Moonlight in Odessa

by Janet Skeslien Charles

  I shook my head, embarrassed at how we’d force-fed him when he arrived in Odessa. I didn’t realize that a person felt nauseous after a long flight, as if they had a belly full of helium.

  ‘We’ll head straight home then.’

  On the freeway, I looked at the cars. So many colors and sizes. Everyone drove so fast, like it was a race. In the distance, I could see the high rises of San Francisco. Tristan was talking to me, and I tried to listen, but my ears seem to close as my eyelids did.

  He squeezed my thigh. ‘We can explore when you’re not so sleepy.’

  The road was smooth. Although I was excited to be in America, the hum of the motor lulled me to sleep. When we pulled into the driveway, Tristan shook my shoulder. He pressed a button and the garage door went up. Unbelievable! An automatic toilet, automatic faucet, automatic door opener. Automatic everything. When he saw my delight, he said, ‘Here, press the button.’ I did and the door crawled back down. It was silly to be enchanted by such small things, but they truly did underline the differences between my old world and the new one.

  Tristan took my hand and led me to his house. The dark wood went well with the surrounding plants and trees. There were pink roses near the front door. The windows were large and didn’t have any bars. It must be a safe neighborhood. I noticed a chimney – was there a fireplace, just like in the movies? He surprised me by lifting me up and carrying me across the threshold. Bite-bit-bit. Sweep-swept-swept. Clearly, he already considered me his bride. Back on the ground, I felt touched by his romantic gesture. Surely Tristan wouldn’t sleep with me only to disappear.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, looking at me expectantly.

  ‘Indeed,’ I replied, feeling awkward. I didn’t know how to behave with him or what he expected. In my experience, men always wanted something. He held his hand out as if encouraging me to look. The whole house felt as if it were bathed in light. White walls, beige carpet. Framed posters of Yosemite National Park. Photos of smiling children on the refrigerator. Did he have kids? My mind raced. He said he’d never married. Had he lied? Or were they illegitimate? I shook my head to empty it of these horrible thoughts. I had to learn to trust him. This wasn’t Odessa, where I always had to be on guard. This was America, this was Tristan, my gentle schoolteacher. He’d gone to Odessa to meet me, asked me to marry him, and paid for my ticket to San Francisco. Clearly, he was a decent man with good intentions.

  I walked from the entryway into the living room, through the kitchen, into the dining room. It was all one open space. No barriers between rooms, only light. I loved it, especially the brick fireplace.

  ‘Your home is lovely. So light, so airy.’

  ‘I designed it myself,’ he said, looking proud and happy. I was happy, too.

  He showed me the bedroom, office, and bathrooms which were down the hall from the entryway. I had just started to relax when Tristan put my things in his bedroom. Surprise robbed me of my speech, but only for a moment. ‘We’re not married yet,’ I reminded him stiffly. ‘I’d be happy to sleep on the sofa.’ Boba said men don’t buy the chicken when they get the eggs for free. I’d learned it was true with Vlad and wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  Tristan said he respected my feelings and moved my things into the office. We made the sofa there into a bed. Although it was only 8 p.m., I went straight to sleep. I didn’t even wash my face.

  I awoke at 6 a.m. like I always did at home. Jane had once told me that jetlag was terrible, but it didn’t seem to affect me. I lay in bed and listened. No cars honking, no babies crying, no neighbors yelling, no one stomping overhead. It was so calm. If it hadn’t been for the birds chirping, I would have feared I’d gone deaf.

  I got up and made coffee. Tristan’s machine wasn’t as sophisticated as the one David had given me. While it brewed, I looked out of every window which looked out onto trees. It seemed more like the country than a suburb. Where was I?

  Tristan came out of his bedroom already dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. ‘Sorry to leave you on your own today, but I don’t have any vacation days left since I used them up in Budapest.’ Was his tone reproving?

  ‘And Odessa, where we met, where you enjoyed my Boba’s hospitality,’ I reminded him. ‘Do teachers in America work in the summer?’

  He looked surprised by my question.

