by Dana Arama
My lesson wasn’t quite over yet.
part 2 - Gabriella 2010
Chapter 4
The TV screen flickered in front of my gazing eyes. A few weeks had passed since I started opening my world to news from the outside.
I developed a habit of searching the newspapers, hoping to find a specific article that might have been written over time however, time passed and my hope had begun to wane.
In the last couple of days, I’d been repeatedly stumbling upon the same report, which showed a young man in uniform latching on to a rope dangling from a hovering helicopter above him. I recalled a time when it was my image plastered over every newspaper in town; when I was breaking news, and those despicable news reporters milked every story to its last drop. I felt bad for that boy even though I had no idea of the full details of his story. I was glued to the screen, though all I wanted was to pull myself away from the images.
I poured myself another glass of port. It looked pale. In my mind, I could see Esther giving me a judging look. “I’m finding too many empty bottles, Madame.” She only called me ‘Madame’ when she was really worried. She was right, of course. I was consuming way too much alcohol every evening. I fell madly in love with its numbing abilities. It was my new best friend, the only one I wanted to see.
I’d been keeping to myself for several years now. There were few whom I granted permission to enter my personal space, but no one took an active part in my life anymore. Loneliness was forced upon me when my son and husband left me. Or perhaps it was me that abandoned them through choice of action? Semantics over who was at fault never eased my loneliness; on the contrary, it was built on a foundation of guilt.
The wound really deepened while I was at the morgue, identifying Dan’s body. Guilt overpowered me. I laid my head on his shoulder, the way I did when we were teens, and whispered loving words in his ear. I begged for his forgiveness. I longed to feel his warmth again, to place a kiss on his cheek, which had grown stiff after his heart ceased to beat. I wanted him to know how deeply sorry I was for betraying his love. His family’s presence behind the room’s glass window, watching my every move, magnified my emptiness. I no longer had Dan to stand between us. At the time, I thought, I lost my shield—from now on their poisonous arrows will shoot straight at me.
I left my husband’s body behind, moving onwards to an even tougher obligation: identifying my son’s body. I sat by him in the cold morgue, refusing to leave his side. I demanded he remained untouched. I dared look at his face. At first, all I wanted to do was die. His jaw was crooked, his lips were cut, and he had a bloody, broken nose; all were mute evidence of the pain he had suffered. My eyes caught a sudden movement as his hand slid off to my side. No one else in this world would have tucked it back in with the same gentleness I did. No one would think twice about being careful with a dead hand. I felt time stretch with every pull as they tried to separate me from him. All that was good inside me died with my son, right there and then.
My deterioration was slow, but followed a steady path. At first I cried constantly. I missed my son so badly it felt like my flesh was tearing apart. Endless thoughts of how much he must have suffered during his dying moments haunted me day and night. The fact that he was no longer in pain could have been consoling, had I been able to accept his loss. At that point, I could not bring to mind thoughts of not seeing him ever again.
In the weeks that followed ‘the event’ (this is how the police report referred to my disaster) I kept thinking about him as if he was a phone call away. Missing him began to physically hurt and the only respite I could find was visiting him in my mind. I could see him growing up, performing his service commitment to the IDF, enjoying his last day of service and the morning of his discharge, how handsome he would have looked on his wedding day, a newborn baby in the stroller he would have been pushing with... his hand.
The image of his shattered hand always seemed to find its way into my mind. I remembered every detail, especially the bruise marks that were nearly black and ringed with purple where the bone was broken. Perhaps the most horrifying of all was his fingers, bent so very unnaturally upwards. This hand carried a message, delivered to me from beneath the sheet. It was a last word, one that I’ll never forget.
I spent the seven days of the shivah alone in Dan’s study. Many people came to pay their respects and console me. Only some guests got to meet me, and that was only out of obligation.
