Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

The job would have been accomplished even with just one bullet seriously wounding him, I countered. I put on my jacket and we went down to reception. My bill was ready and moments later we were in the waiting car.

I flinched slightly when Udi patted me on the shoulder. His hand was warm, big, and heavy, and its touch pleasant. But Udi knew how I felt and didn’t say a word. I was disoriented, filled with raw emotions. There was no longer a sense of suspense or fear; no feeling either of release or relief; no satisfaction from a mission accomplished nor remorse for having blasted the man’s head open. For the most part the drop in adrenalin simply left me feeling very tired and I allowed myself to close my eyes. Fortunately, command was now back in Udi’s trustworthy hands.

Udi drove, and Motti collected the pistols from Levanon and me. He was to return the weapons to the skipper. We dropped Levanon off at a taxi stand, from where he was to make his own way to the airport. I watched this tall man, who’d just saved the mission, walk calmly away into the distance wheeling his suitcase.

I got out of the car at the station in order to catch the express train to the airport. The doors of the silver train were wide open. This early in the morning there were only a few passengers and I was worried that the train’s departure might be delayed. But right on time the doors closed and the train slid out of the station.

Once on the plane I counted the minutes. Only when I’d seen Levanon enter the cabin, exchanging smiles with an attractive stewardess, did I accept we were out of danger.

Lots of things could have gone wrong with the operation, but in the end nothing had. The hotel receptionists hadn’t suspected anything, none of the security people had woken up, no hotel guest had surprised us by returning late from a party, and the target had behaved impeccably. My shortcomings in execution were put right by Levanon. The yacht sailed at dawn, and at 7 a.m. Udi, the last of us to leave the island, said goodbye to Hong Kong.

IHADN’T THOUGHT about Orit before the mission, during it, or while we made our getaway. But I did think about her throughout the long journey home. I certainly had plenty of time; ten hours from Hong Kong to Istanbul; there I had a brief meeting with people from HQ, an initial debriefing, and swapped equipment; finally I had another two hours or so for reflection before landing in Israel. After coming to terms with my doubts about the mission and its results, and successfully convincing myself that what I’d just done was no different from killing a terrorist in Lebanon or Gaza, I now had to deal with Orit’s obstinacy. I remembered only too well her unequivocal opposition to assassinations and her crystal clear warning that I must never lie to her.

The pretence, the cover stories, and the lies about my identity and actions, became an inseparable part of my daily life abroad. But these stratagems continued to make me uncomfortable and even remorseful towards anyone who accepted my story at face value. In this sense, I differed from my colleagues who were proud of their ability to deceive, trick and frame either the target himself or simply anyone who might possibly get in their way or could assist in accomplishing the mission.

What really preoccupied me was the same rather naïve question I had grappled with in my days in the youth movement, a decade and a half earlier; is not telling the same as lying? I didn’t think I could lie if Orit asked a direct question. But not saying anything was a little different… Despite the previous sleepless night, the fatigue that had overwhelmed me right after the operation, my numbed feelings and my usual ability to doze off on planes, this time I simply couldn’t sleep.

Eventually, I made a decision that was perhaps reasonable but also fairly cowardly. If Orit asked I would tell her. If not, I wouldn’t say anything. It was a decision that, years later, would blow up in my face.

When I finally got home Orit was in the midst of calculating the exact date of her next ovulation. Because, by sheer good fortune, I’d retuned this time at the right moment, she was much too busy planning our mating schedule to ask what I’d been up to abroad. I wasn’t surprised. How many times can any normal woman ask about another break-in, another photograph, another surveillance in which her husband and his companions had played a part in the Far East? During the long hours we spent in bed before and during her ovulation, I had difficulty suppressing my thoughts about the operation and felt constantly very uneasy. When we made love at night, I preferred to fall asleep immediately afterwards. But after having sex in the morning I couldn’t sleep. That was when Orit started to question me.

Tell me, she said a few minutes after we’d finished, her head on my shoulder and my fingers lightly stroking her back. Where did you say you were on this trip?

I tensed up. Here it comes, dammit.

Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Istanbul, I replied, giving equal importance to the scene of the operation and the two airports where I’d changed planes. I waited anxiously for her next query. Had she seen something in the paper? Was she going to ask me a direct question that would throw us both into an uncontrollable tailspin?

So let’s say it was Bangkok or Hong Kong. There are probably a lot of bars there, and massage parlours, and escort girls and all that, no?

I almost breathed a sigh of relief. But relief was soon replaced by a strong urge to tell Orit what I’d been through. To share with her the difficulties I’d faced, my inner moral struggle–and yes, to tell her also about the operation’s success.

Haven’t you got anything to tell me about it? A hint of concern stole into Orit’s voice, and I suddenly realized how close I was to jumping into the whirlpool that was only one sentence away.

There are, if you’re looking for that kind of thing, I said, and assured her that I wouldn’t even think of going to a whore.

What an absurd situation, I thought, when such a highly-charged subject could seem so marginal to me. What a twisted relationship had developed between us. And what a shame that such an important event in my life had to remain beyond the boundaries of our marriage. By its very absence that event had become a void, a discord between us.

I consoled myself with the fact that it was a one-off, that with time the memory would fade. I tried to be content with the thought that I didn’t have to explain my actions to Orit and get into a confrontation with her. As the days went by and she didn’t ask any more about what I’d done on that trip, the pain of concealment dulled and eventually turned into shadowy fragments, buried remnants of a feeling that only a mighty storm could raise to the surface.

My reception at HQ, somewhat different from the greeting I got in bed, was spontaneous, warm, and noisy. In the Mossad they don’t drink a toast to celebrate a successful liquidation but the debriefing began with a sort of sociable ceremony. Hezi and Udi both made speeches praising me. For my part, I paid tribute to Udi and, in the days that followed, practically everyone in the division, including those I barely knew, shook my hand in appreciation. Other divisions of the Mossad were not supposed to know the identity of the hit man, but I did clearly see people looking at me in the corridors and in the canteen and heard their whispers of approval. Though I didn’t openly respond to these snippets of praise, deep inside me there was a wide smile. In the debriefings I gave full credit to Levanon for having got hold of the documents. But as the ‘number one’ the operation had my name stamped on it.

Once Muhammad Zaif’s body was found, the Syrian delegation fled the hotel. Their hurried departure had the local authorities assuming that they were responsible for the killing. Two of them were arrested for possessing unlawful weapons–an incident that cast a dark shadow over relations between China and Syria. When the North Korean delegation was informed that its senior Syrian partner had been murdered, they swiftly left Hong Kong and North Korea suspended any further contact pending a thorough investigation of the affair.