by Batya Gur
“How do you know she’s on leave?”
“That big woman, Zellermaier, was standing next to the office. She was in a temper.”
“What about?” asked Michael, and heard a detailed description of Shulamith Zellermaier’s annoyance at the fact that the department secretary “‘couldn’t find any other time to go to the dentist except when Racheli’s on leave, and how is everything supposed to wait until tomorrow?’” Alfandari sounded amused. “She’s a character, that one,” he said.
Michael dialed Klein’s home number. There was no reply. He tried his office on Mount Scopus; no reply there either.
“Well,” said Alfandari, and leaning back in his chair, “in any case, he was in America.” And then he sat up. “People can fly back and forth, of course,” he said slowly, “but that sounds too complicated, to come all the way from New York two weeks before he has to come back anyway, and then to do it all again—it doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” said Michael thoughtfully. “We checked the flight records; he really did arrive on Thursday afternoon. But now we’ll have to find out if he left New York for two or three days two weeks before that.” Raffi Alfandari looked at Michael patiently, and Michael sat up straight, his expression becoming decisive. “The question is,” he said, “who took the mail out of his mailbox during the entire year?” And then: “I think I know who it was.”
“But Mrs. Lipkin’s at the dentist,” Raffi reminded him.
“Visits to the dentist don’t really last forever,” said Michael. “She’ll be back. Ask Tzilla to keep phoning to find out when she arrives. And get hold of her assistant. She doesn’t have to come all the way here; we can see her there too. We’ll be a lot wiser after we’ve spoken to them. And now for Dr. Shai.”
Alfandari collected the empty coffee cups, glanced at the sheet of paper that Michael folded neatly and put into his pocket, and headed for the door. “Nice work, Raffi,” said Michael. Raffi waved his hand dismissively, and Michael knew that his praise was too little and too late.
But he didn’t have long to beat his breast: the next minute, Tuvia Shai was again sitting opposite him. Again Michael had the distinct impression that the man was not afraid, that he was uninterested in what was happening around him, that his spirit was elsewhere. He made no complaint about the repeated interrogations. Michael showed him the cassette. Shai looked at it and said nothing. The expression on his face did not change as Michael inserted the cassette into the tape player. But he shuddered abruptly at the sound of the heavy, croaking voice that erupted when Michael pressed the button, and then he immediately resumed his former expression.
“You know it,” Michael stated.
Tuvia Shai shrugged his shoulders. “I know all Tirosh’s poems. Every word of them.”
“That’s not what I mean,” said Michael, and waited.
The man opposite him made no attempt to break the silence.
“I mean that particular voice. You know it; you’ve heard it before.”
Shai did not reply.
“The fact is,” said Michael Ohayon, “that your fingerprints were found on the cassette.”
The pale eyebrows rose politely, but not a word was said.
“I take it that you don’t deny having touched the cassette.”
“Then you take it incorrectly,” replied Shai. “How do I know whether I touched it or not? Who am I, as opposed to a fingerprint?”
“Your wife maintains that she saw the cassette in your briefcase on Thursday morning,” said Michael as if he had not heard the protest.
Tuvia Shai shrugged his shoulders.
“Not to mention the fact that you told me explicitly that you met Iddo Dudai for the last time at the department meeting.”
Shai nodded.
“But you didn’t tell me about the meeting you had with him after the departmental seminar, at your house. When Dudai explained the meaning of his strange behavior at the seminar.”
Tuvia Shai kept quiet.
“A very noble decision on your part—to keep quiet. You don’t demean yourself by actually lying. But I’m afraid, Dr. Shai, that it’s a decision you aren’t at liberty to make. Your alibi is very weak.”
Shai suddenly opened his mouth and said heatedly: “If I’d murdered him, I would have taken care to provide myself with a more sophisticated alibi. I’m sorry I didn’t know that I should have noticed people and been noticed by them.”
Michael ignored the sarcasm. He inclined his head, lit a cigarette, and looked at a face that was becoming more and more familiar to him.
