Moonlight in Odessa (22 page)

I compared our photos with those of other sites. Many were group shots taken at the socials or afternoon teas, though some were glamour shots showing thighs, bellies, and breasts. The women’s smiles were strained. The men – ten to thirty years older than the girls – looked nearly orgasmic, surrounded by our women. It was wrong. What I was doing was wrong, wrong, wrong. I thought of Mr. Harmon and hoped that he would take me back.

I turned off the computer and stood to leave. Just then, Vlad walked into the office. ‘When are you going to find a rich
Americanka
to take care of me?’ he joked.

When I didn’t respond, he took my hands in his and asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t like myself.’ I stared at the floor.

‘Well, I like you.’ He tipped my chin up so that I looked him in the eye.

‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘Done,’ he said. I handed him the keys and he locked all five dead bolts.

‘Want to go for a drive?’

He opened the passenger door and I sank down into the leather seat and closed my eyes.

‘Where’s your driver?’ I asked.

‘I wanted a moment of privacy,’ he replied. ‘Where to?’ he asked.

‘I’ve never seen your place.’

We drove through the city center; the ride was so smooth that I didn’t feel a single cobblestone. I looked at his hands on the wheel and wanted them on my body. I wanted what the girls at the socials joked about. I wanted to feel loved, if only for an evening. I wanted to feel what bound Mr. Harmon to Olga. We slowly made our way to the gated community where the New Russians had their mansions. Vlad waved at the security guard, who raised the barrier. He slowed down because the road was covered with craters. It was worse than those in town, which was saying a lot. One would think that the richest men of Odessa would band together to repave the street leading to the mansions bought with their ill-gotten gains.

‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked.

‘The bumpy road.’

‘Life has a way of surprising us,’ he said slowly.

So true.

He opened my door and held my hand as I alighted from the car. It was a little windy and a tendril escaped my chignon. I moved to tuck it back into place, but Vlad said, ‘Don’t.’ He took the lock between his fingers and kissed it. We stared at each other.

The spell was broken when the butler opened the door. Vlad placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me up the steps. His living room wasn’t so different from Harmon’s pre-Olga. Black leather couches, state-of-the art television and stereo. The butler placed a silver tray with chilled champagne and two flutes on the coffee table. Vlad opened the bottle with the ease of a Ukrainian man and poured two glasses. ‘To you, Dasha. Thank you for gracing my home with your beautiful presence.’

We clinked glasses and sipped the Dom Perignon. He leaned in, until his cheek touched mine, then he ran his lips along my temple, cheek and neck. I breathed in deeply. He smelled of sandalwood. When he kissed me, I kissed him back, wishing I were someone else, someone passionate and smoldering. Someone who wasn’t me. His arms brought my body closer to his, and I closed my eyes and ignored the voices of reason in my head, letting tingles and shivers of lust overcome me. He carried me up the stairs just like Igor carried Katya up the Potemkin Staircase and laid me gently on his bed. When he took off my shoes and skirt, I whispered, ‘I’m not very good at this.’ He took my hand and brought it to his lips. ‘People are born to make love. If you think you’re not good at it, someone must have been rough with you. We’ll take our time. I have a feeling that in this, like everything, you’ll come out on top.’

His words encouraged me. I felt a powerful attraction to him – his elegant hands, his strong shoulders and slim hips. I wanted him, wanted to forget, just for a moment. He caressed my back and kissed my breasts. He gazed at me; it seemed as though he worshipped my body. He held me reverently, like a Fabergé egg. I wanted him to move faster and tried to stir his hands into the frenzy that I felt. He refused. ‘You’ve made me wait so long. So long that I even gave up thinking about this moment. Now that it’s here, let me savor it. Let me savor you.’

His words thrilled me. No one had ever spoken to me like that. He grazed my neck with his breath. He sprinkled my belly with kisses as gentle as the warm spring sun. When I tried to sit up, he eased me back and continued down my body to my thighs, knees, ankles. He placed the sole of my foot along the length of his cheekbone, then turned and kissed the soft arch. I sighed.

