Moonlight in Odessa (24 page)

‘Odessa will always be here. Don’t they call the city Odessa-Mama? She’ll be right here, waiting for you if you want to come back. You’re young, you should go, explore, live.’

The lights came on and broke the spell. Still we stayed in the boardroom. I thought about Budapest. I would go, explore, live. He got up and turned off the lights. I was glad.

‘What are you so happy about?’ he asked.

I didn’t want to jinx it by telling anyone about my trip. ‘Aren’t you tired of Olga yet? I could find you a nice Odessan lady.’

‘I was married to a nice lady,’ he said. ‘Now I want a wicked one.’

I blushed, content to fall into our old banter like nothing had happened, like nothing had changed. Though things had changed. My salary had doubled. That pawn Olga had been knocked off the board. Through strategic sacrifice, I had won.

He talked about their wedding plans. I wondered if I should warn him – she would turn on him as she had turned on me. But I didn’t want to disturb the peace between us. I didn’t want to hurt or disappoint him. What if he didn’t believe me? Besides, everyone knows that in chess – and in Odessa – it’s every man for himself.

‘Your parents must be curious about where you work. Why don’t you invite them here for lunch?’

I stared at him.

‘What?’ he said. ‘Are you worried about the language barrier?’

I was worried about the dead barrier. How to explain one parent was dead and buried, the other dead to Boba and me? He was always complaining about his meddling, strict parents. He didn’t know how lucky he was. And I didn’t want him feeling sorry for me. I raised my chin a notch and said, ‘I’ll invite Boba, my grandmother.’

‘You just did the thing.’

‘What thing?’

‘With your chin.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You have an inner conversation with yourself. I know because your mouth moves slightly and sometimes you even mutter. You resolve something, lift your chin, then announce whatever it is you decided.’

I scowled. Clearly, we spent too much time together. An offense is the only defense. That’s what we say in Odessa.

‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘You clear your throat about fifty times when you’re nervous. You hide in your office when Vlad comes.’

‘I don’t hide. I’m busy.’

‘Busy hiding.’

‘Why should I deal with him when you’re so much better at it?’

‘You think a well-placed compliment will get you out of trouble.’

‘The only person I ever compliment is you. You’re just about the only good thing about this town.’

Infidel! ‘Odessa is the best city in the world and don’t you forget it!’

He put up his hands as if to ward off my blows. ‘Don’t hang me for treason. Just invite your grandmother to lunch tomorrow.’

Natalia Temofeevna. He tried to pronounce it five times before asking me to write it down. I did, but he stumbled so many times I said, ‘Just call her Boba. Everyone does.’

Of course this wasn’t true. We only let foreigners use the simplest version of our names.

Boba looked around our office just trying to find something wrong. She couldn’t help it, it was her eagle eye. But there was no dust anywhere and the floors were immaculate. She nodded, which was quite a compliment.

‘Is she your mother’s mother or father’s mother?’

‘Mother’s.’

He proffered his arm and Boba placed her hand in its curve. He escorted her to the boardroom, where she marveled at the feast. The last time I’d seen him make such an effort was when Mr. Kessler had come. Lobster from Maine. Caviar from the Danube. Champagne from France. Harmon had finally learned to drink like an Odessan. Maybe in France they choose white wine for this, red for that. In Odessa, the pop of the cork serves as the unofficial call to the table.
Champagnskoye
goes with everything – that’s what we say in Odessa.

‘Such an effort he’s made for you,’ Boba murmured.

‘For you, Boba.’

‘Such a handsome man . . .’

‘Mixing work and pleasure is like mixing pickles and ice cream. Would you have dated your boss Anatoly Pavlovich?’

‘I might have if he looked like that.’

Harmon looked down at his notebook where his Russian teacher had written some phrases phonetically. ‘The weather is fine,’ he said.

‘Of course it is,’ Boba responded. ‘We’re in Odessa.’

He raised an eyebrow and looked at me. ‘I see where you get it.’

‘Get what?’ I asked.

He turned to Boba. ‘Do you like the champagne?’

‘Bitter.’
Gorko
. She frowned. Believe me, we Odessans are experts on bitterness. ‘Next time, get Odessan
champagnskoye
. It’s light and sweet.’

It seemed he couldn’t do anything right. The butter was full of chemicals. Boba could taste them on her tongue. Get our all-natural butter from the bazaar, she advised him. How can you let him buy such things? she asked me. She told him the lobster was bland, the vegetables undercooked.

Harmon and I took the plates to the kitchen and waited for the coffee to brew.

‘She hates everything,’ he whispered glumly.

‘No,’ I corrected. ‘She loves it. And she likes you. She wouldn’t bother to pick everything apart if she didn’t. It’s when she’s polite that you have to worry. She thinks you’ve spent too much money on her. She just wants you to be less decadent next time.’

‘Really?’

‘
Absolutno!
The more critical we are, the more we like you. Watch out for people who are too nice – they’re not being sincere.’ I thought of Olga and hoped he picked up on my subtle warning.

‘You might be the most sincere person I know,’ he said dryly.

After coffee, Boba stood and said, ‘I’d better let you two get back to work. Thank you for such a fine meal.’

Harmon escorted her to the door and I followed behind them. Boba squinted in the sunlight.

‘It was such a pleasure to meet you. Next time, bring your daughter,’ he said in hesitant Russian.

Boba glanced at me. I shook my head, but she told him anyway. ‘Daughter – dead.’

His jaw dropped. Boba patted his cheek sympathetically and walked down Soviet Army Street.

‘When?’

‘When I was ten.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

My chin jutted out. ‘Not your business.’

He sighed. ‘Why don’t you go home?’ He dismissed me as effectively as I had him. Then he softened the blow. ‘Wouldn’t you like to spend the rest of the afternoon with Boba?’

