Moonlight in Odessa

by Janet Skeslien Charles

  Often, when we finished speaking, plump tears rolled down my cheeks, a bitter cocktail of love, longing, and frustration. More and more, I felt guilty for leaving her. She had done everything for me, and now when it was my turn to help her, I had abandoned her. The horrible truth was that I hadn’t truly appreciated her and all that she had done for me until I left Odessa. She had been the peg on which I hung my jacket when I arrived home from work.

  After my mother died, our life revolved around me. What I did at school. Who my best friend was that week. What I should study. What I would like for dinner. Me, me, me. I didn’t know anything about her. It wasn’t until I was in America that I started to ask questions. Now that I couldn’t see her anymore, I longed to know everything about her.

  It wasn’t easy. The phone lines in Ukraine were so bad, I could barely hear her. Sometimes, because of crossed wires or the party-line system in Odessa, Boba and I could hear other people conversing. Their voices were louder than my Boba’s.

  ‘Whoever you are, hang up, please; I’m trying to talk to my babushka.’

  ‘You hang up,’ the woman replied.

  ‘Please, I’m calling long-distance from America.’

  ‘Oy, from Ameeericca,’ she sneered. ‘Then you should be the one to call back. I’m the one still stuck in this hole.’ She and her friend cackled and continued to shout.

  When dealing with crazies, you have to be crazier. That’s what we say in Odessa. I screamed until those cows got off the line.

  Tristan gestured for me to put the phone down. ‘What is wrong with you? Hang up!’

  I turned my back on him. ‘Tell me something interesting, Boba.’

  ‘Your Mr. Harmon came to visit.’

  ‘What?’ I screeched. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

  ‘He brought mangoes.’

  ‘Mangoes? What was he even doing there?’

  ‘He comes from time to time. Says he wants to make sure I’m doing all right. Sat at the table and peeled the mangoes like a pro.’ She sounded impressed. ‘The most delicious food I’ve ever eaten.’

  For some reason, this news made me want to cry. Not this kindness, but the fact that someone else was giving treats and attention to Boba. I should have been there. It should have been me bringing home mangoes.

  ‘What did he say?’ I asked.

  ‘His Russian isn’t bad.’

  ‘Boba,’ I warned.

  ‘He just asked if I needed – kkkkkkkk’ Static.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He just asked where you – kkkkkkkk’ Static.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He wanted the same thing he always wants – your number in Kiev.’

  I knew she would never give him any information about me, though I appreciated that he’d tried.

  She spoke again, but her words were swallowed by static.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I haven’t received a phone bill since you left. Isn’t that strange?’

  ‘Boba, I can barely hear you. Are you all right?’

  Each week, it seemed like Boba’s voice grew softer and softer. ‘Don’t worry about me, little rabbit paw,’ she said, but I knew that she must be tired. To bathe, we heated water on the stove in a large metal pail then carried it to the bathroom and dumped it in the tub. I knew she couldn’t lift it. And the shopping. Boba couldn’t lift the large sacks of onions and potatoes on her own. It was good that she had Boris Mikhailovich, but I still wanted it to be me helping her. I never should have left her. How selfish I’d been. She was elderly and she needed me. And more than anything or anyone, I needed her.

  Chapter 20

  My Darling Grandmother Boba,

  Greetings from the Golden State!

  Today is Valentine’s Day, the day of love in America. Tristan bought me a red heart-shaped box of chocolates. He took me to the fanciest restaurant in town and told me to order anything I wanted.

  After dinner, we went to a concert. The children at his school have a small orchestra and play well, considering that they have only played instruments for two years.

  My English improves every day. I must say, the English we learn in school has nothing to do with the way people speak. I scribble madly, filling my notebooks with slang and notes on pronunciation.

  Of course it’s a struggle, but a rewarding one. Of course, happiness does not just curl up on one’s lap. One must pursue it, no matter how elusive.

