Murder in Jerusalem (50 page)

Rubin's utter loneliness seemed to him more appropriate now than it had ever been before.

“You left the building to meet Tirzah?” Michael asked. “Was the meeting planned?”

Rubin's head bobbed; it was unclear whether he was affirming Michael's question.

“When?” Michael asked, persistent. “When did you leave the building? Before midnight or after?”

“Before,” Rubin said in a hushed, muffled voice. “At a quarter to twelve. She was waiting for me.”

“And no one saw you?” Michael asked.

“No one was there, nobody was in the editing rooms; the place was empty except for the newsroom. But they were all busy…”

“What about the guards at the entrance? How did they not see you leave the building?”

“Maybe they did. Sure they did,” Rubin said pensively, closing his eyes, “but there was a basketball game on, and they weren't paying much attention. I come and go all the time, it wasn't like someone unfamiliar. I left and returned.”

“How did you get into the String Building?” Michael asked. “From the back entrance?”

“Yes. I have a key.”

“And that's how you met up with Tirzah, killed her, and managed not to be seen by a soul.”

“No one. There was nobody around,” Rubin said.

“Except for Matty Cohen,” Michael reminded him.

“Yes,” Rubin said, his voice breaking. “He passed by, and I wasn't sure if he'd…I hoped…I went back to the editing rooms. It was raining, I'd gotten wet. I told them I'd needed to fetch some stuff from my car. In fact, I myself don't know where I got the resourcefulness from—is that what you'd call it, resourcefulness?” he asked bitterly. “The whole time I kept thinking that…and then Natasha came along…I know,” he said, suddenly coming to life, “you think I'm some kind of monster: kill someone, commit a murder, then go back to work like…like nothing had happened.”

“And in fact that
wasn't
the way it happened?” Michael asked matter-of-factly, trying to disguise any trace of irony.

“It was…it was as if I hadn't been there, as if it weren't really me,” Rubin said. “I can't explain it.”

“And what about Zadik?” Michael continued. “Did Sroul tell Zadik?”

“Zadik called me in to his office,” Rubin said, as if stunned by Zadik's intervention, as though he thought of Zadik as unconnected to the affair; a stranger, a disturbance. “Sroul had been to see him in the morning, and Zadik told me…by telephone, he phoned my office—it was an internal call, which is why you have no record of it, why you knew nothing about this—Zadik called me to his office, and I knew Sroul had been to see him, and I already knew what Zadik wanted to say to me. That's why I entered through the door from the hallway. I didn't want Aviva to see me going in, even if I didn't know beforehand that I…I didn't know I would need to…but anyway, I entered from the hallway. He told me…he told me I would have to tell the whole world…and suddenly he sounded just like Tirzah. Suddenly…you would think that Zadik…after all, he was such a pragmatist, a guy with no principles. There's no way of knowing about people….”

From the end of the hallway came the sound of footsteps. Michael could make out the silhouette of Emmanuel Shorer; Rubin fell silent.

“What actually happened with Zadik?” Michael asked. “What was with the drill? Where did all that anger of yours come from?”

“It wasn't…I…I had no choice,” Rubin explained in a choked voice, averting his gaze. “He sent me into despair, I simply went berserk—that's the only way to describe it. He'd told me over the phone that Sroul had been to see him, he said, ‘I've got a clear picture of what's happened here, Rubin. Come in to my office right away so we can decide together what to do.' Well, I understood that was the end of me. I didn't mean to…I didn't know how…on a hunch I entered through the door from the hallway, I didn't want anyone to even see me going in there. Only when I was already in the office, at first from behind, with the big ashtray…and when he fell, I bashed him again. It was only after that that I put on the technician's overalls and picked up the drill. I didn't have a…I can see exactly how you're taking all this in. I think I can even explain it all, but never mind, it doesn't matter. In any case, nobody's going to think they have anything to learn from me anymore.” He fell silent, and his head drooped.

“And what about Sroul? Your childhood friend Sroul?” Michael asked. “Was he asphyxiated when you took away the oxygen mask, or did you actually have to strangle him?”

