by Batya Gur
“The worst of it?” Michael asked after a long moment of silence.
“The worst of it is what people are saying…. Balilty told me I should announce, on the same morning that Benny Meyuhas has been picked up, that his production of Iddo and Eynam will continue as though nothing’s changed. But how can I say such a thing after what’s happened? The guy is a suspect for the murders of two, no three, people, and I—”
“The matter necessitates some discretion,” Michael warned him. “If you can promise to keep a secret.”
“Of course. I mean, I don’t have to give anybody a full report,” Hefetz said, inflating his chest. “I can…even the director general doesn’t need to know yet.”
“I’m talking very seriously about complete secrecy,” Michael warned him again.
“Come on,” Hefetz said, offended, “what do you think? That I’m going to run around shooting off at the mouth? You think I can’t be trusted? You think I was just handed the position of director of Israel Television because there was nobody else who could do it after Zadik?”
“The truth is, we are not holding Benny Meyuhas as a suspect for murder,” Michael declared. “He’s not a murderer, and he’s not an accomplice to murder; in fact, he’s about to help us clear up the whole matter. But we have to pretend that he is still a suspect, so therefore I am asking for your cooperation.” Michael looked into Hefetz’s frightened eyes, which were darting around the room.
“So what do I need to do?” Hefetz asked as he stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of one of the cowboy boots he was wearing.
“You’ve got to act as though you yourself don’t understand, as if he’s a suspect but temporarily free. You should treat him for the time being with compassion, like someone quite ill, if you understand what I’m getting at. Let’s say, you shouldn’t express astonishment if he returns to work on his production, and you should probably let people know he’s coming back to work on Iddo and Eynam.”
“Where?” Hefetz said, alarmed. “What people should I tell?”
“Nobody special,” Michael advised him. “Just act normal. At the morning meeting, when you go over your daily schedule, you should say something noncommittal about his being a suspect but out on bail, or something like that. Give people the feeling that for the time being, to make life easier for him, you’ve decided to let him continue with his life’s work. Is that clear?”
“Yeah,” Hefetz said. “I hope I can pull it off successfully without understanding what…” He glanced at Michael, who maintained a neutral expression. “But thank God,” Hefetz hastened to add, “you have no idea what a burden you’ve lifted from me to know that he’s not a suspect.” He sighed, then, tense again, he asked Michael, “Why can’t we just announce that he’s been found alive and well and that he’s not a suspect for murder?” When Michael rose from his chair and walked silently to the door, signaling him to follow, Hefetz stopped in the doorway and said, “So if it’s not Benny Meyuhas, then who’s been…Who is the murderer?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
At seven-thirty in the morning, just as a sharp-tongued anchorwoman interviewing the minister of labor and social affairs tossed her long hair away from her face and boldly asked her interviewee whether her private affairs had perhaps clouded her judgment with regard to the future of the unemployed workers from the Hulit factory—the camera tarrying over the minister’s face, beads of sweat already shining from her powdered upper lip—Tzilla appeared in the doorway to Michael’s office to inform him that Rubin had arrived.
“Hang on a second,” Michael said without moving his eyes from the screen on the small television set that had been placed in the corner of his office. “Look what’s happening,” he muttered. The minister could be heard saying, “I don’t know which private affairs you are referring to, but the matter of the Hulit factory workers was in my mind—”
“I’m speaking about a romantic relationship that had already begun,” the anchorwoman said, twirling her hand in the air, “before the tunnel hijacking.”
Tzilla was watching the screen now too. “Oh, my gosh, I don’t believe what’s going on here!” she exclaimed.