  I miss you, miss home. I even miss the walls of our apartment and long to press my forehead, my palms against them. Everything will be fine. I will be fine. But please won’t you consider coming to California? We have a spare bedroom. Don’t you miss me?

  Love,

  Your Dasha

  Tristan and I spent our six-month anniversary at the clinic where the doctor informed us that a couple is not considered infertile until they try to conceive for a year. ‘Just keep going,’ he advised. ‘If there are no results, come back in six months.’ He explained about ovulation and cervical mucus and gave me the business to find out the peak time of the month.

  Here we’d been having sex every night when in fact there was a propitious window of twenty-four hours. Only one day. There was so much I didn’t know. But how could I? Boba never talked about sex. Even if she had, I would have been mortified. I doubted that she knew about cervical mucus. My classmates barely knew more than I. In grade school, many of them slept in the same room as their parents. They described the fumbling and moaning in the night, but their stories sounded just as implausible as Grandfather Frost bringing presents on New Year’s Eve. As teens, some of my girlfriends were curious about sex, but they were nervous without an envelope for the letter. We’d heard about the miracles in the West. A woman could urinate on a twig to find out if she was with child or take a pill to avoid pregnancy. We also heard the pill contained male hormones and that women who took it grew beards. Anyway, it was difficult to find a place to have a private moment – when three generations lived in the same flat, someone was always home. My first time happened in a deserted basement in the position called ‘the lookout.’ The man lifts his partner’s skirt and penetrates her from behind – if someone approaches, the couple can hide. It was nothing special. If anything, the preliminaries – a bouquet, soft words, the opera – were better.

  But it would be worth the discomfort to have a child. A little girl to share my joy of being in America. A little girl to share my impressions with. I wanted someone – my own flesh – so I wouldn’t feel so isolated and alone. Someone who would always love me. Boba, Mama and I had formed a trinity – God loves three. And now it was time for me to create my own. I wanted my daughter to have something I never had: a papa.

  Tristan wasn’t my dream husband, but he would be a caring father. He had deep roots. A house, a job, a future. He would be there every step of the way. Like me, he wanted children immediately. A little voice in my head said it was because he didn’t want to lose me, and a baby would be the cement that would keep us – two mismatched bricks – together. He said he didn’t want to be too old, like his mother and father when they’d had him. I sensed he was still angry with them. He never spoke of his parents except to say he felt removed from them. I’d been very close to my mother. It had always been just us girls. I remember sitting on Mama’s lap in the kitchen where it was always five degrees warmer than the rest of the flat while we pored over Western fashion magazines together. How she loved Vogue! She smelled of vanilla. When we walked down the leafy boulevards of Odessa she held my hand. She read to me at night. Her voice was the last thing I heard as I fell asleep. I’d always wanted a little sister, but my father was long gone, then Mama became sick. Boba and I took care of her until she died. And Boba became my everything – my grandmother, my mother, my older sister, my confidante. And now that I was alone, more than ever I wanted someone with whom I could share her wisdom, her courage, her life. A child to pass our stories on to.

  Tristan would never run off the way Vlad had. N
o child of his would ever wonder.

  How many times had I asked my mother, ‘Who do I look like?’ When I was small, she replied, ‘You look like a fairy princess, come to earth to bless Boba and me.’ The answer charmed me but it didn’t satisfy. Later, I felt my fine arch and looked at her thick brow. At her wiry hair, her broad shoulders, her large hands. She was my mother; she was my opposite. Again and again, I asked, Who do I look like? Who? Who? I yearned for one small piece of my own history. Why couldn’t I know? What had I done? Who? Who? You, she answered. You look like you.

  End of discussion.

  I wanted my child to know where she came from.

  The doctor’s words had soothed me. I touched my belly often, wistfully thinking: Soon. I pulled the baby dress out from under the bed and marveled at how something so small could bring such joy. Tristan and I moved the computer out of the office into the living room to make room for the crib. He took my hand in his. My daughter would have a father. A real family. God loves three. We kept trying.

