Moonlight in Odessa

by Janet Skeslien Charles

  I wasn’t worried about going to work the next day. I knew that Harmon wouldn’t mention his daughter or the painting – he hated confrontation more than my Boba hated dust. But I also knew that my days were numbered and that I had probably started the countdown myself with that stupid stunt.

  For the first time since the day after the incident, he arrived before me. He’d even made coffee. I appreciated this gesture, especially since I knew that of the two, I was the one who should have made the peace offering. He put the carafe on the tray along with cups, spoons, Scottish shortbread, and the bowl of sugar and carried it to the boardroom. He sat at the head of the table, I on his right side.

  I poured the coffee and waited for him to speak. ‘I don’t blame you for telling Melinda that Olga and I are engaged. I’m sorry for not telling you. Maybe you knew before I did myself.’

  ‘I saw the ring.’

  This is what I’d wanted all along: Harmon attached to some other woman. Then why was I miserable? Because of what Olga had said? Because she’d never been my friend? Because I was jealous? Jealous that she was getting married and I wasn’t?

  ‘Thank you for introducing me to Olga. I care for her and her three children.’ He looked into his white porcelain cup, imported all the way from France. ‘I haven’t always made things easy for you. Especially at first. I’m sorry. For everything.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I never expected an apology from him. Never expected him to have real feelings for Olga.

  He continued, ‘I want you to know, about what I said . . .’ Sleeping with me is the best part of the job. The words hung in the air. ‘That’s not me. I’ve never said anything like that before . . . It’s just my first night in Odessa, I met this guy Skelton and he said . . .’

  I groaned. Not Skelton. Anyone but him.

  It all became clear. Odessa is like a village. Everyone knows everyone. And every village has an idiot. Ours is Skelton, a loud redhead, red-faced lout, the owner of a Tex-Mex restaurant. Anyone with a little money went there – missionaries, mafia, sailors, teenage children of New Russians. I swear he opened the restaurant just so he could hit on the waitresses and female customers. Friday was Miss Tex-Mex night. He actually held a pageant – contestants were whoever happened to be eating there. Skelton was a Texan with a skewed vision of the former Soviet Union. True, women slept with him because they hoped he would marry them. But that happens everywhere.

  ‘How could you have listened to Skelton?’ I yelled.

  ‘I know. I don’t know. I met him my first night at the casino. He seemed nice. Like he knew what was going on.’

  Casino! That was just an Odessan euphemism for whorehouse.

  I could just imagine the scene. The two men, drunk, watching strippers gyrate to throbbing Russian rock. Harmon, the fragile newcomer, stunned by the foreignness of Odessa, unable to read the street signs, speak the language, decipher a menu, order a drink. Charismatic Skelton, the old pro, only too happy to relay his vast experience, to give warped advice, to order Harmon plenty to drink, to give him the wrong impression about Odessa and her people. I could just see him telling Harmon that all the women were easy, that they wanted to mix business and pleasure. That this was a place you could get exactly what you wanted without even trying.

  ‘Anyway, he told me –’

  ‘I can’t believe you listened to Skelton,’ I said. ‘He’s an idiot. You’re an idiot!’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Being under the influence of Skelton isn’t an excuse. A man in your position . . . what you did . . .’ No one can understand what it feels like, what it does to you when you’re scared to go to work when you’re scared to quit. Why try to explain? I shook my head.

  ‘I realize that. I’m not trying to make excuses. I’m trying to say that I was wrong. Period. After what happened, when I hurt you, I thought the best way to prove I was sorry was to back off entirely. That’s why I stayed out of the office or came in with your friend Olga. To show you were safe. So that you would feel comfortable at work.’

  ‘You mean you started dating Olga for me?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ He stared out the window, as if the answers were out there on dusty Soviet Union Street. ‘I thought it was what you wanted, since you brought her here. But now . . .’

  I didn’t want to hear how much he loved her. ‘Congratulations. My best wishes to you both,’ I said. The words scorched my mouth. He looked up from his coffee. I continued, ‘I’m sorry, too. For my behavior towards your daughter.’

