Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

Her eyes pierced me to the core as if I’d been hit by a salvo of bullets. It seemed to me that any answer I gave would only make matters worse. I kept quiet, stunned and bewildered. I always understood her opposition to my participation in liquidations. I understood her hurt at my lying to her. But only now did I understand the extent to which our points of reference were so utterly different. Mine was intended to enable the state to exist. In such a system you kill the enemy. When you have to. Orit’s world was one of purity, based on a system of values that are certainly right, so long as they don’t come up against reality. In a utopian world I could easily believe in such a system, but in the real world, it made survival impossible.

She clutched her head between her hands. What happened to the boy who wrote me poems, she asked, lifting her tear-filled eyes, peering at me quizzically, where did he disappear to?

I shifted to the chair beside her and placed my hand on her shoulder. She flinched in alarm and pushed my hand away.

Is that the hand you fired with? she asked turning towards me as she stood up. That’s the hand that held the pistol?

In truth, no, I began to say and stopped after the first word. I saw a look of sheer contempt in her eyes.

That truth changes nothing. This wasn’t your first time, correct? I hesitated for a moment. Was it right to try and calm her down now and then tell the truth when she was in a different mood? That surely would only make the situation even worse. She’ll never be able to believe me if I lie to her now.

That’s right, I said.

Orit’s scream frightened me. It rose from the depths of her being, gobbling up all the air in her lungs and scaling her entire vocal range on its way. That’s the cry of a bereaved mother, was the thought that flashed through my mind.

So we are living a lie! So you’ve been deceiving me all these years! I’m living with a murderer, oh God!

She was hysterical. I felt I had to do something; embrace her, slap her face, pour a glass of cold water over her–something, just not to let this irrational storm take hold. I moved up close, wanting to hug her.

Don’t touch me! she snapped in an icy tone. Don’t you dare touch me. Not now, not ever! You’ve killed off twenty years of my life and for that I won’t forgive you. Never. I can’t bear being near you any longer. I don’t want to see you again.

Or, that’s enough, I pleaded.

Please, get out of here. I don’t want you here.

Or. Please calm down. I understand your disappointment. I understand the anger, but I had no option…

No option but to murder? No option but to lie to me? Can you hear what you are saying? Have you no soul, Yogev? And as you have lied to me for all those years, then what we had between us was also a lie! It’s all erased! Gone!

The phone rang and Orit lifted the receiver. She listened, expressionless. Then I heard her saying in a quiet but determined tone:

I’m not coming. I don’t want it. As far as I’m concerned you can destroy it.

I quickly picked up the second receiver and asked the woman at the other end of the line to repeat what she had said to Orit.

There was a good division of the cells, we have a suitable embryo, and your wife needs to get here for it to be transferred.

With alarming precision Orit repeated her earlier instruction.

You’re not going to destroy a thing! I screamed down the line. We’ll get there, if not immediately, then a bit later.

I’m sorry about the situation, Sir, madam. But we need to know.

You can freeze it? I asked, realizing that Orit was not about to recover any time soon.

When there are a number of good embryos we freeze what is not transferred sir, but of course it’s preferable that the transfer be done now.

I won’t come, I don’t want it inside me, so there’s no point in freezing either. I’m not prepared to allow you to do that. Orit put the phone down.

I’ll get back to you, I told the clearly bewildered woman on the other end of the line. Keep it as is for as long as possible, and then freeze. Don’t destroy it under any circumstances!

I too put down the phone. Again, Orit sat at the table lighting yet another cigarette. The signs of the storm were no longer visible on her face, but her expression reflected a new, unfamiliar decisiveness.

Or, we’ve been trying to conceive for more than ten years and now, just because you are angry with me, and I understand your anger, you’re going to throw it all away?

I’m not going to give birth to your child, she said quietly, without looking at me, her forehead supported by her hand, her elbow resting on the table.

Or, there’s something I haven’t told you. That was my last trip. I agreed to that with Rafi. That’s it. Finished. He promised to make it possible for me to retire or arrange a job for me at HQ.

Can you really just push ‘rewind’ and go back in time? Can you erase everything you have already done? Does the fact that you’re not going to murder again absolve you of all the murders you have already committed? Does promising that you will never lie again purge you of all the lies you’ve told me?

I could no longer restrain myself, nor was there any point. The line behind which Orit had barricaded herself was leading to an absolute breach between us. I had never been drawn into a quarrel with her and had almost never responded to her accusations by blaming her. But now it seemed to me the last resort, the one thing that might make her come to her senses.

I never lied to you, Orit. You knew exactly when to ask and when not to. It was you who decided when to know and when not to know, I said quietly.

When I saw that the look of anger and contempt was still there, I continued.

You too are selective. You decided that it was OK to kill terrorists firing a missile at a plane but that it’s not OK to kill an arms dealer who supplies them with such missiles. I don’t make decisions, Or. I carry them out, I put plans into practice. I don’t play God, so don’t you play Him either. That’s what you’re doing with the embryo.

Not a muscle moved in her face.

Think of me as a soldier, Or, I said almost begging in light of her silence. Think about Lebanon, about Gaza. In those situations you said nothing, and there I killed a lot more. We’re in a war, Or.

I won’t bring up the son of a murderer, she said quietly, her words fired one by one at my chest.

Or, I jumped from my chair.

Murder is murder is murder. Once upon a time you also believed that. When we went together with the whole village to Rabin’s memorial ceremonies after his assassination. Remember? And don’t call me Or. Or and Ar are also dead.

I left the house.

IMOUNTED MY four-wheeler and headed for the fields. The workers recognized me from a distance, raising their hands in greeting, but I didn’t want to stop for anyone just then. I drove on to the patrol road, changed gear, and pushed down the accelerator as hard as I could. Dust blew into my eyes triggering a trickle of tears which helped to relieve a little of the anguish I felt. But only a little. I refused to believe that the twenty years Orit and I had spent together could end this way. I refused to accept that our hopes for a child of our own could evaporate just like that.

I was angry. With myself. With the Mossad. But most of all it was the anger that I felt towards Orit that took hold of me. What she was doing was simply crazy. Her lie was at least as big as mine. You don’t kill a child, the hope for a child, for the sake of some sort of adopted belief.

I drove on until my versatile vehicle ran out of fuel. That left me standing, covered in dust from head to toe, by the edge of the patrol path, a few dozen kilometres from our village. I started walking back across the open fields and along the way I was picked up by a military car. The driver was good enough to return with me to my vehicle and pour some of his reserve fuel into my tank. By the time I reached home I knew what I had to say to Orit.