Selected Detective
ISAAC SCHLEGEL INTERROGATION

Kfar Shaul Mental Health Centre (Kfar Shaul Mental Health Centre), a nondescriptive cluster containing yellow and white stone buildings protected by trees and enclosed by a low fence, is a nondescriptive cluster containing yellow and white stone buildings, it stands on the slope of a plateau on the edge of the city northwest of Jerusalem, at the point when the edge of the city begins to stutter and split, towards a prominent plain overgrown with pine trees from the Judean Hills. Ben-Roi arrived in the afternoon. After parking the vehicle outside the main gate, he walked towards the security room and told the guards inside that he had promised to meet one of the patients. A call was made to another part of the complex and three minutes later a wacky, middle-aged woman in a white doctor's suit arrived, introducing himself as Dr Gilda Nissim and escorting Ben-Roi out of the room and up to the hospital.

Coming here was, if not an act of desperation for Ben-Roi, at least the last clear line of the quest that is still open to him at this point. despite having worked through the night and day, she still failed to draw any connection between Piet Jansen and Hannah Schlegel. Naturally, he had unearthed some extra details about Schlegel's past: the exact date he was admitted to Auschwitz; the fact that he and his brother had been transferred to the camp from Recebedou, transit centre in southern France. But this information is too truncated to be able to build anything that comes close to a clear picture of the victim's life, let alone explain why Piet Jansen, or anyone else, had intended to kill her.

There was a thin beam of light emanating and it came from a visit to the Holocaust memorial in Yad Vashem, where Schlegel had been working part-time as an archivist, according to one of his colleagues, his work there includes the preparation of basic archives, indexing and assisting with simple research questions common to none outside the norm. At the same time and this is what makes Ben-Roi silent for a moment Schlegel is also involved in his own personal research. What exactly this research produces, his colleagues do not know. However, he did think that in some ways this was related to Dachau, because on a number of occasions he often found Schlegel reading the records and testimonies of those who were still alive from that particular concentration camp.

Mrs Weinberg, a neighbor of Schlegel, also mentioned that she saw him with some archives about the Dachau. While Madji, the man who had burned down his house, described how his flat was full of papers and documents, “like files or archives”. There is, this Detective feels certain, a certain significance to all of this, in terms of where “Personal Research” Schlegel is linked to the murder of him and with Piet Jansen. However, he was unable to clarify this relationship and was eventually forced to admit that while this was clearly something important to dig through, it was also something that seemed hopeless.

That left him with Isaac Schlegel, the twin sister of the victim's sister. And of all the things that Ben-Roi heard, Isaac had a severe mental breakdown.

“Someone told me that Mr. Schlegel was quite messed up,” said Ben-Roi as he and Dr. Nissim headed to the hospital area, where they were, passing the asphalt road uphill past the stone building that spread interspersed terraces of flowers and pine trees and cypresses.

The doctor showed a somewhat disagreeing view. “He was really very disturbed, if that's what you mean,” He replied. “He had suffered from acute postraumatic stress disorder as a result of his wartime experiences, and then when his sister died.yahh, it pretty much pushed him over the line. they're very close. I can't expect too much from him. This way.”

They were to the left around a fenced court where two overweight men in pajamas were playing table tennis before they reached the modern floor, white stone block with sign announcing NORTH WING PSYCHOGERIATIC CENTER. The doctor escorted him through a glass door, along a dimly lit corridor and was unused. The faint smell of the cleaning fluid and boiled vegetables was felt in the air, everything was silent except for the buzzing sound of the cooling machine. And from the room in front of them, the voice of the man who was wailing, shouted something about Saul and Zedekiah and the Day of Resurrection.

Ben-Roi glances at the doctor.

“It wasn't ..?”

“Mr Schlegel?” He let out a cynical smile that was not funny.

“Do not worry. Isaac had many problems, but imagining that he was the Prophet who kept the Old Testament was not one of them. In addition, he almost never said a word in the last fifteen years.” They stopped at the door near the end of the corridor. Nissim knocked on the door slowly, then opened it, bending his head into the room over there.

“Halo, Isaac,” he said, in a soft, smooth tone of voice. “I'm with a guest for you. There's no need to be afraid. He'll just ask you a few questions. Can?” If there is an answer, Ben-Roi doesn't hear it.

“You have twenty minutes,” he said, while going to the corridor. “I'll come and pick you up when the time comes. And remember, this isn't a police post, so treat him well. okay?”

