Moonlight in Odessa

by Janet Skeslien Charles

  On my last day in the shipping office, my eyes started to water. I would miss Odessa and my job here. I would even miss David. I dabbed at my eyes and he asked, ‘What’s wrong? Do you need help? Are you having money problems?’

  His solicitude only made me sadder.

  I’d told him I was taking a leave of absence to take care of an aunt in Kiev. ‘I wrote out a list of instructions for your next secretary –’ He opened his mouth and I added, ‘Including instructions for how to proceed at the port, so that it will be smooth sailing for everyone involved.’

  He pulled five crisp hundred-dollar bills out of his wallet, saying, ‘Take this. Health care bribes in this country are insane.’

  I couldn’t believe the trajectory of our relationship. We had moved from hardcore hunter and jumpy prey, to an awkward cold war after the incident, to adversaries during the beginning of the Olga phase, and finally to a bond of friendship. I would miss him. I missed him already.

  I looked at the money, offered out of love, with no strings attached. I hugged him very hard. ‘Thank you, David. Thank you.’

  He kissed my hair and said, ‘Hurry back. I need you.’

  I refused the money – I wouldn’t need it in America. But at home, I found he had tucked the bills into my purse.

  I hugged Boba constantly, asking her again and again if I was doing the right thing. ‘Of course! Who are you going to find here?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t raise you so that you could hand-wash some man’s socks and wait on him hand and foot. Go to America! They have things we don’t, their lives are easy in a way ours will never be. Look at my hands, Dasha.’ The nails were short, the skin dry and tight; veins had popped up like mountain ranges, brown spots dotted the landscape. ‘These hands have spent a lifetime washing sheets, clothes, nappies, and menstrual rags by plunging them into pails of scalding water. I don’t want that for you. I want you to be free. Free from menial labor; free to get a good-paying job because you’re qualified, not because the boss wants to take advantage; free to live your life without having to worry about shortages, or how you are going to pay the bills.’

  I hugged her tight. ‘I don’t want you to be alone.’

  ‘I don’t mind. I’ve endured long periods of solitude. I don’t know if this man is the love of your life, but he has kind eyes and is polite. He didn’t smoke or get drunk while he was here. You’ll be better off with him than with a Ukrainian. Better off there than here. God Himself is helping you. Now go.’

  As I kneeled in front of my enormous suitcase, Boba flitted from the living room to my room, bringing books and photos. I packed my finest clothes so that I would fit in in America. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was poor. I started to worry. Would Americans accept me? Would I experience culture shock? Probably not – everything was perfect there. I would follow Jane’s advice and quietly observe. I wouldn’t judge and I would adapt. My head was deep in my suitcase and deep in thought when I heard heavy footsteps behind me. ‘I’ll take all the photos you want, but I can’t fit another book in! Babel, Pushkin, Akhmatova, and Tolstoy will do!’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t bring any books,’ a deep voice said behind me.

  I closed my eyes. How many weeks had I waited to see Vlad? I didn’t even allow myself to think about him anymore. I’d locked him out of my heart and mind. Yet at the sound of his voice, my treacherous heart opened to receive him. I didn’t turn around. I continued to rearrange my shoes and books.

  ‘It’s okay if you don’t want to look at me,’ Vlad said from the doorway. ‘I don’t want to look at myself either. I’m ashamed.’

  I didn’t move.

  ‘I have a confession – that morning after our night together, I was awake. In fact, I hadn’t slept. I was terrified, feeling emotions I’d never felt before, desiring things – a wife, a family – that I hadn’t known I’d wanted a day earlier. I want to spend my life with you. I want to marry you.’

  I righted myself and faced him. His cheekbones were what I noticed first – he’d lost weight. He took off his sunglasses. The dark circles under his eyes were almost purple. His cheeks and chin were dotted with stubble. His lips were sensual.

  ‘I, I, I. All you care about is you and what you think and feel. You’re just like every other guy I’ve ever dated: selfish, unreliable, and fickle. Where was all this months ago? Where were you?’

