Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

So perhaps we really should move to your apartment, Anna said.

I have another idea, Annushka.

From the smile on my face Anna understood that she would like what I was about to propose. She sat on my knee, her eyes looking straight into mine. I’m listening, she suppressed a grin.

Let’s rent a new apartment, a big one, more suited to us. And let’s open a new shop, more spacious, with a foreign books section which I will manage.

Paul! Anna beamed. You really mean what you’re saying, don’t you?

I usually do mean what I say, I told her, and she put her arms around my neck, pecking my forehead, cheeks, and the tip of my nose.

But the money Paul, she suddenly became serious. And I don’t know if it’s even possible. I think all the bookshops belong to big chains–I’m sure you know some of them, like Dom Knigi–and are controlled by the oligarchs.

The city is full of small shops of every kind, I answered.

That’s how it seems. But if you scratch beneath the surface you’ll see that after the collapse of the Soviet Union those people took over everything and nothing happens without their consent. Everything belongs to the same group of people you saw with their up-market jeeps. Perhaps here and there you can still find private shops, like mine. But in a good location they will be more expensive and I don’t have the money for that.

As if I’d been sprayed with icy cold water, I suddenly realized that from a financial point of view I hadn’t planned my escape. Covering one’s tracks costs money. So does a new apartment and a new shop. Though I had my company’s credit cards and there were substantial amounts of money in the firm’s bank account, I had no intention of making use of these funds.

The money I had on deposit in Israel from the sale of my parents’ farm and my half share of the house were primarily intended to pay for my mother’s care. A quick calculation showed me that these funds were yielding profits that exceeded the average salary in St Petersburg, and that there was more than enough money there. I hadn’t planned to use it, but I could draw on the account there if I absolutely had to. I only needed to find an alternative trustee to the Mossad’s financial department, which was currently taking care of all of that. And if there are places to rent that are not yet in the hands of the local Mafia, that’s where we’ll open our shop I thought to myself.

We’ll find such a place, and I have a bit of money, I said.

From the expression on your face I can see that when you say a bit, that’s what you mean.

I have enough for an apartment and a shop in the centre of town and at some point our business will have to start making a profit.

And what about your business?

From now on you’ll be my business.

No Dagestan and Tajikistan?

The office in Montreal will continue to handle the deals here and over there, I said.

And we won’t ever have to part?

Not even if you wanted to. I’ll be with you, behind the counter.

The colour hadn’t yet returned to Anna’s cheeks. I want to find out tomorrow at the municipality what the implications are, she said. The shop is registered under Mikhail’s name and I have to see what kind of bureaucracy is involved. Do you want to experiment tomorrow and work in the shop while I’m at the Town Hall?

With my feeble Russian? I would prefer to search for an apartment and a shop for us.

But I want to do that with you!

OK, so in the morning I’ll deal with closing down my business and in the afternoon we’ll start looking for an apartment and a shop.

Paul aren’t you being a bit hasty? You can’t close your business down like that. There’s no guarantee that a more expensive shop in the centre will keep its head above water. Perhaps we should start by opening up a foreign books section in the shop here?

The shop is yours and Mikhail’s, Annushka. Let’s start a new life. You without Mikhail’s shop and me without the company in Montreal.

You really mean it, don’t you? Anna’s beautiful eyes pierced mine.

Never been more serious in my life.

The look of deep concentration on Anna’s face had made her brow crease and her nostrils slightly widen. Now that expression of seriousness gave way to lines of laughter in the corners of her eyes and lips, she broke into the happiest smile I’d ever seen. My heart was filled to the brim with love for her.

And you’ll no longer be sad like you’ve been over the past few nights?

A few more nights and that’s it, I said, and Anna erupted into a mix of laughter and tears.

I was so afraid that I wasn’t making you happy and that you would leave, she said hugging me.

I promised you, never, never, never.

During the night it occurred to me that if the Mossad was trying to prevent my desertion it was likely to try and restrict my activities by freezing my accounts in Israel. I decided to be proactive. The next morning I called Orit from an internet café from which one could also make overseas calls. I could hear the shock in her voice. And immediately afterwards I could also hear a note of unconcealed joy. Her voice sounded as if it was coming from another world, distant and dissociated, a voice that I could remember but couldn’t feel anything towards.

After the required few words of civility, Orit said that she of course couldn’t ask me where I was.

I could just say that I’m wearing a heavy overcoat and that everything here is covered in snow, and that would be true. But I’m about to give you an address, I said, to her surprise, and went on to talk about the matter which had led me to break the long period of absolute silence between us.

Can you still access our joint account?

I don’t know. It’s been a very long time since I made any transactions on that account, she said.

But you didn’t remove your name from it or cancel your signing rights, did you?

I don’t think I did anything about that. I simply opened a new account.

Great, so please write down what I’m about to tell you.

Orit said she needed a moment to find a pen and paper and in the background I could hear the boisterous sounds of the little baby girl I’d seen and the wailing of another infant. I visualized them, three thousand miles to the south and thirty degrees warmer than here, and my heart trembled. A whole life, another life that was mine and could have still been mine, leapt at me from the receiver. A life that had been erased and which I had blotted out. A life which had been pushed away and which I had suppressed. And this telephone link seemed ethereal, impossible, confusing, and at the same time moving.

I’m back, Yogev. Yogev? I could hear her voice, sending yet another shockwave through my heart as I understood that the voice was addressing me. I’d only been ‘Paul’ for about six months since leaving Israel for Montreal and in that short time the Yogev that I had been for forty years had been almost obliterated. At first I didn’t respond. Only after a third ‘Yogev’ did I manage to pull myself together. My two selves were facing each other from either end of a virtual umbilical cord connecting me to my past, a link that could be severed by the slightest of electrical disruptions. I mumbled the rest of the instructions as if caught in a daydream.

The money I got for my parents’ farm and the funds I got from you for the house are in our joint account in a savings plan. I want you to cancel the plan and transfer the sum to an account which I’m going to tell you about right away. Leave two hundred thousand shekels in there to support my mother’s ongoing upkeep.

There was silence at the other end. Orit?

I hear you, her voice came across a moment later, the tone hesitant and uneasy.