Hill of Secrets: An Israeli Jewish mystery novel (20 page)

Friday, 5.29.2009. Shavuot Day

My dream of a vacation completely dissolved when Shira and my dad dragged me at four in the morning to the Birkat Kohanim at the Western Wall. I maintained a grumpy expression the whole way, though, privately, I had to admit it was a special experience.

"It's just horrible; how could a person do such a thing, kill his own children like that, and that tiny, sweet little baby girl?" I was surprised to hear a female voice that wasn't Shira's, who’d fallen asleep next to me, talk about my case in the quiet little corner we stood in at the edge of the Wall's floor.

"What does Iris say about all of this?" a nasal voice asked.

"What can she say?" the first voice sighed. "She's just in shock."

"Poor thing."

"She is. Hanni was her best friend—she's just devastated."

"She couldn't come back from England?"

"She really wanted to, but still, it's a family wedding."

Of all the places in the world, the mother of Iris, Hanni's best friend, was sitting next to me on the morning of Shavuot near the Western Wall. In a world where everyone somehow knows everyone, I was not very surprised.

"But what does she say about that Meir?" the nasal voice returned, "Was he a violent guy?"

"I don't know; she never talked about him. I met him maybe two or three times and he seemed like a completely normal guy."

"All serial killers seemed normal once," the nasal voice commented.

"I really don't know what happened there. Iris is so shocked that she's barely functioning. Luckily they're coming back on Sunday. I could help her a bit."

"Poor thing."

"Such a horror. Hanni was such a beautiful and vibrant girl. Iris loved her so much. They were friends since Civil Service."

"I know…"

"Iris tells me they had a bit of financial trouble."

"Well…who doesn't these days?" the nasal voice was commentating again. "My youngest still gets a monthly allowance from us. Young people today can't make ends meet."

"Yes, but you know…Meir's parents are one of the richest families in Petach Tikva."

"
You don‘t say
?" The nasal voice accentuated each syllable.

"Yes, it's well-known."

"I didn't know. So what drove him to it?"

"I have no idea. I'm dying to hear what Iris has to say. She must know something."

I was also dying to speak with Iris already, and to my joy I understood she was returning from overseas this Sunday. I deliberated whether to reveal myself to the two ladies sitting near me, not noticing I exist. My police badge was deep in my sweater pocket. Should I jump up in front of them, waving my badge? What did I need to ask them? I had Iris's details, and her mother and her nasally friend didn't really interest me. Who would I impress?

While I pondered this, Iris's mother and her friend were joined by two men who urged them to move quicker. A few minutes later, my father and Yehuda, Ayelet's husband, also emerged from the crowd and we went back to the hotel.

If Iris's mother knew Hanni and Meir had financial difficulties, Iris was probably an essential witness. Hanni kept up the perfect act for the outside world. None of the neighbors or people in the neighborhood really knew what happened inside Hanni and Meir's house, but all of us put on an act when we're out in society. Shavuot in Jerusalem is basically one big masquerade ball. Everyone comes with one objective, to present themselves and their families as successful, happy, and beautiful. The failures, disappointments, shouting and ugliness are left behind locked doors.

I wondered if this was only a trait of religious society, or if secular people also had this façade. It was a bit difficult for me to answer, since I didn't have kids and I had no idea how secular families with children behave. I assumed everyone was pretending, but the pretense in religious society was greater. In secular society, there was less pressure surrounding marriage and children, so the need to sweep flaws and problems under the rug was less necessary.

But to what extent can you leave everything under wraps and closed off? Every person needs to have an escape, a wall where they could unload all of their secrets and unease, and Iris was, apparently, Hanni's wall.

Saturday, 5.30.2009

To my surprise, during that day and the Shabbat following it, I didn't meet any more direct or indirect acquaintances. This may have stemmed from the fact that I dedicated a considerable amount of my time to sleeping and watching TV in my room. Shira kept me updated on meal times and I mostly kept annoying my mother.

"You're allowed to brush your hair before you go down to the lobby," she said sadly, aware of the fact that the battle has already been lost.

"I did," I replied in despair. "That's my hair. You can only blame God."

"Ayala has more difficult hair than yours and she always looks neat."

"I don't intend to cover my hair!" I almost yelled.

I sat down next to Ayala and hugged her lest she think for one moment that I was belittling her or her hair.

"Who are we waiting for?" I asked impatiently.

"Not you for a change!" My dad took a dig at me.

"We're waiting for Moshe. He took the kids for a short walk in Gan Hapaamon," Shira answered calmly.

I made myself comfortable on the couch and looked around. I was looking for people I might know. I was hoping to see Iris's mother again. Maybe I could get some more details from her.

I didn't know if I was even interested in running into someone I knew. In the last two weeks I'd seen so many acquaintances from my past, I felt I was overdosing on nostalgia. I had nothing in common with these childhood friends—unmarried, childless, not religious or even traditional. When I was still in school with them, and attended Bnei Akivah with them, I didn't feel like I belonged, so now, when my life was so different from theirs, I had even less I common with them. In the movies, reunions offer the chance to show everyone how successful you’ve been and how you’ve conquered the world in the years that have passed.

In the ideal movie, the geek has become a multimillionaire and the evil captain of the football team turned into a fat bum. I was definitely the geek, the honor student, the slightly ugly loner. Years later, I wasn’t a millionaire and I hadn't undergone comprehensive plastic surgery to transform me into a stretched-out Barbie doll. At a class reunion, I’d be considered a failure in religious society terms: divorced, no children, hardly getting by on a police officer's salary.

