Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

What can they possibly do? Send someone here tonight to talk to me? Unlikely that they will decide on something more momentous than that. More likely nothing will be done till tomorrow. After all, they won’t want this somebody to arrive directly from Israel. And if it’s to be one of the people in Europe he’d first of all have to be well briefed. What do they know? The addresses of the office and my apartment. Not Anna’s address, though to my regret I gave them her first and family name in partial response to their demand when I still hoped that the storm would blow over. I could only hope that this would be useless information in a city as huge as St Petersburg with its five million inhabitants. Nonetheless I would somehow have to deal with this.

I should go now, tonight, to remove the rest of my things from my apartment and tomorrow start looking for some other anonymous place for the two of us. But how will I explain that to Anna?

THE HEAD OF the Mossad wanted Udi first of all to make the most of the existing regular channels to contact me before reaching any new decision about the matter. But the emails sent to me by the European office remained unread. There was also no response to their calls to my office, my house, and my mobile which I’d left on the table in the office to avoid it being used to locate me.

Twenty-four hours had passed since my last message to HQ and the discussion there about me. Alex’s men in the department for Russia and the former Soviet Republics had meanwhile managed to check St Petersburg’s computerized databases and found six Anna Starzavas. In Russia as a whole there were hundreds. There were also many males named Starzav. Conceivably Anna was the wife of one of them and as such not separately listed in the databases. Not a single Anna Starzava linked to any kind of bookshop was found and the number of bookshops was huge. Alex himself relayed a specific briefing to one of his agents, a former KGB man who was asked to check details about an Anna Starzava from St Petersburg. He was told to be extra cautious and had as yet not got back to Alex with any answers.

Eli, the security officer, put together a document summarizing all the operations in which I’d played a role going back to the time when I first joined the Mossad. Though each operation took up just one line, the document was three pages long. A second nine-page paper prepared by Eli itemized all the operations I had any knowledge of. When, much later on, I was allowed to review these documents–attached to the transcripts of HQ’s discussions about me–I discovered that most of these operations had been erased from my memory.

Netzach, already in his third year as head of the Mossad, had created a relaxed, businesslike atmosphere around him, made all the more so by his famous sense of humour. None of that interfered with his razor-sharp and at times far-reaching conclusions.

Have there been occasions in the past when you were not able to reach him in the course of a twenty-four hour period? he asked.

No, though besides the weekly arranged contacts we’ve not tried to reach him more than three or four times since he’s been there, Udi replied.

And you’ve tried all the possible channels? the chief asked to make doubly sure. Udi confirmed that they had.

Well, keep trying. Independently of that and from this moment on, we’ll work on the assumption that he has broken off contact with us. As a first step I want you to send someone to his office and apartment to see what is going on there.

Has there been a referral to somebody on the other side?

Alex reported on the enquiry that had been passed onto the ex-KGB agent codenamed ‘Cotton Field’, to find out details about the woman.

We chose him because he assumes his controller is an American businessman and our damage assessment indicated that this was the best possible option and wouldn’t be traced back to the Mossad, he explained.

But it could arouse the suspicions of the CIA, Netzach said, clearly dissatisfied. And the results?

For the time being there are none, Alex replied, blushing in embarrassment from the obvious rebuke. He reported on the large number of Anna Starzavas that there were.

Concentrate on the addresses that are close to his apartment, the chief ordered. Overall damage assessment? he asked turning to Eli.

The security officer began to delve into the detail, passing over a copy of the two lists to the chief. Netzach cut him short.

Stop! The fact that he killed Arabs in all four corners of the globe doesn’t worry me, even if he tells the Russians about it. Their killing rate is eight times greater. I want to know about the operations he took part in and those he knows about mounted directly against the Russians, or those that, if the Russians knew about them, would damage us.

There were the rocket transporters in Kazakhstan, Eli replied, skimming over the list, and a few disruptions in the supply of missiles and radar equipment from Russia to target countries. That’s what I see from a quick glance over the list of operations he was involved in. As far as ‘knowledge’ is concerned–his attention reverting to the second document–well, that’s already much more problematic because he knows about quite a few sensitive operations in a number of countries linked to Russia.

I want full details, the chief interrupted him yet again. These could be critical to our final decision. For the moment we continue to work on the assumption that he’s a ‘love deserter’. Nice term? he chuckled. Include it in our lexicon of expressions. If it turns out that he knows too much or can cause too much damage we’ll begin to relate to him as a deserter in every sense of the word.

Meetings in the chief’s office were recorded and fully transcribed. This enabled me, even with the passage of time, to enjoy the special atmosphere in which they were held. Except that the ‘subject’ on this occasion was none other than me.

So I’m sending someone out today, Udi said.

I want us to reconvene here no later than tomorrow night with the results of your man’s surveillance, Udi. I want a real damage assessment from Eli, and Alex–see if you can push for replies from your ‘Rice Field’.

‘Cotton Field’, Alex corrected him instinctively, and I could imagine the roars of laughter from the others in the room.

I can still tell the difference between rice and cotton believe me, said the chief accompanying them out of his office. But I have the feeling that before we’re done we’re going to become seriously constipated because of this KGB guy of yours.

My apartment was already empty by the time Don, one of the division’s operatives who’d been in Germany for a number of years, had winged his way to St Petersburg. HQ took care to send someone who’d never met me. That way I wouldn’t be able to identify him as he sniffed around the house and office, or hide from him before he’d had a chance to approach me.

In two taxi rides, I had moved all my personal belongings from the apartment: the rest of my clothes, books, towels and bed linen, the rest of my toiletries, shoes and overcoats. I also took one photo–a couple embracing on a railway platform. Of all the pictures that I’d brought with me and hung in my apartment, this one was dearest to my heart, even though the image was redolent of my former life.

Anna joyfully accepted the completion of my move to her apartment and straight away found a prominent spot for the photo in our bedroom replacing that of her dead husband–next to the figure of Jesus on the cross. The only clothes I was able to bring with me to Russia were those bought in Canada, and here I’d done very little shopping, but the side of the wardrobe cleared for me in the bedroom soon filled up and I had to leave some of my things unpacked.