by John Case
Jack Wilson joined the men around her, a collection of nervous males who joked too much and avoided eye contact. He’d tried to pick them out on the plane from New York, and he’d nailed all but one. As a group, they displayed the physical and social liabilities (bad skin, obesity, a piercing giggle, a stutter) that you might expect of men who’d surfed their way into the arms of Madame Puletskaya, their Internet matchmaker. Men who were shopping for a wife and willing to pay the freight.
Wilson was odd man out. For one thing, he was conspicuously good-looking. And while he hadn’t been with a woman in years, there was a time, before his incarceration, when they had flocked to him. His easy athleticism and dark good looks made his youthful poverty ingratiating, his ratty cars adventurous, and his brilliance at math and science—which might have seemed nerdy—interesting. Thanks to Mandy, he had the cowboy manners of the Sundance Kid, all Ma’am and Sir. He shook hands with a firm grip, looked folks in the eye, and never made excuses. Sharon, his Stanford girlfriend, had guided him through the mysteries of advanced cutlery, taught him the proper way to consume soup, conveyed a knowledge of wines and the ways of a valued houseguest. In her way, she’d polished him up like a piece of rough.
Wilson studied his traveling companions. They were really rather ordinary-looking. A cynic might suppose that they were there to get laid, but that wasn’t it. Not really. There were easier and less expensive ways to do that. These men had flown halfway around the world, while submitting to the rigmarole of a staged courtship. Why? Wilson guessed that their resort to an Internet matchmaker was for much the same reason as his own. Like himself, they knew what they wanted, and whether from shyness or impatience, they were unwilling to look for a lover in the conventional ways. On the flight over, he’d met two of Madame Puletskaya’s clients. The first was a fifty-four-year-old businessman who owned a lumberyard in Michigan, had never been married, and figured, “It’s now or never.” The second was younger and suffered from an illness he didn’t identify, but which, he said, was certain to kill him. “What I really want,” he said, “is a kid. Someone to carry the name. So it isn’t like I didn’t leave nothin’ or no one behind.”
Wilson faced the same dilemma as these other men. He didn’t have the time or patience for seduction or courtship. Filling in the blanks for Madame P. suited him just fine, a choreographed courtship that required no thinking, planning, or endeavor.
1. Flowers
2. Letters
3. Chocolates
4. Lingerie
5. Telephone calls
6. Visit
7. Marriage
He understood that the “Ukraine Brides” would not be so readily available—would not have their photos on the Internet, would not be willing to leave home and family—if they were not desperate to escape a hopeless future. So it was that a beautiful and well-educated woman like Irina was, if not for sale, on offer. Not to anyone, of course. She had the power of rejection. But Wilson guessed that if push came to shove, she’d probably accept most of the Americans now standing in the lee of the formidable Madame Puletskaya.
As for Irina’s appeal, well, she had it all. Even more to the point, once she was in Nevada, she’d be in a foreign country, thousands of miles from home. Which is another way of saying she’d be totally dependent on her husband, having no friends and nowhere to turn if and when the relationship went south.
She’d be his. Really his.
“Ah, Mr. Wilson,” Madame P. oozed now, grasping his arm. “I recognize you instantly.”
Wilson glanced around at the others. “Was it my name tag?” he deadpanned, gesturing to the red-rimmed HELLO badge stuck to his lapel.
Madame Puletskaya looked alarmed until she realized this was a joke. Then she broke into peals of girlish laughter.
“This one,” she said, giving him a poke in the arm, “such a comic. He’s looking even more handsome than his photograph. I promise!”
Wilson shook his head in a self-deprecating way. Madame P. counted heads, then efficiently swapped her welcome sign for a clipboard, extracting it from a huge, red tote bag. She checked off names in a methodical way, looking back and forth from the name tags to her clipboard.
“All here!” Madame P. enthused, herding them toward the airport exit. “Now to van.” They walked out the automated front door, rolling their suitcases.
“We’re like sheep,” one of them muttered.
“Baaaaa,” said Wilson.
