The Missing File (5 page)

Why had he asked about Ofer running away as if he already obviously had?

“I've told you everything. And you have the names of everyone he knows.”

“Look, ma'am, I'll try to explain why I keep going back to this. It is unlikely for a teenager to run away without help. He doesn't have a credit card, and you told us that he didn't have cash. And he doesn't have his cell phone with him. He can't get far without help, without someone who perhaps gave him money, or a place to sleep.”

Did he believe what he was saying, or was he simply trying to paint a soothing picture, one of Ofer sleeping under a roof somewhere and not alone?

“Do you know if he knows anyone in Ashdod?” he suddenly asked.

“Ashdod?” She thought for a moment. “He has been there often, with his father, at the port. But he doesn't have family there. Why Ashdod?”

“Just a routine question,” Avraham said, and then added, “Tell me more about Ofer.”

She looked up at him and thought for a moment, wondering perhaps where to begin.

“I told you yesterday. He's a good student. He studies the sciences. He doesn't go out, doesn't have many friends. He goes to school and comes home, plays with his sister and brother, helps a lot around the house. He doesn't talk much—not to me, and not to his father, either . . .”

He interrupted her: “Does he surf the Internet?”

“He's on the computer a lot. I don't know what he does with it.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

She hesitated before answering. “No, I don't think he goes out with girls.”

“What does he plan to do in the army?”

“He hasn't said anything about it, although he has received his draft papers. What can he do in the army? He isn't a boy with many friends.”

“Do you think he was afraid of the army? Did he ever say anything about it?”

“I don't know. Maybe he was scared.”

How could she not know anything about her son? Avraham wondered. He was about to complete eleventh grade, so how could he not have done anything worth speaking about, not have said anything, not have spoken to anyone about anything? Yet this is what everyone had been telling him for the past twenty-four hours.

“May I see his room again?” he asked.

The mother stood up, and Avraham followed her to the room he had gone into several times the day before. She stopped at the doorway. It wasn't the typical teenager's room that you see in advertisements, but rather a random collection of unrelated pieces of furniture. The shutters were closed and the room was dark. No one had slept there that night.

Avraham switched on the light. In front of the wall to the right of the door stood a large wardrobe finished with a mousy-gray Formica surface. A plastic basketball hoop was stuck to it at the top, and under the brown single bed Avraham could see the orange sponge ball used for shooting baskets. There were two posters on the wall above the bed, opposite the door—one from one of the
Harry Potter
movies, and the other of a young man he didn't recognize. The posters looked old, like they had been hung up there maybe two or three years ago. A desk unit with a black Formica surface stood to the left of the bed—four not very full shelves with textbooks, notebooks, dictionaries, a few computer-game packages, an alarm clock, a handful of teen novels, and a lamp. All surprisingly neat. Uncharacteristic for a teenager. Next to the lamp were a computer screen—a black flat-screen monitor—and a silver mouse that wasn't connected to anything, as the computer itself had been taken away for examination. The five-year-old brother's things, although similarly few in number, appeared more prominent in the room, he thought. In the right corner of the room, next to the child's bed, was a low shelf unit displaying plastic cars, books, and furry dolls. Some other toys were scattered across the floor, next to the bed and underneath it. But they were more colorful.

Avraham sat down on Ofer's bed. His mother remained in the doorway. But when he began opening the drawers, after asking her permission, she came in and sat down too, a small distance from him. He liked the fragrance of the soap she'd used in her bath.

The top drawer in the small cupboard contained an old Discman that appeared to be broken, batteries, rulers, a math compass, a cell-phone charger, an empty leather wallet, and a set of keys. In the second drawer, he found documents and papers, a health-insurance card, the draft papers Ofer had received from the army, and a printed schedule of classes. The third and largest of the drawers was filled with notebooks and tests, from previous school years most likely.

Avraham removed the class schedule from the second drawer and the keys from the first, closing them all afterward. If Ofer had gone to school on Wednesday, he would have had algebra class from eight to ten, then English, sociology, and literature. He also had an hour of PE.

“I don't see Ofer's ID card here,” Avraham said. “Does he usually carry it with him?”

“I don't know,” she answered. “I know he has one.”

“And what about a passport?”

“His passport is old. I think my husband has it.”

The set of keys was resting in his open palm, and he appeared to be estimating its weight. “Is this the key to the house?” he asked. “Didn't he take a key with him?”

“I think that's an old key,” the mother replied. “We changed locks. I can check.”

Avraham stood up—and she followed his lead. “Ofer's a very tidy boy,” he said.

She looked around the room and he thought he could see a sense of surprise in her eyes. “I didn't know he was so tidy,” she said. “I've never opened his drawers.”

H
e left Hannah Sharabi that afternoon without knowing a thing about Ofer he hadn't known beforehand. He got into his car and began driving home. This time, however, he stopped at the mall, parked the car, crossed the street, and sat at a table at Cup o' Joe, outside. The café was almost empty. He picked up a pile of weekend newspapers and ordered a double espresso and a piece of carrot cake. My birthday celebration, he thought.

The truth was, he had no idea what his next step should be. He didn't have a single lead and, for some unknown reason, was pinning all his hopes on the call from Ashdod. He had left the mother alone in the apartment. Ilana hadn't called all morning. It was a Friday just like any other Friday, the eve of the Sabbath, when, as the hours passed and the day drew to a close, so too did everyone else, gradually closing up their homes and affairs.

The articles in the local newspapers were ridiculous. Most were about people younger than him. There was, however, an interesting piece in
Haaretz
—a serious report about the battle for the post of chief of police that very accurately described the infighting among the police top brass. The article also alluded to a sex scandal involving one of the candidates, whom Avraham had never met but knew well by reputation.