“That’s because of the photos, they got caught in the act,” Balilty offered from the doorway. “She’s been blackmailed, and this is even before the press conference. I’ve seen the front page of the paper,” he said, waving the rolled-up newspaper in his hand, then spreading it out for them to see. “Look.” Balilty was beaming as he pointed a thick finger at the huge photograph at the center of the page, which featured the minister of labor and social affairs at the entrance to a building, with Danny Benizri standing close behind, his hand on her shoulder. “This pushed everything else aside,” Balilty proclaimed, “even the murder of some burned-up Orthodox Jew. See?” he asked, showing them the lower right-hand corner of the paper. “There’s nothing hotter than a steamy, forbidden new romance: the media and politics, super-sleazy. Great, isn’t it?” Balilty said mockingly while the minister droned on in the background: “Whoever believes that my private affairs have any influence on my professional judgment…” Tzilla turned the television off.
“I’m off, going to set everything up,” Balilty said. “Your client couldn’t wait. He didn’t phone, he came in himself, so you can have a quick word with him yourself. Maybe we’ll get something new out of him.”
“Show him in,” Michael instructed Tzilla. He pushed all the papers on his desk into a single pile.
“You’re going to give me a heads-up beforehand, right?” Balilty asked.
“Rest assured, Balilty,” Tzilla teased him. “Rest assured and get out of here already. I’ve got it all under control, so you can relax.” She took his arm and pushed him away from the office, then returned a moment later with Rubin.
Rubin muttered a hesitant hello from the doorway, and Michael motioned him to sit in the seat facing him. Rubin seated himself and gazed at Michael expectantly. After a moment of silence he said, “I’ve come to take Benny, and I don’t know what I need to—”
“I have a few more small questions for you,” Michael said absentmindedly as he flipped through the papers. “Questions that arose during the interrogations through the night. Ah, here are the papers I was looking for,” he mumbled, as if chastising himself. He held his pen as if ready to write and said, “In the matter of the digoxin, we wanted to—”
“Again?!” Rubin exploded. “This business with the prescription again? I told that young woman, Lillian, I told her that—”
“Please,” Michael said in a fatherly manner, “there is no need for anger. You must admit there is something peculiar here: as you know, Matty Cohen died suddenly, and we found—”
“I don’t want to hear this nonsense anymore!” Rubin said, cutting him off resolutely, emphasizing every word. “It’s a waste of everyone’s time, and I feel like some sort of scapegoat here. What’s wrong, you can’t find anyone else to pin things on, so it’s either me or Benny? Is that the way things are shaping up? Simply because Tirzah was…Look here, are you prepared to arrest me?” He held his hands in front of him, his fingers clasped and his wrists together. “I do not belong in this place, and you know it, but if you wish to arrest me, then be my guest, go ahead.”
Michael said nothing.
“And if not, then please tell me what’s happening with Benny Meyuhas and where you’re holding him so that I can take him with me, because he doesn’t belong here either. This country is still a democracy, and in another minute I’m going to phone up a top-notch lawyer. Do you understand?”
Michael said nothing.
“So if that’s the way you want it,” Rubin said, rising from his chair, “I’ll simply be on my way, with or without Benny. I’m coming back with my attorney.” He moved to the door; Michael made no move to stop him. Next to the door, his hand on the knob, he turned around and said, “Just tell me where you’re holding Benny. That much at least you owe me.”
Michael shrugged, glancing at the papers
in front of him. “We’re not holding him anywhere,” he said as if surprised. “He went back to work hours ago.”
Rubin froze in his place, let go of the doorknob, and stared at Michael in shock. “Work? What work?”
“Filming missing scenes from Iddo and Eynam,” Michael said, as though the matter were clear.
“Now?” Rubin asked in a shaky voice. “He’s gone back to Iddo and Eynam?”
Michael shrugged again. “We told him he’d been given the go-ahead, and he said he only needed another week to wrap up shooting. He said every minute they weren’t working on it was a waste of time, and his producer was waiting outside…”
Rubin stared at Michael for a minute, then opened the door and stepped out of the office.
