I took a bus that belched its way through the cold January evening to Gafni's factory. My ribs still ached, protesting with a teeth-clenching spasm when the bus driver accidentally mounted the curb on a turn.
The door to Gafni's factory was locked. The windows on the ground floor were dark. No machinery sounds. All the workers were long gone. Gafni wanted privacy.
I pounded on the door. The metal echoed. A minute later, I heard a key being turned, and Gafni pulled the door open and motioned me inside. The foyer and staircase were dim, so he noticed my injuries only after I followed him upstairs to the outer office where his secretary's desk stood.
"What happened to you?"
"I was mugged."
He voiced no concern or empathy. His only reaction was a creasing of the forehead.
"Don't worry," I said, making no effort to keep the sarcasm from my voice. "It's not serious."
He exhaled a low grunt and turned toward his inner sanctum. There, settled in his large chair behind his desk, he observed me with half-masted eyes beneath knitted eyebrows, his fingers steepled. It was his favorite spot, I bet, where he could appear as he wanted to: the successful, crafty businessman, in total control not only of his own destiny, but of that of many others as well.
I sat in one of the chairs opposite his and was about to speak, but he beat me to it. "How much?"
I didn't understand. "How much what?"
He rolled his eyes. "Money. That's what you're here for, isn't it? I imagine you don't have any after being mugged." It was clear by his inflection that he doubted my story. Probably thought I'd had an accomplice punch me in the face a few times.
I felt like doing the same to him, but I quelled the urge and shook my head. "Rest assured, I'm not here to squeeze you for more money. The muggers left empty-handed."
A filament of fear fluttered in his eyes. I bit back a smile. He assumed I'd done battle with multiple muggers and emerged bloodied but triumphant. I was a man to be reckoned with. And he was alone with me in a deserted building, and he had just insulted me to my face.
If only he knew the true story.
Taking advantage of his discomfort, I angled forward, planting my elbows on his desk as though I owned it. "Why didn't you tell me about your wife?"
His face lost color, and he retreated deeper into his seat. In the light that now splashed directly on his face, backdropped by the large dark windows that looked down on the deserted factory floor below, I could see the cracks in the image he strove to project. The fatigue. The worried, drawn features. The lines of mourning or guilt or both.
"Who told you about her?" he asked in a hushed yet cunning voice, no doubt already plotting his retribution on whoever had whispered his family's unsavory history in my ear.
"That doesn't matter. What matters is that she killed herself and that your daughter found her body."
"And so?"
"I'm wondering why you failed to mention it."
"To put it simply," he said, seemingly recovered from his shock, "it was not pertinent to your assignment."
"I think it was."
"It is not your place to think of such things. You are to concern yourself solely with the job I hired you for."
"Why did your wife kill herself?"
His jaw clamped like a dog chomping on a bone. "You are overstepping your bounds, Mr. Lapid."
"I heard it was because you were having affairs. Is that true?"
He let out a breath and laced his hands atop his round belly. To my surprise, his anger did not spike.
"It's not something I'm proud of, but I won't deny it."
"Is that why Moria severed all contact with you?"
He looked down at his hands, his mouth working, and nodded. "I didn't see the point in telling you."
Which wasn't why he'd kept this information from me. His motives were selfish. He simply didn't want his reputation tarnished.
I thought of the three lines of Moria's note and how they might fit Gafni's confession. I hate you for how you made me feel. That could describe Moria's sadness over the loss of her mother. I hate you for what you did to me. That could mean Gafni's responsibility for her mother's death. I hate you for what you made me do. This would refer to Moria finding her mother dead in a pool of her own blood.
Gafni must have run this interpretation through his mind a million times since Moria's death. I understood him better now. Understood his need to know why his daughter had killed herself, and why it drove him to hire me despite the risk of having his past misdeeds unearthed. He already felt responsible for his wife's suicide. The possibility of him being the cause of his daughter's suicide as well must have been unbearable. His need to find an alternative explanation must have been as urgent as a drowning man's desire for breath.
At the sight of him, with his bowed head and slumped shoulders, an unexpected emotion came over me: pity.
He had treated his wife badly. He had betrayed her. And this betrayal had led to her death and scarred his daughter's young soul.
But many men committed similar sins, and almost none of them suffered such brutal punishments. Gafni had lost his wife, and twice he had lost his daughter. Once when she expelled him from her life; the second time when she ended it. These twin tragedies—first the wife and then the daughter—must have birthed a terrible guilt. I knew such guilt. I knew how it could eat at a man.
So yes, despite my dislike for him, I felt pity. And this pity opened my mouth and pulled the following words from my throat: "I don't believe she killed herself because of you."
Gafni raised his head. His eyes were all questions and hope.
"The person in Moria's note," I explained, already regretting having said anything. "I don't think it was you."
He didn't move. Only his eyes blinked. Twice and slowly, like a predator lying in ambush. "Who then?"
