"What happens now?" I asked.
"I imagine you will beg me to spare Isser's life," Varda said. "Who knows, maybe you'll convince me. I do like you quite a bit, you know."
I shook my head. Rotner let out a whimper.
Varda was surprised. "No? Why not?"
"Because he tried to have me killed. Didn't you, Mr. Rotner?"
Rotner's face was drenched in sweat and tears. His eyes were two massive red orbs of fear. His lips shook as he tried to form words. "I...No, I—"
"At first I thought it was Ofra," I said. "Then I suspected another man. But it was neither of them. You're the only one left. And you have money to spare. Money to pay a killer."
"I don't understand," Varda said. "Isser tried to have you killed? How? Why?"
"He paid Amiram Gadot to kill me because I was a threat to him. He didn't want me to find out he had gone to Trumpeldor Cemetery in order to have sex on Mayor and Mrs. Dizengoff's grave. If that became public knowledge, it would ruin his reputation. It would destroy his career. He couldn't allow that to happen."
"Is this true?" Varda asked Rotner, and when he didn't answer, she pressed the blade into the cut on his throat.
He winced, fresh tears streaming down his cheeks. There was no sign of the wolf now. He looked like a whipped, wet, miserable junkyard dog.
"Well?" Varda said.
Instead of answering, he started speaking very rapidly, a man running out of time. "You don't have to kill me. I don't care what you did. I don't care about the others. I don't care about Dahlia. I'll make you a full partner in the theater. You and I can run it together. If you want to act, I'll let you, no problem. Just let me go and no one will need to know anything. Not about you and not about me."
"What about Adam?" Varda said. "He knows everything."
Rotner licked his lips. "You can kill him, too. Right here and now. You have the knife. I'll pay you. I'll give you anything you want. I'm sorry for what happened. I'm sorry we ridiculed you. Let me make it up to you. You could be the leading lady of the theater. You could be a star."
"It's tempting," Varda said. "But if it means letting you live, I don't want it." And with an expert, fluid movement, she ran the blade of her knife all the way across Rotner's neck and let his blood curtain down onto the stage.
I did not try to stop her. Rotner had tried to have me killed. And since I would not have been able to prove it, it did not bother me one bit that he was dead.
He dropped on the stage at exactly the same spot where he had lain as dead King Lear when I first saw him. Now, as then, his face was turned away from me. Good. I did not want to see his eyes.
With the smell of freshly spilled blood thick in my nostrils, I looked at Varda. She still clutched the knife. Its blade dripped blood on the wooden boards of the stage.
I repeated my question from before: "What happens now, Varda?"
She gestured toward a shoulder bag lying on the stage a little behind her. "Inside, you'll find my full confession, including the killings of Leon and Isser. It's handwritten. The police will be able to verify I wrote it."
"Why not come with me to the station and tell them yourself?"
She smiled. "A tragedy only ends in one way, Adam. The hero, or heroine, must die." Then she reversed the knife, pressed the blade to her chest, and shoved it into her heart with one forceful push. She was dead before she hit the stage.
45
The story was front-page news again. And as before, Birnbaum shone brightest. He had all the information, every word of Varda's confession, and he dispensed it in a masterful fashion, crafting his columns so they read like a suspense novel.
Once again, Birnbaum and the police conspired to keep my name out of the papers. Birnbaum did it out of gratitude—I had kept my word, had given him the biggest story of his life. The police acted out of self-interest. And, as I'd predicted, the cops didn't bother to reexamine my confrontation with Amiram Gadot.
Shoresh Theater's final performance of King Lear never took place. Nor was any other show scheduled for the near or distant future. It appeared that in certain circumstances, the show doesn't go on after all.
Three mornings after the last drop of blood had spilled, I went over to visit Dahlia. This time, I found the apartment flooded with light and air, every window open, every curtain pulled. Dahlia was in high spirits, her posture as erect as in our first meeting, though she looked as ill as the last time I saw her, and her cough was stronger than ever.
I poured tea for us both, and we sipped in silence for a few minutes. When the cups were empty and back on the table, she reached into her pocket and drew out a fifty-lira banknote. I noticed she had removed her wedding ring.
"Your bonus, as promised."
I took the proffered bill and put it in my pocket.
"Thank you, Mr. Lapid. You've succeeded in the mission for which I hired you," Dahlia said.
"I thought you hired me to see your husband convicted of murder."
"That was simply a means by which to achieve my true goal, which was to see Isser humiliated and his good name destroyed, and you provided that. Now the whole of Israel knows my husband intended to engage in sexual intercourse in a cemetery, on the grave of one of the most illustrious leaders in our nation's revival. It doesn't get any more sordid than that." She laughed. "I would have liked to put it on his gravestone, but I doubt they'd let me."
"I would imagine they wouldn't," I agreed.
"Still, whenever anyone mentions his name, that is the first thing that will cross their mind."
It will also be what they'll think of Anna, I thought with a heavy heart. But you don't care about that one bit.
I said, "You really don't care that you were exposed as having lied to the police?"
"Not in the slightest. It was well worth it."
"What will happen with Shoresh Theater now?"
"It's closed and will remain so. Why the frown?"
"I was just thinking that it means Varda has won."
Dahlia considered it. "I suppose she has. I still can't get over the fact that she managed to hide her true nature from everyone, including me, for so long."
"You should have given her another chance. She was an excellent actress."
"Perhaps. But there's a difference between acting on stage and doing so in real life. In the former, people know you're acting. It's easier to fool them when they don't."
"Don't you regret having mocked her so harshly twelve years ago?"
"Of course I regret it. I wouldn't have done it if I knew she was insane, that it would lead her to murder." She saw my expression. "You think I'm heartless, don't you? That I enjoyed putting my fellow actors down?"
"That's what they think."
"Well, they're wrong. I did it because I love the theater, and I want it to be perfect. I found no joy in mocking anyone. I was driven by anger, not a desire to hurt others."
"But you didn't care if you did," I said.
"You can't be a theater actor with a thin skin, Mr. Lapid."
"Doesn't it bother you that you brought about the deaths of others and your own injury?"
"I told you I wouldn't have done it if I knew what would happen," she said, with a spark of irritation. Then she smiled. "Let's not talk about such things, Mr. Lapid. I don't enjoy many days of happiness. If you're intent on ruining this one, I must ask you to leave."
I ran my fingers over the fresh scar on my one forearm and then over the number tattoo on the other.
I said, "Varda was the one who told you your husband was unfaithful, wasn't she?"
Dahlia rubbed the head of her cane. "She told you this?"
"I figured it out on my own."
"She made me swear not to tell anyone. How did you know?"
"Just about everyone else I met made it a point of telling me how much they despised you, and that they haven't spoken to or seen you in years. But looking back, I should have known almost from the beginning."