Hill of Secrets: An Israeli Jewish mystery novel (15 page)

“I didn't tell him because I didn't think it was his business and also because I didn't think he could demand David's salary. After all, David was an accountant with thirteen years’ experience. Meir was unemployed for six months, they already had two kids and Hanni hadn't worked for two years. I was very surprised with Hanni at that time. She was a trained lawyer, and Galit was already two years old and going to day care anyway.

“I thought the most natural thing was that she would go work too and relieve some of the pressure put on Meir. But instead of relieving the pressure, she only added to it. Since Meir and Hanni got married, we haven't stopped supporting them. We paid for the wedding Hanni wanted, we paid for half of an apartment for them in Givaat Shmuel, we helped them buy Hanni's car, we occasionally deposited money into their account when they were short and we asked for nothing in return.

“The only thing we wanted was to see our grandchildren, a right we were entitled to mainly when Hanni needed a babysitter. I remember the time when Meir and Hanni went on a two-week vacation in Italy, when Meir was still working at Fiberlight, and we watched Ariel and Galit for a week. I remember daring saying to Hanni that maybe they could settle for just one week, not because it was hard for me to watch the children, but because I thought it was too much for two little ones like them and Hanni more or less threatened me that if I didn't watch the children when she wanted me to, I'd never get to see them."

"She threatened to not let you see the grandchildren?"

"Not only threatened…"

"Meaning?"

"In the last year-and-a-half, I saw my grandchildren exactly three times, Meir came with the kids on Rosh Hashanah, at Passover, and at a party celebrating Noa's birth."

"Did anything trigger this excommunication?"

"We stopped supporting them."

"And because of that, they didn't let you see your grandchildren?"

"Yes," she said sadly and lowered her gaze. "It was very, very hard. I loved those children with all my heart. Arieli was an amazing child, smart and incredibly beautiful. He had some difficulties—unfortunately, he didn’t get the right treatment—but I saw beyond his difficulty. The boy was simply a treasure. Galitush was such a sweet and funny girl, she loved playing with me so much. Beyond my personal pain, I was very worried about what this separation would do to the children. I was afraid the children would think they were being abandoned. Abandonment is a terrible trauma for children."

"And you still decided to cut them off, even at the price of separation?" I asked, careful not to sound too judgmental.

"We felt it was a price worth paying, as long as they became more independent. Like I told you, Hanni didn't work. She stopped working after Galit was born. Hanni thought that, because we have the means, we should  help her live at the level she wanted. She never stopped comparing herself to others, comparisons that had nothing to do with reality."

"Why?"

"She was very interested in what Meir's sisters were getting, when actually, I can tell you they got less than she did. Even when Meir was working at Fiberlight, I kept transferring them money. Every couple of weeks they got into overdraft, Meir or even the branch manager would call me and I would make a transfer. Hanni was convinced that Meirav and Michal were also receiving money from us on a regular basis, which never happened.

“Apart from holidays and special occasions, they managed on their own. When they were newlyweds, we did help them out more, but only in the first year or two. After that they ran their households with no help from us. You need to understand that Meirav and Michal were also some years older than Meir. And they married younger than Meir did. Hanni compared herself to Meirav and Michal, who’d been married for over ten years more than her. They’d already managed to create a comfortable life and Hanni mistakenly thought that she could afford what a couple that’s been married for ten years can afford. Besides, Meirav and Michal both work."

"What do they do?"

"Meirav, the older one, manages a chain of fitness clubs. She studied at Wingate and then did an M.A. in management. She's married to Oded who owns a successful law firm. Michal studied interior design and owns a nice little business with another partner. They're doing pretty well. Michal is married to David, who like I told you, is the accountant in my husband's company. They're both well-established in their own right. They did have a good starting point and strong financial backing, but I'm very proud of how far they've come. I wanted the same for Meir, but now everything is ruined."

She broke out in tears again and I waited for her to calm down.

"What were we talking about?" she asked after a little while, after drying her nose and eyes.

"Meirav and Michal."

"Right." She sniffled and went on, "When Meir was working at Fiberlight and they were doing relatively well, Michal moved into this neighborhood. We’d already bought this house, but it was still under construction. Meirav also lives down the street, in a private house, and Michal bought a penthouse a few streets down. We really wanted Meir and Hanni to move here too, so we'd all be close to one another.

