Moonlight in Odessa (5 page)

But Mr. Harmon looked at me with wide eyes; he was just as scared as I.

For once, being Jewish in Ukraine paid off. The thump of my body hitting the metal desk must have reverberated throughout the building because someone came to see about the noise. As an Israeli office, we received phone threats all the time. Despite our security guards, bombs had been placed in our offices. Any strange squeak or thump raised the hairs on the back of people’s necks.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘I never meant . . .’

He tried to help me sit up, but when he moved to touch me, I flinched.

I turned my head to see who’d come to investigate the noise. Thank God it wasn’t Vita and Vera. It was only Mr. Kessler, the director from Haifa who’d come to inspect our offices. He looked at me flat on my back, at my boss standing inert between my legs. He shouted something at Harmon in rapid-fire Hebrew. My breath came back with a vengeance, and I started coughing. Harmon stepped back; I rose and righted my skirt, then ran.

Cold and strangely restless, I stood at the kitchen sink, trembling. This was the first time that my voice – and indeed, my mind – had ever failed me. I felt like crying, but knew any display of weakness would be used against me in the court of Vita and Vera. In Odessa, what others thought was more important than the truth; you learned to think fast and never show your feelings. People had heard the commotion and were milling around the halls; they would learn of the incident and my response would be talked about. I pretended my eyelids were hummingbird wings that flicked away my tears. I wanted to flee, to get another job, even another life.
And how soon is the sentence to be carried out? Why does nothing work out for us?

I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I took a white filter, filled it, and watched the coffee drip into the carafe. I concentrated on the rich smell, this small taste of daily luxury, so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself. Before working here, I’d never tasted real coffee. Boba and I only had lumpy Soviet instant. When I’d told that to Mr. Harmon, he gave Boba and me an espresso machine and a three-month supply of coffee.

I filled my small cup, which I had to hold with both hands. Suddenly, everyone wanted coffee, and they came into the kitchen. Vita and Vera smirked; their bosses, slightly younger versions of Mr. Harmon, leered. My legs couldn’t hold me any longer and I sagged on to a stool at the table.

Minutes later, the presence of Mr. Kessler dispersed the crowd, and he apologized on Mr. Harmon’s behalf. I covered my face and berated myself for the moment of honesty in which I’d told those tarts that I hadn’t slept with Mr. Harmon. I’d just been so sick of people looking at me like a slut. I should have remembered that telling the truth just gets you into trouble.

Mr. Kessler mistook my reaction for shame and patted my shoulder awkwardly. He offered me a small raise and said he hoped I wouldn’t be litigious. Apparently, he didn’t realize there was no law and order in Ukraine. I wouldn’t be the one to tell him.

‘It won’t happen again,’ Mr. Kessler promised.

He would be gone in a week. Then what?

I stood and smoothed down the long wool skirt that Boba had sewn for me, then walked down the empty hall, back to my chair, back to my life.

You needn’t pity me.

Chapter 3

I congratulated myself for looking as though nothing had happened. Dry eyes, faint smile. Vita and Vera would have nothing to report. Though I’d stopped trembling, I felt as if I would throw up or pass out. I looked at the numbers on the quarterly report but didn’t see them. It took all my concentration to remain calm. This was difficult. As the minutes passed, I became aware of my tenuous position, and it terrified me.

I wasn’t scared of Harmon. Not in the physical sense, anyway. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. Rather, he’d come to his senses or lost his nerve before he could do his worst. But his intentions weren’t what mattered. What mattered was what Mr. Kessler saw. Harmon was now in trouble with the hierarchy, and in a true trickle-down system, that meant I was in trouble with him. If he fired me, I would lose the salary and the security I’d gained. If I wasn’t careful, I could end up a waitress like my friend Maria, or worse. Without this job, Boba and I would go back to the way things were before, when we could only dream of oranges and espresso, when Boba had taken in laundry and we’d spent evenings and weekends washing, wringing, and ironing Party people’s garments for a pittance.