  Sometimes, I pretended it was all happening to someone else. The distance helped. It wasn’t me who was frustrated. It wasn’t me who was disappointed. It was someone else. He rolls off her. Naked, she goes to the bathroom to wash. She imagines that if she loved him, she would pull on one of his old T-shirts, the faded cotton soft to the touch. Instead, she pulls on pajamas that her grandmother has sewn for her and returns to bed.

  Groggily, he takes her in his arms and kisses her temple. Patiently, she waits for him to fall asleep before she disentangles her legs from his and moves to the cool edge of the bed.

  You can’t have everything, she thinks to herself.

  You can have one thing, a voice replies.

  She looks at her husband, his face softened in sleep.

  He’s a good provider, she hears Boba say.

  He’s a good provider, she hears Molly say.

  He snores gently. If she loved him, this soft sound would remind her of the constancy of the sea.

  She is unsatisfied. She wants release. Release from the days and nights of longing.

  I want, I want, she thinks.

  Give yourself this one thing, the voice says again. It is a man’s voice. She craves its caress. She runs her hand down the plane of her stomach to her hip bone. She pauses.

  Yes, yes, he says.

  Yes, yes, she says.

  Her back arches, her hand travels lower, she closes her eyes, she gives herself this one thing.

  Another barren month passed. Tristan turned forty-one, the same age his dad was when he was born. ‘I’m going to be an old father. An old man. It’s your fault.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have left it so long,’ I shot back. ‘You could have had a dozen children by now. You should have been like me. Married at twenty-four.’

  ‘I didn’t want to marry someone I didn’t love.’

  And you think I did?

  I didn’t say it. But God was I tempted.

  I begged the clinic secretary to schedule another appointment for us, even though the year wasn’t up. As usual, things were easier for a man. Tristan’s exam consisted of a plastic cup and a Playboy. His sperm count was below average but ‘far from catastrophic.’

  The doctor stuck a gloved finger into me and groped my lower abdomen, looking for any kind of deficiency. I wondered if he found it. After the examination, Tristan and I sat across from the doctor. The Verdict: He felt I didn’t have enough stores of fat and mentioned it could help if I gained weight. Tristan told him I’d grown up in Russia and had suffered as a child. I rolled my eyes.

  ‘Well, she’s been in America for a while, and she’s still slim. I’d guess it’s more about healthy choices than any kind of suppression.’

  I looked at him gratefully.

  ‘She’s a vegetarian,’ Tristan blurted out.

  ‘There are lots of vegetarian moms out there,’ the doctor assured him. ‘Let’s not assign blame here.’

  Back in the waiting room, Tristan wrote out a check for the appointment and tests. I couldn’t believe how much it cost. And we hadn’t even been there an hour! Seeing my shock, the receptionist soothed, ‘The insurance should cover most of it.’

  ‘What insurance?’ Tristan asked bleakly.

  The ride home was tense. Dinner was tense. I was tense. Bind-bound-bound. When the phone rang, I flinched. It rang so rarely and when it did, it was usually a telemarketer. Tristan always seemed to relish the fight. ‘New windows? Why don’t you give me your home number so I can call and interrupt your dinner? Huh? Huh?’ he yelled, then slammed the phone down. ‘I showed them.’

  ‘They’re just doing their job.’

  ‘If their job is to piss me off, mission accomplished.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘No one likes telemarketers,’ he said.

  I rushed to the phone to avoid another shouting match.

  ‘Hello, beauty,’ Oksana said. ‘Good news. I may be a doctor again.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Let me start from the beginning. In Russia. When Jerry said he didn’t want me to work, I thought that meant he wanted to spoil me – and I was all for it. You wouldn’t believe the fantasies I had. Mansions. Dollar bills growing on rose bushes. A fabulous husband.’

  We both laughed. I remembered how I’d thought Tristan was wealthy because he’d given me a laptop. I’d imagined myself living in a Victorian house in the smartest district of San Francisco. I thought we’d be so happy. I knew all about fantasies.