  ‘I’ll have to go to Haifa to sort things out,’ he acknowledged.

  ‘I already booked the ticket.’

  ‘I can always count on you.’ When he gently grasped my hand, it felt as though someone squeezed my heart.

  Chapter 8

  It was a day of unexpected arrivals. Bright and early, Harmon’s daughter walked through the door and stood directly in front of my desk. To my mind, she looked like a pudgy punk, all glower and sneer in black baggy clothes with green hair that stood on end. I didn’t appreciate the fact that she referred to Odessa as the ‘slum’ where her father worked. Odessa is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Everyone knows that. She came to visit her father for a week every few months and was nasty to everyone in her path.

  ‘Aren’t you surprised to see me?’ she asked.

  ‘Not particularly.’ I went back to my logistics report.

  ‘Go get me an espresso,’ she said.

  Another one who wanted me to get her coffee.

  ‘The kitchen’s down the hall,’ I said. ‘Help yourself.’

  ‘I said, go get me an espresso.’

  The director stood in the doorway and watched Melinda. After the strange phone conversation in which he had asked about Harmon, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him. Still, I was. In Hebrew, which sounds guttural and rough during a scolding, Mr. Kessler said, ‘I don’t like how you’re speaking to Daria. If you say one more word, I’ll have security remove you.’

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again, looking like a fat Black Sea carp.

  ‘Wait for your father in his office,’ he dismissed her.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Coffee?’ God knows I needed one.

  He nodded.

  When I returned with the tray, he was looking at the canvases in the boardroom. ‘This is truly the ugliest excuse for art I’ve ever seen. Whose idea was it to put up all this crap?’

  Crap. The perfect word. I nodded, happy that we were in perfect agreement.

  ‘Mr. Harmon is just doing his part to support local artists,’ I murmured.

  He sat down and I pulled our paperwork out of the cabinet.

  ‘The downside of having three sets of books in different languages is that it’s time-consuming; the upside is that your common thug or government employee can’t read Hebrew,’ I told him with a smile.

  ‘People have told me the mafia is worse here than in New York. You haven’t had any problems?’

  Personally or professionally? Here or at Soviet Unions?

  ‘No. The payments aren’t so high and their protection keeps the skinheads away. Since they made it known that we’re under their roof, the office hasn’t received as many threats and we haven’t found any more bombs on the premises. I hate to say it, but it’s money well spent.’

  He glanced at his watch and cleared his throat. ‘I know this is a delicate subject, but we need to talk about David.’

  I hoped that he would arrive; already he was an hour late. And again I had to cover for him. I started to grind my dentures, which only served to remind me how much I owed him. And I didn’t like to owe anyone. Thus, I chose my words carefully. ‘It’s true . . . that . . . he’s been somewhat . . . distracted. But as a newly engaged man, can we blame him?’

  I could see the informal announcement, and my defense of Harmon, surprised the director. Perhaps the nuptial news worked in Harmon’s favor. Who doesn’t want to believe in happy-ever-after? Perhaps th
e director remembered me in an altogether different position concerning Harmon, and thought that if I, of all people, stood up for him, then he was defensible.

  Harmon and Olga came in together as usual. When she saw that I wasn’t at my desk, she said, ‘Daria bad worker. I good worker. She bad. She go, I stay.’

  I rolled my eyes. Despite daily English lessons, Olga’s language skills remained as crude as Soviet architecture. But as long as she had a limited vocabulary, she couldn’t come straight out and ask for my job.

  Completely oblivious to Mr. Kessler and me, the happy couple went into Harmon’s office, where Melinda was cooling her cloven hooves.

  ‘Papa, how could you marry this whore?’

  I was glad that Olga couldn’t understand what was being said about her. Harmon’s daughter had called me a whore plenty of times and it was never a pleasure. She must have thrown herself at him because there was a dull thump and a gasp from Harmon. I couldn’t blame Melinda for wanting her father all to herself.