“He was already dying,” Rubin said in a voice that rose from the depths; “it wouldn't have made any difference.”

“So, we started with three great guys of real quality,” Michael said as though reciting “Ten Little Indians.” “One went on to be a defender of the weak and disenfranchised, one became an Orthodox Jew, and one brings the stories of Agnon to the screen.”

He looked up to find Shorer standing in front of him. “Did you hear all that? Did you get it?”

“No,” Shorer said quietly. “That's not the story. It just seems to you as if that's the story.”

“What?” Michael asked, astonished. “I don't get it. What do you mean?”

“I want to give you both, now, the official version of what happened. Do you understand me?” Shorer said, looking at Rubin. Rubin averted his gaze. “The way I'm going to tell it to you is the way it happened. The true story is that Rubin killed Tirzah because he was jealous, he couldn't live without her. He pleaded with her to come back to him, but she refused. Matty Cohen saw the whole thing, saw him push Tirzah, knock her down, all the things we already know…so he poisoned him. We don't yet know all the details, but we will. Right, Rubin?”

Rubin's head swiveled, his intent unclear.

“We're going to bring him in now for a proper interrogation, and we'll hear about how Zadik found out about it and then had to die. And that's all. No Ras Sudar or any of the other stuff. Do you understand me?” he asked, turning to Rubin. “Do you understand what I'm telling you?”

Rubin nodded.

“Do you think something like this can be kept a secret?” Michael queried, astonished. “Why do you even
want
to—”

“We have a police commissioner and a state and an army and censorship and enough troubles already right now without riling up the Egyptians with this story,” Shorer said, glaring at Michael.

“Forget about the moral aspect for a moment,” Michael said in a shaky voice. “Let's be practical here. Do you really believe something like this can be kept secret now, after everything that's happened?”

“No question about it,” Shorer declared resolutely.

“And what about
you
?” Michael exclaimed. “Will
you
keep quiet about it?
Can
you keep quiet about a story like this? And me? Am I capable of shutting up about it? Because what—”

“Of course you can!” Shorer said, grabbing Michael's arm and lifting him to his feet to look closely into his eyes. “Look at me,” he commanded when Michael avoided his gaze. “Don't you treat me like some war criminal. The good of the nation is as important to me as it is to you. Or do you think you've been appointed Guardian of the Truth?”

Michael said nothing.

“How many years have we known one another?” Shorer asked, but he did not wait for an answer. “Your uncle Jocko, my best friend—who brought you to me—what did he tell you? In my presence he told you to trust me like a father. And hasn't that been true all these years? Have I ever let you down? Did I ever fail to back you up?”

Michael bowed his head.

“So, what? Suddenly I've turned into a villain? You yourself in another few days—maybe before that even—you'll discover for yourself…After all, you studied history, didn't you? What are you going to do with this truth we heard here today? Do you believe that every wrong can be righted? That the truth is always the highest value, that the truth wins out over life itself even? Do you know what kind of material we'd be handing over to…to everyone! To the Palestinians and the Egyptians and to…to us, ourselves. There is no question about it; in any event the Censor's Office would never allow this to get out…. It's just a waste of time, do you understand me?”

After a pause, Michael said, “I don't know if I can keep quiet about this. I don't know how a person can live with a secret like this.”

“Oh, yes, you do!” Shorer said sadly. “You most certainly do. You'll keep quiet, and how,” he said, his grief deepening. After a brief silence, he added, “We're evolving, you see? We're learning to keep quiet about bigger and bigger matters.”

 

Afterward, everything took on a quality of unreality. As though weightless, Michael followed the policemen who escorted Rubin to the police van, and as though in sleep he heard bits of a news broadcast from car radios in the parking lot: “…he shot his wife, fatally wounding her,” came the broadcaster's voice. “The couple's two children were in the apartment at the time….” And when Michael entered Shorer's car—the radio was on there, too—he heard that seventeen women had been murdered by their husbands or partners during the previous year, and heard, too, the item about Shimshi and the other workers who had been brought to court for a hearing to extend the period of their arrest.

