by Batya Gur
Schreiber looked at her as though she had fallen from the moon. “Natasha,” he said in a hoarse voice as he lit a cigarette without taking his eyes off her, “don’t even dare talking about it. Do you know what they’ll do to you if they hear about it? And don’t you dare ask anyone to help you, either. Do you want me to get suspended? Do you think this is a game? They told you not now. So that’s it, not now. They told you the police are running around here, and it’s not the time to be dealing with these religious fanatics. Don’t you understand that this isn’t the time for that?”
And even after she repeated her explanation and pulled him over to the monitor in the room and stuck the cassette inside and showed him Rabbi Elharizi dressed as a Greek Orthodox priest, and even though Schreiber whistled and laughed and shut the machine off, he sounded no less resolved and said, “No, no way. I don’t take risks like those.”
“What risks?” she said. “It’s like the only thing we need to do is stand behind the door when the money is changing hands and watch. That’s all. After that we film them, and I bring the lists. You don’t need to come to Givat Shaul with me where the fanatics have their yeshivas and you don’t have to come to the Interior Ministry for proof that those guys are dead, ’cause I already have all that stuff, that’s all ready for my report this evening. I’m going on the air this evening with the names of the fictitious yeshiva students. You only need to bring a camera and come with me to see that apartment in Ramot. What’s the big deal with that?”
“Natasha, you need a crew and a mobile unit, you need a soundman and a lighting technician, the works—”
“Schreiber,” she said, cutting him off, “get me a mobile unit without a crew and bring—you be the crew. The dead-live yeshiva students I’m taking care of myself, don’t forget—”
“I don’t get it,” Schreiber said as he opened the door and looked down the hall. “Wait, wait, now I understand: there are two different things here, you’re talking about two different issues, aren’t you?”
“If you ask me, they’re connected,” she replied. “First there are the fictitious names that I need to…it’s…I told you, I did it all on my own with a video camera. But that’s peanuts compared with—”
Drops of sweat glistened on Schreiber’s bald head as he cut her off with a warning: “Natasha, you can’t go against the wishes of the workers’ union. If somebody gets wind of the fact that you’ve filmed it yourself without a proper crew, well, you have no idea what grief you’ll be bringing on yourself. I’m forbidden from going out without a soundman or a lighting technician, absolutely forbidden. They’ll shut the whole place down. Does Hefetz know you’re doing this on your own?”
She shook her head, a bashful smile on her face.
“So what does he think?” Schreiber asked her, a look of suspicion on his face. “What did you tell him? Did you tell him I’m involved, did you, Natasha?! You’re going to drive me crazy, Natasha.” Now she thought he was mad at her for real.
“I had no choice, Schreiber, they won’t let me…if I told him, he’d send someone else, he’d say I didn’t own the story.”
“Natasha, it’s without authorization!”
“Rubin promised he would work things out with Hefetz, that there’ll be after-the-fact permission,” she mumbled, “and that he would cover for you if we get in trouble on the other issue. Look, he promised. He’s seen the material.”
“Tell me what exactly you think we would see there.”
She told him about the restaurant and the meeting with the piles of money and maps and suitcases. His eyes grew wider with fear as he listened.
“Natasha,” he said, his voice choked with emotion, “you’re playing with fire. You have no idea who you’re dealing with here. Don’t forget, Natasha, where I come from. I know them, they won’t let you get away in peace. They’ll take revenge on you, I know them better than anyone else around here, I was one of them.” He tugged at the ring in his left earlobe. “They’ll kill you, arrange an accident for you, they’ll put a curse on you without batting an eye if you’re onto them, and it’s all true. It would be the end of you.”
“That’s what journalism is all about, Schreiber,” she said pleadingly. “Think about it seriously.”
“I don’t like journalism, I like shooting dramas, didn’t you know that?” he said, teasing her. “I like filming Iddo and Eynam for Benny Meyuhas. I don’t have any time for you.” He was smiling, drumming a finger on his nose.