  ‘Do they work in the summer?’ I asked again. ‘Do you have to clean your classroom? In Odessa, teachers are responsible for their own rooms and must do all maintenance before September the first. My teacher friends painted their own walls and one even laid linoleum to hide the cement floors.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Teachers don’t have to do anything like that in America. We have summer school.’

  ‘Summer school?’ I asked skeptically. I’d never heard of summer school.

  ‘For kids who need extra help.’

  ‘Maybe I could come with you today. It would be interesting to see where you work.’

  ‘No!’

  My eyes widened at his instant refusal.

  ‘No, you should rest up. Take it easy on your first day here. Besides, the kids are shy.’

  I supposed that if they didn’t do well in school, it made sense they wouldn’t want to be observed.

  He opened a cupboard, took out a large box and poured its contents into a bowl, then added milk. He sat at the counter and crunched down on the dry bits. It reminded me of a recent arrival in Odessa – commercial pet food. Our foreign neighbor bought it for her cat.

  ‘Want some?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Cereal. It’s good for you.’

  He slid the box over the counter to me and I read the ingredients and couldn’t pronounce most of them. I asked for oatmeal, which is what Boba always made for me. I asked to call Boba to tell her that I’d arrived. He mumbled, ‘Hit speed dial one.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m a bear in the morning.’ He hugged me.

  I thought of how Vlad had been the morning after and asked, ‘Are you sorry you invited me?’

  ‘No! God, no.’ He dialed the number and gave me a peck on the lips. ‘I gotta go to work. Talk to your grandma. I’ll be home at five.’

  ‘Allo? Boba, Boba, it’s me. You wouldn’t believe it here. Just like on television. It’s so beautiful. His house is so big. We’re not in the city, though. We’re in the suburbs.’

  ‘You made the right decision,’ she said.

  Her voice crackled on the line. She was so far away. I sat down in a daze and touched the fuzzy surface of the white couch and looked at the white walls. I imagined Boba, sitting at our kitchen table staring at nothing. She’d pushed me so hard to leave Odessa that she convinced me that I was right to leave her behind. Yet when the train had pulled away from the station and I saw her face in an unguarded moment – the bleakness, the desolation – I realized her adamancy was just a cover. Oh, Boba.

  Finally, curiosity got the better of morosity and I explored my new surroundings, hoping to get an impression of Tristan’s life, his personality. I went into his bedroom first, wondering if it would be like Vlad’s.

  Tristan had a large bed with a plaid, flannel comforter. No books on the nightstand, just a phone and digital clock. When I turned around I saw the wall was covered with all the photos I’d ever sent him. Me on the beach. Boba and me on the sofa. Me at the office. (I’d cut David out of the photo but his hand still rested on my hip.)

  The phone rang. I picked it up.

  ‘Hi, sweetie. Miss you already.’

  He was so thoughtful.

  In the kitchen, I looked at the dishwasher, the appliance my grandmother most coveted. Walking in front of the large, shiny refrigerator I heard a noise and opened the door. Ice cubes dropped into a plastic box. Boba wouldn’t believe it! In the cupboard where Tristan kept his cereal were cans of pre-made soup and boxes of Stovetop Stuffing and Rice-a-Roni the San Francisco Treat. In the dining room, I found shelves of books.
Tomes of photography such as A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union, a set of encyclopedias, and ten books on the Civil War. He didn’t have many novels, but he did have the most important one ever written: Anna Karenina. This was a reassuring sign.

  Moving to the living room, I glanced through his collection of CDs (sixties music) and videocassettes (action films). I walked down the white hall to a small room with a washing machine and dryer. Outside on the back porch, I listened to the quiet and inhaled the fresh air, which smelled of moss and sunshine. I wrapped my arms around my body.

  I thought that there would be more noise in the suburbs.

  ‘Hello!’ a woman called out.

  She was in the house. I ran back in. The intruder had flushed cheeks and frizzy hair, and her eyes were big as they looked at me. I looked at her, too. In Odessa, no one just entered. We kept the door locked at all times.

  ‘Golly, you must be Dora. So nice to meet you.’ She put a plate of cookies on the counter and hugged me. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Molly.’

  ‘Daria. I’m happy to meet one of Tristan’s friends.’

