Selected Detective
THE EGO OF THE DETECTIVE
“Come on, you arab fool, where are you?” Ben-Roi sat at his desk, scowling and tapping his fingers impatiently on the surface of the table, the phone handle sticking to his ear. He was still in an unpleasant mood after what happened at the campground, and it is even worse now that he has heard the four messages that the Egyptian left on his answering machine. “Inspector Ben-Roi, I beg you to call me back.” “Inspector Ben-Roi, I'm waiting to hear from you now.” “Inspector Ben-Roi, please let me know how your investigation is.” Inspector Ben-Roi, have you started researching the issues we have discussed?”
He had risked his life for the man and what he received instead of thanking him was even some such messages!
He shouldn't bother calling her back; he should have let it go for a few days. Teach him a little manners. In fact, he was thinking about it, which he would certainly do. Hold it and let the anchovy wait.
Phone lines are responded. “Sabah Al-Khair.”
“Khediva?” Momentary silence.
“Khalifa. Kal-ee-faa. I think this must be you, Inspector Ben-Roi.”
“Yes, it's me,” said the Israeli, while resisting the urge to add the curse “&$$#%%$&&” and instead enjoy the liquor from the bottle. At the other end Khalifa lit her cigarette and a little stronger it got to the filter, the more disliked the man than when they first spoke, no less because, under these circumstances, he said, he looks poorly organized and incompetent.
“I hope to hear something from you as soon as possible,” he said, while trying to calm down.
“Yahh, you're listening to me right now,” said Ben-Roi.
“That as soon as possible I can work on.” Shut up for a while, each one feels that to make the next move will be a sign of weakness. I can't seem to need it the most, Khalifa thought, exhaling her cigarette smoke. I can't seem so interested, Ben-Roi thought, drinking his vodka.
It was the Egyptians who started it first.
“So?” he asked, his efforts to pretend not to bother turned out not to be successful enough. “You get something?” Ben-Roi gives a satisfying nod, sensing that he has the upper hand. Yes, he replied, he had found something.
Many things. He let his statement hang for a moment, raised his legs and crossed them in the corner of the table, enjoyed his thoughts about Khalifa clenching his hands impatiently on the other end of the phone, then just launched it.
He started with all the personal things about Hannah Schlegel: France, Auschwitz, the archival work at Yad Vashem, her twin sister, everything Weinberg's sister had said the previous day.
The receiver's phone handle caught a subtle scribble sound on the paper as Khalifa wrote on her note at the end of the line. He asked a number of questions Where is France? keeping what archives? Did you talk to his brother? which makes a short, one-word response from Ben-Roi, partly because he doesn't like to be interrupted, especially because, deep inside, he knows that he hasn't covered everything the way he should have, and not being able to give an adequate answer will make it look stupid.
“Listen, I don't know!” he said loudly after being urged to admit that he did not follow up on the case. “I only have two days.” At the other end Khalifa smiled haughtily, happy to have something to criticize, every unanswered question seemed to shift the balance of power further towards her.
“I quite understand,” he said in the most sympathetic but condescending tone he could do.
“Two days is not too long at all. Especially when you have something else to do.”
“Omong is empty,” thought Ben-Roi, while keeping the phone handle away from his ear and angry, popping his middle finger up.
He was at the end of the story about the background, then turned to house fires, and here he felt more steady because, although he himself said it, he had actually done a good job. He said it slowly, starting with what Mrs Weinberg had told him and the next thing one by one Hani Hani-Jamal, the journey to Al-Amari, he said, madji's admission that he had been paid to burn the apartment, a description of the inside of the flat builds a story based on piece by piece.
Khalifa interrupts again with a series of questions, but this time Ben-Roi has an answer, and, though reluctant, the Egyptian is forced to admit that this is a pretty good result for a detective job, which is a good one, which of course makes itself happy.
“Maybe he's not as stupid as I thought,” he said to himself. “Basic, stubborn, grammatical no excuse. But not stupid.” The Israeli set the narrative in such a way that the crowned piece of information, the revelation of who actually ordered the arson attack, takes place at the end of the story. Until here Khalifa had so absorbed what he had said that he did not feel the need to bother asking questions anymore; he only listened and wrote what he needed to record. When the Israeli finally mentioned the name given by the young Palestinian man Gad, Getz he let out a small whistle.
“You know him?” ask Ben-Roi, trying, and failing, to cover up his interest.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” replied Khalifa. “Piet Jansen has a close friend named Anton Gratz, who also lives in Cairo. It's really a strange coincidence.” Khalifa pondered for a moment, thinking about why on this earth a Gratz wanted to ruin Hannah Schlegel's apartment, then with a head-belt, she sat down and looked at the note before her, she said, read the note he just took.