I was keenly aware of Harmon and his rituals. As usual, he uttered the number of days he had been here: 183; and how many left to go: 547. As usual, he counted out fifteen one-hundred-dollar bills and muttered that it was worth living in a ‘third-world country’ since he didn’t have to declare his earnings to mother Israel. I heard him stuff the bills back in his wallet and snap it shut. He refilled his stapler and lined it up with his Waterman pens. He cleared his throat and blew his nose. He sighed. If he was counting the days, I was counting the minutes, looking at the digital alarm clock that he’d given me. (Twenty-three minutes to go.) It gave the day, the date, and the temperature inside as well as on the street. It said that the office was 70 degrees, but it felt well below zero. I picked the dead strands off the palm tree and organized my desk drawer. At 5 p.m., I picked up my purse and said, ‘I’m going.’

‘Go.’

I was not able to decipher his tone.

The security guards smirked at me as I walked out of the building. Vera and Vita had been efficient. Why had I said anything to them?
Never trust anyone. Never say anything. The walls have ears, the birch trees have eyes
. How many times had my grandmother warned me? Why hadn’t I listened? I feared that the moment Mr. Kessler went back to Haifa, Harmon would fire me. One thing was clear: I needed to look for another job, though none would pay as well. I thought about earning only thirty dollars a month and felt sick. How would we manage? Only a month ago, the world had felt so full of promise. I had a good job and felt reasonably secure. Now I was back to where I had been just months before: no money, no security, no future.

Unless.

Unless I found Harmon a mistress . . . But who? He’d rebuffed every woman in the office. Perhaps now guilt and shame and Mr. Kessler would make him reconsider, I thought as I stood at the bus stop. Who? Olga? She needed money; he needed sex. He would appreciate her flashy hair, petite body, and lively spirit, though I worried that she wasn’t educated enough. She only spoke Russian and didn’t know how to hold a fork. No. I could never ask her. What if she was offended and said no? What if she said yes?

As always, the bus was twenty minutes late. As always, passengers were packed like Black Sea sardines into the seats and aisles. We couldn’t open the windows: they’d been nailed shut as a safety precaution. The glass was already fogged up, and we hadn’t even left yet. I took off my blazer. Perspiration ran down my face; my arm stuck to the girl’s beside me. I hated beginning and ending my day with this forty-five minute bus ride to and from the sleeping district. (Jane called it the suburbs of the suburbs.) Once, I invited an American missionary to my flat. When she stepped off the bus, she looked around and said, ‘It’s like a cemetery. Look at all the gray tombstones sticking out of the ground.’

I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt my feelings.

Before, I hadn’t thought about it. Home was just home. But afterward, I couldn’t help but see my neighborhood through her eyes. Ugly. Gray. Dead. At my stop, I got off and wound my way through the rusty kiosks and crude cement high-rises that hurt my soul to look at.

As always, the lift was broken. I trudged up ten flights of stairs to the one-room flat Boba had received for thirty years of faithful service at the rope factory. Of course, now that the Soviet system was abolished, no one gave anyone anything anymore. I unlocked the first three locks and Boba opened the final two. I’d never unlocked all five. It was like a game. I tried to be quick, but she was always there for me, waiting. I took off my pumps and wiggled my toes. (The city was so sooty that when Odessans got home the first thing we did was take off our dust-covered shoes.) Boba had already laid out my blue slippers, which she’d knitted for me; I handed her my blazer, purse, and briefcase.

‘Look at you in just a blouse! You must be freezing! No wonder you’re practically catching a cold! Put on your sweater and I’ll feed you.’

It was no use telling her I’d just taken off my blazer and that I wasn’t cold and was perfectly healthy. She always makes a fuss.

To my mind, Boba looked like the great French singer Edith Piaf, whose nickname was ‘the little sparrow.’ Boba dyed her cropped hair as black as Stalin’s soul. Her skin was dark and leathery from a lifetime of Sunday afternoons at the beach. She was sixty-three but had more energy than a teenager. She wore a housecoat and had a dish towel slung across her shoulder, always prepared to clean up one of my messes. Her one extravagance was a silver necklace with a medallion of a sad-looking saint.

