A Spy in Exile

by Jonathan de Shalit

  “Exactly. Initially, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to, and afterward I refrained from doing so because it was already too late by then; and honestly, no one has the right to poke his or her nose into my bedroom. Martina, obviously, was unaware of the work I do. I told her I was a customs official, and she simply sighed and said: ‘It’s not enough for me to be in love with an old man, but he also has to be a pencil pusher. A civil servant. Oh, well, I’m a little screwed up, that’s just me.’ She could be so charming—even when she was teasing me. She was a serious young woman, but she was also blessed with a childlike mischievousness that made me feel young again. I was head-over-heels in love, Ya’ara. I hadn’t felt like that in a very long time.”

  “So what happened, Matthias? Why do you keep talking in the past tense?”

  Matthias gestured to the bartender to refill their glasses.

  “Because it all ended out of the blue,” he said. “One evening, just a month ago, we were both sitting in the library and reading, and she turned to look at me with tears in her eyes. I noticed that she wasn’t wiping them away, was letting them trickle down her cheeks, and then she said: ‘Matthias, I’m going, I’m leaving you.’ I didn’t understand what she was saying, I thought she was talking about an upcoming trip, I really didn’t grasp what was happening. ‘I’m leaving, Matthias. I have to, I’ve got no choice.’ ‘Why, sweetheart?’ I asked. ‘What’s happened? We love one another, we feel good together.’ And then something about her appeared to stiffen and harden, something in her posture, in the look in her eyes. Like she had sealed herself shut in an instant. ‘None of that matters,’ she replied. ‘It counts for nothing. It means nothing.’

  “Right then, Ya’ara, she seemed to be an entirely different person. She went into the bedroom and emerged again with a sports bag full of her things. I was still sitting there, feeling like some invisible force had pinned me to my armchair. She gave me a kiss here, under my eye, and walked out of the house. She doesn’t have a car, she always got around by bicycle or by train. She used to say it was greener, good for the environment. But that night I saw that a car came to get her. I spotted it from the window but I was too much in shock to catch its license plate number. I went back to my armchair and sat, surrounded by my books, until morning came. I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Did you look for her?”

  “Yes, I went to the university. I asked about her. They, too, hadn’t seen her over the past few days. And when I went back at a later stage to ask again, they informed me that she hadn’t been there in several weeks. And then I ran her name through the office computer.”

  “You mean you hadn’t ever run a check on her? You let her move in without ever making sure she was who she said she was?”

  “You know something, Ya’ara? It simply didn’t occur to me to do that. She worked her way into my heart, and I didn’t want to put her or our relationship under a microscope. I wanted to shake off my natural suspiciousness and all the caution I’d been trained to exercise. And it seemed like the right thing to do, because we simply fulfilled one another, or so I thought at least. She told me that her parents were dead, and you know I come from a small family. You must understand, despite the age difference, we were well suited. I trusted her. I didn’t want to contaminate our connection by running a check through the BND computers.

  “But when I did, I learned that we had nothing on her. Nothing at all. She had never interested us. We didn’t have a dossier on her. And truthfully? It’s not surprising. There are eighty million Germans out there. How many of them have dossiers? We’re not the Stasi. We’re not even the security service. So I wasn’t surprised to learn that she didn’t appear in our records. I was simply longing for her. And that longing accompanied me day after day. All day long. It didn’t disappear or diminish. I looked for her because if I could see her name on my computer screen, it would be a little like seeing her again. Like our connection hadn’t been severed completely. Do you understand?”

  Ya’ara nodded.

  “But her name wasn’t there. My computer screen remained blank. No search results. I ran a check through the security service’s database, too. A good friend there allowed me to use his computer. It goes against regulations, and requires coordination and forms and approvals, but he’s a friend, and we do those kinds of things sometimes. Nothing. She hadn’t strayed into the sights of our friends in Cologne either. Believe me, purely out of longing I began browsing through the Interior Ministry’s system. Just for a chance to see her picture from her ID card, her passport. And there I found her. She looked a little confused in her passport pictures—no makeup, like in a mug shot, coarse and hard. The pictures there show not even the hint of a smile, just a blank stare.

