A Possibility of Violence (21 page)

Sara was one of the few people for whom silence was his natural state.

Avraham said to him, “I don't know you all that well, Mr. Sara, and it may be that you don't understand your situation at this moment. I'll explain it to you. We are searching for your wife and trying to understand why you lied with regard to her whereabouts.”

For a moment Sara lifted his gaze from the table, and Avraham used the opportunity to move the picture of his wife closer to him, and then noticed how much she looked like her firstborn, whom he'd seen through the open door. The faces were the same, with the thick, dark eyebrows over those dark eyes whose gaze was narrow and direct.

“I'm asking why you lied to the security agent and pretended that you were speaking to your wife even though you knew it wasn't her.”

Sara didn't respond, and Avraham continued battering him: “That wasn't the first time you lied about her. You told me a few other false things about your wife. But let's start with the phone. Why did you pretend you were speaking to her?”

Sara didn't answer, and he repeated the question another time, in vain. Then he moved the picture still closer to Sara, up near his chest. “Take a look at this picture, please, Mr. Sara. This is a picture of your wife from many years ago. Do you know how I got it?” Sara didn't even shake his head. “From the Philippine police. They demanded we investigate your wife's whereabouts. Do you know why? Because in our previous interrogation you said that your wife flew to Manila and because of that I couldn't call her in for questioning concerning the bomb next to the daycare, correct? Do you remember? You suggested I call her there. I'm looking at the summary of the interrogation, which you signed.”

The first words Sara said were, “I remember,” and they were said so quietly they weren't captured by the recording device.

“Do you stand by what you said to me then?”

Again he didn't answer this question, and Avraham continued: “Because that's not correct. We conducted an inquiry with the Philippine police, and your wife did not enter that country on the twelfth of September, or on any other date. So why did you lie? What were you trying to hide?”

If Ilana had been correct in her hypothesis and Sara hadn't lied, but rather didn't know that his wife had flown somewhere else, now would be the first time he'd hear of this and should then have responded differently. He didn't appear surprised.

“And you lied about another detail. You said she traveled there to take care of her father. Here is an official document that I received yesterday from the Philippine police. Look. Do you read English? Rizaldo Salazar, the father of Jennifer Salazar, who is your wife, died in 1985. You wife was how old then? Fifteen? You made up that she's taking care of a sick father. I don't know why you made it up, and why that of all stories, but you made it up.”

Avraham got up from his seat and stood behind Sara, who didn't turn around and fixed his gaze on the wall. He bent over and spoke close to his ear, “You know where your wife is, don't you? I'm not mistaken, am I?”

 

A LITTLE AFTER EIGHT THERE WAS
a knock at the door and Avraham left the interrogation room.

Zaytuni was waiting outside, wearing the uniform of the security company and with white latex gloves. He looked concerned when he said to Avraham, “You should take a look at his suitcase,” and Avraham followed him into a small room whose walls were lined with shelves of bags and suitcases. Sara's suitcase was open on a table in the corner. Avraham asked, “Did you find something?” And Zaytuni took a paper bag out of it and said, “Have a look.” That was the moment his confidence faltered and after which he contemplated releasing Sara so that he might still manage to catch his flight.

“I had no choice, I had to tear the wrapping,” Zaytuni said and extended to him a pair of white jeans and a thin, purple woman's blouse. He held them with the tips of his gloved fingers as if he were holding a rat by its tail. “Presents for his wife. Take a look at the paper too.”

The letters were folded at the bottom of the paper bag, written on pages that had been torn out of a notebook. On one was a drawing of an airplane in a blue sky, and next to it someone had written, in a child's hand, in red,
Dear Mom, This is the plane we're flying to you in after so long.
There wasn't a drawing in the second letter, on which was written in large blue block letters,

Dear Mom I missed you and I'm egsited that Dad's taking us to the Filipines. I want you to retirn home with us and stay with us like always. From you older son Ezer.

