Ezer looked at him in amazement, and Shalom asked, “And what if Mom will come home?”
He didn’t answer.
Afterward Shalom asked, “You’re not sleeping with us at Grandma’s?” And Chaim said, “I’m going back home because I have to work. And also wait for Mom in case she comes back.”
AT HIS MOTHER’S HOUSE THE CHILDREN made a beeline for the living room and plopped down on the carpet, opposite the television, because it was already on, loudly, with an animated movie. She closed the kitchen door behind them and asked him, in their language, “What happened?” and Chaim said, “We’re going away.” In the white nightshirt she napped in, which exposed her thin arms, spotted with bruises, and wearing gray socks, she looked older than she had during the holiday. The long days with the children exhausted her. The tea she prepared him was very sweet, as always, sweetened with three packs of Sweet’N Low. She waited for him to continue. He didn’t tell anyone the entire truth, only parts of it, and to everyone a different part—to the children, to the police inspector, and even to her he told only a part, even though he had no one else close. He would need her for another two or three days, no more. He said to her, “Someone put a suitcase with a bomb in it next to Shalom’s daycare and the police suspect me. I was there today for questioning,” and she stared at him in disbelief.
“Why you?”
“Because of what happened with the teacher. She gave them my name. Apparently she thinks it’s me. I can’t imagine what she told them exactly.”
“When did they put it there?”
“A week ago.”
“And now they’ve called you in?”
Only she understood how cruel this was, and asked the unnecessary question because she had nothing else to say. There was a closeness between them that was unusual between a parent and a grown child, perhaps because he’d married at an advanced age and for many years she had been his sole confidante. She knew him better than anyone else. His misfortunes. The doors that always slammed in his face. “When good luck sees us, it continues on to some other place,” she used to say to him when he was still a boy. He didn’t answer her question.
She said, “You were there today? This morning? Why didn’t you call to tell me?” and he said, “I didn’t have time.”
The police inspector had called him a little before noon, when he was about to finish his rounds at the Ministry of the Interior and the Tax Authority. In the days since, he thought about the possibility that they’d call him in, even though he didn’t know for certain if an investigation was being conducted. A few sandwiches remained, and he planned on going to garages and workshops in the area, but he told the detective that he would come to his office immediately. Should he have tried to postpone the meeting? At that moment he’d thought that putting it off would raise suspicion and that immediate compliance was best.
The detective said to him on the phone that he would like to gather evidence in connection to the bomb that was placed next to the daycare.
All that he had to do was tell the truth.
On the way to the station he again told himself that he had nothing to fear. It was just a bit of bad luck. He thought that if he were able to imagine that the interrogation was a conversation of sorts with a radio host, he would be able to answer calmly and sound relaxed.
The police detective was kind, but a few minutes after the start of the interrogation Chaim understood that he suspected him of placing the suitcase. At first, perhaps in order to confuse him, the detective asked him general questions about Shalom’s daycare—if there were any unusual events at the daycare, if Chaim noticed a suspicious man in the area—but then he changed direction and asked for his opinion of the teacher and if he was aware of any disputes between her and one of the parents. Chaim said no. Something in the way the detective asked the question implied that he had been updated on the details of the incident with the teacher, and the detective’s next question confirmed this.
His mother asked, “And what did you say?” and he answered, “I told him what happened. He obviously knew.”
After the interrogation it seemed to him that he’d acted wisely when he didn’t deny things and tried only to minimize their importance. He told the detective that there was an argument with the teacher and that he made a mistake when he threatened her. The detective tried to put words in his mouth, asked if he thought the teacher abused the children, perhaps abused Shalom, and he denied it.
“So there’s a chance they’ll lay off you now, no?”
“He asked me afterward about what I did on the day when they placed the suitcase. And he asked questions about Jenny.”
His mother got up and opened the refrigerator.
That was the moment in the interrogation when Chaim understood that it was no longer possible to simply wait.
His mother arranged four plates on the table and set a pot on the stove and he said that he wasn’t staying to eat.
“And what did you say about her?” she asked, and he said, “That she was traveling.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you told them how she died already? Perhaps they’ll understand.”
Chaim brought his fist down on the empty plate in front of him and his mother was alarmed.
ON THE WAY BACK TO HOLON he again felt a weakness in his arms, and understood that this was because of his mother. The palms of his hands hung limp on the steering wheel and the road disappeared from before his eyes at times. She said little after he told her that the detective had asked about Jenny and after he blew up at her. The few questions that she asked escaped from her mouth with an undertone of despair. He needed strength from her, but she no longer had strength to give. She was afraid almost like him, perhaps more. Instead of advising him, she asked, “So what will you do?” and he answered, “I’ll go away for a few days. Until they find who placed the suitcase.”
“That’s a good idea. And what about the children?”
“They’ll travel with me. I just need this evening and tomorrow to get organized.”
Afterward he told her that he planned to call the teacher and apologize—maybe that would help and she’d get the police to lay off him—and his mother nodded. “Talk nice to her. Maybe you should sit down with her.”
“I thought of doing it over the telephone. But if she wants to meet, I’ll go.”
