Moonlight in Odessa

by Janet Skeslien Charles

  In one of Jane’s American magazines for career women, I read that the secret to keeping any job was to become indispensable. To make sure that there was always one thing I could do that no one else could – a wildcard, they called it. Clearing customs was my wildcard. And I wasn’t giving it up.

  ‘I’d love to help, but I’m interviewing couples for our “Success Stories” page. Your new secretary will figure it out – in a year or two. The clients can scrape the maggots off the meat and cheese – if they ever clear customs.’

  He made a strange choking sound.

  Smiling broadly, I hung up the phone and went back to the couple sitting in front of my desk. As usual, the woman was in her early twenties and wore a low-cut blouse, miniskirt, and heels, while the man was much older and wore tennis shoes and jeans. As usual, the man was entranced, the woman giddy. He clutched her small hand in his.

  ‘So, Pete, you were telling me what you first noticed about Natasha.’

  ‘Well, she sure was the prettiest girl at the social. It’s true we don’t speak the same language, but I still feel a connection with her.’ Purdiest. That’s how he said prettiest.

  I jotted down his answer, then looked to Natasha and asked the same question in Russian, since she didn’t speak English.

  ‘He had kind eyes,’ she said.

  ‘Natasha said the first thing she noticed about you were your kind eyes,’ I said.

  ‘Aw, thanks, honey. Your eyes are pretty, too.’ He kissed her on the lips. She looked at me and blushed.

  ‘What brought you to Odessa?’

  ‘American women – the ones I met, anyway – all seem to care more about money and their jobs than love. There’s not a feminine bone in their bodies. I tried the social scene in Moscow, but it just didn’t work out. There were too many girls, and they weren’t as nice or pretty as the ones in Odessa.’

  I’d have to tell that to Valentina, who prided herself on being better than Moscow.

  ‘A buddy of mine found his lady in Odessa. He told me that it was a pretty city with the nicest people he’d ever met.’ Odessa is a pretty city. This time, it was my turn to preen. I enjoyed hearing compliments about Odessa and translated his words for Natasha, who pulled on Pete’s arm and nodded enthusiastically. ‘Da, da, da.’ We Odessans love our city.

  ‘Was our visa kit helpful concerning the paperwork for Natasha to return to America with you?’

  ‘Absolutely. We filled out all the forms and I wrote my statement. Easy as pie.’

  ‘Good. Do you feel that there is anything we could have done better to help you find the love of your life?’ These were Valentina’s questions, not mine.

  He shook his head. ‘No, I looked at the program and saw the girl I wanted, talked to her with the help of the interpreters, and that was that.’ He squeezed her bare thigh. ‘I liked the atmosphere of the socials – nice, clean fun. The hardest part was getting the visa to get into the Ukraine.’

  The Grande Dame was working on that.

  I took their photo for our success stories page. Her tight jaw was a contrast to his jowls.

  ‘Well, good luck to both of you,’ I said. ‘Send us a wedding invitation!’

  We’d put it on the website, too.

  They left and I fixed myself a cup of tea, stirring in extra sugar to ease the bile in my throat. I was jealous. Jealous that she was moving to California. It was supposed to be me. I watched the girls go, one by one, or rather, two by two, while I remained. I longed to escape. To have a man whisk me away from the poverty and problems. A man like Tristan. He was younger than Pete and more handsome. I knew that he would be sincere and honest. He would be older (but not too old) and wiser. We would talk about literature, art, and philosophy. We would go to galleries and plays. He would be a good kisser with strong, sensual hands. I longed to meet him. Longed for what Natasha had found. Envy is a waste of time, my Boba would say, so I sipped my tea and concentrated on writing the success story.

  The phone rang again. It had to be Harmon. I picked up the receiver and said, ‘How are you going to last six whole weeks?’

  He swore and slammed the phone down. His anger filled me with perverse pleasure.

  Working only one job seemed like a vacation. It had been months since I’d dined with Boba. The evening was mild, so we decided to go for a walk. I loved this time of the year, when the humidity wrapped itself around my shoulders like a finely crocheted shawl.