He burrowed into the suitcase with exposed hands and found at its bottom two more women's shirts and a nightgown inside an orange nylon bag. “Other than this?” he asked, and Zaytuni said, “Nothing. Children's clothes and a few toys and his clothes. And towels and toiletries.” Avraham looked at the letters for another moment, folded them up, and placed them gently in the paper bag. Zaytuni followed him to the smoking area, even though he didn't smoke, and asked, “So what will you do with him?”

He didn't know.

He asked Zaytuni if he had updated Ilana about what he found in the suitcase, and the young detective shook his head no. If Avraham were to call her, Ilana would instruct him to release Sara, and therefore he didn't call. He entered the room adjacent to the one where Sara was waiting, mainly to consult with Ma'alul, but perhaps more so to look at the children, because he hoped that when he saw them his determination would return to him. The younger boy, whose hair was long, stood in front of the table with his back to the door and drew on a sheet of paper. Ma'alul leaned over him with his hand resting on his shoulder. There was a marker in the boy's hand, too. The two of them turned around toward Avraham when he entered. Ezer, who sat on the chair facing the door, didn't lift his gaze from the paper, as if he didn't notice him.

They stood outside the open door, and Ma'alul whispered to him, “What's new?”

Avraham said, “Nothing for now. He's not talking, but I have no doubt he knows where she is.”

Afterward he told Ma'alul about what they had found in the suitcase, and Ma'alul sighed. Now that they weren't looking at him, Ezer lifted his dark eyes and examined them through the opening of the door. “So what's with them?” Avraham asked, and Ma'alul said, “They're coming around. At first they didn't want to talk to me at all, but now they've already told me they're going to see Mom. That she's waiting for them at the airport. The little one talks more. The older one is more suspicious.”

“Did you ask them when she went away?”

“I don't think they remember. The little one said two days ago. But don't worry, Avi, I'll come back to it. Give me time. You think I could have another hour or two with them?” and Avraham was decisive again when he said, “Yes. I'm not releasing him today under any circumstances.”

Nevertheless, when he returned to the room where Sara was waiting for him he spoke to him differently. Perhaps because of what was found in the suitcase. Korean Air flight 958 to Seoul had received permission to take off and the airplane taxied toward the runway. At least he had prevented them from getting on the plane.

He returned to his seat across from Sara and said to him, “I saw your children just now,” and it seemed to him that something moved in his face. The following words he said quietly, almost softly, “Do you know why I detained you for questioning? Do you want to know? Only because of them. If I hadn't done it, you would have been arrested the moment your plane landed in Manila. And your children would have remained there, alone and unattended. Do you understand?”

Sara raised his head and suddenly said thanks to him.

Apparently this was the right path, and Avraham continued on it.

“I understand that you've decided not to answer my questions, and that's your right, despite the fact that you're making a mistake,” he said. “All in all, I'm just trying to understand where your wife is. I have no other issue with you. You said she's in the Philippines but she's not. And she's not in Israel, either. So let's assume for a moment that I got it wrong and that I believe you that you don't know where she is. Won't you help me find her, then? If you'd cooperate with me and tell me about her, it would be easier for me to believe you—and more than that, it would be easier to know where to look.”

Avraham didn't mean a single word of what he said, but Sara didn't know that and asked, “How are the children?” And Avraham answered, “They're in the next room. They're waiting for you.”

Sara placed the palm of his hand on the table, next to the picture of his wife. “Tell me what you want to know about her and I'll try to help you.”

A narrow crack opened up at the entrance to the cave where he was hiding, and Avraham dashed inside. “How many years is she in Israel?” he asked immediately, and Sara answered, “Nine. Maybe ten.”

“And how did you meet her?”

“I met her at my mother's.”

“Does she work at your mother's place?”

“She worked at a neighbor's. Until they put him in a geriatric hospital and she was left without work.”

Avraham asked for his mother's phone number and address, and it seemed to him that Sara provided them unwillingly. He asked, “And can you tell me who she's in contact with?” and Sara said, “What do you mean, ‘who'? With no one.”

