I stared at him.
‘What?’ he said. ‘Are you worried about the language barrier?’
I was worried about the dead barrier. How to explain one parent was dead and buried, the other dead to Boba and me? He was always complaining about his meddling, strict parents. He didn’t know how lucky he was. And I didn’t want him feeling sorry for me. I raised my chin a notch and said, ‘I’ll invite Boba, my grandmother.’
‘You just did the thing.’
‘What thing?’
‘With your chin.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You have an inner conversation with yourself. I know because your mouth moves slightly and sometimes you even mutter. You resolve something, lift your chin, then announce whatever it is you decided.’
I scowled. Clearly, we spent too much time together. An offense is the only defense. That’s what we say in Odessa.
‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘You clear your throat about fifty times when you’re nervous. You hide in your office when Vlad comes.’
‘I don’t hide. I’m busy.’
‘Busy hiding.’
‘Why should I deal with him when you’re so much better at it?’
‘You think a well-placed compliment will get you out of trouble.’
‘The only person I ever compliment is you. You’re just about the only good thing about this town.’
Infidel! ‘Odessa is the best city in the world and don’t you forget it!’
He put up his hands as if to ward off my blows. ‘Don’t hang me for treason. Just invite your grandmother to lunch tomorrow.’
Natalia Temofeevna. He tried to pronounce it five times before asking me to write it down. I did, but he stumbled so many times I said, ‘Just call her Boba. Everyone does.’
Of course this wasn’t true. We only let foreigners use the simplest version of our names.
Boba looked around our office just trying to find something wrong. She couldn’t help it, it was her eagle eye. But there was no dust anywhere and the floors were immaculate. She nodded, which was quite a compliment.
‘Is she your mother’s mother or father’s mother?’
‘Mother’s.’
He proffered his arm and Boba placed her hand in its curve. He escorted her to the boardroom, where she marveled at the feast. The last time I’d seen him make such an effort was when Mr. Kessler had come. Lobster from Maine. Caviar from the Danube. Champagne from France. Harmon had finally learned to drink like an Odessan. Maybe in France they choose white wine for this, red for that. In Odessa, the pop of the cork serves as the unofficial call to the table. Champagnskoye goes with everything – that’s what we say in Odessa.
‘Such an effort he’s made for you,’ Boba murmured.
‘For you, Boba.’
‘Such a handsome man . . .’
‘Mixing work and pleasure is like mixing pickles and ice cream. Would you have dated your boss Anatoly Pavlovich?’
‘I might have if he looked like that.’
Harmon looked down at his notebook where his Russian teacher had written some phrases phonetically. ‘The weather is fine,’ he said.
‘Of course it is,’ Boba responded. ‘We’re in Odessa.’
He raised an eyebrow and looked at me. ‘I see where you get it.’
‘Get what?’ I asked.
He turned to Boba. ‘Do you like the champagne?’
‘Bitter.’ Gorko. She frowned. Believe me, we Odessans are experts on bitterness. ‘Next time, get Odessan champagnskoye. It’s light and sweet.’
It seemed he couldn’t do anything right. The butter was full of chemicals. Boba could taste them on her tongue. Get our all-natural butter from the bazaar, she advised him. How can you let him buy such things? she asked me. She told him the lobster was bland, the vegetables undercooked.
Harmon and I took the plates to the kitchen and waited for the coffee to brew.
‘She hates everything,’ he whispered glumly.
‘No,’ I corrected. ‘She loves it. And she likes you. She wouldn’t bother to pick everything apart if she didn’t. It’s when she’s polite that you have to worry. She thinks you’ve spent too much money on her. She just wants you to be less decadent next time.’
‘Really?’
‘Absolutno! The more critical we are, the more we like you. Watch out for people who are too nice – they’re not being sincere.’ I thought of Olga and hoped he picked up on my subtle warning.
‘You might be the most sincere person I know,’ he said dryly.
After coffee, Boba stood and said, ‘I’d better let you two get back to work. Thank you for such a fine meal.’
Harmon escorted her to the door and I followed behind them. Boba squinted in the sunlight.
