The Missing File

by D. A. Mishani

  Ze’ev invited them in. Elie fixed the police officers with a serious stare, like he always did when guests arrived. The policewoman’s name was engraved on the silver tag on the pocket of her shirt—Liat Mantsur. Ze’ev felt the same inner explosion he had felt that afternoon when he returned home and saw the patrol cars. The other person inside him tensed in anticipation. Perhaps this is the beginning, he thought. He must remember every detail.

  The police surprised him again. Ze’ev hadn’t expected them to question him and Michal separately, and couldn’t understand why the senior officer decided to sit in the kitchen with his wife while he sat in the living room with the junior officer, Liat Mantsur. A small, blue plastic plate with the remains of Elie’s vegetable mash was still on the kitchen table. Scattered around the plate were bits of moist bread and crumbs.

  “Would you like something to drink?” he asked the policewoman.

  “No,” she replied, and rested a dark plastic clipboard on her knees. A black pen had been used to divide the sheet of paper on the board into three columns, each with a few lines of text at the top. He sat on the sofa, with the policewoman sitting opposite him, on the armchair.

  “We are currently collecting information about the missing boy,” she said. “It would help us if you could tell us when you last saw him—you may have seen him yesterday, or even today—and what your impression of him is.”

  They seemed to be working by the book, and procedures most likely dictated that the neighbors must be interviewed and asked the exact same questions, even if nothing helpful came of them. The policewoman didn’t look around the room, not even at the solitary picture—a reproduction of van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles—hanging on the wall across from the sofa, above the rickety sideboard; or at the old and ugly brown sofa, draped in a black-and-white-striped sheet to cover its stains and protect it from more; or at the toys strewn across the floor, giving the living room the appearance of a warehouse. So uninspired. She didn’t look, but he could see through her eyes just how temporary the apartment seemed, how gloomily lit it appeared when evening fell.

  “I didn’t see Ofer yesterday, or today,” Ze’ev said. “As far as my impression of him goes, he seems to be a pleasant, introverted boy.”

  Already she made notes with a black pen. What the hell did she have to write about?

  “I’m taking down notes while you speak, okay? When did you last see him? Do you remember, perhaps?”

  “Not the exact date. At some point this week, I’m sure. In the stairwell. I teach at a high school, so we leave home at the same time, and sometimes we cross paths.”

  “And did he appear the same as usual, or was there anything unusual about his behavior? Did you notice anything?”

  Ze’ev was frustrated. He wasn’t able to make out the conversation between Michal and the senior investigator, only Elie’s crying as he sat on his mother’s lap, wrapped up in a dry towel and getting more agitated with every passing moment. The boy was tired and wasn’t at all happy with the fact that two people were speaking to each other and not to him.

  “Are you sure you won’t have something to drink?” Ze’ev asked, hoping for an excuse to go into the kitchen. He wasn’t quite sure yet about when in the conversation he would surprise her. Or perhaps he should save the surprise for the senior investigator, he thought.

  “No, thanks, we’re fine,” she replied. “Okay . . . is there anything you know about the missing boy or his family that you’d like to share with us? Do you sometimes hear any fighting or arguing coming from there?”

  So that’s why the senior officer had chosen to speak to his wife, Ze’ev presumed to himself. He probably assumed that she was at home most of the time and would therefore know more about the goings-on in the building.

  “Not at all,” Ze’ev said. “We hear some noise sometimes; they have three children and live above us. But I think we are actually the ones making most of the noise in the building lately.” He smiled and wondered if she understood what he had meant. Her head was tilted toward the plastic clipboard on her lap and her gaze was fixed on the piece of paper, like a shortsighted student taking a test. “We moved in here just over a year ago, before Elie was born. We used to live in the center of Tel Aviv, and I still work there. I teach at the Ironi A high school, next to the Cinematheque, if you know where that is.”

  “And what was your general impression of the missing boy? Was he a good kid, or have you had any run-ins with him in the past?”

  It was terrible. She wasn’t even listening to the answers he gave to her routine questions. “Not at all. Like I said, I got the impression that he’s a pleasant, if slightly introverted, child.” He hesitated for a moment, again glancing over toward the kitchen, and then added, “My acquaintance with him was a lot closer than neighborly ties.”

  She didn’t lift her head and continued writing. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I gave him private English lessons for four months.”

  “And how was he?”

  “What do you mean by ‘how was he’? How was he as a student?”

  “As a student, as a person. What was your impression of him?”

  Her repetition of the word “impression” was ridiculous.

  “I got the impression that he’s a child who takes his studies seriously, but that English is not his strongest subject. He is a gentle and pleasant young boy, introverted—like I told you. As I’m sure you can imagine, I meet many young people, but Ofer was unusual. I think we formed a strong connection.”

  “And he didn’t say anything to you about plans to run away, suicide perhaps, problems at school?”

  “Not a word. We spoke mostly about his English, and he didn’t say anything about suicide or running away in English.”

  “So, you’re saying he had no problems?”

