“Yes, so many years have gone by. I have to tell you, so you know—my father passed away a long time ago, in 1998.” Silence. “He loved you until the day he died.”
“Igor’s dead?”
“Sadly, yes. My father passed away.”
“It’s complicated, it’s all too complicated.”
“I…” Ya’ara hesitated, “if you’re willing, I’d like to see you. I know it’s been a long time, and perhaps it was wrong of me not to write to you when my father died. But you weren’t in touch with each other at the time, and I didn’t know exactly what to do. Mostly I was embarrassed. But I’ve been going through several of my father’s old things recently, and I’ll be traveling soon to Moscow for work, and in my hand right now is a final letter my father wrote to you, right before he died, and I thought to myself that these kinds of things don’t happen by chance and perhaps we could see each other.”
“Russia is a big country, my dear, and I live so far away from Moscow. I won’t be able to come meet you there. It’s far, the train fare is expensive, and times aren’t that easy right now…”
“No, no, I thought I’d come to you. I’ll take two or three days off after the work in Moscow, and we can meet. There must be a small hotel where you are.”
“There is one hotel, but I live a little out of town. There’s only a small hostel in our suburb, but anyway, you can stay with me, I have an empty room. I mean, it’s full of stuff I’ve collected, you know, we collect and collect things… I’ll make room for you. You’ll stay with me, Galinka.”
30
BEN GURION INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, FEBRUARY 2013
“You know that with your real passport and the story you told Katrina Geifman, you’re going to be in trouble in the event of an investigation,” Aslan said to Ya’ara. They were sitting at the Segafredo café, close to their boarding gate at Ben Gurion International Airport. They still had an hour before their flight to Moscow was due to take off, and they, one with a cappuccino and the other a double espresso, and a bottle of mineral water, were going over the cover stories, and what they planned to say on entering Russia, and then in Dimitrovgrad, and what would happen if someone were to waylay them, Katrina and Ya’ara, in the very midst of their meeting. And who they were to each other, Aslan and Ya’ara, and what they were doing there together.
“After all, she knows you as Galina Abramovich, and your passport says Ya’ara Stein. How are you going to explain that?”
“The chances of someone taking any interest in the two of us together are slim.”
“Don’t forget that she, based on our best assessments, is a KGB operative.”
“She was. In the past. We believe after all that she’s no longer a part of the organization. She’s old, and she probably broke every rule in their book. She lives in a shithole in the middle of nowhere. Do you really think there’s any KGB in that miserable town, a thousand kilometers east of Moscow?”
“It’s 966.”
“What?”
“It’s 966 kilometers. Besides, it’s no longer the KGB. They’re the FSB these days, as you know. And the Federal Security Service has offices everywhere throughout the empire. And with a nuclear research institute in the city, I’m not so sure they view Dimitrovgrad as an insignificant town. But, yes, I agree that it isn’t very likely at all that they’re still keeping an eye on Katrina Geifman. Nevertheless, if she knows you as Galina and you’re required by an FSB official or a policeman sent by the FSB to present your passport, bearing the name Ya’ara Stein, in her presence, what do you say?”
“You know. The usual story. In the event of any confrontation, I’ll say that it’s all simply a misunderstanding. I’m not Galina. What are you talking about? I’m a friend of Galina, well, an acquaintance, to be more precise. When Galina heard about my upcoming trip to Russia, she asked if I’d contact someone on her behalf, a woman by the name of Katrina Geifman, who her father had known and been in contact with many years ago. I’m simply delivering an old letter and maybe a small memento. I was in Moscow for the purpose of gathering material for my final film school project, and stopped off in Dimitrovgrad on my way to Kazan. There I’m hoping to find the gravesite of my great-grandmother, my father’s mother’s mother. And if Katrina believed otherwise, if she mistakenly thought that I’m Galina Abramovich, then either she heard wrong, or misunderstood me, or it’s simply wishful thinking on her part.”
“So who am I then?” Aslan asked.
“You? What kind of question is that? You’re my lover,” Ya’ara responded, holding his hand for a moment.
31
RUSSIA, FEBRUARY 2013
She hadn’t properly considered the awful cold of Russia in February. Ya’ara had worked before in cold places, in Sweden, in Finland, but somehow she avoided making the required mental connection between the fragrant, colorful, and wonderfully pleasing winter of Israel’s coastal plain and the intense, unyielding cold that greeted them the moment they stepped out of the plane at the airport in Moscow. The years spent at university, without her having to be constantly primed to take off on a trip somewhere, must have had an effect, and her negligence, her failure to take her destination into account, exacted an immediate price. She knew, of course, that she was going somewhere cold, but she didn’t remember just how big a difference there is between minus three degrees and minus thirteen. Traversing the short distance between the aircraft’s stairs and the wide passenger bus, diesel fumes spewing from its exhaust, was enough for her to feel the cold biting and stinging and encapsulating her body through her thin sweater and the seams of her leather jacket, and her jeans turned stiff, frozen, and coarse, scratching her skin, cooling the flow of blood through her thighs. Aslan, for his part, appeared pleased with himself. He tightened his long woolen coat around his body and with a triumphant smile pulled out a woolen hat, put it on, and pulled it down, his ears protected, his forehead covered, his teeth white and his eyes sparkling. Within seconds, however, he could feel the cold penetrating the wool and seeping inward, into his head and his body. He knew that fifteen minutes on lookout or manning a security position on the street and he wouldn’t be able to see a thing, that all he’d be able to do would be to try to cope with the ever-increasing discomfort, before the cold turned into a burning and painful sensation that prevented him from acting as required. He pressed up against Ya’ara, in the bus that was now filled with passengers, and said: “We didn’t take cold like this into account. I’m such an idiot. Me, with two treks in the Himalayas under my belt. With thousands of pairs of thermal underwear. Which I left at home, of course. The first thing we’re going to do is get ourselves properly equipped. And dress in the clothes that the people who live here wear.” And she responded, her scent still fresh and pleasant despite having slept cramped up in the narrow aircraft seat: “Yes, my darling. It’s about time you bought your love a fur coat.”
32
Katrina, my love,
Katrina. This is my final letter to you. Six years have gone by since my last one. I didn’t think I’d ever write to you again. I asked you back then, my dearest—pleaded almost—to be mine. To decide that you are able to take the bold leap of faith with me, to walk away from your previous life, from your husband whom you no longer love, and to live with me. Your letter was so cold, cold and bleak. Even the very letters that made up the words appeared to disfavor me. And the words themselves were like a sword through my heart. You told me you would never see me again. And that I should cease writing to you.