Moonlight in Odessa (4 page)

Vera asked me, ‘What do you do?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘What do you do in bed?’ Vera asked. ‘We want to know.’

‘I sleep.’ I gulped down the last of my coffee and tried to leave, but they blocked the door.

‘How did you get so much money?’ Vita pressed. ‘Why do you get so many presents?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know.’ Perhaps it was rude to think of these girls as prostitutes, but it was naïve
not
to think of them in that way. I didn’t feel guilty about my uncharitable thoughts, since they considered me a whore, too. A superior one at that.

‘You look like a frigid bitch, but you must be doing something right.’ Vera stared at me, as though she could somehow decipher my tricks. ‘Do you lick it? Do you like it?’ she continued, trying to embarrass me. And succeeding, though I would never show them. I took a deep breath and willed myself not to turn borscht red.

‘What do the two of you talk about?’ Vita asked.

‘Does he dress you up? Tie you down? Does he buy you lingerie just so he can rip it off your tight, little body?’ Vera asked, running her fingers across my chest. I hit her hand away.

As I walked down the hall, I heard Vita ask softly, ‘Does Mr. Harmon love you?’

Her question stopped me. Love? He spoiled me with trinkets and treated me like a precious object when he wasn’t jealously guarding me from the eyes of any male in our office. He pursued me until he grew dizzy, like a dog chasing its own tail. That wasn’t my idea of love. Was it his?

I longed for love. For passion. For ecstasy. I knew what the words meant, but not how they
felt
. Love. Was it dancing in the moonlight to music only two people hear? Was it washing socks and peeling potatoes? Was it sex? Was it tender? What were the exact ingredients? How do you make it grow? How do you kill it? How long do you have to suffer when it dies? I’d read Russian novels full of beauty and anguish. I’d discovered American romances with their happy endings. But nothing in my life was like that. Love. Boba said love was blind, deaf, and dumb – mostly dumb. She also said that the minute a woman fell in love was the minute trouble began. And that the women in our family were cursed. But that didn’t stop me from longing. I wanted a husband. I wanted to hold an infant to my breast. I wanted a real family – the kind I’d never had. The kind with a mother
and
a father.

Vita’s question softened me. Of course, I wanted friends at the office. Of course, I hated that they were jealous. I returned to the kitchen threshold and admitted, ‘I haven’t slept with Mr. Harmon,’ then added, ‘My grandmother says that sex gets you dinner and an evening at the opera, but saying no to sex gets you respect, or at worst, a wedding ring.’

Vera laughed bitterly; Vita still didn’t understand, the poor dear. Some women never get it. Of course, they repeated what I’d said. Fifty-one minutes later, when Mr. Harmon realized that he’d gone from the office stud to the office joke, he was angry. Very angry.

Late every evening, after her three children fell asleep, my neighbor Olga, an artist, came down for a quick bite – she couldn’t stay long, as she didn’t dare leave her babies alone. Olga and I had been in the same grade in junior high, I’d been the head of the class, she the tail. We’d stuck together through thin and thinner. Both our fathers deserted us. We were put in the worst section because neither of us could afford to bribe the teachers. We both wanted to practice ballet, so we pooled our money together to buy one pair of satin slippers. Later, the dance instructor said my body was made for playing ping-pong, not dancing. My feet kept growing; Olga kept the slippers.

In high school, Olga was so popular she didn’t have time to study. I wrote her essays and let her copy my math problems with pleasure. In exchange, she told me all about her dates, including her rendezvous with the geometry teacher. (That term, she didn’t need to copy my math homework.) Olga, petite and pretty, sat on the boys’ laps, giggling and cooing as they stroked her curvaceous bottom. I was the tallest person in school and so skinny the boys called me ‘frizzy-haired matchstick.’ Olga fell in love as often as it rained. I hadn’t fallen in love yet – not even once.

Five years later, she was the only classmate who had any time for me. Though Odessa is a fairly level city, a great divide exists: marriage. Boys are spoiled by their mothers and expect to be pampered by their wives. As a teen visiting my friends this is what I saw: Men go to work, then return home and read the newspaper with their feet up. Women go to work then return home and work some more. Marriage is all-consuming.