However, that was exactly the point, in my mind. I was an incredible success story, because I was spending my life doing only what was good for me and not what was expected of me by others. How many of my classmates and acquaintances worked in a job that gave them such great satisfaction? How many of them had three or four kids because they really, really wanted them, and not because that's what everyone did?

I had no intention of saying what I thought to my childhood friends. People don't like hearing the truth, but I also didn't have the energy to deal with the looks of pity I received when people heard I was a single, childless old maid.

I didn't see anyone I knew around me, or maybe I just didn't recognize them under all of the fancy clothes, dolled up hats, makeup and falsity. Still, it had been fifteen years since we parted ways. I wore the clothes my mother bought for me and still managed to look like a waif. It turned out I managed to pick the shirt that least matched the skirt, which was two sizes too big. It was meant to be a tight skirt, but on me it looked like a shapeless sack. My hair was more disheveled than usual and I was wearing a pair of sandals that have seen better days.

"You couldn't look in the mirror before you left your room?" My mother still hadn't given up.

"I think I look great."

"I didn't buy you those sandals, and you could have worn something else with that top. You don't see that skirt is huge on you? Since when did you get to be such a small size? Why aren't you eating? Since you joined the police, you've just neglected yourself. Believe me, state security won’t be harmed if you went out to eat a normal lunch once a day." My mother was firing off rounds.

"The last time I checked my ID, I was already over eighteen, so you can stop worrying about how much I'm eating and how I dress. Just say the truth, Mom - you're embarrassed I don’t fit in with this whole performance." I waved my hands around me.

"All of this," Ayala tried to imitate my gestures, "is a performance for you?"

"More or less."

"What exactly are we performing?” I had a feeling Ayala was insulted.

"You know that case I'm dealing with now, a family that outwardly was dressed up to the nines and completely functional, but inside, apparently, everything was rotten, if one day the father can get up and slay them all."

"Wow, that's just too much." Ayala was practically stewing when she talked. I’d really managed to upset her. "If we dress nicely it means we're covering up something rotten?"

"No, that's not what I said." Ayala managed to confuse me.

"But that's what it sounds like." Shira surprised me by joining Ayala and my mother's team. Shira, herself, is not exactly a role model when it comes to color matching and ironed clothes, but she was a little better than me and when it came to events or weekends, she made an effort to fall in line with my mother and Ayala.

"I'm just saying that pretty clothes don't mean anything. If I'm a slob, then that's how I want to look." I lied. I didn't want to look like this but I didn't know how to dress differently.

"You're talking nonsense." My mother pulled back an empty chair and sat down next to me, careful not to talk loudly, so the other people in the lobby—some of whom were already intently listening to our conversation - wouldn't hear what she had to say. "A person who is dressed well conveys something about himself. It's true that sometimes it's a lie, but a lie is destined to come out, just like what happened in the shocking case of the Danilowitz family."

"But maybe if people didn't work so hard covering up their lie so perfectly, things wouldn't explode in such a horrible way? If Hanni and Meir were busier sorting out their issues rather than covering them up, maybe this whole story would have ended differently."

"Are we still talking about clothes?" Ayala wondered.

"Yes, among other things, but not only that, I have a feeling that a lot of people, not only Hanni and Meir Danilowitz, are too busy with how those around them perceive them, rather than being true to themselves."

"Not everyone can afford to leave everything and start working for the police." My mother explained the facts of life to me.

"Why not?" I played dumb.

"Because most people have a mortgage and children and they can't do whatever they feel like all of a sudden."

"But the mortgage and the kids are part of it. Where does it say that you have to have three kids and a mortgage?"

"So we're talking about the having kids again?" My mother rolled her eyes. "I thought you didn't want to talk about that with us anymore."

"In my opinion," Ayala interjected before I could answer my mother, "you turned being a slob into a way of life. You perceive anyone who goes through the trouble of matching their shirt to their pants as someone who wastes their time in vanity. But the truth is, you're no better than those trying to cover up emptiness with beautiful clothes.

“You dress the way you do because you're trying to show that you're better than everyone. That you, unlike all of us, have a life and an important job, so you can't waste your time on insignificant things like shopping or manicures." Ayala, my younger sister, was the exact opposite of me, especially when it came to grooming.

"I assure you my sloppiness isn't deliberate." I said, almost, in a whisper.

“I also don't dress nicely to cover up something dark, I just like to be aesthetic. I think personal grooming is important. If you look good on the outside, you usually also feel good on the inside."

"No doubt." I smiled at her. I didn't feel like fighting, and I also didn't think she was wrong. Still, I personally felt that when someone is excessively busy with appearance, it’s often to make up for internal, substantial problems. I decided not to continue with the argument, and fortunately, my cell phone rang just then.

It was Yinon.

My father gave me an angry look, and before he could launch into a tirade I got up and found a secluded corner of the lobby.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Everything's great." He was breathing hard.

"What's that? Where are you, huffing and puffing like that?"

"I went out for a jog with Tsumi. The poor dog's really out of shape. Do you even walk him?"

"Yes," I said, almost in a whisper. I wasn't lying, I did walk him - a walk around our back yard is also a walk.

"Listen, that dog is so cute you could eat him." I smiled. I loved that dog although I hadn't cared for him properly in a long while. "This week I had lunch at a restaurant and one of those deaf people came by, selling little dolls. I usually ignore them, but because I remembered I’d be taking Tsumi, I bought a little teddy bear so he'd have a new toy from Daddy. Anyway, he’s completely in love with this little bear, doesn't leave it for a second. I even had to take the bear on our run."