Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

Afterwards I went to the small cemetery, took the gravediggers’ hoe out of the shed and cleared away the dry overgrowth around my father’s neglected grave. When I was done, the sun had already begun to set and I sat myself down on the tombstone. It occurred to me that this was a situation in which I was supposed to talk to him. But the words didn’t come, and all I could sense was yet one more heavy stone on my chest. What could I possibly say that would please him? I was angry with myself for having such primitive thoughts but promised, him or myself, that I would return and plant flowers there. Then I rolled the great big stone inside me along with all the other parts of my body back to the car.

I returned to Tel Aviv and decided to advertise my services as a gardener, the nearest thing to being a farmer I could think of. I placed ads in a number of nearby streets, and the response was surprising. Within a short time I had about ten gardens to tend in the neighbourhood. It was work that filled my days and gave me a nice income.

I enjoyed gardening in much the same way as I had once enjoyed working in the fields. I loved going into a neglected garden, rooting out the thorns, wild grass, and plants which had once been sown with great affection and hope and had since died. I had a passion for digging up a whole area–my arms and hands quickly got used to the pick and hoe–then planning the garden and planting it. I felt strong again. Plants that took root, greening carpets of grass, and flowerbeds that produced fields of colour, filled me with contentment. In the evenings, I read. In the winter I looked out of the window at the sun setting between the clouds over the houses across the street; in spring, when the sun descended over the strip of sea visible from my balcony, I remained sitting there. In the summer I turned the balcony light on and read deep into the night. And then I went to sleep with Annushka, trembling as I imagined her in her cold damp cell, my eyes moistening.

I’d spent an entire year in the office after my return from St Petersburg and I found it hard to believe that almost two years had passed since I left it. In that time the perennials blossomed, wilted, and blossomed again. I’d uprooted seasonal flowers and planted new ones, replacing the flowers of winter with those of spring and summer’s bloom with that of autumn. My life went on and remained unchanged at one and the same time, like the ebb and flow of life in our country, a place which appeared to be stumbling from bad to worse. The launch of an unsuccessful war in Lebanon to the north, helplessness in facing up to Hamas in the south. But who was I to talk of helplessness? Who was I to say anything about weakness and failure? I was planting and uprooting flowers during that whole period, and feeling utterly redundant.

The fire within me at the time of the first Lebanon war hadn’t left even a dying ember. Being released from the Mossad meant returning to my unit in the reserves. But I was past the age for combat duty. I wasn’t called and had no desire to volunteer when war broke out there again. I didn’t even have the strength to get angry with what I was hearing on the news. And, of course, I also lacked the strength to organize another kidnapping operation at a time when the whole of the country’s attention revolved around its newly taken hostages. Almost everything took my thoughts back to St Petersburg and Anna.

The sorrow at the death in Lebanon of Uri Grossman, son of the writer David Grossman, which linked private to national grief and saddened so many people, returned me in my pain to the conversation with Anna about Grossman’s and Amos Oz’s books. When the besieged inhabitants of Gaza breached the border with Egypt, it reminded me of the many monuments erected in memory of the heroes of the Siege of Leningrad. In Victory Park, opposite my apartment, there were a number of such monuments. A leader who didn’t know history, I thought, and doesn’t understand how a siege creates myths and heroes on the opposing side, should at least know something about biology and realize how the more fertile womb slowly changes the demographic balance. ‘A hollow leadership’, David Grossman’s words echoed within me. The whole nation can hear the voices but the leaders are deaf. There is nothing new under the sun except the people who are in pain.

And every week, for two years, if his call didn’t come first, I called Gedalyahu, head of the Mossad’s unit for hostages and missing persons. I’d ask for an update, remind him of my existence, of Anna’s existence, and of the fact that I wasn’t giving up on her. Gedalyahu could only promise that ‘it’s being worked on’ and I, a stowaway in the pained and ever growing family of people whose nearest and dearest are being held or are ‘missing’, could only hope that he was telling the truth.

MY PHONE RANG early one morning. It was Gedalyahu.

Yogev, are you awake?

I am now.

So sit up and listen.

I’m listening, I said, sitting up in my bed.

Anna Petrovna.

My heart skipped a beat, all trace of sleep gone.

What’s happened to her? I asked apprehensively.

Nothing to worry about. Listen. As we hoped, the Russians offered to release her in exchange for some of their spies detained in America. In return, the Americans asked that the Russians put pressure on Hamas and are demanding that Israel increase the number of Palestinian prisoners due to be released. The prime minister agreed to the American demand and the US in turn has accepted the Russian proposal. During the night, the Russians put her on a flight from Moscow to Berlin and a number of Russian spies were flown out of New York. Understand?

I mumbled some kind of a ‘thank you’.

Don’t think that anyone’s doing you a favour here. The Russians wanted their people back and the Americans wanted us to move our ass a bit to prevent Mahmoud Abbas from being toppled and to ensure that the big deal progresses. During the last few rounds of negotiations it became clear that if we didn’t up the number of freed prisoners and the Russians failed to push Hamas nothing was going to move. So everything’s been put together now and Anna is the beneficiary. It’s true that I put in a word, perhaps even gave them the idea. But you, me and Anna are minor players in this show. This is the first part of a big game; there must be no leaks. Even when it’s all done and dusted everyone will have to keep their mouths shut. Get it?

He didn’t wait for my answer, and nor did I completely understand. I tried to assimilate the bottom line. Anna is being freed.

An hour ago, the Americans and the Red Cross transferred Anna, just as she was, to an El Al flight bound for here, he continued. You are welcome to come to the airport and take her under your protection, if you want. No one knows what to do with her. Yogev, are you with me?

I didn’t answer. A stream of tears flowed from my eyes, and a sharp pain sliced its way through my chest. I could barely breathe.

The special document given to me by the Mossad got me through passport control and I headed for the gate at which the El Al flight from Berlin was due to arrive. I waited at the top of the passenger walkway attached to the plane. The passengers began to emerge. Businessmen, a few families, people returning from holiday. Most of the travellers came out all at once and the numbers then tapered off.

An elderly-looking, thin woman dressed in tattered clothes came into sight at the far end of the corridor, stopped close to the last bend before the walkway’s connection to the terminal building, and set down a big plastic bag at her feet. She stood there looking bewildered and as her eyes searched for the exit she spotted me coming towards her.