Natasha was awaiting their arrival at the entrance to police headquarters. Her gaze followed Rubin as he stepped out of the van, his hands in cuffs. She moved the canvas bag from her shoulder, ran a hand through the lank locks of her hair, and tugged at the ends of her scarf. She approached Rubin. “Rubin!” she exclaimed. To Michael, who was plodding heavily nearby, she said, “What's going on here? Why is he—” When Michael said nothing, Natasha said, “It's a mistake, a
big
mistake. Rubin is the kind of person…what, are you really arresting him?” She choked on her words.

Michael did not answer her.

“I came here for a totally different reason,” Natasha mumbled, her eyes on Rubin's back. “Now I really don't know what to do, because…” Something in her lost expression prevented Michael from telling her to go away, to leave him alone. She stood next to him talking, though only fragments of her sentences reached his ears. “Now Hefetz is no longer willing…I told him you knew…I told him…that you would help me bring it to air…the State Prosecutor's Office…if you saw the video you'd know…” And without knowing how it happened, he found himself following Natasha up the stairs, her light-colored, dirty canvas bag bouncing against her gaunt thighs as she led the way to his office. “Do you have a VCR?” she asked, winded. “Because if you don't—” He opened the office door; he still had not spoken, or at least that was the way it seemed to him. Then again, several minutes later Balilty entered the room carrying a VCR. He inserted the cassette into the appropriate slot, and without intending to, Michael heard the sounds and viewed the scenes that flooded his office, and noticed Tzilla, too, who had entered his office by pushing the door open with her foot—her hands occupied with three mugs—and was now watching the screen. They were looking at aerial shots of a green city on the banks of a river, Natasha's voice in the background explaining that this was an area, not far from Montreal, to which Rabbi Elharizi had smuggled the money and gold bricks he had gathered from his followers. “Two days ago,” Natasha's voice proclaimed, loud and clear, an image of Rabbi Elharizi on the screen, “I fell into a trap, I let myself be led blindly by facts that were fed to me in order to keep us from seeing what was really going on. And
that
begins with this,” she said as the film skipped to Rabbi Elharizi, standing at the entrance to Ben Gurion Airport dressed as a Greek Orthodox priest, his head bent but the hood covering his face slightly pushed to the side, exposing him. “What is Rabbi Elharizi doing at Ben Gurion Airport in the garb of a Greek Orthodox priest?” Natasha asked. “What is he doing? He's preparing the groundwork for realizing his vision; in order to bury this scoop of ours, I was led astray two days ago. But now there are no more diversions. Let's watch a snippet from a secret cassette distributed by Rabbi Elharizi among his believers.” Again the film skipped to Rabbi Elharizi, speaking as if possessed: “The Holy Land of Israel will be laid to waste, the destruction of the Third Temple is near. Soon, no stone will be left unturned and all will be ashes and dust. Our Arab enemies will lay our cities to waste and run our fields asunder. Jewish women will fall prey to them, our homes will be set aflame and our children annihilated. Destruction and desolation, my brothers! But we, we wish to keep our breed holy! Let us depart for the New Jerusalem!”

“Stop, stop the tape!” Tzilla shouted. From inside that same weight-lessness Michael watched as Balilty's finger moved to the VCR and pressed the button, freezing the frame.

“What is this?” Tzilla cried out. “Call everyone, they've got to see this. They're running off with the taxes we've paid! Everyone's got to see this, these people are skipping out on us!”

“As far as I'm concerned,” Balilty proclaimed, “they're welcome to leave yesterday, along with all their corruption. Come on, let's keep watching,” he said to Natasha. To Tzilla he added, “You want us to call Eli?”

“Eli's with the kids now,” Tzilla said as she sat down. “Go on, go on,” she told Balilty. “This is something that you just can't—something everyone needs to know.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I've got to keep watching even if it makes me sick.”

Michael thought that on any other day he would have been shocked by this cassette tape, he would have been highly disturbed by the insult of it and overcome with nausea at these scenes of the rabbi's “vision” and the Jewish way of clinging to exile and boxes of gold. But today these images were simply floating in the chasm of grief that had opened up inside him these past few hours.