“Hanni's parents live in Ramat Gan, so we didn't think they have any special connection to Givaat Shmuel. Hanni thought we’d buy them a penthouse apartment like Michal's or a private home like Meirav's, but we refused. We were willing to give them some money, but not buy them a house. Meirav and Michal didn't get anything from us but a fairly generous housewarming present. Hanni understood we weren't about to buy her a new house in Petach Tikva, but I guess it was hard for her to accept the fact that Meirav and Michal have upscale houses and she began expressing interest in private homes in Givaat Shmuel.

“When she realized she’d no chance of purchasing a villa, even in Givaat Shmuel, she kindly agreed to make do with remodeling their current apartment. This was before Passover, so there was a good excuse to paint and remodel the entire apartment. They also refurnished Ariel's room, the dining area and the living room. It was a little hard for me to understand why it was so urgent to replace a living room that was only five years old, but I was careful not to say anything about it."

"And who paid for the remodeling?"

"The bank." Sarah smiled sadly. "They took a loan to cover their overdraft and the cost of the decorating and we were the guarantors for their loan. I thought—hoped, really—that it would keep Hanni quiet for a little while. As we’d covered their overdraft so many times, Hanni promised Meir, who was very embarrassed every time he had to come ask us for money, that this renovation was the end of it, that she’d feel more comfortable in the house and be calmer."

"And did she calm down?"

"For a very short time. Three months after the remodeling, Fiberlight was closed and Meir became unemployed. It took Meir six months to get back to work and in that period we, again, supported them—even more intensively. My heart would break every time Meir came to me to ask for money. It was very humiliating for him, a thirty-two year old man with two kids, coming to bum money off his parents."

She started crying again but calmed down quicker than expected. "Maybe we were wrong," she said in a quivering voice, "maybe we shouldn’t have waited until he asked, maybe we should have given it to him without him even asking?" she asked without waiting for a reply. "I know there are kids who receive constant financial support from their parents, even though the kids are already grown people with their own families—even people less well-off than us, and surely those like us, too."

"Do you think that if you’d gone on supporting Meir and Hanni, this whole tragedy would have been avoided?"

"If you ask me, I think so."

"Your wife told me she believes the fact that you stopped Hanni and Meir's financial support was what brought Meir to commit such an extreme act," I told Natan after he recited his personal details for the record. It was difficult for Sarah to go on with the interview and I decided to obtain the rest of the information from her husband and, if necessary, pick up with her another time.

Natan pursed his lips and thought for a moment. "I don't know. Maybe."

"So you think it's possible?"

"I really don't know, it sounds too extreme to me."

"Maybe you could tell me a little bit about the relationship you had with Meir and Hanni. I understood from your wife that there was a rift between you because of you cutting them off."

"Right."

"Can you expand on that?"

"I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but my young daughter-in-law was a girl who brought out the devil in me. Who knows what she could bring out of Meir. Right from the start of her relationship with Meir, I got the sense that she was walking around feeling like she’d caught a fat fish, that she was marrying a bank account."

"She didn't love Meir?"

"To tell you the truth? I have no idea. I'm not sure. He was very attached to her. She was a very pretty girl, very smart, charismatic, but also petty, lazy and exploitative."

"Elaborate, please."

"She was always busy with comparisons. Especially to Meir's sisters. Had to know how much everyone was getting and constantly convinced that she was being discriminated against when, in reality, it was the other way around."

"You said she was lazy."

"It's a trait that I simply detest and I think it's the root of the problem of her behavior. A young, healthy, smart girl who has a degree but sits at home instead of getting a job…"

"Being a housewife is also a job." I quoted my mother and recalled Hanni's immaculately tidy home.

Natan snorted in disdain. "Hanni knew mainly how to impose jobs upon others. She had a housekeeper, and she sent the kids out to daycare from a young age. The only thing she did was occasionally cook on Fridays, but she bought most of their meals. Forgive me, she may be dead, but for many years she made my blood boil. I admit, I hoped he'd divorce her more than once."

"Did you share these hopes with your son?"

"Even when they were still engaged and she drove us all crazy about the wedding, I told him it wasn’t too late to call the wedding off."

"And how did he react?"

"He was really mad at me."

"Because he was in love with her?"

