"Are you okay, Adam?" Birnbaum said. "Is everything all right?"
Of course it wasn't. Nothing was all right. Because a dissolute, greedy rich man was sitting in Tel Aviv on his hoard of gold and silver, already planning how to use the money Germany would be giving Israel as reparations for the six million to advance his businesses. And this man had likely driven his wife to suicide and maybe had done the same to his daughter. And no one cared. No one did anything. He had paid no price and was not going to. He had won, and I had lost. Israel would negotiate with Germany. Gafni would get his share of the take, and I would be left with this hole in my heart, this sense of wrongness, of gaping detachment from the country I'd fought and bled for. And meanwhile Gafni would live large while his wife and daughter lay dead, just like my wife and daughters.
"Adam? Are you still there, Adam?"
I shut my eyes against the sudden wetness in them. Filled my lungs with cold Jerusalem air and let it leak out of me slowly, along with the sharp edge of my fury. My fingers were aching due to how hard I was gripping the phone. I forced them loose, and it was like being freed from tight tethers, my fingertips prickling.
"Yeah," I said, suddenly weary as though I'd walked all day with no food in me. "Yeah, I'm here."
Birnbaum's tone was tender and caring. "Adam, you meshuggeneh, what is happening to you?"
I opened my eyes, wiped the back of my hand across them. I looked around, but no one seemed to have noticed my turmoil. Or perhaps everyone had and was pretending to not see me, to ignore my existence. "Answer my question, Shmuel."
He sighed and said, "I'm not protecting Baruch Gafni. Contrary to what you believe, he's not my friend. I don't even like him. But I deal with all sorts of people as part of my job, just as you do. Baruch Gafni is one of them. I don't know what Moria Gafni knew about her father's extramarital activities. I don't know for sure why Vera Gafni killed herself. But I do know one thing you should keep in mind. Are you listening, Adam?"
"Yeah, I'm listening."
"Good. Because you need to know that Baruch Gafni is not a man you want as an enemy. He's powerful and connected and can be quite vindictive. And he's the reason why you're not sitting in a jail cell right now. Get on his bad side, and he won't hesitate to withdraw the protection he's granted you."
I thought of Inspector Kulaski straining at the leash like a slavering dog at the sight of raw meat—only the meat was me. A blade of fear dug sharply into my stomach and up into my chest. I knew what fate Kulaski had ordained for me. Gafni's protection was all that stood in his way.
I knew that Birnbaum was right. I had only met Gafni once, but that was enough to know what kind of man he was. Going against him meant taking a huge risk, with heavy potential penalties. It was a risk I did not want to take.
But then I thought of Moria Gafni. Not the twenty-three-year-old woman with skeletons in her closet who took her own life, but the innocent sixteen-year-old girl she'd been when she came home one day to find her mother dead.
Some deaths are cleaner than others. Taking pills and lying in bed to die is neat; slicing your wrists is messy. The human body holds a prodigious quantity of blood. Open your veins and it all comes out. It spreads around farther than most people would imagine. It's a hard sight for a grown-up; for a teenager, it could leave a permanent mark. And if it's your mother whose blood it is, and if in the center of that pool of red you see her body—well, that would change you fundamentally and forever.
I thought I understood one thing now: why Moria had opted for pills instead of blowing her own brains out with her gun. She'd seen a violent suicide, a bloody scene, and her work in the war had educated her as to what gunshots can do to the human body. She'd wanted a cleaner ending for herself. A cleaner ending than the one her mother had bequeathed Moria's sixteen-year-old eyes.
"I'll take my chances," I heard myself say, the words tripping out of my mouth before my conscious mind had time to fully register their utterance.
"What does that mean?" asked Birnbaum.
"It means that I'm going to get to the bottom of this, Shmuel. I'm going to do my job. I'm going to discover why Moria Gafni killed herself. And I'll make sure whoever is to blame pays for it, even if it's Baruch Gafni."
"What are you talking about, 'whoever is to blame'?" Birnbaum said, and I remembered that he didn't know the full details. He hadn't read Moria's note. As far as he was concerned, this was your run-of-the-mill suicide.
"Never mind, Shmuel."
"Don't you never mind me," he said. His voice was alert now, his professional curiosity fully piqued. I could picture his eyes sparkling with excitement behind his glasses as he picked up the scent of a fresh story. "Come on, spill."
"There's no need to, remember? You said there would be no public interest in this case, no matter the outcome," I said, reminding him of what he had told me in his car just before I went to meet Baruch Gafni.
"I have a feeling I should revise my earlier statement."
"Do yourself a favor and ignore it. You were perfectly right, Shmuel. As you said, Baruch Gafni is not a man you want as an enemy."
"I can take care of myself, Adam."
"I believe you. And I can do the same."
"I'm not the one in danger of being locked up in prison."
He had a point. I was more vulnerable than Birnbaum. He did not have the threat of imprisonment hanging over him, and his position and connections afforded him a measure of influence and protection that I lacked.
But that didn't matter. What mattered was Paula's accusations echoing in my head. For the time being, Moria was an innocent woman who'd gone through some bad things and died much too young. I did not want Birnbaum to start nosing around this case. I did not want him digging into Moria's life. I did not want her life exposed in the pages of Davar.
"Be that as it may," I said. "I don't see how you could write about this, even if there was something worth writing. Gafni came to you for help. He trusted your discretion. Imagine what will happen if you end up writing about him or his daughter? No one will trust you, Shmuel. And no one talks to a journalist they don't trust."
He was quiet for a few seconds; then he let out a grunt of frustration. He knew I was right.
He said, "I also vouched for your discretion, Adam, remember?"
"I remember. Don't you worry, I'll be as discreet as possible."
"As possible?"
"Yes, as possible. As much as I can. But not for Baruch Gafni's sake, and not for yours either."
"For yourself, then?"
"No," I said. "Not for myself. I'll be doing it for Moria."
19
When I opened my eyes, the hotel room window was filled with the gray light of a January sun. I had woken late after sleeping the night through, dreamless. I had Daniel Shukrun to thank for that. I did not know why and did not care to speculate, but for me, violent days led to peaceful nights. It had been that way since the war in Europe ended.
Most other nights were filled with vicious nightmares of Auschwitz, real and assumed and imagined, memories and ghosts and human monsters that wouldn't go away or die. By charging me in Moria's apartment and falling victim to my fists, Shukrun had granted me a night of uninterrupted sleep. I was grateful, particularly because I had worried about my screams waking the other guests.
The sagging mattress squeaked as I shifted to a sitting position. The room smelled stuffy, so I opened the window, and cold air flowed in, raising goosebumps on my arms. Looking outside, I saw the cloud cover had lightened further. The air smelled clean and fresh.