Before he left, she went into her bedroom and removed the brown envelope from the underwear drawer. She asked how much he needed, and for the first time in a while he didn’t refuse. He just said, “As much as you can spare.” At home he tucked the money into a leather briefcase he hid in the dresser, behind the towels. Now he had six thousand dollars and more than twenty thousand shekels.
The next stages in the plan were packing and searching.
He went up to the storage space and found the old suitcase behind the fan. Wiped the dust off it, inside and out, and arranged three pairs of pants, three button-down shirts, three pairs of underwear, two undershirts, and a sweater inside it. At this point he still didn’t know where they would go. Afterward he brought clothing from the children’s room, for Ezer mainly short-sleeved shirts because he didn’t like wearing long ones, and for Shalom some warm shirts as well. And without yet knowing why, he added to the suitcase some of Jenny’s clothes that had remained in the closet.
Stickers from a previous trip were turning yellow on the suitcase, and when he removed them he saw that they were from the flight for the wedding.
He hadn’t flown since, and that was only the third time he had ever flown in his life. Afterward Jenny flew to the Philippines one other time, when they threatened her with separation.
She was much more used to traveling than he, and in the giant airport she acted quite at home. The security guard asked them in English what the purpose of their journey was and she simply said, “To get married.”* After passport inspection, she ran toward the conveyor belt in order to have time to shop at the duty-free. She bought two vials of perfume and a belt for her
self, perfume for his mother, and a camera for the two of them, a wedding gift, so he would be able to take pictures of her in Cyprus. Now he opened her drawer in the closet and found the envelope with the pictures. He still hadn’t come across the beaded necklace anywhere that Ezer said he saw. He didn’t understand why it was important to him to find it. After their conversation the night before, he went back and looked for the necklace in the bathroom, in the cupboard, under the bed. Jenny’s passport was no longer in the drawer, neither was her temporary identification card. That was the place where she kept the pills, before he discovered them. There was also the copy of the New Testament that she hid and the clear bag with the letters that her sister sent to her from Berlin along with two old photos of her father and mother and a shabby crucifix, braided from a bamboo stem. The wedding pictures were all that he found in the envelope, and he looked at them now, maybe for the first time.
A picture from the airport, a moment before the flight: he’s sitting in a chair in the waiting area near their gate, with their bags gathered around him.
The flight was very short and from the beginning he felt nauseated. He told her it was good that they didn’t fly to the Philippines to get married, as she wanted at first.
Outside the small airport in Larnaca, where he felt more comfortable for some reason, stood the minibus, and to his disappointment it became clear to Chaim that it wasn’t waiting just for them. The driver was named Agapitos, and he was young and skinny and very energetic. In one of the pictures he’s hugging Jenny and another woman from the group. Agapitos was a motormouth and talked mainly with the women. His shirt was open and his chest was tanned and smooth, and Chaim thought he was a homosexual but was embarrassed to ask Jenny if she thought so as well. Agapitos patiently explained to them that they were waiting for five couples from Israel. While driving he briefed the passengers: they would be brought straight to the city hall in Larnaca, and that was where their ceremonies would be held, one after the other, in the mayor’s office. The order of the marriages was set in advance by the company that organized the marriage deals and it would not be possible to change it. A Russian woman who sat behind them asked her future husband to see if she wouldn’t have an opportunity to shower and change clothes, and Agapitos said, “Clothes, yes; shower, no,” but apart from this it seemed to Chaim that no one spoke during the short trip from the airport to the city center other than Jenny and a much younger Filipino woman who sat in front of them.
On the back of the picture Jenny had written the woman’s name, in English, in dainty letters: Marisol. After the wedding she was traveling to South America with her husband.
Chaim had taken off his pants and shirt in a storage room in the city hall and over his undershirt put on the suit his mother had bought him. Jenny was in her underwear and bra when she fixed his tie for him, and for a moment he saw the part of her body that pleased him most of all: a dense, dark line of hair that started above her navel and continued to the panty line on her brown rounded stomach. He waited a long time for her to do her makeup. She explained to him how to work the camera and he photographed her in the dress she had bought in south Tel Aviv. The picture came out dark and her face was barely visible in it. Marisol photographed the two of them together before they entered the office: he is taller than Jenny even though he’s standing hunched; the suit fits him; and he of course looks older than her.
Fifteen years separated them.
The mayor asked if they had prepared something to say to each other before they signed the documents and he said no. Agapitos, the driver, waited for them in the office, where he functioned as witness, interpreter, and photographer. And that was it. Agapitos asked them to kiss against the background of the large window that looked out onto the sands and the palm trees and the sea. In the afternoon they arrived at an otherwise deserted hotel, the Flamingo Beach, and a waiter brought, just for the two of them, a bottle of champagne and macaroni in cream sauce. They sat by themselves on the balcony. His mother called to congratulate them and Jenny said that her sister would call soon from Berlin, but she didn’t call. In the evening they undressed, as they had done a few times in his apartment, she before him, in the bathroom. She waited for him in bed without clothes on. He used the bathroom after her, brushed his teeth, took Cialis, returned to the darkened room, and got into bed in his underwear. The two of them wanted children then, or at least he thought so. As usual, they first lay silently next to each other for a long time, on their backs, and Jenny slowly caressed his soft stomach and his smooth thighs, without looking, until something happened.
