Moonlight in Odessa (33 page)

Chapter 16

My Darling Boba, the best Grandmother in the world!

Greetings and love from Emerson!

Waiting impatiently for a letter from you. Please do write! It would make me so happy.

You’d be surprised by so many things here. People have yards, but no gardens. They buy their fruits and vegetables at the supermarket. They don’t can at all, can you believe it? Tristan’s friend Molly says she has enough to do without worrying about that. She wrote down the names of the best brands so that I wouldn’t be confused about which ones to choose. There are over one hundred kinds of shampoo and toothpaste. There are so many different brands of jams and jellies. The best raspberry jam here isn’t half as tasty as yours . . . Next year, I am planning on growing my own tomatoes, potatoes, and strawberries. What else do you think I should plant?

The sparrows are plump and happy here. People are open and friendly. You can get exactly what you want. In a café in Odessa, we are lucky to get real coffee rather than instant. We are lucky if it comes to the table warm. In San Francisco, when Jane and I went for a coffee, she ordered a ‘half caff skinny extra hot latte easy on the foam with a shot of vanilla.’ When it was my turn to order, I didn’t know what to say! Can you imagine the look the waitress would shoot you if you tried such a thing in Odessa?

I miss your voice, your jokes, your stories. Won’t you consider coming to visit? When he was in Odessa, Tristan said you could come and live with us. I do hope you’ll think about it. I want you to see this paradise for yourself.

All my love,

Dasha

Freeze-froze-frozen. Ring-rang-rung.
I put on the velvet dress that Boba had sewn for me. Tristan looked handsome in his khaki trousers and blue button-down shirt I’d spent an hour ironing. He held my hand tight. His palms were sweaty. So were mine. He kept pushing wisps of hair behind my ear, I kept untucking them – I’d left them down on purpose. Little by little, everyone arrived.
Everyone
. Everyone was no one I knew. Forty people – the women in dresses, the men in jeans, the boisterous children climbing on furniture and knocking down lamps – clogged the dining room. I gave the little ones sweets and told them that they would soon grow up and all their dreams would come true. Harried mothers handed me casseroles. I accepted their offerings with the smile and kind words Boba had instilled in me.

Boba.

I felt a pang. If only she could have come. Or my mother. Or even Jane. Then I remembered: I wasn’t talking to Jane. Not after what she said to me. She still called, begging me to open up, but I only spoke about the weather until she tired and hung up.

Hal, an older, jowly version of Tristan, squeezed me in a grip that felt like the jaws of life. Hal was a minister and his wife Noreen, whose pinched expression gave the impression that her heels were two sizes too small, was holier-than-thou.

‘You’re a very lucky girl to go from rags to riches,’ she said. ‘Every woman in your country dreams of coming to the U.S. of A. You should be grateful for all this family has done for you. That other girl wasn’t grateful at all.’

‘What other girl?’ I asked.

Noreen looked to Hal.

‘One of Tristan’s ex-girlfriends,’ Hal said. ‘You have to forgive Noreen, she doesn’t think anyone is good enough for Tristan.’ His tone was as cold as a Siberian winter and he held Noreen’s arm so tightly she winced.

Behind them Molly rolled her eyes then winked. Noreen and Hal moved on, and I stood watching all these strangers. As people talked around me and over me, but not to me, I was reminded of the buzzing of a thousand flies.

And to think, this was my wedding day.

I laid my hand on my chest. Of course I thought of him. And of what our wedding in Odessa would have been like. An intimate ceremony, certainly, followed by a feast prepared by Boba and me. Well, mostly Boba, but I would have helped. Glasses raised to me, the beautiful bride; a toast to the groom, lucky in love; another to Boba for raising such a granddaughter; a final word of praise for his mother, so courageous in bringing up three strong sons. Vlad and I would feed each other a piece of braided bread so that we never go hungry, dipped in salt so that life always has flavor. He would smile tenderly. I’d lick the salt from his fingers . . . No. I shook my head. That gangster was not welcome at this celebration.

