since he’d shaved last. He already had a good start on the beard.
“I need to get a message to Chiara. I need to tell her I won’t be coming back to Umbria anytime
soon.”
“She already knows,” Shamron said. “If you want, we can bring her here to Jerusalem.”
Gabriel closed the passport and shook his head. “Someone needs to keep an eye on the Poussin. Let
her stay in Italy until I get back.”
He looked up and saw Navot gazing dubiously at him through his spindly modern eyeglasses.
“What’s your problem, Uzi?”
“Don’t tell me the great Gabriel Allon is afraid to let his beautiful young wife see him with a gray
beard.”
“Thirty pounds,” said Gabriel. “Thirty pounds.”
12 ST. PETERSBURG
Pulkovo 2, St. Petersburg’s aging international airport, had thus far been spared the wrecking ball of
progress. The cracked tarmac was dotted with forlorn-looking Soviet-era planes that seemed no longer
capable of flight, and the structure itself looked more like a factory complex or prison than a hub of
modern air travel. Gabriel entered the terminal under the bleary-eyed gaze of a boy militiaman and was
pointed toward passport control by an information hostess who seemed annoyed by his presence. After
being formally admitted into Russia with only a slight delay, he made his way to baggage claim, where he
waited the statutory hour for his luggage. Lifting the bag from the clattering carousel, he noticed the zipper
was halfway open. He extended the handle and made his way to the men’s room, where he was nearly
overcome by a cloud of cigarette smoke. Though smoking was strictly forbidden throughout the terminal,
Russians apparently did not feel the ban extended to the toilets.
A watcher was standing outside when Gabriel emerged; they walked together to the arrivals hall,
where Gabriel was accosted by a large Russian woman wearing a red shirt with UNESCO across her
ample breast. She adhered a name tag to his lapel and directed him to a bus waiting outside in the traffic
circle. The interior, already crowded with delegates, looked like a miniature version of the General
Assembly. Gabriel nodded to a pair of Saudis as he climbed aboard and received only a blank stare in
return. He found an unoccupied seat near the rear of the coach, next to a sullen Norwegian who wasted
little time before launching into a quiet tirade about Israel ’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinians.
Gabriel listened patiently to the diplomat’s remarks, then offered a few carefully rendered counterpoints.
By the time the bus was rolling up the traffic-choked Moskovsky Prospekt toward the heart of the city, the
Norwegian declared he now had a better understanding of the Israeli predicament. They exchanged cards
and promised to continue the discussion over dinner the next time Natan Golani was in Oslo.
A Cuban zealot on the other side of the aisle attempted to continue the debate but was mercifully
interrupted by the Russian woman in the red UNESCO shirt, who was now standing at the front of the bus,
microphone in hand, playing the role of tour guide. Without the slightest trace of irony in her amplified
voice, she pointed out the landmarks along the wide boulevard: the soaring statue of Lenin, with his hand
extended, as though he were forever attempting to hail a cab; the stirring monuments to the Great Patriotic
War; the towering temples of Soviet central planning and control. She ignored the dilapidated office
buildings, the Brezhnev-era apartment blocks collapsing under their own weight, and the storefront shops
now brimming with consumer goods the Soviet state could never provide. These were the relics of the
grand folly the Soviets had attempted to foist on the rest of the world. Now, in the minds of the New
Russians, the murderous crimes of the Bolsheviks were but a way station on the road to an era of Russian
greatness. The gulags, the cruelty, the untold millions who were starved to death or “repressed”-they
were only unpleasant details. No one had ever been called to account for his actions. No one was ever
punished for his sins.
The prolonged ugliness of the Moskovsky Prospekt finally gave way to the imported European
elegance of the city center. First stop was the Astoria Hotel, headquarters of First World delegations.
Luggage in hand, Natan Golani filed into the ornate lobby along with his new comrades in culture and
joined the lengthy queue at the check-in counter. Though capitalism had taken Russia by storm, the concept
of customer service had not. Gabriel stood in line for twenty minutes before finally being processed with
Soviet warmth by a flaxen-haired woman who made no attempt to conceal her loathing of him. Refusing
an indifferent offer of assistance from a bellman, he carried his own bags to his room. He didn’t bother
searching it; he was playing by the Moscow Rules now. Assume every room is bugged and every
telephone call monitored. Assume every person you encounter is under opposition control. And don’t look
back. You are never completely alone.
And so Natan Golani attached his laptop computer to the complimentary high-speed data port and
read his e-mail, knowing full well that the spies of the FSB were reading it, too. And he called his ersatz
wife in Tel Aviv and listened dutifully while she complained about her ersatz mother, knowing full well
the FSB was enduring the same tedious monologue. And having dispensed with his affairs, both personal
and professional, he changed into casual clothing and plunged into the soft Leningrad evening. He dined
surprisingly well at an Italian restaurant next door at the Angleterre and later was tailed by two FSB
watchers, whom he nicknamed Igor and Natasha, as he strolled the Neva embankment through the endless
dusk of the white nights. In Palace Square, he paused to gaze at a wedding party drinking champagne at the
foot of the Alexander Column, and for a moment he allowed himselfto think that perhaps it was better to
forget the past after all. Then he turned away and started back to the Astoria, with Igor and Natasha
trailing silently after him through the midnight sun.