When the shivah was over, I could finally avoid Dan’s parents, Lily and Avner, and his brother, Nathaniel, who had returned from the States. I couldn’t stand the way they looked at me, staring at me with so much blame. There was only one reason for my existence in their lives: to care for their son and grandson. Now, after my miserable failure, they had no need for me. Nathaniel even said it out loud: “This is all because of you,” but I felt so much guilt as it was that I did not bother to think much about what he meant exactly. In the following years, I preferred to assume he was blaming me for losing his freedom to wander freely between the two continents, being grounded here in Israel to manage the family business after his brother’s death.
My conversations with Dan’s spirit were held in our bedroom. Initially, every conversation began with an apology. Later, I replaced the apologies with blame. I let out all my emotions on him. I opened up about all those insulting moments, how belittling he was and how he practically drove me into Sergey’s arms. I described the affair in great detail. It hurt him, and, like a boomerang, the pain shot right back to me, inflicted by his eternal silence.
I can’t recall exactly when the conversations with my beloved turned to conversations with God, but I know it was right around when my tears dried up and my soul started filling with anger. In the dark of night I angrily asked God, “Why me?”
I turned to the police for answers, tried to be as involved as possible with the investigation, but they politely turned me down. My desperation led me out of my comfort zone, and I contacted an old friend, Amir Cohen, who worked somewhere within Israel’s security services. He was very sympathetic to my situation, but there wasn’t much he could help with. He explained how Mossad, the Israeli Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Department “… do not handle civilian matters.” I turned to my last resort, the Kormans, who hired their own investigators team. At first, naturally, the investigation focused on Dan’s new and recent business partners. Thinking back, the fear I sensed every time the subject came up seems so obvious. Unfortunately, that lead turned out to be a dead end. Once the deal was executed, the parties involved got access to an emerging market, and it yielded a decent profit. If the perpetrators took any part in it, they managed to hide their tracks very well. Oddly, I felt happy for Dan. I would not have liked watching his father and brother slander his reputation as a good businessman. The newspapers seemed to have a field day with it, disregarding the facts. He certainly wasn’t a ‘capitalist swine lead to the slaughterhouse,’ as one commentator wrote.
Total devastation soon followed for me. It happened when a series of photos from the kidnapper’s trial was published in the newspaper. Their faces showed no signs of regret for their crimes or for the fact that they had gotten caught. It looked as if they expected to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives, as if they accepted it as an inherent part of the lifestyle they chose. They showed no regrets, they did not put on yamakas; they didn’t wear proper attire or even try to cover up their tattoos, to at least appear decent. I observed their stone cold faces closely. The photos were easier to look at, compared to watching them in person at the courthouse.
I can vividly recall one of the news articles about them. It was a special report in the paper’s weekend supplement. It was long and extremely detailed. One photo in particular grabbed my attention, taking up an entire page. The true evil nature of those murderers revealed itself in their satisfied grins, accentuated by the photo. I was mesmerized by one detail in particular. It was a circled Star of David tattooed on the a
rm of one of them. It was familiar. I’d seen it before: I had traced it with my fingers, covered it with kisses of lust. “It’s not just a Star of David, it’s a symbol of belonging,” he had claimed then. Me and my foolish naivety! I interpreted his words and his tattoo as testament of his belonging to the Jewish faith. Now, I finally understood: it was a pentagram marking his allegiance to a criminal organization. I gave the Internet a chance, searching for relevant information. My search didn’t yield much except that tattoos are not just a form of art for members of the Russian Mafia; their tattoos often tell a personal life story. One other fact echoed in my mind and triggered a turning point in my life: a tattoo around the chest area symbolized leadership within the organization.
Time passed, and the trial ended. The guilty parties were sent to jail, leaving the one calling the shots free as a bird. I could recognize this demon, having lain naked by his side, but I couldn’t bear to admit it. By now, I’d stopped wondering why it had happened or why I didn’t share the same fate as my loved ones. Now I was bewildered, still wondering: why me? Why was I chosen as a pawn in his sick game? Did I give out signs of weakness? Every single answer I came up with made me feel even worse, darkening my soul until it was pitch black. I felt that it was my fault entirely.