A nervous eruption of laughter. As if this was one of the funniest things any one of them had ever heard.
A big man, wearing a FUBU T-shirt, tossed the suitcases into the van’s rear compartment, then spoke into a cell phone. Madame P. tried to open the van’s sliding door. Wilson stepped forward to help, earning another peal of delight from Herself. “So strong, too,” she said.
Wilson rolled his eyes. “Most of us are outstanding with minivans.” More laughter. Christ, Wilson thought, it’s like I’m Chris Rock.
“Well, we’re all here—so let’s get going,” Madame P. said, suddenly in a hurry. She jammed her clipboard into her tote. Turning to the back of the van, she smiled. “Surely, you must be tired and need to nap and freshen up before this afternoon’s tea with the ladies. Two o’clock,” she said. Then she beamed a smile and wagged a finger. “Don’t be late.”
One of the oddities of the situation was that, in order to soften the commercial aspect of the arrangement, everything was done with a stultifying propriety. After months of obligatory letters, flowers, and chocolates, there would be a couple of hours of face-time—mediated by a chaperone. Then a “touristic hour” the next day, and, after that, a dinner dance.
The “romantic tourists” were booked into a second-class hotel on a noisy street just off the Vulitsa Deribasovskaya. Madame P. gave them three hours and insisted that they synchronize their watches. They might as well have been in summer camp.
The women were waiting at the appointed hour in the hotel’s threadbare breakfast room, where an effigy of high tea was to be served. Irina blushed and smiled as Wilson took her hand and kissed it. Somewhere behind him, the man with the high-pitched giggle let out a whoop.
When the lukewarm tea and stale sandwiches had been consumed, Madame P. led the couples hand in hand on a stroll down a shady promenade along the Prymorsky bulvar. Irina seemed sweet and shy, although Wilson had no illusions about his ability to judge her correctly. He bought her an ice cream, he bought her a bottled water, he bought her a fake Gucci purse from a street vendor. She loved this, stroking it like a pet. Her English was not as good as he’d hoped—they’d spoken on the telephone very briefly—but it didn’t matter. Her face was sweet with concentration as she labored to make small talk.
“I’m so happiness.”
“Happy.”
“Happy,” she repeated. “Happy to make walk with you.”
“I think you’re very brave,” he said. “To leave your country, your family…” Not that there was any mystery in it. Irina and the other women were willing to take a leap into the unknown because their prospects at home were so poor. Standards of living in the former Soviet Union were trending down for a lot of people, even as the economy grew and the “oligarchs” prospered. Life expectancy was contracting, and so was the birthrate. Social services that were formerly taken for granted had all but disappeared. Irina and her family lived in a one-bedroom apartment—parents in one room with her younger brother, Irina and her sisters in the dining area.
“Some days, I am hope they come to visit,” she said. “And I visit here, too, yes? This is possible?”
“Of course.”
Meanwhile, Madame P. and her staff were busy making complex arrangements for the women to visit the States. Among other things, this entailed applications for K-1 visas—the so-called “fiancée visas” required of people coming to America to be married.
In addition to the K-1 visas, the would-be brides would need an open-return ticket—and a traveling budget. Most of the
men had taken advantage of Madame’s boilerplate prenuptial agreement, but Wilson said that he wouldn’t require one. This was taken as a gesture of love by Irina, but of course it was nothing of the sort. In the world to come—which Wilson was beginning to think of as A.W. (or After Wilson)—a prenup would be about as useful as an umbrella in a hurricane.
Sitting on a park bench under a beech tree, bright with spring leaves, Wilson described the ranch where they would live.
“It’s paradise,” he told her. “There’s a stream where the deer come to drink, spectacular sunsets, the biggest sky you ever saw, hawks and fish, trees.”
“I am sure, very beautiful. Pictures you send, I put under my pillow. Such a big house. Is room for many children, I think.” She blushed.
Irina stroked the purse. “Is dishwasher?”
Wilson nodded. “Yes. And a big TV with a flat screen. Also…you’ll like this: I bought you a car. A convertible.”