  I bent down to put on my sandals.

  ‘Wear your other shoes,’ Boba said. ‘They’re better for walking.’

  I put on my flats, and she and I strolled arm in arm down the dusty street towards the beach. She gestured to the concrete apartment building on the corner. ‘That’s the place my mother, sister, and I lived before the war. When the Nazis attacked, we holed up in the catacombs outside the city. Weeks later, when we came out of hiding, our building was gone. But we were lucky – we had each other.’

  I kissed her cheek. Boba’s optimism never ceased to amaze me. The women in my family were so brave, so strong. Through famine, through war, through perestroika, they held everything together with no help from any man. My great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother each had a daughter but no husband. Could it be genetic? Or The Curse? Would this be my lot as well? Could people run from their fate or would it always catch up? Jane didn’t believe in fate or curses. She believed in something called ‘free will’ in which people make their own choices and fortunes. I prayed that Jane was right, because I feared my destiny.

  The next day I was happy to go to work. It was the first time that I would give the Americans a walking tour of the center. Of fifty clients, thirty came. ‘Thank you for your interest in my native city. Odessa is Hero City, a designation given to only twelve cities for bravery during the Great Patriotic War.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘World War II,’ replied the man next to him.

  ‘Odessa is the former Soviet Union’s sunniest and most social city. Conversation is our favorite pastime. People of all ages love to stroll in the park or lie on the beach and chat.’ I stopped and pointed to one of my favorite men. ‘Here we have a statue of the Duke de Richelieu. In 1803, Czar Alexander I made Richelieu the first mayor of Odessa.’

  The Duke was clad in a toga, long out of style by the nineteenth century and despite the fact he was French, not Greek. Of course, Odessans don’t think in terms of nationality. We think in terms of love. Catherine the Great, the passionate Russian czarina, founded Odessa. Our first mayors were French. A Dutchman laid out the city. Austrians designed the opera house. Italians sang there. How can we be reduced to one nationality? Everything that makes us who we are – fascinating, enticing, cosmopolitan – comes from this fusion.

  It must be confusing to foreigners. Odessa is in Ukraine. We speak Russian. Who in Odessa doesn’t have relatives in Russia? Who doesn’t have chairs or towels or plates made there? Though the USSR was declared dead, the gray bones remain since much of our architecture is Soviet. Of course, the mentality of many politicians is still Soviet. In the years after perestroika, Odessans used the terms ‘Russian,’ ‘Ukrainian’ and ‘Soviet’ somewhat interchangeably. Things don’t change while we sleep. Certainly New Amsterdam did not become New York overnight. Boba would say: A man slashes a woman’s face. The doctor sews up the wound. He later removes the stitches. But the scar remains. Moscow wielded the knife. Our souls bear the scars.

  Don’t ask what nationality we are. We’re Odessan.

  The men looked at me, waiting.

  ‘Directly to your right is Primorsky Boulevard.’ I continued. ‘The acacia trees that shade the stone walkway were imported from Vienna by the Duke. In front of us is the spectacular Potemkin Staircase, which has 192 granite steps that lead to the sea. The stairs were immortalized in one of the greatest films ever made, Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.

  ‘When my friend Varvara’s sister got engaged, she told her boyfriend, “I’ll marry you on one condition �
� that you carry me up the steps.” So early one sunny Sunday morning, we gathered to watch Igor carry Katya up the Potemkin Staircase. If any of you are looking for a way to prove your devotion . . .’

  The men laughed and more than one said he needed to workout more before declaring his love. We criss-crossed the city, going from monument to monument – no city has more than Odessa – and ended our tour at a seaside café.

  A few days later at quarter to five, Vlad stopped at the office to ask if I wanted to stroll on the beach, and then see Carmen. It had been so long since I had set foot in the opera house. I turned off the computer and grabbed my purse before I could talk myself out of going.

