I watched his eyes as the stake went in. Those dark, fathomless eyes. For the first time, they did not look impenetrable. They showed shock, surprise, and panicked understanding, and then they teared up in pain.
The knife dropped from his hand. He sank to the floor, and I went down with him, still holding the stake, the blood from my torn forearm dripping onto his shirt, mingling with the blood now pumping out of the hole in his stomach.
His mouth was open, ragged breaths wheezing from his throat. It took almost a minute for him to die. I kept watching him as his eyes went blacker still and his breathing stopped and the darkness that was his life came to an end.
31
I just wanted to sit there and catch my breath, but I knew I had to hurry. Our struggle had not been overly noisy, but someone still might have heard. Someone might be coming. Besides, my forearm kept bleeding.
I pushed myself up and went in search of Amiram Gadot's shoes. When the police came, I would tell them I had come home and this man was here, intending to burglarize the place. His record would support that story, but questions would arise if he was found without shoes. That would suggest he had lain in wait for me, and I did not want to explain why he would do so.
Each step shot a lance of pain through my side that made my teeth clench, but I dared not stop or slow. There wasn't much time.
The shoes were in the bathroom. I took the opportunity to wash the blood off my hands and wrap a towel around my wound. I grabbed the shoes and stuck them on the dead man's feet.
Next, I picked up my knife and put it back in my secret box, making sure not to get any blood on the linen that covered the false bottom. I hated leaving my box there, knowing that soon the apartment would be crawling with cops, but I did not have time to take it to someone I trusted. Besides, if the cops bought my story, I did not think they would search the place. At least I hoped so.
Lack of time, and the fear that at any second someone might poke his head through the door, also precluded my going through the dead man's pockets. Whatever money he carried would probably end up divided among the very people Amiram hated most—police officers. The thought made me smile.
My eyes made a final sweep around the apartment, and I knew that it would look better if I messed it up a little. But one drop of blood in the wrong place might raise suspicion. So I left things as they were and went out to the corner, to Levinson Drugstore, where the street's only public telephone was.
It was just before closing time, and the drugstore was empty of customers. The Levinsons were behind the counter. I watched two pairs of eyes grow big at the sight of me.
Mr. Levinson was the first to speak. "Adam, what happened?"
Mrs. Levinson, always the more efficient of the two, rounded the counter and went for the telephone. "I'll ring the hospital."
"No," I said. "Call the police first. Tell them there's a dead body in my apartment."
She had the receiver in one hand, the other poised over the dial. She paused for just a second, looking at me, then gave a quick nod and began to dial. Thank God for levelheaded women.
I turned to her husband. "Can you clean and bandage this for me?"
As his wife spoke into the telephone, Mr. Levinson unwrapped the bloody towel covering my wound and pursed his lips. "This will need stitches, I think."
"Is it urgent, or can it wait until the police come and go?"
He frowned at my question, then surveyed the wound once more. "It can wait, I think, but not for long. Come into the back room. I'll bandage you up."
Which he did, with calm proficiency, first inundating the wound with iodine, which stung like a thousand needles, then coiling a few layers of cotton dressing over the wound.
He examined his handiwork and said, "This will keep for now, but go to the hospital soon, Adam. As soon as possible, all right?"
I was back in my apartment a couple of minutes before the police arrived. Two cars screeched to a halt outside my building, four officers tumbling out and pounding up the stairs. Two remained on the landing, the other two—an inspector and a corporal—came inside, but both stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the body.
It was a sight, all right. Amiram lay on the floor, eyes open, a piece of wood sticking out of him. Seeing him made me think of Anna lying dead with a knife jammed in her chest. But that was where the resemblance ended. Where Anna's death brought with it acute sadness, Amiram's demise made me feel very little at all.
The corporal went to the body. He felt at its neck and said one word that didn't tell us anything we didn't already know, "Dead."
The inspector turned to me. I was sitting at the dining table. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Adam Lapid."
"You did this?"
"I came home and this man was here. He had a knife. He attacked me. We fought and I won."
"You live here?"
"Yes." I showed him my identification card. He nodded. Mrs. Levinson had given my name when she called. I was expected.
"You know him?" he asked, meaning the dead man.
"Never seen him before in my life."
"Then what's he doing here? Why attack you?"
"Probably came to rob the place. I walked in and surprised him."
"Looks kind of neat here for a burglary."
"I must have come in just after he did."
"Uh-huh." He squinted his eyes at me, saying nothing. It was a familiar tactic, and he didn't do it all that well. I waited. I wasn't going to be the next one to speak.
Another cop came in, this one a sergeant. He went to stand by the corporal, who was going through Amiram's pockets. The sergeant glanced at the body, then hunkered down for a closer look. "Hey, I know this guy," he said.
The inspector, who was still squint-eying me, broke off his stare and said, "What?"
"I know him. I arrested him a few years back. Amiram Gadot's his name."
The corporal, holding up Amiram's ID, nodded confirmation. "That's his name, all right."
"Arrested him for what?" the inspector called.
"Robbed a few apartments. Great with locks, if I remember right."
The inspector looked at me again, no longer squinting. "You seem awfully calm for someone who's just killed a man, Mr. Lapid."
"I was in the war," I said. "I've seen my share of bodies."
He asked me where I'd served, and I told him. He commended my unit's exploits in the war, and then the sergeant snapped his fingers and said he remembered me, too. Wasn't my picture in the paper during the war?
And just like that, the atmosphere shifted. No one suspected me of anything anymore. I was the acclaimed war hero, and the dead man was the common criminal back to his old ways. I'd done the world a favor, the corporal told me, and no one voiced any objection to that assertion.
The inspector—whose name was Bartov—asked me to tell them exactly what had happened. I did, and it was almost the whole truth. I just omitted some of the things Amiram and I had said. The entire sequence of battle was unchanged.
After I was done, the sergeant said, "You were lucky, Mr. Lapid. Damn lucky. Shame about the painting."
Only then did it enter my mind. The painting that had been destroyed in the fight. With a sinking feeling and trembling hands, I picked up the broken pieces of frame, the shredded strips of canvas. It was the painting of the woman and the two girls, the one that reminded me of my dead wife and daughters.