She squealed with delight, and then her face fell. “But I am not knowing how to drive.”
“I’ll teach you. It will be fun.”
“Is new car?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No,” he told her. “You don’t want a new car. Computer goes on the fritz, and you’re outta luck. Trust me.”
She frowned. “Our home…in Nevada, yes?”
“Yes,”
“Is Las Vegas?”
He shrugged and smiled. “We’re out in the country, but…you’ll fly into Vegas, and yeah, you’ll get a chance to see it.”
She squirmed with embarrassment and then, at his prompting, confessed that she wanted to be married in the same “chapel of love” in which Britney Spears had tied the knot. “White Chapel. Is possible?”
He couldn’t help but laugh. She was sitting there beside him, with her bright eyes and rosy cheeks, so eager, almost pleading. He couldn’t help himself. He was charmed by her innocence, even if it wasn’t that, even if it was just naïveté. Her infatuation with celebrity and stardom was as natural as it was predictable. Hollywood did that to people—even, it seemed, Ukrainian waitresses who’d never seen a copy of People or Parade. So why not indulge her? He’d been thinking of a simple ceremony, but…“If that’s what you want, why not?”
She smiled her demure dimpled smile, blushing with delight. “Wait until I tell Tatiana.” She stroked the purse and turned her body toward him. Raising her chin, she kissed him on the lips. For the first time, he noticed her soft floral scent. Combined with the warmth of her breath and the look in her eyes, it excited him in a way that he hadn’t been for years. Not since they’d sent him to Supermax.
“I have something for you,” he said. “Something to put in the purse.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
He handed her an airline ticket folder, which contained a first-class round-trip ticket from Odessa to Las Vegas, via Moscow and New York. He’d already spoken to Madame P. about the date and he’d been reassured that the K-1 visa would be ready in time. The paperwork was complete. All that was necessary was for Madame P. to submit evidence that Wilson had visited Irina in person. And this was as good as done. She’d taken his picture with Irina, and copied the visa stamp in his passport that very morning. Irina would fly into Vegas on June 16. This would give them time to marry, and still be at the ranch for the summer solstice.
The date was important. In a way, it was everything.
Irina gasped when she saw the ticket. “First class!” she oohed, bringing him back to the moment. Then she saw the hundred-dollar bills that he’d put in the folder behind the ticket. “Oh Jack!” she cried, surreptitiously counting the money. She kissed him again. Tears glittered in her eyes.
“You can buy a dress—or give it to your parents. An engagement gift. Like this.” He produced a ring from the pocket of his jacket, and slid it onto her finger.
Irina was dazzled. “Oh, Jack. It’s so beautiful.”
In the morning, Madame P. bundled them aboard a “luxury coach,” which deposited them at the Nerubayske tunnels, home of the Museum of Partisan Glory. Madame P. doled out the tickets and issued a stern warning: “Stay with tour. Do not be tempted to explore on your own. Each year, persons disappear into catacombs and never return.”
It reminded Wilson of his high school field trips. Indeed, the entire “romantic tour” echoed those days, the awkward boys and giggling girls replaced by these self-conscious men and softly laughing women. Each couple was given a flashlight. Everyone held hands. Irina’s hand was small and cool in his own.
Madame P. herself acted as the tour guide, explaining that the catacombs were created by mining for limestone—which had been used to build the city of Odessa. Over the years, the network of tunnels became a smugglers’ maze.
Irina squeezed his hand.
“But here in Nerubayske,” Madame P. continued, “lived small army of brave partisans during World War number two.” Various dioramas showed what life had been like underground for the fighters who lived in the tunnels in between attacks on the railroads and other efforts to thwart the Nazi advance.
At one turn, Wilson kissed Irina. She pressed her body into his. He turned off the flashlight. He was certain every other couple was engaged in a similar activity. He guessed that Madame P. had selected this excursion, rather than a visit to a well-lit museum, precisely to enable such moments. From the sounds of things, one couple off to the right was doing more than kissing.