  ‘In Irkutsk to see my brother and check on business there. At first, I told myself I had to stay there until I felt nothing more for you. After three months, I realized my feelings would never go away. That’s why I’m here.’

  How long had I waited to hear these words? How long had I waited to see him? Even if I wanted to throw myself into his arms and accept, my pride wouldn’t allow it. Instead, I rolled my eyes and sneered, ‘You make me sound like some kind of disease. Do you really think I just sat around and moped? I’ve moved on.’

  He gestured to the clothes strewn around the room. ‘What’s all this? Where are you going?’

  How I wanted to brag that I was going to the American embassy to get my visa, then flying to San Francisco the following day. I only said, ‘To Kiev.’ I was afraid that he had ways of making me stay. And, worse, that I would be happy to.

  ‘Let me drive you.’ He crossed the room to stand before me.

  ‘I don’t need you. Please go.’ I looked out the window. I didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to weaken.

  ‘Why are you taking so many books and clothes?’ he asked, taking my hand. I jerked it away and walked to the doorway. ‘Just how long are you planning to stay?’

  ‘I’ve taken a leave of absence from work . . . to take care of my frail aunt. I don’t know how long I’ll be there.’

  ‘You don’t have any family aside from your grandmother.’

  ‘This woman was . . . a friend of my mother’s. I’ve always called her “auntie.” I need to finish packing. Please leave.’ But I stood blocking the door. A part of me didn’t want him to go. No, not just a part. All of me.

  He got down on his knees and inched towards me with a green leather box in his hand. ‘I’m prostrate before you, my beauty. I’m holding out my hand, I’m holding out my heart, I’m holding out a seven-carat diamond ring.’

  I smiled down at him. My tears fell onto his cheeks. ‘My little soul,’ he murmured as he slipped his ring onto my finger. I held up my hand; the stone sparkled. His hands rested on my hips, and my body remembered the sensations of pleasure and satiation that I’d shut out of my mind. He kissed my stomach reverently; I held his face to my belly and ran my hands through his hair. He sighed and wrapped his arms around my waist.

  Finally, he stood and took me in his arms. A gentle wisp of air blew in through the window. Just as he bent to kiss me, my nose twitched.

  Vodka.

  I took a step back. My eyes narrowed, my resolve returned. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘The boys wanted to celebrate my return to Odessa and my engagement. I was nervous about coming over here, so I had more than usual.’

  I don’t know which made me more furious – the fact that he assumed I would fall into his arms and accept his proposal or that he needed a drink (quite a few from the smell of it) to bolster his courage. My mother had loved an alcoholic who’d run off at the first sign of trouble. That wasn’t going to be me. Vlad would be a horrible husband and an even worse father. If I married him, I’d be stuck. The breeze had sent a sign that I’d have been a fool to ignore. I pulled off the ring, put it back in its box, and shut the lid on all my naïve fantasies.

  I held out the box. ‘Leave. Just leave.’

  He refused to take it. ‘What’s wrong?’

  I crossed my arms and looked away.

  ‘You’re angry because I went away?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘I understand you feel betrayed. I’ll let you go to Kiev. I love you; I can wait. I don’t blame you for being proud, or for wanting to make me walk through the hell I put you through.’
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br />   Let me go to Kiev? He was so arrogant, thinking I was just waiting for him to come back so that my world would continue to spin again. He thought I’d just give in and fall into his arms and his king-size bed. He tried to hand me the box, but I didn’t uncross my arms. He placed it in my suitcase and turned to me. He put his hands on my shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze. I pulled out of his grasp. I hated that I’d fallen for his lines yet again.

  ‘I want you to be mine. I want you to wear my ring. Dasha, swear that the minute you get back to Odessa, we’ll talk.’

  I almost laughed, so I bit my lip, then looked into his eyes and said, ‘You have my solemn word. When I return to Odessa, we’ll talk.’

  I was so happy to make this promise that I also made myself one – I’d never come back. Never. Not even if I was miserable. Then I let myself laugh, great barks of mirth. Who could be miserable in America?

