Bethlehem Road Murder

by Batya Gur

  Michael nodded, and Efraim Beinisch opened his small, pale eyes wide and fixed them, defeated and desperate, on Michael’s face. Michael tilted the second glass of water to his lips and supported his head from behind and said: “Drink, Mr. Beinisch. The doctor will be here soon.” After he had taken a few sips, Efraim Beinisch sat up, grasped the edge of the bed and tried to stand.

  “Sit for another minute. Not all at once,” Michael warned, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Eli pulling the drawers, which were also embellished with a thin gilded frame, out of the wardrobe. “I thought we would find Yoram at home,” Michael reminded Efraim Beinisch.

  Efraim Beinisch leaned on the bed, his legs sprawled in front of him. “They should be in their room, he and Michelle,” he said in a limp voice, and turned his head a bit, until he noticed the naked feet and buried his head in his hands, “but maybe they went out for a while. It seems like there’s no one in the house . . .” He stopped talking, held his breath and stood up all at once, supported by the edge of the bed. “We have to check Yoram’s room. Who knows what . . . ,” he said, and hurried out of the bedroom. Michael followed him to the end of the corridor and stood beside him as he opened the door to his son’s room. Here too there was a large wall closet, and all three of its doors were wide open. In one of the drawers, all of which had been emptied, only an orphaned sock remained. Efraim Beinisch looked at the red stripe embroidered on the cuff, raised his hands to his chest and whispered: “He saw that the notebook was gone. He understood.”

  On the floor, at the foot of the closet, and on the rumpled bedding and the small rug there were piles of clothing and other items. “They’re not here,” repeated Efraim Beinisch, and this time there was a note of relief in the sentence, but he still had his hands clasped to his chest.

  “It looks as though someone has packed everything up and hit the road,” said Michael.

  “Michelle’s large suitcase isn’t here,” agreed Efraim Beinisch, sighing, it seemed, in relief.

  “Had they been planning to go anywhere?” asked Michael. “I thought we had agreed that Yoram wasn’t to leave the house,” he reminded the father, who was still standing in the doorway, leaning on the doorjamb.

  “He didn’t ask me and he didn’t tell me anything,” said Efraim Beinisch. “I told you, he does whatever he wants, Yoram, and now we have to . . . When his mother . . .” His shoulders shook in a spasm, and for a moment Michael was afraid that he would collapse and fall, but he only swayed where he was standing and supported himself on the doorjamb. “She put on a dress to do this,” whispered Efraim Beinisch, “and took off the necklace.” With labored steps he entered his son’s room and dropped his heavy body onto the mattress of the futon and buried his head in a pillow. “She didn’t show any sign,” he said to the corner of the mattress. “No sign at all. Last night she was as usual. She didn’t want to hear what I wanted to tell her . . . I thought that she really didn’t know anything. I didn’t think . . . Apparently she woke up and realized where I was. She always said that if anything happened to Yoram . . . She . . . She didn’t say anything to me,” he mumbled, and sat up straight. “People leave . . . Did she leave me anything? Did you find a letter? Did she leave anything for . . .”

  “We haven’t found anything yet,” Michael said, and cocked his ear to the corridor. “I think that the doctor has arrived, Mr. Beinisch,” he said reassuringly, “but you have to tell me the whole truth: Do you think Yoram has left the country?”

  Efraim Beinisch looked at him miserably. “I have no way of knowing,” he muttered. “He was here last night and in the morning before I left I didn’t check whether they were in their room, he and Michelle. It could be that . . . I told you—I don’t know.”

  The front door was flung open, footsteps approached, something heavy was carried through the corridor and against the backdrop of the voices coming in—“Are you bringing the stretcher?” called one; “Wait till the doctor is finished,” called another—Michael went over to Efraim Beinisch, leaned over him and looked into his eyes. “We’ve already seen that you know your son. You’re the only one who really knows how Yoram operates,” he said to him, “and now I’m asking you: In your opinion, is it possible that despite all the promises and threats he has left the country with his fiancée, Michelle? In light of what has happened,” he said, indicating the corridor with his head, “it’s really a good idea not to hide anything, because there’s really no reason to.”

  Efraim Beinisch shook his head, looked around as if an answer might be found in the open closet and then spread his arm and said: “God almighty,” and was silent for a moment before he added: “It could be. To America. With Michelle. God knows what he told her. But you’re right. There’s no reason anymore.”

  “Wait here. The doctor will speak to you in a few minutes,” Michael instructed him, and hastened to the kitchen to telephone from there. Next to the refrigerator, on the wall, a telephone had been installed to match the refrigerator. He dialed the number of Balilty’s mobile phone three times, and three times he got the recorded announcement: “The subscriber is not available. Please try again later.”

