Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

French, she said, like my kiss. But I’ve said enough. Now it’s your turn.

I don’t have such scholarly arguments, I said bashfully. Science’s answers are not sufficient–but are pointers in the right direction, whereas God–as an answer to the big questions–amounts to nothing more than speculation that bases itself on writings we’re forbidden to question. In my view it’s simply irrational to accept that.

And our love, that’s rational?

Not really, I admitted.

Then forget about rationalism and come to church.

And so, wrapped in heavy overcoats against the freezing cold, we found ourselves standing in a long line in front of St Isaac’s Cathedral, across the bridge that links our island with the centre of town.

The gigantic Cathedral–a cube-shaped structure of grey stone with a large gilded dome, a row of steps at the front, and brown granite columns–enabled each of the ten thousand people who gathered there with us to enter through its magnificent wooden doors. Once inside we found a narrow space for ourselves on one of the benches at the very back.

I couldn’t understand a word of the prayer service, but the magnificence of the building, the singing of the choir, and the moments of utter silence as the priest and monks performed various ritual ceremonies with the candles they held, inspired a feeling of sanctity in me. Anna’s presence undoubtedly added to that sense and neither my atheism nor my rationality could explain it.

After the holiday, HQ concluded that the time had come to speak to me and it was decided that Yoav should be the one to do this. He’s liable to try and ignore you, he was told during a detailed briefing. Be assertive but at the same time be sensitive.

Despite the cold I was walking slowly on my way to a solitary lunch. The tall, pale-skinned young man of an indiscernible European appearance coming towards me looked like someone I knew. But it took me time to remember where from. I’d been HQ’s representative in one of the operations in which Yoav participated as a team member. Though we hadn’t spoken then, I was with him during both briefings and debriefings. Another second passed before my brain clocked the obvious. This is no chance encounter that sometimes happens in the course of operational work. In such circumstances there is no option but to ignore the individual and leave him behind surprised and offended. Yoav was here on purpose. He’d come specifically to see me.

I decided to walk on regardless. I thought that that would also send the appropriate message to Israel. I gave up on going into Sbarro and walked ahead paying no attention to him. But he caught up with me and adjusted his pace to mine.

Shalom Paul, he said.

I continued to walk straight on.

Paul, hello, he repeated in a slightly louder voice.

I upped my pace, as did Yoav. He decided on a more direct approach.

Yogev, I’m here on behalf of HQ. Are you prepared to sit down somewhere and talk?

I had to make the situation clear to the young man. I stopped and looked him in the eye.

Were you talking to me? I asked in English.

Paul, let’s stop this, he said in Hebrew. I’m Yoav. Perhaps you don’t remember me. I’ve come with a very important message and I’m asking that we sit and talk.

I am awfully sorry but I didn’t understand a word of what you just said, I told him and continued walking.

Yoav repeated that he had a message from Israel which he wanted to pass on to me. I continued to ignore him and turned towards the next restaurant along the way. Do you mind if I join you? Yoav asked, switching to English in an attempt to soften my recalcitrance.

If you join me I’ll consider that harassment and ask the doorkeeper to throw you out, I replied. Distressed, and wanting very much to pass on the message, Yoav momentarily put his hand on my shoulder and said quickly, it’s been decided that you have to return to Israel immediately because Anna Petrovna Starzava is an FSB spy catcher.

Angrily I shrugged his hand from my shoulder but he must have seen the shock on my face as I left him standing there and entered the restaurant.

Even the waiter sensed my agitation and asked if I was OK. Impatiently I nodded as if to say ‘yes’ and he directed me to a table in the corner. For quite some time I completely failed to take on board what Yoav had said. I’d imagined I would hear a demand to return to Israel but I had to repeat the second part of what he said over and over again in my mind so as to get to grips with its significance.

The words–Anna Petrovna Starzava is an FSB spy catcher–reverberated in my mind. Anna Petrovna is a spy catcher. What are they trying to say? What does it mean? Can it be true? Can they say such a thing just to get me back home? I didn’t tell them her paternal name, Petrovna. That they found out for themselves, which means they’d set in motion an intensive intelligence-gathering operation around me–the grim picture was becoming a little clearer in my mind.

I’d given the waiter an order but the food remained on the table in front of me, untouched. I applied real force to try and focus my thoughts. My immediate inclination was to dismiss what I’d been told out of hand. Where did they dig up such nonsense? Even if it’s not simply a cooked-up story there’s undoubtedly an Anna Starzava who is a spy catcher. Then, a few dormant instincts of the spy I’d been were reawakened and again I went over in my mind our innocent first meeting which she most certainly didn’t initiate. Our entirely natural conversation. Her reserve. The slowness of the contact that was made between us. And then her love, her full, absolute love, leapt into my thoughts. What are they talking about for God’s sake? And besides, what sort of spy catcher runs a bookstore? Something about the shop had slightly bothered me, yes, but why would a preventative intelligence service apply such resources to trap me, a semi-dormant Mossad commercial agent. It’s total nonsense, and doubly so in view of the genuineness of her life with me. If there is such a spy catcher it’s not my Anna.

Without touching the food and unwilling to call the waiter and explain, I left more money on the table than was necessary and left quickly for the shop, very worried. But Yoav was waiting for me.

He had been sitting on a bench by the restaurant and without any preliminaries he stood up and asked, have you thought about what I said? We want you to return to Israel immediately.

Young man, I replied angrily, if I see your face again you won’t know what’s hit you.

Yoav stepped back. It was clear to him that I meant every word. He didn’t even try to follow me.

I couldn’t conceal my fury from Anna but fortunately for me there were several customers in the shop. She looked enquiringly towards me and without managing to smile I signalled with my hand that nothing had happened. She delayed leaving for her lunch so she could talk to me, but several customers stayed put, among them one of the two young women I remembered from the restaurant. Now I was able to make the connection. So they want to see what I’ll do after the warning. What did they think, that I was about to take Anna and run away? Run off without her? Accuse her of betraying me to the FSB?

In fact, the presence of the operative–later on I learned that this was Debbie–made me calm down. I was now in operational mode, self-controlled and calculating. I made a sign to Anna that she should go for lunch. She apparently saw that I had calmed down but when she returned a short while later I suspected that she too hadn’t eaten anything.

The hours before the shop closed restored my peace of mind. There had been a mistake in the office, and I didn’t intend to pay for that. I also decided that I wouldn’t change my routine in any way. I must have appeared so calm that even when there were no more customers Anna didn’t ask what had happened to me. I didn’t want us to spend an entire evening at home and said I was still hungry. Anna was also ravenous and so once more we took Yoav’s people to a good restaurant. I noticed a couple who came in a short while after us. I had only a vague recollection of their faces from the previous week, but in the days that followed I saw them again and again. They were Harry and Rosy. Yoav kept himself at a distance and I didn’t see him again. I also didn’t know whether the other operatives realized that I was already able to recognize them and had accepted that their presence was known to me, or simply hadn’t noticed that I’d sussed them out?