Michael waited a moment, then dialed the phone. “Can you hear me?” he asked into the receiver. He listened, then continued. “Rubin left a minute ago, so the time has come.” Again he listened, adding, “There’s nothing we can do about it, we’ve spoken about this. You’ve got to phone him right now. Now. Ring him on his mobile phone.” After another pause he said patiently, compassionately, “I know. I know. But you’ve got no choice. You’ve got to phone this friend whom you love—or loved—and take him with you. Right away.”
After that Michael glanced at the door to his office and at the receiver of his telephone, now resting in its cradle, and allowed a few minutes of inertia to pass before instructing Tzilla to continue as planned.
“Seems funny to bring our cameramen and equipment in there,” Balilty whispered to Tzilla.
She ignored him, speaking instead into the transmitter. “Everything’s ready, everyone is in position.”
Once again, the illusion that the whole world can turn into one huge ear appeared in Michael’s mind. But in this case there was an eye, too: his own, as it peered, alongside Shorer, whose noisy breathing he could hear (and which made Michael feel safe and protected for a moment, the way it had fifteen years earlier when Shorer had brought him to work with him and had kept him nearby while they were on duty) as they stood next to one another in one of the nooks used for scenery storage. They were watching Benny Meyuhas, who was kneeling down and cupping his hands around a low, quivering flame in one of the memorial candles placed by the seamstresses and the members of the Scenery Department near the spot where Tirzah’s skull had been crushed. Balilty had been in charge of clearing the building of people and instructing Benny Meyuhas exactly where he should wait. First they heard the ringing of a telephone and then the sound of Benny’s hoarse voice as he said, “I’m here, in the String Building, by the scenery flats. Near where Tirzah…” After a moment they could hear him continue: “So I’ll wait for you here, of course I’ll wait.”
Michael knew Balilty was responsible for the dimness in the corridor—the nook where he and Shorer were hiding was completely dark—and this was why Rubin’s voice sounded hesitant and anxious as he called out to Benny Meyuhas.
“Here I am,” they could hear Benny answer him in a feeble voice. “Arye, I’m over here, near where…” He stood up. “Where the candles are.”
It seemed to Michael as though Rubin’s heavy breathing was audible through the whole corridor; a moment later they could hear him cry out in a surprised, nearly mocking voice, “This is where you are? Lighting candles like some teenage girl on the anniversary of Rabin’s death?”
Benny Meyuhas returned to his kneeling position on the floor, and Rubin bent down, leaning on his heels, beside him.
“They told me you’d returned to work,” Rubin said, astounded. “That they’d let you go. Is that true?”
“They let me go, but I haven’t gone back to work yet,” Benny Meyuhas said, his head bent. “I only said I’d come back here.”
“I see,” Rubin said. A long silence stood between them, until suddenly Meyuhas said, “Tell me, Arye, do you ever think about that doctor?”
“What doctor?” Rubin asked, taken aback. A moment later he said, “Oh, the doctor. The Egyptian one. No, never. What made you think of him?”
“I think about him a lot, I’ve been thinking about him all through the years. I can’t seem to forget him,” Meyuhas said, his voice cracking. “I think about who shot him in the back as he started walking away.”
“Benny,” Rubin said, sounding worried, “why are you…all these years we haven’t said a word…we haven’t said a single word about it, we never talked about it. And now suddenly you’re thinking about it? What’s it got to do with anything?”
Benny lowered his head and said nothing.
“It was only us there, Benny,” Rubin said imploringly. “We’re the only two left. Sroul’s dead—if we keep our mouths shut then it’s all over, they don’t have a case against us. Why did you have to go and bring up that Egyptian doctor?” He glanced around the area.
“There’s no one here, Arye,” Benny said. “It’s just the two of us, alone. How did you know Sroul’s dead?”
Rubin did not answer.
“Who told you Sroul’s dead?” Benny Meyuhas insisted.
