Missing Read online

  Adiva Geffen

  Missing

  Missing / Adiva Geffen

  All rights reserved; No part of this book may be reproduced, reprinted, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or by any other current or future means without the prior written permission of the author or his representative.

  Copyright © 2017 Adiva Geffen

  Translation from the Hebrew: Yaron Regev

  Contact: [email protected]

  1

  Boom!

  Then silence.

  Was it even real? Perhaps it had only been a passing dream.

  I was lying in my bed, refusing to open my eyes, refusing to know. Just like the child I had once been. Frightened by every rustling sound. Petrified in darkness, shutting my eyes too tight. Covering my head with a blanket and waiting for the terror to pass.

  I tried to breathe. Something heavy was weighing me down. It had been nothing but a dream, I tried to comfort myself. A dream that had slipped away without leaving a trace.

  Boom!

  There was nothing for it but to open my eyes and turn on the bedside lamp. In the faint light I looked for my cell phone. It wasn’t there. I turned off the light and groped my way back into the dream. A greenish room. Someone next to me was screaming, “Solar eclipse! Solar eclipse!” There was a giant pizza on the table. Eat me, the note commanded. I took a bite and shrank to the size of a grain of wheat. A huge bird grabbed me with its beak and carried me to the heavens, then it shook off its head and tossed me.

  And again, the memory of that boom returned. Something was there, lurking beneath, behind, and all around me. A huge, sticky, slippery lump whose existence was certain, even though hidden and unseen.

  I tried to rise, but the bed pulled me back down. I uprooted myself and stood tiredly, wobbling to the living room, to Daria, who was under my protection for a single evening.

  Daria, my latest project. She would be sleeping, saving her strength for the upcoming meeting. Five hours later she would reunite with her parents. They’d probably welcome the prodigal daughter with open arms, shower her with love and care. And she? Was she relieved her wanderings were finally at an end? No more running away?

  I went into the living room. Digital numbers glowed green in the darkness, marking the time. 5:30 am.

  I fumbled my way to the sofa as the sound of a distant siren cut through the silence, getting closer. Then a woman’s high-pitched voice, followed by deeper voices — beneath my window.

  I touched the sofa, the cascading mountain of homey blankets covering the sleeping Daria. “Hey, did you hear something?” I asked and gently touched the bedding. The mountain collapsed. I pulled the quilts off. No one was underneath. The sofa was empty. Below, the street came to life. Screams. Screeching tires.

  “Daria?”

  In the dim glow cast by the streetlight, I noticed crumpled balls of yellow paper scattered across the sheet. I unfolded one, hoping for clues. A few words, maybe. But all it contained was a drawing of a black sun.

  I grabbed a sweatshirt from the chair and threw it on — the Mad Hatter print flashed a nightmarish grin at me. I ignored it and ran through the door, leapt down seventy-four stairs, and rushed outside.

  They were standing next to the entrance. Faces fallen. Speaking in hushed tones. The lights of a patrol car bounced intermittent blue off the brick walls. Two policemen stared at the roof of the building, taking notes, photos, before stepping into the stairwell. An ambulance wailed. Two paramedics pushed the stretcher inside, their faces grim.

  It was her!

  I found myself being pushed back by the gawking crowd.

  Daria, what have you done?

  I leaned against the ambulance, or maybe I tried to grab it, or be dragged by it. Perhaps I was standing still, petrified. Everything became too hazy, like seeing the world through dirty eyeglasses.

  A hand stretched toward me. Someone was holding me, leading me away. No, let me stay with her. If I don’t let go, perhaps she’ll start breathing. Her eyes will open, and her heart will beat again. That’s what I thought, but strong arms pulled me away from her.

  A policeman in uniform came up to me. His face was full of questions, but I hadn’t a single answer. Two more officers stood next to me. They let me go then talked among themselves, their questioning eyes coming back to me again and again. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. The tallest held a gold ring, which he waved in my face. What was he saying? One of the officers went away. The other asked if I lived on the third floor. A neighbor wearing a dark robe said that I did.

  “You know her?” the officer asked him. A gray dog sniffed my feet.

  “Yes,” he answered. “Dikla Shoshkowitz.”

  “Dikla?” A shadow fluttered across my face, the policeman. “Do you know the girl that’s…”

  “Daria. It’s Daria. She was with me…” I couldn’t breathe, something heavy weighed down my heart, pressed against my ribs. Air. I need a little air, please.

  “Was she your friend?”

  “No. Yes. She wasn’t, but she’s not exactly my friend, she’s just…” What is she to me?

  “Ma’am, do you understand what I’m asking you?” The voice drew nearer.

  “What are you asking me?” I knew I sounded insane.

  He nodded his head, feigning understanding. He didn’t understand anything. “What was she doing in your apartment?” The voice softened, turned conciliatory.

  “She slept there…in the living room. I fixed the couch for her. She was…a quiet girl…why would she jump?”

  “I don’t know. I was hoping you would.” His voice was calm and warm. I raised my eyes to him. Mustache. Green eyes. Just another cop.

  “Why would I?” I asked him.