  “I didn’t say that at all. I said we didn’t speak about such things. And may I ask you why you are speaking about him in the past tense? It’s unnerving.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just a manner of speaking,” the policewoman replied, getting up from her chair and adding, “Just a moment, I need to check up on something.”

  She went to the kitchen. It was an odd moment: he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to stand up in his own home. A moment later she returned with his wife and the senior policeman, but the three of them walked over to the door. That was the third surprise. Ze’ev stood up and joined them.

  “I understand from your wife that you gave private lessons to Ofer,” the policeman said. “So I may come by later to ask a few more questions. Thank you very much for your help.”

  The stairwell was dark and quiet, as if the investigation had been wrapped up. They stood on either side of the threshold—two police officers on the one side, in the dark, a man, a woman, and a baby on the other, and an open door between them once again. Where was Hannah Sharabi? Was she at home? Alone? Did she have policemen with her?

  “You’re welcome anytime,” Ze’ev said. “Although I don’t know if we have been of much help. I’ll be happy to help more—if you need help searching, for example. I don’t know what your plans are. Do you intend to go on with the search through the night?”

  The senior policeman looked surprised, as if he hadn’t considered the option of searching at night. Ze’ev felt for the light switch on the wall next to the door, and with the stairwell lit up, he could see the policeman’s name was Avi Avraham. He had taken a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and was playing with it between his fingers.

  “Thank you,” Avraham said. “Some searches may be carried out, but we don’t yet know exactly where or when. If we do mount searches, we’d be happy to have help from you, and the other neighbors too.” He continued to address Michal more than Ze’ev.

  “Do you have any ideas about where Ofer might be?” Ze’ev decided to ask.

  Avraham was on edge. “Not yet, u
nfortunately. We are hoping to find him as quickly as possible.” And he suddenly turned to Ze’ev. “Do you, perhaps?”

  The light in the stairwell had gone out, and he turned it on again. For the first time since the police had come in, he felt like someone was actually speaking to him. “I wish I knew” was all he said.

  Their front door was the only one in the building that did not have a sign bearing the family’s name—only some advertising stickers for locksmiths, plumbers, and electricians, along with a triangular magnet from Pizza Centro. And the policewoman hadn’t even asked his name.

  “So what did they ask you?” Ze’ev offhandedly asked Michal as they bathed Elie.

  He was angry. Why hadn’t she asked him the same question first? And why hadn’t she told him what she and the senior officer had spoken about? His disappointment with Avraham’s decision to speak with Michal hadn’t abated; instead, it had become more bitter as a result of his brief, provocative exchange with the senior policeman at the door.

  “Probably the same questions they asked you,” Michal said. “How well I know Ofer. If I had noticed anything out of the ordinary. If I had seen any of his friends here or people he hung out with who looked offbeat.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “That I hadn’t. That you gave him some private lessons at the beginning of the year, in their apartment. That he hadn’t come here, and that he and I never exchanged anything more than hello and good-bye on the stairs. I may have once asked him how he was doing with his English or something like that. I told him that I think I heard a fight or argument coming from there this week, in the evening, maybe the evening before he disappeared, but that I have no idea who was involved or what it was about, or if it even had anything to do with Ofer. It may have been an argument between the parents.”

  That was the final surprise. Ze’ev was stunned.

  “Did you really hear them arguing?” he asked, and Michal laughed. “What do you think—that I’d say something like that to him for no reason? Didn’t you hear it?”

  He couldn’t remember. “I may have been asleep already. Perhaps it was from their TV?” he asked, and Michal said, “You know what? You could be right.”

  They ate a light dinner in front of the television, watching a reality show, after Michal had put Elie to sleep. There was nothing of interest on the news. Michal returned to the balcony to continue working, and Ze’ev opened Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, an elegiac novel, very short, about missing out on love in an instant owing to reticence. He had been reading it for a few days, in small doses, welling up with sadness every time. He took note of the economical yet precise eye for detail of the British writer, whom he had not been familiar with beforehand. Elie was whimpering in his bed, and Ze’ev went to his room and put the pacifier back in his mouth.

  He put off drinking his last cup of tea for the evening. He was waiting for Inspector Avraham and planned to offer him a coffee and drink one with him. The day had fulfilled less than it had originally promised. And he felt like he had so much to say. He heard sounds from the stairwell, people going up and down, but he couldn’t know if they had anything to do with the search for Ofer or simply life itself. Neighbors came and went. A doorbell rang and someone said, “It’s me.” Doors slammed shut. The light went on and off. There were few cars on the street outside. After 11:00 p.m., the building was cloaked in silence. Avraham wasn’t coming. Ze’ev returned the two clean mugs he had left out on the counter to the kitchen cupboard. He went into the bathroom to change clothes, brushed his teeth, and got into bed.

  Michal came shortly afterward. She laid her pajamas out on the bed, undressed, and slowly put on her nightclothes in front of him, watching him as he continued reading. His eyes didn’t budge from the page, as if he didn’t see anything at all while she took off her bra. There was something unseemly in the room. She was undressing in front of someone else, someone she didn’t even know.

