Moonlight in Odessa

by Janet Skeslien Charles

  I looked at the ring. The white witch said to get rid of it, that it wasn’t doing me any good. But Vlad’s gift had been with me all this time. A talisman, a solace, a reminder. Do you want to look backwards or forward? I asked myself sternly. Do you want out? This is the only way. Jonothan held my gaze. I nodded. He put the ring in the pocket of his green silk shirt. I felt nervous when it disappeared from sight and sat on my hands so that I would not grab it back. It hadn’t been out of my possession since Vlad – since Boba – had given it to me.

  ‘How much time do you need?’

  ‘Depends on how long it takes to find a buyer. My commission is ten percent. I’ll return it if I haven’t sold it in six months.’

  Six months. An eternity.

  The minute Jonothan left, I regretted trusting him. Take-took-taken. What had I done? No Odessan would ever trust a total stranger. I’d gone soft in the head. I’d given my ring to a known drug man. Fall-fell-fallen. In Odessa, I never would have done that. David was right. I was different. I hadn’t noticed because the change had been so gradual. In Odessa, you fight for everything: a seat on the bus, an education, a fair price at the market, a good-paying job . . . Things there were uncertain – even the flow of water through the city pipes, heat in the winter, electricity. You always had to be prepared, steeled against adversity and problems.

  In comparison, life in America was easy. People were open and friendly. The supermarket was full of tasty food. You turned on the faucet – hot water flowed. In nearly a year, the power was cut only once. And I’ll never forget this: the electric company wrote a letter apologizing for any inconvenience they may have caused. No one in Odessa apologized for anything. In Emerson, I made more in a week as a waitress than I had in a month as a secretary. I had a car, just as Jane had said I would. I’d been lulled to complacency. And I’d just given my diamond away thinking everything would be fine. Fool!

  Please, Jono, please. I felt every second pass like I was back in the classroom listening to that vile metronome, waiting for my turn. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Ticktocktick. Bite-bit-bitten. It seemed like months since I’d heard from Jonothan, but it had only been six days. I left the house so that I didn’t call him, parked at the lunch counter at work trying not to think of what I’d done. He said it could take up to six months. Six months! Jane’s warning about him being a ‘cokehead’ echoed in my mind. I veered from hopeful to hopeless, from joy that I would be leaving to fear that I was stuck for good. Please, please, please. My stomach churned like the butter makers at the bazaar. Pimples dotted my face and back. I couldn’t sleep. Yes, no, stay, go. The rain in Spain stays mainly in the Plain. I drank Raymond’s Pepto Bismal straight from the bottle. Pam fed me soda crackers.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  I couldn’t say. I didn’t want to tell her how foolish I’d been. Jane, of course, heard from Tans. She rang immediately and didn’t even say hello.

  ‘You just handed him the ring?’ Jane yelled. ‘Why didn’t you let him take a picture of it and see if there was any interest before handing it over? You must know you can’t trust him.’

  ‘You’re right, I wasn’t thinking . . . I just want to leave so much . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dasha. I’m the one who’s not thinking clearly. I didn’t mean to shout. I’m just scared for you, that’s all. Jono is Jono . . . He’s charming, but he’s into a lot of bad stuff . . . You’re an Odessan. I thought you could take care of yourself. But you know what? I’m probably worrying for nothing. Everything will be fine.’

  ‘Everything will be fine,’ I repeated, hoping that for once the mantra would work.

  When I got home from work, from the grocery store, from Molly’s, from Anna’s, I checked the answering machine. There were never any messages. I picked up the receiver to make sure the phone line worked. I checked my e-mail every three minutes. I longed for comfort and tried to make compote like Boba used to, just for a small taste of home. But I got distracted and burned the apples. At night, I stared at the ceiling until Tristan fell asleep, then I paced the house, going from room to room like a ghost.

  On my day off, I went to visit Serenity at her shop. When she saw me, she hugged me and made us a pot of herbal tea. Please, Jono, please. I tried to follow what she was saying, but was so distracted that she had to repeat herself several times.