  ‘I remember the first time I saw you,’ he told me, my hand tucked between his, as we walked along the sea. ‘You looked like a queen – regal posture, soulful eyes, golden skin. You smiled all the time.’

  ‘I’d just returned from an internship in Kiev. I was relieved to be home.’

  ‘So it wasn’t hard for you to leave our fair capital?’ He sat down on the sand and pulled me down beside him.

  I bit my lip, not knowing whether to tell him the truth. Was Vlad interested in me as a person or as a challenge? At first, I’d assumed that I was the latter, but he’d sent his brother away because he’d insulted me, then seemed genuinely worried when he went to the shipping office and found I wasn’t there. He’d offered to get my job back for me, and didn’t insist when I said his help wasn’t needed. I decided to tell him the truth. ‘I couldn’t wait to leave Odessa and be on my own, but I found the capital to be a cold place. I missed Boba and Odessa. I wanted only one thing: to come home.’

  He brought my hand to his lips and kissed my fingers and palm. I stroked the planes of his face. He closed his eyes. For a moment, we listened to the sound of the waves hitting the sand.

  ‘The hardest thing about coming back to Odessa was admitting I’d made a mistake in leaving. I was too proud and stayed there because I was afraid people would laugh at me for having failed. If I’d been smart, I would have returned immediately.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with being proud. Sometimes our pride is all we have.’

  I drew my knees up and perched my chin on them. My fingers drew lines in the sand, my heart rejoiced at what I’d heard. Someone finally understood what I felt. ‘What about you? How did you end up? . . .’

  ‘Where I am?’

  I nodded.

  ‘When I left the Crimea and returned to Odessa, I got a job as a driver for a New Russian. I earned forty dollars that first month, twice my salary as a marine biologist.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Another mobster noticed that I kept the cars clean and my mouth shut, and he hired me to be his bodyguard and driver, tripling the salary. This happened again and again. I worked for all the greats. And they all conducted their business on phones in their cars. I absorbed everything. When Lev Tomashenko flew the coop to California, I took over his operation.’

  ‘So you were at the right place at the right time?’

  ‘I had two younger brothers to support. I did what I had to do.’

  I nodded. We sat side by side, looking off in opposite directions. I thought of how Harmon had chased me, how I had run. How the office gossips had stung me. How I continued, no matter what.

  Was Vlad thinking of what he had done to get where he was today?

  He cleared his throat, which cleared the air. ‘At the social, the men couldn’t take their eyes off you, but you didn’t seem interested in any of them.’ He watched my face carefully. ‘I thought all girls wanted to land a rich American husband.’

  ‘So you think all women are the same?’ I stood and wiped the sand from my skirt. ‘I’ve had lots of marriage proposals. My Boba says any fool can get married. But I’m looking for love and friendship with a man I can count on, and I won’t marry until I find it.’

  He stood, too.

  I added, ‘Women at the social were interested in you. Does that mean you’re going to date them?’

  ‘I’ve been with girls like that. It’s not what I want. Not anymore.’

  ‘What do you want?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean after all this, it’s still not clear? I want you.’

  I looked away. My heart started to pound, as if to remind me it was still there, wanting to love and trust someone. My brain cried out, warning me not to trust any man, and certainly not him. I did everything I could to silence my heart: took deep breaths, thought of the people Vlad must have hurt, imagined Tristan in America.

  We walked to the opera house, neither of us saying anything.

  When I saw the magnificent theater, I broke the silence. ‘I remember going to the opera with Boba and my mother. Mama wore a black beret, and Boba and I thought she looked French. They were on either side of me, holding my hands. The lights of the opera house gleamed like a lighthouse beacon. Snow flakes started to fall and I tried to catch them on my tongue. It made Mama and Boba laugh.’

  He looked at me tenderly.

  ‘That’s one of my favorite memories,’ I said shyly.

  He kissed my hand and said, ‘I hope that you and I will create many more together.’