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Rubin promised; the deep tremble in his voice betrayed his horror and fear. “But before that, you tell me why you suddenly remembered that Egyptian doctor. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Benny Meyuhas said, suddenly rising to his feet. “I’ll tell you what it’s got to do with anything: there’s no room for you and me to form some sort of conspiracy now. It’s all over. I know that you…that you murdered Tirzah. That much I’m sure of. I knew it right from the start. And from that moment I didn’t care about anything else anymore. I have nothing more to lose. Did you know Sroul was dying of lung cancer? He had nothing more to lose, either. You did him a big favor, you know?”
“Tell me,” Rubin said coming closer to Benny, the threat in his voice supplanting the fear. “Did you say anything to them?”
Benny Meyuhas backed away. “To who?”
“Them. The police. Ohayon, Balilty. Whoever. Did you tell them about what happened back then?”
“I…I…” Benny Meyuhas stuttered.
“Did you tell them or not?” Rubin demanded in a threatening whisper. “Just answer me straight, no bullshit.”
“Sroul came to Israel to talk about it, did you know that?” Benny Meyuhas asked him hoarsely. “He told Tirzah about it, she was planning to leave me. She said, ‘You’re murderers! I can’t live with a murderer!’”
Rubin placed his right hand on Benny Meyuhas’s shoulder. “I know what she said to you, Benny. Look at me,” he said quietly. “Look at me, I know very well what she said. She said some things to me, too. But I didn’t run to the police to tell them, you know.”
Benny Meyuhas smothered his face in his hands. “I can’t look at you, Arye,” he said, sobbing. “You went too far, you should have…we should have, right from the beginning…now you’ve become like some…like Macbeth, you’re wandering around spilling everyone’s blood. That’s what Sroul said, and he wanted—”
“I know what Sroul said, too,” Rubin told him, placing his left hand on Benny’s other shoulder. Now they were facing one another, very, very close. “Which means you don’t leave me many options,” he said, pulling Benny toward him.
The Special Investigations team heard Benny whisper into his transmitter. “I don’t care,” he said, “I have nothing left to lose. In any case I can’t—” At that moment Michael came out of his hiding place at a run and entered the wide corridor where they had found Tirzah. Arye Rubin spun around in surprise, and just then all the lights came on and Benny Meyuhas, who had collapsed as though he could no longer support his own body, was pulled out of the way and handcuffs were snapped on Rubin’s wrists.
“Where do you want him?” Balilty asked Michael quietly.
“Leave him here for a minute, leave me alone with him,” Michael said. “Before we take him out of here, I want…I’ve got to hear the whole story, before the lawyers move in and all that.”
“You’d better take legal admissibility into account,” Balilty reminded him. “Remember that without a lawyer you can’t use this stuff in court.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Michael said.
“What’s this story about the Egyptian doctor?” Balilty whispered. “Some kind of skeleton in his closet, as they say? And all this time I was thinking—”
“Get everyone out of here,” Shorer ordered. “Remove everyone from the vicinity and leave him”—he indicated Michael—“alone with the suspect, as he requested.”
And so it happened that Rubin, in handcuffs, bent down to sit with his back up against the wall of the corridor, facing the Wardrobe Department, and Michael flopped down next to him.
A very long silence passed between them before finally Michael said, “People spend their whole lives worrying their wounds.”
“You don’t say!” Rubin cried, though the irony in his voice failed to drown out the grief. “What a discovery! Excuse me if I feel compelled to inform you that you don’t have to be a genius to understand that,” he said, and then fell silent.
“I’m talking about with work as well,” Michael said quietly. “A lucky few hit on the opportunity to work in what it was that wounded them early on.”
“What are you talking about?” Rubin asked in quiet wonder. “I don’t understand you.”
“Don’t you think that the whole business of repairing the world that has become your life’s work has to do with what happened to you back then? Tell me,” Michael said, “who was it exactly who shot the Egyptian doctor in the back?”
In one swift move, Rubin stood up and looked around him. “Who told you about the Egyptian doctor?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “You just repeat what you’ve heard from others like a parrot, don’t you?”