The Missing File Read online

  And Ze’ev didn’t even know how Ofer did on the test. “Perhaps it’s easier for them to present it like that,” he said. “This is the first I hear of Ofer wanting to stop the lessons.”

  “Perhaps he wanted to stop them because he felt he loved you too much.”

  “What is it with you and that word? I’m telling you, they are not telling the truth. Ofer wasn’t the one who chose to end our lessons.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that’s what they said in their interviews.”

  “So they’re either mistaken or lying,” Ze’ev replied.

  Avraham went silent again. Perhaps he was waiting for Ze’ev to continue. “You know what?” he finally said. “I think you’re right. I don’t believe them either. And I’m sure that after they stopped the lessons, Ofer tried to meet with you, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that based on the statements we have collected during the course of the investigation, I am sure he tried to meet up with you after his parents stopped the lessons—maybe even without their knowledge.”

  “I don’t understand. Is your investigation centered on the lessons I gave to Ofer?”

  “Among other things. The investigation is focusing on Ofer’s life in general, and the lessons were an important part of it, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes. Of course. But I don’t understand what you’re asking me, then.”

  “The question is, did Ofer initiate meetings between the two of you after the lessons were stopped? Because I know he wanted to. Perhaps he tried and you refused?”

  Had Ofer really wanted to get together with him? During their chance meetings on the stairs, he had appeared so shy and embarrassed. He had avoided looking at Ze’ev, as if he wished to ignore him. They bumped into each other a few weeks before his disappearance, in the morning, outside the building. Ze’ev was unchaining his bike when Ofer came outside wearing a gray T-shirt. Ze’ev called out to him, and asked him how school was going, and Ofer said okay, and that he was late for classes, and took off. Ze’ev thought for a moment about offering him a ride on the back of the bike—Michal’s helmet was in the trunk—but then decided against it, sensing Ofer’s reluctance and feeling hurt by it.

  “Ofer didn’t initiate any meeting,” he said. “To the contrary. As I told you before, I had the sense that he was avoiding me, perhaps because he felt guilty about the lessons being stopped. If he had approached me, I wouldn’t have refused. I told you, I offered his parents to continue the private lessons free of charge.”

  “So you want me to believe that you haven’t spoken since December?” Avraham asked, and Ze’ev said, “Certainly we spoke. A word or two when we ran into each other in the building. But can I say something for a moment?”

  Avraham leaned back in his chair, and Ze’ev got the impression that the inspector was finally ready to listen.

  “I understand from your questions that you believe my relationship with Ofer continued after the lessons were stopped, and I’m telling you that’s not true. Your questions on the subject are a waste of time. I knew before coming here that you’d take this line of questioning, so I was prepared, but still, I think it’s a shame. I didn’t hide the fact that Ofer and I had a close relationship. If I had wanted to hide it, I don’t think I’d be here, of my own accord, telling you about Ofer—‘pursuing you,’ as you put it. Don’t you think?”

  Avraham didn’t answer.

  “You clearly suspect me of being involved in Ofer’s disappearance, especially in light of what you now know about the phone call. Or at least you’re pressing me, trying to find out if I am involved. That’s your job. I get it. But it isn’t true. Let me ask you again: If I was involved in Ofer’s disappearance, do you think that I’d call the police or come here on my own initiative to speak about it? Or that I’d tell you the truth about the phone call? Anyway, I have something more to say, and then you can carry on asking me whatever you like.”

  “I’m listening,” Avraham said.

  “Okay. Let me first say that I know that what I’m about to tell you will only increase your suspicions. But, again, I ask you to think logically and understand that if I was in any way linked to Ofer’s disappearance, I would never have chosen to come here and tell you what I am about to say.”

  Was there a way to speak about the letters without being forced to express a sense of remorse that he didn’t truly feel? He imagined himself praying in a synagogue, draped in a prayer shawl, tefillin wrapped around his arm and his forehead, but no God in his heart.

  Avraham glanced briefly at the recording device to ensure that it was still on.

  “I was also the one who wrote the letters in Ofer’s name,” Ze’ev said, and Avraham looked at him as if he had no idea what he was talking about.

  The noise of the chessboard crashing to the floor came only later.

  At first there was only silence.

  “What letters are you talking about?” Avraham asked, and Ze’ev said, “These,” and bent over to reach into his bag to retrieve the black notebook with the folded sheets of paper on which he had copied the near-final versions of the three letters he had sent. He handed them to Avraham.

  A few days later, after Ze’ev understood what had happened with the letters, he realized that Avraham was not only their fourth reader but also the last. It was unlikely that anyone would ever want to read them—Michal wouldn’t want to see them again, and neither would Ze’ev, most likely. Nonetheless, the three letters were the start of what he had hoped would be his first novel. But as it turned out, Avraham would forever be their final reader.

