Murder in Jerusalem (24 page)

“Don't need 'em,” Hefetz said. “Australia doesn't interest us today.” Turning to Erez, he said, “I understand there's no financial report today, so how about having Rafael do a voiceover about the school in Colorado.”

“Tell me more about this virus,” Erez said to Rafael.

“It comes from monkeys,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “Something that passes from monkeys to people, some disease.”

“How does it get transmitted?”

“Sexually,” Rafael answered.

“That's by sex, too!?” Hefetz exclaimed, glancing at Niva, who was holding two telephone receivers, one on each ear. “In the end we'll all wind up in a monastery.”

“You haven't told me yet if you want the school shooting and the mining disaster,” Tzippi reminded him as she rubbed her swollen belly.

“Problem is, they'll come one right after the other,” Erez said, thinking aloud.

“Virus?” Hefetz interjected. “You want the virus after that? What about the item about Scientology? Are you going to put that in? Anything about cults is very interesting, or else I can go with the Nazi gold, Scientology, and the Colorado school shooting.”

Erez did not respond. Instead, he turned to Karen. “Come sit next to me, and we'll get started,” he said, and the anchorwoman did as she was told. To Rafael he said, “Get upstairs and start editing.”

“Niva,” Hefetz called out, “get me Rubin on the line. I need to know what's with his story about the doctors who cover up for Israeli intelligence operatives. Is it ready for today, or are we postponing it to tomorrow?”

“It's not even for the news, it's for his own program. Next week, I think,” Niva said, thrusting her hand into her thin red hair. “Anyway, I can't get through to him, I've been trying. He's at Benny Meyuhas's house, and he's not answering calls.”

“So,” Zadik said, addressing Michael, “I see you've become a permanent fixture in the News Department. You think that Israel Television is only the news? Come, let's get out of here, nobody here has time for you now, they're running full steam ahead. I'll take you down to the canteen, that's where everything important takes place anyway. Maybe they'll even have a leftover Hanukkah doughnut for us. I love doughnuts. Not the American kind, but the Hanukkah kind, like my grandmother used to make.”

The two death notices were posted throughout the building, on walls and doors and everywhere, and still it seemed as though life was carrying on at its usual mad pace. The sound of the blessing over the first Hanukkah candle and the holiday song “Rock of Ages” as sung by a children's choir could be heard blaring from several monitors along the way. The canteen itself was so overrun with people that the children's choir was nearly drowned out, and on top of all that, Dror Levin, the correspondent for political parties, who had come running in and pushed Michael and Zadik aside as they stood at the counter, could be heard shouting at the top of his lungs at a young man in a gray suit (“That's the lawyer who was appointed assistant legal counsel last month,” Zadik explained): “Who do you think you are? How dare you throw that bullshit at me!” Dror Levin said, indicating the open booklet that the lawyer was holding. “What are you reading to me from that for? You're brand-new here: you think
you've
got something to teach
me
about the Nakdi document?” In a calm and level voice the lawyer said, “Everything I said is written right here,” indicating the booklet, “and I quote: ‘An issue in which a correspondent or cameraman has a personal involvement and the results of which report he/she has prepared may have a direct effect on his/her private interests, his/her involvement disqualifies him/her from covering the topic.'” He raised his eyes from the booklet. “That's all I said, so if you have no personal involvement, then there's no problem. I don't understand why you're so upset,” he concluded as he stuck the light blue booklet into a file he was carrying and made as if to leave. Then he added, “If Member of Knesset Yossi Beilin invites you to his son's bar mitzvah party…,” and he spread his hands in lieu of finishing his sentence.

The correspondent said, “Well, since I am certainly guilty of this corrupt act, I guess I'll just have to—” and turned away from the lawyer, hastening to sit at one of three tables pushed together, around which sat a large crowd. “That's the team from the week-in-review program,” Zadik said with a sort of odd pride, “our flagship, personal stories and everything. Arye Rubin can usually be found here, but not today—and there's Shoshi, the editor. See her? As tiny as she is, that's what a terror she is.” Michael looked at the diminutive woman, whose helmet of gray hair topped a surprisingly young face.

