Read Online An Accidental Murder: An Avram Cohen Mystery by Robert Rosenberg - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Rosenberg
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he flicked off the machine, cursing Lassman, and everybody else involved with the damn book, including the two reporters and three photographers who showed up outside his house that afternoon, woke him with knocking on his door—which he didn’t answer—and then camped out in the street until he turned off the lights to go to sleep that night.
He cursed them all, but mostly himself: his vanity, his folly, his mistake.
9.
“You are apotz,” Ahuva said softly. Cohen snorted a laugh.
Her opinions from the bench were always praised by the professionals for their clarity. In Hebrew, after all, the word mishpat means both law and sentence. She was known for writing a judgment that both the lawyers and clients could understand. Her precedents had yet to be overruled by the Supreme Court, and she made her first new point of law as a magistrate in her first year.
Only with Cohen could she use a word \ikepotz—about him or a colleague. It meant someone flaccid and pathetic.
Only with her could he tell the whole truth. That was the magic of their relationship. “You are behaving like an idiot,” she said. “You have money. You have freedom. You have me,” she added with a slight coyness that nobody in her courtroom ever saw. “But you force yourself to be unhappy.”
They were in her apartment in Tel Aviv. Just before dawn the day after he arrived home from Frankfurt, the last of the photographers gave up and left the street outside his house. A few minutes later, he slipped into his car and drove down to her place in Tel Aviv, quietly opening the door to her flat with his key.
He sat in her living room, reading the weekend press coverage of the bomb attempt and his departure from Frankfurt.
The speculation in the press ranged from Nazis and neo Nazis to terrorism. Two papers pointed out that he had made sworn enemies of several of the most extreme of the nationalist rabbis, those who were known to have found halachic rationale for the death of the prime minister. One was quoted as saying that he wouldn’t mourn if Cohen had been killed, but of course he didn’t recommend it. At least one Islamic fundamentalist group issued a statement denying they had anything to do with the bombing attempt.
In the most serious of the Israeli press, that morning’s Ha’aretz, he found two stories. One was about the bombing attempt, the other about his book. The item about his book mostly complained that the book came out in English and German, but had not yet appeared in Hebrew. One publisher was quoted as saying he wanted to publish it in Hebrew, but that Cohen was “hesitating.” Cohen snorted.
The most important sentence in the report was the last one: “Sources at the book fair told Ha’aretz that Cohen was in a dispute with his American publisher about the proper way to publicize the book. Now, with the attempt on his life, there should be no problem in making the book well-known around the world.”
Cohen dropped the paper to the floor and pulled off his reading glasses, rubbing his eyes. When he finished, Ahuva was standing at the entrance to the living room. She was wearing a bathrobe and her hair was wet.
“Where have you been? The whole world’s been searching for you. People are even calling me.”
“I’m here.”
“Are you all right?”
He shrugged. “I needed someplace to stay. To think.”
She sat down on the sofa beside him and put an arm over his shoulder and her head on his chest. “Of course,” she said.
He stayed indoors all day. She had to go out for a meeting, but came home by two and found him in the kitchen, preparing dinner that night. It was as if nothing had happened to change their routine.
They made love while the sun set into the sea behind a stretch of cirrus clouds, the changing colors faintly reflected on the white walls, sharply bouncing off a full length mirror beside the bed. Then they went out to the patio in bathrobes to let the cool breeze from the north dry their
He cursed them all, but mostly himself: his vanity, his folly, his mistake.
9.
“You are apotz,” Ahuva said softly. Cohen snorted a laugh.
Her opinions from the bench were always praised by the professionals for their clarity. In Hebrew, after all, the word mishpat means both law and sentence. She was known for writing a judgment that both the lawyers and clients could understand. Her precedents had yet to be overruled by the Supreme Court, and she made her first new point of law as a magistrate in her first year.
Only with Cohen could she use a word \ikepotz—about him or a colleague. It meant someone flaccid and pathetic.
Only with her could he tell the whole truth. That was the magic of their relationship. “You are behaving like an idiot,” she said. “You have money. You have freedom. You have me,” she added with a slight coyness that nobody in her courtroom ever saw. “But you force yourself to be unhappy.”
They were in her apartment in Tel Aviv. Just before dawn the day after he arrived home from Frankfurt, the last of the photographers gave up and left the street outside his house. A few minutes later, he slipped into his car and drove down to her place in Tel Aviv, quietly opening the door to her flat with his key.
He sat in her living room, reading the weekend press coverage of the bomb attempt and his departure from Frankfurt.
The speculation in the press ranged from Nazis and neo Nazis to terrorism. Two papers pointed out that he had made sworn enemies of several of the most extreme of the nationalist rabbis, those who were known to have found halachic rationale for the death of the prime minister. One was quoted as saying that he wouldn’t mourn if Cohen had been killed, but of course he didn’t recommend it. At least one Islamic fundamentalist group issued a statement denying they had anything to do with the bombing attempt.
In the most serious of the Israeli press, that morning’s Ha’aretz, he found two stories. One was about the bombing attempt, the other about his book. The item about his book mostly complained that the book came out in English and German, but had not yet appeared in Hebrew. One publisher was quoted as saying he wanted to publish it in Hebrew, but that Cohen was “hesitating.” Cohen snorted.
The most important sentence in the report was the last one: “Sources at the book fair told Ha’aretz that Cohen was in a dispute with his American publisher about the proper way to publicize the book. Now, with the attempt on his life, there should be no problem in making the book well-known around the world.”
Cohen dropped the paper to the floor and pulled off his reading glasses, rubbing his eyes. When he finished, Ahuva was standing at the entrance to the living room. She was wearing a bathrobe and her hair was wet.
“Where have you been? The whole world’s been searching for you. People are even calling me.”
“I’m here.”
“Are you all right?”
He shrugged. “I needed someplace to stay. To think.”
She sat down on the sofa beside him and put an arm over his shoulder and her head on his chest. “Of course,” she said.
He stayed indoors all day. She had to go out for a meeting, but came home by two and found him in the kitchen, preparing dinner that night. It was as if nothing had happened to change their routine.
They made love while the sun set into the sea behind a stretch of cirrus clouds, the changing colors faintly reflected on the white walls, sharply bouncing off a full length mirror beside the bed. Then they went out to the patio in bathrobes to let the cool breeze from the north dry their
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