No one had ever made love to me like this before. I’d dated two other men, but each had ripped off my panties, pulled his penis out and shoved it in. There was a moment of pain, then it was over. Each had blamed me, saying that I got him too hot, too fast.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like you’ve just figured something out.’

‘Until this moment, I thought that I hated sex,’ I said. ‘But with you, it’s different.’

‘Dasha.
Dushenka
,’ he said, my little soul. He stroked my legs and belly until I found myself craving more. He caressed and coaxed me until I couldn’t differentiate between his fingers or his lips, his tongue or teeth, his whiskers or whispers, until I couldn’t differentiate between his body and mine.

When I woke up, I saw shades of gray: pale walls, mother of pearl satin sheets, a cloudy comforter. I looked for my watch and found it was 10 p.m. I dressed and flew down the stairs to the living room, so I could call Boba and tell her not to worry, that I was having a wonderful time.

‘Wonderful?’ I heard a voice behind me say.

I turned around and found Vlad with a small towel wrapped around his waist. Lust pounded through my body.

‘Hungry?’ Vlad asked.

I nodded and hung up the phone.

He took my hand and led me to the kitchen.

I watched him break seven eggs (odd numbers are lucky) and whisk them into a froth. He struck a match and lit a burner. He poured the eggs into a frying pan and put it on the flames. I stood and stared: an Odessan man who cooks is as rare as a man who gives birth. I didn’t think either was scientifically possible.

We ate out of the pan, feeding and kissing each other.

H
im
: How long have we known one another?

M
e
: You’ve been extorting money from me for about a year and a half now.

H
im
: Not you personally! You think I make all the rounds myself? I went to the shipping firm because I liked you.

M
e
: How flattering!

H
im
: I watched you for months and couldn’t believe you didn’t have a boyfriend. Then when we spoke, and you talked back with that acerbic tongue of yours, I was hooked.

M
e
: Earlier, what did you mean about me coming out on top?

He laughed and grabbed my hand, pulling me back up the stairs.

Chapter 11

The next morning, I allowed myself a moment to luxuriate in the heat of Vlad’s body, of our night together, then got up and dressed. I shook his shoulder and asked him to drive me home. ‘Get the chauffeur to,’ he mumbled.

I ran my fingernails along his ribcage and he jumped. ‘I’m up, I’m up.’

He drove me home in silence. I felt a sort of doom in this stillness and hoped I was wrong. ‘I’m not a morning person,’ he finally said as he turned onto my street. ‘I’ll call you.’

His words gave me a small grain of hope. I got out of the car before he came to a complete stop, ran into the courtyard and up the stairs. I put my key in the lock, Boba turned the dead bolts.

‘Dasha where were you? It’s not like you to stay out all night.’

I hugged her. ‘Boba, I had a marvelous time,’ I said, thinking of the complicity between Vlad and me.

She pulled me into the kitchen and started to warm our breakfast. ‘You must be starving. Who were you with? Why didn’t you tell me you’d be gone? Were you out with a girlfriend or a date?’

I shoveled oatmeal into my mouth to give myself time to formulate an answer. ‘I met a man. He’s different from the others.’

‘An American?’ she asked hopefully.

‘I’ll tell you about him later, but now I have to get ready for work.’

I locked myself in the bathroom. Under the flowing water, I could still feel Vlad’s stubble along my belly. Cupping my breasts, I imagined my hands were his. Tears flowed with the water – I was happy, but a little sad, too. Why was I so emotional?

Dressed and out the door before Boba could question me, I sped along the city sidewalk, as light as a stone skipping water.

When I arrived at Soviet Unions, the feelings of disgust and shame came flooding back. Men choosing women based on whether they were twenty or twenty-nine, five foot seven or five foot three, blonde or brunette. We used women to make money. We sent them off with strangers. It was frightening.
Shto delat?
What to do? There was nothing else to do. When Valentina returned from Kiev, I would resign. I would beg Mr. Harmon to take me back.

