23
There were a few more people I needed to see, but my conversation with Mrs. Chernick was weighing on me like a necklace of stones, so I headed to Greta's Café instead.
I was hoping for a couple of hours of quiet with nothing but my chessboard and Greta's coffee for company, but that hope was dashed the second I entered the café.
"He's been waiting for you for over an hour," Greta said from her perch behind the counter. "You know him?"
The man was sitting at my regular table at the rear. He smiled when he saw me and raised a hand in greeting.
"Yes, I know him." I cursed inwardly, mourning the wreckage of my longed-for tranquility. "Get us each a cup of coffee, will you, Greta? He'll pay for them."
I crossed the room to my table. Above me the ceiling fan was behaving. Last night, after my visit with Dahlia, Greta had informed me that the fan had been repaired yet again, and that the repairman had assured her that it would operate quietly from now on.
I could only hope that her luck would prove better than mine.
"Good morning, Shmuel," I said, and went around the table to my chair without offering my hand. I sat with my back to the wall. Something the Westerns I read had taught me.
"And to you too, Adam," Birnbaum said. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to show up."
"If I'd known you were coming to see me..." I intentionally left the end of the sentence hanging.
Birnbaum's smile widened. "You'd have come sooner, of course."
"That's one possibility. Let me guess, you're here to persuade me to cast my vote for Mapai in the upcoming election."
"I would have thought that would not be necessary. A man of such high intelligence as yourself could scarcely consider voting for any other party."
"Yet so many citizens did the last time around and undoubtedly will again this time."
"I'm not worried. Mapai will win again."
"You lost in Tel Aviv," I remarked, and felt a thrill of pleasure at seeing Birnbaum grimace. The fact that Tel Aviv's mayor, Israel Rokach, was a member of the General Zionists, the party that was shaping up to be the main challenger to Mapai's hegemony, was a sore point for the ruling party and its supporters, one of which was Birnbaum.
Actually, he was more than that. Davar, the widely read daily where Birnbaum worked, informally served as the party newspaper of Mapai. And while Birnbaum was less fanatic in his support of the party than most of his colleagues, he was still a committed member of Mapai, a true believer in its platform and ideology, and a fervent admirer of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion.
He said, "The policies the General Zionists are advocating will drive the country into ruin, Adam."
"Some say it's heading that way right now."
"Times are hard, I'll grant you that. Which is why we need a firm and steady hand at the helm. Ben-Gurion's hand."
"People have had enough of rationing, Shmuel."
"You think I haven't? But what's the alternative? To limit the number of Jews who are allowed to make aliyah? To have the new immigrants starve in the ma'abarot?"
The ma'abarot were immigrant camps that dotted the length and breadth of Israel, usually in the vicinity of established towns and kibbutzim. Tens of thousands of impoverished Jewish refugees and immigrants from all over the world resided in them, often in harsh conditions. The government claimed that the ma'abarot were an unavoidable stopgap until the new citizens could be provided with modern housing. I hoped the government was telling the truth.
"We're a poor country," Birnbaum said. "We all need to make sacrifices until better days come. And they will come, provided we have the right leadership."
Greta brought over the coffee. Birnbaum inhaled deeply and flashed her a broad smile. "If it tastes as good as it smells, I'm in for a treat."
Greta laughed. "Can I get you two anything else?"
Birnbaum cast me a look. I shook my head. "Not right now, Greta. Thank you for the coffee."
Birnbaum blew on his cup, then brought it to his mouth. He took a small sip and smacked his lips. "I see why you come here so often."
"I don't remember ever telling you that I did. How did you know?"
"I may not be a detective, Adam, but finding out information is a good deal of what I do." He took another sip and gazed approvingly at his cup. "This is quite excellent coffee."
"Go and tell Greta; maybe she'll be flattered enough to vote for Mapai."
Birnbaum directed his clever eyes at Greta, who was once again in her usual spot, and shook his head. "Something tells me she's not the sort of woman who can be swayed by mere flattery." He looked back at me, straightening his glasses. "You have that in common."
I drank some coffee, set the cup back down, and laid both palms on the tabletop. I had grown weary of all the banter. "Why are you here, Shmuel?"
"To see what you're up to. I've been thinking about you ever since the night we met in the theater. I couldn't shake the feeling that you were there for reasons other than cultural."
"You have an overly suspicious mind, anyone ever tell you that?"
"A few people. And they were always hiding something from me."
"What could I possibly be hiding from you, Shmuel?"
"Whatever it is you're working on, of course. A case related to Shoresh Theater. And to Isser Rotner." His inflection shifted as he pronounced the name, as though he was making a suggestion rather than stating a fact. When I didn't reply, a shadow of a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. In an oddly soft tone, like a father imparting a lesson to his son, he added, "You shouldn't have asked me about him, Adam. That made me very curious."
"You've got it all wrong, Shmuel. I was simply impressed with his performance."
"So impressed that you had to go to the theater the next day and tell him in person?"
I said nothing. Not that it was a conscious choice, for at that moment, I was struck dumb.
"But you didn't see him to compliment him on his acting," continued Birnbaum. "You had a different purpose. You wanted to question him regarding a murder that took place five years ago. The murder of Anna Hartman."
I stared at him. How could he possibly know all this? Surely not from Rotner himself.
And then a memory bubbled up to the surface of my consciousness. The memory of a kerchiefed old woman armed with a mop and bucket, followed closely by an image of the vacant lobby of Ohel Shem, its floor only partially washed.
"The old cleaning lady," I mumbled, half in disbelief.
Birnbaum gave a small nod, and I could not help but appreciate the fact that he exhibited no sign of reveling in his triumph over me. In fact, he looked somewhat sheepish. Which blunted the edge of my anger, but not entirely.
"You bastard," I said. "You told her to keep an eye out for me?"
"Yes. I had a feeling you'd be showing up at the theater sooner rather than later."
"But how did she hear my conversation with Rotner? We were alone in the theater. She didn't follow me in."
"Adam, a theater has more than a single entrance. The actors come in from backstage. And it's easy to hide in the wings and eavesdrop. You're mad at me, and that's understandable, but I have a job to do, the same as you."
Which was true enough. I could not fault Birnbaum for pursuing a story, nor for outsmarting me. I had only myself to blame for arousing his suspicion in the first place.
"What else do you know?" I asked, and nearly cringed at my worried tone.
He thought about it and decided that honesty was the best policy. "All I had time to do so far was go over newspaper reports of the murder. Other than that, I know very little."