It was now beyond doubt. Here lay Michael's dead wife. But what snared my attention were the final three words of the inscription. Mother of Judah.
I had seen no trace of a son in Michael's apartment. It was obvious no child resided there with him. But the inscription told me Michael and Talia had had a son named Judah. Perhaps he was dead, too. Yes. That had to be it.
But there had been no pictures of a child in Michael's apartment. And when I'd talked about the guilt I felt over the deaths of my daughters, Michael had not mentioned that he had also lost a child. Almost as if he didn't want to be reminded that his child had ever existed.
Or didn't want me to know about him.
All of a sudden, a chill spread up my spine, making me shiver and causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand. My heartbeat jumped to a faster, erratic rhythm. In my mind a dark suspicion began whispering that I had been wrong this whole time, that the truth I had been blind to was too awful to contemplate.
Stop it, I thought, don't get ahead of yourself. Perhaps it was simply too painful for Michael to talk about his son, to see his face every day. I could understand that. Or maybe I just wanted to pretend that I did.
I began walking, scanning headstones, searching for the name Judah Shamir. I wanted to see his grave. I wanted to know when he died. If I knew, maybe the whispering in my head would cease. I walked along one row of graves after another, and after a while the names of the dead began to blur, so I would not have been able to tell the name of the man or woman or child whose headstone I had just read. All I knew for sure was that none of them was Judah Shamir.
After what might have been twenty or thirty minutes of fruitless searching, I stopped, wiped the sweat off my brow, and looked around. I had covered but a small section of the cemetery. It would take me hours to go through it all. Perhaps there was a quicker way.
Back in the administration office by the entrance, I found the same clerk still peering at the Mishna over his glasses.
I asked him whether they kept a list of all those buried in the cemetery.
"Yes," he said, laying his book on the desk. "By year."
"I'm looking for the grave of Judah Shamir. He died somewhere between 1939 and today."
"You don't know exactly when?"
"No. But I know it was after August 1939."
"Very well," he said, though I could tell he found my request odd.
From an open cabinet, he hauled out a stack of large brown ledgers and piled them on top of other papers on his desk.
"Let's see," he said. "Here's 1939."
He flipped open the ledger and ran his finger along the list of names, finding none named Judah Shamir. 1940 through 1943 yielded nothing as well. In April 1944, he found a listing for a man named Elisha Shamir, sixty-five, and raised his eyes to mine, as if hoping I'd be willing to compromise on that person.
"Not the one I'm looking for," I said. "Mine is Judah Shamir, and he couldn't have been older than twelve."
"Hmmm," he said, and lowered his eyes to the ledger.
Fifteen minutes later, he slammed the cover of the 1949 ledger. "No Judah Shamir is buried here."
"Are those ledgers accurate?" I asked, though I anticipated what his answer would be.
"One hundred percent. I log every burial myself. Perhaps this Judah Shamir is buried in another cemetery in the area."
I asked him for a list of cemeteries and he drew one up for me. I thanked him and left.
Back in Tel Aviv, I rang the hair salon from a café. Mira picked up herself. The joy in her voice when she recognized mine was like a cold stab deep in my belly.
"I can't make it tonight," I said, coming off brusque and businesslike, though I hadn't intended to be so.
"What? Why?"
"Something came up. Something important I need to take care of."
"Oh." And in that single syllable was confusion, bewilderment, and pain. I shut my eyes. Nothing was said for a moment. In the background, a radio was playing a jaunty duet of two male singers. Then Mira said, "When will I see you? Tomorrow?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. I'm not sure how long this will take." I'm not sure whether you'd want to see me again in a few days' time.
"You sound strange, Adam. What's wrong? What is this thing you need to do?"
She sounded distraught now. Almost frantic. I gripped the receiver so hard it was a wonder it didn't crack. What could I tell her? I wasn't sure what was going on myself. All I had were questions, and a sense of impending…not doom, but a horrific enlightenment.
"I can't talk about it yet. I'll explain when I can. Sorry about tonight."
I said goodbye and hung up. I stood there for a while, gazing into space or into myself, not moving, until a man in work clothes asked if I was through with the phone. I ordered a beer and drank it without tasting it. Then, when the beer was done and the telephone was once again free, I got up and started making calls.
33
Four days later, a little after nine in the morning, I entered the building with the stained facade and climbed the dusty staircase to his door. I had the Luger with me, though it did little to boost my sense of confidence. We were not evenly matched, he and I, in the art of dispensing violence. If it came to a fight, I would have to be either very fast or very lucky.
I tensed upon hearing the scrape of the key turning in the lock on the other side of the door, but he greeted me with nothing but a weary smile. He had on a blue shirt and dark brown pants and black socks, but no shoes. A bottle of beer dangled from his hand. No weapons in sight.
"Adam," he said, "good morning."
"Got a few minutes, Michael? There's something I'd like to discuss with you."
Michael Shamir nodded, still smiling. As he did on my earlier visit to his apartment, he said, "Better come in, then."
I trailed him inside, shutting the door behind me.
He said, "I just started on this bottle. Want one? Oh, I remember, it's too early for you, isn't it?"
"Afraid so."
As last time, his living room/bedroom was neat, spotless, and unassuming—like a monk's cell. A fitting room for its occupant. The only sign that this warrior monk had once had a life outside of his vocation were the pictures of his wife. I stared at them for a few seconds while Michael lowered himself onto the middle of his old sofa. I remained standing.
Michael said, "Well, if you change your mind…" and took a swig from the bottle.
His tone was light, but it sounded forced. He looked tired, like he hadn't slept in days. The lines on his forehead ran deeper, and bags had gathered like storm clouds under his eyes. I waited till he had swallowed the beer in his mouth before speaking.
"I know it was you, Michael," I said.
His face showed no reaction. He didn't deny it or ask me what I meant. For a good thirty seconds, he said nothing at all. If I didn't know better, I might have believed he hadn't heard a word I said. He took a quick sip and rolled the bottle between his hands before setting it down on the floor between his feet. Again I tensed, my hand close to the Luger stuck in my waistband, but Michael stayed seated, elbows on knees, shoulders slightly hunched. His expression was difficult to read, but there was no surprise in it. Nor anger.
He said, "First time we met, after you left, I said to myself: 'A man like that, who's survived what he's survived—he's no ordinary man. If anyone can discover the truth, it is he.'" His eyes found mine. They were hard eyes, but they did not look cruel. The eyes of a man who's killed, yes, but not the eyes of a murderer. "What gave me away?"