  So he called Tzilla, and the moment she heard his voice, she scolded him: “Tell me, why aren’t you answering calls on the beeper? For half an hour now I’ve been trying to . . .” He had to shout at her to silence her to tell her what to do and then cut off her complaints (“What do you mean, roadblocks?” she said impatiently. “Who’s going to give me personnel for that? At the airport will be enough. I’ll talk to Balilty. We’ll figure out what to do”) before she said to him: “I’ve been looking for you like crazy for half an hour. The girl, she’s woken up. She’s opened her eyes and she’s conscious but she’s not prepared to talk. She’s not talking to anyone, and Einat is going crazy. She hasn’t said a word and I thought that only you—”

  “Not now,” Michael told her, and looked at Eli in the doorway of the kitchen. “Not now. In a while I’ll go over there; you stay where you are, and don’t get any ideas or take any initiatives.”

  “The crime lab people are here, and so is the doctor,” said Eli as Michael hung up. “They want to talk to you and to the husband. They’d also like to talk to the son, but there’s no son, is there? Our Yoram has vanished. Didn’t stay to wait for the DNA. Vanished and killed his mother.” Michael followed him out of the kitchen.

  “There are all kinds of ways to kill,” muttered Eli Bachar as they stood again in the doorway of the bedroom and watched the doctor, who was leaning over Clara Beinisch’s corpse. “All kinds of ways, believe me. You can kill without even touching a person. That’s what Balilty would tell you. And I bet you that this fellow is already outside our territorial waters.”

  In silence they retreated to the window, along with the doctor, who also moved aside to make way for the stretcher bearers. In silence they watched Yaffa from the Criminal Identification Unit, as she gathered the contents of the drawers into the black plastic bag, and Alon, as he took photograph after photograph: the corpse from the left and from the right and from above, the iron hook, the ladder. “It’s too bad you moved it,” Alon said, and immediately bit his lip, “but you probably thought that it was still possible to do something.” He didn’t take his eye from the viewfinder of the camera. “You probably thought it was possible to get her down and give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or something.”

  “No,” said Eli, “her pulse was already gone. Her neck was broken—even I can see a thing like that—but you can’t leave a person there like that, hanged.”

  Alon took a few more pictures, the camera giving rhythm to the silence. Then he stifled a yawn and said: “Okay, I’m done here. You can take her out,” and the two young men in the white coats laid the stretcher on the bed.

  From outside the room came the sound of heavy footsteps, and Efraim Beinisch entered and covered his eyes as they laid his wife’s body on the stretcher and lifted it. “The doctor said that she died instantly, with no . .
. with no . . . ,” he said, and looked around. “And her child isn’t here, he doesn’t even know. The doctor gave me an injection,” he added in a tired voice, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know what . . . I don’t know what to do,” he said, and lay down on his side and stretched his legs. “God almighty, what have I done to deserve this? What?” he said as he curled his knees to his chest and all at once stopped talking. His body relaxed and his breathing became rhythmic.

  “He’s fallen asleep,” Eli said, and looked at Michael helplessly. “What shall we do? We can’t leave him here like this alone. He’ll wake up and . . . Is there someone we can call for him? Someone from the family or from—”

  “There’s no one, as far as I know,” mused Michael aloud. “They don’t have anything to do with the neighbors and they worked together, so he doesn’t even have a secretary.”

  “Wasn’t there something about a brother-in-law? Or a sister-in-law?” said Eli, making an effort to remember. “Wasn’t there some talk of them being at a family celebration of some sort? We have to at least inform . . . take care of . . . I’m calling Tzilla,” he finally declared. “She’ll know what to do,” and immediately pushed the buttons on the mobile phone in his hand.

  Distractedly, still looking at Efraim Beinisch’s large body, the knees curled to the chest and the head hidden in the arms, Michael heard Eli’s choppy sentences—“I have no idea . . . How long will it take? As quickly as you can”—and wondered who would be called to sit beside his own bed, when he would need watching and afterward when it would no longer be necessary, and who would make the funeral arrangements. In his imagination he saw his son Yuval burying his face and weeping, and in this bedroom he was filled with great sorrow and pity for Yuval and for himself and when he shut his eyes he saw Ada’s face.

  “It’ll take her a few minutes,” said Eli to Michael, “and from here she’ll find whoever needs to be informed, but she asks that you go up to Mount Scopus. There’s nothing for you to do here now. Take the car. I’ll wait for her here. It’s more important now that you be at the hospital.”

  Only as he drove past the apartment, which during the past few days he had forgotten he had purchased, did it occur to Michael that there had been a new note in Eli Bachar’s voice—a calm and authoritative note, from which the bitterness had disappeared like a boil that had been lanced and drained and didn’t hurt anymore.

  Were it not for all he had been through during the past several days, he might have smiled at the sight of the girl’s shut eyes—shut so tight, there was a furrow between her eyebrows—and the lips she curled into her mouth. She lay on her back without moving, even though there was no doubt that she heard everything that went on around her. He knew that she heard her mother protesting when he asked her to leave the room, and the psychiatrist’s pessimistic remark—“You can lead a horse to the water, but you can’t make him drink. It’s an English proverb”—and even the shuffle of Peter O’Brian’s feet walking around the bed as he muttered: “She has really gone through hell.” Now, when he was alone in the room with her, he sat down on the edge of the bed near Nessia’s legs, crossed his arms and waited.