  ‘What’s bothering you?’ she asked.

  I shrugged.

  ‘You like to keep things to yourself. That’s okay. But you know you can talk to me, right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Sometimes it helps to keep busy,’ she said and put me to work dusting the shelves. I was glad to have something to do with my hands, other than wringing them. Her presence comforted me. Whenever I glanced at her, she was looking at me, smiling gently. At five o’clock, when it was time for her to close the shop, I drove to Tristan’s with all four windows down, listening to my music.

  When I got there, he was waiting. He’d moved his BarcaLounger out onto the front lawn and was sitting there with his arms crossed. The grass around him was littered with beer cans. Sink-sank-sunk. Thank God my neighbors in Odessa couldn’t see my crazy husband. My crazy life. I cut the engine and unbuckled my seatbelt. I was afraid to get out of the car. Hit-hit-hit.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he yelled. ‘I called ten times today! You never answered.’

  ‘I went for a drive!’ I shouted the obvious.

  ‘You need to tell me if you go somewhere!’

  ‘You’ve been drinking!’

  He strode to the car. Hide-hid-hidden. Hide-hid-hidden. Hide-hid-hidden. He flung open the door and pulled me out. ‘The speedometer shows you drove twenty-nine miles today. Where did you go?’

  I rubbed my arm where he’d grabbed me.

  ‘Tell me where you were. And who you were with.’

  My chin shot up and the only thing that would have unlocked my jaw was a tetanus shot.

  I didn’t stop talking to him on purpose. I just found that there was very little to say. I pulled out my clothes from the closet and my suitcase from under the bed and moved into the office, like before we were married. Only this time, there was a deadlock on the door and a crib in the corner.

  Finally, finally, Jonothan called.

  ‘Did you sell it?’

  ‘I’m this close.’

  ‘This close? What does that mean?’

  ‘It means I’m holding my thumb and finger an inch apart. That’s close.’

  I was this close to going mad.

  Ten days later, he called to say he’d made the sale and would deliver the money. Thank God. I spit three times, like Boba did. It couldn’t hurt. When the Jaguar pulled into the driveway, relief turned my knees wobbly. His arrival was my deliverance. When he opened the car door, I told him it was better if he didn’t get out, better if Tristan didn’t see him. He nodded. I blushed at this curt acknowledgement of what my life had become.

  ‘I told the buyer that the ring had belonged to a czarina,’ he said. ‘You don’t have any other jewelry, do you?’

  I smiled and shook my head.

  He reached into the glove compartment and grabbed the money. I counted it – $12,000 in one-hundred-dollar bills – and handed him back $1,200.

  ‘If you decide to leave what’s-his-name, you can stay at my place. Just call and give me heads up.’ He peeled out of the driveway, and I went into the house and sat on the couch with $10,800 on my lap. This amount seemed like a fortune, although according to the ads for apartments in the Chronicle, it wasn’t even a year of rent money. I stroked the bills and wondered if I was making the right decision. When I heard Tristan’s pickup door slam, I ran into the office and pulled my suitcase out of the closet. When I opened it, I saw the white booties and dress. I bit my lip so hard that tears pricked my eyes. Some dreams just aren’t meant to come true, that’s what they say in Odessa. I hid the money with the baby clothes and shoved the suitcase back in the closet. I turned the deadlock and disas
sembled the crib, throwing the wooden limbs to the floor.

  Tristan knocked on the door. ‘Sweetie, are you okay in there?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  I sat on the floor, staring at the pile of wood in the corner. Night crept into the room. I crawled onto the bed and curled into the fetal position.

  I gave two weeks’ notice at the café before I gave it at home.

  Pam hugged me. Raymond said that they would miss me.

  ‘Does this mean you got another job in town?’ Rocky asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘She’s got to think of herself,’ Raymond explained. ‘Got to move on. This isn’t where she belongs.’

  ‘You’re leaving us?’ Rocky sounded shocked. ‘Leaving Emerson?’

  Raymond put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s better this way.’

  ‘I still haven’t told him.’