The next morning they returned to Israel, and on the flight he again was stricken with nausea.
And now he will need to get on a plane again because of her.
HE COMPLETED HIS WORK EARLY, BEFORE nine thirty. And didn’t imagine that this might be the last time. He covered the bowls of fresh salad with tinfoil, cleared a place for them on the shelves in the refrigerator, and cleaned the kitchen. On the call-in talk shows a woman from Jerusalem said that her husband was in the middle of becoming religious and was growing distant from her because of her impurity, and afterward another caller said that his wife had abandoned him with a four-month-old baby, and Chaim listened in shock to his story. The apartment was dark and silent after he turned off the radio, and he turned some lights on. But the silence didn’t bother him. He hadn’t been alone at night for many years. Tonight he wouldn’t stretch the thin thread across the bedroom’s door frame, he would just lock the door.
It was true that his search didn’t turn up anything, but the packing was over. And the activity lessened the stress he had been feeling since the afternoon. There was still space in the suitcase, and he put toys, as well as two children’s books, inside, and only afterward did he call his mother. The children were already in bed. She said to him, “They asked when you’re coming. I told them tomorrow. I didn’t say anything about a trip,” and he said, “No need, I’ll tell them.” She didn’t ask where he planned to take them, and if she had asked he wouldn’t have told her, although she apparently knew already.
“Did you make all your arrangements?” she asked, and he said, “Almost.”
“And did you talk to the teacher?”
“Not yet.”
“Call now. Afterward it will be too late.”
He had put off the conversation with the teacher because he didn’t know what he would say to her exactly. Would he have to reveal that he was interrogated by the police and say that that was why he was calling? Of course she already knew. When he picked up Shalom from daycare this afternoon he saw a patrol on the street. And should he tell her that he was taking the children on vacation for a few days? This would explain to her why Shalom wouldn’t be coming to daycare when she didn’t see him in the morning, and that’s why he told this to the Russian assistant, but if he was right about her having directed the investigator to him, then she was liable to inform the police that he was going away.
The thought of making the apology caused him shame, but he didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t doing this for himself but rather for the sake of the children. He also hadn’t yet decided if he’d tell her that he had no connection to the suitcase or only that he was no longer angry with her and understood that he had made a mistake. He recalled the day he returned from work and saw the cut on Shalom’s forehead. Jenny refused to do anything and didn’t want to talk about it. He went to the daycare the next day and confronted the teacher only because of her.
He spread out the blankets in the children’s room and straightened them over the sheets. Afterward he called the teacher and didn’t get an answer.
They’d go away for a few days, and when they returned there would be no more investigation. They’d go back to their routine, and with time the children wouldn’t ask him about Jenny anymore. How would he make sure that the investigation was over? He thought that he could ask his mother to follow it in the papers. In any case, if they didn’t look for him again, he would know th
at it was okay for them to return. And maybe the trip would return Ezer to him. Maybe it would make clear to his son what really happened that night. Maybe it would explain to him who his father really was, and who his mother had been.
He waited a few minutes, then called again, but once more didn’t get an answer. For a moment he thought that she wasn’t answering because she knew that he was the caller, from the number, but it was unlikely that she would know his home number.
The time between attempts got shorter and shorter, and he held the receiver for a long time before he gave up and put it down.
He called her for the last time at eleven thirty.
7
THE REPORT ABOUT THE PREVIOUS INVESTIGATION was in his in-box when he woke up Monday morning, a little after five. In the subject line, Ilana wrote For your eyes only and the message was brief: I WAS ASKED TO WRITE, AND I COULDN’T HAVE WRITTEN DIFFERENTLY. I HOPE YOU’LL UNDERSTAND. AND PLEASE DON’T DISAPPEAR ON ME. ILANA. The report hadn’t arrived from a police account but from a Hotmail account under the name of rebeccajones21. It was sent after midnight, probably from her home.
Avraham placed the coffee on the burner, to let it brew, and showered in water that hadn’t gotten warm enough. It was still possible to delete the report from his in-box, still possible to put off reading it. Marianka would certainly have implored him to do just that. He was in the middle of a new investigation, and it was best not to return to a case that he had left behind. His cell phone started ringing while he was reading but he didn’t get up to check who was calling him at such an early hour, because he thought that he knew and couldn’t have imagined what had happened a few hours earlier.
The threat had been carried out.
The suitcase was in fact just the beginning.
THE FIRST SENTENCE THAT ILANA WROTE in the report was sharp and painful: On the evening of Wednesday, May 4th, Hannah Sharabi, the mother of the victim, Ofer Sharabi, submitted a complaint about the disappearance of her son. At this time she already knew that Ofer was no longer among the living and that he had met his end in a violent incident with his father, Rafael Sharabi, the previous evening.
A Possibility of Violence Page 9