Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

There was one good outcome from our time in China: when word of the attempted assassination of the Hamas leader Khaled Mashal broke, Orit and I were on a week’s trip to Guilin. We biked from one village to another through the terraced rice fields spread across hilltops like a multi-layered wedding cake, and sailed in a bamboo raft down the Li river amid the exceptionally beautiful steep and narrow wooded mountain peaks of the area. While watching the only English television channel in China in our hotel in Yangshuo, a vibrant village packed with tourists, we heard about the failure of the operation and the arrest of the Israeli agents.

At least now I know that it’s not you who is responsible for these outrageous acts, said Orit, and my heart sank. Are they crazy or what? she asked, angrily. I’m not talking about the fiasco–Orit interrupted me as I tried to explain that this was usually a matter of luck. All it took for the two Mossad operatives who were trying to eliminate Mashal to be caught was for a passer-by to draw the crowd’s attention to the incident. Forget the details, she said, her temper rising even further–I’m talking about the very idea of killing!

Sixteen killed and two hundred wounded by Hamas in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market, Orit, just a few months ago; and more killed and wounded on nearby Ben Yehuda street–have you forgotten? Are we supposed to just let them continue?

So they murder us, then we murder them? Is that how it is–titfor-tat? Why can’t we be the ones do the right thing and stop retaliating? I didn’t marry someone who might one day become a murderer. Nor do I want my country to legitimise murder!

But Orit, that’s not how it is, I said in despair. We are not trying to kill as many as we can, only those who are killing us.

Open your eyes, Yogev. You’re still talking like a newly-recruited member of a youth movement from a village in the Arava desert. Five million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are trying to kill us, and another five million in Jordan and the refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon. What difference does it make that someone sent the killers? If not him then somebody else will do the sending. This is everybody’s war, don’t you understand that? Do you really not see that guns are not the solution?

I kept quiet, trying not to intensify the emotional storm that was engulfing Orit. But she wouldn’t let up. You should know that I’m finding it harder and harder to live with the organization you belong to, with the way our government uses it, and with the direction in which this whole country is going. The government is the real villain, isn’t that clear to you? Isn’t that clear to the leaders in Jerusalem? Force won’t work against two hundred million Arabs and that’s before we scratch the wound of the Temple Mount at which point we’ll be facing a billion Muslims across the globe.

There was no point in my saying that in my view, given our bleak situation, yes, the government had no choice. There was no point in going into this when the ground beneath me, as a representative of one of the institutions which, in my wife’s eyes, symbolized the power of the state, was on fire.

ORIT’S WORDS WERE still ringing in my ears when I met up with Rafi, the new division head, immediately after our return to Israel. At the meeting I also came to understand why no pressure had been put on me to stay in China.

Rafi, a slender man, his hair cropped and his appearance and tone of voice shaped by many years of commanding special units, saw me in his office. Since Hezi’s days it had been redecorated in military style, with certificates of merit, shields, and photos of him with the last few chiefs of staff hanging on the walls.

Since the Mashal affair, Kidon has been neutralized, said Rafi, and it will be a long time before it gets back on its feet. But we–in fact the state of Israel–cannot be left without the protection of a ‘long arm’. In your file I saw that Hezi had already once suggested that you join Kidon as its number one and you declined. I am repeating the request, in a slightly different form. Kidon will in time, and in its own way, recover. You, when required, will be our operative, and around you an ad hoc squad will be set up to help you. As it was in Hong Kong and Seoul, locations Kidon was not familiar with. I’ve gone over all the debriefings. You did well, and now that you are a few years older you probably won’t be ‘in shock’ or lose your cool.

Apparently both my kidneys and heart were all over my personal file and analyzed to the umpteenth degree.

I said nothing. Orit’s words continued to echo in my mind. She’d been more vehement than ever on this issue. It was only a matter of time till she asked me directly where I’d been and what I’d been doing, or, worse still, whether I’d been involved in a killing while abroad.

It was as clear to me as daylight that I wasn’t going to lie to Orit. Our relationship was facing a doubly difficult test and wouldn’t be able to withstand a long term lie.

I rejected the offer.

For a while, Rafi said nothing.

Here’s a revised proposal, he said finally, and this is not open to negotiation. I want the best for you. I want you and Orit to have children, and I understand that you need to be available. The treatment Orit is undergoing is a tremendous burden and you will need to be on call for her. On the other hand, I, the Division, the Mossad, need you. And you personally, as I understand it, don’t have such a big problem with the role.

I didn’t respond. Where did he get this ‘understanding’ from? Rafi watched me closely and continued:

Go and learn. Become a student for two years like they do in the army service program. Do a second degree, on full pay. After that you’ll be committed to us for four years. I hope that by the time you complete your studies you’ll already have a child, and perhaps another one on the way. That’s how it is when a load is lifted. We’ll try and do without you. But if there’s no alternative, we’ll call on you. And if we do, that, of course, will reduce your period of obligation to us.

You remember the ad about this being a home and a way of life and not a place of work? I asked. That’s what they said when I was accepted. Now it sounds like an offer of work. A give and take contract.

Our original intent hasn’t changed. But we’re not used to people saying ‘no’. That’s what turns us into a workplace.

Again I said nothing.

In our last few conversations, before we’d finally rearranged our belongings, shipped from China, in our Jerusalem apartment, Orit had said that she wanted to be near her parents while she was being treated. The separation was difficult for them as well as for her and she now felt she needed her mother at her side. Your parents too are no longer young and it won’t do any harm for you to be with them a little, she’d said. Altogether it would be good for us to think a bit about the future. How much longer are you going to carry on running around the world and how much longer is your father going to be able to work in the fields? And what’s he going to do with the farm when he can no longer cope?

And indeed when we got back to Israel I was alarmed to see how my parents had aged. My father had lost a lot of weight, and though he’d never been a tall man, he now seemed to have shrunk. They delicately reminded me that a number of additional plots of land had been cleared for building in our village. It would make them happy if Orit and I bought one of them and built a house for ourselves. They could even help. You’ve already helped us with the apartment in Jerusalem and we’re financially OK, I smiled at them lovingly. But the idea didn’t go away without making an impression on me. Perhaps I could combine Orit’s wishes and the pleas of both sets of parents, with Rafi’s proposals, and settle down in the Arava? Two years of studying would be ideal for making such a move and building a home. What then? Wait and see. That’s what a deal with the devil is all about, isn’t it?