  Avraham read through the letters quickly. Was he able to make out Ze’ev’s handwriting? He placed the first one on the desk, facedown, and went on to the second. When he got to the third, he focused his attention on the lines that Ze’ev liked best, the series of poetic questions focusing on what Rafael and Hannah Sharabi had done after reading the letters: “Where did you read the two letters I sent you? In my room? In the living room? And what thoughts went through your mind when you read them? Did you tell yourselves that it isn’t me, that it can’t be me, in order to protect yourselves from what was written in them? Did you try to convince yourselves that someone else wrote them in my name so that you wouldn’t have to deal with the pain in what I was trying to say? And what did you do with them after you read them? Did you destroy them so that you would never again have to read those words that you don’t want to hear? But I will never stop writing.”

  He waited patiently for Avraham to finish reading and said, “I made a few changes here and there, but these are the letters that were sent.”

  Avraham looked at him, and again Ze’ev could not identify what it was that stared out from his eyes. He thought it was terror, but maybe that was only what he wanted to see.

  “You wrote these in Ofer’s name?” Avraham quietly asked.

  “Yes,” Ze’ev replied.

  “Why did you do that?” Avraham declared, more than asked. For the first time Ze’ev felt that the police inspector was truly interested in knowing what was going on inside him.

  “It’s a long story,” Ze’ev said. “And I came here to tell it to you.”

  “You can tell it to me in a moment, but first tell me who you sent them to. To the police, too?”

  Did he really not know? Or was he again trying to test Ze’ev’s honesty? Surely this wasn’t the first time he had seen the letters. And suddenly he was terrified by the thought that his letters hadn’t reached their destination. Had someone removed them from the mailbox ahead of Rafael and Hannah Sharabi? He stifled a scream that was meant only for Michal’s ears. If the letters did not reach their destination and Avraham was seeing them for the first time, it was rash of him to turn up and confess. It didn’t make sense. Ofer’s parents must have handed them over to someone else on the investigation team who hadn’t info
rmed Avraham and had hastily filed them away.

  “I sent them to Ofer’s parents—I mean, I slipped them in their mailbox,” Ze’ev said.

  “When was this?”

  “The first one, about two weeks ago; the second, that same week; and the third, last week.”

  Avraham took the letters and left the room. This time he didn’t come back for an hour or more.

  On his return, Avraham asked Ze’ev to accompany him to a different room, which looked even more like an interrogation cell, and again left him there alone, asking beforehand for his cell phone.

  Ze’ev waited a long time.

  Policemen he didn’t know entered and left without saying a word. Were they checking to see if he was still there? That he wasn’t doing anything he shouldn’t be doing? Perhaps they were coming in simply to get a look at him, as if he were a rare species of animal that had been trapped and confined. His plan had gone wrong, and he no longer understood Avraham’s actions. The questioning had ended precisely where it should have begun.

  A young policewoman brought in a tray with lunch—roast meat, mashed potatoes, and boiled peas, along with a bottle of mineral water. He drank all the water in a single gulp but didn’t touch the food. Avraham returned, accompanied by a policewoman who introduced herself as an officer from the Investigations and Intelligence Division. She asked if they could interrupt his meal. He pointed toward the full tray. He wasn’t eating. They showed him a calendar and asked him to recall the precise dates on which he had placed the letters in the Sharabi mailbox. He wondered if this senior officer had also read them. She had long brown hair, a little too full for his liking, and blue eyes.

  “The letters you wrote are a serious criminal offense—I’m sure you realize that,” she said in a tone that angered him, that one uses to address a child. “But right now, all we want to know is what has happened to Ofer. That’s all we are concerned with at this point. I’m going to ask you only once if you know what has happened to him, and I want an honest response. You know that all you say could be verified by means of a polygraph test, so it would be foolish for you to lie. Tell me now if you know what has happened to Ofer and where he is.”

  He felt too tired and too hurt to have a conversation with an investigator he didn’t know, and stuck to the story he had told Avraham.

  “I’ve already said I don’t know what has happened to him and that I’m not involved in his disappearance. I wish I knew where he was. If I had had anything to do with his disappearance, I wouldn’t have chosen, on my own accord, to tell you about the letters and the phone call. I came here to apologize and to prevent any damage to your investigation, although I may already be too late for that.”

  “So why did you write that you know what has happened to him?” she asked, and Ze’ev tried to control his tone of voice as he said, “That’s not what I wrote. I suspect you haven’t read them. If you had, you’d see they are written by Ofer, from his perspective, through his character. And if you’d read them properly, you’d see they say nothing about what has happened to him, because I don’t know.”

  “So why did you write them?” Avraham burst in.

  “I was trying to tell you but didn’t get a chance because you ended our conversation,” he answered quietly. “I realize it was a mistake to send the letters, but for me they were part of a novel I was working on. That’s how I saw them, though I’m realizing now that probably seems disturbing to you. I wanted to write a book made up of letters from a missing boy to his parents. But I don’t have any information about what happened to Ofer. And I’m willing to take a polygraph test whenever you like.”

  This was not how he had wanted to share his story with Avraham. To tell him how he wrote the letters, how important they were. The senior investigations officer looked at him with contempt, maybe hatred. What she said about him writing the letters, that it was a serious criminal offense, was just ridiculous.

