"What made her change her mind?"
"She learned he was dead. That he had been killed."
"Did she know who killed him?"
"Her brothers. Not Ahmed. The other two."
"Jalal and Kadir," I said.
"Yes. Those two."
"Was she afraid they would come after her next?"
"Yes. She was always afraid of that. But now she was more angry at them than scared of them. She wanted revenge. And she got it, in a slightly twisted way."
"By becoming a prostitute?"
"Yes." Sima smiled. "You see, they killed her lover because their romance had tarnished the name of her family. Their honor. But that was nothing in comparison to having their sister become a prostitute."
"Wouldn't they need to know what she was doing to care about it?"
"Not in Maryam's mind. It was revenge enough that she knew."
"So you showed her the ropes."
"I taught her how to dress, how to approach men, and better yet, how to make them approach her. I told her what to be careful of."
"And she started working?"
"Yes."
"And how did it go?"
"Have you seen a picture of Maryam?"
I showed her the head shot Ahmed Jamalka had given me.
Sima took it from me, her fingertip brushing along my fingers. She looked at it for a moment, then handed it back.
"She was a beautiful girl. More than the picture shows. There was something naive about her that men liked. She did not have trouble finding clients."
"She brought them here?"
"No. I live here. No one works here but me. I helped Maryam find a place of her own. Even paid the rent for the first month. But I told her not to take them there. Not to a rented apartment. There are some hotels you can go to. I think she used one that isn't far from Akiva's place."
I asked for the address where Maryam Jamalka had lived and wrote it down in my notebook. "Do you have any idea who might have killed her?"
"No. But I can take a guess."
"You think her brothers did it."
"Don't you?"
I didn't tell her about Ahmed Jamalka being sure his brothers did not kill Maryam. Instead I asked, "Why did you take her in? Weren't you afraid of her brothers?
"I was repaying an old debt," Sima said, and she got a faraway look in her eyes, and her hands tightened into small fists on her thighs before opening again.
"A debt? To Maryam Jamalka?"
"No. I never met her before that day by the bus terminal."
When she didn't elaborate, I decided to let it go. Sima Vaaknin could read the lies and uncover the secrets of others, and she was also very good at keeping her own secrets to herself.
"You said you haven't seen Maryam for three months. Why? What happened?"
Sima's face darkened, her jaw tightened, and her lips pinched together. It was a bigger reaction than the one she'd shown when I told her that Maryam Jamalka was dead. "She broke the first and foremost rule of being a prostitute."
"What did she do?"
"She got herself a pimp."
She uttered the word pimp as if her tongue rebelled at it, like she was trying to spit out a rotten morsel of sticky food.
"She didn't see him for what he was," Sima said. "As I said, she was a romantic. She fell in love again. The way she saw it, he was her man, her lover, not her pimp. But the moment she told me she'd met someone, someone she slept with on the job, I got suspicious. As a general rule, men don't become involved with prostitutes. I asked her if she gave him some of the money she earned, and she said she was happy to give it to him, that it was an act of love. She said he got clients for her, but that didn't mean he was her pimp either."
"And it made you mad?" I said.
"I don't allow pimps anywhere near me. They always try to control more women. I am free. No one controls me. Once she had a pimp, she was out of my life."
"Did he ever beat her?"
"I don't know. Some pimps do, but only the stupid ones. Girls with bruises are less attractive to clients."
"Do you know the name of the pimp?"
She shook her head. "I never met him, and Maryam never told me his name. The moment I knew she had a pimp I told her to stay away from me and not to call me while she was still with him."
"Was there anyone else, from before you two lost contact, who was fixated on her, who threatened her in any way?"
"She never told me of anyone. I warned her of such men and told her to tell me if she met one."
I could think of nothing more to ask. Perhaps later, once I allowed my mind the time and freedom to go over my conversation with Sima Vaaknin, something would come up that would need clarification. But for now…
She was looking at me. The darkness had left her face, and her lips and jaw had relaxed. The glint of amusement had returned to her eyes.
"You have run out of questions," she said.
"Yes."
"But you are not saying goodbye."
"No."
"You want to stay," she said. It was not a question.
I couldn't say yes, and I couldn't say no. Both were true. I wanted her with an eagerness that was unexpected, the sort of craving I hadn't felt for years. But I was also wary. I sensed that being with her would take me deeper than I dared go.
My mouth suddenly turned dry, and my palms became damp with prickly sweat. I kept silent.
She turned her head to look at a clock that stood on a side table. "There is not enough time," she said. "You may think it won't take long, but it will. I will make sure of it."
She smiled at me, a seductress reveling in her powers. "You ask too many questions, Adam Lapid. So many questions."
"It's what I do," I managed to say.
"Perhaps if you come by on another night, you will do a bit more. After ten. Then we won't need to hurry."
It was a cue. I had to leave. I figured she was expecting a man, a client. Someone who would soon occupy the place that I had been offered for a future night, who would occupy her.
I rose from my chair, with my hands fisted by my thighs and a strange current thrumming through my arms. If her client had knocked on her door at that moment, I would have punched him hard enough to bust his jaw.
When I turned my back to her, I realized that I had been holding my breath. I was keenly aware of her presence as she saw me to the door.
I reached for the handle, drew the door open, and was about to step out when she said, "Tell your client that his sister loved him."
I turned. The amusement was gone from her face, but it had not been replaced by sadness. If there was anything to be read in her eyes and the set of her features, I couldn't say what it was.
"Despite the fact that he abandoned her," she said. "That was Maryam. A hopeless romantic."
13
It was not yet six when I exited Sima Vaaknin's building. A fast wind was whipping down the street like the excited gasp of approaching winter beginning to assert itself. I took a few deep breaths. I had not reacted to a woman this way since my wife died. Perhaps, and I was not sure I cared to admit it, I had not reacted the same way to my wife when she was alive.
I had loved my Deborah. I still did, despite the five years that had passed since her death in Auschwitz. But my attraction to her came from a different place than what I had felt for Sima Vaaknin. It was a more cerebral and emotional sort of attraction, and with Sima it stemmed from a baser instinct.
Earlier that day it had been hot, and I hadn't taken my jacket with me. Now I wished I had it on, for the wind had brought cold with it. I got a pack of cigarettes out of my pants pocket, tapped one out, and stuck it in my mouth. It took three matches to light it; the wind kept blowing them out. I stood for a moment, taking smoke in and letting it out. The wind carried the smoke away along with a scattering of leaves and a balled-up newspaper. A man was walking toward me on the sidewalk. He was in his early forties, just under six feet in height, with black hair that had started to recede, and a lean frame without a lot of muscle on his bones. He was wearing a gray suit with a white shirt and a black tie. He held a brown leather briefcase in his left hand. His shoes made tapping sounds on the pavement. As he approached, I kept my eyes on him. He caught my gaze, frowned, gradually slowed his step and came to a halt about fifteen feet from where I stood. With a wary expression on his face, he crossed to the other side of the street and walked quickly away.