  ‘I suppose it’s too late to escape,’ the director noted wryly and closed the door of the boardroom, which did almost nothing to muffle the scene.

  ‘I told you over the phone, honey, I care about Olga,’ Harmon said.

  ‘How could you give this cow a bigger engagement ring than Mummy’s? You’re just a dirty old man,’ Melinda sobbed.

  ‘Olga makes me happy. Don’t you want me to be happy?’

  ‘Noooooo,’ she wailed.

  What surprised me most during this altercation was that Olga remained silent. I expected her to start wailing as well. Instead, she said, ‘I go now. You talk.’

  Her grace only reminded me that my role in this little play was contemptible.

  ‘How long do you think we’ll be trapped in here?’ Mr. Kessler asked.

  I shrugged. He could leave whenever he wanted, I was the one stuck here. My skin so hot, my longing so fierce, my days so long. I hunched by the window, my forehead melting the glass. I was weary. Weary of poverty. Weary of intrigue. Weary of manipulation. Weary of working two jobs and never seeing Boba. Weary of constantly having to remind myself that I was one of the lucky people, with a nice flat and a good paying job. Because lately I didn’t feel lucky. Not at all. Gray raindrops on the windowpane. I wanted someone to lean on, someone strong to shelter me. I wanted to live in a place where the laws were not made by the mafia, where policemen, schoolteachers, and doctors were not corrupt, where people treated each other with dignity and respect. Could a place like that exist?

  According to Tristan in California, it did. His letters convinced me that his world was a kinder, gentler one. ‘On my way to work this morning, I got a flat tire. The first car that drove by stopped to help. Its things like this that make me happy to live where I live. But I bet folks are nice where you live, too. People are people, right?

  ‘This weekend I went to Yosemite National Park. Have I told you about it? It holds the largest living things – Sequoia trees. There so wide that long ago a man cut a large hole at the base so that cars could drive thru it. There so tall that they surely must touch the heavens.’ I loved this image of a tree so tall that its branches tickle God’s feet. But I didn’t believe that a car could drive through a tree though – that’s just silly.

  At first, what he wrote was lighthearted and even superficial. But as time went on, the tone changed, ‘It was a awesome day in Yosemite. The fresh smell of leaves, the light filtering thru the trees, but all I could think of was you. You mean so much to me.

  ‘Im forty. My friends have all hooked up. They have families and kids to go home to. Like them, I want someone to share my life with . . .’

  Tristan was becoming dear to me. I wrote that I looked forward to reading his letters, that they made going to the office bearable and that it seemed like we wanted the same things: love, companionship, a family. I asked if he wanted children. After I hit the send button, I berated myself and tried to get the letter back. But it was gone. He probably thought I was too forward. I’d probably never hear from him again. Still, I checked my e-mail account every ninety seconds, hoping. I realized only an obsessional fiend would do this, yet I couldn’t stop myself. And I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. When his response came, relief washed through me.

  Dear Daria,

  I would love to have a family, to have children, especially a little girl who looks like you.

  All my love,

  Tristan

  For the first time, I printed his letter. And caressed the words.

  Meanwhile, Vlad became more and more persistent. He had flowers delivered to the office. Harmon said they gave him hay fever, so I offered them to Vita and Vera. He sent chocolates. I slipped them to a pensioner begging in the street. Then jewelry. But as I looked in the mirror with the five-carat emerald around my neck, I reminded myself that mobsters proffered jewels the way normal people handed out breath mints. I gave the ruby bracelet to Valentina, the emerald to Boba.

  He tucked scraps of paper under my keyboard and in between file folders. I found them at unexpected moments during the day. Quotes from Pushkin.

  I remember the sea before a storm:

  How I envied the waves,

  Running in turbulent succession

  With love to lie at her feet!

  How I wished then with the waves

  To touch those dear feet with my lips.

  I kept his notes under my pillow.

