Missing

by Adiva Geffen

  “Let him speak!” The voices were getting louder. A few other crowd members tried to slip outside.

  “Judith Morbed managed to vanish and reemerged in the state of California under the name of Sarai Cole, where she met the man who now calls himself Dr. Barak Magidal. Together, they set up an investment fund, took all the money, and escaped to France before they could be tried. Three years ago, she was arrested again on charges of fraud and extortion, and she is wanted by the FBI and the French police. I accuse The Duchess of fraud and of the murders of Avital and Daria.”

  Excited cries of shock and anger rumbled through the hall.

  “I invite The Duchess to come and refute my words. Let The Duchess answer a simple question: Who are you, Deborah Magidal? An impostor, a crook, or a saint?”

  Ehud was larger than life.

  The buzzing of the crowd died down, and a deafening sound was heard overhead. The sound of a mighty engine.

  “Bender, they’re getting away,” I shouted.

  The crowd shifted restlessly. The noise intensified.

  I saw Bender give a signal to his cops, and they moved hastily to the yard.

  “Barak doesn’t even have a medical degree,” continued Ehud, away from all the commotion, somewhere in a radio studio. “He is known to the police as Alon Milman, arrested at the age of twenty on charges of raping a minor. He escaped to America and there was arrested on charges of establishing a network that catered to the perversions of pedophiles. He was tried and sentenced to seventeen years in prison, but escaped, changed his name and…”

  Cries of shock and amazement washed over the hall. People rose from their seats and began to move toward the door. I went to Sammy and stood next to her.

  “… Like many of you, my sister Avital was seduced by the lies of the Great Mother and thought, just like you, that she had found God. Just like you, she was forced to hand over her property to those crooks, act according to the demands of the cult, and sever all contact with her family. But my sister also had to—” His voice cracked, and he paused briefly. “She was so beautiful, and he, that Dr. Barak…he claimed not only her mind, but her body as well. That was why she received special treatment, very special…but she… she got pregnant…”

  There was no sound in the room but Ehud’s voice, until a few of the girls still in the room broke into tears. Perhaps Avital wasn’t the only one who had gotten nocturnal visits from that creep, Barak.

  “When she became pregnant, they moved her to their house and gave her the best treatment in the world. Avital truly believed they saw her as a member of their family. But two hours after the baby was born, it was taken from her. They moved her back to the complex and claimed she was unfit to raise him. They refused to allow her to see the baby and that broke her heart, crushed her soul. And I wasn’t there to…”

  Ehud’s voice broke with emotion again, and he stopped. The few people remaining in the hall sat absolutely still and silent, fascinated by his words. Hushed sobbing broke out now and then.

  “From that moment on Avital saw them as enemies,” Ehud finally continued. “But she was alone, so she decided to get away. Her plan was to take her child with her. She had no intention of leaving him there. She combed through their documents to prepare a way out for herself. And what treasures she found there — newspaper clippings, correspondence, arrest warrants, and bank account information.” He stopped for a moment then continued.

  “You all know how she ended her life. She jumped to her death, not because she wanted to, but because they could control her from afar, without getting her blood on their hands, just like they knew how to push Daria to her death…”

  The last members of the audience exited through the hall’s main entrance.

  Sirens wailed and people screamed. A terrible shrieking was heard from above, as if a great eagle were circling the house. I saw Sammy faltering with her walker toward the exit. I gave her a signal and hurried to the yard.

  We saw them on the roof. Deborah, Barak, and a helicopter.

  Deborah was holding a bankers box, and a laptop was clutched in Barak’s hands. The rats were getting away. They stepped inside the helicopter, which immediately took to the air.

  “Wait for me,” I heard Eve calling. She stood on the roof and waved her hands in vain. Two policemen exploded through the roof door, guns drawn. The metal bird rose higher into the air, circled once, then headed toward the horizon.

  Eve remained standing, arms outstretched, screaming and cursing. The policemen approached her, and she backed away, crying and pleading, weeping and screaming. When she reached the railing at the roof’s edge, she turned around, lifted the hem of her dress stepped over it and jumped. For a heartbeat, she hovered in the air like a huge bird, then she crashed to the ground.

  A terrible silence followed, then people seemed to snap out of it and rushed to the gates to escape. All they wanted was to leave behind the nightmare in which they had taken an active part.

  Cooper and Bender were rounding up the guards and putting them in patrol cars, one by one.

  I went back to the hall. Ehud continued to speak excitedly and reported the recent developments to his listeners. Only my Sammy stood there — her face beaming.

  “The bigger they are…eh, Sammy?”

  “If I weren’t in so much pain, Shoshkowitz, I’d take you in my arms and do the mambo with you all over this hall.”

  “God, I was so worried.” I hugged that lovable, oversized woman. “Tell me, how did you even get here?”

  “They …Eve told me…”

  “Eve again?”

  “She told me they had you. I thought I needed to… I chased Yoel away and…never mind.” She looked away, embarrassed.

  “And you decided to come here to save me?”

  “I guess all these painkillers made me a little stupid. I went with Eve. I told them you didn’t know anything, that I was the only one…that if they’d let you go… But enough with this gooey part, Shoshkowitz, I don’t feel like it.”