“She doesn't have friends in Israel? Acquaintances? She doesn't leave the house?”

“She leaves with the children. And goes to church sometimes.”

“Which church?”

“In Jaffa. In the old city.”

“And does she have family here other than you?”

“No. She was in contact with her sister. She lives in Germany.”

Sara didn't know where the sister in Germany resided nor her phone number, or he knew and didn't want to say, but all the same, Avraham had succeeded in drawing him out of his silence. He asked him if he wanted to eat or drink and Sara said no. He promised Sara that soon he'd be able to meet with the children. The conversation wasn't bringing him any closer to Jennifer Salazar—Sara still hadn't said anything about her that appeared important to him—but it seemed to him that it was bringing him closer to Sara's crime.

And indeed, that's what happened.

He asked him, “And she has no acquaintances from work? Friends?” and Sara said, “She wasn't working now. Before, she was taking care of the elderly, and afterward she worked with me a little in the business.”

Avraham didn't remember what business he was talking about and Sara said, “A catering business.”

“What does that mean? You sell food?”

“Yes. Sandwiches and warm meals.”

“Do you have a restaurant?”

“No, I sell at work locations in Holon. To companies. Now mainly in the industrial area. At factories in the area, and at the Tax Authority and the Ministry of the Interior.”

He wrote the words
Ministry of the Interior
on his notepad, because he remembered that he had heard them already in the investigation, though he couldn't remember from whom he heard them, or where, and he only remembered a few minutes later and knew that this was the breakthrough he'd been waiting for.

Sara no longer had anything to say to him and he didn't know what to ask.

“Do you want to tell me where you think your wife could be?” he asked and didn't expect an answer, but Sara surprised him and said, “If she's not there, then I don't know. She disappeared on us too. We wanted to go there to search for her.”

He wasn't speaking the truth now, either, but Avraham tensed up because this was an answer he hadn't yet heard. He asked, “What do you mean?” and Sara raised his voice when he said, “She went away without saying a word to us. One day we came home and she wasn't there. She didn't even leave a letter saying that she was going, only called a few days later. We wanted to convince her to come back.”

“And she didn't say where she was calling from?”

“She said that she had returned to the Philippines, but you say that this is incorrect. And afterward we couldn't get in touch with her. She didn't answer. Because of this I also didn't know what to do when security told me that she was on the phone. Maybe I no longer recognized her voice after so much time, you know? She didn't even say good-bye to the children. Disappeared on them one day without an explanation. I was sure she was there.”

The story lined up with Ilana's hypothesis and explained what was found in the suitcase, but Avraham didn't believe him for a second. “Is this the first time she's disappeared on you like that or did it happen before?” he asked, and Sara looked him in the eye and answered, “First time. She said she was going away a few times, that she didn't want to stay here anymore, but she never left before. I don't know why she did it now of all times.”

“She didn't explain it to you? When you spoke to her on the phone?”

“She said she doesn't want to live with me. And doesn't want the children anymore. I knew it was hard for her with us but I didn't believe that she'd ever really leave.”

 

THE AIRPORT WAS EMPTY WHEN HE
left the interrogation room, after eleven.

He looked for Zaytuni and didn't find him, but when he tried his phone, he heard the ring behind him and saw the young detective dashing out of the room where they had earlier opened the suitcase. He asked him to call Sara's mother and check if she could take the children. He didn't know how old his mother was or what condition she was in, but he instructed Zaytuni to bring her to the airport in a patrol car, and to drive her back home with the children, if necessary.

It was strange to see the airport like this; three hours earlier it was buzzing with people. All but two passport control stations were closed. In one of them sat the policewoman who had escorted Sara to the interrogation room this morning. In three more hours Israeli airspace would be closed to traffic. The last plane that would depart before Yom Kippur was to take off for Warsaw at 12:55 a.m. and the last plane to land at the airport was to arrive from Brussels at 2:25.