He said, "You asked me before what I want you to do. Well, now you know. I want you to find out why Moria killed herself, and I want to know the identity of the man in the note."
And if you end up killing him, I thought, I will bear part of the blame. Then again, if this mysterious man was responsible for the death of Moria Gafni, he deserved to be punished. He... a sudden thought hit me.
"If it's a man at all," I murmured.
"What was that?"
"I was just thinking that it might be a woman. Moria's note doesn't make it clear either way."
Gafni's brow furrowed. "I just assumed—"
"I did too. But maybe we were both wrong."
"I don't see that it matters, do you?"
His expression was neutral, as was his tone, and I felt a shiver slither its way up my spine. It was one thing to contemplate killing a man; it was quite another to do the same to a woman. At least, it was that way to me. If Gafni was of a different persuasion, he might be more inclined to violence than I wished to believe.
I did not relish the role of his bloodhound, but what choice did I have? If I turned Gafni down, I would likely find myself at the nonexistent mercy of Inspector Kulaski. Furthermore, as the father of dead daughters, I related to Gafni's pain. Their estrangement notwithstanding, he obviously still cared deeply for his daughter. The questions surrounding her death were a constant torment and would remain so as long as they went unanswered. And besides, the content of Moria's suicide note both intrigued and troubled me. I was curious to learn the truth hidden behind her opaque message, and I feared that truth might prove even more terrible than Moria's early death. The possibility that Gafni might try to avenge his daughter worried me, but I figured I could deal with it later, when—if—I got to the bottom of all this.
So I would take on this assignment. But before I did, there was one thing I needed to say: "Are you sure you want me to do this, Mr. Gafni?"
His cheeks bunched as he pressed his lips. "Do I look like a man who's in the habit of second-guessing himself?"
"Not in the slightest. But there's something I want you to consider. If I go digging into Moria's life, I might uncover things that would stain the image you have of her. Things you would in retrospect prefer never to have known. Are you sure this is what you want?"
"Yes," he said. The word was unequivocal, but a twitching muscle near his right eye betrayed his fear. "Whatever it is, it would be better than not knowing."
Words he might live to regret, I thought, but I accepted them with a nod. "All right," I said. "Now tell me what you can about Moria."
He shifted awkwardly, likely because he didn't know as much as a father should. Just the basic, general facts. Her address, her birthday, that she'd moved to Jerusalem in December 1946. That she'd never been married and had lived alone. That she'd worked as a nurse. He didn't know any of her friends.
"They weren't at the funeral?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I wanted the funeral to be small and private."
Of course he did. A daughter's suicide brought shame and embarrassment, precisely what Gafni wished to avoid. That was why I was sitting here in his office.
I asked about his family, and he said Moria had been his only child. Her mother had died some years ago. He hadn't remarried.
Next we talked about money, a topic that Gafni was more comfortable with. When we'd discussed his daughter, his posture had been tight and closed. Now he was relaxed, in his element, luxuriating in his financial superiority. He was a wealthy businessman, while I, in my worn, soiled clothes and heavily scuffed shoes, looked the quintessential hired hand, teetering on the edge of destitution.
With a show of self-satisfied largesse, he announced that he did not expect my remuneration to be limited to my freedom. Handing me sixty liras, he asked if that would be sufficient, in a way that made it clear that he expected it would. I said it would be fine.
"How long do you think this will take?" he asked.
"Impossible to say. I'll report to you in a week, would that work?"
He assured me it would, then asked if I thought I would be spending nights in Jerusalem or going back and forth each day.
"I'll stay there, probably."
He nodded thoughtfully, retrieved his wallet, and counted out twenty more liras. "For a hotel," he said. Then he handed me a key. "To Moria's apartment. I assume you'll want to pay it a visit. I paid the rent till the end of next month. I need some time to decide what to do with her things."
"Did you take anything?"
He shook his head. "I was meaning to, but not yet. I haven't been there since the day the police called me to tell me she'd died."
Upon my request, he gave me a photograph of his daughter, taken when she was sixteen. He was right: she looked nothing like him. Moria had springy dark curls, deep-set soulful eyes, and a large mouth with plump lips. Her smile showed a sliver of teeth and seemed to hint at secrets, or perhaps that impression was the product of what I knew of her fate. She wasn't beautiful, yet still pretty in the way girls on the verge of womanhood often are.
Still in a generous mood, Gafni decided to see me out. As we were crossing the outer office, with the blonde secretary at her desk arranging papers, he asked, "I trust you'll start right away, Mr. Lapid?" A demand posed as a question.
"I'll head to Jerusalem first thing tomorrow," I said.
We exited the office, descended the stairs, and halted at the entrance to the production hall, where the machines still clamored.
"Look at that," Gafni said, gesturing with his arm. "The newest of these machines is over ten years old. They keep breaking down, and it's getting harder to fix them. But here in Israel, they're the best we can get. In the meantime, do you know what's happening in Germany? The country is filled with modern factories with top-of-the-line machinery, pumping out quality products they sell all over the world, including to countries that fought against the Nazis. Some are calling it an economic miracle."
He paused, waiting for a reaction, but I gave him none. The incredible economic revival of Germany was hardly news. The newspapers had been reporting it for at least a year. I read these reports with impotent resentment and an involuntary awe that never failed to leave me ashamed. Germany, at least the western part of it, had managed to rise from near ultimate destruction and resurrect its economy in record time. As someone who had witnessed the devastation of Germany soon after the war, I could scarcely believe it.
How had they done it? The only answer I could come up with was that the Germans had simply shifted the focus of their immense talents. From blitzkrieg to business; from industrial slaughter to industrial production. Germany's newfound prosperity enraged me. It screamed injustice. Why did this nation, so soon after committing so many heinous crimes, deserve such good fortune? And why, at the same time, did Israel find itself sinking ever deeper into poverty and want?
Gafni said, "The reparations the Germans will give us won't be just money. Mostly, they'll pay us with goods, finished products, and modern machinery factories like mine need." His lips were parted and moist, and I could see greed glistening in his eyes like blood-drenched pieces of silver.
I couldn't speak or move a muscle. The shock was too great. This was the first time I'd met a person who supported negotiations with Germany for personal rather than national interests. Then Gafni looked once more at his toiling employees, and the paralysis evaporated, and in its place came a bone-deep tingling, a flash of heat in my throat and face, a clenching of the muscles in my arms and hands.
The urge to hit him was sudden and powerful. I pictured my fist connecting with his plump face, breaking teeth, crushing bone, splitting skin. I was on the verge of succumbing to uncontrollable anger, the kind that had engulfed me yesterday outside the Knesset.
"Hello, Baruch," a man's baritone sounded from behind me, yanking me back off the ledge. As Gafni began turning around, I forced my teeth apart and unfurled my fists, pressing my fingers against the sides of my trousers to keep them from bunching again.