‘It was such a pleasure to meet you. Next time, bring your daughter,’ he said in hesitant Russian.
Boba glanced at me. I shook my head, but she told him anyway. ‘Daughter – dead.’
His jaw dropped. Boba patted his cheek sympathetically and walked down Soviet Army Street.
‘When?’
‘When I was ten.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
My chin jutted out. ‘Not your business.’
He sighed. ‘Why don’t you go home?’ He dismissed me as effectively as I had him. Then he softened the blow. ‘Wouldn’t you like to spend the rest of the afternoon with Boba?’
‘I’ll clean up the boardroom.’
‘Suit yourself,’ he replied.
‘I always do.’
‘Cheeky girl.’
He turned to walk down the hall.
I grabbed his arm. ‘Wait. Thank you. For everything you did . . . for Boba.’
He looked at my hand on his sleeve. ‘Pleasure,’ he said automatically. ‘Anything . . . for Boba.’
Three days before I was supposed to meet Tristan, Jane phoned and I told her about my plan. A big mistake. You should never tell anyone anything.
‘Are you nuts?’ I heard a scream so loud that everyone from Montana to Odessa must have heard it, too. ‘He could be a sex fiend or an axe murderer! He could be a serial inviter of girls to foreign hotels! He could be a pedophile! He could be married! What do you know about this guy?’
‘He’s a teacher.’
‘Whatever!’ she shrieked. ‘Get out of it! Get out of it now!’
Jane never reacted like this. Usually, she was level-headed and full of good humor. But perhaps she was right. She was two years older than me and she had traveled. More than that, she was American and knew American men. Perhaps he preyed on innocent foreign women. Perhaps he was like Milla in Donetsk and had written to ten girls simultaneously. I couldn’t decide to go to, or not to go. But I couldn’t bring myself to call Tristan to tell him no. So I didn’t call at all. Like the days after my encounter with Vlad, like a slow leak, days dripped by.
Splut.
Splut.
Splut.
Shut-shut-shut. Since I’d already asked for the vacation days, I stayed home. When I felt regret about not seeing Budapest, I replayed Jane’s words. Axe murder. Serial inviter of girls to hotels. Pedophile. Married. I ripped the ticket into pieces until it resembled sad confetti. He’d seemed so sincere, how could I have been so wrong? I looked at my watch. If I’d gone, we would have been having dinner. Talking and laughing about my jitters. He would have taken my hand and reassured me. I would have smiled shyly. His gaze would have caressed mine?. . .
But Jane was right. Tristan, if indeed that was his name, was surely a slick con man who used dumb girls like me for sex.
It hurt to think this – he’d seemed genuine. But then, so had Vlad. Tristan had never been my boyfriend. Like Will from Albuquerque. I had never seen him or touched him. He wasn’t real. Then why did it hurt so much? Perhaps I was still tender from my experience with Vlad. I thought about how I’d allowed myself to be duped. Again. How could I have considered flying off to a foreign country to meet some man I didn’t know? Only a fool would
do such a thing. Hadn’t I learned?
The ringing phone cut through my contemplation. ‘Allo,’ I answered.
In the softest, saddest voice I had ever heard, Tristan asked, ‘Where are you? Why didn’t you come?’
I knew then that he was a decent guy, a bit awkward, a bit rough around the edges, just looking for love. I sat down in the black easy chair David had given me when he’d remodeled his apartment.
‘Why did you change your mind?’
How could I tell him the truth – that my friend had convinced me that he was a sex fiend? That I’d ripped up the ticket? I couldn’t bear to hurt him more than I already had.
‘Tristan,’ I croaked into the phone. ‘My grandmother is ill. Terribly ill. I can’t leave her. I tried to call, but you’d already left.’
I waited for him to answer, but I only heard static.
‘You believe me, don’t you?’ I asked. There was a little Siren in me, too.
I heard a sniffle.
‘I don’t know what to think,’ he finally answered in a voice as small as a grain of sand.
‘I wanted to come. You believe me, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do,’ he sniffled again. ‘I’m just so relieved. Not that your grandma’s sick, but I thought you changed your mind.’