  He took a step back, as if giving up. “What’s with her?”

  “Let her be,” another voice said. “Give her some time to recover.”

  “I need to investigate what happened here.” He sounded apologetic. “Ask her if the roof was locked.” He gently shook me. I didn’t know. All I knew was that something had crawled under my skin and into my heart, and its name was fear.

  “The roof,” he repeated. “How did she get to the roof?”

  “You need a key,” someone offered. “But you know how it is, people always lose their keys.”

  “Talk to the building supervisor,” someone else suggested.

  “The roof is always locked,” the man in the robe said.

  “Dikla,” the officer addressed me again, “what did you say her name was?”

  “Her name was Daria,” I heard myself answering.

  “Who was she?”

  “She was Daria. Daria. She was confused.”

  Murmurs surrounded me. “She was confused? What about you?”

  “Does she have a last name? Parents? Someone who could give us a little more information?” The officer was talking to me again.

  “Her mother…her mother’s Eve, who used to be Shosh. Her father is Barak, Dr. Barak, and she has an aunt… Sammy knows — talk to her.”

  “Speak louder, please.”

  “Daria Magidal. I found her…it took me five days to find her… Talk to Sammy, please. Where’s Bender? He knows me.”

  “Superintendent Bender is on vacation. Can you tell us what Daria was doing in your apartment?”

  I didn’t exactly know what had happened. It shouldn’t have been like that. Sammy had asked me to let her sleep at my place. We were supposed to take her to meet her parents in the morning. Eve, why did y
ou leave your daughter on her own? I remembered Daria’s sorrowful, serene face. Rage welled inside me. How could she have done that to me, jump from my building? I tried to form words, but they refused to come. I needed to be quiet. Wordless. I bit my lips and looked at the officer.

  “She’s in shock,” someone said next to me. His voice was soft. His arm was gently wrapped around my shoulder.

  The officer shook his head and took notes. What are you writing? I’m not in shock, officer. I’d lost her. She had slipped away from me. Had taken flight. She was gone.

  “Such a sad story,” the soft voice hovered above and around me.

  I knew him. The new neighbor. I had seen him moving into Ronit’s apartment. I tried to release myself from his grip.

  “My name is Yavin,” he said. “Don’t be scared, everything will be fine. It’s not your fault. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Why? Why did she jump?” I mumbled.

  “It’s just your bad luck,” someone said.

  A bottle of water was shoved into my hand. Someone put a mint in my mouth.

  “Where are the policemen who went into the building?” I asked, suddenly anxious. Had someone gone up to my apartment while I wasn’t there?

  “They’re on the roof, looking for clues.”

  “What clues?”

  He didn’t answer. He just said everything would be fine and disappeared.

  I sat on the curb.

  The street was a blurry haze. I heard the sound of my own breathing. Each breath as shaky as my thoughts. Perhaps I was going blind. The panicky thought flashed through my mind. I looked at my toes. My fingers. Everything was visible, yet nearly vibrating. Someone draped a heavy coat on my shoulders. It smelled like perfume gone bad. People spoke and looked at me then raised their eyes up toward the roof then slowly dispersed with sorrow — for themselves, for what they had gotten close to. Too close, perhaps.

  Why, Daria? Why here? Why now?

  What was it that I hadn’t seen?

  2

  “Stop crying, you’re driving me crazy.”

  “I’m trying, Sammy.”

  “Try harder, sweetie.”

  I tried harder, but my throat kept rebelling, choking out grunts and stifled sobs.

  Sammy G looked pleased for some reason. “Now focus, Shoshkowitz. Stop being hysterical, take a deep breath, and tell me everything.”

  She was sprawled on my living room sofa in all her sizable wrath and glory. I knew she was torn between anger and pity, trying to calm me down, trying even harder to stop herself from stabbing me with the scissors lying on the dresser. Her face looked like it was about to rupture. She was angry. No, not angry, furious. I quickly made sure the scissors were out of sight and offered her some vodka.

  “Talk.” She drained the glass while gingerly massaging her right knee. It had been bothering her for two weeks. She smelled like sulfur and herbs.

  “What?”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I told you, my cell phone disappeared with her.”

  “What did she need your cell phone for?”

  “I don’t know, Sammy. Maybe she wanted to call some angels and let them know she was on her way. I have no idea.”

  “None of the neighbors had a cell phone?”

  “I called Bender. He didn’t answer.”

  “Why Bender? Sammy’s dead? It’s me you should have called. Bender’s history, Shoshkowitz.” She shifted on the sofa and stifled a pained groan. “Oh, my knee is killing me. My meniscus is completely busted.” She rolled up her pants and slathered her knee with a disgusting-looking green ointment then wrapped it with a military-beige bandage. I pulled my Jesus-about-to-perform-another-miracle face and placed a pillow under it, hoping to get some pity out of her.

  But really, how the hell had I lost her?

  “Dikla, tell me something: How the hell did you manage to lose that child?” she whispered. It was as if she were in my head, finally venting her anger.

  I wanted to tell her: Sammy, dearie, have pity. Look how I’m suffering. Show some compassion. But she saw right through me, even without words.