Irina moaned and kissed him again. Her kiss was passionate if a little practiced—not that he had any illusions about virginity or a lack of sexual activity. The women had been tested for AIDS and for other STDs, and while a fertility test was not feasible, prospective grooms were reassured by medical exams and histories that showed no obvious impediments to motherhood.
Eventually they all followed Madame’s waggling light to the exit. Irina blinked and rubbed her eyes as they emerged into the brightness of day. It reminded Wilson of stepping out of an afternoon movie. Matinee blindness.
“I am lucky one,” Irina said. “Other men not so…” She shook her head. And glowed.
Senior prom. That’s what the dinner dance resembled, more than anything else—although there were only twelve couples in attendance. A small dance floor, tables for six with stingy bouquets, a flower-bedecked arch (for pictures). The men wore dark suits with carnations in the lapel; the women, fancy dresses. A three-piece band—the vocalist sporting a bright red mullet—cranked out an eclectic mix of music.
This might have been a faux prom, but Irina was real and palpable in his arms. “You’re a good dancer,” she told him, as he guided her around the little parquet dance floor. They had suffered through the chicken dinner, the cloying dessert, the clumsy toasts offered by Madame P. Now, the slow dances outnumbered the fast ones. The lights were dimmed. Madame P. and her diminutive husband had taken a turn on the floor, to a scattering of polite applause, and then retired to a corner.
Irina looked up at Wilson, a slight sheen of perspiration on her face. The guy with the mullet began to sing the Percy Sledge classic “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Irina pressed herself into his arms. They did not so much dance, now, as sway together. “I love this song,” she said, melting into him.
“Mmmmmm.” They swayed some more.
“I want to make love with you,” she whispered.
He pulled her closer, rocking from side to side. Slowly, his eyes began to close, then suddenly blinked open when he saw the herringbone mote glimmering in his peripheral vision, and realized that he would soon be blind. If only for a little while.
“Is good idea, yes?”
Wilson nodded distractedly.
“We make sure?”
“Yeah,” Wilson said. “We should make sure.”
She sensed that something had changed, and worried that she had offended him. She drew back. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
She led him back to their table. Her dress was shredding into ribbons of color a
nd he perceived her through a glaze of light—but he could still see the sweet little furrow in her brow.
“Is talking about love?” she asked. “You don’t like?”
He made a sound that tried to be a laugh but came out as something else. “I get these headaches, sometimes—only they don’t hurt. They just…make it hard for me to see. But it goes away,” he added, a little too hurriedly.
“This is vision migraine,” she announced, pronouncing the word “meegraine.”
Wilson was astonished. “That’s right, but…how do you know that?”
“You forget, I’m in school of medicine before I must quit to work. I will see if Madame Puletskaya is permitting us to depart.”
Madame P. appeared, hovering above. To Wilson, she resembled the screaming figure in Edvard Munch’s famous painting: a white face, surrounded by radiating auras of different colors. Next to her, Madame’s husband was a sinister black figure, pulsating in the darkness. And then, it was almost as if he couldn’t see at all.
Irina clutched Wilson’s hand, speaking rapidly in Russian to their chaperone. Wilson couldn’t understand a word, but the sense of the conversation was clear from Irina’s tone, which segued from conviction to pleading, even as Madame’s morphed from rejection to surrender.
Finally, Irina led him out the door. The cool night air felt like silk against his skin. She stroked his hair as they waited for the taxi. “Is stress,” she said, in a low, firm voice. “And sometimes, there is environmental factor.”
In the hotel, she demanded the key from the desk clerk. Once in the room, she did not turn on the lights, but sat with him on the bed. She removed his jacket and tie, took off his shoes, made him lie down. He heard her go into the bathroom. For a moment, he worried that she’d turn the light on, but she didn’t. He heard the faucet run, and then she padded back to him across the floor.
“Is better, yes? The dark?”
“Yes.” He felt queasy, as he always did when one of the migraines came on, but Irina was a revelation—an angel of mercy, tender and caring.