Everyone got in their cars and drove to a patch of forest. Tristan declared that since I hadn’t gone to service in the time I’d been in the States that I was like him: ‘not churchy.’ I thought of telling him about the synagogues in Odessa that had been destroyed, the rampant anti-Semitism. I wanted to remind him that religion had been forbidden in the Soviet Empire. After perestroika, people were leery about returning. Many like me didn’t know how to return.

But I remained silent, fearing that he would get it wrong again, like when he said I didn’t eat meat because there was none. He clearly had problems with interpretation.

Plus, he’d said, after spending so much ‘dough’ to get me to America, we didn’t have much left for ‘frivolous things like weddings.’ He decided that we would have ours as God intended, in a wooded area outside of Emerson. We exchanged our rings solemnly. The only sound was the birds chirping. It seemed like a good omen.

We returned to Tristan’s house for the ‘potluck.’ No use wasting good money to pay a caterer, he’d said, and asked his friends to supply the food. To me, our reception didn’t feel like a celebration at all, just a huge bring-your-own picnic with dishes and paper plates perched on a card table on its last legs. In Odessa, no woman ever asked guests to cook their own dinner. In Odessa, women created feasts, and this effort showed how much they cared. I tried to smile. In America, I’d noticed that people smiled when they were happy, but also when they were nervous or uncertain. No one noticed that my smile was of the melancholy variety. They hugged me and called me hon. They wished me well and asked if I was happy. I smiled.

It had all happened so fast. Tristan and I went hiking on Sunday afternoon a week after we returned from San Francisco. He’d been nervous all morning, stuttering and losing his train of thought. We sat on a faded blanket and ate cheese sandwiches. After lunch he got on his knees and pulled me to mine. Holding my hands in his, he looked into my eyes and asked, ‘Will you make me the happiest man in the world? Will you marry me?’

Tenderness spread through my body as I understood how difficult it had been for him to work up the courage to propose. No vodka necessary.

‘This will be the last time I ask,’ he said and squeezed my hand. ‘I know what I want. But this has to be what you want, too.’

I thought about what I wanted: security. A home. A child. A real family. An end to the family curse. This was what Boba wanted for me. Tristan had proven himself, unlike Vlad. I looked into Tristan’s eyes and saw gentle simplicity. I could trust him. He loved me. We wanted the same things. Why wait? I threw my arms around his neck. ‘Yes!’

He kissed me and kissed me and hugged me tight. It felt pleasant. I was thrilled to know I’d be staying in America with a dependable man. He would never just disappear. He would always be there.

‘We should get married right away,’ he said when we got home.

I nodded, dazed by the conviction of his voice, by the haste of our engagement. But wasn’t that why I’d come to America?

‘I don’t want you changing your mind,’ he joked. Then he speaker-phoned Molly. I heard her cry, ‘Oh my God! Congratulations!’, call Toby, then shout, ‘Oh my God!’ again. Tristan asked if she thought we could have the wedding in a week. She said she would organize everything: invitations, caterer, hall. He replied that we had ‘a budget,’ a word that means no money, and suggested we have the reception at home.

I called Jane and asked her to be my maid of honor.

‘Oh my God! Of course!’

I noticed that God is always on Americans’ lips, on their minds, on their money.

‘The ceremony is Friday.’

‘This Friday?’ she shrieked.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s so sudden. You have a three-month visa. Don’t you want to use the time to get to know him better?’

‘I know all I need to; we want the same things. Why wait?’

She said she had to ask for the time off and check ticket prices. She called back an hour later. ‘The last-minute fare is over one thousand dollars. Why Friday? Why a weekday? Why so soon?’

She already knew the answers. She just wanted me to say them.
He doesn’t want Jane or Boba to come. He wants us tied together as soon as possible. He doesn’t want to give me time to think
. These thoughts were somewhere in my brain. I’m not stupid. But knowing and admitting are two different things.

‘He’s so much older. And you haven’t known him very long. Do you love him?’

The only defense is an offense, that’s what we say in Odessa. ‘What about you? That Tans is practically a pensioner! Do you love him?’

