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Authors: Janet Skeslien Charles
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flat with lace curtains made of thread as fine as any spider’s before I realized that the agency was located in someone’s home. I glanced at the scrap of paper with the address written on it. This was the place. I rang the bell. My friend’s aunt answered the door and introduced herself with a hearty Western handshake.
Valentina Borisovna was of indeterminate age, had large pink glasses that slipped down her nose, calculating blue eyes that could sum up any situation, a blond bouffant shellacked into place, and a bullet-proof brassiere that made her ample breasts seem like pointy weapons aimed at the person in front of her. In a previous life – that is to say, before perestroika – she’d been an influential Party member. However, connections hadn’t protected Valentina Borisovna from poverty – her bank account had been emptied like everyone else’s. So this once ardent communist became an entrepreneur and named her agency Soviet Unions. It was like she hadn’t wanted the Party to end, so she’d created her own.
‘I need full-time help to sort things out. Some of my girls are nuclear physicists, but some of them! Look at what they write!’
She handed me a questionnaire filled out in pink ink. I read, ‘Name: Yulia Shtunder; Age: 19; Sex: Yes!! All the time!!’
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. She did, too. ‘If I showed the men looking for a bride that questionnaire, they’d be lined up at her door, but marriage wouldn’t be on their minds,’ Valentina Borisovna said. ‘So you see, I need help with some of these girls. I want them to be as classy as the women in Moscow. You could teach them manners and basic English, couldn’t you?’ She looked approvingly at my chignon, lightly made-up face, and black business suit.
I nodded. Let the haggling begin.
‘Is this your first job out of college, dear?’
Code: I won’t have to pay you a decent salary since you need the experience.
‘No,’ I sat up a little straighter and preened. ‘I work at ARGONAUT .’
Code: I’m smart enough to land a job with a foreign firm.
‘The shipping company?’
That had her attention. Ha!
‘The Western shipping company?’
And her respect.
‘Well, if you have a job, you certainly don’t need this one?. . .’
Code: You won’t be my twenty-four-hour-a-day slave.
Clearly, I was dealing with an expert negotiator.
‘I have plenty of time to translate letters at work. We could train the girls in the evenings and on weekends – after all, most of them have jobs, too.’
Valentina Borisovna couldn’t know that I spoke English better than most people in Odessa, that I was determined to make a life for myself and Boba. All she knew was that her niece trusted me. Of course, she’d just seen that I could fend for myself.
‘You’re hired,’ she said.
As we say in Odessa, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know and how much money you have.
Valentina Borisovna and I continued to wrangle, this time over salary. When the deal was concluded, she gave me a packet of letters to translate. I almost regretted not being able to work in her office. She had orchids and ferns in front of the large windows. On the shelf behind her mahogany desk stood a stout silver samovar surrounded by a tea service. The cups were so fine I could almost see through them.
After the interview, I walked toward the bus stop, hugging the packet of letters to my chest. This second job made me feel lighter, more in control. Even if I lost my job at the shipping company, I wasn’t totally lost. It didn’t matter that I had to work in the evening and on weekends. The money would help us buy a flat in the city center. I was sick of the long commute home.
I felt a shadow pass over me. A Mercedes slowed on the cobblestone and sidled up to me. The blacked-out back window descended.
‘Care for a ride?’ Vladimir Stanislavski called out. Ride-rode-ridden. Forbid-forbade-forbidden . His golden eyes shone from the dark interior. His
Valentina Borisovna was of indeterminate age, had large pink glasses that slipped down her nose, calculating blue eyes that could sum up any situation, a blond bouffant shellacked into place, and a bullet-proof brassiere that made her ample breasts seem like pointy weapons aimed at the person in front of her. In a previous life – that is to say, before perestroika – she’d been an influential Party member. However, connections hadn’t protected Valentina Borisovna from poverty – her bank account had been emptied like everyone else’s. So this once ardent communist became an entrepreneur and named her agency Soviet Unions. It was like she hadn’t wanted the Party to end, so she’d created her own.
‘I need full-time help to sort things out. Some of my girls are nuclear physicists, but some of them! Look at what they write!’
She handed me a questionnaire filled out in pink ink. I read, ‘Name: Yulia Shtunder; Age: 19; Sex: Yes!! All the time!!’
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. She did, too. ‘If I showed the men looking for a bride that questionnaire, they’d be lined up at her door, but marriage wouldn’t be on their minds,’ Valentina Borisovna said. ‘So you see, I need help with some of these girls. I want them to be as classy as the women in Moscow. You could teach them manners and basic English, couldn’t you?’ She looked approvingly at my chignon, lightly made-up face, and black business suit.
I nodded. Let the haggling begin.
‘Is this your first job out of college, dear?’
Code: I won’t have to pay you a decent salary since you need the experience.
‘No,’ I sat up a little straighter and preened. ‘I work at ARGONAUT .’
Code: I’m smart enough to land a job with a foreign firm.
‘The shipping company?’
That had her attention. Ha!
‘The Western shipping company?’
And her respect.
‘Well, if you have a job, you certainly don’t need this one?. . .’
Code: You won’t be my twenty-four-hour-a-day slave.
Clearly, I was dealing with an expert negotiator.
‘I have plenty of time to translate letters at work. We could train the girls in the evenings and on weekends – after all, most of them have jobs, too.’
Valentina Borisovna couldn’t know that I spoke English better than most people in Odessa, that I was determined to make a life for myself and Boba. All she knew was that her niece trusted me. Of course, she’d just seen that I could fend for myself.
‘You’re hired,’ she said.
As we say in Odessa, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know and how much money you have.
Valentina Borisovna and I continued to wrangle, this time over salary. When the deal was concluded, she gave me a packet of letters to translate. I almost regretted not being able to work in her office. She had orchids and ferns in front of the large windows. On the shelf behind her mahogany desk stood a stout silver samovar surrounded by a tea service. The cups were so fine I could almost see through them.
After the interview, I walked toward the bus stop, hugging the packet of letters to my chest. This second job made me feel lighter, more in control. Even if I lost my job at the shipping company, I wasn’t totally lost. It didn’t matter that I had to work in the evening and on weekends. The money would help us buy a flat in the city center. I was sick of the long commute home.
I felt a shadow pass over me. A Mercedes slowed on the cobblestone and sidled up to me. The blacked-out back window descended.
‘Care for a ride?’ Vladimir Stanislavski called out. Ride-rode-ridden. Forbid-forbade-forbidden . His golden eyes shone from the dark interior. His
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