And now my former schoolmates spent their evenings and weekends looking after their husbands: cooking daily feasts from scratch; canning the vegetables and fruit of their labor; washing clothes and linens by hand, then ironing all items – even towels and underwear – as a proper wife should. In Odessa, girls’ night out doesn’t exist for married women.

Olga, despite her three little ones, was like me – never married. Of course, she said she was divorced so that people wouldn’t think there was something wrong with her.

As usual, Olga wore her sheer cotton robe and our tattered ballet slippers. There was blue paint on her cheek and some in her yellow hair. She carried little Ivan, who was bundled up like a Siberian Eskimo.

‘Olga, come in. For God’s sake, eat something.’

We entered the kitchen, my grandmother’s domain. The orange linoleum on the walls and floor was of poor quality, but immaculate. Boba had scrubbed the surfaces with her special lemon-bleach concoction so many times that they were tangerine-colored. I pulled a stool out from under the table and sat Olga down, then fixed her a plate of hummus, red peppers stuffed with feta, and
lavash
bread.

I took Ivan in my arms. ‘He feels hot,’ I said and gently pulled off the sweater and cap Boba had knit him so I could touch his soft skin.

‘I swear, you’re in love with that boy,’ Olga said.

She seemed to force herself to eat slowly, so that I wouldn’t know – or wouldn’t mention – that this was the first meal she’d had all day. ‘I get so involved in my work and forget about the time,’ she said.

For my birthday, Olga always gave me a small abstract painting. She was talented, it’s just most people were struggling to survive and couldn’t afford art anymore. Principles were also very expensive. As she finished eating, I poured the water from the purifier into the electric kettle (both presents from Mr. Harmon). The electric kettle was easier to use than the gas stove, and the filtered water tasted much better, though we still had to boil it to kill the bacteria. Olga asked about my day, so I told her about Mr. Harmon, Vita, and Vera.

‘Wake up!’ Olga yelled. ‘Every bite you take is thanks to Mr. Harmon. Everything you have – down to your fancy toilet paper – comes from him. You know what he wants, just pay up! You’re being rude. He’s made more effort to seduce you than all my lovers combined!’

It must be said that all of Odessa knows how easy Olga is.

‘What’s the big deal?’ she continued. ‘If I had a rich foreign man who wooed me, I’d be thrilled.’ Olga slammed her plate in the sink, then turned and said, ‘You just don’t know how lucky you are.’

I did know. Boba taught me to look for moments – or seconds – of grace. She often reminded me that we were lucky to live in a one-room flat, when many people lived in
kommunalkas
, communal apartments. She said we were lucky to have enough to eat and instructed me to give coins to pensioners begging in the streets and to feed Olga, who could barely nourish her three children. (Unlike most women, Olga was too tenderhearted to abort. I’d never met any other Russian or Ukrainian woman with three children.)

Olga opened the front door and yanked Ivan from my arms. ‘You owe it to Mr. Harmon to sleep with him. After all, you took the job knowing the requirements. Pay up.’

The door slammed in my face.

Perhaps she was right. After all, I had accepted the job and the conditions.

I thought about what Olga said and decided to ask Jane. After Mr. Harmon left for the day, I called her in America and explained that a ‘friend’ was having trouble with her boss. Although she sometimes surprised me with her uncanny analyses, Jane was sometimes so obtuse she couldn’t see through plastic wrap (another gift from Mr. Harmon). This was one of those times. Jane said, ‘That’s harassment! It’s against the law for her boss to demand sexual favors,’ as though the laws of the civilized world counted here.

I laughed at that phrase, sexual favors. A favor is an act of kindness or help. It wasn’t a favor, it was an economic form of dominance that many Western men applied in Odessa. But Americans are not precise in their language. Jane could meet someone and five minutes later call him a friend. For me, this same person would remain an acquaintance for a very long time.

‘Don’t let her be taken advantage of! In the States, laws protect women and children against predators.’

I liked it when she spoke of her country. It sounded like a lovely place full of laws and security for everyone. Even trees and flowers are protected in America.

