When the human resources manager stepped back out into the empty street, he felt enveloped by a white blur. In the car, before switching on the ignition and merging with the traffic, he opened a window to let in the cold, and searched for good music on the radio to keep him awake. The only music he could find, however, was too insipid to move him. He put his head down on the steering wheel and waited. The flakes drifting through the window made him realize that the white blur had not come from the wine. A light snow was falling softly on Jerusalem. And just as in his childhood, it gave his spirits a lift.
PART TWO The Mission
1
Only in a dream, he thought, could his mother’s voice be his secretary’s. Then he opened his eyes and realized that it was his secretary, in the apartment, demanding to enter his bedroom, so she could retrieve the cleaning woman’s keys. Was her baby still strapped to her? He looked forward to the prospect of planting another kiss on the warm, bald, little head. Knowing, however, that she was at the door and about to turn the knob, he jumped out of bed to defend his privacy. In the past twenty-four hours, his secretary had taken too many liberties. Still, it was late, almost ten. The old man’s wine had put the crowning touch on a hard day’s work. It was his mother’s fault, too. She should never have lowered the blinds or drawn the curtains.
He dressed quickly and asked his mother to shut the living room door. Even a fleeting glimpse of him on his way to the bathroom was more than he wanted his secretary to catch. He didn’t intend to exchange a word with her before he had washed and shaved. But he did ask his mother about the snow.
“What snow?”
“Don’t tell me it’s gone.”
She hadn’t heard of any snow. There was not a trace of it outside.
When he entered the living room a short while later, washed and shaven yet still embarrassed by the crates and cartons of his possessions that testified to his transient state, he found his secretary, dressed for work and looking official, interrogating his mother.
“What’s going on here?” he interrupted.
Naturally, she hadn’t come on her own initiative, she told him. She had been sent by the owner, whose unrelenting feelings of guilt made him want to play a more active role in the unfolding saga. The manager was late for work, so he had sent for the keys to the woman’s shack, which he wanted to see for himself before deciding on his next move.
“He wants to see that pathetic little room? What on earth for?”
His protests were meant just as much for his mother, who seemed to have become his secretary’s accomplice. The secretary, who was delighted to be out of the office, dismissed them with a wave of her hand.
“Why shouldn’t he see it? What are you trying to spare him? Let him know how his employees live. As long as he’s still alive, a little connection to reality won’t hurt him.”
He checked an impulse to rebuke her. The fact was that her new critical approach — not only towards him and the night shift supervisor but also, he now saw, towards the owner — made him like her all the more. With a fond look he inquired whether her baby had arrived home safely last night.
“Of course he did.”
“I have to tell you, I was genuinely worried he’d be smothered.”
“That’s one worry I absolve you of.”
“You should have brought him with you today, too.”
“If you find him that amusing, I can bring him to the office every day. Provided you look after him.”
“I’ll be glad to. I’d rather chase babies than corpses.”
As if her baby had been placed in sudden danger, she stiffened and turned pale. Glancing at her watch, she put down the coffee his mother had served her, sat up in her chair, and dramatically held out her hand for the keys. The resource manager, however, refused to yield them. Ordering her back to the office, he announced that he would personally escort the owner to the shack.
And so that same crisp, clear morning, the old man appeared in the market neighbourhood, dressed in an ermine coat that added to his stature and hale look. His cheeks were ruddy from the cold, the crest of his royal pompadour had sprung back to life; he showed no sign of the previous night’s fatigue. Accompanied by his office manager, he followed the solemn resource manager down alleys and lanes until they reached a yard. In broad daylight it had lost all mystery and looked tawdry with its piles of boards and junk. A light film of white assured the resource manager that he hadn’t imagined the snow.
He took the keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door like a practised estate agent, guiding the two others inside. A dim, greenish light fell through a heavy, checked curtain that he hadn’t noticed before. “Have a look around,” he said glumly. “It’s just an alcove. I haven’t touched a thing, except for some laundry I took down from a line and put in the sink, to keep it from getting mildewed. Actually, I shouldn’t have done that either, because only next-of-kin are supposed to handle her belongings. We had better leave it to National Insurance. They are the specialists.”
But the old man was in no mood to heed such advice. His large eyeballs glistened with curiosity, as he walked over to a little table covered with the same fabric as the curtains and unceremoniously lifted a bowl resting on it, examining and even sniffing at it. Then he asked the office manager to open the drawers of a chest and rummaged through them with uninhibited thoroughness, inspecting the dead woman’s clothing and even getting down on his knees to examine the shoes in the bottom drawer.
“All in all, there’s not much here,” he said, summing up his impressions. “And what there is looks old and worn. Even so, we’ll offer to deliver it to the survivors.”
The office manager, who had worked for the owner for many years, nodded doubtfully and stole a look at the resource manager. The resource manager said nothing. He resented this juggernaut of a man turned loose in the same room in which, seated in the straw armchair the night before, he had felt such unusual grief as he repeated the murdered woman’s name.
The old owner continued to rummage. After unsuccessfully attempting to decipher the title of a book in Cyrillic characters, he wandered to the kitchenette, studied an electric kettle, turned over a frying pan to contemplate its bottom, sorted out the knives and forks, and moved on to the lingerie that had lain in the sink overnight. Rolling up the sleeves of his fur coat without ceremony, he finished the resource manager’s work, wringing out the flimsy panties, nylon stockings, slip, and floral nightgown and carefully spreading them in a bright panoply over the armchair to dry. “We need a good photograph of her,” he declared.
The office manager gave a start. “Why?”
“For our bakery’s memorial exhibition. It shouldn’t be only for employees killed in action. Terror victims deserve to be there too.”
The resource manager had had enough.
“I’m warning you again,” he said, turning sternly to the hyperactive old man. “We mustn’t poke around here. And we certainly mustn’t take anything. Our company has no personal claims on this woman. We’re in enough trouble because that old puppy fell in love. Why look for more?”
The owner was unimpressed.
“Yulia Ragayev.” His voice quivered in the greenish light. “What kind of a name is that? Does it sound Jewish to you?”
“Who cares?” The resource manager was getting cross. “All that matters is that she’s still on our payroll.”
The owner turned to look at the employee, who was nearly fifty years his junior. “What’s botherng you?” the old man asked quietly, yet forcefully, putting a hand on the resource manager’s shoulder. “What are you getting so worked up about? Have I said what matters and what doesn’t? You’re right. The important thing is that she’s still on our payroll. That’s why we’ll give her the consideration she deserves. But we can’t bury her properly if we don’t know where she comes from.”