  “I continued my search through the Interior Ministry database. I found the records relating to her parents, Angela and Rolfe. Rolfe Müller, Angela Rohl. Angela Rohl. The name Rohl sounded familiar to me. A simple web search. Angela Rohl. Turns out that Angela Rohl was the daughter of Klaus Reiner Rohl, the left-wing journalist and publisher. And Gertrude Meyer. I was familiar with the name Rohl, and I was surprised that Martina had never mentioned her grandfather. I assumed she must have had her reasons. I didn’t recognize the name Gertrude Meyer, but still it troubled me. I checked online and then through the archives of Die Welt. Gertrude Meyer never actually graced the headlines, but she did earn a certain degree of infamy—she was the Baader-Meinhof Gang’s finance chief. When the authorities flushed out Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, they apprehended Gertrude, too. She was slapped with a six-year prison sentence and served four and a half years behind bars. According to an article I read about her marriage, she did express remorse for her actions, albeit halfheartedly, but that’s no mitigation for her crimes.

  “Are you getting what I’m telling you?” he snapped, “I, the head of the Hamburg station of the Federal Intelligence Service, fell head over heels in love with the granddaughter of a member of the most brutal and notorious band of terrorists in the history of the Federal Republic of West Germany.”

  “It doesn’t mean a thing, Matthias,” Ya’ara said. “Why should you care? She is her own person, she’s not her grandmother. Martina is two generations away from the whole story. How could it have any significance?”

  “It’s like, it’s like you falling in love with the grandson of George Habash’s finance chief. Or your son hooking up with the daughter of whatshisname, Rabin’s assassin . . .”

  “Yigal Amir.”

  “Yes, Yigal Amir.” The name of Rabin’s killer sounded odd in Matthias’s German accent.

  “It’s not the same, and even if it is, it doesn’t matter. What does it matter if Martina is the granddaughter of a terrorist, or not even a terrorist, the woman who managed the finances of a terror group? It’s like being an accountant. And it doesn’t reflect badly on her. Or on you. Maybe she didn’t tell you because she was ashamed of them.”

  “You know that’s not true. But it’s not just that. Her disappearance is troubling. My senses went to sleep somewhat when I was with her, but I’m wide awake now. And my intuition or my instincts . . . or, perhaps, some small detail I picked up on, is telling me that something is very wrong. This is not merely the bruised ego of an aging man. I smell danger.”

  “Matthias, isn’t this the time to hang your head and humbly report the whole story to Berlin and let them figure out what’s going on?”

  “Theoretically, yes. In keeping with procedures, that would be the right thing to do. That’s what I’d expect from others. But you have to understand, Ya’ara, it’s not something I can do. If there’s nothing to it, I don’t want them saying that lovesick old Matthias has started to see demons in places where demons have never been.”

  Ya’ara muttered something in Hebrew about blowing things out of proportion, and Matthias frowned in response. “Forget it, it’s nothing,” Ya’ara said. “Go on.”

  “And if there is anything to what I’m saying,” he cont
inued, “it would spell the end for me. I got caught up like a fool in something I should never have begun in the first place. Not only did I fall pathetically in love, but out of all the young girls in the world, I had to choose the granddaughter of a dedicated member of the most despicable group of terrorists to operate on German soil since World War II. And, worse, I have no idea what’s going on, despite the fact that she was telling me the history of her family for nights on end in front of a blazing fire. Someone could easily come along and put two and two together and suspect me of cooperating with her.”

  Ya’ara grimaced at him. From her vantage point, she could see that he hadn’t thought this through to the bottom yet. If she had gotten this as a case, it wouldn’t take her long to wonder whether Matthias, stuck in a dead-end job, felt rejected by those in the inner circle and, when this beautiful young woman came along, allowed her to twist him around her little finger and make him do things he shouldn’t do.

  “Ya’ara,” he said, “Do you think there is a chance that she’s a Soviet honey pot? Do you think the SVR would mount an operation to recruit a frustrated officer from the German intelligence service . . . ?”

