The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything Read online

  Dedication

  In memory of my father,

  Mordechai Mishani

  (10.4.1945–9.4.2013)

  Epigraph

  When half way through the journey of our life

  I found that I was in a gloomy wood,

  because the path which led aright was lost.

  And ah, how hard it is to say just what

  this wild and rough and stubborn woodland was,

  the very thought of which renews my fear!

  So bitter ‘t is, that death is little worse;

  but of the good to treat which there I found,

  I’ll speak of what I else discovered there.

  Dante Alighieri, Inferno

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One: The Victim 1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Part Two: The Killer 9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by D. A. Mishani

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  At the beginning of December 2014 a Boeing 737 landed at Ben Gurion Airport with a young woman inside, her hair short and her eyes large and brown. Police superintendent Avraham Avraham watched her from inside his hiding place while she passed through the glass doors and entered the arrival hall, rolling before her a cart with three suitcases. Until the last moment he didn’t believe she would come and was certain he’d be returning home alone. He looked at her from a distance for another moment before leaving his hiding place, and his eyes met her eyes, which searched for him among the crowd of greeters.

  They had no great plans then for the future except for living together a few months. To discover each other again and only afterward to think about what’s next. And they did indeed discover each other, slowly and cautiously, in the hidden glances of people used to watching. He discovered that Marianka likes to shower early in the morning—and for a long time. When she comes out she leaves behind a small lake on the bathroom floor, with wet footprints leading to the bedroom. She discovered that Avraham sneaks into the kitchen after dinner, without anyone seeing, in order to continue eating alone from behind the closed door. After their contents were scattered around the apartment, Avraham tried to store the suitcases on top of the wardrobe in the bedroom, but since there wasn’t enough space one suitcase remained beside their bed for the entire winter.

  Marianka asked to see his new office, and he took her there one Friday, in the morning, when the station was nearly empty. In contrast to his room on the first floor, the office of the commander of the Investigations and Intelligence Units was spacious and looked out from the third floor onto Fichman Street, along which residential towers sprouted from the sand. He could look through the window at the gray morning skies or the cool evenings covering the city where he was born. For the first time he was also able to light a cigarette in his office, only then, of all times, he had quit smoking.

  The winter was unpredictable, and when Avraham noticed how changes in the weather affected Marianka’s moods he began reading the forecast with trepidation each morning. When the temperature dropped and rain fell, she was happy. When the sky was clear and the air mild, almost warm, she told him about the snow in Brussels and was unable to hide from him the longing in her face and voice. This was actually the only thing that overshadowed his joy. During times of inactivity he stood before the window in his office and waited for the rain for her.

  At the end of February, when the newscasts announced that the winter’s last storm was approaching, they decided to take a day off to welcome it together. And they did just this, only a few hours after the start of the storm the murder that changed their plans occurred.

  Part One

  The Victim

  1

  She saw the gun that night after she went up to persuade Kobi to come to bed, or to at least not sit outside in the cold. The time was one in the morning and the gun was lying on the table in the small utility room on the roof, but she didn’t assign any importance to it because she was too hurt and exhausted and since she was afraid of so many other things. Besides, the gun wasn’t a reason to be afraid, just the opposite. It was a source for her sense of security.

  A few days later she recalled that night and understood. Everything could have happened differently had she watched Kobi more during those hours.

  Yesterday morning, while they were still in bed, it was impossible to know how their last anniversary together would end.

  Daniella and Noy woke up before them, scattered fourteen balloons on the bedroom floor and jumped on their bed. When the girls went to get dressed and just the two of them remained in bed, Mali drew close to him. She touched him from behind, and whispered in his ear, “Happy anniversary,” and was surprised when she felt his shoulders and back respond to the touch of her hands. His neck was warm from sleep and his cheeks still unshaven. The storm’s first rain could be heard through the window, and the lights in the apartment were turned on because the sky was dark. In the kitchen a festive breakfast the girls had prepared waited for them: orange juice they squeezed themselves and croissants they’d bought the day before and warmed up. They were not allowed to boil water by themselves, so Mali made the coffee.

  She saw that Kobi was tense, but she didn’t say anything about the interview in front of the girls when they sat down at the table. She offered to iron his dark pants and white shirt, but he said that he’d iron them himself before leaving, at noon. She didn’t say any more about this, not even when they were again alone in the bedroom, so that the disappointment wouldn’t be too great if he didn’t get the job, but when they said good-bye she kissed him on the lips and even whispered in his ear, “Good luck today.”

  She took the girls to school and had meetings until eleven.