  Vlad smiled back, as though my laughter somehow concerned him. He was so vain. How could I ever have cared for him? He tried to kiss me, but I countered his move so quickly that all he got was a mouthful of hair. He took my hand and kissed it. And walked out the door.

  After he left, Boba returned to the bedroom and asked, ‘Was that . . .?’

  When I nodded, she sneered, ‘Gangster. You’re better off without him!’; made the sign of the cross the Russian Orthodox way, tapping her forehead, chest, right shoulder, left shoulder; then spit three times. I handed Boba Vlad’s gift and asked her to return it to him.

  I called Uncle Vadim and asked him to take us to the train station. He loaded my suitcases in the boot. ‘You’re going to see your American cousin. I’m right. Tell me I’m right!’

  ‘She’s just going to Kiev for a while,’ Boba said, ending his speculation.

  As we pulled away from the curb, I saw a black sedan do the same. Uncle Vadim said, ‘You have an admirer. Is he the reason you’re going to . . . Amer—, uh Kiev?’

  ‘One of the reasons,’ I admitted.

  When we arrived at the train station, I could feel Vlad’s gaze as the Mercedes floated by. Uncle Vadim took my luggage and the three of us made our way to my compartment. Boba pulled a bottle of champagnskoye and plastic goblets from her purse. We clinked glasses and they both wished me luck. Uncle Vadim left to give us a moment of privacy. Boba took the green leather box out of her purse and pressed it to my palm. ‘Take it, Dasha. If you ever want to come home, you can sell it.’

  I didn’t want to tell her I wasn’t coming back, didn’t want my last moment with my Boba to be an argument, so I took the ring and slid it onto the silver chain that David had given me to celebrate our first month together, then tucked it back underneath my shirt. The diamond was worth enough that if the wrong people saw it, I would be in danger.

  ‘If you married Vlad, you’d need a bodyguard to protect that ring,’ Boba pointed out. ‘I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you so very much, my little rabbit paw, but you’re making a wise decision.’

  ‘I love you, Boba.’ Tears streamed down my face. I hugged her hard, pressed my cheek to hers. Our tears melted together. They were bitter and salty, like the Black Sea.

  Chapter 14

  To be in the sky, to fly through the clouds is a miracle. A miracle of man. We can do so many marvelous things when we try. I traveled twenty-four hours to arrive in San Francisco. From Kiev to Warsaw, from Warsaw to Atlanta, Atlanta to San Francisco. The obstacle course through the airports was nothing compared to the day of standing outside the embassy gate, waiting to receive a visa.

  Odessa is a friendly town with many cafés and colorful architecture in the city center. Strangers grumble together while waiting for the trolley bus. It’s easy to meet people because Odessans are curious and open. Like America, Odessa recently celebrated its bicentennial. On the other hand, Kiev is over a thousand years old. People are polite rather than friendly. The capital is gray and reserved, its formal architecture meant to impress and even intimidate. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to explore the stately avenues and rich museums. I had an appointment at the American Embassy.

  Once there, I waited outside the tall fence with dozens of other people. We’d been given appointments for the day but not the time, so we stood along the wall for hours until our names were called. Then we stood inside the embassy for hours. There wasn’t a single chair, not even for the pensioners. Also, there wasn’t a bathroom. I feared I would explode, but didn’t dare run to a restaurant down the block to use the ladies’ room. The official said that if we weren’t there when our names were called we’d have to make another appointment – and they were backlogged for weeks.

  I had waited so long, I feared that they’d forgotten me. But all the girls said that. You wait and wait. Stand-stood-stood. I remembered Irina, a girl with a lovely sense of humor. She’d been denied a fiancé visa because of a little joke she’d made during her interview. When the official asked her about marrying John, and she replied, ‘If I like his house, I’ll marry him.’

  The girls said that American officials had no sense of humor and no amount of goodwill could sway them. I practiced my answers to the questions they had told me they’d been asked. What day did you meet? Do your parents approve of the match? What do the two of you have in common? Where did you go for dates?

