The Missing File (13 page)

Z
e'ev
was unaware of just how much time had passed—an hour, maybe two. Avraham
appeared at ease. He was no longer glancing at his watch and seemed to be
thirstily drinking in his words. And the more Ze'ev spoke, the more he felt that
his observations were becoming even sharper and more profound than he had
initially believed. From time to time, Avraham would jot down a few words on the
page in front of him, and Ze'ev suddenly wanted to talk about how all of this
was linked with the act of writing. Another letter was formulating in his
thoughts. He wanted to write it later that evening.

A few weeks into the private lessons, it dawned on
Ze'ev that he wanted to help Ofer with not only his English studies. He wanted
to get close to him and help him open up. And Ofer had felt it. To enrich his
vocabulary, and primarily in an effort to expose him to different experiences,
other than those with which he was familiar at home, Ze'ev suggested that he
watch movies and high-quality English-language television shows without
subtitles. He lent him a DVD with episodes from the first season of
House
, as well as a Martin Scorsese box set, which
included
Taxi Driver
,
Raging
Bull
, and
Casino
. Within a week, Ofer had
watched them all. During their lessons, he tried to encourage a discussion of
the films, in English of course. Ofer was restrained, embarrassed—not because of
his English, but because no one had ever asked him his opinion of a movie. Ze'ev
subsequently lent him a box set of Alfred Hitchcock films. “It may sound
pretentious,” he said, “but I honestly believe Ofer discovered the world of
movies thanks to me.”

“What do you mean by that?” Avraham quickly
responded. “Do you think he had a special interest in movies?”

He appeared on edge.

“Yes, if you were to ask me, I'd say Ofer would
like to try his hand at acting. In one of our last lessons, we read through a
text they had received at school, a passage related to the theater, and we spoke
about drama school, acting classes—things that were so far removed from his
world, he didn't even know they existed. For him, actors and artists were a
different species of people, who were born that way, and there was no chance for
him. Do you know that he asked me if one studied acting at university? I tried
to find out if he was interested in studying drama—this was all in English, of
course—and he said no, and then possibly yes, that he wasn't sure if it suited
him. I explained to him that he needn't wait until university, that there were
youth drama classes he could attend, probably even in Holon, and maybe even at
his school. I thought of speaking to his parents about it, but decided against
it; it should come from him. Besides, I don't think they'd let him, anyway.”

“Why? Do you think they were strict with him?”

“No, don't get me wrong, I think they are good
people—both of them. The mother is a quiet, intelligent woman who knows exactly
what she wants; and the father, too. He comes across as a simple and decent
workingman. But they weren't aware of this side of Ofer. They never nurtured
it—not, in my opinion, out of meanness, it's simply not a part of their world.
It took an outsider to notice that Ofer is a different kind of child, with a
different soul, the soul of an artist—like I told you before—and to give him a
push in the right direction.”

“What was your impression of the home when you were
there, of his relationship with his parents?” Inspector Avraham asked. “Do you
think Ofer bore any resentment toward them?”

“No, no, you're missing the point here completely,”
Ze'ev replied. “I think it's a great home. Warm and everything. You probably
know that Ofer has a severely mentally disabled sister, and they care for her
lovingly—Ofer too. Perhaps they devoted more time to the sister, because of her
condition, but that's not the issue. I'm simply saying they weren't able to see
that side of Ofer because it's beyond their scope. There are things that certain
parents aren't able to give their children, things that someone from the outside
has to step in and give.”

“So you don't think they placed too much on Ofer's
shoulders because of the father's absences and the condition of the sister?”

Why wouldn't he drop that subject? Ze'ev wondered.
And he wasn't sure, either, what Avraham had meant about the father's absences.
“Maybe,” he said. “But why do you ask? Do you think Ofer has disappeared because
things were hard for him at home? I don't think that's the issue here at all.
Listen, let me try to clarify my observation for you. The point is not that they
treated him badly, but that they weren't able to see that he's not like them.
There's a difference. They couldn't see what I saw, which is why I thought it
was a shame that we stopped the lessons.”

“Why did you stop? After how long?”

“It's quite ironic. I think they were stopped
because they helped. Ofer's grades improved and the school was thinking about
bumping him up to a higher group. If you ask me, the lessons were stopped
because the parents were unable to cope with the effect they had on Ofer. They
told me they were looking for a math tutor in place of the English. I said I was
willing to continue for nothing, but they wouldn't have it. They just wouldn't
hear of it.”

“And did Ofer want to continue?”

“Of course he did.”

“Did he actually say so?”

“He wouldn't have dared to say anything to
contradict his parents.”

“And when the lessons stopped, did your
relationship end as well? Did you still see him?”

“Of course I saw him. In the building, obviously,
from time to time. I'd ask how he was doing and progressing, and invited him
over to borrow more movies. I was under the impression he was avoiding me
because he felt bad about the lessons ending. He seemed embarrassed about it,
guilty toward me. He shouldn't have.”

Z
e'ev
was exhausted. When he got home he realized that his talk with Avraham had gone
on for more than two hours. Michal was waiting for him to bathe Elie. They had
already eaten supper. She asked him how it went, and he said okay. He lay back
on the sofa in the living room and she placed Elie in his arms while she went to
fill up the blue tub. Elie was clutching an old pair of broken sunglasses and
trying to put them on his father's head. Despite his weariness, Ze'ev was happy
to have his son in his arms and looked forward to spending the morning with him
the next day. He had missed his son's sparkling eyes and sense of humor.

“But what did you say there?” Michal shouted out to
him from the bathroom, although she knew how much he hated conversations that
were yelled from one room to another.

