Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

Then he’s told that she’s a spy catcher.

And he doesn’t believe it. Then what?

Convince him, Levanon said. There are ways of doing that.

I’m not ruling out what you are saying, but let’s get ourselves prepared for the worst-case scenario.

And so, Levanon told me a year later with more than a hint of apology, we began to go after you. And you know the Division. The moment an operation is in motion it’s like a semi-trailer on a steep slope. There’s no way of stopping it. And admit it. The way things looked from our end, we didn’t have much of a choice.

I found that hard to admit. I was left with too many scars from the chain of events that followed.

BOAZ’S TEAM LANDED in St Petersburg and after a quick check-in at their hotels the four went to meet Don in a restaurant. He provided them with exact descriptions of my office, my apartment, and the addresses of the various Anna Starzavas in town. He gave an account of people’s daily routines in these houses and neighbourhoods, the police patrols there, where in the area one needed to be careful of hooligans and places where drunks hunkered down at night. Don also informed the team of where he’d spent time as a lookout, and where he thought the suspicion of residents had been aroused. Then, with Boaz, he toured these addresses, helped him plan the schedule of patrols and lookouts, said his goodbyes to Boaz and set off to fetch his belongings and fly to Europe and from there back to Israel.

In the freezing cold Boaz’s men invested many days in what turned out to be pointless effort, which included briefly tailing a number of possible Anna Starzavas. By the end of the New Year holiday they had come up with nothing. In the meantime, Roman, the Russian speaker Alex attached to the team, was also of little help. Even if the operatives reached our block on Morskaya, the street which ran along the length of the sea shore, they wouldn’t have been able to find anything. They gravitated towards Vasilyevsky Island’s attractive pedestrian zone and when, much later, I saw their reports, I realized that they had even passed our shop. We could have been found there, arranging books, putting up tables or labelling shelves. But there was nothing that could help them identify either the shop or the apartment as belonging to us.

At midnight on the 31 stof December, Anna and I opened a bottle of champagne. We gazed out of the window of our apartment overlooking a city immersed in revelry and were intoxicated by the beauty of the blanket of snow and the colourful lights that decorated the town. Just then the snow began to fall once more and Anna squealed with joy, kissed me again and again, wishing us both many many more happy years together. How little we then knew.

The next morning we meandered slowly through the snow-covered squares and gardens. From mid-day on, the locals, waking up from a heavy night’s drinking, began to stroll together with their children towards the improvised entertainment and amusement stands in the gardens. Couples of Ded Morozy and Snegurochki , Santa Clauses and their Snow Maiden granddaughters, wandered around in matching clothes, red and white or blue and white, handing out presents to excited children. No words were exchanged, but it was clear that knowing we would never be part of such a family filled us both with a feeling of deep sorrow.

We returned to our apartment and continued, as had become our habit over the previous few evenings, to flip through various book catalogues. In one, I saw a listing of the translated works of Amos Oz and David Grossman, some even marked as essential material for any self-respecting shop. Showing no reaction, I continued to leaf through the catalogue but Anna turned the pages back and asked me what I thought.

I don’t have a view, I said, in the most indifferent tone of voice I could summon up.

Because you don’t know of them? she asked and looked straight at me.

I’ve heard of both, but I don’t remember details, I replied, not taking my eyes off the catalogue.

As it happens, I remember both My Michael and See Under: Love , she surprised me. I remember thinking that the first part of ‘See Under’ about the little boy was the greatest children’s literature I’d ever read, no less impressive than Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. But the other parts of the book didn’t work for me. It might have been because of the translation and also the fact that I read it in English, which then was much more difficult for me than it is now.

I mumbled something, not daring to look at her. I loved the writings of both Oz and Grossman. I had grown up on Oz’s books and had even met Grossman once after a lecture he gave about his work.

So I’m marking them to be ordered, Anna said when I didn’t respond.

Like the conversation with Orit, the sudden intrusion into my consciousness of Oz and Grossman deeply punctured the cover of foreignness that I was still in the process of constructing around me and only proved to me how difficult the task I had imposed upon myself was going to be.

Are you OK, my darling?

I cleared my throat and said, still without lifting my eyes, I’m OK.

The following day, we opened our shop, even though the signboards had not yet arrived. Many local shops were not open as their owners were still on holiday but Anna and I wanted a trial run. That same day, the new six-man team of operatives led by Yoav arrived in St Petersburg and the search for us intensified. Thousands of tourists streamed into the city for the week between the beginning of the year and the celebration of Christmas. The location of our shop, in the charming pedestrianized street of Vasilyevsky Island, and the fact that it had a section devoted to books from the West, attracted local as well as foreign shoppers and immediately after the signboards were hung we were rushed off our feet.

The signboards were simple as both of us wished to maintain an air of modesty. One signboard had Knigi , books in Russian, painted on it, and the second simply read books in English.

Anna turned out to be a born saleswoman, showing infinite patience to customers, and an extensive knowledge which enabled her both to recommend when someone asked her advice and to find a book when a customer had a specific request. I, on the other hand, had a lot to learn and many areas that cried out for improvement. Difficult customers, and there were many of them, I just wanted to be rid of as quickly as possible. I couldn’t understand how someone could come armed with a load of questions, have them all answered, leaf through dozens of books in different editions, and then walk out of the shop empty-handed. Common, perhaps, though I myself was a very purposeful kind of buyer. I would enter a shop only when there was a defined need, quickly buy what I’d come for, pay, and leave, so I found it extremely vexing to accept such behaviour. The foreigners, naturally, were drawn to my section. However, I usually ran out of answers after the third enquiry and Anna had to come to my rescue. Her beauty led even those who didn’t find what they were looking for to leave the shop clutching a book.

At the end of every day, when we’d closed up the shop and drawn the blinds, we sat down to do the accounts and found that the daily takings were going up and up.

A few days later Roman, on a visit to the Small Business Authority, came across our bookshop’s registration. Triumphantly, he told Yoav that Anna Petrovna Starzava was the owner of a bookshop on 6 thStreet in Vasilyevsky. Shortly afterwards Harry entered the store.

I didn’t know Harry and he didn’t arouse any suspicion in me. There were five or six other customers in the shop at the time and Harry came nowhere near me. Instead, he browsed the bookshelves. I learned later that this young blond guy had been recruited into Yoav’s team from one of the European squads and our paths had never crossed. From his appearance I couldn’t even tell that he wasn’t Russian. Some time after he first spotted me he went to Anna’s section, observed me from a different angle, and then left. Once outside he confirmed Roman’s findings.