‘Never,’ I said with conviction. We spoke for a few more minutes and I told him that tomorrow I would call him from the office. Too late, I realized it was incongruous to go from my grandmother’s death bed back to work in the space of a day. Luckily, my limitless effrontery was met with limitless gullibility. Sometimes we want so desperately to believe that we swallow lies without chewing them over. Boba had often told me that my father wanted to see me. I never questioned her; I wanted to believe.
Afterward, I sat near the phone in a daze, feeling horrible about what I’d done. I tried to blame Jane for talking me out of meeting Tristan, but could not bring myself to be angry with her. She’d tried to protect me. I had only myself to blame. How could I let a man fly to Europe then stand him up? The following day, I called and apologized repeatedly. He told me ‘not to sweat it,’ that he would come directly to Odessa next time. He spoke with conviction and sounded happy with this decision, but I was frightened.
Boba started planning what she would cook, a sure sign she was looking forward to his visit. I had conflicted feelings. I wanted to see him, but worried, too. What if I got all excited again and then he just disappeared like Will? What if he used me and disappeared like Vlad? What if he didn’t like me and disappeared like my father? I wanted to ask Jane’s advice but feared she would talk me out of meeting him again.
Jane was skeptical of Russian–American joint ventures. To earn money for college, she’d translated letters for a fifty-year-old farmer addicted to Moscow women. He corresponded with a dozen Muscovites, met a few, then returned home with a young bride. The first one told Jane she couldn’t stand the wide-open space of the stark Montanan steppe. When she returned to Russia, the farmer mourned for two months, then got right back on the horse and rode it straight to Moscow. It is true that we’d already had a few return customers at our socials. Valentina told me she’d thought of a new ad campaign – if your first marriage with a girl doesn’t work out, the second one is free.
Both Valentina and Boba pushed me towards Tristan. (Foreign is better.)
I hoped that things would work out with him, that he would love me, that he would want me to go to California, the Golden State, that we would have a family and be happy. But in my life, how many things had turned out as I had hoped?
Chapter 12
Tristan flew home early. He said he couldn’t enjoy Budapest without me. He confessed that it was the first time he had ever taken a plane, the first time he had ever visited a foreign country. I felt even worse about standing him up. I knew I’d have to learn to trust him.
‘I am so sorry.’ I typed out the words twenty times.
‘Please don’t feel bad. Your grandma was sick. It wasn’t your fault. I wish I could of come to visit you. I could of helped take care of her. Is she feeling better? Are you?’
‘Much better,’ I wrote. This was true. I was confident that he was a good man and that our meeting was fate.
Three weeks later, on the day of his arrival, I did something I’d never done before. I called David and pleaded sick. He told me to get some rest. It’s true I had been so nervous that I hadn’t slept for two days. Choose-chose-chosen.
I stood in front of the mirror and pulled my hair into a chignon as I did for work. Spinster. I took the pins out and brushed my hair. Become-became-become. In my black suit, I looked like I was going to a business meeting. I put on a short skirt, and a gauzy peasant blouse. My hand trembled as I put on my mascara and I covered my lids with specks of black. I had never been so nervous in my entire life. Begin-began-begun.
What if things didn’t work out?
What if they did?
‘Dasha, Dasha,’ my Boba said. ‘There’s no reason to be worried. He’s just one man. There are millions. You’ll find the right one.’
I nodded and walked past the wishing well, past the wisps of wisteria that clung to the building, out onto the street. Rather than taking the bus, I hailed what we Odessans call an ‘informal taxi’ and negotiated a fair fare to and from the airport. When the driver asked, ‘Picking someone up?’ I told the fib I’d prepared for David, in case he saw me with Tristan. ‘An American cousin who wants to get in touch with his roots.’
‘They want to visit, but they never want to stay,’ he said bitterly.
I regretted the lie. There’s something about taxi drivers, these men and women who know everything about the city, who see you at your best – on the way to a wedding or the opera, and at your worst – after a disastrous date, that makes you want to confide in them. The silence left me alone, uncomfortable with my thoughts and fears, so I asked, ‘What’s your other job?’
