Missing

by Adiva Geffen

  “Just weird, you know. He wouldn’t stop talking about a solar eclipse happening tomorrow. Said that it’s a sign the world might be coming to an end. Just another nutjob.”

  “Maybe the delivery guy and his crazy talk scared her. Maybe she thought he knew something.”

  “Maybe. Anything is possible with that girl. How could I have known a few bites from a crummy pizza with some tofu and dead vegetables on it would make her jump off the roof?”

  “Pizza with tofu? Disgusting. Tell me, did she seem unhappy about the coming reunion?”

  “Actually, it looked like she was scared to go back there, but she also wanted to. She was mixed up, Sammy. I just couldn’t put my finger on that girl. It was like she had two souls in her.”

  “Really, is that what you think, Dr. Phil? Too bad you weren’t shrink enough to know she was about to jump.” Sammy closed one eye; the other was still staring at me. Finally, she switched to motherly tenderness and said, “Shoshkowitz, I don’t blame you. I’m just trying to understand. I just want to try and figure out what happened here while your whiskey-drenched brain was on vacation.”

  “My brain was right here. Whiskey makes it stronger. All I remember is that she busted my ovaries with some bullshit about the meaning of life, ambiguity, and fulfilling one’s potential.”

  “What exactly did she say?”

  “She mentioned her aunt Deborah, whom she called The Great Mother, and her parents, if you must know. They’re probably the ones who fucked her up in the first place.”

  “Dikla, enough. Don’t forget you’re talking about her parents—”

  “Well, how do you explain it otherwise? What makes a nice girl with a heart of gold, a girl who takes care of the elderly, decide to just leave everything behind? A house that’s like a palace, two Jeeps with mag wheels, and more jewelry than the Duchess of Cambridge?”

  “Why are you so sure they’re the ones who messed her up?”

  “I just have this feeling something was very wrong there, that maybe they were the ones who had her kidnapped.”

  “Is that the whiskey still talking?”

  “Listen, even at your office, when she spoke with them on the phone, I could tell she was scared of them. Didn’t you notice? When she talked to them, she…just turned off, lost herself in the conversation, repeated stupid sentences like a parrot.”

  Sammy nodded. “Did she tell you anything else?”

  “Some more crap about light and illumination, then she closed up again. Generally speaking, the girl was as depressed as a toothless cat and as scared as a mouse without a hole. Maybe it was because of the upcoming reunion with her ‘concerned parents.’”

  “That’s enough.” Sammy touched a finger to my lips. “You didn’t like Eve right from the beginning, so please cut it out. Tell me, did she give you any reason to think she might do something that drastic?”

  I shook my head. “No. On the contrary, she seemed very passive. From the moment we found her, it was as if she was… I don’t know, Sammy. After the delivery guy left, they called, her parents, which was a little peculiar. She cried…asked their forgiveness, told them she had strayed off the right path, that she saw the light again. Get it? Suddenly she was talking about the light. Half the light bulbs in my apartment are burned out...”

  “Shoshkowitz, what’s going on in that head of yours?”

  “I told you, she was scared of them. She said something about the blue room, asked them not to put her in there. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

  “Everything about this case strikes me as odd. Speaking of odd, what’s wrong that stupid cat of yours?”

  “Apologize this second! Chechnya is the Einstein of cats. What do you mean what’s wrong with her?”

  “I tried to give her some Polish sausage when I came in. She didn’t even move a whisker. But she’s not dead either. I checked. How do you explain that?”

  Chechnya, an alley cat with blue blood, was sprawled on the carpet, body limp, eyes closed. Only her paws were moving, twitching in the air. “Maybe she just doesn’t like your sausage.”

  “If you ask me,” Sammy continued, “I think she is, how should I put it, lazy?”

  “You just don’t understand cats. They consider low-quality sausage to be a personal insult and go to sleep in protest. And getting back to Daria, perhaps the girl decided to take the final, fatal plunge because meeting your precious Eve seemed worse to her than meeting the one who’d created her from Adam’s rib.”