"Yes." Natan lowered his gaze. "Believe me, I have no idea why. Because despite all of the beauty and charisma, when you live with a person, all of the masks come off. And I have no doubt that life wasn't easy with that girl."

"What do you mean?"

"When they still used to come here, she’d just bully him: ‘Get this! Go there! Come here!’ If he dared ask anything of her she’d plant him a hundred meters into the ground. It's not easy for any parent to admit it, but she definitely surpassed my son intellectually and rhetorically and he was a sucker for her. She talked down to him. That's one of the reasons why I suspected she married him for the money. She didn't look like a woman in love, while he was extremely devoted to her."

"But, after all, there wasn't so much money."

"Not as much as she hoped. In my opinion they got above and beyond what they needed. I know it's a painful issue, especially for my wife, who with a very heavy heart joined me in my refusal to support them, but I felt like there was no other option. I started my company alone. My wife came from a very wealthy home, but I didn't have too many luxuries growing up so my expectations from the kids are different.

“My wife's parents died about fifteen years after we were married, and by then we managed by my own means. Following their death, my wife inherited a great fortune, but we were already financially comfortable. I never asked for money from my in-laws, and I admit that they gave without our asking and it was very convenient, but I actually refused substantial sums from them when they were alive. I felt that it was their money and I wasn’t supposed to enjoy it. That's also how we raised our children, Meirav, Michal and Meir. We had a bad example in our background and it was very important to me not to spoil my children too much."

"What example?"

"My wife has a brother, who inherited a sum similar to Sarah's. He relied on his parent's assets all of his life and after their death, when he inherited half of their fortune, he was spared the need to ask them for it. He spoiled his children who grew up to be quite the freeloaders. My wife's parents had a considerable fortune, but not a vast one. For a couple, it was a significant amount, but don't forget that the fortune was split in two.

“After a few years they used up a substantial part of their share of the inheritance and today they're barely speaking to their kids, who refuse to pay them back even a small portion of what they received. They have to live very humbly. Because of Sarah's brother's story, Sarah agreed to stop supporting Hanni and Meir."

"Why stop? Maybe you could have reduced it?"

"We tried to cut back the support, but what happened was that Meir would go to Sarah behind my back and she'd take pity on him and transfer him money."

I recalled the bank manager who told me that cash deposits often occur when one parent isn't willing to finance the child and the other parent keeps supplying him with cash. "Did she transfer it through the bank or give him cash?"

"Both, and sometimes checks too. When she really wanted to hide it from me she withdrew cash for him, but I always knew in the end."

"So what caused you to completely cut them off?"

"All these years, there was my wife's brother in the background. We're very wealthy people, but not so wealthy that our kids could live only off of the inheritance, and certainly not after dividing it between the three families. We worried what would happen after we die, how they'd manage. We weren't so worried about Meirav and Michal, mostly about Meir."

"Why? He was working most of the time."

"It's important to me to be as honest with you as possible so I'm not going to sound like a particularly encouraging father: my Meir was a lovely person, but I didn't expect him to be very successful, not as a businessman and not as a salaried employee. He got lucky with that start-up company who employed him in a position that was ten sizes too big for him, but I estimated that that sort of luck wouldn't hit him twice. He was a good, hardworking young man and I'm sure he would have worked to retirement, but not in very lucrative jobs."

"What's wrong with that? Not everyone’s a manager."

"Right, but Hanni thought that the fact that her neighbors and Meir's sisters, who are both married to men with very high managerial and earning potential, lead a certain lifestyle, meant that she should live like that, too. She ignored reality and lived a lifestyle that didn't match Meir's earning ability."

"How did this manifest itself?"

"Meir didn't share the little details with us, he just asked for money, but the girl was addicted to shopping. For herself, for the kids, and for Meir here and there. I never saw her wear the same dress on Shabbat, she had dozens, if not hundreds, of pairs of shoes. The kids were dressed in the nicest, newest clothes."

"Was she a good mother?" I try to get a compliment out of him.

"I don't know. I don't think the fact she showered the children with clothes and toys is proof of good parenting. I don't remember even one occasion when she played with the kids when they were here. She was always sitting and talking to Meirav or Michal, and Meir would watch the kids and play with them. I remember, I once dared to say something about it to her and she was so insulted that she threatened she'd never come visit us again.