He looked into the detective's eyes for a moment, then, with a casual nod, he went along the path they had been walking on, his feet wearing cotton shoes with rubber mats treading on a smooth marble floor. Ben-Roi hesitates, uncertain what he expects, uncomfortable he always hates a place like this, empty, uncharacteristic sterility, monotonous atmosphere, monotonous, it was as if the air itself had been poisoned then stepped in and closed the door.

It was in a brightly sun-infiltrated room, very rarely, with table beds and insulation patches all over the walls, he said, covering it from the ceiling all the way to the floor like wallpaper taped carelessly, on top of dozens of crayon drawings, is very simple, like something you find in the children's care section. Schlegel was sitting opposite him, on an armchair beside the window, a weak, emaciated man, who was wearing pale green pajamas and a carpet slipper. He was staring intently at the rocks outside, a book clamped in his protruding bony hands, his shabby green cover and folded edges.

“Mr Schlegel?”

The old man did not respond. Ben-Roi waits for a moment, then, lifting up a small wooden chair, he crosses the room and sits in front of him.

“Master Schlegel,” he repeated, while trying to keep his voice soft, non-threatening. “My name is Arieh Ben-Roi. I am in the Jerusalem Police Department. I'd like to ask you a few questions. About your sister, Hannah.”

The man was not even noticeably aware of his presence, kept looking out the window, his eyes sinking and void.

“I know this is hard for you,” the detective stressed, “But I need your help. I'm trying to catch the man who killed your sister, you know that. Would you help me, Mr. Schlegel? will you answer a number of questions? Please?”

Niente. No recognition, no reaction, no answer, just empty, catatonic, expressionless, like a fish looking over a block.

“I beg you, Mr Schlegel?” Still nothing.

“Can you hear me, Mr Schlegel?” Quiescent.

“Mr Schlegel?” Quiescent

“Yes for mercy.” Ben-Roi raises his hand and massages the books behind his head, losing. When he interrogates a suspected criminal, he will inevitably push, coerce, threaten, demand information. But, as the doctor said earlier, this was not a police station, and he was unable to apply the method at the police station.

A few minutes passed. The two just sat in the room in silence like a pair of chess players. Then, resigned to accept that the conversation seemed to be coming to nothing, Ben-Roi stood up and walked around the room, throwing a glance at the crayon image on the wall. There must have been hundreds of things, and at first he didn't pay much attention to what each of the scribbles described specifically. He simply stared at it at a glance, not interested in it specifically, assuming that it was nothing more than a random expression of disturbed thoughts.

He slowed his eyes, focusing on the picture next to the door. There was a ship with conical tools, a wavy blue line depicting the waves, and standing on the bow of the ship, two stick-like figures with hands holding on. The next two images depict almost certainly the same scene, but then there is one picture when the two figures, still holding hands, appear to be hanging in mid-air in front of the bow, as if jumping into the sea.

She recalled the story Mrs Weinberg told of how Schlegel and her brother were forced to swim to shore after the ship they were travelling to Palestine turned to Haifa as the British ordered, and like getting a sudden electric shock, he realized that it was clearly the scene that this image showed.

“This is his life,” he whispered to himself.

He looked around. “This is your life, ’kan? It's a story about your life.”

He spun again and took a stroke of the existing narrative, followed it through the course of time, then returned, slowly rotating with the gaze of his eyes stopping from one picture to the next, up and down also around the walls, stringing stories.

Many of the images correspond to things she has gained about Hannah Schlegel's life. On the wall above the bed, for example, among the final images in the collection, there are three images that tell of a small figure being tormented in the head by another, a much larger figure, with a desert-like yellow background could be a reference to his murder in Egypt.

Likewise, the entire block of images on the door, totalling over twenty images, all in black or gray, is an unambiguous portrait of the horrors of Auschwitz smoke-disposal tower, rolls of barbed wire, six bodies hung on the wooden frame where the death penalty was and, so horrifying in its simplicity, two skinny figures tied to the bed, were, zigzag streaks of blood in crayons of red color coming out of the groin, black strokes coming out of their mouths, which Ben-Roi understood as a picture of lamentation over deep suffering.

Other images are less easily interpreted. The first image in the narrative, for example, is a large pink house with the sun shining brightly behind it and four faces appearing in separate windows, all with wide smiles. Whether this is a recollection of the Schlegel family's early life, Ben-Roi asked inwardly. Brothers and sisters at home with their parents, before their world is torn apart? Or does this picture have something else, which is entirely different?

Similarly, intermittently in regular intervals throughout the collection, such as recurring motifs, or a refrain in song or verse, is a series of seven-branched menorah images in bright yellow crayons. A parable of the artist's faith and heritage perhaps? Or is it just a form that for whatever reason feels soothing to the man? It's unclear.

