"Was that also when you met Naomi Hecht?"
"Yes. Though I was assigned to another nurse. A real witch. Always tearing into me, even when I didn't deserve it. Moria was lucky to have Naomi."
"Were they very close?"
"We all were."
"I understand the two of them had a quarrel about a week before Moria's death."
"Really? Did Naomi tell you that?"
I shook my head. "Someone else I talked to."
"Someone at the hospital?"
"No. Not at the hospital, Ms. Schlesinger. It's someone you don't know." Which was untrue because she had probably met Lillian Shukrun when Lillian's son was at the hospital. But I didn't see what harm it did, telling her this white lie.
"Well," she said, giving me an affronted look for not revealing my source's identity, "I never heard anything about it. Not from Moria nor from Naomi. Whoever told you they quarreled is either mistaken or they were making it up."
No, she wasn't, I thought. And both Naomi Hecht and Moria hid it from you, their close friend.
I said, "Why did Moria come to Jerusalem? Why not become a nurse in Tel Aviv?"
"She and her father were on bad terms. I don't know why. She wouldn't say. And her mother was dead, and Moria didn't have any siblings, so she basically had no one in Tel Aviv."
"Did Moria tell you how her mother died?"
"It was an illness of some sort. That's the impression I got. She didn't talk about her family much, and I didn't pry. I could tell it was a touchy subject."
"It was no illness. Her mother killed herself."
Anat gaped at me. "My God! Are you sure?"
"I'm afraid so," I said, thinking that Naomi Hecht had not told Anat Schlesinger about this. Perhaps because she'd sensed that Moria wouldn't want this information to get around.
Anat shut her eyes, shook her head. Her shoulders started trembling, and then she was crying. Not like Naomi Hecht, but loudly, with hitching gasps and cracking wails, lasting a couple of minutes. When her weeping began subsiding, I dug my handkerchief out of my pocket and handed it over. She dried her face and said, "Why didn't she tell me?"
I didn't know. All I knew was that Moria had been a person who kept secrets, all sorts of secrets, which was why, I believed, she'd chosen to live alone.
"I'm sorry that I upset you," I said.
"It's not your fault. I'm just sad for Moria, all she went through. I'm glad you told me. I just wish she had. Do you think she was ashamed? Is that why she didn't tell me?"
I said I didn't know, that I wished I did. Then I asked if she felt up to answering some more questions, and she said she was.
"You think Moria wanted to get away from her father by coming to Jerusalem?" I asked.
"I'm sure that was a big part of it. I've never met the man, and it's good that I haven't, or I might yell at him or slap his face. I'm furious with him, without even knowing what he did. I'm furious because, for one reason or another, he was a lousy father, and it makes me mad on Moria's behalf." She sighed. "Maybe I'm also mad at myself. I keep asking myself how I missed the signs."
"What signs?"
"I don't know. Looking back, I can't put my finger on anything specific and say, 'This is what you should have spotted, Anat. This was a warning of what was to come.' But there must have been something, right?"
"Did Moria act as usual in her final days?"
"I think so. Maybe she was a bit more thoughtful than normal; Moria would get that way sometimes, go into her own head for a while. Maybe she was doing more of that, brooding a little, but not so much that I felt alarmed."
"Any idea what she was brooding about?"
"I thought it might have something to do with a doctor on our ward who got killed. Kalman Shapira. He got shot about a week before Moria died."
"I heard about that."
"Well, you can imagine how we all felt. Everyone was a little rattled, not just Moria."
"Naomi Hecht told me Moria didn't like Dr. Shapira."
Anat's eyebrows twitched. "She said that?"
"Yes. Is it true?"
She shifted in discomfort and admitted that it was. "One shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but he was an unpleasant man sometimes. A little too high and mighty and brusque. But that didn't mean it wasn't a shock to learn he got murdered. That's the sort of thing that happens to strangers, you know?"
Most people experienced murder that way. It was an alien, faraway thing. Until it got close, and then it was like a monster screaming at you, its snout sticking in your face.
Based on what Anat told me about Moria's dislike for Dr. Shapira, I saw no point in raising the possibility that he and Moria had been lovers. I knew that Anat would scoff at the idea. But that didn't mean it wasn't true, especially given the fact that Dr. Shapira fit Lillian Shukrun's description of Moria's lover. Moria might have been playacting, all the better to hide the affair.
Conversely, I considered asking Anat whether Moria had merely disliked Dr. Shapira or if she had hated him, but I figured that would only upset her, and I wouldn't get an honest answer. I did not want to believe that Moria had murdered Dr. Shapira, but her disliking him made it just a little more probable.
I said, "So you can't think of anything unusual that happened a week, ten days before the suicide, something that upset Moria?"
She considered it. She still had my handkerchief in her grip. She opened her mouth as though to speak, then threw up her hands. "No, I'm sorry."
"What were you about to say?"
"Huh?"
"It looked like you were about to say something, then stopped."
She waved a hand. "I remembered something, but I doubt it's important."
I leaned forward. "Tell me anyway."
She drew a breath. "All right. But it happened three weeks or so before Moria's death. I can't see how it could be connected to her suicide." She paused, waiting for me to either invite her to continue or tell her to stop.
I gave her a nod. "Go on."
"Well, what popped into my head was an incident with Dr. Leitner."
"Who's Dr. Leitner?"
"Our boss. He runs the Pediatric Ward, one of the chief doctors in the hospital."
"What happened?"
"I was coming in for my shift when I saw Moria storming out of Dr. Leitner's office. Her face was flushed, and there were tears in her eyes. She looked both mad and sad at the same time. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me there was nothing to worry about, that she could handle it."
"Handle what?"
"I don't know. She wouldn't say. I told Naomi about it later, and she talked to Moria, but she got the same story I did—there was nothing to worry about; it was no big deal."
Anat paused, biting her lower lip. "You must understand, Mr. Lapid, Moria was a private person. She always kept a part of herself to herself. I loved her dearly—still do—and I accepted her as she was. So when it looked like she was okay, when it seemed that whatever happened with Dr. Leitner had no lingering effect on her, I let it go."
"All right," I said, thinking that Dr. Leitner and I would soon be having a chat. Then I asked, "Was Moria seeing anyone?"
"Yes."
I sat straight. "Who?"
"I don't know his name. Moria never said one word about him."
"So how do you know there was such a man?"
The smile she gave me was one part sheepishness, three parts pride. "I could tell. I'd known Moria for a long time. One day, I could tell that she had..." She paused, blushing. "Please don't make me spell it out for you."
"That won't be necessary. I understand what you mean."
"I hope I'm not shocking you."
"Not at all, I assure you."
"That's good. Anyway, one morning, when we were both working together, I could just tell that she'd been with someone. I begged her to tell me who it was, but she kept denying it, saying I was imagining things. I didn't relent, peppered her with questions, and when finally I asked her, 'Is he married?' figuring that's why she wasn't spilling it, Moria lost her temper. She said, 'Can't you get it through your thick head, Anat? There is no man.' And then she turned red and wouldn't meet my eyes, which told me I was right, that there was a man. But she was so angry that I was scared to ask her any more about it."