“So what did you talk about with Iddo Dudai after the seminar?”
“About personal matters,” replied Tuvia Shai, and his lips pursed in an expression of childish obstinacy, which made his face look grotesque. For a moment Michael could see the child he had once been, an unattractive, old-looking child.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific,” he said, hearing the faint sarcasm in his own voice.
“Why? It’s not relevant to the murder,” protested Shai, and his voice broke as he said angrily: “And please don’t tell me that you’ll decide what’s relevant to the murder and what isn’t.”
Michael nodded and looked into the small eyes of nondescript color.
“He asked my advice about whether to continue his studies,” said Shai at last. The words seemed to escape his lips against his will.
Every attempt to clarify the meaning of this sentence ran up against a blank wall. Shai refused to elaborate. He repeated: “Iddo didn’t give reasons; he just said he was undergoing a professional crisis.”
Michael returned to the fingerprints and to the elderly hoarse voice with the Russian accent, but Tuvia had nothing to add. He didn’t remember having touched the cassette. He had never heard the voice before. He didn’t know the cassette belonged to Iddo.
No, Iddo had not spoken to him about Tirosh. Not one word. Neither about the man nor about his poetry.
Michael returned to the question of the alibi.
“I’ve already told you dozens of times. I don’t understand—Shulamith Zellermaier doesn’t have any witnesses either; neither has Ruth Dudai or some of the others. Normal human beings don’t worry about exactly what time it is every minute of the day, or who saw them where. They don’t spend their time looking for witnesses.”
“How do you know about Dr. Zellermaier?” asked Michael, and for the first time he saw a look of embarrassment on the man’s face. Tuvia Shai shrugged his shoulders, a gesture that was rapidly driving Michael out of his mind.
“Her name is the first one that occurred to me. We happened to be talking about alibis in the office, and she said that her father had been sleeping, so who would vouch for the fact that she was at home? She laughed, but Dita Fuchs didn’t laugh, and I saw the panic on poor Kalitzky’s face and Aharonovitz trying to remember exactly when he finished his shopping. In short,” he said angrily, “you’ve stirred up all of us to such an extent that people are scrutinizing their actions through a microscope without having done anything wrong.”
The black telephone rang. Michael picked up the receiver, listened to Tzilla at the other end, and finally said: “Please tell her that I’m leaving now.”
He stood up and said to Tuvia Shai, who bowed his head: “I’d like you to come with me now, to go over the route you took on Friday, the way you say you often walk home on Friday afternoons after the Cinematheque.”
Shai rose to his feet and, with surprising docility, preceded Michael to the door and was escorted into another office to wait.
“We’ll begin at the university, in Tirosh’s office. I have to have a few words with Mrs. Lipkin, anyway,” said Michael as he started the Ford’s engine.
It was already after two. Adina Lipkin, Michael knew, would wait for him even if he arrived after working hours, but nevertheless he found himself exceeding the speed limit in the Wadi Joz area.
And waiting she was, her hand on her cheek. She said nothing abo
ut the dental treatment, but her expression conveyed suffering and self-sacrifice without end.
“The key to Professor Klein’s mailbox?” she asked, flustered, and removed her hand from her cheek. “I don’t understand; he’s back in the country.”
“And what happened when somebody asked for it when he was abroad?” asked Michael.
“Ah,” said Adina Lipkin, “that’s another matter. I took his mail out myself, every single day.”
Michael could see the ritual in his imagination. As if she had read his thoughts, she said: “At one o’clock, after making myself a cup of coffee—I would be exhausted from the consulting hour—I would empty his mailbox and sort out his mail, without opening it, of course; I only opened official, university mail. Once every two weeks I would send him his letters. That’s what we had agreed.” She looked at him as if to say: That’s all for today. The interview’s over.
But Michael persisted: “You’re sure it was only you? Nobody else opened his mailbox?”
“If they did,” she said carefully, “they would have had to get the key from me.”
“And if you weren’t here?” asked Michael.
