"Oh."
"Bitch."
Then, all of a sudden, she stopped moving and Doctor was slapping her butt and laughing and grinning and the boy was running upstairs gasping and tripping, his heart fighting to burst out of his chest.
He threw up on the floor, got into the bed and wet it.
He spent an eternity under the covers, shaking and biting his lips, scratching his arms and his face until he bled. Tasting his blood. Squeezing his thing. Hard.
Hurting himself, to see if you could like it.
You could, kind of.
It wasn't until later, when he heard her come up the stairs, sobbing, that he realized she was still alive.
When the woman opened the door, Shmeltzer was surprised. He'd expected someone older, the same age as the Hagah man, maybe just a little younger. But this one was much younger, in her early fifties, younger than him. A round, girlish face, plump and pretty, though the gray eyes seemed grim. A little makeup applied well, thick dark hair pulled back in a bun, just beginning to streak with gray. A heavy, sagging bosom that took up most of the space between neck and waistline. The waistline well-padded, as were the hips. Small ankles for a heavy woman. Just like Leah. No doubt she fretted over her weight.
"Yes?" she said, sounding wary and unfriendly.
Then he realized he was being stupid, a fine detective. The fact that she'd opened the door didn't make her the wife. A niece, maybe, or a guest.
But when he introduced himself, showed his badge and asked for Schlesinger, she said, "He's not here now. I'm Eva-Mrs. Schlesinger. What do you want?"
"When do you expect him back?"
The woman stared at him and bit her lip. Her hands were small and soft; they started kneading one another.
"Never," she said.
"What's that?"
She started to say something, clamped her lips shut, and turned her back on him, retreating into the apartment. But she'd left the door open and Shmeltzer followed her inside.
The place was simple, bright, immaculately maintained. Lean Danish furniture that had probably been purchased as an ensemble from Hamashbir. Bowls of nuts and candies and dried fruits on the coffee table. Crystal animals and porcelain miniatures, all female stuff-the Hagah man probably didn't give a hoot about decorating. A teak bookcase filled with volumes on history and philosophy. Landscape prints on the walls, but no photos of children or grandchildren.
A second marriage, he told himself: the old guy hot for a young one, may be divorcing the first one, maybe waiting for widowhood. Then he remembered that Schlesinger had been in Dachau and the age difference took on a different context: Wife number one murdered by the Germans, perhaps a couple of kids gone too. Come to Palestine, fight for your life, and start anew-a familiar story; plenty of his moshav neighbors had gone through the same thing.
Were the two of them childless? Maybe that was why she looked so unhappy.
She'd gone into the kitchen and was drying dishes. He followed her in.
"What did you mean by 'never'?"
She turned around and faced him. She inhaled and her bosom heaved impressively. She noticed Shmeltzer looking at her and covered her chest with her dish towel.
What an interview, thought Shmeltzer. Very professional.
"My husband is in the hospital. I just got back from there. He's got cancer all over him-in the stomach and the liver and pancreas. The doctors say he's going to die soon. Weeks, not months."
"I'm sorry." What an inane thing to say. He'd hated it when others head said it to him. "How long has he been ill?"
"For a week," she snapped. "Does that give him a good enough alibi?"
"Gveret Schlesinger-"
"He told me the police suspected him-some Yemenite accused him of being a murderer. A few days later he had cancer!"
"No one accused him of anything, gveret. He's a material witness, that's all."
Eva Schlesinger looked at him and threw her dish down on the floor. She watched it shatter, then burst into tears, knelt, and started to pick up the pieces.
"Careful," said Shmeltzer, getting down beside her. "That's sharp-you'll cut your hands."
"I hope so!" she said and began grabbing at the shards quickly, automatically, like someone batch-sorting vegetables. Shmeltzer saw pinpoints of blood freckle her fingers, pulled her hands away, and brought her to her feet. He steered her to the sink, turned on the tap, and put the wounded fingers under the water. After a few seconds most of the bleeding stopped; only a few red bubbles persisted. Small cuts, nothing serious.
"Here," he said, tearing a piece of paper towel from a wall-mounted roll. "Squeeze this."
She nodded, complied, started crying again. He guided her into the living room, sat her down on the couch.
"Something to drink?" he said.
"No, thank you, I'm fine," she whispered between sobs, then realized what she'd said and started laughing. An unhealthy laugh. Hysterical.
Shmeltzer didn't know what to do, so he let her go on for a while, watching her alternate between tears and laughter, then finally growing silent and covering her face with her hands. She started to mutter, "Yaakov, Yaakov."
He waited, looked at the blood-speckled paper towel wrapped around her fingers, the view of the desert from the living room window. A good view, rocky crags and pinhole caves, but architecturally ths French Hill complex made no sense-towers on top of a mountain. Some developer bastard fucking up the skyline
"He had pain for years," said Eva Schlesinger. To Shmeltzer it sounded as if she were accusing him, blaming him for the pain. "He was always hungry-he ate like a wild animal, a human garbage disposal, but was never satisfied. Can you imagine what that felt like? They told him it was in his head."
"Doctors," commiserated Schmeltzer. "Most of them are jerks. How's your hand?"
She ignored the question, leaned her uninjured hand on the coffee table, and tossed out words like machine-gun bullets: "He tried to tell them, the fools, but they wouldn't listen. Instead they told him he was nuts, said he should see a psychiatrist-head doctors, they're the biggest nuts of all, right? What did he need them for? His stomach hurt, not his head. It's not normal to have pain like that. It doesn't make sense, does it?"
"Not at all-"
"All they want is to keep you waiting for hours, then pat you on the head and tell you it's your fault-as if he wanted the pain!" She stopped, pointed a finger at Shmeltzer. "He was no murderer!"
Shmeltzer saw the fire in her eyes. The bosom, moving as if imbued with a life of its own.
"Of course he wasn't-"
"Don't give me your double talk, Inspector! The police thought he was a murderer-they blamed him for the Arab girl. They killed him, put the cancer in him. Right after the Yemenite accused him, the pain started to get worse! What do you think of that? Nothing helped it-even food made it worse! He refused to go back and see more doctors. He was gritting his teeth and suffering in silence-the man's a rock, a shtarker. What he's been through in his life, I won't tell you-he could take the pain of ten men. But this was worse. At night he'd crawl out of bed-he had an iron constitution, could take anything, and this pain made him crawl! He'd crawl out and walk around the apartment groaning. It would wake me up and I'd go out and find him, crawling. Like an insect. If I went to him he screamed to me, told me to leave him alone-what could I do?"