Moonlight in Odessa (25 page)

‘I am so sorry.’ I typed out the words twenty times.

‘Please don’t feel bad. Your grandma was sick. It wasn’t your fault. I wish I could of come to visit you. I could of helped take care of her. Is she feeling better? Are you?’

‘Much better,’ I wrote. This was true. I was confident that he was a good man and that our meeting was fate.

Three weeks later, on the day of his arrival, I did something I’d never done before. I called David and pleaded sick. He told me to get some rest. It’s true I had been so nervous that I hadn’t slept for two days.
Choose-chose-chosen
.

I stood in front of the mirror and pulled my hair into a chignon as I did for work. Spinster. I took the pins out and brushed my hair.
Become-became-become
. In my black suit, I looked like I was going to a business meeting. I put on a short skirt, and a gauzy peasant blouse. My hand trembled as I put on my mascara and I covered my lids with specks of black. I had never been so nervous in my entire life.
Begin-began-begun
.

What if things didn’t work out?

What if they did?

‘Dasha, Dasha,’ my Boba said. ‘There’s no reason to be worried. He’s just one man. There are millions. You’ll find the right one.’

I nodded and walked past the wishing well, past the wisps of wisteria that clung to the building, out onto the street. Rather than taking the bus, I hailed what we Odessans call an ‘informal taxi’ and negotiated a fair fare to and from the airport. When the driver asked, ‘Picking someone up?’ I told the fib I’d prepared for David, in case he saw me with Tristan. ‘An American cousin who wants to get in touch with his roots.’

‘They want to visit, but they never want to stay,’ he said bitterly.

I regretted the lie. There’s something about taxi drivers, these men and women who know everything about the city, who see you at your best – on the way to a wedding or the opera, and at your worst – after a disastrous date, that makes you want to confide in them. The silence left me alone, uncomfortable with my thoughts and fears, so I asked, ‘What’s your other job?’

‘I’m a surgeon.’

Doctors make a pittance. Everyone has to moonlight – the main trade and the spare – to keep our noses above water as the tide of poverty sweeps Ukraine. Why else would I be thinking of marrying a total stranger? I longed for stability. Although I earned a good salary today, I could be unemployed tomorrow – without the dole or redundancy packages offered in the West. The firm I worked for was under constant scrutiny from the government, who wanted more taxes. Despite the ‘rent’ we paid, in the last six months alone, there had been three acts of anti-Semitism. And no arrests or investigation since no one had been hurt. Of course, the real reason was that we were an Israeli firm and no one in Odessa cared about Jews. If I’d been the branch manager, I would have pulled out. I didn’t know why David stayed. Even I wanted to go. That’s why I was on the way to the airport. Tristan was my ticket out.

While the driver parked, I went to see if the flight was on time. And waited for the man who’d flown halfway around the world to walk through the door. As people filed out, I stood on my toes and tried to catch a glimpse of his brown hair and blue eyes. When I saw him, I noticed strands of white hair. Clearly, the photos he’d sent of himself had been taken ten years ago, maybe more. I knew he’d be tired from such long flights. I knew his age. I just didn’t expect him to look so . . . old. And he wore tennis shoes and jeans. I hadn’t imagined him in a tuxedo, but assumed he’d make an effort for our first meeting.

If I went by Tristan’s reaction when he saw me, I stunned. ‘Glad. To meet you. Dora. Wow. To finally see you. Wow. To be here. Wow. You sure are pretty.’

‘Daria. It’s nice to meet you.’ I was disappointed. I knew he was older, but he wasn’t what I expected . . . Boba would have urged me to look for something positive. He had soft blue eyes and a tentative smile. He flew all the way from America to be with me. He’s a real man. A decent man. Not a player.

Tristan stared at me, seemingly at a loss for words. I didn’t know what to say either. We’d written so many letters, but now that we were standing face to face, we were speechless. It was easier to face a computer screen than a real person. I should have rehearsed for this moment.
Swim-swam-swum. Dive-dove . . . doven? Do-did-done
.

