“You’ll be fine.”
Though the sand felt like small gravel under his feet, and the water washed ashore in dark brown oily sheens and cigarette butts, she was a determined romantic. She led him forward as she scouted their way to the area where they could cut back up to the city street where the Soba was located.
Ten feet later, Jenny brought them to an impasse with a grossly overweight and uncommonly hairy man wearing a Speedo. Martin held in a laugh as she quickly gave way to let the man pass by. Unfortunately, looking ahead revealed that he was a clone of many such men, as far as the eye could see.
Jenny grabbed Martin’s hand and dragged him back up the steps to the street.
He laughed most of their way to the Soba.
They walked freely, innocently, up the steps to the Soba patio and sat down at the nearest table. Jenny set her satchel down in the empty seat between them. The young waitress brought them the menus and Martin struggled to translate the options for Jenny. “Excuse me. Speak English?”
“Little,” the girl giggled. “Nyet.”
“Very good. Really. You have big coffee?” Martin asked in Russian.
“Da. Americana coffee.”
“Perfect. We are Americans.” Martin was enjoying himself, happy for the practice.
“How big?”
The waitress sized an imaginary glass in her hands.
“Two, please. And pizza.”
His eyes followed her inside where he watched her chat with another waitress; he imagined it to be about them.
All through dinner, they laughed about nothing, smiling at one another often. They remarked on people walking past—local loners and couples, families from Moscow and Kiev.
The taxi drivers parked in a row in front of the Soba, waiting, drew his attention. One struck his memory. Ah, the nice man, Dima, who had taken them from the bus station. Martin watched him alone, focused on his every movement. With every slight movement, drag from a cigarette, random chatter with other taxi drivers, a sincere laugh—Dima stood out as a man who was who he was. Stone. Not a man one could twist around in their imaginations.
“Martin, are you okay?”
“Huh? Yeah. They should at least tell us where Oksana is. It’s not normal.”
“I know.” Jenny dropped her eyes to the tablecloth, pulling at it with her fingers.
“We’ll be home in two days,” Martin said.
“I know.”
“She’s coming with the check,” he said.
It was early morning, still dark, when Martin stepped outside his room to the balcony overlooking the hotel courtyard. The accommodations were equal to a roadside motel back home but with a newly dressed up exterior. This spot was routine for him after a week of sleepless nights. This morning Jenny was awake and came to join him. The scene was new to her. He had learned how the hotel made their money. They looked down to watch two women, each in high boots and mini-skirts and little else. They were laughing with their dates. Everyone with their own cigarette and beer. One of the prostitutes got up to walk inside. Martin, out of the habit of his morning ritual solitude, allowed his eyes to follow one of the women as she got up and walked inside.
“Really?” Jenny said.
“What? What are you doing up?”
“Yeah. What.” Jenny laughed and shook her head.
The prostitution was very open and without fear. This was accepted as part of life, how things were. He wondered what other aspects of life he culturally found unlawful or immoral.
Together they watched the dawn break over the sea behind the coastal rooftops.
“We meet everyone in the lobby in an hour. I’m going to pack.” Jenny said.
Jenny went inside and Martin walked downstairs, across the outdoor lobby and through the hotel front gate. He headed across the damaged blacktop street to the common espresso vending machine, popped in three hryvnia, and took his miniature plastic cup to the water’s edge.
He stole away there while Jenny packed. Salty sea air mixed with decades of asphalt-like air to make a very foreign amalgam of a natural and unnatural experience.
How could he find his way out of this box that he now felt himself in? Familial associations, creations, could not be conjured up from mere desire. No, his fatherly and parental feelings were too natural and real. It was as if Oksana was born to him the moment he saw her. Love at first sight. It would have been unbelievable to him had he not experienced it. He had to get his daughter out of here, but how?
He paced some, sat and watched the seagulls forage along the sand, and paced again. An image of Dima returned to him. Sincere and direct. There was integrity and a determined happiness about him. He remembered that he had managed to endure that man’s music because of the man.
“Dima. Dima, can you turn that down little, please.” Martin had said.
Without any visible annoyance, Dima turned down the marching music.
Martin saluted him.
“Da. Afghanistan. Special forces.”
“Your tattoo. Very nice.” Martin pointed to his arm.
“Czechoslovakia lion. I was in Afghanistan 4 months and problem with my papers. They shipped me to Czechoslovakia. Saved my life! I know it.”
Martin had smiled for a half mile. Something like that had happened to him as well.
Dima could be trusted to help him even if there was not much money in it. If Martin could only remember what he did with the man’s card, he could insist that he and Jennifer ride back to the station with Dima.
Martin was excited now that there seemed some step, some forward movement in this effort to … to what? Maybe adopt. Maybe save. Maybe simply get more information. It might not lead to anything, but deep down it was something he could never turn from. He made his way back to the hotel and pulled Jenny aside.
“I’ve got an idea. Well, sort of. We can’t leave yet.”
“What do you mean we’re not leaving?” Jenny asked.
“We will still make the train. But we need the three-hour ride with Dima. He might be able to help us.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“The taxi driver. He knows some English, remember? We are going to lay it out for him. Send him money maybe.”
“We don’t even know him, Martin.” Jenny dropped her shoulders.
“We know him as well as anyone here. It’s important, babe. I think he can do some work for us. I don’t know what, exactly. But…I’m sorry; I just have a gut feeling. Can you tell them downstairs we are going to sight-see longer and catch up with them in Tokmak?”
He could see Jenny was torn by the hope he had given her and by the change in plans. He knew her to be very resistant to change. He watched her adjust to this new thing and slowly walk out to see the others off. She stopped at the door, eyes darting around.
“Yesterday I picked up one of the other girls. She was seven years old,”
Martin nodded, waiting.
“She was stiff as a board. She was stiff because her body literally did not know how to respond to being held. She didn’t know to tuck into me. She had never been held as a baby, Martin. That’s why.” Tears trickled down her cheeks.
Martin