The Missing File (17 page)

“It frightens me,” she said again. She still held the black notebook, looking at the black handwriting, the correction lines and arrows on the page. She was not reading.

“Frightening is good,” he repeated, wondering if he should read her the quote about the ax and the frozen sea from Kafka's letter that he had found on the Internet a few days earlier.

“If you decide to publish it, you have to change the names,” Michal said. “Do you know how his parents would react?” and without thinking twice Ze'ev said, “I may find out soon enough. I sent them the letters.”

Was it a mistake to tell her? Later, while waiting for her call, for a sign that she hadn't abandoned him, that he hadn't been left all on his own, he thought he should have continued to hide it all from her, that there was a lesson to be learned here. But things had never been like that between them.

Michal didn't believe him; he could still take back his words.

“You did what?” she asked.

“I sent them the letters,” he simply said again. “In fact, I put them in their mailbox.”

She refused to believe it.

“Don't worry. They aren't signed or anything. And I had no choice; the letters are addressed to them. The person writing these letters has specific addressees in mind whom he wishes to terrify.”

“I don't believe that you put them in their mailbox,” Michal said, her eyes welling with tears.

Once again he had a chance to take his words back and say, “Just kidding, of course I didn't put the letters in their mailbox”—but he didn't.

Michal stood up and walked away.

He found her in the kitchen, sitting with her elbows resting on the table and her hands covering her eyes. He was at a loss for words. He tried to hold her, but she shrugged him off.

“Ze'evi,” she said, “you didn't really put the letters in their mailbox, right? You're just trying to mess with me, right?”

He didn't answer her.

“I can't believe you did this. How could you have done such a thing? Have you lost your mind?”

Her sadness startled him—and overcame him too.

“They don't know it was me,” he said.

“What does it matter if they don't know it's you? Do you realize what you have done?”

Of course he realized what he had done. That's precisely why he had sent the letters.

He tried to play with her hair. She continued to speak with her hands still covering her eyes and her head bent over the table. “You have to go to the police and tell them it was you. They must be looking for the person who sent the letters. They may even think that Ofer sent them.”

“What do you mean, go to the police?” he asked, and Michal suddenly lifted her head and dropped her hands from her face, uncovering her brown eyes, which were now wide open and fixed on him. “Ze'evi, did something happen between you and Ofer?” she asked.

Her question stunned him. It was the second time someone had implied something of the sort—and Michal, of all people.

T
he most difficult moment of that terrible afternoon was when they heard Elie had woken—probably because of the pitch of their raised voices. The fact that he hadn't woken to silence but to the sounds of his father and mother, however, meant no crying. They could hear him in his room, babbling to himself in words that only he understood, perhaps trying to imitate their conversation in his infant fashion. Michal wiped the tears from her cheeks before going to see to him, but on returning with the infant in her arms suddenly broke down sobbing, deposited the surprised baby in his father's arms, and went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. She hurried out moments later, snatched Elie from Ze'ev's hands, and went with him into the bedroom. Ze'ev followed and sat down on the bed. Elie was oblivious to the situation; he looked happy to be on his parents' bed, crawling back and forth between them.

“Do you really want me to go to the police?” he asked, and she said, “Ze'evi, you have a child. How could you have even thought of doing such a thing? I just don't get it.”

He tried to move closer to her. Elie grabbed hold of his hands and pulled himself up onto his feet for a moment, before flopping forward onto his father. The literary discussion was over and they were not going to have one again. In an instant, once Michal realized that the letters she had read were intended for real recipients, they were transformed from true writing into something immoral, even criminal, a heavy rock that had been thrown at someone and injured him.

“That's the best thing to do,” she said. “Do you think it's better to wait here for them to burst into the apartment, turn it upside down, and arrest you right here in front of Elie, in front of Ofer's parents?”

He couldn't understand why she was so sure the police would be able to arrest him. She was mixing up totally unrelated reasons and causes. He quietly tried to explain to her that there was no chance of anyone connecting him with the letters. He had taken care to write them on standard sheets of paper, and he used regular envelopes; he hadn't left any fingerprints, and no one had seen him slipping them in the mailbox. A week and a half had passed since he sent the first letter, and no one had found out. But now she infected him with her anxiety and roused his own fears.

“We can't hide it,” she repeated, and he kept saying, “But why not? Why the hell not?”

“Because the police will find out in the end, and it would be best if they did from you. You go in and explain it all. And we can't hide it because it's a terrible thing. Ofer's parents may believe he's alive and well only because of these letters. We have to tell the police. And if you go to them and admit it, maybe they will agree not to tell Ofer's parents that we did it. What would we do here in the building? Do you think we'd be able to stay here after they find out that you were the one who wrote those letters?”

“And what do we do if they arrest me?” he asked.

“Well, first thing we do is talk to a lawyer. After all, you didn't do anything, you just wrote letters. And if you go and tell them the truth, and show remorse, then they won't suspect you of being involved in what happened to Ofer. Explain to them that you know nothing about his disappearance. That it was nothing more than a writing exercise.”

Despite her trying to sound calm and to protect him, her last sentence was meant to hurt him.

Ze'ev said, “I don't need to consult with a lawyer. If need be, I'm willing to speak to Avi Avraham, I'm sure he'll understand,” and she said, “So call him, then. Let's not wait. This needs to be done right away.”

It was so odd.

He eventually found Avraham's card tucked into the black notebook, between the cover and the first page. He remembered placing it there only after looking first in his wallet and bag and then in the desk drawers.