  Pam squeezed my hand. Raymond patted my back awkwardly. The look in their eyes told me that the hardest was yet to come. When I thought about how he would react, my stomach clenched until I felt ill. I ran to the bathroom.

  When I returned, Raymond said, ‘You’re white as a ghost. Looks like you might have the stomach flu. It’s going round. You should go home, rest up.’

  I thought of Tristan sprawled in his recliner with a beer can in his hand and crumbs on his chest and said I’d rather work. Pam served me a glass of 7-Up with more soda crackers. As the evening progressed, I felt worse and worse. Was it the flu or was it something else? Had I worried myself sick? I sat down, hoping that my head would stop spinning. Just the smell of meat made me nauseous and I ran to the bathroom again.

  All week, I couldn’t keep anything solid down and had a bit of a fever. And I was so tired that I could barely pull myself out of bed. I put it down to nerves. I was losing weight and felt horrible. Tristan served me Campbell’s Tomato Soup. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I threw it up minutes later. I needed to see a doctor, so I talked Tristan into going to Jerry and Oksana’s. I could have gone on my own, but he would have seen the mileage. I wanted to avoid another scene. I simply didn’t have the strength.

  ‘Look at you!’ Oksana said when she saw me. ‘You don’t look good. Circles underneath your eyes. Wan complexion. My God, you’re trembling.’

  ‘I haven’t slept in days.’

  She put her arm around my waist and sat me down at the kitchen table. As she took my pulse and listened to my heart, she peppered me with questions: ‘What are you eating? Are you sleeping well? Is the sickness more pronounced at a certain time of day? Are you coughing? Do you have a runny nose? Are your breasts tender?’

  I answered, then asked, ‘What do my breasts have to do with anything?’

  She took my hand in hers and said, ‘Ribochka,’ my sweet little fish. ‘The symptoms you’re describing don’t sound like the flu. They sound like morning sickness. Or, in your case, all-day sickness. Your wish came true. You’re having a baby.’

  ‘A baby!’ I jumped up and hugged her.

  ‘I’m so happy for you.’ She held me in her arms.

  For a moment, I felt so light, so happy. I couldn’t wait to tell Boba.

  Tristan. The realization that this would change everything hit me.

  I sat down, buried my face in my hands, and started to cry.

  ‘I thought you’d be happy,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’m wrong?. . .’

  She was right. Even without years of medical school, our women have a way of knowing these things.

  Oksana stroked my convulsing shoulders. When I stopped crying and started to hiccough, she dried my tears with a handkerchief. My head spun. Pregnant. Pregnant. It couldn’t be. I couldn’t be. I lowered my hand to my belly. A baby.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’d just decided to leave him,’ I whispered. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘You don’t have to decide anything now,’ she said. ‘You have time.’

  My eyes widened when I realized that maybe Vlad had left me with another gift. I buried my face in my hands again. ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was with someone else.’

  ‘Does he suspect?’

  I met her gaze. ‘No. On both counts.’

  ‘That makes it easier.’ The way she looked at me. The concern in her eyes. ‘A pregnant woman has over 150 times the normal level of hormones in her body. You’ll be feeling a lot of ups and downs. Don’t decide anything right away.’

  I tried to stand, but had to sit back down. What was I going to do?

  Before returning to Emerson, I asked Tristan if we could go to a bookstore. As we sat in the car, I watched the trees rush past and felt the blood pound in my veins. Felt the thoughts swirl in my brain. Felt the baby grow in my belly. A baby. What if it’s Vlad’s? What if Tristan finds out? What had I done? What would I do? Could I really leave now?

  At the entrance of the store, he said, ‘I’m not into all that literature. Come get me in the magazine aisle when you’re done.’