  At the box office, he asked where I wanted to sit and bought the tickets. We sat in a private loge in the mezzanine, my favorite section. I could see the musicians down in the pit, the singers on stage, and the men and women across from me. I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the edge, afraid to take my eyes off the stage for the entire first act. I felt Vlad’s gaze, which did not move from my face. At intermission, he asked which ballets I wanted to see in the upcoming season. If I were a different kind of girl, he would have leaned over and asked in a low, sexy voice if I wanted to finish the performance at his place. As the lights dimmed, my eyes returned to the stage, and I acknowledged that sometimes I wanted to be that kind of girl.

  I went to work early the next morning. Valentina had given me a key to the flat and tasks to accomplish – she was in Kiev. Because it was difficult and expensive for men to get a Ukrainian visa – an invitation was needed to receive one – Valentina had created a lobby group to ask (bribe) the politicians to waive visas for Americans and Western Europeans – she and her brethren wanted it to be easier for the men to come to Ukraine than to Russia for love.

  I sat amongst the ferns and orchids, reading the questions we were often asked. Valentina wanted me to post her answers on our website.

  1. Why do Russian and Ukrainian women want American husbands?

  They long to create a stable family, which many men here can’t provide because of financial reasons. (In the margin Valentina asked, ‘Should we mention the high alcoholic rate of our men? Or their philandering?’) The stress that results from limited housing, alcoholism, and unemployment contributes to the divorce rate, which is estimated to be 70 percent.

  2. The photos on your site look too good to be true. Are the women real?

  Absolutely. Our women strive to take care of themselves by walking and dancing and other physical activities. Also, a natural diet (Valentina continued, ‘As opposed to the chemicals in the packets that American women cook with.’ I made the executive decision to leave this out) contributes to thick, long hair and healthy, glowing skin.

  3. What is the main difference between American and Ukrainian women?

  Ukrainians are traditional women who love to sew, cook, and knit. Their priority will always be family. Being an excellent cook and housekeeper is a point of pride.

  More and more, our first contact with American men was through the Internet, so it was in our best interests to have an easy-to-navigate site. To accomplish this, I researched other sites to analyze their approach. There were dozens – I had no idea that we had such competition. We charged more than the other sites – $3,000 for a week of socials. Leave it to Valentina to be the most expensive of the bunch.

  When one agency praised itself for having the largest staff, I lauded ours for having an intimate, personalized service. When another bragged about paradin
g the most women under the noses of clients, I stated our socials would not overwhelm. Many sites had scrambled translations. Some translated directly from Russian and dropped articles: ‘Women want to go to United States and be good wife to honest man.’ (‘The,’ ‘a,’ and ‘an’ don’t exist in Russian.) Others applied Russian rules to the English language. ‘My name – Tanya. I – twenty.’ (The present tense of the verb ‘to be’ is not conjugated in Russian.) I underlined that our agency spoke English fluently. Countering every single conceivable argument, hitting back every ball, I felt like a lawyer with a tennis racket. On top of her form. On top of her game. In control. That is, until I turned to a page featuring a collage of a dozen young women. I was given a choice of three categories: ‘ladies with a phone,’ ‘ladies with no kids’ and ‘forgotten ladies.’ I chose the latter, which opened to a page of two by two-inch photos. I stared at the women, they stared back at me. I clicked on Marina, a chubby brunette. She’d tried to smile but couldn’t manage it. According to the statistics next to her photo, she was twenty-three years old, a Pisces, and had had a child less than a year ago. Her strangely translated profile read, ‘I like read, knit warm half-hoses and wonderful clothes. I am good cook, like rest at seaside, go to zoo and circus with daughter. I like to do half-finishes product, like family holidays and suppers. I – honest, modest, good mother and housewife. I seek man who loves children and dreams of family with traditional values. You can have family happiness, calmness, and cozy house with me (25–45 years old, without children, no Muslims).’

  I stared at the screen, and her defeated eyes seemed to meet mine. I understood that we weren’t helping women find love, find mates, or the thousand other things I had told myself so that I could go to work and do this job. We weren’t selling romance, or opportunity, or love. We were selling women. Period.