‘I’ll clean up the boardroom.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he replied.

‘I always do.’

‘Cheeky girl.’

He turned to walk down the hall.

I grabbed his arm. ‘Wait. Thank you. For everything you did . . . for Boba.’

He looked at my hand on his sleeve. ‘Pleasure,’ he said automatically. ‘Anything . . . for Boba.’

Three days before I was supposed to meet Tristan, Jane phoned and I told her about my plan. A big mistake. You should never tell anyone anything.

‘Are you nuts?’ I heard a scream so loud that everyone from Montana to Odessa must have heard it, too. ‘He could be a sex fiend or an axe murderer! He could be a serial inviter of girls to foreign hotels! He could be a pedophile! He could be married! What do you know about this guy?’

‘He’s a teacher.’

‘Whatever!’ she shrieked. ‘Get out of it! Get out of it now!’

Jane never reacted like this. Usually, she was level-headed and full of good humor. But perhaps she was right. She was two years older than me and she had traveled. More than that, she was American and knew American men. Perhaps he preyed on innocent foreign women. Perhaps he was like Milla in Donetsk and had written to ten girls simultaneously. I couldn’t decide to go to, or not to go. But I couldn’t bring myself to call Tristan to tell him no. So I didn’t call at all. Like the days after my encounter with Vlad, like a slow leak, days dripped by.

Splut.

Splut.

Splut.

Shut-shut-shut
. Since I’d already asked for the vacation days, I stayed home. When I felt regret about not seeing Budapest, I replayed Jane’s words. Axe murder. Serial inviter of girls to hotels. Pedophile. Married. I ripped the ticket into pieces until it resembled sad confetti. He’d seemed so sincere, how could I have been so wrong? I looked at my watch. If I’d gone, we would have been having dinner. Talking and laughing about my jitters. He would have taken my hand and reassured me. I would have smiled shyly. His gaze would have caressed mine?. . .

But Jane was right. Tristan, if indeed that was his name, was surely a slick con man who used dumb girls like me for sex.

It hurt to think this – he’d seemed genuine. But then, so had Vlad. Tristan had never been my boyfriend. Like Will from Albuquerque. I had never seen him or touched him. He wasn’t real. Then why did it hurt so much? Perhaps I was still tender from my experience with Vlad. I thought about how I’d allowed myself to be duped. Again. How could I have considered flying off to a foreign country to meet some man I didn’t know? Only a fool would do such a thing. Hadn’t I learned?

The ringing phone cut through my contemplation. ‘Allo,’ I answered.

In the softest, saddest voice I had ever heard, Tristan asked, ‘Where are you? Why didn’t you come?’

I knew then that he was a decent guy, a bit awkward, a bit rough around the edges, just looking for love. I sat down in the black easy chair David had given me when he’d remodeled his apartment.

‘Why did you change your mind?’

How could I tell him the truth – that my friend had convinced me that he was a sex fiend? That I’d ripped up the ticket? I couldn’t bear to hurt him more than I already had.

‘Tristan,’ I croaked into the phone. ‘My grandmother is ill. Terribly ill. I can’t leave her. I tried to call, but you’d already left.’

I waited for him to answer, but I only heard static.

‘You believe me, don’t you?’ I asked. There was a little Siren in me, too.

I heard a sniffle.

‘I don’t know what to think,’ he finally answered in a voice as small as a grain of sand.

‘I wanted to come. You believe me, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do,’ he sniffled again. ‘I’m just so relieved. Not that your grandma’s sick, but I thought you changed your mind.’

‘Never,’ I said with conviction. We spoke for a few more minutes and I told him that tomorrow I would call him from the office. Too late, I realized it was incongruous to go from my grandmother’s death bed back to work in the space of a day. Luckily, my limitless effrontery was met with limitless gullibility. Sometimes we want so desperately to believe that we swallow lies without chewing them over. Boba had often told me that my father wanted to see me. I never questioned her; I wanted to believe.

Afterward, I sat near the phone in a daze, feeling horrible about what I’d done. I tried to blame Jane for talking me out of meeting Tristan, but could not bring myself to be angry with her. She’d tried to protect me. I had only myself to blame. How could I let a man fly to Europe then stand him up? The following day, I called and apologized repeatedly. He told me ‘not to sweat it,’ that he would come directly to Odessa next time. He spoke with conviction and sounded happy with this decision, but I was frightened.

Boba started planning what she would cook, a sure sign she was looking forward to his visit. I had conflicted feelings. I wanted to see him, but worried, too. What if I got all excited again and then he just disappeared like Will? What if he used me and disappeared like Vlad? What if he didn’t like me and disappeared like my father? I wanted to ask Jane’s advice but feared she would talk me out of meeting him again.

Jane was skeptical of Russian–American joint ventures. To earn money for college, she’d translated letters for a fifty-year-old farmer addicted to Moscow women. He corresponded with a dozen Muscovites, met a few, then returned home with a young bride. The first one told Jane she couldn’t stand the wide-open space of the stark Montanan steppe. When she returned to Russia, the farmer mourned for two months, then got right back on the horse and rode it straight to Moscow. It is true that we’d already had a few return customers at our socials. Valentina told me she’d thought of a new ad campaign – if your first marriage with a girl doesn’t work out, the second one is free.

Both Valentina and Boba pushed me towards Tristan. (Foreign is better.)

I hoped that things would work out with him, that he would love me, that he would want me to go to California, the Golden State, that we would have a family and be happy. But in my life, how many things had turned out as I had hoped?

Chapter 12

Tristan flew home early. He said he couldn’t enjoy Budapest without me. He confessed that it was the first time he had ever taken a plane, the first time he had ever visited a foreign country. I felt even worse about standing him up. I knew I’d have to learn to trust him.