The driver said, ‘I better grab this guy’s luggage. He’s so taken with you, he’s liable to forget it.’

Tristan couldn’t stop gaping. On the way to the car, his hand came towards me, as though he wanted to hold mine or place his palm on the small of my back. It wavered near my body for a minute, then returned inertly to his side. When the driver opened the boot of the Lada, he said, ‘The American doesn’t look at you like he’s your cousin.’

I smiled. ‘We’re a very close family.’

The driver chuckled. Odessans are used to being lied to. But we appreciate it when the liar takes the time to make up a story. I worried that Tristan would find it odd to ride with a stranger, so I introduced the driver as my uncle. He laughed, slapped his thigh and said, ‘Uncle Vadim!’ We were unofficial passengers in an unofficial taxi. So the police wouldn’t suspect we were paying customers, I sat in the front and put Tristan in the back.

The airport was close to Odessa, so we went from the country to the city in ten minutes. We sped around gigantic pot holes, down cobblestone streets, past the concrete Soviet high rises of the modern section, to the heart of the city. I asked Tristan what he thought of the city as we drove through Odessa.

‘It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know there were, uh, so many fancy buildings. I mean, I know you sent me all those beautiful photos. Uh. You know, what I’m trying to say is that it’s even better in person . . .’

I smiled, encouraged by his words; he continued to tell me his impressions. It was interesting to listen to a native speaker. His pronunciation was so novel. Nothing became ‘nuthin’. The sound ‘uh’ was sprinkled onto sentences like cinnamon flecks on Boba’s apple tart.

When the driver opened the boot to get Tristan’s luggage, he handed me a piece of paper with his number and the word
takci
on it. ‘Don’t be shy about calling Uncle Vadim if you need a lift. And I expect an invite to the wedding,’ he said in Russian. I blushed. ‘Goodbye and good luck,’ he said to Tristan in English.

‘You have a nice family,’ Tristan said.

‘Thank you. Welcome to our home.’

When Boba heard my voice, she came down the steps into the courtyard. Her hands were clasped in front of her heart. She looked from me to Tristan and I had never seen such naked joy on her face. ‘What a fine-looking man. And he came all this way for you,’ she said. Boba was so wise. ‘Tell him I say hello and welcome to sunny Odessa.’

I translated, and Tristan turned to her and said, ‘HELLO. NICE TO MEET YOU.’

We escorted him up the stairs, through the entryway into the living room, where we had covered the kitchen table with an embroidered tablecloth and my favorite foods: a beet dish so bright it was guaranteed to cheer up any sad winter day; a potato salad so delicious no one ever left without begging Boba for the recipe; small open-faced sandwiches; aubergine caviar that tasted better than the real thing; fish that Boba had de-boned by hand (which left her gnarled hands covered with hundreds of paper-cut-like nicks); black bread still warm from the bakery. Boba and I were both vegetarians, but she had prepared a rabbit for Tristan. (In the old days, when food was scarce, unscrupulous vendors sold skinned cats as rabbits; now they’re sold and served with their furry paws and buck teeth intact to prove that everything is on the up and up.)

‘Dasha, invite the gentleman to be seated,’ my grandmother said, wringing her hands nervously.

‘Won’t you sit down?’ I asked and filled his plate with Boba’s delicacies. As I reached for an Odessan favorite, a slice of bread topped with a thick layer of butter and lovely sardines, Tristan whispered, ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Please don’t refuse, you’ll offend my grandmother.’

‘I’m a little sick to my stomach,’ he whispered. ‘I see you went to a lot of trouble, but maybe I could wait until later to eat.’

Poor Boba couldn’t understand. When I repeated his words in Russian, she still didn’t understand. ‘I’ve never seen a man turn down a meal,’ she said between clenched lips. In Odessa, food isn’t just nourishment, it is love and respect. When we invite you to our table, it’s covered with home-made dishes prepared with the guest in mind. When we invite you to our home, we invite you to be our friend.

‘Tristan, please understand, refusing food in Odessa is like refusing to shake someone’s hand.’

He looked at Boba’s stony face and picked up the open-faced sandwich. ‘Do I eat the heads and tails?’