Mr. Harmon was no fool. He didn’t speak much Russian, but he understood that everyone was laughing at him, and he was furious with me. I’d managed to hold him off for six months, yet I could feel my days were numbered. He noticed Vita and Vera giggling when he entered the kitchen. It occurred to me that they exhibited this behavior to get back at me or get rid of me. They were jealous that I had a higher salary and unlike them, I hadn’t slept with my boss as a contract clincher.

For days, he glared and barked at me, more than usual. ‘Quit typing so loud, dammit! I have a headache!’ ‘What are you smiling for? And who do you think paid for that smile?’

My hand flew to my mouth.

After lunch I sat at my desk, typing as quietly as possible. He slipped behind me. I kept typing. ‘Ship arrived a day late, on the 25th.’ He didn’t say anything, he just stood there. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to speak. Afraid to move.
Freeze-froze-frozen
. Somehow, this quiet assault was more terrifying than his blundering and blustering. ‘Customs cleared on the 29th.’ I felt unsettled, as if he had tied a ribbon around my neck and pulled it tighter and tighter until I could no longer breathe. Still I typed. ‘Two hundred empty containers loaded on to ship.’ Only when Yuri the security guard lumbered down the hall on his rounds did Mr. Harmon retreat. I continued to type. ‘Await next delivery on the 2nd.’ Quietly.

The next morning, I stalled. I stood in the bathroom and gripped the cracked sink and looked in the mirror. How much longer could I take it? What would it take to make him stop? I was afraid. And weary of constantly watching my step. But I needed this job. Boba and I were finally living like normal people.

In Odessa, there’s a saying: Moscow is known for its winter days and frosty females, Odessa for her summer nights and hot women. The plain truth is that Odessans are drop dead out of this world gorgeous. Maybe it’s the sea air, maybe the sunshine. We have silky hair, flawless skin, and cheekbones with sharper edges than our tongues. How could I make myself less attractive? I pulled my dark hair into an austere bun at the base of my neck and washed off the mascara that highlighted my green eyes. Pairing a white blouse with a loose black blazer and long skirt, I looked like an anemic nun.

When Mr. Harmon stood in front of my desk to tell me the day’s schedule, he snapped. ‘You owe me!’

Sick of feeling as though I were walking barefoot on broken glass, I, too, snapped. I stood, so that I towered over him. ‘Do you want me to show you what I owe you?’

‘Yessss.’ The word came out of his mouth like an enraptured sigh, as if he really expected me to lift up my blouse and bare my breasts.

‘This is what I owe you.’ I pulled out my dentures. ‘Take them.’

I forced myself to smile, revealing my bald, ugly gums. Deflated in every sense, Mr. Harmon retreated to his office. My hands shook so hard that it was difficult to put my teeth back in. The constant pressure was starting to get to me. I knew that I had to leave this office – and eventually Odessa – if I wanted to build a normal life for myself. Although at twenty-three I was rather old, I still wanted a family. If I had a little girl, I’d name her Nadezhda – Hope – after my mother. Of course, to have a child, you need a man. I was so busy with work, I had no time to date. And anyway, Boba said Odessan men weren’t worth a kopeck. Jane had praised American men because they built a foundation of friendship before ‘taking it to the next step.’ I loved my native city, but how I longed to escape, to go to America – a land full of eligible men, a land free of harassment at work.

I thought of how I’d repelled Mr. Harmon, embarrassed that I had been lowered to such a vulgar display. Until now, I’d thought of him as a nuisance, but after his outburst and strange behavior the day before, I had to reconsider this stance. He was a danger. It would not be possible to out-maneuver him forever. I just didn’t realize that his retribution would come so quickly.

That afternoon, I was standing at my desk revising the quarterly report when he strode up behind me and spun me around.

‘Hey,’ I yelled and shoved him.

He shoved me back and I fell back on to the desk. My breath left my lungs and wouldn’t come back. I gasped for air. I tried to move my leg to kick him in the groin. Impossible. I tried to formulate a complete thought. Impossible. I tried to find the words to dissuade him as I had so many times before, but when I opened my mouth, only a sad whimper emerged. I stared up at him like a butterfly full of ether, waiting for him to stick his pin in and finish me off.