Another poster, this one by Maki, the Israeli Communist Party, demanded in hysterical blood-red ink that Ben-Gurion reject President Truman's request to send Israeli troops to fight in Korea. The poster called American troops murderers, invaders, and aggressors. A vote for Maki, the poster assured, was a vote for peace.
But the most creative poster of the lot belonged to the General Zionists, a center-right party that was shaping up to be Mapai's main challenger. The poster mocked Mapai's idea of democracy. It depicted the ruling party as a bald, obese man, whose prodigious rear end occupied just about every seat in the Knesset, while on the parliament's wall hung a picture of David Ben-Gurion dressed in an ornate uniform like a fascist dictator, tasseled epaulettes on his shoulders and oversized medals pinned to his chest.
A handful of people were arguing over the merit of the various posters and of the parties they extolled or lambasted. I hurried on before someone could pull me into the discussion.
A minute later, I found a café with a telephone and placed a call to the police station where Reuben Tzanani worked.
Three rings later, his soft voice with his subtle Yemenite accent came over the line.
"Hello, Reuben, it's me, Adam."
"Adam, it's good to hear your voice. How've you been?"
We exchanged pleasantries for a while. Reuben and I had known each other for almost four years. We'd fought side by side during Israel's War of Independence and had forged a bond in the process, though our lives and history and circumstances could not have been more different. He had been born in Mandatory Palestine, a descendant of Yemenite Jews who, in 1882, had made the arduous journey across the Red Sea and Egypt and into the Holy Land. I had been born in Hungary. He had lived his whole life in the Land of Israel. I had arrived in 1947. My parents, sisters, wife, and daughters were all dead. All but my father, who had died naturally before the war, had been killed by the Germans. Reuben had parents and siblings and, together with his wife, Gila, had produced five children. He also had numerous cousins and nephews and nieces, a veritable tribe of relatives, while I had none.
I was happy for him, but also envious. It hurt to hear him speak of his children, their triumphs and achievements, the immense joy they brought him and Gila. I had experienced some of the same milestones with my own two daughters. All that had come to an abrupt end in the spring of 1944, when, at the behest of the Nazis, Hungarian policemen had crammed us and other Jews into stifling cattle cars and sent us to the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. My wife and daughters perished the day we arrived. I was sent to the men's camp and managed to survive.
And now I was alone.
So when Reuben spoke of his family, especially his children, my gut would clench and a sharp, prodding pain would stab the inside of my chest. It even happened when he griped about the mundane hardships of parenthood—the childhood fevers, the broken nights, the teething, the incessant wailing of their new baby. I would have given everything I had to experience those moments again with my daughters.
"I need a favor," I said, once he had filled me in on his life and I had mumbled something about my own. "I've been hired to look into an unsolved case and—"
"And you need to look at our files," Reuben said. "What sort of case? What crime?"
"A murder."
"Murder? How'd you get involved in that?"
"An acquaintance of the victim hired me."
"I see." There was a short pause. "The case is unsolved, you say?"
I knew what he was thinking. If the case was still ongoing and I started poking my nose into it, trouble might ensue. Trouble for me and for him as well. And he had five children to feed.
"Unsolved and old," I said. "Five years. It's a cold case, Reuben. I won't be stepping on anyone's toes. I doubt anyone is still working on it after all this time."
Still he hesitated, so I added, "Reuben, the killer has never been caught. And he won't be unless someone takes another crack at this case."
After a moment I heard him sigh. Reuben took great pride in his work, in being a policeman, even though he had been assigned an unglamorous office job. The idea that a murderer had evaded justice did not sit well with him. Different in nearly everything, this was one trait the two of us shared.
"What's the name of the victim?"
"Anna Hartman."
"A woman," Reuben murmured in a loaded undertone.
Another thing we shared. For the both of us, the murder of a woman was a more grievous offense than that of a man. Only the murder of a child was worse.
"Yes. And she was young. In her twenties."
"You know the date the murder took place?"
I gave it to him. I could hear the faint scratching of his pencil leaving its mark on paper in between his intake and outtake of air.
"I'll get on it straightaway. With luck, I'll have it by tomorrow afternoon. Call or come by then?"
I said I would, thanked him, and hung up. I stayed seated by the phone, wondering what to do next. There was nothing I could do, that was the problem, not until I read the police report.
I got up, paid the proprietor of the café for the use of his phone, and was heading out when I spotted a carelessly folded copy of Ma'ariv on a table by the door.
An idea came to me. A way to pass some time and maybe advance the case as well. I spread out the newspaper and flicked to the back pages where there were listings of various cultural events taking place across Israel that week. I ran my forefinger down the page until I located the small box where that week's program of Shoresh Theater was printed. They were playing that night at Ohel Shem. King Lear.
7
At nine in the morning after the play, I arrived at Greta's Café. Greta wasn't in her usual spot by the window that afforded a wide view of Allenby Street. Instead, she stood at the center of the café, large hands planted on wide hips, gazing upward with a disapproving frown on her fleshy face.
The cause of her displeasure was busy doing the only thing it knew how and rattling as it did so. I stopped beside her and added my gaze to hers. The offending party ignored both of us. It would not be shamed into silence.
"I had it fixed four weeks ago," Greta said without shifting her eyes to me. "And again last Tuesday. And here it is making that grating noise again." She sounded defeated and disappointed rather than angry.
"It's been rattling for a while," I said. "It did last summer and the one before that."
"Not like this," she replied. "Not even close."
She was right. The noise had gotten much worse. A year ago, it was like a background hum you could easily ignore. Now it was like a heckler, intruding on your thoughts or conversation, disturbing the tranquility of your meal. I could handle noise better than most, but even I could see that something had to be done.
"You can always replace it."
She looked at me, horrified. "But I've had it for six years now."
I waited, but that was the extent of her argument. Above us, the ceiling fan rattled its way through a few more revolutions, its four blades whirling about like airplanes in an interminable dogfight.
Greta noted my bewilderment. "It's been here for so long. I can't just chuck it out."
I smiled. Greta was a woman for whom loyalty was second nature. It wasn't a loyalty of grand gestures or flamboyant promises, but a sturdy, steady foundation of support and assistance to those who were dear to her. I was lucky to count myself a member of this privileged group. As, apparently, was the ceiling fan.