“I'm interested in the incident that happened in the boat,” Khalifa said after being quiet for some time. “When Mrs Schlegel first arrived in Israel. When he said...” With his pen looking on the note was a relevant quote. ”’I'll find them,’” said Ben-Roi, helping him continue. ”’When this thing has to spend the rest of my life, I'll find the person who's already done this to us. And if I find them, I'll kill him.’”
“Accurate once. Who is he talking about?”
“Those who have done anything to him in Auschwitz, I suppose,” said the Israelite. “Doctors, scientists. From what Mrs Weinberg said, she had a bad time there.” Khalifa smoked her cigarette deeply. Before he searched the internet the previous afternoon he knew almost nothing about Auschwitz except the name alone. Even now he discovered, it was hard to believe that such a place had ever existed. Gas chambers, ovens, medical experiments.... He sucked in another cigarette, thinking about the codet he saw on Hannah Schlegel's belly, a thick, zigzagged, writhing reptile-like. Is that the legacy of the camp, he asked? Did they tear it apart, reach into its insides, gouge it? A picture slipped momentarily into his mind of a young girl tied to a hospital push-bed, naked, slashed, crying, terrified, calling out to her mother. He grimaced and shook his head, trying to dispel the shadow.
“Do you think Jansen could be one of those doctors?” he asks. “That he has been involved in this experiment in a certain way?” He knew that it was unlikely, explaining that there was indeed some evidence, but leaving it hanging was unsolved. Ben-Roi immediately forgot about it.
Khalifa nodded, disappointed but not surprised, and returned to her seat, smoking her cigarette and looking at her note once more. There's some good stuff here. There is no blind unveiling of the secret here, but some important new pieces to add to the Jigsaw.
Schlegel's wartime experience, “Archip” inside his flat, his twin brother, arson attacks combined with what he has himself obtained are significant new clues. For the first time since he began the investigation he felt a faint flickering of optimism, a feeling that, despite the fog of uncertainty when things were still visibly veiled, he had at least begun to move forward, he said, getting closer to the root of the problem.
However, the road is still too long, and to master that extra distance he needs more facts, backgrounds, information, points of view. Partly, to be sure, he could pursue it himself; he had decided that the next step he would take was to travel north to Cairo to meet the mysterious Mr. Anton Gratz. But there were also other clues that he could not pursue on his own, or at least, were not easy. Like it or not, he still needs Ben-Roi, which frustrates him. Because, if he is reluctantly impressed by the work done by this one Israel, it does not mean that he has found Ben-Roi as a responsible figure.
Ben-Roi is struggling with the same problem even from the opposite direction: how to admit that he still wants himself involved in this case without having to appear that he is so eager. Well, maybe the Egyptian this one is not less competent as he thought before; a number of questions he asked and comments he made were actually quite clever and sharp. He was annoying, stone-headed, tenacious, and fuck him if he crawled to ask for help from him.
No talks for a long time. No one starts, to say what he has in mind, for fear of giving others an invisible advantage. This time it was Ben-Royalah who started.
“I'll see what else I can get,” he said, fast and hard, as if having to spend an unwelcome drink.
“Good,” says Khalifa, relieved and a little surprised. He sat behind his desk again and put his cigarette out in the ashtray.
“I'll send Jansen's photos via facsimile. And also a report on what I have found so far.”
“Do it. And you'd better record my phone number.” Khalifa clearly remembered that this Israeli once said that he did not have a mobile phone. Realizing that Ben-Roi was beyond belief, he did not want to risk provoking her. So, he immediately grabbed the pen and recorded the number. As soon as it was over, silent for a moment more, neither of the two knew how to end the conversation.
“I'll contact you later,” said Ben-Roi finally.
“Good,” says Khalifa. “I'm waiting to hear from you.” He lowered the phone, and then picked it up again.
“Ben-Roi?”
“What?”
“One thing ... can be significant can also not.”
“Ya?” Khalifa.
“Piet Jansen seems to be trying to make contact with Al-Mulatham. He said he had something useful for Al-Mulatham in his fight against Israel. I thought you should know.”
After he puts the phone down, Ben-Roi sits down for a few minutes, doing nothing, just looking into his room. His fingers played a menorah hanging from his neck. Then he stood up and went to the vault in the corner of his office, pulled a bunch of keys out of his pocket, unlocked the closet, crouched down and picked up a file box filled with paper. He slapped the closet door with his legs closed, went back to his desk, sat down and opened the file. At the top is a photo of a young woman with her black hair cut short. On the bottom of the photo is the name Layla Al-Madani.
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