The first to suffer from my deteriorated state was the gallery, which I neglected to take care of. It was then that a discovery by a man named Yoram came about. He was an assistant manager at our bank. A few months after the shivah, after the police closed the case and the trial was over, he honored me with a house call, asking to discuss my financial situation.
He was very upfront and focused. “Your husband’s life insurance will sustain you for a while, but funds will run out eventually. The Kormans are trying to get their hands on your joint account. Luckily for you, the insurance payment was deposited directly to your personal account, which is also the one funding the gallery. You need to understand - as long as the gallery is inoperable, it’s like a bottomless pit. It’ll drain your account dry in no time.”
I remembered those words. I had heard them before, even when the gallery was making money. “I can’t bring myself to sell it,” I said with tears running down my cheeks, just as I had when Dan brought up the subject.
“You don’t have to let it go,” he said softly, with a surprisingly sympathetic tone. “You could hire someone to help you manage it, for as long as you need to fully recover.”
“I… don’t really see myself handling job interviews right now…”
I was mumbling, thinking out loud, but still he replied, “Would you allow me to help by recommending someone?” His reserved tone matched his cautiously curious expression. “I do believe she fits all the requirements.” He was probably responding to my body language, which signaled my reservations.
“Who is she?”
“My niece. She just completed her art studies in New York and she’s thinking about coming back to Israel.”
“Seeing as we’re on the subject of recommendations… do you happen to know any reputable private detectives? Ones who also handle overseas investigations?” He smiled at me. “The bank works with a private investigation office that specializes in international fraud. I’m sure they can be of service to you.”
A week later, I met Dorit and Oded. I had a care team. Yoram was in charge of protecting my financial interests, and he fearlessly guarded them from the greedy hands of the Korman family. Dorit took charge of the gallery; she managed it with care, personally and professionally. Also at my service was Oded, who supplied information. His work brought about an end to an era of sanity, as I slowly turned away from human companionship and began to find comfort in a new friend: the bottle. Those three were the last I came in contact with and the only ones who had gained my trust.
Esther was the only person I had no choice but see. Feel. Smell, too. She came by the house at least three times a week, dragged me out of bed, made me absorb the light of day, smell her cooking and even taste some. On the days she didn’t show up, I left the blinds shut and sank deep in the abyss of my bed. Apart from Esther, there was Ahmed, the gardener. I remember hearing him stop by at least once a week. The sounds of him tending to the garden seeped through the closed windows, beyond the shutters, and under the pillow where I hid my head. With alcohol fumes shrouding my brain like a blanket of fog, sounds of mowing, raking and trimming reverberated in my ears. I asked Esther to pass on a request: leave the hedge untouched. I wanted it to grow tall until it consumed my house and made it vanish; just like I was trying to vanish. Esther would not permit me to cancel his services. “Cut down on the drinking and the noise won’t make your head explode!” she said. “One day you’ll go outside again and I want the garden to welcome you with colors in bloom.” But I didn’t want a blooming garden; I wanted it as lifeless and colorless as my soul was.
The months passed by. I spent the days sleeping the hours away, inside my locked room. The nights were spent carelessly wandering the streets. I waited until sundown to emerge from my cave and reunite with the bottle. At times, I would also slip in a piece of chocolate, to appease the rebellious child with a treat. It was on one of those nights that despair hit me so hard, I stopped believing that time could heal my broken heart or that I would ever stop crying. I had no hope of ever regaining the will to live. That night, the seed of the forbidden fruit was planted inside my soul. I drove to the darkest ghetto of Tel Aviv, where God is nowhere to be found. I had developed a ceremonial routine where I would share tasteless rubbing alcohol with the homeless drunks and keep the prostitutes company, sharing the grim prognosis of throwing away our lives. These social outcasts gave me asylum; for a couple of hours, I managed to numb the pain of righteousness burning me from the inside. The more alcohol I consumed, the easier it was for me to go back home to my ice palace, fit for the ice queen I had become.