“That could never happen. Even if I have a fever I come to work. I can’t leave everything to take care of itself.” Adina Lipkin looked aghast at the very possibility. But then she raised her hand to her cheek again. “There were a few times when I was absent from work, when I had to go to the dentist—he only sees people in the morning. But then I simply didn’t empty the mailbox. I let it wait till the next day.”
“Where did you keep it?”
“The key? Here, next to the master, in the first drawer, because in the second drawer—”
“In other words, anyone could have taken it out?” Michael interrupted, and saw her vacillating between the obligation to answer him and the pressing need to finish her sentence. Finally she nodded her head: everyone knew where the key was kept.
“And Racheli?” asked Michael patiently.
“Racheli knows the procedures,” replied Adina Lipkin, like someone who had tamed a pet animal. “She herself never opened the mailbox.”
And with perfect timing the door opened and Raffi said: “She’s here.”
Michael glanced outside and looked at the little figure in the summer dress and plaited sandals, her eyes big and liquid, a bundle of papers under her arm. Then he went out into the narrow corridor to join her. Raffi Alfandari walked inside and shut the door. Michael and Racheli stood at the juncture of two corridors. Michael peered around the corner. Nobody was there. Racheli leaned against the wall, her face pale.
“I want to ask you something,” whispered Michael.
She waited in suspense.
“About the key to Professor Klein’s mailbox,” Michael continued in a whisper, and looked around him. There was still nobody to be seen.
She bent down, quickly set the papers she was holding on the marble floor, and straightened up and again leaned against the wall.
“What about it?” she whispered. She raised her head in order to look into his eyes; he had to lower his eyes in order to meet hers.
“Did you ever happen to have to take his mail out?”
She was silent for a few seconds, and then she nodded her head, saying, “Yes, of course. There were a few times when Adina wasn’t there and I took his mail out myself.” She peered around her apprehensively. “Although Adina didn’t tell me to.”
“Now try to remember if he received a parcel recently—a notice from the post office requesting him to pick up a parcel,” said Michael.
Again she was silent for a few seconds, and then she said: “I don’t remember, because after I emptied his mailbox I put the mail on Adina’s desk. I didn’t really look at it.”
Michael remembered the bench around the corner, in the “square,” and smiled to himself as he said: “Let’s go and sit down for a minute.” She picked up the bundle of papers and followed him obediently to the bench, where she flopped down as if her strength had suddenly deserted her. He sat beside her.
“Think hard for a minute, try to concentrate. Did you ever give the key to anyone else?”
He heard the pleading tone of his voice and noticed her regarding him with surprise. Then she blushed and said in a clear voice: “That’s actually not so hard to remember. About two weeks ago—no, three weeks; I can check—Professor Tirosh asked me for the key, twice, one day after the next, because he’d written an article in collaboration with Professor Klein and he wanted to see if it had arrived. He came in the middle of the consulting hour. I was too embarrassed to ask him to wait; he’s the head of the department after all—I mean, was.”
“And did you see the article? Did he find what he was looking for?”
Racheli shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said. “He didn’t say anything to me. He returned the key, but it didn’t look to me as if he’d found anything there.”
“How long did it take from when he took the key until he brought it back?” asked Michael, and he felt his back stiffening so that it became hard for him to breathe.
“That’s it: I forgot to ask for it back—there was a lot going on in the office—and he only brought it back the next day. I remember because I phoned him; I was afraid Adina would see that the key was missing,” said Racheli in embarrassment. “I know I shouldn’t have given it to him, but I couldn’t refuse him, could I?”
“When did this happen, exactly? Is there any way you can check?”
“I don’t remember the day, but Adina was at the dentist two days in a row; it was when she had her bridge made. She wasn’t here for two days, so it won’t be difficult to find out,” said Racheli, and looked at him. They were sitting very close to each other. She gave off a sweet smell. She’s so young, thought Michael, her face is so innocent and her eyes so full of yearning. It’s a pity she’s so young, he thought; how sweet she smells. He stood up with a sigh. Racheli remained seated on the bench.