  In most cases only the husbands showed up, and even when the wives came they almost never said a word, but Mali tried to speak to them as well, like she always did, explaining to them, too, the differences between kinds of mortgages and the various payment possibilities. One of the men, whose wife’s hair was covered with a kerchief, her face silent and pretty, stared right at her. He had a beard, and his jacket, which he didn’t remove, gave off a smell of mothballs and old, damp fabric. His wife rocked the blue stroller back and forth so that their baby wouldn’t wake up. When he burst out crying she undid two buttons on her black dress and nursed him in front of the two of them without shame.

  Between eleven and twelve she hadn’t planned any meetings, so she asked the branch manager for permission and went to buy Kobi a gift, even though they had agreed not to buy anything for each other. She debated walking to the city center but because of the storm she drove to the mall instead. The streets were flooded, and most of the traffic lights were out. And perhaps because of the unrelenting rain she decided to buy him an umbrella, to replace the one he’d lost a few days earlier, and not a punching bag or a new button-down shirt for his interviews. At Zara the umbrellas were too expensive, but at For Men on the third floor she saw a black umbrella with an elegant, wood-like handle. The young salesgirl, whose fingernails were long and sharp and covered with shiny black nail polish, agreed to lower the price. She was so young, maybe in high school still. Her hair was black and she wore black lipstick and had a piercing in her nose. When Mali entered she was reading a book, which she se
t facedown on the counter as Mali approached the register.

  Mali stared at her, maybe for too long, and when the salesgirl asked her, “Is something wrong?” Mali just said, “No, I’m sorry. Did you remove the sticker with the price?”

  Mali finished her last meeting at two, exactly when Kobi’s interview was supposed to start.

  She imagined him sitting across from the interviewer, trying to mask his emotions. As always, he probably had no idea what to do with his hands. Spread them out on his knees and then rested them on the table, next to the pages of his résumé, and then again on his knees, in order to hide his fingers moving under the table. She didn’t call him before the interview nor from the car on her way to pick up the girls. And since his car wasn’t in the parking lot under their building she was sure he hadn’t yet returned, but in the elevator that took them to the seventh floor she could smell his aftershave. And the door wasn’t locked like it was supposed to be.

  She went into the bedroom and heard the water running. Their dog, Harry, was lying on the floor in a puddle of urine and didn’t lift his head. And Kobi’s keys had been tossed next to him, along with the small satchel he took with him to meetings.

  That wasn’t a good sign.

  It was three o’clock and Mali was sure he wouldn’t be home.

  The girls turned on the television in the living room and Mali made them something to eat. The water in the bathroom was still running by the time the pasta had softened so she knocked on the door and asked Kobi if he wanted to eat with them and from the shower he answered no. They started without him because the girls were hungry, and while they were eating they heard him leave the bathroom and close the door to the bedroom.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked, certain he was awake, even though he lay on the bed with his eyes closed.

  She was familiar with these mood swings of his, and without even giving it much thought had been preparing herself since this morning that it would happen today, too. Had he been asked why he switched jobs so many times in recent years and instead of telling the truth had he evaded the question? She pleaded with him to divulge that it was her fault but knew that he wouldn’t do this.

  Kobi didn’t open his eyes, even though she stood there for a minute or two. The large picture from her second pregnancy hung above the bed then, like a bitter reminder, or a memorial.

  Mali asked, “You don’t want to tell me how it went?”

  That afternoon a barrage of hail slammed against the windows, after which silence fell over the apartment. Mali helped Noy with her math homework while Daniella continued watching TV.

  Kobi came out of the bedroom at five with his big bag for boxing classes, said he was taking her car, and asked where her keys were. She asked him what happened to his car and if he didn’t already go to boxing class yesterday, but she didn’t get an answer. When she reminded him they were going out that evening, he didn’t say a word, either, and when she asked, “Why’d you shower before boxing?” he looked at her as if she had said something awful.

  She was tense all afternoon and evening and checked that she had locked the door behind him at least twice. Looked out through the blinds in the living room in order to see if he had returned.

  When she placed the wrapped umbrella on their bed, for him to find it there, she again saw herself in the large photograph and still didn’t know if she’d tell him about the pregnancy tonight, as she had planned to. She had hesitated before agreeing to be photographed then, but Kobi urged her to and said that if they didn’t take the picture she’d regret it, because this was going to be the last time she’d be pregnant. Over the years she learned not to hate the giant picture, in black and white, which showed her long, dark body and the swollen belly Kobi loved to caress, even in public, and which she, too, touched sometimes during the pregnancy, when she was alone. She could be seen from the side in the picture, her body turning a bit toward him, who stands behind her, so that the difference in height between them wouldn’t be so apparent. The two of them naked, and his arms simultaneously hiding and exposing her breasts. She didn’t like the idea that guests would see her like this, perhaps she was ashamed her father would see, but Kobi was actually quite excited about it. After what happened in Eilat she wanted them to take the picture down, but Kobi asked that they keep it up to remind the two of them of better days, and there were moments when she thought he was right, because when she looked at the giant photograph it brought her back to herself.