‘Yeah, I love him. And no, I’m not going to marry him.’

‘You have that luxury. You’re American. I’m here on a visa.’

‘Do you love him?’ she repeated.

I wanted to.

‘Please, please wait,’ she pleaded. ‘There’s no rush. You’ll have your whole lives together.’

I heard the frantic notes in her voice: worry, concern, and fear. But I hadn’t asked her opinion. I didn’t want to hear that I was being hasty or that I was wrong.

‘When you gave me advice in Odessa, I always listened to you,’ she said. ‘I always trusted you. And you were always right. Please trust me now. Don’t do this. Don’t. Let’s try to find another solution. Maybe you can get a work visa. Or find someone else.’

I wanted to hear I was making the right decision. She’d been wrong about Budapest. I could have trusted Tristan. I should have gone. She was wrong about this. And perversely, the way she said no made me want to say yes. She didn’t understand Tristan the way I did. She didn’t know how kind and thoughtful he could be. And she was practically an old maid anyway. What did she know about marriage? I pulled away from Jane, the voice of reason.

‘I have to go. I need to talk to Boba.’

So it wasn’t my dream wedding. I was still lucky. I was in America. I would have my own family. I would make new friends. I looked at Molly, who’d greeted, cleaned, and organized the entire day. She had even cooked
vareniki
for the reception. I was touched by her kindness and put three potato ravioli on my plate. God loves three, that’s what we say in Odessa.

‘I hope they taste all right,’ Molly said.

I took a bite and nodded. ‘My Boba always says the first time is good, the second time even better. Thank you for bringing a piece of Odessa to Emerson.’

‘My pleasure. I made the dough from scratch, just like the recipe said. You Ukrainian gals sure don’t do things the easy way.’

So true.

I looked down at my bouquet and touched the red petals. Last night, Molly’s husband Toby had come to Tristan’s. Looking sheepish, he said he’d been ordered to invite Tristan over for a beer. ‘A laid-back bachelor party,’ he explained.

Tristan didn’t want to leave, but Toby proved to be persuasive. ‘Come on, man. When have you ever said no to a brewski?’

‘Brewski! Ha! Didn’t know you spoke Russian.’

And off they went. I drew a bath, intending to try to relax and reflect on my new life. Reality – the fact that I would be tied to this man for life – was seeping in. I grew more and more nervous. Was Jane right? Should I wait? Now that the date was set, was it too late to have doubts? I stepped into the water. I steeped in the water, thinking thoughts that got as dark as Boba’s favorite black tea.

Here is the one thing all Odessan women know: men stray; men leave. They go to sea, they go to see. They go off to war, off to seek their fortune, off with their drinking buddies. But women, women stay. We wait, we wonder. Penelope was the original
Odessitka
. She waited for Odysseus to come home. She waited, she cried, she wondered, maybe she even prayed. What a paragon. (What an idiot! Jane said.) Women don’t leave. Women don’t file for divorce. Women endure. We learn in health class that girls mature more quickly, that women are stronger, live longer, can bear children, can bear more,
do
bear more, period. Ask any
Odessitka
. She’ll tell you that our men went off to war after war, that Stalin killed our men, and that now there are more women than men. And you don’t have to be a capitalist to understand the concept of supply and demand.

Odessitki
are taught to be cultured, well bred, feminine, clever, to work hard, to solve problems, to bear the brunt, to accept that some day, we may be alone . . . We have staying power. Patience. The man is the king of the castle, even if his castle is a
communalka
. No provision is made for his wife. Sometimes I wonder: when sailors go back to sea, are their wives relieved?

Just as I stepped out of the tepid water, the doorbell rang. I dressed quickly and opened the door. Molly and Serenity grabbed my hands and insisted on whisking me away. They were giggly and fidgety and looked happy. Happy. I went with them. We drove to a bar with neon lights, which looked magical to me. The Step On Inn. Five women waited for us at a table topped with boxes swathed in shiny paper and bows. Introductions were made.