I took the pen. I lowered my eyes to the paper. At the bottom was an empty space. Waiting just for me. A simple flourish of my hand and it would be done. Like a man with a noose around his neck kicking away the chair on which he stands.
For a moment I didn't move. Then I raised my eyes, looked squarely at Inspector Kulaski, and hurled the pen as hard as I could to my right.
It bounced against the wall, dropped to the floor, and rolled a couple of times. When it stopped, so, it seemed, did everything else. All movement, and all sound too. Neither Kulaski nor I shifted or even twitched. We simply stared at each other, eyes fixed as though with rivets, like two cowboys about to draw their guns and fire. The air in the interrogation room seemed to gain substance and weight with our silence. It pressed against me like damp clothes.
I was the one who broke the silence. "I'm not signing anything you give me. Don't bother trying to persuade me." I spoke with calm assurance, but it was a false front. I knew well the gloomy nature of my predicament. I was in a deep pit with slick walls and no toeholds, and I had no idea how I'd be able to climb out. Not with Kulaski standing above me, ready to shove me back down.
Kulaski shrugged, refolded the unsigned confession, tucked it in his pocket, and tapped the table with his hand. Then he smiled. A smile of wolfish anticipation. An eagerness for revenge. "Fine. We'll do it the hard way. I'm going to relish seeing you get the maximum sentence. And after the sentencing, I'll make sure they put you in the worst place possible."
"Cut it with the games," I said, still terrified but also angry and tired of his crap. My hands had stopped trembling and instead were now clamped into tight fists. "We both know you'd have done it anyway. You're a cruel son of a bitch, aren't you?"
Kulaski looked on the verge of exploding. He jerked his mouth open to reply, but a knock on the door forestalled him. "What is it?" he barked.
The door swung open, and a police officer stuck his head in. "Sorry to disturb you, Inspector, but there's a telephone call for you."
"Tell whoever it is I'll call them back."
"It's the deputy commissioner."
Kulaski frowned. He tapped the table again and stood, needlessly smoothing the front of his shirt. "I'll be back shortly," he told me. And to the officer: "Stay here. And don't talk to him."
He was gone no more than five minutes. When he returned, he brusquely ordered the officer to return to his post. Then he went to his chair, sat in it, and wouldn't meet my eyes. When he finally did, he said nothing for a long while, and his expression kept twitching, making it difficult to guess his emotions.
"Who are you really?"
"I'm Adam Lapid," I said, baffled by the question and the change in Kulaski's demeanor.
"I'm not talking about your name. I'm talking about who you know." He said it like an accusation.
I had no idea what he was talking about and said as much.
His slitted eyes made it clear he did not believe me. The corners of his mouth were pulled down at a resentful angle. He delivered his next words with obvious effort, as though every single one of them pained him. "It's your lucky day, it seems. You're free to go."
I didn't move, unsure if I'd heard him correctly. Was this another one of his tricks? Some devious ploy he'd orchestrated with the other officer? Had there really been a phone call? And why would the officer lie about the deputy commissioner being on the line?
Kulaski shouted, "Are you deaf? I told you you're free to go. So go on, get the hell out of here!"
Still uncertain, I pushed my chair back and stood. I paused for a second before reaching for my ID and wallet, thinking that this was the moment in which he'd pull the rug from under my feet and laugh in my face.
But he didn't. He stayed quiet as I picked up my papers and returned them to my wallet. Then I checked the money compartment. Six liras. Less than what I'd had the prior evening.
I said, "The officer who arrested me, did he give you your cut?"
"What cut?"
"Ten liras are missing from my wallet. Don't tell me you didn't get any."
His jaw tightened. "You'd better watch it, understand?" The threat had plenty of bark but no bite. For some mysterious reason, I was inviolate. At least for the time being. It gave me a frisson of satisfaction varnished with a delicious dash of juvenile recklessness.
Putting the wallet back in my pocket, I said, "I hope he threw some cigarettes your way, at least. The pack he took off me was more than half full."
Then I turned and went to the door. The cool handle was in my grip when he said, "This isn't over, Lapid. You mark my words."
I could tell by his face that he meant it as much as a man could mean anything. If the opportunity to harm me came his way, he would grab it with both hands. A trace of the fear I'd felt before wormed its way through my intestines. I did my best to not show it.
"So long, Inspector. It was an absolute joy talking to you."
And with that, I opened the door and stepped out of the room, leaving him alone with his unquenched thirst for my destruction.
Within ten minutes, I was at the gate. As I waited for the guards to open it, I gazed up the wall with its barbed-wire topping and beyond it at the dreary winter sky, and I wondered again how I came to be standing there, a few seconds from freedom.
I no longer believed this was a ruse. There had been a telephone call, and it had been the deputy commissioner on the line. But why would he telephone anyone about me? And why would I be let loose? I'd never met the man, didn't even know his name. I doubted he knew mine.
A biting wind tore at me as the gate swung open. I stuck my hands into my pockets but didn't duck my chin into my collar. I was walking out of this jail with my head held high.
I didn't look back as I stepped over the threshold between incarceration and liberty. I had no sense whether I was being watched. Maybe Kulaski's eyes were trained on my back like a sniper's sight. Or maybe he was inside the building, seething and fantasizing about locking me up.
Outside, I paused for a moment, unsure of where to go. I was unfamiliar with this part of Jerusalem. Then a car horn honked, and I turned in its direction in time to see the door of a blue Morris Eight swing open and a man climb out of it.
He was bald with a fringe of light-brown hair. His eyes were also light brown and shielded by a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. His face was round and pudgy and sprinkled with freckles. I had nearly busted his jaw three years before and had never regretted it. Neither of us had forgotten the incident or forgiven each other's role in it. But that didn't mean we hated each other.
"Hello, Shmuel," I said.
"Good day, Adam." Shmuel Birnbaum wasn't smiling. His cheeks were tinged red by the cold. Further chill seemed to emanate off him in my direction. "I trust you had a pleasant night."
"I've had worse."
He expelled a low grunt. "Get in. Let's get out of here."