  “Cut it out. I’m immune to you, Shoshkowitz.” Sammy tied the bandage tighter and winced as she did so.

  But seriously, how had I lost her? How had I let her slip through my fingers to fall from my apartment? She could have jumped from any building, why mine? Why put me in that position? All we had to do was find Daria and get her back to her overwrought parents. Yesterday, it had seemed that the case was coming to an end.

  I had chased Daria’s shadow for over a week, dug in every possible corner, did surveillance in Yokneam, gathered little bits and pieces until I was able to form a picture — then we got her. Success. We’d located the missing Daria, and Sammy had probably already been working on a fat bill. Expenses, she called them. A job well done. Drum roll, trumpets, and a big round of applause for the great private investigator Dikla Shoshkowitz.

  All I had to do was keep her safe for one night.

  One night.

  Just until her parents came to take her. I had tried hard to keep her safe. Really. She had touched my heart. She was a fragile girl, sensitive, but also mournful, frightened. How the hell could I have lost her? What was it that I hadn’t seen?

  Sammy stretched out on the same sofa poor Daria had spent her last night on. The polka-dot sheet had been stripped, balled up into a small cotton wad, and tossed into the washing machine. The miserable bundle of clothes she’d left behind was now stuffed in a plastic bag with a smiley face on it. I didn’t dare open it, obeying Sammy’s strict instructions to “leave everything to the cops.”

  “Well? Start talking, you’re pissing me off.” She tried to rise from the sofa, perhaps she wanted to beat me up a little to make me more obedient. But her three hundred and thirty pounds got the better of her, and she fell back down. The sofa whined in protest.

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to put my finger on any one thing. Everything seemed fine.”

  “Start from the moment you and she…” She looked at me and started screaming. “Pull one more of your sad sack faces on me, and I’m gonna smack you. Hear me? Come on, Shoshkowitz. The cops will be here any minute. We need to get ready. It won’t be your Superintendent Bender this time. And let me remind you that Daria’s parents, Eve and Barak, are already on their way from up north. Maybe they don’t know yet what happened here, but they will soon. And when they find out, they’ll want some answers. Believe me, they won’t be as nice as I am.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to find a thread, something that should have aroused my suspicion. A word, a sentence, a look. Nothing.

  “I did exactly what you told me to,” I said to Sammy. “I went into the shower with her. I even waited by the bathroom door every time she took a crap.”

  “And where did you two hang out?”

  “We didn’t go anywhere. We stayed in the apartment. I just took her up to the roof once.”

  “Why the roof?”

  “She asked me to. But I was there with her, of course. She conducted some sort of private ritual — chatted with the stars or something, sang to the moon. We came back down right after.”

  “Not good, Dikla. You showing her the roof. Can you imagine what they’re gonna say?”

  “Enough, Sammy. You think this is easy for me? You think I haven’t thought of that myself?”

  “Go on. What happened next?”

  “I wanted to fix her something to eat. She didn’t want anything, which is more or less what I had in my fridge. I thought about going down to get us something, but then the delivery guy came. Brought some gross-looking pizza her mother had sent her. Any of these trivialities sound important to you?”

  “What did I teach you, Shoshkowitz? In an investigation every detail, no matter how trivial, can
prove to be the key that solves the mystery. Go on. You were getting to the pizza.”

  “She barely touched it. She just sat on the edge of the sofa, muttering mumbo jumbo. She was like that from the start, which is why I’d hoped a little fine whiskey might breathe some life into the girl—”

  “Are you insane? You drank with her?”

  “Not exactly. We stopped at a bar on the way home. She insisted on water because she wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol, said it stops the chakra flow or something, and I—”

  “Whiskey?”

  “Just one glass, Sammy, that’s it. Maybe two.”

  “Which means five, on an empty stomach, and probably three more at home, which means you weren’t focused, which means your head was lost in whiskey clouds, which means you couldn’t possibly guess what she was planning, or know when she left the apartment. You went up to the roof like that?”

  “I was fine, Sammy. Three glasses doesn’t even tickle my iron constitution.”

  Sammy smiled skeptically. “Go on, what happened next?”

  “I told you, the delivery guy came. Health pizza, without any cheese but with stuff that looked much worse, and a withered salad.”

  “And he told you Eve had ordered the pizza?”

  “He didn’t mention Eve, but he did say someone had ordered pizza for us. I thought he had the wrong address at first, but the order specifically mentioned Dikla Shoshkowitz and had my address. Who the hell gave Eve my address?”

  “I did.” Sammy’s face turned red. “She asked me. Said she’d come and visit if they got to Tel Aviv early.”

  “And she decided to send pizza instead? Mother of the year…”

  “Stop being cynical. She tried to do something nice. It was a gesture of love. Do you remember what the delivery guy looked like?”

  “How can you remember what a pizza guy looks like? They all look the same, with their loud beepers and Major Tom astronaut helmets. Actually, now that I think of it, he did look a little weird.”

  “Weird in what way?” Sammy’s eyes narrowed and gleamed with a sudden spark of excitement.