  ‘Now I realize he didn’t want me to have friends, colleagues, or my own money. I’m so isolated. It feels like I’m going mad in this big house. Two months ago, I applied for a job at the hospital as a doctor.’

  ‘Molodets!’ Good for you!

  ‘It’s not so easy. They want my transcript. My mother sent it to a translation agency in Los Angeles. I was supposed to pay by check or credit card, but I don’t have either. Jerry doesn’t give me any cash except for groceries. Holding back a little here and a little there, I saved enough for a money order.’

  ‘He’s so cheap?’ I asked.

  ‘You can’t even ask him for snow in winter,’ she replied.

  ‘Who’s on the phone?’ Tristan yelled.

  ‘Oksana.’

  ‘Speak English!’ he said.

  ‘He’s just like Jerry.’ Oksana said.

  ‘He’s not that bad,’ I said weakly.

  ‘I’ll need to take an exam – in English. Will you help me?’

  ‘I’d love to. But maybe you should ask a native speaker,’ I said, worried that Tristan was right, that my English wasn’t good enough.

  ‘No one here is as rigorous as a Russian or Ukrainian.’

  ‘That’s the truth,’ I seconded.

  ‘How are things?’

  I sighed.

  ‘I know. He says he’ll get me deported if I leave him. Do you think he can?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Everything’s in his name: the car, the house, the bank account. It’s like I’m a ghost. I don’t exist. Americans are always talking about their rights. “It’s my right,” they say. What about us? What are our rights?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m totally dependent on Jerry – for everything. He says I’ll be penniless if we divorce.’

  ‘Are you thinking about it?’

  ‘I wasn’t. But as time goes by, I realize he’ll never trust anyone again. He’s waiting for the bomb to drop. It’s almost like he wants it to, so he can say ‘‘I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you.”?’

  Tristan was glaring at me. ‘It’s rude to leave the table in the middle of a meal.’

  Oh, great. Now he was giving me etiquette lessons.

  ‘I came here for security,’ Oksana said. ‘I knew I’d never be in love with him, but I thought that we could build a life together, as partners. But he controls everything. It feels like I have less security here than I did at home. What would you do if you were me?’ she asked.<
br />
  I looked over at Tristan, who was shoveling rice into his mouth. ‘I am you.’

  The nurse called to say the tests revealed there was nothing wrong. She advised me to check for peak days and have intercourse then. After all those tests and all that money, this was all she could say? I was starting to lose faith in Western medicine. It worked about as well as the fertility goddess statues that David had in his apartment pre-Olga.

  I asked Oksana to examine me. She said if I’d consulted an American doctor, there wasn’t much more she could add, but she did suggest that I see an acquaintance of hers, a white witch who’d worked as a midwife. We decided on a Sunday. Tristan moaned, but he drove me to Jerry’s. Oksana and the white witch stood on the front porch, waiting. I felt immediately welcomed. She was short and plump with dark eyes and raven black hair. It was silly, but she reminded me of my mother. I felt a surge of hope. Maybe she could help me.

  Tristan started to follow us women down the corridor, but Jerry said, ‘Don’t be a pussy. Get in here and watch the game.’ He gestured to the gigantic television.

  In the kitchen, Oksana pointed to the dark cabinets and brocade wallpaper. ‘I call it the “ex-wife kitchen.” I wanted to lighten it up, but Jerry forbade any changes. He said he wants his kids to feel at home. But they never come.’

  Tears filled her eyes. ‘Everything will be fine,’ I clucked like a mother hen, putting my wing around her dejected shoulders. The white witch put the kettle on. Over tea, she and Oksana shared gory hospital stories until finally Oksana started to feel better.

  The white witch took my pulse, my temperature, and asked the same questions as the fertility specialist. I had been embarrassed to talk about such things with the American doctor, but in my own language, with another woman, I felt at ease. After taking my medical history, she asked a question that the American doctor had not. ‘How are things with your husband?’

  I glanced at Oksana.