Michal followed him to the balcony and was standing beside him with Elie in her arms when he heard Avraham's voice on the other end of the line. He told the inspector that he wished to speak to him about a certain matter, and Avraham replied that it couldn't be before Sunday or even Monday, as he was abroad, and asked if he had urgent information regarding the investigation. He said no, and that he was calling about a somewhat different matter. Avraham suggested that he call the police, but he explained that he was willing to speak only to him. The inspector sounded different, far away, as if caught up in some internal storm.

“I'll wait for your call on Sunday, then. You'll let me know when it would be convenient for me to come to the station,” Ze'ev said, ending the call.

M
ichal went to her parents' house to do some thinking, leaving Ze'ev alone in the apartment.

He dared not approach the balcony overlooking the street, from where passersby who lifted their heads to look up at the windows would be able to see him. Only then did it dawn on him that it was all over. Everything that had opened up two weeks earlier had closed. Doors and windows, the other person inside him, the birth, Michael Rosen, the writing. The writing for which he had waited so long. Michal's emotional response and the conversation between them had turned the idea that had thrilled him into something sordid and frightening. He was done with the workshop. He was done with writing letters. The black notebook lay on the desk, closed, as repellent as a leprous hand. He didn't open it, and didn't read the opening paragraph of the fourth letter, which began with the sentence:
“Father and Mother, do you keep reading the words I'm sending you from where I am now?”

Ze'ev felt like leaving the house and walking for hours in the dark to tire himself out, to exhaust his legs, and his fear—but it was impossible. His mind conjured up images of cold eyes staring at him from every corner, every balcony. Everyone knew by now. But knew what, for God's sake? The thought of having to go to school the next day as per usual and meet up with his students and the other teachers was unbearable, and he decided to again call in sick and ask the secretary to have a substitute teach his classes. He'd soon be losing his job, anyway. There was no reason for it, nothing in the world had changed, yet the slightest sound now startled him, as if a police siren was being set off in his head. He tried to calm himself. He drank a large mug of chamomile tea with no sugar. He felt nauseated and wanted to throw up. He kept telling himself that Avraham would understand. He'd have harsh words for him, no doubt, but he wouldn't arrest him. He was sure of that, despite not having much to back up his certainty other than the understanding that existed between them. And what was he doing abroad in the middle of an investigation? Was the trip related to the search for Ofer? Could Ofer have managed to leave Israel?

He thought again about Michael Rosen, about his bloodshot eyes and pungent odor. About his legs that barely managed to fit into the space in the small car. He was sorry they wouldn't meet again. He couldn't remember if he had left his telephone number and address with the secretary at the library, and thus didn't know if Michael would be able to contact him to find out why he had disappeared halfway through the workshop. The thought that people he knew, particularly distant relatives and old acquaintances from his university days, would read about what had happened in the newspapers was paralyzing. Would Michael Rosen read it too? He wished he could stop thinking. If he were to lose his job, it would only be for the best.

He'd told Michal that he would leave the apartment and go to a hotel for the weekend, until he had a chance to speak to Avraham, until things got cleared up. “Maybe you'll feel calmer without me here,” he had said to her—and meant it. Instead, however, she had left, and he wondered if she'd ever return. He fell asleep on the sofa in the living room, with the TV on, and unlike other nights, that night he dreamed of things that he vaguely remembered the next morning.

T
he door opened when he was still on the sofa, covered by a thin, multicolored blanket he had taken from his son's bed in the middle of the night. His bones felt stiff. The events of the day before came back to him slowly.

Michal entered—alone. She had left Elie with her parents. She sat down by his side.

“I'm sorry I left,” she said. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Yes. Quite a lot, I think. What time is it? How was your night?”

“I want to talk to you, and I want you to explain to me why you did it, because I'm struggling to understand what happened.”

“I am too,” he said, beginning to cry for the first time since the day before.

She said, “Don't cry, we'll get through this,” and he said, “No, it's because I'm happy; I didn't think you'd come back.”

Michal touched his light hair.

She then went over to the balcony to open the shutters to air out the apartment, prepared two cups of coffee, and placed a pack of cigarettes on the living room table beside them.

“I guess we might as well start smoking again,” she said.

It felt like they had stepped into a time machine and gone back to the past. They didn't leave the apartment for the next forty-eight hours, barely moving from the living room sofa—as if they were students once again, as if in a single weekend, with no sleep, they could relive all the years differently, and could wake up on Sunday morning to a world in which no letters had been written, in which they had never met Ofer, and in which there was no need to face the police.

They spoke about everything, not only Ofer's letters. About the difficult year they had had with Elie, about their careers, and the move to Holon. They drifted apart and got closer, and then moved away again. At times he thought Michal was ready to forgive him, and there were also moments, just like the very first moment, when the shock of the discovery and her inability to understand what he had done drove a wedge between them.

“When I first read the letters, I realized right away that they were more about you than about Ofer,” Michal said. “And then I thought you should have sent them to me, that they were really addressed to me. You should have put anonymous letters in our mailbox.”

“To you? What are you talking about?” he replied. “And I don't believe they are more about me than about Ofer. Perhaps they're about both of us. My parents are already dead, I can't send letters to them.”

“But you do realize, don't you, that you shouldn't have put the letters in his parents' mailbox, even if you had decided that this is what you wanted to write? You're able to tell the difference between writing the letters and the terrible thing you did when you sent them, right?”

“Right now I don't know what I can tell the difference between. All I know is that what I've done frightens me, and your reaction does too. I don't care about the police. Only about you.”

He wasn't trying to make things easier for her by saying such things. He said them because at that moment he truly was seeking her absolution, even if the sin for which he sought it still remained unclear to him.