  “Are you thinking about Ofer?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That perhaps we’ll join the search if they’re still searching on the weekend. We’ll leave Elie with your mother, or we can take him along in a carrier.”

  “Do you think Ofer’s run away from home?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t give the impression of being independent or strong enough. Running away like that takes a lot of guts. This will be the second night since he disappeared, and he needs to sleep somewhere.”

  His words shook her. “His poor mother,” she said. “I can’t even begin to imagine how she must be feeling right now. To go through two nights without knowing where your son may be, it’s terrible.”

  Ze’ev fell asleep before her, dropping off into slumber quickly. One moment he was awake, and a moment later his eyes were closed. She watched his quiet breathing, then went into Elie’s room to make sure he was covered. Babbling in his sleep, the infant sighed and stretched out his arms toward her as she wrapped the blanket a little tighter around his small body.

  3

  He was waked Friday morning by a long buzz on the intercom. It was late, a lot later than his usual waking hour, even on his day off.

  “A delivery for Avi Avraham.”

  In his mouth was that dry, bitter taste that’s left behind by too brief a night after a long day, and almost three packs of Time. The flower delivery boy was dressed in a green uniform. His helmet was still on, and he was hidden behind a large bouquet in shades of pink, white, and purple—lilies, lisianthus, and gerberas, interspersed with an abundance of green foliage. He tore off the greeting card and read:

  Dear Avi,

  Happy 38th birthday.

  Wishing you lots of health, happiness, and continued success through life, wherever it may lead you.

  Love,

  Mom and Dad

  He didn’t call to say he had received the flower arrangement, which he placed on the kitchen table, not yet in a vase with water. The daylight shining in from the kitchen window was too strong. He placed a finjan with water and enough Turkish coffee to make two cups on the gas stove. The rumbling of the engine of a delivery truck outside the building shook the floor. It was all so different from the quiet he usually woke to.

  He generally rose before six, without the need for an alarm. He’d brush his teeth while traipsing around the palely lit apartment, boil water in the kitchen, and go into the living room, where he’d open the shutters and continue brushing as he looked out at the dark street. There’d be hardly any traffic, only frozen cars parked in lines on either side of the road. Sometimes he’d see someone leaving early for work, sometimes he’d even hear the chirping of a stray bird.

  Perhaps the noise wasn’t coming from the street, but from somewhere within him. He had woken restless, as if the delivery truck had dumped all of yesterday inside him the moment he heard the buzzer of the intercom. All the images, all the conversations. The uncertainty, Hannah Sharabi through the dusty glass door, the endless ringing of his cell phone, the sense that things were getting out of hand, the neighbors looking down at him from the balconies, the drive through the city at night, alone, aimlessly.

  Hannah Sharabi had popped into his mind the moment he woke the day before, too. It was 5:50 a.m. He checked his phone and saw that he hadn’t missed a call during the night. He couldn’t be sure if that was good news or not.

  He decided to forgo the walk, instead driving his car to the station. He wanted to be mobile during the day if the need arose. He walked into the almost empty station just before seven thirty. The duty officer informed him that no reports about a missing boy had come through during the night, and that no one had asked him to call any mother in the morning to find out if her son had returned home.

  The following two hours were a nightmare. Nothing happened. He sent out e-mails, completed a personal questionnaire he needed to p
ass on to the human resources department because of his trip to Brussels, read the headlines on the Haaretz news website, and browsed through the Kintiev file to prepare for the next stage in the investigation. The sheet of paper on which he had jotted down short sentences from his conversation with the mother the night before was still on the desk, where he had forgotten it, neatly folded into a small square.

  The records from the night between Wednesday and Thursday revealed nothing related to Ofer Sharabi. There had been a fire at an insurance agency and the firefighting crew suspected arson. A scooter had been stolen just a few dozen yards from his apartment. He could have called the boy’s mother to ease the uncertainty, but a dull feeling inside of him told him not to tempt fate. The fact that she hadn’t called may be a sign that all is well, and he didn’t want to break that with a phone call. And if not, if a tragedy loomed, it would be best to wait rather than hasten its arrival.

  After a while, he left his office to make a cup of coffee and use the copying machine behind the duty sergeant’s desk. The station was already abuzz with the morning’s activity. Civilians stood in line at the front desk. Two traffic policewomen were in conversation at the entrance to the station. And then he saw her. She was standing outside the station and he spotted her through the dusty glass door. She was in the same clothes he had seen her in the night before—just as he had thought she would be. The shabby leather bag was hanging off her shoulder by its thin strap, and she was clutching the cell phone in her hand, as if she hadn’t let it go since they parted. The pain he felt on seeing her took him by surprise.

  Ofer hadn’t returned.

  Avraham froze for a moment—and then left the copying machine and hurried over to her. He thought about placing his hand on her shoulder but then noticed that she wasn’t alone. He looked over at the man she was with and quietly asked, “He didn’t come home, did he?”