  Ya’ara shook her head and took his hand. “Matthias, Matthias, I think you’ve gone way too far now. There’s nothing here, other than merely a gut feeling, and other than the fact that out of all the young and beautiful women in Germany you really did unknowingly choose the one with a rather dubious family heritage. Apart from that, there’s nothing to support your gut feeling. We have to get our hands on the facts. Without the facts, we’re just going to make ourselves paranoid. A type of paranoia spiced with melancholy. A surefire recipe for going off the rails.”

  Matthias liked the fact that Ya’ara had started to speak in the plural. He knew she was on his side and already hooked, ready to help him. For the first time in weeks he knew he wasn’t alone in his predicament.

  “Look,” she said to him, “I can be in Germany with a small team by next week. We’ll find her. She hasn’t disappeared off the face of the earth. And as soon as we know where she is, we’ll begin looking into what she is doing. But Germany is your territory and you have to find us a lead to follow. You said you have a good friend in the security service. They can locate cellular telephones, pinpoint where computers connect to the internet, track credit cards, review the records of the border control system and airline passenger lists. Enlist his help. Ask him to run all those checks discreetly, without opening an official case file for now. Tell him you’re acting on a hunch, that you don’t want to stir things up without anything to support your notion. He’ll help you. First things first, though, good friends help each other out. They hold back their questions for another time. And sometimes we don’t ask at all.”

  She chose to return to the Dan Carmel via the road that ran alongside the sea rather than drive through the city’s downtown area. They made their way there in silence. The road wound steeply and, looking in the rearview mirror, she could see the old buildings turning ever smaller. Twisted pine trees painted the streets a dark green, and she thought about how close they were to the place where she had grown up. Close and far away, too. When she stopped outside the hotel, she stepped out of the car to say good-bye. There was a sudden sense of awkwardness between them. The next steps were clearly going to alter their relationship. Ya’ara pulled herself together first. She smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll take care of it. Everyone goes through times like this. It’s your turn now. And you’re not alone. When lone wolves band together, nothing can stand in their way. We’re already winning, even if it doesn’t look like it now.” There had always been something very tenderhearted about him, but now she was seeing Matthias in a moment of helplessness for the very first time. And witnessing him like that only made her even fonder of him. Sometimes the flaws and shortcomings are actually the things we love the most, she thought, somewhat to her surprise, as she made her way back to her cadets.

  10

  “You’re out of your mind,” Aslan said.

  ”Maybe,” Ya’ara responded. “But we have no alternative.”

  “Taking six cadets whose names we barely know and throwing them headfirst into an affair that may be connected to terrorism or Russian espionage, with the German intelligence service unknowingly providing you with the leads to follow, leads that the Germans themselves may subsequently take an interest in and then very soon be onto you . . .” Aslan sighed. “Ya’ara, creative thinking is not another word for suicide.”

  “Look, Aslan, this is an amazing opportunity. We’re not in the charity business here. Regardless of my fondness for Matthias, you and I have already agreed to throw them into the deep end and to conduct the training overseas from day one. So this is it—the deep end.”

  “Yes, the deep end . . . but there’s a difference between conducting the training gradually, in a structured manner, with drills, drills, and more drills, and safety margins that allow for error, and an orderly process of debriefing and drawing conclusions and learning lessons, and what you’re proposing now. You’re taking a group of skilled individuals—some of whom, by the way, are pretty deeply scarred—and you’re asking them to fly an F-16 before they’ve even learned the fundamental principles of flight.”

  “That’s not entirely accurate. We’ll be there, and Matthias will be somewhere in the background, too. That’s three professionals. You and I will oversee their activities, provide real-time instruction, carry out debriefings on street corners or cafés, and send them out to press ahead with their missions and tasks with the two of us right there, with them. Paradoxically, it gives us something of an advantage, too. They’re so green, they truly have no clue what they’re doing, so they won’t be operating conventionally. If anyone’s on the lookout, they may not even notice them at all, since they won’t be following all the familiar patterns.”

