In the other apartment, an elderly woman with thick glasses peered up at me. She spoke in the loud, unconscious voice of those whose hearing was failing. I asked her about Miryam Cohen, and she told me that once, must have been less than three months ago, when she was returning from her shopping, the "nice young woman," as she called her, took her bags from her and carried them upstairs to the old woman's apartment, arranging them in her kitchen.
"She told me she would be happy to carry them for me anytime I went shopping, but I told her that wouldn't be necessary. I look frail, but I still got some strength in my bones. And besides, she was such a lovely young thing. She should not waste her time on an old woman like me. She should enjoy her youth."
As for any visitors the young woman might have had, she couldn't say. She never ventured up to the third floor, and her hearing was not what it used to be.
"You get to a point where most of the things you hear are those you've heard before," she told me. "You see a bus go by and your mind supplies the sound it is supposed to make. A child laughs and you hear the laughter of your own child at that age. But new sounds and the things you cannot see, those you remain ignorant of."
Mr. Gordon, the landlord, was in his early fifties and had the hard body of a man who had done his share of manual labor. He was wearing a white undershirt that showed off muscular arms with skin that age was beginning to loosen. His wide shoulders and broad chest were covered with coarse curls of black and gray hair. His face was tanned, and lines webbed the corners of his hazel eyes. He was losing his hair and had it cropped close to his scalp. On his left wrist was a watch with a broad leather band and a large display. He was as tall as I was, and his handshake was strong.
He invited me in, and we sat in his sparsely appointed living room. He offered me a beer and took one for himself.
I asked him about Miryam Cohen.
"Left two and a half months ago," he said. "Totally caught me by surprise. Just came to my door one day and told me she was leaving."
"She didn't say why?"
His face creased in disgust. "No, but she didn't need to. It was a man. I've seen him around. Slimy little fellow. Half a head shorter than you and I, black hair, weak looking. Don't know what she saw in him. A beautiful girl, that one."
"He used to come around to her apartment?"
"Saw him twice, maybe three times around here. Didn't like him the instant I saw him. Slimy. The kind that tries to get by with as little work as possible. Shortly after I saw him the first time, she told me she was leaving. I kept the apartment for her for another six weeks, hoping she'd see the light, lose the guy, and come back. But she didn't. Finally rented out the apartment. A nice couple lives there now."
"Do you know the name of the man?"
"Never talked to him."
"Anything special about his face? Any identifying features?"
"He had close-set eyes. Small ones. Dark in color. And his skin was dark. Darker than Miryam's."
"No beard or mustache?"
"No." He took down half the beer in his glass in one big gulp, looked at me with a frown and said, "Who hired you to look for her, the sister?"
"Sister?" I asked.
"The one who came with her the first time. Paid the rent for the first month." He went on to describe the sister, and I realized he was referring to Sima Vaaknin. I brought up the image of Maryam Jamalka from the picture her brother had given me, juxtaposed it in my mind with my vivid recollection of Sima Vaaknin, and could see why Gordon would mistake them for sisters. There was a resemblance—a similar complexion, about the same hair color, both attractive. Sima had spoken of the time Maryam had stayed with her in her apartment, how it was like having a sister again. Was it her appearance that drove Sima to take her in?
"They're not sisters," I said. "She was a friend."
"Has to be a close friend to pay the rent for her." He looked at me. "You said 'was a friend.' "
"They had a falling out. Hadn't seen each other for a while. I just spoke to her earlier today. Her name is Sima."
"Nice woman," Gordon said, and I gave him a look. But he didn't seem to be having any lewd thoughts.
"Do you know where Miryam moved to?"
He shook his head. "No idea."
"Let me guess, you asked, but she wouldn't say."
He nodded. "Exactly."
"How did she move her stuff? Her furniture?"
"The apartment came furnished. Just basic stuff, nothing fancy. Easier to rent that way with all the new people coming here with hardly no money besides what they make month to month. So all she had to cart away were her clothes and personal items. Wouldn't need a truck for that. A car would do."
"Apart from the man, did she have any visitors?"
"No one I can remember. That doesn't mean much. I don't pry into the life of my tenants. As long as there are no complaints and I don't notice something fishy, I stay out of their lives. You could ask Sarit, her neighbor on the floor."
I told him I had already spoken with her. I drank some of my beer. He drained his glass and went to the kitchen to get himself another.
When he came back, I asked, "What was Miryam like? What was your impression of her?"
He turned the question over in his mind, taking slow, measured sips from his beer.
Then: "She was quiet, polite. In the beginning she would avert her eyes when I saw her in the hall or outside in the street. Maybe she was shy. I don't know. Could never read women that well. I could tell you one thing, though. There were times I got the sense that she was scared of something. Couldn't tell you what it was, if there was anything there at all. But that's what I believe."
I asked Gordon if I could take a look at the apartment. He told me it was up to the current tenants. We climbed the stairs together, and he made the introductions with the black-haired man who answered the door, Roy Altbauer. He said I could come right in, though he couldn't imagine what I would find there.
"There was nothing of her in the apartment when we moved in."
It was a nice apartment, spacious, well lit, clean, with good airflow from several directions. I looked around the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom. It wasn't a proper search. I didn't go through the closets, look under the mattress, or check for loose tiles under which something had been stashed. But I sensed that Altbauer was right. If a piece of Maryam Jamalka had remained behind when she left this apartment, it had long since vanished. A wave of sadness washed over me. I wanted to get a better sense of who she was, how she made this place her home, but there was nothing. Just another part of Maryam Jamalka that had been erased.
14
Mr. Gordon and I left Maryam's former apartment and descended the stairs to the ground floor. As I made to leave the building, he said to me, "When you find her, let me know, will you? I'd like to know that she's all right."
I gave a noncommittal nod and walked out to the street. The wind from before had kicked up dust and dirt from the roads and yards and the air smelled dirty and thick.
I walked back to Allenby Street and went into Greta's Café. Sitting at my table, I had two cups of her excellent coffee one right after the other. Outside on the street the last traces of sunlight were evaporating and the eerie fake light of the streetlights came on to do battle with the natural darkness of night. Somewhere close by, a killer was roaming, a man who had taken a knife to a young woman, who'd marked her body for pleasure or to satiate some inner urge or hunger that plagued him. A man who'd left her naked and mutilated body in the Yarkon River. Was I closer to finding this man? Perhaps. I had learned some things about the life Maryam Jamalka had led in Tel Aviv. I knew where she'd stayed and how she'd lived her life up to two months before her body was discovered. I knew she'd experienced kindness and hospitality and friendship. I knew she had lost that friendship by falling in love with the wrong man.