Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

You’re not going anywhere. An order prohibiting you from leaving the country was issued a long time ago and you should thank me if, instead of your going straight to jail, I can arrange for you to be put under house arrest while we straighten things out between us.

This is quite a police state, isn’t it?

The investigator didn’t respond and left the room. A few minutes later he returned with Udi who, it transpired, had been watching the conversation on CCTV.

I’m here to sort things out, Udi said, and not as head of Division, which I stopped being this week. You can look upon me as a friend, if you want.

With friends like you… I said and stopped. A bout of foolish curiosity got the better of me: Levanon?

What, my replacement? No, Micha actually. He was recalled from Tzomet to be my deputy a few months ago. Levanon is his deputy.

This was the very last thing that should have been of interest to me at that particular moment, but I was happy to know that the likeable, chubby, blond-haired Micha, champion of interpersonal relations, had got the job. For just a moment my mind went back to our days together in Hong Kong and Seoul, remembering the tour company he opened for us in the Seychelles and then his leaving us to join the division responsible for recruiting agents where he quickly climbed to the top.

Udi didn’t respond to my earlier pique and we went back to what we’d been discussing. It was agreed that I be placed under house arrest until a contract was drawn up between the Mossad and me regarding the continuation of my activities. The Mossad still saw me as its man and the pay slips I got were proof of that. The Shin Bet once again dropped their insistence on dealing with me, but this time my passport was confiscated.

After a week of wrangling, Udi told me that he’d arranged things with the Mossad. It’s OK. They’re willing to give up on the indictment and agree not to restrict you. But your passport will remain with us, and the expectation is that you will stay in the Tel Aviv area and have no involvement with the subject of Anna. It is in any case being dealt with, and all you can do is spoil things. Do yourself a favour and believe me. Please.

At least they won’t be able to prevent me from thinking about Anna day and night.

And then the Mossad discharged me and I had to begin working for my living. Udi said that this had also been one of their considerations in the decision to let me go. In their view I had too much time on my hands in which to plan idiotic schemes and would now be preoccupied with the difficulties of earning a living.

I soon realized that there were very few things I knew how to do. A first degree in East Asian Studies and partial command of Mandarin Chinese were perhaps good for a young guy of twenty-five but not for a forty-something man. A second degree in International Relations was also of no value to someone not about to start an academic or diplomatic career. I felt that agriculture would suit me best. But from the enquiries I made it was clear that no farmer would take me on as a hired hand. The Thai workers did a good job and cheaply. I even offered my services to farmers on the border with Gaza but to no avail. I didn’t really see myself working as a hired hand on my parents’ farm but curiosity led me there.

The journey to the Arava was like watching a film. It was as if I was daydreaming. When the Dead Sea came into view it looked smaller than I remembered, its colours more beautiful. Shades of turquoise locked between ponds of blue separated from each other by embankments of dry earth that stretched all the way to Jordan. The soil of the Arava was grey and crumbly and there were warnings of sink-holes all along the route. In several petrol stations I discovered new restaurants and cafés. But I didn’t allow that to delay me. Though I wasn’t short of time and knew that this visit of mine wouldn’t alter the course my life, an inner feeling of unease made me up my speed. The Mazda 3 I’d hired–after the car that I got as head of department was taken away from me–didn’t really help matters, as it insisted on sticking to its own plodding pace.

The entrance to the village looked different but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that had changed. The electric iron gate was shut, the remote control that I’d used in the past had got lost somewhere, and I had to wait until another vehicle arrived to let me in. I drove around the village’s outer perimeter roads. The vegetation had grown tall and almost completely obscured the houses in the original village, and those built since were also already cloaked in green. New sheds had been added to each farm, and everywhere I looked I could see living quarters that had been built for the Thai workers. On the eastern side of the village I came across a large group of them playing billiards on the terrace of a club set up especially for them, a table covered by empty beer bottles at the side.

I drove along the village’s inner road to my parents’ house which was hidden from view by a new packaging shed. In the car park were cars I didn’t recognize and two tractors. My parents’ house had also changed. What was once a small Jewish Agency-built home had become the residential wing of the house and along its front a new and large extension had been built which, I soon discovered, included a spacious guest room and a modern kitchen. My parents had always opposed the idea of a ‘water guzzling carpet’, but now grass had been planted in front of the house and I missed the smell of the old fruit trees which had always welcomed me and had been felled so as to make room for the lawn. Two ancient palm trees on either side of the new gate had me momentarily pining for a bygone era. Everything else looked unfamiliar and strange.

Yehiel welcomed me warmly as his wife and children danced around us. When he heard that I wanted to go back to farming he immediately offered me work ‘at a very high wage’ and said he’d arrange a room for me in the guest room free of charge. I thanked him but preferred not to accept his generous offer. After he told me about all the renovations on the farm I said my goodbyes. I knew I had to start a new life rather than trying to hold on to the remnants of my former existence.

I decided not to pass up on the opportunity of visiting Orit. I felt sufficiently detached to do this without risking more heartache. She was happy to see me but she too seemed distant. I didn’t feel I was doing her any good, especially in light of her little daughter’s repeated questions, who is this, ima who is this and, is this your boyfriend? Orit didn’t answer, and I didn’t know what she felt towards me.

She was tired, thin, a bit more grown up and a bit different from the Orit I’d known. Precisely in what way she’d changed I couldn’t say. She didn’t mention her husband and I didn’t ask about him. I had the feeling he wasn’t living there, a feeling that grew when the little girl sat on my lap and constantly tried to attract my attention.

I remember the last time I held her, I said to Orit, and we both lowered our eyes. For each of us my father’s Shiva seemed eons ago.

I told her a bit about what had been happening to me in words that didn’t disclose anything. The work in Russia has come to an end. I’ve also stopped working for the Mossad altogether. I’m free now, looking for other work, perhaps farming.

Had these words been said at a different time, in a different reality, they could have steered our lives along a different path. But they hadn’t, and now it seemed that for her as well as for me that was an abstract, intangible, earlier existence which could not be resurrected. There’d been a death between us.

Orit for her part offered almost no information, and this conversation also died. It seemed to me that she no longer had any feelings for the half lifetime we’d spent together. I left saddened that the woman with whom I’d experienced most of the significant events of my life–until the arrival of Anna–could fade out of my existence in such a way, leaving only a big void inside me.