Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

Although it was by now late evening and an obstinate darkness was creeping over the city, I decided to go out and wander the streets. The warnings I’d been given to beware of night-time drunks came to mind, but I saw only people ambling along, filling the cafés, their beaming faces also lit up by the lavish lighting that illuminated the grand buildings. In the recesses above the elongated windows one could see decorations and statues, the cheerful colours of the surrounding houses and palaces turning gold. Even the nearby two-storeyed shopping centre, Gustinyi Dvor, suddenly took on the appearance of a dream-like dolls’ house bathed in dazzling light.

It was long after midnight when I slid into my luxurious bed. I hadn’t closed the curtains and, later, when the light came flooding in I was amazed to discover that it was only 4 a.m. It seems that white nights also have their white mornings. Happy as a lark, I got dressed and once again went out onto the street.

I spent my first morning walking the length and breadth of Nevsky Prospekt, the city’s main tourist thoroughfare where my hotel was located. As if intoxicated, I walked up and down this beautiful street, thronging with pedestrians all day long, revelling in the cacophony of sounds and colours. I took my time to study the buildings that reflected the best of European architecture with their meticulously maintained façades, immaculately cleaned in honour of the city’s three-hundredth anniversary.

I was seeing St Petersburg in the period that followed the Festival of White Nights. The northern lights no longer illuminated the city round the clock and the celebrations that attracted tourists from all over the world had ended. But the days were still very long and allowed me to tour the palaces, churches, theatres, gardens, bridges and canals for hours on end. Only the cold, which at night, even in July, sneaked in from the Gulf of Finland, limited my hours of wandering around–though it did nothing to dampen my increasingly cheerful mood.

In the days that followed I ambled aimlessly, propelled by an inner drive that I didn’t even know I possessed, enveloped by sounds and colours, sights and smells, trying to understand the magic. And the magic, it has to be said, was confusing. The large buildings jammed together overwhelmed the street with such force that I was reminded of the streets of totalitarian capitals. But the shops and restaurants, the pedestrians, street musicians and souvenir sellers, combined to create an atmosphere of freedom and gaiety.

The wide bridges across the grand River Neva, linking the islands that together form the city, impressed me by their mightiness. On the other hand, the much smaller bridges spanning the canals that connect the river to the Gulf of Finland were redolent of the romance of Venice and Amsterdam, a magical hideaway for lovers. The mixture of might and tenderness, romance and rapture, happiness and simplicity, was as intoxicating as it was impossible. Something didn’t add up, something was wrong and yet it undeniably was all there and imbued me with its magic.

I set aside one whole day to tour the Hermitage, which occupies most of the space of what once was the Czar’s winter palace. Uncharacteristically for me I stood patiently in line at the entrance gazing in wonder at the green façade with its white columns capped in gold. At the entry level I found myself walking serenely between Egyptian sarcophagi and Greek statues, my composure a far cry from the hurried visits I used to make to Egyptian or Greek museums in the course of my work.

With difficulty I navigated my way in the direction of the European classics. My route took me up a magnificent staircase to halls walled with tapestries and filled with gilded wooden furniture. I walked through long passageways in which were hung hundreds of paintings of generals, followed by rooms crammed with Chinese ceramics, coins and jewellery, until finally I reached the top floor housing the art of the 20 thcentury.

Out of the wealth of art around me–entire galleries filled with the works of Picasso, Cézanne, Matisse and their contemporaries–I found myself lingering in particular in front of portraits of strong, solitary men. Cézanne’s ‘smoker’, a moustached man wearing a jacket and hat with a pipe in his mouth, his head supported by a fist; and at his Self-portrait in a casquette , a tangled beard, wild hair, the body wrapped in a heavy winter coat. A glimpse, perhaps, into my own future. If I’m not like this already, I thought, I certainly will be in a few years’ time.

The portrait of a man whose nose and mouth appeared to be bleeding and warped, at first made me flinch and then, inexplicably, drew me to it. Something in this painting reminded me of myself in the most intimate way. I went up close and discovered that it was a self-portrait by Chaim Soutine. The name, known to me not from the history of art but from the streets of Tel Aviv, immediately brought to mind images of the old northern neighbourhoods of the city and the countless objects I had tailed in Soutine Street and the roads bordering it during my training course.

With difficulty I dragged myself away from the portrait and wandered off to another wing, on the same floor but on the other side of the palace, which was built around a large internal courtyard. There I stumbled on Renato Guttuso’s Portrait of Rocco and his Son ; a large painting of a father with a fierce expression, the face dark, harsh, and angular, with huge black eyes looking out defensively, his immense arms clutching a little boy sleeping peacefully, resting on his shoulder.

Whereas Cézanne and Soutine’s paintings offered me a possible reality, I was now forced to accept that the reality I was looking at was no longer an option open to me. I couldn’t take my eyes off the powerful blue painting, away from the hands that were so enormous they seemed deformed; nor could I stop staring at his look of determination and the expression of tranquillity that enveloped his child’s face. I knew nothing about the painter and certainly nothing about Rocco and his son. And yet I was ready to change places with the anonymous Rocco in an instant.

Spellbound, I continued to stand in front of the painting–unknowingly ignoring a public announcement in Russian–until, over my shoulder, I heard an attendant saying to me: Sir, the Museum is about to close in five minutes.

I didn’t feel it necessary to begin my business activities in any sort of rush. The plausible tourist would certainly want to spend his time sightseeing and a genuine businessman would want to get to know the place in which he was about to live before renting an apartment and an office. For the first time in years, the city’s beauty gave me the feeling of being a real tourist.

I hadn’t had such a feeling in any of the cities I’d previously worked in.

I clearly remembered how I’d run up the steps of the Acropolis in a short break between tailing and surveillance, solely in order to be able to explain to the police what I was doing in Athens if the need arose. I bought an entry ticket that I tucked safely into my wallet, covered the site at speed and left at a run to take over from my friend as a lookout, promising myself that I would return someday for a proper visit–which never happened. I did the same thing in Athens’ amazing history museum, hurrying between hundreds of striking statues managing only to ask myself the meaning of all the men having such well-developed shoulders and arms and such small genitals. I recalled my dash to the antiquities in the ancient city of Jerash, and to Madaba with its mosaic floor depicting an age-old map of the region. I had also stood on the peak of Mount Nebo in Jordan, looking out at the Dead Sea and imagining the way down to my house in the Arava. Filled with emotion, at first I refused to leave the place but finally made do with a few touristy snapshots. And so I passed through but didn’t really see dozens of other sites and museums across the globe.