I hated the fact that I was a part of this ignoble traffic.

I hated that I looked at my watch every thirty seconds, wondering when Vlad would walk through the door.

Valentina had given me several tasks, but I didn’t want to think up more tips for lonely men, didn’t want to update our catalogs. She asked me to describe the city and to take photos for the website. For three days, I wrote an Ode to Odessa – highlighting the writers who’d visited, from Pushkin to Balzac to Mark Twain, and describing our cultural centers, from the ‘
mus-comed
,’ the musical comedy theater, to the marine museum – all the time trying not to think about Vlad. For three long days, I stayed in the office, bent over my notebook, glancing at the door, looking out the window, waiting for him to come. I hoped the phone would ring. But it was as silent as a Sunday.

Was it working? I lifted the receiver. There was a dial tone. I tapped a number.

‘What’s this, little rabbit paw? You never call from work.’

‘I just . . . I just missed you, that’s all.’ I choked back my tears. My stupid, ridiculous tears.

I left the office at five and took the long way home, through Park Shevchenko, past the sea, back into the city. I saw him everywhere: on the beach, in every black sedan that cruised by, in my bed before I closed my eyes.

I didn’t sleep. I just lay awake, listening to Rachmaninoff’s ‘Vocalise’ again and again. The languid tempo of the duet elegant and thoughtful. The melancholy throb of the piano. He sways over the piano as he strikes the keys. Eyes closed. Her fingers deftly move along the strings of the cello. A tendril of hair escapes as she plays. The music holds a tinge of regret. I desired him so much. My mouth hurt. It filled with saliva then suddenly went dry, my tongue and gums like bark. My head hurt. My soul hurt. I tried to think of anything but Vlad – my mother, tasks at work, Jane in America – but my mind always came back to him.
Vlad–Vlad–Vlad
. I imagined his hands on my hips, my lips on the hollow of his throat, his ribs floating on mine. I lay on my belly and grasped the pillow under my body until morning.

It had only been three days. He would come.

Four days.

Why hadn’t he called?

Five days.

Had he been injured?

Six days.

He had so many rivals.

I started going mad. Stir crazy. I had to get out of the office.
His line of work wasn’t the safest . . . How many before him had been shot down or trapped in a car that exploded? When there was an ‘accident’ all of Odessa’s tongues wagged. I heard nothing
. I took Valentina’s camera and walked along the leafy boulevard overlooking the sea.
Calm. Breathe
. I loved the rows of red roses, grown wild since gardeners were no longer paid to care for them; the breeze that made it seem as though the trees were whispering; the people out and about – young mothers pushing prams, girls giggling on the park benches, boys from the naval academy in their blue suits and hats, swaggering and hoping to catch a girl’s eye.
Why hadn’t he called?

Since it was spring, Odessa was overrun by brides in white silks and satins. Wedding parties stood in line to have their portraits taken at the Potemkin Staircase and city hall with its stately white columns. This is the happiest day of a woman’s life – all eyes on her, a bride deeply in love, girlish dreams of romance blending with a woman’s desire for a home and family. Little girls rushed up to the fairy princesses come to life. The brides gave them candy and promised, ‘If you’re good, my darlings, someday you’ll be beautiful like me and all your dreams will come true.’ Who doesn’t want to believe in love? Who doesn’t want the moment to last? Brides are our fairy tales.
Why didn’t he call?

Brides are reckless and brave. They think with their hearts, they take a leap of faith (in this faithless society). The photographer moved the bride away from her wedding party. He didn’t need to tell her to smile. She was radiant. Radiant. He fussed with her train, tilted her chin slightly to the left, then went back to his tripod. Red roses, another kind of satin, soft against her cheek as the photo is snapped. A picture of her alone, so later, when the dream collapses, she still has this one moment, this one portrait where she looks her best, to use in Valentina’s matchmaking catalog.