  Where had all those thoughts come from? Maybe I’d had little too much to drink after all.

  3

  It was only ten days before that I’d first heard the name Daria.

  I learned about the Magidal family and the preschool network it owned while preparing for a new assignment at our tiny but successful investigative agency. Actually, it’s not “ours,” it’s Sammy’s. And it’s not all that successful.

  I had never visited Yokneam before the investigation. Unless, of course, you consider stopping at the nearby truck stop for a Diet Coke as a visit.

  I wanted the case file to look important and professional, so I labeled it “K12/34 0.” That made all the difference.

  It was the sort of case detective agencies take only during times of crisis, or in other words, when your paying customers and your bank balance are both at zero, and the bank manager starts looking murderous when you ask him for another loan.

  We’d been asked to locate Daria, or as Eve Magidal had described her, “the little lamb that has gone astray.”

  Mrs. Magidal, or Shosh-Eve Magidal, and Sammy knew each other back in the days when Sammy was a hundred and fifty pounds lighter. Presenting the investigation as a favor for an old friend helped Sammy pretend she still possessed some professional pride and integrity. Judging by the looks Mrs. Magidal gave her, their relationship looked a lot like the friendship between a viper and an exposed ankle.

  Breaking a strict office policy, Sammy had agreed to hold the first meeting in her apartment. Sammy usually insists on meeting all clients at the office, where she takes care to seat them in lower chairs than hers, so they’ll know who’s the boss right away. She normally presents me as a senior partner and apologizes for not being able to introduce the rest of the team, who were all in the middle of undercover assignments “in the field.” But Eve Magidal had demanded to hold the meeting at Sammy’s home, and Sammy yielded.

  “With friends, you always have to break the protocol,” she explained while letting me know about the upcoming meeting. “And try not to be your normal abnormal self and be there on time, preferably with some croissants…almond or chocolate would do nicely.”

  I promised.

  ◊◊◊

  I trudged to Sammy’s house. There wasn’t any point moving my car from the parking spot I’d found. Finding a parking spot in Sammy’s neighborhood would be like winning the grand Bosnian lottery, which means even if you’re lucky enough to win it, someone would probably shoot you for it.

  The shop windows showcased dusty boots yearning for mud and heaters desperate for cold rooms. The weather forecasters, hard-hearted people, explained that even though it was mid-November, temperatures would continue to rise and no rain-friendly low pressure systems were in sight. A sandstorm carried by southern winds raged in Tel Aviv, painting the gray of the city in shades of mustard, and sending me into endless sneezing fits.

  The word rain had actually vanished from some local dictionaries.

  “Did you bring the croissants?” Sammy stood in the doorway sour-faced, mummified in her best clothes, normally reserved for weddings, anniversaries, and funerals.

  “No, but I did bring Oreos. God, Sammy, what’s up with that suit?”

  “What about it?”

  “It has so much glitter your friend will think you’re the tooth fairy.”

  Sammy wrinkl
ed her forehead and led me through her maze of cheap bamboo furniture and Afghan carpets to the living room. I’d spent enough time with her to know the only thing that would improve her mood.

  “Coffee?” I asked and turned to the kitchen to make her the dietitian’s nightmare cup of joe — with six heaping spoonfuls of sugar.

  When I got back to the living room with the coffee, she was already sprawled on the sofa. I sat across from her and gently stroked her cheek.

  “Sammy, dear, someone stole your dog and shat in your laundry? Or is this just another case of the blues?”

  She smiled, and I knew she was slowly snapping out of it.

  “Since our client is late, why don’t you tell me a little about her?”

  “Her name is Shosh Morali,” Sammy began, “but nowadays she calls herself Eve Magidal. I’ve never told you about her? We went to school together.”

  “And she wants us to investigate…?”

  “I’ve no idea what she wants us to investigate.”

  “I thought you just said you two are friends.”