“The same I said to you,” Ze'ev said. “I told him
about Ofer. Though I don't know how much help it will be to the
investigation.”

His exhaustion and confusion, in fact, were the
result of the end of his meeting with Avraham—as well as what had happened to
him on the way home. He had said what he came to say, but Avraham had continued
to ask questions. And as Ze'ev's responses had shortened, so had Avraham's
questions. They had moved on to the routine line.

“Did Ofer ever tell you anything that could imply
he may be caught up in something criminal or about plans to run away from
home?”

“Did you notice anything unusual about Ofer's
behavior in the days leading up to his disappearance?”

“Did he ever talk to you about his friends?”

Ze'ev responded tersely and in the negative; he had
already answered all these questions on Thursday.

Avraham glanced through the notes strewn out on the
desk in front of him. “In the initial interview we conducted at your apartment,
your wife said . . . Let's see here . . . She said she had
heard an argument or fight taking place in the Sharabis' apartment, and that she
believed it was the evening before Ofer's disappearance. Do you remember any
such incident?”

What incident? She had probably heard noises from
the television.

“Do you hear everything that goes on upstairs?”
Avraham asked.

“Generally, no. You hear things as you would in any
apartment building. But, like I told the policewoman who interviewed me, we're
probably the ones who make the most noise in the building.”

Avraham asked if he had anything else to add, and
Ze'ev shook his head. And then he asked him to say what he thought had happened
to Ofer. “Tell me what your gut feeling is,” Avraham said. “Try to imagine where
he is at this very moment, right now.”

Ze'ev was at a loss for words. Had he been asked
the same question at the start of the interview, he would have been better
equipped to think of a possible scenario. “Imagine?” he asked. “How can I
imagine where he might be? I only hope nothing has happened to him, that he's in
a safe place.”

Ze'ev was about to stand up to leave. “May I?” he
asked, pointing to his ID card, which still lay on the table, but Avraham had
more questions. “When you gave him the lessons, were his parents always home?”
he asked. “What time were the lessons?”

“How should I remember?” Ze'ev replied. “I think
Hannah was usually home.”

“Do you recall what time the lessons were?”

“It varied. Usually around five or six.”

“Did you ever arrange to meet somewhere
else—somewhere other than in the building, I mean?”

The allusion stunned him. “No. Why would we meet
elsewhere? Am I suspected of anything?” he asked, and Avraham said, “God forbid.
I'm simply trying to find out if you ever ran into him elsewhere. I'm an
investigator. That's my job.”

O
n his
way home Ze'ev considered whether he should remove the letter from the mailbox.
Avraham's final questions were echoing in his mind, leaving him with a dull
sense of fear.

The letter wasn't there.

He turned on the light in the stairwell and looked
for the brown envelope in the small plastic trash can in the foyer of the
building. He then looked around again near the mailboxes.

Ze'ev didn't write another letter that night. He
was dead tired and got into bed early—but didn't fall asleep. He lay on his back
and looked up at the ceiling. He recalled the scent of Michael Rosen's skin and
his long legs, and regretted not taking Kafka's
Letter to
His Father
out of the library. Michal was hanging up the washing, and
when she came into the bedroom, he closed his eyes and pretended he was asleep.
She read in bed—a novel by Haruki Murakami. And at that moment, someone in the
apartment above—just ten or twelve feet above his head—was reading his letter.
The mother perhaps? Or the father?

He had been trying since yesterday to imagine their
response. They were his first readers. Did they read the letter together or
separately? And how did they react? He wished he could have watched their faces
as they read. Still pretending to sleep, he turned his back toward Michal, who
also had her back to him. She was close to him, yet knew nothing. He regretted
that.

As always, his sleep was brief and dreamless.

He woke in the early hours of the morning and
hurried to the balcony in his underwear, without first brushing his teeth or
making a cup of tea. The darkness outside was turning blue and the street was
silent as he wrote his second letter.

———

Avraham sat in his office at the station. The day had finally come to an
end.

He was sure that now, after five days of
investigation, something was finally moving—out in the world, and inside him
too. It was almost 8:00 p.m. and he was hungry and thirsty. He made note of a
number of additional questions he wanted to ask Rafael and Hannah Sharabi. He'd
certainly ask them about Ze'ev Avni, about the private lessons, and why they
decided to stop them. He needed to get a grip on their opinion of Avni and know
what Ofer thought of him. His interview with Avni had left him feeling
uneasy.

During his talk with the teacher, Ma'alul had
stopped by the station to drop off transcripts of the interviews he had
conducted that morning with Ofer's schoolmates and the girl he was supposed to
take out. Avraham glanced over them. He was familiar with Ma'alul's
meticulousness. The veteran investigator had written down every question he had
asked and every answer. That he probably documented his arguments with his wife
in the same way was the joke around the station.

The girl didn't know much. Ofer hadn't canceled
their Friday-evening date, and she had heard about his disappearance from her
friend, the sister of Ofer's classmate.

Shrapstein had left a text message on his cell
phone informing him that he was “heading home,” that his line of inquiry was
getting hot, and that he planned to bring in the suspect for questioning the
following day. “I'm convinced we're onto something,” he had written. “My
instinct tells me.”

Avraham, too, should have been “heading home.” But
nothing awaited him there. Channel 3 would be airing an episode of
Law & Order
that he had seen at least five times,
and he had already picked out all the mistakes the detectives made in their
investigation. For no real reason, he reread the second page of the transcript
from Ma'alul's pointless talk with Lital Aharon, the tenth-grade student from
Kiryat Sharet High School.

Question: How many
times did you speak to each other?

Answer: Twice, I
think.

Question:
When?