When they reached the table, she turned to Zadik and said, “We're talking ethics here. The question is, if the mayor invites all of us in this forum on a tour of Jerusalem, is there anyone who objects?”

A bearded correspondent said in a deep voice, “I do. We're crossing boundaries: on occasion I interview the mayor in our studios.”

“I don't see any conflict of interest here,” Shoshi declared. “Have a seat, Zadik. In that context, but not really in that context, I wanted to request that we be trained in this new audience measurement system, the People Meter. That'll be the ratings we live by—”

“Not now,” said the deep-voiced correspondent as he stroked his beard. “I wanted to say that I think we should make a tour of some of the development towns in the south, places that we—”

“Do you people know Ohayon?” Zadik interjected as he fell into a chair. “Chief Superintendent Ohayon?” They regarded him, and someone made room for him to sit down. “As long as you're all here, I can talk to you about what's bothering me, which I keep repeating like a parrot: that we're using material that is not ours. Last Wednesday we broadcast four shots from a film by Naomi Aluf. The material was not ours, and we have to request permission to use it, otherwise we'll have to pay hundreds of dollars.”

“I suppose the director did it because he didn't know about the copyright issue,” the bearded correspondent said. “I'm going to get some sweetener, but I just wanted to say I saw it, and it looked like part of a journalistic report, not some documentary film from someone outside Israel Television.”

“Who says you people have got it right?” the political correspondent said as he pulled up a chair and sat between Zadik and Michael. “Maybe they didn't use shots from that film. It looks to me like they didn't use any footage from the film; those were just similar shots lifted from the
Mabat
program.”

Zadik leaned his head back and said, with fatigue, “It's been proven.”

“Where?” said the bearded correspondent.

“In the archives. We've already discussed this issue, when you people used material from the last Academy Awards ceremony.”

A parade of children entered the canteen dressed in various Jewish costumes—Yemenites, the ultra-Orthodox, a Jewish peasant in a
sarafan
—followed by Adir Bareket, who called loudly after them, “Children! One doughnut, a quick drink, make a tinkle, and in three minutes we're going back. Got that?”

“Yes!” the children shouted in obedient chorus. Zadik winced. To the people gathered around the tables he said, “I don't get it. What are all of you doing here? Is this an official meeting? Here? Now?”

“Well, we couldn't have our regular meeting, since we lost part of the workday because of Tirzah's funeral,” Shoshi explained. “And of course I went to pay my respects at Benny Meyuhas's. Don't forget, we go back a long way together, in fact, he's the one who brought me in to work here. So we postponed our meeting until now, and we haven't even gotten to reviewing the previous program yet.”

Michael moved his greasy doughnut aside and drank the coffee, which made him nauseous. All around the table people were smoking, in spite of the
NO SMOKING
signs posted around the canteen (though no one called these to the attention of anyone else), and he felt the clouds of smoke and breathed them in deeply, lustily. How long would he be bothered by this feeling of missing something? And why was he sitting there, waiting for Hefetz, to speak with him again about these two deaths, which, just because they had taken place there…

“Why did Channel Two come out with the story about Iraq before us?” Zadik complained.

“Zadik, we've discussed this a thousand times,” Shoshi said. “First of all, a story like Iraq has no place in a news magazine like the week-in-review program. People don't want another news show, they want a magazine, personal stories—What was the story with Iraq anyway? They uncovered an undercover operative of ours?”

“Furthermore,” the deep-voiced correspondent said, “Channel Two doesn't employ union technicians, they work according to clear, fixed contracts through tenders that leave the power and authority with the technicians themselves.”

“Poor Matty Cohen,” Shoshi said with a sigh. “Who would believe—”

“Quiet, quiet a minute,” Zadik said. “Turn up the volume.”

Michael looked up at the monitor, which featured Karen the anchorwoman. “People tried to put a stop to our next report in a variety of ways,” she was saying. “The reason? This has been discussed for years, but only now, for the first time, are there facts, names, and numbers. A Channel One scoop: how the national budget funds yeshivas. Here's Natasha Goralnik with the report.”