‘I’m a surgeon.’
Doctors make a pittance. Everyone has to moonlight – the main trade and the spare – to keep our noses above water as the tide of poverty sweeps Ukraine. Why else would I be thinking of marrying a total stranger? I longed for stability. Although I earned a good salary today, I could be unemployed tomorrow – without the dole or redundancy packages offered in the West. The firm I worked for was under constant scrutiny from the government, who wanted more taxes. Despite the ‘rent’ we paid, in the last six months alone, there had been three acts of anti-Semitism. And no arrests or investigation since no one had been hurt. Of course, the real reason was that we were an Israeli firm and no one in Odessa cared about Jews. If I’d been the branch manager, I would have pulled out. I didn’t know why David stayed. Even I wanted to go. That’s why I was on the way to the airport. Tristan was my ticket out.
While the driver parked, I went to see if the flight was on time. And waited for the man who’d flown halfway around the world to walk through the door. As people filed out, I stood on my toes and tried to catch a glimpse of his brown hair and blue eyes. When I saw him, I noticed strands of white hair. Clearly, the photos he’d sent of himself had been taken ten years ago, maybe more. I knew he’d be tired from such long flights. I knew his age. I just didn’t expect him to look so . . . old. And he wore tennis shoes and jeans. I hadn’t imagined him in a tuxedo, but assumed he’d make an effort for our first meeting.
If I went by Tristan’s reaction when he saw me, I stunned. ‘Glad. To meet you. Dora. Wow. To finally see you. Wow. To be here. Wow. You sure are pretty.’
‘Daria. It’s nice to meet you.’ I was disappointed. I knew he was older, but he wasn’t what I expected . . . Boba would have urged me to look for something positive. He had soft blue eyes and a tentative smile. He flew all the way from America to be with me. He’s a real man. A decent man. Not a player.
Tristan stared at me, seemingly at a loss for words. I didn’t know what to say either. We’d written so many letters, but now that we were standing face to face, w
e were speechless. It was easier to face a computer screen than a real person. I should have rehearsed for this moment. Swim-swam-swum. Dive-dove . . . doven? Do-did-done.
The driver said, ‘I better grab this guy’s luggage. He’s so taken with you, he’s liable to forget it.’
Tristan couldn’t stop gaping. On the way to the car, his hand came towards me, as though he wanted to hold mine or place his palm on the small of my back. It wavered near my body for a minute, then returned inertly to his side. When the driver opened the boot of the Lada, he said, ‘The American doesn’t look at you like he’s your cousin.’
I smiled. ‘We’re a very close family.’
The driver chuckled. Odessans are used to being lied to. But we appreciate it when the liar takes the time to make up a story. I worried that Tristan would find it odd to ride with a stranger, so I introduced the driver as my uncle. He laughed, slapped his thigh and said, ‘Uncle Vadim!’ We were unofficial passengers in an unofficial taxi. So the police wouldn’t suspect we were paying customers, I sat in the front and put Tristan in the back.
The airport was close to Odessa, so we went from the country to the city in ten minutes. We sped around gigantic pot holes, down cobblestone streets, past the concrete Soviet high rises of the modern section, to the heart of the city. I asked Tristan what he thought of the city as we drove through Odessa.
‘It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know there were, uh, so many fancy buildings. I mean, I know you sent me all those beautiful photos. Uh. You know, what I’m trying to say is that it’s even better in person . . .’
I smiled, encouraged by his words; he continued to tell me his impressions. It was interesting to listen to a native speaker. His pronunciation was so novel. Nothing became ‘nuthin’. The sound ‘uh’ was sprinkled onto sentences like cinnamon flecks on Boba’s apple tart.
When the driver opened the boot to get Tristan’s luggage, he handed me a piece of paper with his number and the word takci on it. ‘Don’t be shy about calling Uncle Vadim if you need a lift. And I expect an invite to the wedding,’ he said in Russian. I blushed. ‘Goodbye and good luck,’ he said to Tristan in English.
Moonlight in Odessa Page 18