Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

Many many times I asked myself whether I should tell you the truth, Anna said, so we could fight together. But I was afraid that you’d leave, frightened that you wouldn’t understand and stop believing me, scared that you’d confess and my dilemma would become even greater.

I kept silent in light of the heartbreaking mirror-image which Anna continued presenting to me. I couldn’t possibly have imagined then that her dilemma was far more acute than mine. For me she was a passer-by in the snow. A lover who might become an obstacle to me carrying out my assignments. For her I was the assignment itself.

And by the way, the fact that you rented an office a hundred metres from our HQ was a huge gamble and whoever was responsible for that is either a genius or an idiot, Anna said when she’d recovered. There were those who thought that you were eavesdropping on us from there or photographing people entering and leaving. On the other hand, there were those who, precisely because of this choice of location, regarded you as innocent. What kind of spy, they’d say, would open an office under the very nose of the local interior security service. Their break-in revealed that there was no eavesdropping or filming equipment there. Then, once all the files in your office were photocopied, and all the email correspondence was forwarded to counter-intelligence’s commercial department, and after even your company’s bank account had been carefully checked and found to be OK–they became convinced that you weren’t even someone’s front man.

You won’t believe it, Annushka, but there was no genius involved. Just one idiot, me, who didn’t check out the street, and a security department that didn’t have in its possession the addresses of the other side’s internal security service.

She burst into peals of heartwarming laughter, which once more brought back to me the Anna of St Petersburg.

There was so much love in this wise woman. She not only exposed me and concealed the discovery from her employers, but managed to hide it from me as well. Her desertion in the cause of love made her a willing participant in the fictitious world I had created and which I’d tried to present as real. So much love was required to live this lie together with me and hope that the revolving sword overhead wouldn’t annihilate us both.

I kissed her and embraced her thin and trembling body and we very very nearly made love. But neither of us was yet ready for that.

Your trips to Dagestan and Tajikistan also reinforced your cover story, Anna continued. After all, at my HQ they only considered the option that you were a CIA agent. And what could a CIA agent possibly be looking for in the Republics? That almost tipped the balance and there were those who were persuaded that our source in Washington had been misled. In fact, they almost left you alone, and didn’t mount any further operations against you.

So we could have lived happily till this very day?

No. Because among you there were people stupid enough to ask some ex-KGB guy for details on Anna Starzava. Didn’t they understand that an ex of this sort would be a double agent and would try and play both sides against the middle? Didn’t they realize they were putting you at risk? They knew about it at our HQ within twenty-four hours, and the suspicions intensified. It was only because the ex-KGB was not handled by someone with an Israeli identity, but instead by a handler with some sort of Canadian identity, that they continued to think you were from the CIA and not the Mossad. I, however, was instructed to continue working.

In an odd way this worked to our advantage, Anna said. A few days before that ex-KGB double agent informed us that interest was being shown in Anna Starzava, I sent an additional report clearing you. That was on the morning after the incident with Sergei and the snatched bag when I asked you to move in with me and you, my love, agreed. You went off to your office, and I realized that at counter-espionage’s HQ you–and I–had new enemies who were doing everything they could to incriminate you. That’s because what I’d understood from your fight they, Sergei and his friends, had also understood. I had no option other than to write an unambiguous report, in which I even included your sleep talk, except that I reported you as saying things that strengthened your cover story.

But, as you know, the intelligence world is a world in which everything is manipulation upon manipulation? My report was the first manipulation. The second was when they decided not only to accept my conclusions but also to inform me that I must sever all contact because they no longer had any interest in you.

How could I possibly have done that? she asked and looked straight at me. Fortunately for us, immediately after that came the third in this trilogy of manipulations: the report by the ex-KGB agent that your guys activated, saying that there was interest being shown in me. In light of his report, our counter-espionage division decided that the interest in me was based on my connections to you and that it was necessary to continue trying to expose you.

Anna spoke in an amazingly well-ordered way, and yet I didn’t entirely manage to follow what she was saying. I was still shocked by the fact that on the very morning that I stumbled to my office and sent my tepid report to HQ in Glilot about my acquaintance with her, she, for her part, had turned in a report clearing me of all suspicion.

She continued, and all of a sudden her tone was cheerful: And then I came up with the strange request to move to another apartment and open a shop together with you. For them the suggestion came at exactly the right moment. The pensioners and the owners of the shop who’d been moved out were pressing to move back in. So my people agreed. On condition, of course, that I would continue to work on you. By that time you were considered to be a bit of a legend–how come that nothing you did exposed you as being a secret agent?

It was so important to them to crack your case, she said, that someone was even sent to Makhachkala to get Mahashashli to talk. He was happy to cooperate, explained the revolving deal between you, and said that you’d refused to sleep with the escort girls he’d offered. My bosses took this to mean that you were a highly-skilled spy who didn’t fall into traps. To me it indicated that you already loved me before the concert. I was made a very happy woman when this report came in.

She cuddled up and then, raising her eyes towards me, said: Do you want to make love? I think I can now.

And so for the first time in three years, once more potikhonechku , slowly and very carefully, truly like two hedgehogs, I knew a woman and she knew a man. I didn’t have expectations and there were no disappointments. Not for Annushka either. We just wanted to find out if we could once again love and the sweet response that came with the first rays of the sun gave us renewed feelings of strength.

Anna, leaning on one arm, swept aside some strands of grey covering her face, and ran her fingers through my hair. There are things it’s easy to know, she said. For example, that the rain is the first rainfall of the year. And there are things that are not easy to know. For example, whether a rainfall is the last of the year. There could, after all, always be another downpour. A short while after I met you I knew that you were the last rain. No one would ever quench my thirst for happiness as you had done. When you left, I knew that I’d entered a dry patch that could only end by my being with you again. And now I’m sure I was right.

And I knew then that I, too, had been right in my fight for my last love.

WOULD YOU LIKE to go for a walk on the beach? I asked. And Anna, whose youthfulness appeared to be making a comeback, nodded enthusiastically, and announced that she was now hungry. I wasn’t sure that I could find any nearby restaurants that would be open at such an early hour of the morning, but in the event there was no need. Anna, who’d begun to behave like a housemate, found enough bits and pieces including bread, tomatoes, onions, cheese and eggs for us to have something cooked. While the ingredients were being fried, she had a shower. By the time she emerged, wrapped in my bathrobe, very thin and grey but refreshed and exuding the scent of my shampoo and soap, the morning’s coffee was also ready and we sat down for breakfast. For the first time I believed that we had a chance.