She grabbed his shirt. “Schreiber, please, I’m begging you.”
“Natasha, I can’t,” he protested. From the hallway they could hear people running and shouting. “Now what’s happened?” Schreiber wondered as he fished a cigarette from the front pocket on his safari vest and rubbed his double chin. His small mouth disappeared into his wide face as he listened to the noises from the hall. “God only knows what’s happened, maybe a terrorist attack or something. I can’t just toss everything aside and stand here chatting with you. You understand, don’t you, Natasha?”
“Schreiber,” she said as she removed her red scarf and mindlessly slipped off her black coat and her sweater and her black undershirt, too, so that she was blocking the door with her body, her small nipples erect. “Listen, Schreiber—you want to fuck me?”
He gave her a look of terror, and for a moment she was frightened, as though he might slap her across the face. But then something familiar flickered in the hazel-colored part of his slightly crossed right eye, and a tremor passed through his thin lips and he began to smile, and then laugh a stifled laugh. She would have been offended if she had not known him so well.
“What’s with you, Natasha?” he said, coughing. “Put your clothes back on right away, the sweater—what’s with you? Like you’re willing to do anything for—” The noises in the hallway were growing louder. “Something’s happened,” he said as he pulled the sweater over her head and pushed her arms into the sleeves as though she were a little girl. “Natasha, let’s get out of here.”
“First of all, promise,” she demanded. “Promise you’ll help me.”
Schreiber rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “If you weren’t such a…if you weren’t so…so…like, alone in the world,” he said, shaking his head reproachfully, “if I didn’t know you well enough to know you’ll do it anyway, I would tell you to go to Hefetz. But you won’t go to Hefetz, will you?”
“There’s no reason to,” she fumed. “But if you come with me—look, I’ll…I’ll pay you.”
“Like with money?” Schreiber laughed even harder this time, shaking his head. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his checkered flannel shirt, straightened his safari vest, zipped closed one of the pockets. “How exactly are you going to pay me? You’re going to give me the savings you don’t have? You’re going to start working as a cleaning lady? Hit the streets? Okay, I’ll give you an answer in a little while, all right?”
She would not be placated. Holding his arm, she asked, “When? When will you give me an answer? When it’s too late?”
Schreiber removed her fingers from his arm. “What time is it now, eleven-fifteen? I’ll have an answer for you by two o’clock, okay?” He was holding her hand in his own and caressing it with the other. “But don’t go and do anything until I get back to you. Don’t go anywhere, don’t talk to anyone. Nothing. You got that?”
Natasha nodded, following his movements as he stuck the cigarette back into his vest pocket, opened the door, and peered into the hall. “Go on,” he told her, “you first and then me, so that nobody catches us coming out of a closed room together and think…I don’t have the strength to fight with Hefetz over his girl.”
“I’m not his girl,” she whispered angrily as she left the room and fell straight into Hefetz’s arms. His face was grave, and she could not see his eyes behind the dark lenses of his eyeglasses.
“I’ve been looking for you all morning,” he intoned. “Where have you been hiding?” Without waiting for an answer, he asked, “D
id you hear about Matty Cohen?”
She shook her head.
“He died,” Hefetz said, removing his glasses and rubbing his bloodshot right eye. She did not care that once again his eye was infected, she wished it would spread to his left eye, too. “A half hour ago, just like that. What do you say about that?”
What could she say? She very nearly shrugged her shoulders. She had barely known Matty Cohen, who was she anyway? The guy was too important for someone like her. Nevertheless, she forced her face into a serious expression as Hefetz continued speaking.
“A guy wakes up in the morning healthy, well, not completely healthy, but pretty healthy, maybe a little overweight, but not obese, really, and a few hours later he’s dead.”
Natasha nodded. “What did he die of?”
“His heart, a heart attack while under investigation at police headquarters in the Russian Compound. They were talking to him about Tirzah. He didn’t sleep all last night, and then the interrogation this morning…too much effort and excitement, the doctors say.” His gaze drifted to the stairway and the two people coming up the stairs. “Here they are again, they’re back,” he said, frowning.