“After an hour of flattery from Meir and Sarah she agreed to come back in the house and didn't look at me the rest of the Shabbat. Meir told me that she watched the kids all week long so he enjoyed being the responsible parent on Saturdays. I personally didn't buy it. Meir would often come home early and put the kids to bed, so she wasn't really 'carrying the load' during the week like she tried to make out. Besides, Meir wasn't exactly resting during the week."

"And she was?"

"Yes, definitely yes. Although, the last few months, she was taking care of the baby, before that, for years, she sat at home all day for hours doing nothing until Ariel and Galit came home from school and kindergarten."

"It sounds like you have a lot of resentment towards your late daughter-in-law."

"Certainly, she made my son's life miserable."

"So you think that's the reason that pushed him to kill her and their three children."

"It sounds insane to me, but there's no way of knowing how far she pushed him."

"I want to go back to the matter of the support that was cut off. You said that in light of Sarah's brother's story and Hanni's squandering, you decided to completely cut off your support."

"Right. That was about a year-and-a-half ago… November 2007, as far as I recall."

"Was there any trigger?"

"Yes. For years, since Hanni and Meir got married, including when he was working in a senior position in a start-up company and making a very handsome, fat salary, we paid off Meir and Hanni's overdraft. The busiest time was after Meir was fired from the start-up company and was unemployed for about six months. Hanni didn't get a job and didn't even try to cut back on her spending. Six months later, Meir returned to the bank, but his salary was far from what he was paid at the start-up company. And again, instead of adjusting, Hanni went on spending disproportionally.

“What caused things to reach a boiling point was a new car that she bought in October 2007. Meir had a car from work and Hanni had a private car on their name. I didn't understand from the beginning why a woman who doesn't work and has both her kids in education facilities near her home needs a car just for herself, but I suppose it's a minimal convenience. She had a 2001 Suzuki Euroswift, which, in my opinion, was enough for her needs. It was a great car, barely gave her any trouble, mainly because it was hardly used, but it was very important to Hanni to replace it with a big, fancy car."

"What kind?"

"I don't remember the exact model, but it was a Mitsubishi. She did buy one that was two years old rather than a new one, but that entire purchase was completely unnecessary."

"Maybe the Suzuki was too small for three kids?"

"First of all, a Suzuki Euroswift may not be a large car, but it's relatively spacious, and besides, don't forget that Noal'e was born four months ago. In October 2007 Hanni wasn't even pregnant yet. There was no reason to buy a bigger car other than the fact that others had one and she didn't."

"So after they bought the new car you decided to cut them off?"

"Yes. Sarah was finally convinced that only drastic action would change anything. We made the decision with a heavy heart. Any parent wants nothing but good for his children, but we thought Meir and Hanni would become independent only if they realized they have no one to rely on other than themselves."

"So what did you do? Tell them that you weren't going to close their overdraft?"

"No, first we asked them to return the new car."

"And did they agree?"

"You think? Hanni went crazy! She couldn’t shut up about the new car we bought David, Michal's husband, who's the accountant of my company and has been working there for almost fifteen years. I didn't do anything I wouldn't have done for any other senior employee. David's car was becoming a wreck and I decided to treat him to a good, executive vehicle. All of our attempts to calm her down and explain to her that David got a car because of his position and not because we favored him in any way were in vain, so we explained to them that if they chose to keep the car they could pay for everything themselves."

"And what was their reaction?"

"There was no reaction. I think they didn't believe we were serious."

"And once they realized you were serious?"

"It happened pretty quickly. After about a month, Meir asked us to help them out because their Visa account was maxed out and they were into overdraft."

"And you said no?"

"Right."

"And then what happened?"

"I have no idea, I assume Meir closed it with a loan or something of the sort."

"I mean what happened between you? I understand Hanni cut you both off."

"Of course. That threat became a reality. Meir felt really bad for us, but we decided not to cause any more tension. After all, his life was with Hanni, not with us. He explained to us that Hanni thought grandparents not only rights, but also duties, and if we weren’t willing to help out, she saw no reason to allow us to see our grandchildren."

"Didn't you try to coerce Meir?"

"I told you, we didn't want to cause any tension."

"You didn't even talk to Meir? You’ve no idea how he felt about it?"

"My wife was very scared to talk to him about it. I was a little less timid."