He went over to his parents' at exactly 6:00 p.m. Like always, they were in the middle of an argument. His mother opened the door and kissed his unshaved cheek, calling out to his father: “Okay, enough already, Avi's here and we can sit down to eat.”

“No, I want you to check on the Internet,” his father said, brushing aside the checkered woolen blanket that was covering him and getting up from his easy chair to shake Avraham's hand. He was dressed in a dark pair of tracksuit pants and an old white undershirt.

“What do you need to check?” Avraham asked his mother, and his father replied instead: “If there are mosquitoes. She says there are no mosquitoes before July, but I was bitten the entire night.”

“It's not mosquitoes. He closes all the windows, puts the air conditioner on at sixty-five degrees, and lies under a blanket. And I freeze. Why must I feel like I'm in a hospital? Do you know how good the air is outside? What do we have all these windows for? Avi, tell him about the air outside.”

What could he say about the air?

“One would think we were in Switzerland,” his father retorted. “It's hot outside, and that's why there are so many mosquitoes.”

“Okay, there are mosquitoes. Just do me a favor and get dressed already. It's Avi's birthday. You can't sit at the table like that.”

“Why not? Are you all dressed up? What's wrong with what I'm wearing? Avi, is it okay with you if I sit down like this? He's not a stranger.”

Because they were only three, his mother had set the small table in the kitchen and not the large one in the dining room. But she had covered it with a white cloth and had taken out the plates usually reserved for guests. The cutlery was laid out on folded red napkins. The centerpiece was a bottle of red wine that they wouldn't open. She was fuming. “Wear whatever you like. Don't change—sit there at the table in the smelly clothes you sleep in. I don't have the strength to fight with him all day.”

His father went to his room to dress.

When he was growing up, the room had been Avraham's, but a few years after he left home and clearly wasn't returning, it became a storeroom, and in recent years, since his father's return from the hospital after his stroke, the storeroom became his room. They fitted an air conditioner and slept in separate rooms—and not only because of the temperature differences.

Avraham took his seat and placed his pack of cigarettes and cell phone on the table beside him.

“You still smoke?” his mother said. “No wonder you don't feel well.”

“I feel fine,” he responded.

“Did you get the flowers?”

“Yes. Thanks. They arrived early this morning.”

“And you don't say anything? Do you know I called to shout at them this afternoon for not making the delivery? They may have sent you another arrangement. The first has probably withered already because I'm sure you didn't put it in water.”

His father returned wearing a brown sweatshirt over the white undershirt. He was still in his tracksuit pants. The conversation took its usual turn. His mother asked him questions about his life, and he evaded answering them.

“Have you heard about the big mess with the police?” he asked.

“It's absolutely terrible,” his mother replied. “I'd be ashamed to work in a place like that. Tell me something, does everyone there mess around with young policewomen, aside from you? No wonder there's no security in the country.”

She took out an open bottle of white wine from the fridge and they raised a toast and wished him happy birthday again, with the same words—success through life, wherever it may lead you. His father gradually became withdrawn. It had been that way since the stroke, despite his recovery, which had astounded the doctors. He'd lose focus, get confused, speak incoherently, and, finally, as if he were aware of his regression, he'd go almost completely quiet and withdraw into his plate of food, eating very slowly. They waited for him to finish his soup. The only thing that could perk him up was a conversation about Iran and the likelihood of an attack on Israel in the near future.

Avraham's mood turned gradually more somber. His mother brought out the main dish she had prepared specially for his birthday—fried chicken livers with onions, mashed potatoes, and a spicy tomato salad. He had stopped hearing her questions and laid into his food very quickly. He had two theories regarding his parents' influence on the career he'd chosen—one related to his mother, and the other to his father. According to the first, he became a detective when he returned home from school as a child and tried to read the telltale signs of his mother's moods. He developed an extreme sensitivity to signs and signals, facial expressions, changes in her tone of voice. While still on the stairs, he'd try to smell what she had cooked that day to know if the meal would end in a beating. If she had made something he liked, the meal would generally pass quietly. But if she had made something he couldn't stomach, for reasons he never understood, it would end badly. The smell of stuffed cabbage in the stairwell, for example, was a sure sign that a severe beating was in store.

According to his second theory, he became a detective while out for the day with his father, especially on Saturdays. They had a game his father had made up. “I think I see a woman dressed in a blue coat,” his father would say. And the three- or four-year-old Avraham, in his stroller, would scan the street excitedly, until he too spotted her and pointed. The game turned more subtle as he grew older. “I think I see a man who is late for an appointment,” his father would say, and Avraham would scan the street until he spotted an unshaven man crossing the road against the lights, and would point him out. His father, whose hand he'd be holding, would say, “Exactly”—and it would make Avraham so happy.

He broke the silence and turned to his father. “How are you feeling?” he asked. But his father didn't hear the question.

“Shlomo, Avi's asking how you feel,” his mother said. “What's wrong with you? Have you gone deaf now too?”

They had finished eating and his mother had loaded the dishwasher when his cell phone rang.

“Inspector Avraham?” inquired the voice on the other end of the line.

He left the kitchen. “Speaking.”

“It's Lital Levy from the station,” said the policewoman, who was young and just a few months out of the police academy. “You're in charge of the missing-persons file that was opened yesterday, right?”

“Yes, Ofer Sharabi.”

“Yes, Sharabi. We just received an anonymous call that may need following up.”

“Can you give me the details? Did you take the call?” Avraham asked, hoping she couldn't hear the anxiety in his voice.

“It was short and I didn't really understand it. But he said we should look for the boy on the dunes behind the H300 building project. ‘That's where we'll find the body,' he said.”