  Had he been asked what he was waiting for, he would have shrugged and said, “For a moment of inspiration,” but the truth was that he hoped that this young girl, because of her great curiosity, would want to know who had sat down on her bed and would open her eyes to take a peek at him. The big hand on the large wall clock ticked and made a full circle, and then another, and not only did the girl not open her eyes but she squeezed her lips even tighter and for a moment even bit her lower lip as if to declare: “On no account,” or “Nothing is going to open me.” Michael examined the pale, freckled face that had lost its awkward fleshiness and looked so vulnerable. He also examined the kinky brown hair that surrounded her face like a halo. Now that the hair wasn’t imprisoned in a rubber band her face suddenly looked narrow and delicate; he saw strands of gold in those curls and he also saw her hand, lying beside her still body as if it had finished shedding a skin and had been renewed. And silently he said to himself that this crisis, because of which she was now lying on her back and sealing herself off from the world, had caused a change in her and had given her face, and perhaps her body as well, a vulnerable delicacy that had not been visible in them before. He looked at the large book that was lying on the bed next to her—Peter had set it down there before he went out of the room—and opened the shabby binding and read the large, curly letters, “Shakespeare’s Tales for Children,” in English. (Every night, before the lights went out, Peter read from this book to Nessia or crooned songs to her, to bring her back to consciousness. Perhaps it had worked, and more than the reading or the singing, the persistence in his voice; people’s refusal to be in the world is softened more than anything by the melody of a voice and the loving and devoted intention in it.) Had Nessia been a very small child, he would have told her the story of the ugly duckling, but after she had seen what she had seen, she did not need fairy tales, and certainly not fairy tales in which there was a moral.

  “Why doesn’t she want to open her eyes?” he had asked the psychiatrist before they entered the room. “I don’t have enough data,” the psychiatrist had replied. “The mother couldn’t exactly explain. But this is a possible reaction after a trauma like the one she suffered. People are afraid to be conscious.”

  “But she is conscious, at least partly conscious,” argued Michael. “Even a layman like me can see that, so that’s not what she’s afraid of.”

  “Yes,” agreed the psychiatrist unenthusiastically, “but we have no way of knowing what she remembers and what is frightening her.”

  Now Michael looked at her cracked lips—her mother had told him before she went out to moisten her lips with a swab wrapped in gauze, but he held back—and the squeezed eyelids that fluttered from time to time and he asked himself how he could reassure her.

  “We’ve caught him,” he finally said in a tone used for speaking to adults—he knew no one had told her that before him. “We’ve caught him, and he can’t do anything to anyone anymore.”

  He thought he saw a very slight movement, a kind of dismissive shrug.

  “You don’t even know who you’re talking to,” said Michael. “I’m Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon. We spoke in the street on one occasion and I know that you remember me. I’m the policeman who asked you to tell me what you knew, anything that would help the investigation, and you didn’t say a thing. But nevertheless you helped us, without saying anything, only it’s a pity that you had to endanger yourself so much and get hurt.” Her upper teeth covered her lower lip, but apart from that there was no sign that she had listened to him.

  “I want to tell you something,” he finally said, “but first I’m going to lock the door, because it’s absolutely just between us. It’s a big secret and I don’t want anyone apart from you and me to know.” He spoke the last words as he rose from the bed and very noisily walked to the door and locked it and immediately turned around and managed to catch sight of her eyelids a second before they were tightly closed again. Nessia breathed flatly and rapidly and tightened her lips. He went back and sat down on the bed closer to her head and spoke softly and slowly.

  There are children, Michael told her, who don’t have things, who have a feeling that no one in the world loves them. And they are certain, these children, that they are ugly and stupid and repulsive and, he continued, they make a private world for themselves, a world that is only theirs, a secret world with pretty things. Sometimes they also make a secret hiding place, just for them, and bring things to it. They can’t always get these things easily, but they have their methods, all kinds of methods, and here he stopped and asked if she knew why they had methods.

  Even though Nessia did not move, Michael could tell from her head, which moved ever so slightly, that she was listening and taking in every word. They have methods, Michael explained, and crossed his arms, because in fact they are not a
t all stupid and maybe they are more intelligent than other children. And therefore they know, these unusual children, how to get the pretty things that they need to have for the beautiful secret world they invent. These children are not only imaginative, they are also inventive. Inventiveness, he explained, is finding the right, special way to do something. And it is clear that these children are unique and extraordinary, because it is known that not everyone can bring his imagination to life. He looked at her face and said: “There are very few people who know the truth about these children, very, very few.” And after that he said nothing. If the girl really was fully conscious—and perhaps it was enough if she was only partially conscious—then she was burning with curiosity. Burning, but very cautious. She won’t open her eyes until she knows that his knowledge will not bring her shame and disgrace, Michael reflected, because shame and disgrace frighten her more than ordinary punishment. She will open her eyes only if he promises her in an indirect way, implicitly, that no one will shame her anymore, that no one will shame Nessia anymore; she has shamed herself enough.