel. That will jog your memory, I’m sure. True, it’s not the Ritz in London, but what can we do, we don’t have the budget. You deserve better accommodations, I know, suites in five star hotels, in the style that Jonathan used to keep you...”
She watched him with icy contempt. How can he torment her like this? Twelve hours of investigation, interrupted only by his lunch break.
A fat female warden with peroxide hair served her a cup of murky tea and a disgusting looking meal on a filthy platter. Talia was so thirsty that she ignored the chipped enamel cup that almost turned her stomach and drank the tea. However, she could not bring herself to eat the cold hamburger and mashed potatoes, or drink the lemonade in a plastic cup.
She felt trapped in the officer’s power. What gave him the authority? Was it the uniform? His position? The file that contained a mixture of truth and falsehood about Jonathan? A few hours ago, she did not know this man at all, and now she felt as though he had crushed every shred of self-respect she had left. “I want to go back to my children,” she pleaded, “let me go home.” “Your children do not concern me,” he retorted dryly, “tonight you’re staying here.”