“Who?” Natasha asked under her breath.
“Can’t you see them? The police. Those are the guys who were here earlier. They’re back.”
The only thing she could think about was how she had no chance whatsoever anymore; who would give her the time of day now? Now they might not even let her on the air with the item about the yeshiva students. She watched the two men, noticed they were the same two she had seen in the newsroom that morning. The taller one—the one with the dark eyes and eyebrows—was nodding to Hefetz and seemed to be watching her with special interest; his gaze made her wish to behave herself so that he would look at her and think she was all right. The other one was saying something to Aviva, and everyone was walking out of Zadik’s office now. Rubin was explaining something to Hagar. When she touched his arm, Rubin said, once again, “Not now, Natasha. A little later.”
“A weekly meeting?” Michael verified. “Same day each week in your office?”
“If I’m in the country,” Zadik confirmed.
“And everyone drinks coffee?” Michael asked.
“Whoever wants to,” Zadik answered. “Look, you see we’ve got everything we need right here: a kettle, and over in the corner there’s herb tea and regular tea and decaf coffee and instant coffee and Turkish coffee. And sugar and artificial sweetener and milk. Styrofoam cups for those who don’t mind them. I for one can’t stand them, so we’ve got mugs, too—you can see for yourself. Once upon a time we had filter coffee too, and hot chocolate. But we’ve cut back.”
“Did Matty Cohen always drink coffee?”
“Turkish coffee, two packets of sweetener and half a teaspoon of sugar, no milk. Two cups. What’s this thing you’ve got about Matty’s coffee? I don’t get it, do you think—?”
Michael ignored the note of complaint that echoed in Zadik’s question. “Everyone knows how everyone else takes his coffee?”
“More or less,” Zadik said. “Some people remember, some don’t. I always know exactly who drinks what and how they take it. Hefetz, too. I think Amsalem from the canteen remembers, but he used to own a coffee shop so it’s natural…. Everyone else, what can I tell you? I’ve never noticed.”
“Do people usually make their own coffee?”
Zadik flashed Michael a look of astonishment. “What are all these questions about? What are you thinking? That the coffee was spoiled? Or poisoned? I’m telling you, that guy was a walking time bomb, a dead man walking, with all that weight and all that coffee.”
“So what usually happened?” Michael persisted. “Did one person prepare the drinks for everyone? Or what?”
“Sometimes, and sometimes not. Sometimes we have bourekas or cookies,” Zadik said irritably. “Sometimes someone asks who wants what, sometimes they make it for themselves. Come on, already, who pays attention to things like that anyway?”
“I know that people don’t pay attention, it’s true. When everything’s fine, people don’t pay attention. But in this case I’m asking that you try to remember.”
“Remember what? Who made Matty Cohen’s coffee for him? That’s what you want me to remember?”
Michael nodded.
“I did, okay? Are you satisfied? Don’t look at me like that, I’m telling you: I made his coffee myself. What’s wrong with that?”
“You made it, and you gave it to him? With your own hands?” Michael asked.
“Exactly,” Zadik said. “What’s wrong with that? You think that because I’m the big boss, I can’t make coffee for my friends? I haven’t got a fat head. I haven’t forgotten where I come from.”
“With your own hands?” Michael repeated.
“What, what about my own hands?” Zadik bellowed. “I put it on the table in front of his seat. Anything wrong with that?”
“We need to check that coffee,” Michael informed him. “It’s standard procedure, just like an autopsy.”
“What? What?” Zadik said. “What autopsy? Who requested an autopsy?”
“Hmmm, just so,” Michael said, clearing his throat. “We did. We spoke with Matty Cohen’s wife. At first glance it looks like a heart attack, but his doctor gave him a checkup just two or three weeks ago, and everything was fine. His wife says he felt really good these past few days, he’d even started a diet. This was quite unexpected.”