  ‘Goodness, yes. I’ve known him ever since I started dating my Toby – he and Tristan were best friends in high school, and that’s been twenty some years now. Those are my little ones on the fridge.’

  I looked at photos of the two blond darlings. I would have to learn to trust him. It’s just that I was used to people lying – bazaar vendors said they had the freshest fruit, then when you got it home, it was spoiled; the government lied – after the accident at Chernobyl, Gorbachev said nothing serious had happened; all the time Olga and I spent together was a lie. Things would be different here.

  ‘Hon, I just stopped by to see if you need anything and to invite you to a barbecue tomorrow.’

  I thanked her for thinking of me. And looked forward to my first American party. What kind of food would she serve? Jane told me about Christmas and Thanksgiving, when her mother made pies, mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. What were Molly’s specialties?

  When Tristan came home, he kissed me and said, ‘What should we have for dinner?’

  My head shot up. He expected me to prepare a meal? ‘I don’t know how to cook,’ I admitted.

  His brow furrowed. ‘But on the dating site it said all the ladies could cook, sew, knit, wash clothes by hand, and iron. And you cooked me dinner in Odessa?. . .’

  Lie-lay-lain. Lie-lied-lied. ‘Actually,’ I looked down at the beige carpet, ‘it was my Boba who cooked all the meals. I never learned how. She said my career would be more important than learning to make borscht. But those sites are right, these are skills that our women have.’

  He was silent a long moment. ‘So you don’t know how to cook at all? You lied?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I gnawed at my bottom lip, waiting for him to say something, but he just looked at me. What if he sent me home because I couldn’t cook? ‘Are you sorry you chose me?’

  ‘No,’ he took me in his arms. ‘I bet you have other skills.’

  There was a gleam in his eye.

  ‘I bet I do,’ I confirmed, thinking of my ability to hold off men with words.

  ‘We can cook together. I can teach you to cook.’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  He hugged me. ‘Anyway, I didn’t mean you should cook. It’s your first day here. Let’s relax. Hang out. I meant what should we order? Pizza? Tacos? Burgers? They deliver.’

  Food delivered right to the door?

  We decided on pizza, half cheese, half supreme. ‘See,’ he said as he hung up the phone. ‘You don’t need to know how to cook or clean – you’re in America. Just tell me what you want and it’s yours.’

  I looked at the fireplace. ‘I would love to have a fire, but I guess it will have to wait until it’s cold outside?. . .’

  ‘Hell, no,’ he said. ‘I’ll just crank up the air-conditioning and then build one.’

  We sat on the sofa eating pizza on paper plates and watching the fire roar. After dinner, we threw the plates and the box on the flames. I’d never lived like this before.

  Knowing we would have a feast at Molly’s, I didn’t eat anything for breakfast or lunch. I was excited to meet Tristan’s friends and wore my midnight blue dress which caressed my calves when I walked. When Tristan came out of his bedroom wearing jeans, I was surprised but didn’t say anything. He, on the other hand, said, ‘Why all the black? You always look like you’re headed to a funeral, sweetheart.’ I looked down at my dress and went from feeling beautiful to feeling like an overdressed crow. In Odessa, like most cities, people wore dark clothes. I didn’t have spare money for casual attire – everything I bought had to be suitable for work. When I got home from the office, I changed into a housecoat Boba had sewn for me.

  We drove to Molly’s, though Tristan said it was only a fifteen-minute walk. I asked if we could buy her a bouquet, but he insisted it wasn’t necessary. I felt uncomfortable about visiting someone empty handed. In Odessa, only the rudest, most uncultured swine would not bring a gift to a hostess.

  A banner over the door proclaimed, ‘Welcome, Dora!’ I smiled. They’d almost got it right. I wanted to ring the doorbell, but Tristan said we were family and walked in. The interior looked just like Tristan’s – white walls and beige carpet. Phrases from several conversations came to me. Tristan advanced, but I wanted to stop and listen, to savor the moment. To be surrounded by English. My former teacher Maria Pavlovna would be so thrilled to hear these words.

  ‘I was just like holy smokes.’

  ‘He’s mulching. He’s never mulched before.’

  ‘She shouldn’t push it.’