Darkness was prowling the streets of Tel Aviv, and there I was, again, waiting for it to take me away to its lair. I fell asleep on a bench at Meir Park. It was still dark when I woke up, and as I brought myself to a sitting position, all I could feel under my feet was dirt and rocks. I had been robbed. My shoes and purse were gone. Tears started rushing out. She was crying, the girl in my head - she remembered how she cried when she lost her purse on her first night out with friends in the city.
Someone came near the bench. I recognized her. She was a prostitute I’d come across in one of my previous nightly excursions. “Why you cryin’, love?”
I didn’t respond. Between the aftermath of booze and a throbbing migraine, my head was out of reach. The night’s veil was starting to lift, but even the morning glow could not get me to recall her name.
“Well, honey, consider yourself lucky you passed out here. If you were lyin’ wasted at Grand Station, you'd be a goner. Rumor has it Alex was murdered there earlier tonight. You know him, right? Short guy; red flat cap; sleeps at the very far end of the street market?”
Now I was crying for Alex, too. I remembered he told me how he was a successful reporter in Russia until he messed with the wrong people while working on a story, the kind of people that need to stay incognito. That brought his career to a halt. Once, Alex had slipped up and revealed some of the names on his story’s list. The list contained a name I had preferred to forget. He had migrated to Israel and became a shadow of his former self. Secretly, he had revealed that certain incidents, like my husband and son’s murder, had made him start investigating again, and had returned his hope of writing once more. At that time, I was happy for him. I was happy for me too. I was hoping he would find the courage and reveal the true identity of the horrid villain.
“There, there,” she said to me. She wasn’t ready to give up on me as she sat by my side. “It must be a man causing these tears. You don’t look like you ‘powder your nose’ or shoot crap up your veins. Honestly, you don’t look so good now, but still - with your hair, your clothes… believe you me, with a bit of work you’ll look gorgeous in no time… get out of
this hell hole… no man’s worth your tears.” She had no idea what she was talking about. The two men in my life were worth more tears than the amount I’d shed in the past year. My cry turned into muffled wailing. I was thinking I’d better get a cab. My car keys were in the stolen purse.
I was about to stand up when she laid her hand on my shoulder and pulled me back. “Revenge is sweet,” she whispered. After a brief pause she added, “Curse him with a black spell… go to Salima from Jaffa. She can help you.”
“black spell?” I asked disinterestedly. “What’s black spell?” I wiped the tears off my cheeks with my dusty hands.
“Ahh... black spell is magic; a dark voodoo spell. It’ll give you the strength to get revenge for what he did. Make him suffer, like you did, the asshole. Make him cry; make his heart burn with love for you.” I heard bitterness in her words. “Even the Bible says ‘an eye for an eye,’ right? Honey, the Bible doesn’t say that for nothing. If they wanted us to be suckers forever, it would have said ‘an eye for a penis.’ She burst out laughing, got up, and started walking away. I could still hear her from afar, laughing and yelling, “an eye for a penis…’ Did you catch this one, Susan?” I knew who Susan was, too.
When I stood up, I felt the sharpness of the pebbles under my bare feet. My body was aching. I spotted an empty bottle of vodka thrown to the side of the bench. The effects of the alcohol were fading away, leaving me with a hammering head and a dry mouth. I found my purse and one shoe near a trash can close by. I shook the dirt off the bottom of my foot and slipped on the shoe. I looked around for the other, but it was nowhere to be found. Way to go, Cinderella, I mocked myself. Morning had officially broken. I checked inside my bag and found my car keys, but not the wallet, as suspected. I took another look around, thinking that with the light of day I could spot my missing shoe, maybe under the bench or in a bush. In my head, her words were playing like a broken record. “Revenge is sweet.” I still couldn’t remember her name. As I was lugging myself to where I parked my car, her words were still playing: “Make him suffer, like you did. Even the Bible says ‘an eye for an eye,’ right?”