At a nearby table, a bearded man with a missing arm sat reading a slim book. He laid the volume on the table whenever he needed to flip pages, before picking it up in his remaining hand to resume reading. I wondered when and how he'd lost his arm. Was it in Europe? During Israel's War of Independence? Or another calamity? There had been so many of them these past ten years. I had a sudden urge to walk over to him, introduce myself, and ask him what had happened.
I didn't. Instead, I gulped the last of the beer and wolfed down the remains of the toast. Neither tasted very good, but I wasn't in the habit of throwing away food.
I continued south past Ha-Knesset Square, where the Israeli parliament held its sessions, and kept walking till I got to the spot where
"Burned down," a hoarse voice to my right said.
I had been staring at the building. Now I turned toward the voice and saw a shrunken silver-haired woman wearing a shabby blue dress so faded that it must have been washed a hundred times or more. A basket dangled from her right forearm. Her accent was Russian. Deep lines gouged her cheeks. She could have been sixty or seventy-five.
"When did it happen?"
"1945. During the summer. There used to be dancing here."
"I know."
"Yes. Plenty of dancing. Not just husbands and wives, but all sorts of men and women." She shook her head, bemoaning the immorality of unattached couples dancing. "The racket the place made, the loud music. It hurt my ears."
"You live here?"
"Around the corner."
"Do you know what caused the fire?"
"Some say it was arson, that a man whose wife spent time there got angry and torched the place. The police said it was an accident. Someone left a burning cigarette, some alcohol caught on fire, and up went the whole place."
"Do you know where I can find the owner, Mr. Segev?"
"Died in the fire. He and an employee." Her lips curled. "A woman. Not his wife."
"And the rest of the people who worked here?"
A shrug. "Don't know. Haven't seen any of them in a long time."
I returned my eyes to the building. Rivlin's interviews with Mr. Segev and his staff had yielded no leads. Still, I would have liked to talk to them myself, to maybe shake something loose in their memories. Now it appeared I had encountered another dead end.
More in desperation than belief, I showed the old woman the three pictures of Esther, the two from Manny Orrin and the one of her and Willie I'd lifted from the police report. "Remember her, by any chance? She used to dance here."
The woman squinted so hard at the pictures, it looked like she'd fallen asleep on her feet. The lines on her face deepened to canals. Then she shook her head, handing the pictures back to me.
"Don't remember seeing her. Who is she?"
"Her name was Esther," I said, the bitter taste of disappointment on my tongue.
"What's she done?"
"She died."
"Oh." The news didn't seem to faze her. "So many people have been dying lately."
Punching Manny Orrin had earned me a night of undisturbed sleep. I awoke at six, feeling almost fresh, and stayed in bed, smoking and reading one of the westerns Goldberg had sold me. The protagonist, a Texas cowboy with a shock of blond hair and a sun-beaten face, seemed to never be without a cigarette in his mouth. He smoked when he rode, when he was gunning down bad guys, even while he was having dinner in a cabin with the pretty rancher's widow he was helping out. It was a good yarn. Not the best I'd read, and certainly not original in terms of plot, but still enjoyable. It was seven thirty when I turned the last page and set the book aside with a sense of satisfaction. Then I got up, washed and shaved, and went to the kitchen. I boiled an egg and sliced it into strips, which, along with a couple of juicy sardines, I slapped between two buttered slices of dark bread. After eating, I slipped on some clothes and went in search of more people who had known Esther.
On Dizengoff Street, sandwiched between an accounting firm and a dentist's clinic, stood the offices of
Beyond the door was a reception room, at the far end of which was a large desk topped by a typewriter and stacks of paper. Behind the desk sat a young, pretty secretary, and behind her stood a row of filing cabinets.