  They left the room.

  Ze’ev tasted the mashed potatoes and ate most of the peas using a white plastic spoon. Later that afternoon he knocked several times on the door of the interrogation room. Avraham eventually came in and Ze’ev asked how long he was still expected to wait and if he could speak to Michal.

  “Your wife has already called,” was Avraham’s reply, which frightened Ze’ev.

  “Who spoke to her?” he asked. “What did you tell her?”

  “She was told that you’re being questioned and that we’d keep her informed of any developments.”

  “When am I getting out of here?”

  “That’s hard to say.”

  “Can you at least tell me if I need a lawyer?”

  “I don’t know when we’ll continue with the questioning, or in what manner,” Avraham replied. “For now, we’d like to ask you to remain here. And you’re okay with that, aren’t you?”

  “What do you mean, ‘you’d like to ask me’? Do I have a choice?”

  “Yes. But if you say you want to leave, we will immediately arrest you. We have more than enough cause. In the meantime, though, we haven’t decided what to do with you, and we’d appreciate it if you’d be patient.”

  Ze’ev imagined he was waiting in line at the doctor’s or at the Tax Authority and felt less intimidated. He then looked around the interrogation room to make a mental note of its appearance. Avraham had been shocked by the letters, as if he were seeing them for the first time, and Ze’ev recalled what Michael Rosen had said at the workshop about the one reader whom every text should terrify. Perhaps it wasn’t Ofer’s parents but Avraham who was his real addressee? When he thought that it was already evening, he asked Avraham if he could please phone his wife.

  He knew right away that she was crying. In the background, he could hear the sound of Elie and his mother-in-law, who had stayed over. Had Michal told her where he was, and why?

  “I can’t talk now, but everything will be okay, Michali,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you that I haven’t been arrested. They aren’t arresting me, do you understand? They just want to continue the questioning. Please don’t cry.”

  “But you’re coming home today, right? How did they react?”

  He looked over at Avraham, who could hear her. “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  “Do you want me to call a lawyer?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t really understand what’s happening. I hope I’ll be home in a few hours. What did you say to your mother?”

  Her crying pained him, but he couldn’t suppress the anger he felt at knowing he was there because of her.

  She didn’t answer his question.

  “Okay, Michali, I need to hang up now. Kisses for Elie,” he said. She asked him not to go, but he said he had no choice and hung up.

  13

  “Hello?”

  Avraham recognized Hannah Sharabi’s voice, though he had not heard it for a long time.

  There was no tension in her voice. She had not been waiting for a call, but was not surprised when the phone rang so early in the morning.

  “Is this the Sharabi residence?”

  Ze’ev Avni sounded hesitant, rushed, and very tired. The hesitancy slowed his speech, almost to a standstill; the urgency fastened the syllables together. He sounded uncertain of his ability to say his piece. At that point in the conversation he could still end the call. He had come through a long night at the station, with no sleep and very little food. In the morning, when they brought him a cup of coffee in the interrogation room, he had taken one sip of the scalding-hot drink and drank no more, as if he had forgotten about it.

  “Yes. Who is this?” Hannah Sharabi replied.

  The conversation between Ze’ev Avni and Hannah Sharabi took place at 7:15 a.m., but Avraham heard it after 8:00 a.m., on the recording device in Shrapstein’s office. He couldn’t recall the location of the telephone in the Sharabi apartment
. He imagined Hannah picking up the receiver in the kitchen while clearing the remains of breakfast from the table, or rushing to answer the phone from one of the children’s rooms.

  “I’m calling about Ofer,” came Avni’s voice. There was silence at the other end of the line. “Can you hear me?” he asked.

  A moment later, Rafael Sharabi’s voice could be heard from the recording device. He must have been nearby when the phone rang and Hannah had called him to her with a gesture of a hand or her pale face. “Who is this? What do you want?” the father asked.

  “I put Ofer’s letters in the mailbox. I know where he is.”

  Silence again. Rafael Sharabi could have hung up, just as Hannah could have, but he kept holding the receiver.

  So he did it. Avraham wasn’t sure that Avni would go through with it. He’d had a hunch—or maybe it was hope—that Avni would reject their offer at the very last minute.

  “Can you hear me?” Avni asked Rafael Sharabi. “I know where Ofer is, and I can tell you.”

  Avni wasn’t distorting his voice, yet it wasn’t easy to make out the words. Was he covering the mouthpiece with his T-shirt?

  “Who are you? Why are you calling us?” Rafael Sharabi asked, and Avni repeated his previous words. “I know where Ofer is and what he’s been doing since he went missing,” he said. “I’ll call in the evening to tell you.”

  The call ended.

  Shrapstein turned off the recorder and triumphantly smiled at Ilana and Avraham. Avraham was holding a white polystyrene cup filled with Turkish coffee; he must have had seven or eight of these since coming to the station some twenty-four hours earlier. Ilana drank her coffee. It had been a sleepless night for all of them.