A fascinating, if sometimes flawed, novel explores the psychological challenges of being an undercover operative in an enemy country.
By JANICE WEIZMANIsraeli espionage(photo credit: REUTERS,JPOST STAFF)
IT’S A moment that immigrants to Israel know well. You’re speaking with a friend or neighbor, and the subject of military service comes up. “My daughter [or boyfriend, cousin, friend, neighbor, etc.] is in Intelligence,” they say, and you nod knowingly – an acknowledgment that no further details will be offered, though this could mean anything from clerical work to actual espionage. Israel, uniquely, is a country in which inspired, creative spying is both integral and crucial to its existence. In contrast to the suave glamor of say, James Bond, or Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the legend of the Mossad is made of gritty patriotism and ideological commitment.And yet, as Yiftach Atir tells us in his recently translated spy novel, “The English Teacher,” there must be something more. “No one volunteers to go through what a solitary operative goes through only because he’s a Zionist…There’s something special in him besides the ability to assume another persona and undertake operations. He needs us. That’s the point…Such people have difficulty in identifying what it is they’re looking for, they only know there’s another reality that they can belong to, that it’s possible to go to distant places and do what’s forbidden to others, things you only dream about. There’s something intoxicating in our work; suddenly it’s permissible to lie, you can put on an act, and everything is sanctioned by the state.”Atir, a retired brigadier general in the Mossad who participated, as a young commando officer, in covert operations including the Entebbe rescue mission, and the holder of a graduate degree in Hebrew literature, is the author of three spy novels. In this book, his third and most acclaimed work and the first to be translated into English, he explores the psychological challenges of being an undercover operative in an enemy country, and the emotional toll of living a double life.When the story opens, Rachel Goldschmitt, a British-born former intelligence operative, has disappeared. Her firsthand experience and insider knowledge about the Mossad render her a “loose cannon,” whom the Mossad needs to find before she can do any damage.Ehud, her handler 15 years earlier when she was on an undercover mission in an unnamed Arab country, is called out of retirement to help locate Rachel and hopefully, if it isn’t too late, bring her home. To complicate matters, Ehud reveals that he had been in love with her, predictable both as a result of the closeness of their professional relationship and as a plot development.The story unfolds as Ehud and Joe, Ehud’s old mentor, attempt to second-guess Rachel’s plans. As he describes her espionage training and preparation for her cover as Rachel Brooks, an English teacher of Canadian descent, Atir portrays the immense psychological resources needed to live within two very different identities. “I explained to her that she didn’t only need to know everything about the personality she was adopting,” Ehud recalls.“She had to project it too, to create a situation where someone looking at her will automatically understand who she is.”As a spy, Rachel is an unqualified success.Ehud details her participation in complex missions involving assassinations, clandestine photographing of sensitive places and material, and intelligence gathering. But he also describes the challenges of living under an assumed identity, for whom every conversation is a disguise and every relationship is based on lies. “Think of her loneliness,” Ehud tells Joe, “loneliness in the middle of a crowd. The loneliness of someone leading a double life, hiding her objectives, and her motives and the things most important to her. Think of the longing for warmth, love, someone to listen to you, to want you.”Understood this way, it is not surprising when Rachel “Brooks” enters into a relationship with Rashid, one of her students. Ehud describes the growing difficulty in negotiating his relationship with his female operative. “And what could I say to her? That I didn’t want to hear about him? That what she does with her free time is her business? She and I knew that wasn’t correct. An undercover operative has no free time, and there’s nothing that’s of no significance… Everyone makes connections. It’s almost inhuman to forbid them, unnecessary too… Maybe the very declaration that something is forbidden is an important way to emphasize it. So it will be in their head all the time.Who doesn’t lie? Who doesn’t sin?” As Ehud has suspected all along, Rachel’s disappearance is in fact a story of unfinished business, and the novel’s ending seems to imply that the connections we make, even in an enemy state and under an assumed identity, can shape and direct the outcomes of our entire lives.Though the novel offers both a fascinating look into the training and daily life of an undercover spy, and an intriguing tale of love and betrayal, it is not without flaws. The quality of the translation is at times problematic, and its attempt to be both an espionage thriller and a heartfelt psychological drama render it a hybrid that challenges the conventions of both genres.These issues notwithstanding, “The English Teacher” offers an unusually authentic glimpse into a demanding and perilous profession. Its activities, though largely unknown and unacknowledged, influence world events and, occasionally, shape the course of history.The English Teacher: A NovelYiftach ReicherAtir (Translated by Philip Simpson)Penguin272 pages;$12.91
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