  The minute he turned his back, I ran to the self-help section. (In Ukraine, we weren’t big on self-help. People depended on fate or the State to help them.) Americans were very much into self-serve, self-medication, and self-help: the ultimate do-it-yourselfers. Americans were all part-time pharmacists. They knew exactly which medication to take for any ailment. They found answers in books. Look at Tristan. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus had clearly helped him. I found titles like Closing the Deal; The Rules; Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti, and then I found a book entitled Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives. I looked at the table of contents and found that I had committed a completely different ten. So many books were aimed at getting a man. What I needed was a book entitled Catch and Release: Put Him Back in the Sea Painlessly and Effortlessly. No such luck. I went to the maternity section and looked for books, then worried that if I bought one, it would be like announcing my pregnancy. So I stood in the aisle and read the first chapter of What to Expect When You Are Expecting.

  What to expect? What to do? What is in my best interest? The best interest of the child?

  A baby.

  For days, I felt like a spectator watching a tennis match, the sun glaring down until blisters broke out all over my body. Should I stay or should I go? The ball went from one side of the court to the other. What I wanted versus the right thing to do. The right thing for him versus the right thing for me. What would be better for the child? Pros, cons. Backhand, lob. Maybe I should give him another chance. No. Yes. I don’t know. Yes, a divorce. No, don’t give up. Run. Run as fast as you can. Stay. Don’t be a coward. Don’t be a quitter. Yes, be a quitter. Tristan’s refrain pounded in my head. You’re stupid. You’re crazy. No one will love you like I do. Forty, love. Would the score ever be even? No. He would always win. He had home court advantage. But a baby would make things bearable.

  Though it was warm outside, Tristan lit a fire to please me. After he went to work, I pulled my suitcase from the closet, took my money, and sat on the white couch with the stacks on my lap. I stared into the blaze. The human eye is drawn to fire. The flames jumped and I wished they would give me some kind of answer.

  I’d missed having a father in my life. I never had a goodnight kiss from him. He never told me he loved me. A baby. I was so happy, and yet so terribly sad. Sad for me if I stayed with Tristan for the sake of the infant. Sad for the infant if I left Tristan to save myself. How could I take a child away from its father? In my family, we women had a tradition of raising a baby alone, but that was because the men deserted us. I thought about my dream of being a real family – a mother and father raising a child together. I thought of spending the rest of my life with Tristan.

  It felt like a prison sentence.

  I thought of my time with Vlad. Seeing him again. Lust stronger than sense. Skin on skin. How I’d opened to him. I imagined telling him. Imagined his voice hardening, demanding t
hat I return to Odessa. I imagined telling him. Imagined his gaze softening, imagined him dropping to his knees and kissing my belly. Imagined him saying Dushenka, my little soul.

  My hand automatically moved to my chest and felt around for his ring, seeking the strange comfort. But my talisman was gone. Oh, God. I’d moved on. The white witch was right, wasn’t she? It had been smart to get rid of the ring, of the past. Did she mean I should stay with Tristan? What if I wanted someone else? The more I thought, the faster my heart beat. Stop thinking, I told myself. Just for a minute.

  I stroked the money. It felt good between my fingers. I hadn’t had so much cash in my hands since Boba and I had sold our old apartment and bought the new one. I knew what I had to do. I had to try to work things out with Tristan. I could depend on him. He had roots. I needed to make sure that my child had a real family. I needed to make sure that I wouldn’t just take the easy way out. I threw a hundred-dollar bill into the blaze. The flames swallowed the paper. I wanted to throw it all into the fire, to see the money burn. To see it disappear. To watch it catch fire, to burn down to almost nothing, until the flames coughed up little pieces of paper only to swallow them again. I wanted to get rid of every piece of Vlad. I’d sold his ring, now I had to get rid of his money. Perhaps then I would be free. I threw another hundred-dollar bill onto the logs, then another, then another, and watched the fire devour them. Mesmerizing. Another. Another.

  My hand went to my belly. It was no use. I would always have a part of him. Don’t do anything rash. Oskana’s words came back to me and I tried to collect myself. Tried to rein in this crazy desire to watch my future burn before my eyes. I threw another bill on the fire, then another.

  I had to call someone. I picked up the phone.

  Boba would tell me to stay. Jane would tell me to go. David would tell me to get the hell out. Vlad would tell me to come home. Valentina would tell me to stay put. Molly would say Tristan is a good provider. This was my call. My life. My choice. I put the phone down.