Like Germany would interpret Israel's agreement to enter into direct, face-to-face negotiations, I thought.
"You took his money," I said to Sima. "You played into his sick fantasy and took his money for it."
She fixed her eyes on me, her face free of emotion and so beautiful that for a moment I forgot my fury and disgust with her and wanted to pull her to me, to dive into her and be taken out of this world for a spell.
"Would it have been better," she said, "if I didn't? If, instead of here, he'd gone to satiate his depraved need elsewhere? With his daughter for real? Or with some other girl?"
"Don't act noble. You did it for the money."
"I'm not acting. I never act with you, Adam. Not where it counts. Of course I did it for the money. It's my profession. It's what I do. You paid me too, remember?"
"Not for something like this. I'm nothing like Baruch Gafni."
"I didn't know, Adam," she said, and there might have been a hint of pleading in her voice. "I didn't know what he's like. And as for his money, why should I feel bad for taking it? Would it have been better if it stayed in his pocket? A man so evil, why not take what you can from him?"
Moria didn't. She never accepted her father's gifts or encouraged him to give her more. But Sima was right. She hadn't known. I didn't want to ask her if she would have sent him away if she had.
I rose to my feet. "Goodbye, Sima."
"Goodbye? Why are you leaving? Stay with me, Adam."
"That's not what I came for, Sima. I told you that already."
I started to turn, but her voice stopped me. "You'll be back soon enough."
I looked at her. She was still reclining, but her body was anything but relaxed. If I had to describe her expression in one word, that word would have been fear.
I shook my head. "No. I won't."
"You won't be able to stay away." The words were confident, but there was a desperate edge to her voice. The voice of someone who's lost control of a situation and doesn't understand how or why.
I said nothing more. Just left.
Out on the street, I looked up at her window. She stood there, staring down at me, a gorgeous woman behind glass. Sunlight bathed her through the pane, giving her a burnished look, like a copper statue polished to a high gloss.
She didn't wave and neither did I. After a minute of immobile, mutual gazing, I lowered my eyes and walked away without looking back.
48
The next day, Gafni's lawyer came to Greta's Café. A short, smartly dressed man with a neat mustache, he offered me a dry hand and an envelope. "Mr. Gafni instructed me to give you this," he said, and left.
Inside the envelope were six fifty-lira bills. My bonus, apparently. I put it in my pocket. I didn't want this money, but I figured I'd find a use for it.
"More coffee, Adam?" Greta asked, holding a pot.
I checked my watch. I was going to Jerusalem again today, but I still had some time. I nodded, and Greta poured.
The previous evening, I'd told her all that had happened since I returned to Jerusalem following my injuries. She shivered as I described my close escape from Kulaski's vengeance, got angry when I related Leitner's blackmail of Moria, and became doleful when I explained about Daniel first killing Dr. Shapira and then, at my urging, doing the same to Dr. Leitner before falling to police bullets. She urged me not to feel guilty for anything but knew that was precisely how I felt.
"What about Moria?" she had asked me last night. "Do you still think the person in her note is Naomi Hecht?"
"Yes. But not for the same reason, obviously. Neither Moria nor Naomi Hecht had anything to do with Dr. Shapira's killing. But they were lovers, and they did have a fight shortly before Moria's suicide. Maybe that had something to do with it."
"Can't it be Dr. Leitner?"
"Then why didn't Moria name him in the note? Moria knew Naomi Hecht would find her body. She knew Naomi Hecht would read her note and understand it. But she didn't want anyone else to."
Greta shook her head. "Such a terrible thing to have weighing on your conscience."
It was. Naomi Hecht must have been riven by guilt. I knew what that was like. Such guilt is hell. That explained the dark bags under her eyes. No wonder she wasn't sleeping well.
As I drank my coffee, I perused that day's newspapers. There was still no sign of the two police officers who had disappeared in Jerusalem a few days before. I'd been half-expecting a visit from Gideon Revivo, the cop who had participated in my beating but balked at murdering me, but he never showed, and neither did any other policemen. I was in the clear.
Another report connected the murder of Dr. Leitner with that of Dr. Shapira; the police said the same gun was used in both killings. The reporter, God bless him, wrote about Daniel's dead son and hinted at the possibility of medical malpractice on the part of Dr. Shapira. It would not exonerate Daniel in the public eye, but it burnished his memory just a little.
I was putting on my coat when a potbellied man with a bald head and a freckled face entered the café.
"Hello, Adam," Shmuel Birnbaum said. "Going somewhere?"
"Jerusalem. My bus leaves in forty minutes."
"That's too bad. I was hoping to speak with you over the fine coffee in this establishment. But why don't I give you a lift to the central bus station instead, eh?"
Parked at the curb was the same blue Morris Eight he'd driven the day he collected me from the Jerusalem jail. We got in, and he turned the ignition.
"You've heard about Gafni?" he asked.
"I visited him in jail yesterday."
"What on earth possessed him to do such a thing?"
"Why not ask him?"
"His lawyer won't permit it. Says his client is emotionally unable to answer reporters' questions. Word is he's planning an insanity plea."
"Good luck to him."
"What do you think? Is Gafni crazy?”
"How would I know? I'm no expert on craziness."
"You talked to him. How did he seem?"
"I can't talk about that, Shmuel. He was my client."
"Was? Not anymore?"
"I finished working for him yesterday, but that changes nothing. I still can't tell you anything."
Birnbaum smacked the steering wheel in frustration. There was a story here, and he craved it like other men crave money or women or status.
"The police say Gafni made Harpaz suffer, prolonged his death," Birnbaum said. "So maybe he is crazy."
"Maybe."
Birnbaum shot me an angry look. "Can you at least tell me how you got your nose flattened?"
"I'd rather not."
"Was that also part of the job you did for Gafni?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"In a manner of speaking? What does that mean?"
"It means I can't tell you, Shmuel. Now lay off me."
We drove a few minutes in silence. Then I said, "It seems like you were right. Herut hasn't been outlawed."
"Ben-Gurion did the smart thing. As he usually does."
I looked out the passenger's side window at the passing street. "I still think it's wrong to negotiate directly with Germany over reparations, to take their filthy money."
"But you don't sound as inflamed as you were the last time we spoke about this."
I thought about the envelope in my coat pocket. The envelope with Gafni's money in it. The good that money could do to someone who needed it. "A lot has happened since then."
To his credit, Birnbaum didn't ask me what.