Moonlight in Odessa Read Online Free Page B

do that anymore,’ he said, still sounding annoyed.
    I put my hand on my lap. He didn’t say anything more. I wanted to fill this strange silence, to banish his sudden anger, so I spoke of Odessa. ‘If you love poetry, you should read Anna Akhmatova. She was born in Odessa, you know. Or Babel. Also a native Odessan. Who did you study?’
    He told me he majored in business and literature. He didn’t know how lucky he was. In Ukraine, you study one thing. Classes are laid out for you and there is no choice about it. He told me about his favorite authors: Hemingway, Steinbeck, McCullers. I was relieved by this talk of writers, this common ground we had found. He could have been more aggressive. He could have fired me for not complying with the criteria he’d laid out at the job interview. The devil knows other men in his position would have. Instead, he waited and would not stray, even though I constantly put voluptuous pawns in his path.
    Vita and Vera, two trouble-making secretaries who seemed to know everything, said Mr. Harmon had been sent to Odessa as a punishment for screwing up so many shipping orders in Haifa. When colleagues repeated this rumor and asked if he was as inept as he looked, I sharply reminded them that what Vita and Vera did not know, they simply made up. As long as he didn’t force me, I remained loyal to him. But inside, I acknowledged that Mr. Harmon still couldn’t do much without my help. He didn’t even know to make three copies of the books – an accurate copy for the accountants, as well as fake sets for the Stanislavskis (showing 50 percent of our profits) and the government (showing only 25 percent). What had they taught him at that business school?
     
    As always, before Mr. Harmon arrived, I made coffee, getting in and out of the kitchen before Vita and Vera turned up. But today, just as the coffee started percolating, I heard them cackling down the hall. So far, they’d caused three girls to quit – or get fired – because of their cruel gossip, and I didn’t want to be another of their victims. Run-ran-run . When they entered the kitchen, they looked at me like I was a stain on the wall. As usual, both were wearing too much make-up and not enough clothing. Boba would never let me leave the flat wearing a skirt so tight it looked like sausage casing over lumpy bits of meat. These girls had spent more time applying their make-up than applying themselves in school. They barely spoke English and had no computer skills. One didn’t need to think too hard about why they’d been hired – the same reason I had.
    Vera asked me, ‘What do you do?’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘What do you do in bed?’ Vera asked. ‘We want to know.’
    ‘I sleep.’ I gulped down the last of my coffee and tried to leave, but they blocked the door.
    ‘How did you get so much money?’ Vita pressed. ‘Why do you get so many presents?’
    ‘I’m sure I don’t know.’ Perhaps it was rude to think of these girls as prostitutes, but it was naïve not to think of them in that way. I didn’t feel guilty about my uncharitable thoughts, since they considered me a whore, too. A superior one at that.
    ‘You look like a frigid bitch, but you must be doing something right.’ Vera stared at me, as though she could somehow decipher my tricks. ‘Do you lick it? Do you like it?’ she continued, trying to embarrass me. And succeeding, though I would never show them. I took a deep breath and willed myself not to turn borscht red.
    ‘What do the two of you talk about?’ Vita asked.
    ‘Does he dress you up? Tie you down? Does he buy you lingerie just so he can rip it off your tight, little body?’ Vera asked, running her fingers across my chest. I hit her hand away.
    As I walked down the hall, I heard Vita ask softly, ‘Does Mr. Harmon love you?’
    Her question stopped me. Love? He spoiled me with trinkets and treated me like a precious object when he wasn’t jealously guarding me from the eyes of any