The following morning Natan Golani threw himself into the business of the conference with the
determination of a man with much to accomplish in very little time. He was seated at his assigned place in
the grand hall of the Marble Palace when the conference commenced and remained there, translation
headphones in place, long after many of the other delegates wisely decided that the real business of the
gathering was being conducted in the bars of the Western hotels. He did the working lunches and made the
rounds of the afternoon cocktail receptions. He did the endless dinners and never once bowed out of the
evening entertainment. He spoke French to the French, German to the Germans, Italian to the Italians, and
passable Spanish to the many delegations from Latin America. He rubbed shoulders with the Saudis and
the Syrians and even managed a polite conversation with an Iranian about the madness of Holocaust
denial. He reached an agreement, in principle, for an Israeli chamber orchestra to tour sub-Saharan Africa
and arranged for a group of Maori drummers from New Zealand to visit Israel. He could be combative
and conciliatory in the span of a few moments. He spoke of new solutions to old problems. He said Israel
was determined to build bridges rather than fences. All that was needed, he said to anyone who would
listen, was a man of courage on the other side.
He mounted the dais in the grand hall of the Marble Palace at the end of the second day’s session
and, as Uzi Navot had forecast, many of the delegates immediately walked out. Those who remained
found the speech quite unlike anything they had ever heard from an Israeli representative before. The chief
of UNESCO declared it “a clarion call for a new paradigm in the Middle East.” The French delegate
referred to Monsieur Golani as “a true man of culture and the arts.” Everyone in attendance agreed that a
new wind seemed to be blowing from the Judean Hills.
There was no such wind blowing, however, from the headquarters of the FSB. Their break-in artists
searched his hotel room each time he left, and their watchers followed him wherever he went. During the
final gala at the Mariinsky Theatre, an attractive female agent flirted shamelessly with him and invited
him back to her apartment for an evening of sexual compromise. He politely declined and left the
Mariinsky with no company other than Igor and Natasha, who were by now too bored to even bother
concealing their presence.
It being his final night in St. Petersburg, he decided to climb the winding steps to the top of St.
Isaac’s golden dome. The parapet was empty except for a pair of German girls, who were standing at the
balustrade, gazing out at the sweeping view of the city. One of the girls handed him a camera and posed
dramatically while he snapped her picture. She then thanked him profusely and told him that Olga
Sukhova had agreed to attend the embassy dinner. When he returned to his hotel room, he found the
message light winking on his telephone. It was the Israeli ambassador, insisting that he come to Moscow.
“You have to see the place to believe it, Natan! Billionaires, dirty bankers, and gangsters, all swimming
in a sea of oil, caviar, and vodka! We’re having a dinner party Thursday night-just a few brave souls
who’ve had the chutzpah to challenge the regime. And don’t
think
about trying to say no, because I’ve
already arranged it with your minister.”
He erased the message, then dialed Tel Aviv and informed his ersatz wife that he would be staying
in Russia longer than expected. She berated him for several minutes, then slammed down the phone in
disgust. Gabriel held the receiver to his ear a moment longer and imagined the FSB listeners having a
good laugh at his expense.
13 MOSCOW
On Moscow ’s Tverskaya Street, the flashy foreign cars of the newly rich jockeyed for position with
the boxy Ladas and Zhigulis of the still deprived. The Kremlin’s Trinity Tower was nearly lost in a gauzy
shroud of exhaust fumes, its famous red star looking sadly like just another advertisement for an imported
luxury good. In the bar of the Savoy Hotel, the sharp boys and their bodyguards were drinking cold beer
instead of vodka. Their black Bentleys and Range Rovers waited just outside the entrance, engines
running for a quick getaway. Conservation of fuel was hardly a priority in Russia these days. Petrol, like
nearly everything else, was in plentiful supply.
At 7:30 P.M., Gabriel came down to the lobby dressed in a dark suit and diplomatic silver tie.
Stepping from the entrance, he scanned the faces behind the wheels of the parked cars before heading
down the hill to the Teatralnyy Prospekt. Atop a low hill loomed the hulking yellow fortress of Lubyanka,
headquarters of the FSB. In its shadow was a row of exclusive Western designer boutiques worthy of
Rodeo Drive or Madison Avenue. Gabriel could not help but marvel at the striking juxtaposition, even if
it was only a bit of pantomime for the pair of watchers who had left the comfort of their air-conditioned
car and were now trailing him on foot.
He consulted a hotel street map-needlessly, because his route was well planned in advance-and
made his way to a large open-air esplanade at the foot of the Kremlin walls. Passing a row of kiosks
selling everything from Soviet hockey jerseys to busts of the murderers Lenin and Stalin, he turned to the
left and entered Red Square. The last of the day’s pilgrims stood outside the entrance of Lenin’s Tomb,
sipping Coca-Cola and fanning themselves with tourist brochures and guides to Moscow nightlife. He
wondered what drew them here. Was it misplaced faith? Nostalgia for a simpler time? Or did they come
merely for morbid reasons? To judge for themselves whether the figure beneath the glass was real or
more worthy of a wax museum?
He crossed the square toward the candy-cane domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral, then followed the
eastern wall of the Kremlin down to the Moscow River. On the opposite bank, at Serafimovicha Street 2,
stood the infamous House on the Embankment, the colossal apartment block built by Stalin in 1931 as an
exclusive residence for the most elite members of the
nomenklatura
. During the height of the Great
Terror, 766 residents, or one-third of its total population, had been murdered, and those “privileged”
enough to reside in the house lived in constant fear of the knock at the door. Despite its bloody history,
many of the old Soviet elite and their children still lived in the building, and flats now sold for millions of
dollars. Little of the exterior had changed except for the roof, which was now crowned by a Stalin-sized
revolving advertisement for Mercedes-Benz. The Nazis may have failed in their bid to capture Moscow,