Natasha's face—serious, yet jubilant, not a trace of the abandoned waif—filled the screen. “Israeli yeshivas,” she began, “receive funding according to the number of students enrolled. But what happens when the budget does not provide enough money? Well, it turns out all that is necessary is to bring more names—even those of the dead. Thirty-seven,” she said, then excused herself, coughing, “thirty-seven names you see on the screen.” A list of names appeared, with a pointer. “Here, for example,” Natasha said, “David Aharon, identity card number 073523471, who supposedly lives at 33A Kanfei Nesharim Street and studies at Ori Zion yeshiva, in fact passed away five years ago, but for the past five years—five years!—he has been considered a yeshiva student, in whose name the yeshiva receives monthly financial funding. So it is for Hai Even-Shushan and Menasheh Ben-Yosef, whose identity card numbers you see on the screen now.” Natasha's voice rose dramatically. “The Ori Zion yeshiva receives monthly payments in the names of thirty-seven people who are in fact certifiably dead.” The complete list appeared on the screen.

“Good job,” Zadik said, glowing. “Good job. That girl is top-notch, I'm even considering promoting her,” he said, as if sharing a secret. “We have—never mind, have you met her?” he asked Michael. “What did you think of her?” Michael nodded his head but remained silent. “Come on, let's go down to the newsroom. I'll treat you to something special: a visit to the studio.” Michael followed him, and soon they stopped at the narrow entrance to the studio; he preferred not to push his way between the rows of people sitting in front of the control panels and the producer's desk, so he huddled in a corner next to a side room and watched the guest interviewees who had been invited to appear on this live broadcast as they sat obediently in a row of chairs glued to the wall and waited their turn to enter the recording studio. Among them sat the minister of labor and social affairs, apparently in regards to the striking workers. Natasha, all smiles, stepped out of the studio, and everyone in the vicinity clapped her on the shoulder; even the people at the control table turned their heads to smile at her. No one was prepared for what was about to happen, it all appeared to have gone so well, and then the telephone rang, and rang again and again, and Ganit the producer answered. In the general confusion no one heard what she was saying, but then a moment later she called over anxiously to Zadik. “It's a good thing you're here,” she said. “I don't know—someone on the line says…shit, here, just take the phone.” Just then Hefetz burst into the studio, a sheet of paper in his hands. “A fax came in,” he said to the people gathered there, “and we've got big trouble.” Natasha was still glowing. “So, Hefetz, what do you say?” she said, baiting him, and he handed her the paper.

After poking his head into the room to glance at the unmistakable look of pride on Natasha's face, Michael stood thinking quietly at the entrance to the room as he observed the tumult, which had nothing to do with him and was not connected to his investigation. “What?!” he heard Zadik shout. “What does this mean, ‘living'? Who's living? All right, I'll go up to the entrance. Where is he? By the security officer?”

“That was Niva,” he said, troubled, to Ganit, who ran upstairs after him. Hefetz was on her tail like a cartoon character, Michael thought as he, too, raced along with them, mostly due to his instincts, but also because he had been waiting to talk to Hefetz. Had he not been waiting for Hefetz, he would have missed the whole matter.

By the security officer's station, at the entrance, stood three ultra-Orthodox men. “I didn't let them in because—” the security officer started to say, but Hefetz ignored him and stood examining the identity card that one of the young men, his dark jacket draped over his shoulders, had handed him. The man was smiling into his beard, and in a voice filled with wrath asked, “Do I look dead to you?” The other two stood behind him.

“What is this?” Hefetz shouted as he looked at the identity card. Perturbed, he lifted his eyes and looked at the ultra-Orthodox man, then read aloud: “‘David Aharon, 33A Kanfei Nesharim Street, identity card number 073523471.' You're alive?”

The man spread his hands as if to say, Yes, it's a fact, to which Hefetz responded, “I am sorry, sir, we will correct this mistake.”