One of the oddities of the situation was that, in order to soften the commercial aspect of the arrangement, everything was done with a stultifying propriety. After months of obligatory letters, flowers, and chocolates, there would be a couple of hours of face-time – mediated by a chaperone. Then a “touristic hour” the next day, and, after that, a dinner dance.
The “romantic tourists” were booked into a second-class hotel on a noisy street just off the Vulitsa Deribasovskaya. Madame P. gave them three hours and insisted that they synchronize their watches. They might as well have been in summer camp.
The women were waiting at the appointed hour in the hotel’s threadbare breakfast room, where an effigy of high tea was to be served. Irina blushed and smiled as Wilson took her hand and kissed it. Somewhere behind him, the man with the high-pitched giggle let out a whoop.
When the lukewarm tea and stale sandwiches had been consumed, Madame P. led the couples hand in hand on a stroll down a shady promenade along the Prymorsky bulvar. Irina seemed sweet and shy, although Wilson had no illusions about his ability to judge her correctly. He bought her an ice cream, he bought her a bottled water, he bought her a fake Gucci purse from a street vendor. She loved this, stroking it like a pet. Her English was not as good as he’d hoped – they’d spoken on the telephone very briefly – but it didn’t matter. Her face was sweet with concentration as she labored to make small talk.
“I’m so happiness.”
“Happy.”
“Happy,” she repeated. “Happy to make walk with you.”
“I think you’re very brave,” he said. “To leave your country, your family…” Not that there was any mystery in it. Irina and the other women were willing to take a leap into the unknown because their prospects at home were so poor. Standards of living in the former Soviet Union were trending down for a lot of people, even as the economy grew and the “oligarchs” prospered. Life expectancy was contracting, and so was the birthrate. Social services that were formerly taken for granted had all but disappeared. Irina and her family lived in a one-bedroom apartment – parents in one room with her younger brother, Irina and her sisters in the dining area.
“Some days, I am hope they come to visit,” she said. “And I visit here, too, yes? This is possible?”
“Of course.”
Meanwhile, Madame P. and her staff were busy making complex arrangements for the women to visit the States. Among other things, this entailed applications for K-1 visas – the so-called “fiancée visas” required of people coming to America to be married.
In addition to the K-1 visas, the would-be brides would need an open-return ticket – and a traveling budget. Most of the men had taken advantage of Madame’s boilerplate prenuptial agreement, but Wilson said that he wouldn’t require one. This was taken as a gesture of love by Irina, but of course it was nothing of the sort. In the world to come – which Wilson was beginning to think of as A.W. (or After Wilson) – a prenup would be about as useful as an umbrella in a hurricane.
Sitting on a park bench under a beech tree, bright with spring leaves, Wilson described the ranch where they would live.
“It’s paradise,” he told her. “There’s a stream where the deer come to drink, spectacular sunsets, the biggest sky you ever saw, hawks and fish, trees.”
“I am sure, very beautiful. Pictures you send, I put under my pillow. Such a big house. Is room for many children, I think.” She blushed.
Irina stroked the purse. “Is dishwasher?”
Wilson nodded. “Yes. And a big TV with a flat screen. Also… you’ll like this: I bought you a car. A convertible.”
She squealed with delight, and then her face fell. “But I am not knowing how to drive.”
“I’ll teach you. It will be fun.”
“Is new car?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No,” he told her. “You don’t want a new car. Computer goes on the fritz, and you’re outta luck. Trust me.”
She frowned. “Our home… in Nevada, yes?”
“Yes,”
“Is Las Vegas?”
He shrugged and smiled. “We’re out in the country, but… you’ll fly into Vegas, and yeah, you’ll get a chance to see it.”
She squirmed with embarrassment and then, at his prompting, confessed that she wanted to be married in the same “chapel of love” in which Britney Spears had tied the knot. “White Chapel. Is possible?”
He couldn’t help but laugh. She was sitting there beside him, with her bright eyes and rosy cheeks, so eager, almost pleading. He couldn’t help himself. He was charmed by her innocence, even if it wasn’t that, even if it was just naïveté. Her infatuation with celebrity and stardom was as natural as it was predictable. Hollywood did that to people – even, it seemed, Ukrainian waitresses who’d never seen a copy of People or Parade. So why not indulge her? He’d been thinking of a simple ceremony, but… “If that’s what you want, why not?”
She smiled her demure dimpled smile, blushing with delight. “Wait until I tell Tatiana.” She stroked the purse and turned her body toward him. Raising her chin, she kissed him on the lips. For the first time, he noticed her soft floral scent. Combined with the warmth of her breath and the look in her eyes, it excited him in a way that he hadn’t been for years. Not since they’d sent him to Supermax.
“I have something for you,” he said. “Something to put in the purse.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
He handed her an airline ticket folder, which contained a first-class round-trip ticket from Odessa to Las Vegas, via Moscow and New York. He’d already spoken to Madame P. about the date and he’d been reassured that the K-1 visa would be ready in time. The paperwork was complete. All that was necessary was for Madame P. to submit evidence that Wilson had visited Irina in person. And this was as good as done. She’d taken his picture with Irina, and copied the visa stamp in his passport that very morning. Irina would fly into Vegas on June 16. This would give them time to marry, and still be at the ranch for the summer solstice.
The date was important. In a way, it was everything.
Irina gasped when she saw the ticket. “First class!” she oohed, bringing him back to the moment. Then she saw the hundred-dollar bills that he’d put in the folder behind the ticket. “Oh Jack!” she cried, surreptitiously counting the money. She kissed him again. Tears glittered in her eyes.
“You can buy a dress – or give it to your parents. An engagement gift. Like this.” He produced a ring from the pocket of his jacket, and slid it onto her finger.
Irina was dazzled. “Oh, Jack. It’s so beautiful.”
In the morning, Madame P. bundled them aboard a “luxury coach,” which deposited them at the Nerubayske tunnels, home of the Museum of Partisan Glory. Madame P. doled out the tickets and issued a stern warning: “Stay with tour. Do not be tempted to explore on your own. Each year, persons disappear into catacombs and never return.”
It reminded Wilson of his high school field trips. Indeed, the entire “romantic tour” echoed those days, the awkward boys and giggling girls replaced by these self-conscious men and softly laughing women. Each couple was given a flashlight. Everyone held hands. Irina’s hand was small and cool in his own.
Madame P. herself acted as the tour guide, explaining that the catacombs were created by mining for limestone – which had been used to build the city of Odessa. Over the years, the network of tunnels became a smugglers’ maze.
Irina squeezed his hand.
“But here in Nerubayske,” Madame P. continued, “lived small army of brave partisans during World War number two.” Various dioramas showed what life had been like underground for the fighters who lived in the tunnels in between attacks on the railroads and other efforts to thwart the Nazi advance.