‘Oh, Boba, I had such a hard day,’ I told her, trying to hold back the tears. I wanted to tell her what had happened, but didn’t want to worry her. She carried enough burdens. Not only had Boba brought me up, she’d raised her daughter alone and taken care of her as she died.

‘There, there,’ she said and stroked my hair. ‘I’ll get your sweater. Everything will be fine. I made you a chocolate cake.’

I washed my hands at the kitchen sink. I wore the sweater though I was hot. She beamed at me – Ukrainians liked to see people bundled up. She handed me the dishtowel that rested on her shoulder.

‘Tell me everything, Dasha.’ Boba called me by my diminutive. In Odessa, we have the inside world and the outside world, the informal and the formal mode of address. Like shutters on a window, the formal is a form of defense. Diminutives are for friends and family, a sign of affection. I was so glad to be home with Boba after such a difficult day. If only she could keep the outside world at bay, like she did when I was a child.

We sat together at the small Formica table. She put her hand over mine; I looked into her concerned eyes and told her that the work load given to me was stressful. She patted my hand and began, ‘I remember my boss Anatoly Pavlovich at the rope factory. He was so grouchy and hard to please . . .’ I listened to her voice, so soothing, but not the words.

Late that evening, when Olga came with little Ivan, we sat in the kitchen. I pulled a tablet of German chocolate out of my purse, she handed me Ivan. I cradled him in my arms, whispering the same words Boba used to say to me. He opened his eyes, then his lids fluttered shut again. He nestled closer and as the heat of his little body seeped into mine, I felt the events of the day recede. My heart stopped twitching and started to beat steadily again. My breathing calmed. Such is the magic of children.

Olga slowly opened the beautiful gold foil and put a square in her mouth and sighed. ‘I haven’t had chocolate in ages.’

I felt guilty for not giving her more of these little pleasures. Olga radiated a sensual bliss, her eyes closed, her neck arched. She chewed slowly to make it last. Watching her savor my offering, I realized how much had changed for Boba and me. I wondered how to broach the subject of Harmon.

‘You’re awfully quiet,’ she said.

I didn’t know what to say. I turned the question over in my mind ten times in thirty seconds.
My virtue or my friend? Maybe she needs the help. Maybe you’re a terrible person. Maybe you should let her decide what she wants. Maybe you should find someone else.

‘What already?’ she asked.

‘Olga, was what you said true?’ I blurted out. ‘You know, about being thrilled to have a foreign man woo you and spoil you? Even if he was a bit older?’

She snorted. ‘As long as he puts food on the table, I’ll gladly welcome him in my bed. I’ve had it with Odessan men! Do the math – three kids, three dead-beat dads, and zero help. I’m not smart like you – I’ll never make a living sitting on my ass all day. I’m willing to make it on my back – God knows it’s faster.’

‘You’re a talented artist,’ I protested.

‘That no one needs.’ This was a common refrain after perestroika. Singers, artists, and scientists had talent and training but no jobs. And they weren’t the only ones. Odessa was full of the Red Army’s cast-offs, big men who’d been so important now felt useless. Many committed suicide – some with a gun, others slowly drowning in vodka. Factories closed, leaving men and women – thousands of whom had worked thirty years at the same machine – broke and bewildered. There was no safety net, or safety, for any of us.

I patted her shoulder, wishing that things were different.

She shook off my hand. ‘Leave me be.’

Poor Olga. It was so hard for her, for everyone, right now.

‘Are you ever going to start dating?’ she asked. ‘When are you going to do something with your life?’

I shrugged.

‘I mean, what do you have to show?’ She looked pointedly at my non-existent chest and flat belly. ‘You know, a woman who doesn’t have children might as well be a man.’

Tears pricked my eyes as if she had slapped my face.

Worthless
. She didn’t say it, but that’s what she meant. Who but your best friend will tell you the truth?

I stroked Ivan’s cheek. Just looking at him made me feel better.