They drove to the Cinematheque, and Michael parked the car. Again Tuvia Shai stated that he had left there at about half past four. They began walking down the path from the Cinematheque toward the Jaffa Gate.
“How long does it usually take you?” asked Michael.
“It depends,” said Tuvia Shai. Michael stopped and looked at him skeptically. “Sometimes one hour, sometimes two. Depending on whether I stop or not.”
“Is there a regular place where you stop?” asked Michael.
Shai replied slowly: “There are a few places. You want to see where I was on Friday?”
They walked in silence. Only once did they exchange a few sentences. “Did you know that he was working on Shira?” asked Michael, stressing the first syllable of the word.
“Shira? You mean the novel by Agnon?” Tuvia Shai stopped and looked at him.
“That’s how we understand it.”
“Not as far as I knew,” said Shai disbelievingly.
“So how do you explain the note we found on his desk?”
Shai did not reply. He looked at Michael with interest and went on walking. After a few minutes he suddenly said: “In any case, he never wrote anything about Agnon. And who told you that he was referring to Agnon’s Shira?”
“Aharonovitz told us,” said Michael, stealing a glance at Shai’s face. For a moment Tuvia Shai slowed down, as if he were about to stop entirely, and then he quickened his pace again.
“Aharonovitz gets ideas into his head!” Shai muttered. “Well, maybe he’s right, but I for one knew nothing about it.”
“And suppose it’s true; what do you think he could have meant?”
“I don’t know,” said Shai hesitantly, and Michael caught his quick sidelong look. “I don’t understand it myself. But that doesn’t mean that Aharonovitz is wrong.”
“I hear,” said Michael when they were close to the main road of Ramat Eshkol, “that a memorial evening is being planned for both Tirosh and Dudai next month.”
Tuvia Shai nodded.
“Are you organizing it?”
“No; apparently Klein’s doing it.”
“But presumably you’ll speak, no?”
Shai shrugged his shoulders. “Probably, among others,” he said without looking at Michael.
At half past four, after an hour of rapid walking, they were on Ammunition Hill. Here Tuvia Shai stopped. They had made a detour around René Cassin High School, and now Shai pointed to one of the mounds of dry earth: “I sat here for a long time.”
“How long?” asked Michael, lighting a cigarette.
“I don’t know exactly. Perhaps until it grew dark.”
“We set out from the Cinematheque at half past three, and we arrived here at half past four, an hour’s walk. You left the Cinematheque at about half past four? You arrived here at half past five, let’s say. It’s summer now. It gets dark late. Are you trying to tell me that you sat here three, four hours?” asked Michael with patent disbelief.
Tuvia Shai nodded.
“What did you do here all that time?” asked Michael curiously, as if the question were of purely academic interest.
“I thought. I needed to be alone.”
“Alone?” repeated Michael.
Shai was silent.
“What did you think about?”
Tuvia Shai looked at him angrily, as if he was intruding on his privacy with a question no one had the right to ask. Then he appeared to be deliberating. He smiled, a private smile. “Look how beautiful the city is from here,” he said in his colorless voice. “You stand here on the hill and see the street emptying. The light fades. The noise dies down. It’s beautiful.”
Michael Ohayon regarded him in silence. “Tuvia isn’t moved by the beauty of nature,” he remembered Klein saying.
He asked Tuvia Shai where he wanted to go from here.
“Back to the university,” he replied. His shoulders slumped, as if to say: It makes no difference to me.
“The picture is as follows,” said Michael, beginning to conclude the team meeting as Ariyeh Levy smoothed his hair disapprovingly and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “There are still a few details we have to wind up, like the signature for the parcel, which we’ve given to a handwriting expert, because the people at the post office don’t remember who signed, and a couple of other things. But the main conclusion we can say we’ve come to is: Tirosh murdered Iddo Dudai. The motives for the murder of Dudai and of Tirosh himself are related to whatever was said here”—he indicated the empty cassette—“and the ordering of the gas cylinders puts the lid on it. All that’s missing is the motive itself, but we’ve got a lead on that too, even if it’s not a clear one.”