The other room wore a number of hats, just like mine on Hamaccabi Street. There was a small table for eating and writing; a made bed, with a nightstand next to it; a low sofa, which was slightly sagging in the middle, but otherwise looking in good repair; and a row of overturned wooden milk boxes arrayed against one wall and topped with cramped rows of books. A poor man's room, but one who took care of what he owned. Also a single man's room, as there was no sign of any woman or her touch anywhere.
A number of pictures hung on one wall. The first was a copy of the picture Mira had shown me. The second, of about the same period, showed a younger Michael Shamir grinning, a cigarette in one hand, a Sten machine gun in the other. The third had him shaking hands with Menachem Begin, the leader of the Irgun. The fourth, no older than a year, showed him in an IDF uniform, army hat jammed low on his head, leaning against an earth bank, rifle stock at his shoulder.
"Where did you fight?" I asked.
"A bunch of places. Jaffa, Jerusalem, the Galilee. Mostly against the Lebanese and Syrians. Were you in the war?"
"Yes. A bit in Jerusalem, during Operation Nachshon, and the rest of the time in the Negev."
He nodded appreciatively. "You boys did good work there. Gave the Egyptians a good licking."
"You guys in the north did not do so bad yourselves."
A shrug. "I wish we'd done better." Then he raised his bottle and added, "To old comrades."
The toast might have sounded funny coming from most men, but it didn't from him. We drank and lapsed into our separate thoughts and memories. I caught a faint whiff of cigarette smoke and, looking around, spotted an empty tin ashtray on the table. I set my glass down and got out my pack of cigarettes. I proffered him one, but he declined, saying he didn't like mixing it with beer. He told me to go ahead, so I did.
He sat in the middle of the sofa with his knees wide apart, holding his beer bottle by its neck between them. I took a chair by the table, ashtray at my elbow. For the first time, I noticed his face was drawn and tired, and I remembered him saying he had worked during the night.
"Where do you work?" I asked.
"I'm a guard at the Reading Power Station."
"Always work nights?"
"Usually. The other guys don't like it much, but I do. It's quiet, and no one's around. I can get some reading done."
"I guess working nights is easier when you're single."
"I'm not single," he said in a low voice. "I'm a widower. But I suppose it amounts to the same thing, as far as working nights is concerned."
His eyes went to a point over my shoulder, and I swiveled my head to follow his gaze. There, on the nightstand by the bed, stood a picture. I had to cant my head and squint to see it fully. It showed a man and a woman standing close together, the man dressed in a suit and tie and the woman in a white dress and a veil that was pulled back, exposing her face. A wedding photo. The man was Michael Shamir and the smile on his face was as bright as a chandelier. The woman was an attractive brunette, and for the second time that day I found myself staring at the familiar face of a person whom I had before only seen in a picture. Mira Roth's picture.
What was her name?
I fumbled in my mind for the elusive memory, feeling it slip through my mental fingers a couple of times, till I finally caught it. "Talia," I muttered. "Your wife's name. It's Talia, isn't it?"
He stared at me in apparent shock, but did not answer. He probably wondered where I had learned the name. I explained about the picture Mira had shown me and watched his expression soften. Now I understood what Mira had meant when she said Michael Shamir had given up his family for the cause of the Irgun. For hadn't Mira said that Talia Shamir had also taken part in that raid and died during it?
"I'm sorry. Your wife was very beautiful."
"Yes. She was." His eyes were downcast, staring, I imagined, past the bottle in his hands, past the soles of his feet and the floor beneath them, all the way to years ago, when his wife was still with him. His voice, which was thick with prolonged mourning, left me with no doubt—he was no competition for the affection of Mira or any other woman. His wife had been dead twice as long as mine, but he was still very much in love with her.
Witnessing his grief, I was ashamed to have been jealous of him. I felt a kinship with this man, for weren't we both soldiers, hadn't we both killed, and weren't we both alone in the world?
I inhaled from my cigarette, tapping loose ash into the ashtray.
"Let me tell you why I'm here. Then I'd like to ask you a few questions. I'll keep it brief so you can get some sleep."
"That would be good," he said, raising his head and taking a quick pull from his bottle.
"I'm a private investigator, and a week or so ago I was hired to locate a woman and a boy who had come to Palestine from Germany in 1939. I managed to learn that they traveled on the Salonika, were arrested by the British, and later freed when the Irgun raided the prison where the British took them. Mira told me you took part in that raid."
"That's right, I did."
"Their names were Esther Grunewald and Willie Ackerland, but the false papers you furnished them bore the surname Kantor. You remember them?"
"Yes. Who hired you to find them?"
"The mother of the boy. If you recall, she had given the child to Esther Grunewald for safekeeping and planned on coming after them."
"The mother," he said in surprise. "I was certain she was dead. I always wondered what sort of woman would give her son away."
I was surprised to find myself bristle at this criticism of Henrietta, for hadn't I voiced a similar sentiment, and to her face? "I'd say she saw the future more clearly than most German Jews did, wouldn't you agree?" And most Hungarian ones, I added to myself.
"Yes," he said. "I suppose you're right."
I drew a calming breath. "Anyway, she managed to survive the war and only recently made aliyah. Naturally, she was anxious to locate her son and hired me to do it. Unfortunately, both Esther and Willie were murdered in their apartment ten years ago. The police never caught the killer, and now I'm giving it a try. You know about the murders?"
"Yes. It's terrible what happened to them."
"How did you learn of their deaths?"
"Mira told me. I've never seen her so upset. Not before nor since, and I've seen Mira in tough spots, believe me."
"Why do you think that was?" I asked, keeping my voice casual, hoping he might let slip why Mira took the murders of Esther and Willie so much to heart.
He disappointed me. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe it was because a child had died. Women are more emotional than men, especially when children are concerned. Or maybe it was because of how they died."
"What do you mean, how they died?"
"Well, I don't know the details, but I remember the papers implying that the murders were brutal. Was that right, do you know?"
"Not exactly," I said. "They died quickly enough, but the maniac disfigured their faces."
He grimaced, shaking his head. "Hard to imagine."
"Be glad you can only imagine it. I've seen the pictures. They're not pretty."
That brought the conversation to a standstill. I crushed out my cigarette. He finished his beer.
"I'm going to have another," he said. "Change your mind and join me?"
I shook first my head and then another cigarette from the pack. I had ignited it and taken a drag by the time he returned from the kitchen, a fresh bottle in his hand.
He dropped onto the sofa and said, "Are you making progress in your investigation? Any suspects?"
"I'm still working on it," I said, taking another drag.
He nodded sagaciously, and I got the impression he understood full well that so far I had next to nothing.
"Well, I'm not sure what help I can be, but I'll gladly answer any questions I can."