  Tristan wrote, ‘The most important thing to me is having a wife and children. More then anything, I want a family. I don’t need tons a money or a fancy car. My dream is simple – I want to love and be loved by my wife and children. Is it too early to talk like this? Should I of waited?’ I wrote that I shared his dream. I wanted a home of my own and children – what woman doesn’t? I hesitated to hit the send button, thinking of Vlad. Although I’d never admit it aloud, I liked him. I really liked him. He was smart and sexy and I felt so . . . alive in his presence. ‘Twitterpated,’ Jane would say. But Vlad disappeared for long periods at a time, and his money was as dirty as the streets of Odessa. He certainly wasn’t father material. And if I wanted a life that didn’t include bodyguards and body bags, Tristan, my Californian teacher, was the more intelligent choice.

  I hit send.

  Not that body bags didn’t have their appeal, I thought as I sat at my desk and prepared our quarterly report, half-listening to Harmon corner colleagues in the corridor to coerce them into buying Olga’s delusions of art. Sometimes, it was so tempting to tell Vlad everything and let him deal with it. I imagined Olga’s blue-tinted skin, eyes wide open, faint bruises around her throat where she’d been strangled, a bloody dent in Harmon’s head where he’d been hit with a shovel. Who could say that these images didn’t appeal? But I never said anything about work to Vlad, even if some days I was sorely tempted. And never more than today.

  When Harmon walked back into the office after dealing with Melinda, Olga, and Mr. Kessler, he said, ‘We need to talk.’

  Are there any four words that strike more fear into the heart?

  I folded my hands and waited.

  ‘Daria, there’s no easy way to say this. Olga wants your job.’

  He closed his eyes, perhaps waiting for my wrath to rain down upon his wavy brown hair.

  ‘I’m willing to negotiate,’ I said and moved into the boardroom. I’d known this day would come and had prepared for it. Harmon followed me and sat in his black leather chair at the head of the table. I sat at the opposite end.

  ‘When I told Kessler that you were interested in getting your master’s, he authorized me to give you six months’ pay as a bonus.’

  I smiled sweetly. Of course, he’d made it sound like leaving was my idea. If Harmon quoted six months, Mr. Kessler had undoubtedly said nine. I’d find out.

  ‘Six weeks,’ I replied. ‘I give you six weeks with that woman in the office. If you survive, and are actually happy with her work, I’ll give you my “bonus.” Call it a wedding present
from your matchmaker.’

  ‘Fine!’ he said gleefully, mentally putting the money in his wallet.

  ‘If after those six weeks you find that you can’t do without me, I’ll return. You’ll double my salary. And ban her from the office.’

  ‘Double or nothing? I can live with that,’ he said and stuck out his hand.

  I held his hand in mine and asked, ‘So quickly? You can barely open your e-mail account without me. Who will deal with the Stanislavskis? Who will wipe the pornography sites off your computer history before the executives from Haifa inspect our office?’

  ‘That was you?’ he asked, sounding impressed for once.

  ‘What did you think happened when you couldn’t find your “Busty Gals” link? Of course it was me. What if she sees Vlad Stanislavski and decides to trade you in for a younger model?’

  ‘She’d never do that,’ he sputtered. ‘She’s with me.’

  I’d raised just enough doubt. ‘You don’t know her like I do,’ I said bitterly.

  He looked at me, still holding my hand in his. Did he want to say more? We stood like that, for what seemed like minutes. I looked into his eyes, felt his hand warm mine, and I wanted to say something. I wanted to tell him the truth about her. It felt like it could be the right moment. But I was afraid that he wouldn’t believe me. Or that he’d be angry. So I just said, ‘I’ll take a six-week leave of absence and then we’ll see.’

  ‘You’re pretty damn sure of yourself,’ he grumbled, releasing my hand.

  ‘You need me.’ I would never admit that perhaps, just perhaps, I needed him, too.

  ‘Not anymore, I have Olga.’

  Was it just wishful thinking, or did his voice warble at this last sentence?

  ‘Do you want me to train her?’

  ‘No, she said you’ve helped her enough.’

  I looked at Harmon for a long moment. ‘Goodbye, then.’