A group of images that specifically caught Ben-Roi's attention, especially since they looked like a transition between childhood optimism in the first few pictures, drawn in bright and cheerful colors, and the rest of the picture is darker, more melancholy. In total there are four images, all telling of the same arched door or gate, very tall and narrow, its side clad in vines. The first of the group showed two thin figures, probably Schlegel and his sister, standing in the middle of the gate, holding hands and smiling.

The next one described a scene that was completely almost exactly the same, except that the figure was now hidden behind the bushes, observing another group of figures chopping on the ground with axes in front of the gate. The sequence was interrupted by the first recurring image of the menorah in all collections before starting again with the image of Schlegel and his sister fleeing from the gate, chased by a figure holding an axe. The final image in the sequence shows a strange, giant-like creature with red eyes capturing two smaller figures, one person in each hand. Their smiles were gone, replaced by black parabols of horror and pressure.

The more pictures Ben-Roi sees, the more often something inside him instincts, the more, the pain in his stomach tells him that of all the images in the collection there are some that are somehow most significant, a moment when things start to go wrong and problematic for Isaac and Hannah Schlegel, respectively, and therefore, in a way that cannot be specified, becomes the key to Hannah's next life and death. He looked at the whole picture for quite a long time, his eyes catching every nuance and pull of the crayon.

Then, he turned around, returned to his little chair and sat down.

“Mr Schlegel,” said, “can you tell me about the picture that was near that table? Picture with that arch.” He asked the question more for the sake of the question itself than in the hope that he would get an answer. To his surprise, Schlegel slowly turns his eyes away from the window, turns his eyes first at Ben-Roi, then down at the book he has on his lap, then up at Ben-Roi again. The detective dragged his wooden chair forward a few inches so that his knee almost touched the old man's knee.

“All pictures are so important, right?” he urged, trying to keep his voice calm and slowly, like someone tiptoeing up to an injured bird, being very careful not to surprise or suppress it. “That picture is when all the bad things start to happen to you and your sister.They are the reason why your sister was murdered.”

Allegedly, the final statement, less likely, had clearly jolted, as the old man blinked and, as if in a slow motion, a drop of crystal-like tears trickled down from the bulking of his left eye, it melted like a pedestrian tied to a rope at the bottom lash point before falling onto his cheek.

“What happened to that arch?” ask Ben-Roi gently. “Who are the people with the axe?” Again, Schlegel dropped his gaze on the book, then up again. His eyeballs were moist and gray, foggy, looking deep in his eyes as if he were looking not at something in space but rather at a place far from space and time.

“Come, Isaac. What happened to that arch? Who's the giant with those red eyes?”

The old man remained unmoved, just staring into the distance, muttering softly to himself, with one hand holding the book that was on his lap. Ben-Roi tries to hug her, taking her to stay in the present, but to no avail. After that fragile short contact occurred, this old man again disappeared into his own world, drifting away like a sinking pebble that slowly disappeared from view into the deep and dark depths of the lake. The detective still asked him for a while longer, realizing that this was a waste of time, that the moment was over, he sighed, sat back and looked at the clock. Twenty minutes is almost over. As if there was a sign, there was a clattering of feet in the distance that was getting closer in the outer corridor.

“Coralan,” grunts.

He tapped his finger on his knee, failed, and then reached into his pocket to pull the bottle of his waist.

It was also accidentally carried away by a piece of paper, a photocopy of a picture of Piet Jansen given by Khalifa the previous afternoon. He took it in the hope that Schlegel might be able to tell him something about it, but he now accepted that it was just hope. Pushing forward, he threw the paper into the trash basket by the side of the old man's chair, before he sat back down, unscrewed the bottle and sipped the drink.

Ben-Roi so intensely gulped as much of the liquid in the bottle as he could into his chest cavity before Dr. Nissim arrived that he did not notice that Schlegel was slowly ducking forward, pick up the paper in the basket and look at the black-and-white image.

Only when Ben-Roi had finished the entire bottle and was just about to close it back did he realize what the old man had just done.

“Rely to something?” he said quietly, slipping the bottle back into his pocket, speaking more to himself than to Schlegel. “But I guess you have nothing to remember, yes ’kan?” If he caught the rudeness, the old man must not have shown it. What he does, suddenly, very surprisingly, is show the picture towards Ben-Roi and, opening his mouth, releases the most ferocious and ear-slashing screams the detective has ever heard.

He may not get all the answers he wants, but at least one thing is clear: Isaac Schlegel knows for sure who Piet Jansen is. And he was so horrified of her.