Zadik thought for a moment. “There’s no need for an autopsy. I’m telling you, it was a heart attack. I’d bet a month’s salary on it.”
“Maybe,” Michael said. “It’s certainly possible, it stands to reason. But just to be absolutely certain—”
The door flew open, and Aviva stood there, staring at Zadik. “Excuse me,” she said, tossing off a small smile in Michael’s direction, “I didn’t want to disturb you, but first of all, Benizri is here—you asked him to see you the minute he arrived. I’m a wreck, Zadik, a total wreck. Everyone here—he’s been waiting fifteen minutes already. And second, there’s some guy on the phone, he won’t give me his name, but he says—”
“Can’t you see what’s happening here? Right now I can’t—do me a favor Aviva, take care of—”
“So what should I tell him?” Aviva demanded. “He’s been waiting on the phone. Benizri’s waiting, too.”
“We’re almost through here—tell Benizri to wait. The guy on the phone, too, tell him to wait. What’s it about, anyway? Why—” He looked at Michael and Eli Bachar. “All right, I’ve told you everything I know, and you can take anything you need with you. If there’s going to be an autopsy, well—never mind, I’ll go pay her a visit later anyway.”
“Who? Who are you going to visit?” Aviva asked from the doorway. “And what about all these people—”
“Malka, Matty’s wife. What, you think I shouldn’t visit her?” Zadik leaned on the table and shoved his chair out from under him. Danny Benizri appeared in the doorway.
“Come on in, Danny,” Zadik called to him. “Did you hear about Matty Cohen? Did you hear what happened to him?”
Danny Benizri nodded, his expression grave. “Yes, I heard, that’s really awful.”
Zadik sighed. “I don’t know how we’ll manage with all this…. Butyou, you did a great job, excellent work. Come here, let me give you a hug. Did you guys see him?” Zadik asked Michael and Eli Bachar, who had already risen from their chairs and were on their way to the door. “Did you see how he handled the situation, how he saved the whole operation? Afterward, people come to complain. If we hadn’t been there, who knows what might have happened.”
“About Matty Cohen,” Benizri asked, “was it his heart?”
Zadik confirmed the news by spreading his arms wide to his side.
“I don’t know what to say,” Benizri said.
Zadik’s face grew serious. “There’s nothing to say.” He bent his head forward and back, rolled his eyes, and added, on a phil
osophical bent, “What can you possibly say? A man’s days are like chaff in the wind, that’s all there is to say. That, and don’t smoke. Quit smoking. How did things end out there? I understand they hauled them off.”
“The minister was moved to Hadassah Hospital at Ein Kerem. Shimshi and the others were taken into custody and driven off in a police van.”
“Well, that was to be expected,” Zadik said. “Here, have a cigar.” He handed a large box of cigars to Danny Benizri, who selected one and eyed it with suspicion. “Cigars are not for observing,” Zadik informed him. “They don’t do anything: smell it at least.” He waited for Benizri to stick it between his teeth and lit a match from one of the packets in a large glass bowl sitting at the edge of his desk. “Want one, too?” he asked Michael, who was standing by the door waiting for Zadik to open it.
“No, thanks,” Michael answered. “Each man to his own poison.”
Zadik grimaced, took hold of the doorknob, and waited for them to pass through.
“Can I call you after two this afternoon?” Michael asked. Zadik nodded, closing the door after them.
Outside the office Michael could hear Zadik muttering, “It’s incomprehensible: a guy just falls down dead…”
Arye Rubin was standing in the secretary’s office by the door to the little office next door, whispering to Natasha; Eli Bachar observed them while Michael took the package from Aviva’s desk. “It’s lucky they left the cups here. We’re always getting annoyed when they don’t come to clear up, but this time it’s just lucky that everything remained here. You can never know what’s best.” Aviva sighed. “I wrapped them up in a manila envelope and then in a plastic bag. I didn’t touch anything. First in a manila envelope and then in a plastic bag, just like the movies. And I didn’t touch a thing, only the plastic. Was that okay?” she asked, batting her eyelashes.