  ‘The bump on his forehead stuck out an inch. He was on the flimsy ladder, not the good one. It’s so hard to keep him off the roof!’

  This was what I wanted. English all around me, all the time. People laughing and chatting. It felt fabulous.

  When we entered the living room, the talk stopped. Tristan grinned and clamped his arm around my shoulder. People stared. I was not offended. Odessan women are striking.

  ‘This is my new fiancée.’

  New fiancée? That made it sound like he’d had another one. No! Quit being so suspicious!

  They were silent a moment longer, until a man came forward, grabbed my hand, and shook it vigorously. ‘So you’re the little Russian gal Tristan saved.’

  Saved?

  A woman Tristan’s age handed me a pile of worn children’s books. ‘The Three Little Pigs,’ I read aloud. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘They’re to help you learn English,’ she said loudly and slowly.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Bet yer thankful ta be outta there,’ another said. ‘You sure are a purdy thing.’

  ‘Aren’t you glad to be in America, honey? Bet it was rough in Russia.’

  ‘Actually, I’m from Ukraine.’

  ‘Boy, that communism. That’s a toughie,’ a man said as he stroked his beard.

  The others greeted me in the same fashion. Interesting that they perceived me as some sort of refugee. ‘I come from Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea. We have the third most beautiful opera house in the world. The weather is mild and people come from all over the world, especially Moscow, Kiev, and St. Petersburg, to spend time at our beaches. Odessa is in Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are separate and distinct.’

  Was it just me, or had their eyes glazed over? They didn’t say anything or ask any questions. Perhaps I should have used Valentina’s ample example . . . Once, at a social, she’d drunk much too much vodka and I heard her explain the former Soviet Union to an American, who luckily had also had too much to drink. ‘You see, my dear man, the USSR is like a breast,’ she said in her deep voice as she ran her hands over her large bosoms for emphasis. ‘Think of Russia as the pale fleshy part. It is large but who really focuses on it? No one. Everyone stares at the nipples – smaller, but more colorful and more interesting. The part that nourishes the world. The nipple is Ukraine, the bre
adbasket of the former Soviet Union.’

  I smiled at the memory, at the kind people in front of me.

  ‘She just loves it here,’ Tristan said. ‘The first thing she did was play with the garage door opener. Up and down, up and down. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?’ He mimicked me – eyes wide, mouth agape. ‘Hell, the minute I leave for work, she’s probably out there hitting the button and watching the damn thing go up and down.’

  People laughed. I felt like an idiot and vowed never to be caught off guard again.

  ‘She’s blushing,’ a woman said. ‘You shouldn’t embarrass her.’

  Tristan hugged me. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m just teasing.’

  Eventually, the laughter subsided and the focus turned to other things, notably the junior high football team.

  Molly came into the living room and said, ‘Please God, don’t let Peter break any bones. I can’t believe I let him play. That kid will be the death of me.’ She pulled me away from Tristan and led me into the kitchen. ‘We’re so glad Tristan found you. Help yourself. Don’t be shy.’

  I looked at the table and read the bright labels on the large bags: Doritos, Cheetos, Fritos. There were also store-bought dips, pickles, ketchup, cans of cola and beer, a bucket of potato salad, and a tray of tomato, lettuce, and onion. I was disappointed. In Odessa, the time and effort put into planning a meal is a gauge of the importance of the guest.

  A man opened the sliding glass door and asked, ‘Who wants a weenie?’

  Molly whispered something in his ear. He looked at me and said, ‘You must be Dora. I’m Toby. We’re so glad to meet you.’ He hugged me. It would take time for me to adapt to this effusive greeting. Looking me up and down, he slapped Tristan on the back and said, ‘You done good, bro!’

  My stomach roared; I coughed to camouflage the noise. Molly gave me a paper plate on which I put tomato, lettuce, onion, and pickles. People piled food on their plates and we sat at a picnic table. As he watched me devour the vegetables, Toby said, ‘For a skinny thing, you sure can eat a lot. Don’t you want a hot dog?’

  Before I could tell him that I was a vegetarian, Tristan said, ‘Russians are so poor, they don’t ever get to eat meat, so she doesn’t like it. Probably doesn’t know what it tastes like.’