  The rain started up again before dinner and its drumming on the windows and the roof intensified her restlessness. But the girls were quiet, as if they noticed that she was in need of their help. Most of the time they kept themselves busy in the living room and their bedrooms. Only at six thirty did Daniella say that she was hungry, and Noy reminded her that Mali had promised they’d try on costumes for Purim.

  She took down the box of costumes from the bedroom closet and Noy tried on Elsa’s dress from the Frozen movie they bought her last year, but it was too small and Daniella refused to try it on and said that she’s not going to dress up this year. Mali insisted that she try it on because the dress had cost a fortune and she hoped that this year she’d be able to buy only one costume instead of two, but when she held it up in front of Daniella’s small body opposite the mirror she met her own eyes and immediately averted her gaze.

  There was no reason for all this to come back now, apart from, perhaps, her fear of Kobi’s mood. And the pregnancy.

  His boxing classes lasted between an hour to an hour and a half, so she thought he’d arrive for dinner. At a quarter after seven she called him so he could buy some pita bread and hummus on his way home, but his phone was turned off. She tried him a few more times, and in the end they ate without him and the girls went to bed at eight thirty. When the neighbor’s daughter came up to babysit, Mali told her that they had given up on the idea of going out because she has a fever. She called Kobi again and this time his phone was on but he didn’t answer. And when she went up to the roof to see if it might be possible to hang out the laundry, heavy rain clouds stood in the sky and the wind shook the water tanks, so she decided not to hang things for now and then spoke on the phone with her sister, Gila. When Gila asked her if they were going out to celebrate, she explained that they hadn’t managed to find a babysitter for the girls.

  Kobi returned around eleven, without an explanation or apology.

  Just a year before, on the day of their thirteenth anniversary, everything was so different.

  They left Daniella and Noy with her parents for the first time since Eilat and went to stay at a bed-and-breakfast in the Golan Heights for two nights. Kobi began working for a company that provided security at construction sites near the border and his moods were excellent. They planned to hike, like they used to before the girls were born, to spend a whole day walking along one of the rivers and another day at the Hula Nature Reserve, but the weather was awful, so they barely left the bed-and-breakfast. Instead, they watched movies on DVD and slept together for the first time in several long weeks. They talked for hours in front of the fireplace. In the evening they went out on the deck, wrapped in blankets, and Kobi spoke enthusiastically about taking a trip to his father’s farm in Australia that summer and maybe even buying an apartment because they finally had two salaries again. When they called the girls to say good night, it seemed to Mali that they were on their way to becoming a normal couple.

  But all that was during the previous winter, and since then life again changed for the worse.

  Kobi was fired because his supervisor at the security company, who was ten years younger than him, had it out for him. He was sure he’d find other work, but after a few weeks she felt him sinking, avoiding her and the girls and his friends, and barely leaving the house. Then he began going to boxing classes, two or three times a week. He would return with his face beaten and bruises on his arms and stomach, and would immediately shower and go to sleep. The sign of distress she recognized back when th
ey’d first met appeared again as well: when it seemed to him that no one was paying any attention he’d stretch his neck back and inhale deeply, as if he were unable to breathe.

  She thought he’d go to bed without a word when he returned from boxing that night, too, but he surprised her.

  He turned on the television and sat down on the sofa in the living room. Mali said, “We were supposed to go out tonight,” and sat down next to him. A reality show of the sort that Kobi despised was playing, but he insisted they not turn it off.

  “Kobi, are you okay? You haven’t talked to me since you came back from the interview.”

  He continued staring at the screen but said to her, “I’m sorry. I can’t talk right now.”

  “You can’t tell me how it went?”

  He didn’t want to. He only said, “I didn’t get the job,” and when she asked him, “How do you know? They told you on the spot?” he nodded his head. And she didn’t even know where the interview had taken place or with which company. After he got fired he decided not to interview for any more security positions and she supported him. But in recent weeks he stopped looking at all, so she was happy when he said he had an interview and didn’t even ask him where it was. And perhaps she really didn’t look at him enough that night, because if she had she would have seen in his face more than despair.

  Harry lay at his feet, his body still reeking of urine. “I didn’t wash him because I was afraid he’d get cold on the roof,” she said while Kobi continued staring at the screen.

  “When are you going to take him to the vet? You can’t let him keep suffering like this.”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “The girls can’t look at him, you know? They don’t go near him. Like he’s already dead.”