  When it was my turn, I handed over the file with the visa application, color photos, his tax information, my passport, and proof that Tristan and I knew each other: pictures of us together, copies of his phone bill to prove that he called often, and a stack of e-mails. I was led to a small room and an official gestured for me to sit.

  ‘When did you become engaged?’ she asked.

  For some reason this question fazed me. Until that moment, I hadn’t thought of myself as engaged. It seemed like a big step, somehow bigger than going to America. I was thinking in terms of months, not in terms of a lifetime. ‘We’re not exactly engaged. I mean . . . he asked, but I told him I’d have to think about it. It’s a big step.’

  She wrote furiously. Write-wrote-written. What did I say?

  ‘So you’re here to apply for a fiancé visa but you’re not engaged?’ She sounded skeptical.

  I gestured to the papers she had in front of her. ‘We’ve been corresponding for some time. It’s just that we only met for the first time a month ago when he came to Odessa. I want to get to know him more before I make a lifelong commitment.’ I continued to babble, talking more to myself than to her. Engaged. A new life. An irreversible step. What was the right thing to do? As I spoke, she smiled cynically. I could read every thought that passed through her beady little brain. And you want to get to know him better in America. Or maybe even find someone better while you’re there.

  The woman looked at the photos of Tristan and me together and asked, ‘Are you really interested in this guy or do you just want a green card?’ Under her breath she muttered, ‘Goddamn e-mail order brides.’

  But she granted the visa.

  The Warsaw airport was nothing special, but Atlanta’s was like a dream. I hadn’t realized how hazy my life in Odessa was until I entered a building where it seemed as though no one had ever smoked. Everything was so pristine and dazzling – the walls, the windows, the carpet. It was day, but the lights were on. There was art on the walls, as if it were a museum. No one pushed or shoved or grumbled. I took in the waves of English, the smiling people, the restaurants, the boutiques. I was in America now. Yes, this is what I want.

  Yes.

  I boarded the next and last plane to San Francisco.

  Though I was tired, I bounded off the plane to start my new life. While waiting for my luggage, I went to the bathroom and closed the stall door. Stall was the right word – like a horse in a barn, anyone could see me. There was an inch between the partition and the door! Also, the door didn’t go down to the floor. How odd! When I finished, I swear I heard the roar of a large jet taking off behind me. But when I turned, it was the clean water rushing into the porcelain bowl. I thought of the public to
ilets in Odessa. Even in the opera house, they were just porcelain footprints around a hole. In their finery, women had to squat like dogs.

  I moved to the sink to wash my hands, but couldn’t see how to turn on the water. I watched the woman next to me. She ran her hands under the silver faucet; water poured out. I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was starting to come out of its chignon, so I brushed it out and put it back up. A little girl looked up at me and said shyly, ‘You’re a pretty lady.’ I thanked her and handed her a sweet. She stared at it, but didn’t take it. No matter. As I ran my hands under the dryer, I couldn’t believe that I was finally here. Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. Perhaps one day I would be an American citizen.

  As I waited at the luggage carousel, I looked at the people. Tall, short, thin, plump, completely natural, totally plastic. Such a variety of faces and features. The fashion surprised me. There were a few businessmen and women in suits, but nearly everyone else wore faded jeans and scuffed tennis shoes or flip-flops. The young people wore their jeans low on their hips – underpants and folds of flesh visible. How odd that in the richest country in the world, people looked so poor and wore such ill-fitting clothing. In my black suit and heels I felt overdressed.

  I collected my suitcases and made my way out the door. Tristan was the first person I saw. I smiled tremulously, he grinned and came forward. He looked much better than when he arrived in Odessa, he was tanned and his cheeks were rosy. I was the pale, tired one. He hugged me. His hands roamed my back, my arms, my hair. Hold-held-held. Run-ran-run.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked. ‘You look tired. I hope the flights weren’t too long.’ He seemed to vibrate with excitement. I, too, was thrilled to have come so far.

  Tristan led me to his vehicle, a dusty truck. He opened the passenger door for me. ‘Do you want to stop and eat something?’