I thought back to my conversation with Gafni. What had he said about the cause of his wife's death? He hadn't said anything about it. Glossed over it in the flow of his speech. Which was uncommon, I thought. People usually supply such details. She died in an accident, they might say. Or of pneumonia. Something to explain the loss. But Gafni hadn't.
"No," I said. "No, I don't."
"Her mother committed suicide. She killed herself."
I stared at her. "Are you sure?"
She nodded. "Moria was the one who found her. In their apartment in Tel Aviv. Why do you look like you don't believe me?"
"It's just the shock," I said. "First the mother and then the daughter." But that wasn't it. Not all of it. The bulk of my surprise was because Gafni had kept this information from me. The reason might have been innocent, a matter of privacy, but there was a point in our conversation in which it would have been pertinent, even useful, for him to mention it. It had been when I raised the possibility that Moria hadn't actually killed herself. Gafni had offered a number of persuasive arguments as to why she had, but he had failed to mention her mother's suicide, even though that would have lent more weight to his assertion. After all, a self-annihilating tendency, like all others, could be hereditary.
The fact that Gafni had acted that way was curious. He had to have had a damn good reason for doing so.
"Did Moria blame her father for her mother's death?" I asked.
"I don't know for certain," Naomi Hecht answered. "But it would be a good reason to hate him, wouldn't it?"
I nodded, thinking, Yes, it most certainly would.
I said, "Do you know how her mother did it? How she killed herself? Or why?"
"No. Moria didn't want to talk about it. I don't think she planned on telling me about her mother at all. It slipped out, and I could tell she regretted it."
"How did you two meet?"
"During the war. Jerusalem was besieged. The Arabs bombarded the city. Many people died; many were injured. Moria was at the end of her training. Not yet a nurse, but pretty close. We nurses couldn't handle the workload, so nursing students were called upon to assist. Each student was assigned to a nurse. Less risk of them making mistakes that way. Moria was assigned to me."
"It must have been hard."
"Very. The siege caused shortages in everything. Medicine, bandages, even water. Conditions became more primitive with each passing day. Beyond the objective difficulties, what made it hard was knowing how to treat people but not being able to do it properly. Injuries that were treatable under normal circumstances would result in the loss of a limb or even death."
"How did Moria handle it?"
"She was terrific. Hardworking, dedicated. Not flinching even when shells were exploding nearby. I could tell she'd be a wonderful nurse."
"Paula told me Moria took things too much to heart, that she didn't know how to distance herself from her patients."
Naomi Hecht's eyes flashed. "What other criticism did the venerable Paula share with you?"
"None. She held Moria in high esteem."
The fire in Naomi Hecht's eyes abated. She drank some coffee, ran her finger along the curled cup handle. "Paula has a point. Moria did get too close. Sometimes, I worried about her too."
"Ever think she might hurt herself?"
"No," she said firmly. "Never."
"What sort of things did the two of you do together?"
"All sorts. We went to the cinema or for walks or to cafés, things like that."
"Just the two of you?"
"Sometimes. Or with another friend of ours."
"Anat Schlesinger?"
Naomi Hecht nodded. "Yes. With Anat."
"I'll need to talk to her. Can you give me her address?"
She recited it. I jotted it in my notebook.
My coffee had become lukewarm by then. I finished it in one gulp, then tapped my fingers on the table, trying to decide how to proceed. The easy questions were done. Now it was time for the uncomfortable ones.
"Do you know who Moria's lover was?" I asked.
"What makes you think she had one?"
I told her about the condoms in the bedside cabinet. An awkward smile played across her lips before she smothered it.
"I don't know," she said. "She didn't tell me."
Which wasn't surprising, given the secret nature of Moria's relationship with her lover.
"Did she go on dates?"
"On occasion. But never more than a couple of times with the same man."
