I stifled a smile of my own, remembering what Ofra had told me about Klausner's numerous failed auditions. It was a harmless lie he'd just told me, and perhaps not even that. A vain man is capable of believing almost anything about himself, no matter how detached from reality.
It hardly mattered to me one way or the other. I was there to learn more about Anna, not him.
I said, "Was Anna a happy girl?"
"Happy? Why do you ask?"
"A girl so young, separated from her family, living all alone in a foreign city, it could lead to despondency, couldn't it?"
"I suppose so. Yes, her circumstances were certainly not ideal. But she was a positive, lively girl. And she was happy, of that I'm sure."
"Because of the drama club, you think?"
"I'm sure that played a part, yes."
"How about her studies?"
"Like I said, she was a good student. I taught her literature, and she enjoyed that. Especially when we read plays."
"Because they have to do with the theater?"
"Precisely."
"I understand she didn't get along with her landlady."
"Mrs. Chernick?"
"You know her?"
"Of her," he said with a faint smile, as though he were correcting one of his students on a fine, but crucial point. "Over the years, quite a few of my students had boarded with her. Anna never said anything about her to me, but she has a reputation, a rather unsavory one. Did you talk to her?"
"Not yet."
"I doubt she could tell you anything useful, Mr. Lapid. From what I heard, she took no interest whatsoever in the lives of her lodgers. She would know nothing about Anna, nothing you haven't learned from me or Ofra."
"You're probably right," I said, remembering what Ofra had told me about Mrs. Chernick, but knowing I'd still pay the landlady a visit. Because people who live together tend to know and notice things about each other, even if all they feel is mutual disdain. Moving on, I said, "Did Anna ever talk about her family? Her life in Prague?"
"No," he said. "At least not to me. Maybe to Ofra or another student, I don't know."
"Do you know why her family sent her here and not her older brother?"
He shook his head. "Not a clue. But how does that relate to your investigation, Mr. Lapid?"
"I don't know," I admitted, and searched my brain for another question. It didn't take me long to find one.
"Did she have a boyfriend?"
He looked about to shake his head again, but then he stopped and looked at me. "I did see her once with a young man, not here, somewhere uptown, near the beach. They were kissing rather passionately, I remember."
"In the middle of the street, in the open?"
"No, not in the open. In a doorway, a darkened doorway. And it was night."
After one of Mrs. Chernick's hated curfews, I thought.
"How did you know it was Anna if it was dark?" I asked.
"I didn't at first. Only when they disengaged and emerged onto the lighted sidewalk did I see it was her."
"And the man?"
"Never saw him before in my life. He wasn't a student here, that I can tell you."
"Can you describe him?"
He scrunched up his face, dredging up the memory. The description he gave was too generic to be useful—tall, slim, with dark hair and a fair complexion, unremarkable features—but I wrote it down in my notebook just the same.
"What about his age?"
"Young. Eighteen, perhaps. No more than twenty-one."
"And this was when?"
"1938, I don't remember the month."
Which meant that this man, if he still lived, would be between thirty-one and thirty-four years of age today.
"What did Anna say when she saw you that night?"
"She didn't," he said. "She never looked my way. She and the man simply walked off, and I never mentioned it to her."
"I see."
"I don't know what he was to her, how serious it was, or anything at all, for that matter. I did not think it was my place to ask."
"I understand," I said, and I did. In 1938, Anna would have been seventeen. Still a schoolgirl, but old enough to marry. What business would it have been of her teacher who she was romantically involved with? Still, I wished like hell Klausner had been curious enough to ask her. And I wondered why Ofra did not know about this man. Or maybe she did and had decided not to tell me about him.
22
Kfar Saba Street was a short, straight road with very narrow sidewalks and small houses whose walls touched. It didn't take me long to find Mrs. Chernick's home.
It was a one-story structure with a flat roof and a single window facing the street. The outside had been painted a lackluster beige, but this had been done a good many years before, because plaster was flaking off the facade like dandruff.
The door was made of cheap wood and it had warped so that it no longer fitted its frame properly.
The only thing that brightened this dismal picture of neglect was a scrawny tree that grew from a small square of earth adjacent to the house's exterior. The tree was surprisingly lush, with an abundance of leaves and a scattering of lavender flowers, their petals open to the morning sun.
I knocked on the door and waited while a pair of boys on bicycles streaked by on the road behind me, both furiously ringing their bells and laughing their hearts out.
When the door was opened, its hinges squeaked and its bottom scraped atop the floor like chalk screeching across a blackboard.
The pinched-faced woman who stood before me was short, bony, and wrinkled. Her age was hard to pinpoint. She could have been anywhere between fifty and seventy-five. Her dress was long, black, and hung a bit loose over her thin frame. Her glasses were large and thick-rimmed, and they made her dull-gray eyes look too big for her face. A wedding band adorned her gnarly ring finger, and around her wrist were two gold bracelets that looked as old as she was.
"Are you Mrs. Chernick?" I asked.
"If you're here for the room, you've wasted your time. I already have a lodger. And besides, I don't rent to men." Her voice was high and needly. The sort of voice you can't imagine ever being used to tell a joke.
"I'm not here for the room. I'm here to talk to you."
"You're with the police? It certainly took you long enough. I made the complaint two weeks ago."
"What complaint?"
"About the boys making all the racket. Laughing and hollering and ringing their bicycle bells at all hours right outside my door. Why are you here if you don't know that?"
"I'm not a policeman," I said, remembering the two boys who had bicycled by a minute ago, and thinking that Mrs. Chernick was the victim of a coordinated campaign of juvenile harassment, and that she had likely been made a target due to her stern demeanor and surly attitude. "My name is Adam Lapid. I'm a private investigator and I'd like to talk to you about Anna Hartman."
Her pencil-thin eyebrows jumped above the rim of her glasses. "Anna Hartman? What's to talk about? She's been dead six, seven years."
"Five," I corrected.
Mrs. Chernick waved a hand, her bracelets jangling. "Five, six, seven. What does it matter? I haven't seen her in much longer than that."
"I'd still like to ask you some questions. I'm investigating her death, and any information might prove useful. Can I come in?"
She informed me she was in the middle of cooking. My nose had picked up the scent. Boiled cabbage and beets and some root I could not identify. The sort of food that could leach the joy out of anyone. Perhaps it had something to do with Mrs. Chernick's disposition.
"It will only be a couple of minutes," I said.
She planted one hand on a narrow hip. "I'm sorry, but I can't spare the time."
I weighed my options. I wanted to talk to her, and I needed at least a modicum of cooperation for it to be worthwhile. The question was, how would I get it?