  “We were, sort of, thirty years ago. You’ll never believe what we called her in high school — Czardas.” Sammy shook with laughter. “Go ahead, ask me why.”

  “I’m asking. Why?”

  “Because of the dance, you mentally challenged girl! Czardas is the national Hungarian dance. It all started at the sixth grade end-of-the-year party. She had prepared a dance for us. Right after “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and “Karma Chameleon,” someone turned off the lights, someone else put a record on, and then she made a dramatic entrance into the classroom. God, I can still see her.” Sammy choked with laughter. “First came a stocking-clad leg, which she shook from side to side. A hand followed, sheathed in a red lace glove. Finally, Shosh herself appeared, jumping up and down like a girl possessed.

  “Everyone was rolling on the floor. But she hadn’t had enough. Same thing happened at the next party. Lights out, leg, hand, glove, and voilà — Shosh exploding into the room and destroying us all with another czardas. Same drum, same shaking stocking-clad leg. It just went on and on, every single year. Get it? Seven years. Think how many times I had to watch that nightmare!”

  While Sammy continued to chatter, I didn’t sit idle. I surfed the web on my laptop, a gift from my father to celebrate my promotion to partner — Sammy’s elegant alternative to giving me a raise. I feverishly searched for more interesting, non-czardas-related information about our client.

  I quickly learned that the lady lived in an upper-class Herzliya neighborhood with her husband. Not bad. A white pages search yielded a few phone numbers, two of them from up north. I assumed the Magidals owned another house there and wrote down the numbers. Such research always inflates the bill for expenses. Sammy would be extremely happy. I surfed on.

  On the website of a convention held last summer on the subject of treating eating disorders in youths through self-empowerment, I found a short biography of Dr. Barak Magidal — an eminently respected life coach who had emigrated to Israel from the United States — a lecturer and sought-after group instructor specializing in parent-child relationships. A link led me to a photo of the good doctor, a mustached, smiling man, graying at the temples. A reasonably good-looking male specimen.

  I scrolled here and scrolled there and found the summary of his thesis for the PhD in social work he’d earned at the Sorbonne and some information about his expertise in hypnosis. He’d taken pains to explain that he combined ancient spiritual Indian lore with Kabbalah and Western psychology. He was forty-five, married to Eve. Forty-five? Eve had found herself a young rooster, because unless I was wrong, and I’m never wrong, Sammy, her former classmate, had tried to hide her fiftieth birthday two years ago. Google reported that the doctor had recently published two articles: “Detoxification in Affluent Society” and “The Barak Method for Detoxification.”

  I found information about Eve Magidal on the Magidal Preschool Network’s website. Apparently these were preschools for children aged two to four employing The Deborah Method, “An advanced educational method recommended by experts worldwide. A method that empowers children and strengthens their inner selves while utilizing their inner resources in the spirit of freedom and democracy.” There was a lot more psychobabble about energy and power centers in the human body. I couldn’t find a photo of Deborah, the guru from whose feverish mind all those pedagogical pearls of wisdom flowed. I did, however, learn that the Magidal Preschool Network was very much in demand and currently numbered five separate preschools, with three soon to follow. All were located in areas whose residents wouldn’t be in need of welfare assistance in the foreseeable future.

  Enrollment, as I discovered, involved insanely expensive fees and monstrous tuition for the parents, and for the child, placement on an endless waiting list and the pleasure of “cognitive and social compatibility tests.” Preschool tests, by the way, took place every January, eight months before the lucky few would pass through the coveted Deborah Method preschool gates. I almost expected to see a university preparatory program or an ovarian reserve fertility test.

  Sammy was still going on about the czardas. It took her a few good minutes to realize I wasn’t listening. “What did you find out?”

  “Not much. He treats eating disorders by hypnotizing patients and giving them an enema or something. Soft stool equals solid income.”

  “Shoshkowitz.” Sammy grimaced.

