A. Yehoshua - A Woman in Jerusalem

It was remarkable, reflected the human resources manager, who did not consider himself easily frightened, that no effort had been made to conceal the place. On the contrary: it stood in the open by the pine trees, untended and unguarded, as though it were just another office you could walk into and out of without fearing the dead any more than they feared you. Although a light was shining in a small window, he wasn’t sure anyone was there. What will be, will be, he told himself. At least now I’m dressed for the weather. Even if I’m on a wild-goose chase, it will save me time tomorrow. Meanwhile, the water is heating in the boiler and I’ll be rid of the real or unreal guilt my mother is trying to pin on me.

He knocked on the locked door. No answer. Circling the building, he came to a back door that opened when he pushed it. Without warning, he found himself in a cold, dimly lit space; an air conditioner was humming softly. A dozen or so stretchers with corpses on them were arranged in two parallel lines. Some of the bodies were well wrapped. Others, apparently intended for research or the classroom, were covered with transparent sheets of plastic.

The human resources manager froze. With all due respect for the rational belief that death was the end of all things, it was irresponsible to leave the door unlocked. Suppose he were unbalanced or given to morbid fantasies? He could easily panic and file a lawsuit.

Standing still, he shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and prayed that there would be no bad or strange smell. Allowing himself a furtive glance, very much like his mother’s in recent months, he noticed a corpse the colour of yellow clay. The plastic sheet that enveloped it was too thick for him to tell if the body was a man’s or a woman’s. Even though he felt sufficiently composed to examine the stretchers for the cleaning woman’s identifying tag, his uninvited presence in the room struck him as a breach of etiquette. Reluctantly, he backed out, then shut the door with a click.

And yet, nevertheless … I’ve made it to the last stop , he thought. I was here. It’s not my job to identify a woman I don’t know. I’ve come to report, not to investigate. Tomorrow I’ll wrap things up with a telephone call. If the worse comes to the worst, I’ll come back. It’s not something I can ask the old man or my secretary to do, let alone the night shift supervisor, who might be tempted to take too passionate a farewell look. He’s in no state for it. I promised to spare him a reprimand, not to arrange a last rendezvous with his beloved — who, legally, until the authorities find her next-of-kin,is still my or my division’s responsibility.

In his mind’s eye he was transported to the vast work floor of the bakery, with its rattling production lines twisting in doughy arabesques. Although this dough after reaching the ovens would become tomorrow’s bread, its yellow-clay colour bore an eerie resemblance to that of the corpse he had just seen.

He circled the building, wondering how far it was to the distant lights. Snug in his layers of clothing, he felt ready for any adventure. But the lights had vanished in a dark mist. The night, which had seemed about to clear, now grew so dense that the smock of an approaching lab technician looked like the flapping wings of an angel.

15

The woman at the office had kept her word and found someone at the pathology lab who knew the ins and outs of the morgue.

He was a stout man of about fifty, wearing a French beret that could have been a token of bohemianism, a kind of Orthodox skullcap, or both. Full of curiosity and energy, he hailed the resource manager standing in the darkness with a barrage of words. “It’s good you came tonight, because she would have been gone by tomorrow. You would have had to chase after her to the Central Pathology Institute, where all the unsolved cases are sent. The doctors and nurses from intensive care managed to keep her body here until now because they were hoping that a friend, relative, or fellow worker of hers would turn up. They wanted someone to know how hard they had fought to save her life and why they couldn’t. We’re a small hospital here, far from the centre of town, and we don’t generally get the critical or even the severe cases. Perhaps the police and emergency teams don’t think we’re well enough equipped. Still, it’s a blow to our professional pride. I suppose she was brought here because she didn’t seem in serious condition at first, even though she was unconscious. The only visible damage was a few small puncture wounds in her hands and feet and a scratch on her skull. These certainly didn’t look fatal. Only afterwards did it turn out that she had an infection of the brain, perhaps from a bacterial source in the market.”

“The brain?” said the manager wonderingly. “I didn’t know it could get infected, too.”

“Of course it can. Why not? She lay for two days until nothing more could be done. She was so silent and anonymous that everyone was touched by her. The staff did all they could. They wanted so badly for her to regain consciousness, if only to find out who she was. That’s why she was kept in the morgue longer than usual. We hoped there would be someone to hear how we had tried … that she wouldn’t just be forgotten. It’s your luck you didn’t wait until morning. Even if you’re only a personnel manager, we’re counting on you for an identifying clue. Let’s first go to the office and fill out a National Insurance form. No one understood why her place of work didn’t come looking for her.”

The stout lab technician pulled out a key ring and unlocked the front room of the morgue. Although the human resources manager considered saying something about the open back door, he refrained. Let’s see what this fellow has to tell me , he thought. Affably offering him a seat by a stretcher, the technician took out a tattered blue shopping bag from a metal cabinet. Attached to it was a manila envelope with the cleaning woman’s death certificate, a medical report, and the torn, bloodstained pay slip. The technician, who had no doubt been through its contents before, turned it over and shook out two yellow keys tied with a string.

“That’s it,” he declared. “Apart from a few rotten cheeses and vegetables, which we couldn’t keep because of the smell. Let’s get what you know about her down on paper. I hope” — he smiled pleasantly — “that you’re not too squeamish to identify her. If you’re worried about it, let me assure you that you’re fortunate. She’s in perfect condition. Believe me, she looks like a sleeping angel.”

The resource manager turned red and gave the technician, who looked pleased with his metaphor, a hostile glance. He felt sure that this was the “inside source” who had tipped off the newspapers. It’s all because of him, he thought, that I’m still on the job at this hour. Coldly, he set him straight. He wasn’t squeamish in the least. He was quite capable of looking reality in the face, no matter how ugly it was — provided it needed to be looked at. But he was only here to supply the dead woman’s name, address, and ID number, all traced from the pay slip — the existence of which had been irresponsibly divulged to an unreliable journalist instead of being passed on to him, the company’s personnel manager. Although he had to his surprise discovered that he had interviewed the woman and even taken down her CV, this didn’t qualify him to identify her corpse. The company employed three shifts with 270 or 280 employees — 300, if you included the management. Was he supposed to recognize each one of them?

Opening the top button of his overcoat, the resource manager took out the folder, extracted the computerized image, and laid both on an empty stretcher. “Here. All that we know is in this folder. Sleeping angel or not, I have no intention of looking at her. If you think you’re authorized, you do it. Here’s a photograph to help you.”