  “Amateurism is never an advantage. It doesn’t do the job.”

  “I know, but there is something to it nevertheless. We’re breaking the mold. That’s why we’re setting up this unit. To be different. Besides, we need to begin establishing ties with people like Matthias—outsiders—who can serve as our angels in the future. Our secret guardians. And despite what I said earlier, Matthias is a friend. Period. Let’s try for a chance to do something out of friendship rather than just our own self-interest.”

  “The only good thing that could possibly come out of this is for this entire crazy project of ours to blow up in our faces at the very start. And then, with time off for good behavior, we may be released sooner than expected.”

  “Don’t be so morbid. It doesn’t suit you.”

  “I’m always up for trying new things,” Aslan said, his eyes glinting with a smile. “How can I put it? I’m game for anything humanly possible.” Ya’ara looked at him in surprise, but the narrowed eyes that looked back at her suggested that he could be teasing her. She relaxed.

  11

  “Ya’ara’s news, that we’re leaving for Germany this Thursday evening already, is somewhat disconcerting. Disconcerting, but exciting, too. But perhaps that’s why we’re all here.” Batsheva Kessler cast a serious gaze over her new group of friends. She appeared confident, like someone in control of her audience. “I’m probably the responsible adult among us. You’re the young and wild ones who’ve gathered on a mountaintop in Western Galilee on a rainy winter’s day,” she said, looking at them, “whereas I, in all likelihood, have come from somewhere a little different.” She took a deep breath. “So let me begin with the age thing. I’m forty-four years old. And although I sometimes feel half that, there’s no denying your real age when you’re a grandmother,” she added with a smile. The other members of the group in the circle around her looked genuinely stunned. “A grandmother?” one of the young men whispered particularly loudly. “I don’t believe it,” Nufar said. “It’s not possible.”

  “I married at the age of twenty, immediately after completing my national service, and Neria, my eldest,
became a father at the age of twenty-two. That’s just the way we do things.”

  “How many children do you have?”

  “Just three. Neria, the eldest, who served in the Seventh Armored Brigade Reconnaissance Company and is now studying history at university. Yishai, who’s coming to the end of his service as a combat engineer. Assaf, you were an officer in the Combat Engineering Corps, right? And my baby, Michal, who’s no longer a baby at all. She’s in eleventh grade now. They can all look after themselves, and besides, their father is always around. I’ll always be their mother. Nothing could ever change that. But right now, I’m allowing myself to think and also to say out loud: I deserve it. I deserve the chance to live for myself again, too, and for what I believe in. I can’t carry on being there for everyone all the time. I’ve always been a good girl. A model of stability since the age of twenty. I studied law, but also married, and fell pregnant, and took care of our apartment, and made sure I got on both with my parents and with his, and with him, too, and fell pregnant again.

  “Four years at university, and with a big tummy for almost two of them. Just try to imagine that. And then an internship, and opening my own law office, and Friday night dinners, and Saturday lunches, and Passover meals for more than thirty people since the age of twenty-five, and the intensity of the work involved in insurance claims. From claims filed by Holocaust survivors through to damages claims. When it comes to claims relating to the Holocaust, things can get very complicated. Emotionally charged. I became profoundly involved in that particular area of work. I was drawn to it as one is drawn to forbidden fruit. It haunted me at night, but I pressed on. And just so you know, behind damages claims—and those relating to medical negligence in particular—lies an entire world of suffering and hardship. And the work trips abroad were always brief, hurried, with always a million things to deal with on my return, more cases and more claims and more court hearings, and getting things ready for Shabbat, and always night flights so I could land at Ben-Gurion Airport in the early hours of the morning and be home in time to get Michal ready for school, with a stolen hour at the Louvre or Steidel or MOMA, just to feel human for a moment before returning to the rat race. So I said to Ya’ara: Count me in. No matter what they say. We have a country to fight for and I have a role to play. Secret agent, of course. But if possible, with a large pair of sunglasses and a silver-plated pistol in my handbag.”