  Instead of breaking into a mambo, I gave her a big, warm kiss on the cheek. We limped back to the yard together.

  “Galia!” I suddenly remembered “She’s still locked up in there,” I screamed to Cooper, and he hurried through the hall and out to the shed to release the prisoner from the infamous blue room. A few minutes of work, and the door gave way.

  Finally! Galia!

  ◊◊◊

  “I’m telling you,” Cooper said to all his friends, “your guy is in love.” They all burst out laughing. Like little children.

  “What are you laughing at.” He took me in his arms and kissed me. “Take my word for it, love is good for your health.”

  41

  Ginger was extra-careful driving. Even so, every bump in the road made Sammy break into a series of piteous sighs. My dad sat next to Ginger, telling him for the sixth time how Cooper had reached him that night and turned his house into a military headquarters from which he had planned the operation, called his buddies, and taken old Mrs. Ford to go out on his rescue mission.

  “I don’t understand why Dikla didn’t study to be a teacher,” he finally said. “We told her a million times— teaching is a comfortable job, you get lots of vacation, field trips, and a ton of respect…”

  At 10:00 am Ginger opened the door for his passengers, not forgetting to pat himself on the back. “Have you ever seen such punctuality? What do you say, Sammy?”

  “That you have to come inside and taste the rum babas.”

  Baba, his wife, and the waitress waited for us at the front door of Baba Joe’s Cup of Joe, wearing their best clothes and wide smiles. A sign hung on the door, Closed for a Private Event. He explained the reason to the regular customers who dropped by and gave each a small cardboard box with the ultimate compensation — a freshly baked rum baba.

  “Look at the new sign,
” he whispered to me, “Baba Joe’s Cup of Joe — Rum babas that taste like heaven. And it’s all thanks to your investor friend.”

  “Baba, look, I’m terribly sorry, but…”

  “Please don’t apologize,” he said and hugged me. “Ask my wife what I told her today. ‘Those two ladies brought me luck.’ I went to my accountant to prepare a business plan, and he immediately brought his brother to see it and we started a company. Soon, this country is going to be conquered by the wonders of rum baba.”

  Cooper and his fantastic four arrived, all of them squeezed into my Kia. The Shimron family had gone to retrieve Ehud and Sagit with David, Avital’s son. When they arrived, they looked like one big happy family. They had lost a daughter, but had gained little David, who looked stunned by all the commotion around him and all the presents given to him by his new friends, still not comprehending that The Great Mother, as he had been asked to call her, was gone and had left him on his own.

  “I don’t know how to thank you enough for helping us stop those criminals.” Dina couldn’t stop gushing.

  Sammy elbowed me in the ribs and said in a stage whisper, “She could always thank us by paying for the job,” then she smiled broadly, making it clear she was only kidding.

  Galia remained in the hospital in serious condition. She suffered from malnutrition and from strange scabs that covered her entire body. Yoash was with her, gathering bits and pieces of information about how the gang had managed its affairs, how they had been able to condition people to jump to their deaths on command — like Daria, who had crashed to the sidewalk and left me to bear the weight of my guilt.

  Rutha and Jonah came to celebrate with us as well. Jonah, wearing an elegant gray suit, shook everyone’s hands excitedly and Rutha told me with a warm smile, “You know, they interviewed Jonah on the television today? He’s becoming a celebrity.”

  “Just don’t let him do Dancing with the Stars,” I told her. She hesitated for a moment, then burst into loud laughter.

  Jonah asked me to come closer and told me he and my dad had become fast friends, especially since they learned both were avid chess players. They’d already scheduled to meet and play chess every Wednesday.

  “I lost Daria, but I found a new friend,” he said with a poignant smile.

  ◊◊◊

  I went over to Ehud and updated him on the final developments. In the end, Shosh/Eve had been the only one apprehended. She was furious at the traitors who had preferred to take off without her and was willing to sing and give the police all the details about where they might have gone, hoping to get a reduced sentence.

  “Yes, I heard about that,” he said. “At least they confiscated all their property, including the fat bank accounts.”

  “Where do you think they took off to?”

  “Who knows? Peru, Belgium, China… Unfortunately, they can only prosecute them for fraud and blackmail, not for murder.”

  “Yoash thinks we’ll hear about them again in a few years. Scumbags like that have a way of resurfacing in a new setting and under new names.”

  ◊◊◊

  I needed some fresh air and decided to go outside for a smoke.

  Cooper came outside after me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

  And it was at that precise moment that it finally came.

  Not like a guest who calls in advance to let you know he’s coming, who hesitates and politely asks to come in, wondering whether he has arrived on time.

  It came all at once, storming its way into the world.

  Finally. The rain.

  It rolled its way across the sky with lightning and thunder, then a downpour showered from above and struck the dry earth.

  The rain we had been waiting for so many months, the rain that children and farmers had prayed and begged for. It poured and filled the wells and grottos and flowed into the streams and pools and wet the hair of my one and only Cooper, who held my chin in both hands, leaned in a little, and gave me the best kiss a woman has ever received, a kiss with the sweet taste of first rain.

  And we laughed, both of us, wet and happy and wrapped in each other’s arms and hearts, letting the rain dance and swirl around us.