I raised a questioning eyebrow. She pretended not to notice. Instead she said, "I understand he's rich. Moria's father, I mean."
"Stinking rich," I muttered, without much forethought, and caught a smile dancing on Naomi Hecht's lips, the first time I saw humor, however tenuous, on her face. It did something to her features, transforming them into something softer, more feminine and inviting, almost beautiful, like clay being shaped by a sculptor's strong fingers. It didn't last long, that smile, but when it vanished, a small part of its effect clung to her face like a promise or an aspiration.
"You don't like him much, either, do you?" she asked.
"Not much."
"Does he know that?"
"He'd have to be blind and deaf to think anything else. I doubt he cares."
"Do you?"
"Care? No, why should I?"
"You work for him."
"I don't need to like him. He's a client. Sometimes it's better not to like clients."
"Why?"
"It makes it easier to tell them things they won't like hearing."
"Do you expect to tell Mr. Gafni such things?"
I thought of Moria's mysterious lover, the condoms in the bedside cabinet, the gun hidden behind it.
"I don't know," I said. "What do you think?"
She didn't answer. The waiter arrived with our second order. He was smiling openly at me now, a twinkle in his eye. His smirk from before was ancient history. Things were going well for me, he thought. Romance over pastries and coffee. Appearances could certainly be deceiving.
Naomi Hecht drew on her coffee. I took a bite of my pastry.
"He would send her presents, did you know that?" she said, the cup clasped in both hands, gray filaments of steam rising like a gauzy curtain before her face.
"He mentioned it. What sort of presents?"
"Expensive ones. A fur coat, a radio, a refrigerator, if you can believe it. And other things, too. He would have them delivered to her apartment."
"There was no refrigerator in Moria's apartment. No radio or fur coat, either."
"She didn't keep them. Not any of them."
"What did she do with them?"
"She gave them away."
"To whom?"
"To people who needed them, that's what she said. Of course, Moria could have used them too, but she didn't want them."
"Why not give them to you? You were her friend."
"She never offered. I think she wanted to remove her father's presents from her life, and I was part of her life. The only reason I know of them at all is that I was at her apartment when the refrigerator arrived. Only then did she tell me about the presents at all."
"I see," I said, remembering my impression of Moria's apartment, that she could have lived in finer accommodations with the help of her father, but that she chose not to. I remembered Gafni telling me of all the money he'd spent trying to win his daughter's affection, and how it did no good. For once, his money had proved useless.
Again we fell silent for a spell. I studied Naomi Hecht over the rim of my coffee cup, and she studied me over the rim of hers. She had an oval face with fine cheekbones, a high forehead, and straight eyebrows. Her face was a little thinner than it should have been, like the rest of her body. Her skin was very smooth, unblemished apart from those purple bags under her eyes. There was something younger than her years in her features, and something older too. But both qualities were elusive, hard to pinpoint. I wondered what she saw in my face. I doubted there was anything younger than my years in my features. There were certainly things that were older.
There were many questions I could have asked her at that moment, but I held off. I sensed that she was considering telling me something, and I knew that any word I uttered might cause her to clam up. I waited, eating another piece of my pastry.
Finally, with an almost imperceptible nod of decision, Naomi Hecht said, "I don't know why Moria hated her father so. I wish I did."
"She never told you?"
"Never. I asked several times, but she would always shake her head and change the subject. But I do know it had something to do with her mother."
"Her mother?"
"You know about her mother, right?"
"I know that she died a few years back."
"When Moria was sixteen. But do you know how she died?"
I thought back to my conversation with Gafni. What had he said about the cause of his wife's death? He hadn't said anything about it. Glossed over it in the flow of his speech. Which was uncommon, I thought. People usually supply such details. She died in an accident, they might say. Or of pneumonia. Something to explain the loss. But Gafni hadn't.
"No," I said. "No, I don't."
"Her mother committed suicide. She killed herself."
I stared at her. "Are you sure?"
She nodded. "Moria was the one who found her. In their apartment in Tel Aviv. Why do you look like you don't believe me?"
"It's just the shock," I said. "First the mother and then the daughter." But that wasn't it. Not all of it. The bulk of my surprise was because Gafni had kept this information from me. The reason might have been innocent, a matter of privacy, but there was a point in our conversation in which it would have been pertinent, even useful, for him to mention it. It had been when I raised the possibility that Moria hadn't actually killed herself. Gafni had offered a number of persuasive arguments as to why she had, but he had failed to mention her mother's suicide, even though that would have lent more weight to his assertion. After all, a self-annihilating tendency, like all others, could be hereditary.
The fact that Gafni had acted that way was curious. He had to have had a damn good reason for doing so.
"Did Moria blame her father for her mother's death?" I asked.
"I don't know for certain," Naomi Hecht answered. "But it would be a good reason to hate him, wouldn't it?"
I nodded, thinking, Yes, it most certainly would.
I said, "Do you know how her mother did it? How she killed herself? Or why?"
"No. Moria didn't want to talk about it. I don't think she planned on telling me about her mother at all. It slipped out, and I could tell she regretted it."
"How did you two meet?"
"During the war. Jerusalem was besieged. The Arabs bombarded the city. Many people died; many were injured. Moria was at the end of her training. Not yet a nurse, but pretty close. We nurses couldn't handle the workload, so nursing students were called upon to assist. Each student was assigned to a nurse. Less risk of them making mistakes that way. Moria was assigned to me."
"It must have been hard."
"Very. The siege caused shortages in everything. Medicine, bandages, even water. Conditions became more primitive with each passing day. Beyond the objective difficulties, what made it hard was knowing how to treat people but not being able to do it properly. Injuries that were treatable under normal circumstances would result in the loss of a limb or even death."
"How did Moria handle it?"
"She was terrific. Hardworking, dedicated. Not flinching even when shells were exploding nearby. I could tell she'd be a wonderful nurse."
"Paula told me Moria took things too much to heart, that she didn't know how to distance herself from her patients."
Naomi Hecht's eyes flashed. "What other criticism did the venerable Paula share with you?"
"None. She held Moria in high esteem."
The fire in Naomi Hecht's eyes abated. She drank some coffee, ran her finger along the curled cup handle. "Paula has a point. Moria did get too close. Sometimes, I worried about her too."
"Ever think she might hurt herself?"
"No," she said firmly. "Never."
"What sort of things did the two of you do together?"