  “Well, I’m not the one who invented it. On the other hand, I’m sure you’ll be happy to learn the Magidals have one house in Herzliya’s richest neighborhood and another one up north, I’m not exactly sure where yet. And your Eve is into education, specializing in emptying parents’ wallets and bank accounts.”

  “Well, I’m not surprised. She’s always been into teaching. She studied education and was a special ed teacher at some point. By the way, I didn’t get the chance to tell you about the perfume we swiped together and that she divorced the guy we both desperately wanted—”

  “Did I just hear you say ‘guy’ and ‘wanted,’ or is something wrong with my hearing?”

  “Yes, I fell in love. It lasted exactly five minutes and twenty seconds.”

  “Sammy…” I tried hard not to laugh.

  “Shoshkowitz, I’ll have you know there was a time when those shaving creatures actually aroused me, believe it or not. Now can we get back to the subject at hand?.”

  “So what does Evie want from you?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. You know how long it’s been since I last saw her? Decades. I know she lived in LA for a few years and that… But what does it matter? We’ll hear it from the horse’s mouth soon, and if we don’t — you just keep digging till we get all the information we need. Remember, Shoshkowitz—”

  “Knowledge is power!” I shouted Sammy’s famous mantra. Sammy smiled from ear to ear, looking like the Dalai Lama after he’d successfully introduced thousands to the secrets of Tibetan Buddhism.

  The doorbell rang. Sammy raked her fingers through her disheveled hair and limped to the door.

  Evie Magidal proved to be a likeable auntie, stuffed like a sausage into a teal tracksuit, with obviously permed hair burning in unnatural shades of red, and matching flame-colored glasses. Sammy and Eve faced each other at the doorway, shocked to see their own aging reflected in the other. I couldn’t help but hear Gypsy music in my mind and thought of Evie jumping up and down in her tracksuit to the sound of screeching violins.

  4

  I had to wait a good hour (three cigarettes and two packages of Oreos, to be exact) for the two childhood friends to finish rehashing all their sweet high school memories. Then I got up and told Sammy that I had to leave because Bodernick was waiting for us at the office to discuss “the project.”

  Bodernick is a code word we use. It means Get going with the investigation, you pain-in-a-donkey’s-ass.


  “Let him wait.” Sammy waved a hand and whispered something to Evie, who let loose with sickeningly childish laughter.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said after settling down. “I assume you’re Dikla.”

  I smiled, but kept my hand to myself.

  “So, tell me, how’s life, and what’s going on with what’s-his-name, your husband?” Sammy asked cautiously, trying to steer Eve in the desired direction.

  “Barak? My husband? He’s fine, why?”

  “I just thought, you know, us being an investigation firm and you suddenly calling after all those years…”

  “You mean…?”

  “Just tell me what’s going on between you two.”

  Evie raised her eyes to the ceiling and broke out laughing. “No, no… we’re doing just fine. Second relationships are always sweeter. Ten years of marriage is not all wine and roses, you know, but I can’t complain. You’ll see what a rare person he is once you meet him. He’s a saint. Not an evil bone in his body.”

  Sammy listened attentively.

  “He’s American. Born in the Netherlands and grew up in the States. I met him while taking a workshop in LA.”

  “What workshop?”

  “He runs a workshop for addictions. He’s such a soul savior, the way he influences people, touches them. His sister Deborah lives with us. An amazing woman. I’m blessed to have her in my house.”

  “Sounds sticky,” I tossed out a quick remark, and they both immediately gave me scorching looks.

  “We live in perfect harmony — three people with a single mind. She’s a special woman, a spiritual woman. Just now, for example, she’s in the midst of a retreat, cloistered in her rooms. She’s just that sort of woman…enlightened. We all live and breathe her philosophy. Her concept of the world fills my very being with light. A spectacular woman. I feel so lucky to be able to serve the strength and energy she’s been blessed with. She is a highly respected philosopher. People quote her all over the globe. Here.” She fished a white fridge magnet from her pocket and handed it to me. “Nothing in the world causes more suffering than the pursuit of happiness.”