Free Moonlight in Odessa by Janet Skeslien Charles Page A

were richer, kinder, and in every way superior. Granted, in comparison to our men – macho lechers, alcoholics, layabouts all – it wasn’t much of a contest.
    It was hard not to get involved. I sat across from Yelena, a thirty-year-old blonde with a worry line that divided her forehead in two, and translated her letters: Dear Yelena, I am a Mormon living in Wilbur, Washington. My wife is dead and my three children need a mother . Clearly, he wanted a nanny and a cook, but I couldn’t convince Yelena. She dictated her response: Dear Randy, I, too, am widowed (‘Strictly not true,’ she confided, ‘I was never married.’) and worry about my son. I long to have a strong man to take care of me and my boy .
    A few more letters and off she went to Wilbur on a ‘fiancé visa,’ a three-month permit that the American government grants to foreign women so they can live with their future spouse on consignment. A trial period. She was brave to go to a country when she didn’t speak the language or know anything about the man she was to marry.
    When we received a wedding invitation from Yelena, we were thrilled for her. And even jealous. She explained that two weeks had been enough for her to decide she wanted to stay in America for good. In her next letter, she wrote that since her husband didn’t drink he took the champagnskoye she’d brought to celebrate their nuptials and poured it down the drain. He also ‘didn’t hold with’ tea or coffee since it was caffeinated. Poor Yelena wrote that she couldn’t live without her morning tea. A month later, she announced that she was saving money to come home – Randy didn’t respect her and neither did his children. Then we received a card telling us that she was pregnant. Then came the letter explaining that she didn’t miss caffeine and actually felt healthier following Randy’s ‘guidelines.’ Then she wrote no more. To be honest, Valentina Borisovna and I didn’t miss her letters. It made us sad to realize that she’d not only learned to live within her new husband’s rigid rules, she’d embraced them.
     
    Harmon spent more and more time with Olga, less and less time at the office. I’d finished my tasks and his for the day and decided to look at the Internet, but it was difficult to concentrate. Swiveling nervously in my chair, I wondered where he was. When was he coming back? What if he gave my job to her? He wouldn’t do that to me, would he? The longer he stayed away, the more nervous I became. Curious, I dialed his home number.
    No answer.
    Where was he?
    I swiveled back to my computer. The free membership had expired, but I continued to write half-heartedly to the men who’d given me their personal e-mail addresses. Unfortunately, the one who said he loved Jesus seemed to love ‘porn’ even more. The capital letter man started asking, ‘ DO YOU LIKE TO CUM ?’ I wrote, ‘I prefer to go,’ and blocked his address. Some wanted to visit me in Odessa, Texas, though I’d stated several times I lived in Ukraine.
    The women at Soviet Unions who received letters on paper seemed to have better results than I. Their men wrote sentences containing real sentiment. But none of the correspondence touched my heart as much as the letters from Will in Albuquerque to Milla in Donetsk. When I read his words aloud, I heard poetry. His photo reminded me of Jane’s American boyfriend Cole – a dark-haired, gap-toothed gentleman.
    Every other week, Milla took a ten-hour bus ride to Odessa. She plowed into our office with a bottle of home-made vodka which she tipped into Valentina Borisovna’s tea cups before plopping down in the chair across from me. ‘Well, girl? Do I have any more suckers?’ A forty-year-old chain-smoking former prostitute, Milla talked like a miner and her teeth were as yellow as her sallow skin. She had nine men sending her letters, money, and gifts. (When they asked for a photo, she sent them one of her daughter, last year’s Miss Donetsk.)