I nodded.

He bit down and chewed slowly. I saw not only that he wasn’t hungry, but that he didn’t like sardines. He tried to hide it by taking a drink of Boba’s home-made compote between each bite. But he finished the sandwich without a word. Then he started to cut the meat. He smiled at me. I nodded encouragingly. It was important to have my grandmother’s blessing.

Boba and I hadn’t eaten for two days, we were both so nervous. After Tristan started to eat, we did, too. I could see that Tristan didn’t like rabbit, but after he tried the potato salad, he exclaimed, ‘My God, it’s incredible. I can die happy now.’

I didn’t need to translate his words. Everyone said the same thing about Boba’s potato salad. Before we could serve the cake, Tristan’s eyes started to close slowly, then fly open. I showed him to my bedroom, the guest room during his stay.

Boba and I ate dessert, just the two of us, as we had so many times in the past. Some things would never change. I raised my glass of
champagnskoye
, ‘To the lovely hostess and her golden hands!’

‘To my beautiful granddaughter!’ Boba toasted. ‘May she be lucky in love!’

I kissed her quickly three times on the lips, as is our custom.

Boba stroked my hair and said, ‘A man promised, “Darling, when we get married, I’ll be there to share the trouble and sorrows.” His fiancée said, “But I don’t have any . . .” The man replied, “I said, when we get married . . .”’

I giggled.

‘He certainly liked the potato salad,’ Boba said.

‘Of course he did.’

‘What do you think of your young man?’

I shrugged. How could I tell my grandmother that he didn’t make my heart gladden? ‘He’s all right. It’s too soon to tell.’

‘Too early to tell?’ She threw her hands out and looked up at the ceiling. ‘He’s American. He came all this way. He was polite, so polite that he ate food he didn’t like so he wouldn’t offend. You said he doesn’t live with his parents and he has a steady job. What are you waiting for? A message from God signed by all twelve apostles?’

My mouth fell open. Who was this woman? Never had Boba tried to force me to date. She always told me to take my time and to make a wise choice. That the choice of life partner was the most important one that a woman would ever make.

‘What are you saying?’

‘Stop moping about Vladimir Stanislavski. He’s not the one for you. Give
this
man a chance. I’m not saying you have to get married tomorrow. Just be open. Try to get to know him. Let him get to know you. Don’t you want a family? Don’t you want children?’

‘You know I do, Boba. More than anything.’ Of its own accord, my bottom lip started to quiver. Why was Boba attacking me like this? I was so far over Vladimir Stanislavski that he was just a speck. I could barely see him. How could she think I was moping?

‘Don’t be offended, granddaughter.’ She stroked my face. ‘If you want a family, if you want to break The Curse, you’ll have to open your heart and look past appearances. Handsome devils are just that – devils. They won’t make you happy. Not in the long run. Your mama and I both figured that much out.’

It seemed that everything had been said. Wordlessly, we rose from the table and started to take the dishes from the dining room table into the kitchen. As I was covering the beet dish with a plate so that it wouldn’t dry out in the refrigerator, Boba said, ‘When I was a young woman, my neighbor Alla asked me to make my potato salad for the evening she invited her boyfriend Arcady to dinner. Of course I did, and of course she passed the dish off as her own. He proposed that very night. I’m sure it was the potato salad that cinched the deal.’

‘I’m sure it was, too.’ She told me this story every time she made potato salad. I’d heard all her stories at least one hundred times each.

‘One evening, years later, when he was a little tipsy, he told me he married the wrong woman. He found out only after the wedding that I had made the famous potatoes. Men! They’ll do anything for my salad.’

That night as I lay in bed I stared at the ceiling and thought about what had Boba said. I was judgmental. And hard on people. I needed to be softer.

The next morning, Tristan stepped out of the bathroom after a long shower. His hair was wet, and his eyes shone. He looked better than he had the day before. Or maybe after Boba’s strong words, I saw him differently.

‘Did you sleep well, Tristan?’

‘I love it when you say my name. It sounds so sexy.’