The Portrait Of A Ukrainian Lady If Jane Austen acknowledged- as a universal truth- that “a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” I will dare, without allowing my pride to long for a comparison, acknowledge another universal truth. A single man in need of a wife must possess a god fortune! Mustapha was a very single man. He was an unconventional character in the sense that he resisted norms and regulations and avoided cumbersome rituals such as graduation ceremonies. Those who knew him well were moved by what they came to call an original twist, meanwhile those who got acquainted with him shallowly found his actions “a little bit odd.” Although he was not rich, he longed for a decent “other.” Not any other soul mate, because it was not the domain of the first come first served basis. He promised himself to find a wife whose ultimate goal was not money, but he let destiny take care of the search. Lesia was not interested in money, at least as an ultimate goal. However, she was “taken” by somebody, and her schedule was hectic in an American way. Mustapha did not know how destiny would unfold to allow him to merge with the Ukrainian princess he vehemently wished for. He was more than certain that there was a chemistry invading his body when his eyes crossed her furtive gaze for the first time. His academic background conditioned him to discredit love at first sight as an irrational act, but this skeptical romanticism was balanced with his leisure time readings between the pages of Taras Chevtchenko. His name was not Bohdan. His appetite for Vodka or crimes was anorexic. Yet, deep inside him, he wanted to have his other half carry the beautiful colors of red and white cloaking an elegant Ukrainian female dancer performing a folkloric move. He anticipated the meeting with Lesia and his mental map started already to picture a forthcoming progeny. Sometimes when he thinks about his failure to win his heart, he wonders if the blind optimism that drove him and kept him dreaming were the effect of youth. Why did he think that the Ukrainian lady would fall for him? His optimism came from the fact that he considered her only a half Ukrainian. Maybe that was his first mistake: he should have been pessimistic indeed. His confusion waltzed between the two worlds of a lady who chose to position herself at the two edges of a cold war. Lesia was born and raised in the United States, but her parents were fully Ukrainian. She was not a pure capitalist in the sense that she never worshipped the dollar, but she could not be a socialist because she saw her parents’ payment of her tuition as a sign that she was a spoiled child. She was an American because she was independent form the realm of men, and she was a Ukrainian because she did not mingle with strangers with the ease that one finds in a singles bar or the blind date hallways. She expressed to him once the desire to “be away” in a faithful replication of the Yankee model of letting children get loose. Yet, what bothered her in her family was the normal Ukrainian nagging about her daily routine and her tiniest whereabouts. Mustapha felt an internal “polish-ed” fire seizing his heart when their gazes crossed for the first time. He still remembers that day even if he forgot whether he should have called himself patient or just “a patient.” In other words, he found himself trapped in an identity dilemma: Ukrainian\American, patient\a patient. Had he chosen to be an American, he would have considered all the risks of being called a stalker while following her and his attempts at seduction would have faded away. Lesia’s golden hair was crowning her radiant face, and such an irresistible natural chef d’oeuvre needed only a Babushka to be perfectly authentic and genuinely Ukrainian. He was aware that this imperfection was the result of those ties with a land against anything that veils. This is the reason why he chose the smartest way- in his view- to please her: display his feelings. After all, he asked, wasn’t he in the culture of display? He kept his love hidden and displayed involuntarily his machismo, and shyness and pride came to be his babushkas. Display became his ultimate goal and his first thought was to use advertising. He pictured a notice to her door reading “a blind shy odd male, in his early twenties, seeks a beautiful Gogolian female, with a great distinction, in her early twenties.” His fear that she would ignore ads for not being academic enough was behind his resentment to get public. His decision not to confide in any friend eliminated the recourse to confessions. He had to pursue his task alone and in private. His academic background intervened again to provide him with a model of private communication: his transcripts took always the garb of letters. Hence, the idea of sending her a letter was born. His studies in economics helped him bring an added value to his communication device. What if the letter wore a nice perfume? He sent a perfumed letter to Lesia in the hope of seducing the maximum number of her senses. He exposed his writing, as anon native speaker, to the mockery of linguists and subjected his characters to the analysis of graphologists. When he had sent her a letter to her house, which he discovered to be in a parallel street to where he lived, it was as if writing broke the seal of the virginity of their encounter. They had not met yet when the letter reached her, even if she figured out that he shared with her two of his classes. And then the day of the encounter came. He was tired that evening prior to a class he was having in “game theory.” He was expressing to his friend tutor his desire to go home when the latter asked him to relax. He saw his friend tilt his head and smile lightly. It was Lesia coming from nowhere in that corridor that he still remembers freshly. His ardent desire to see her physiology altered by his presence would have disqualified him as an impartial judge of her reaction, but the unusual color that her presence brushed on his face and his body qualified him to feel the change in his heartbeat. Had he believed that humor was the best way to a woman’s heart, he would have considered her beautiful smile a sign of her interest in knowing him, and had he had faith in the better taste of forbidden fruits he would have considered her avoidance of his face as an invitation. The image of that sweet unexpected meeting is still vivid in my mind, and the shadows of the faces that marked it are dancing in front of my eyes. His friend asked Lesia: How is the ruble? She did not understand him and uttered a very elegant “I beg your pardon” twice. Then Mustapha said, “The currency…the Russian currency.” She understood. She was complaining about the dilemma she was living between her parents wanting to come back home in Ukraine, and her belonging to the American way of life. He still hears her utter the words “We don’t speak like them, we don’t dress like them.” When his friend asked Lesia if there were any good jobs in Ukraine, she said: “yes they have good jobs.” Mustapha added: “and gangs too.” She also told them how she felt spoiled because her parents paid for her tuition. Mustapha said then: “when they get old, you will pay them back.” She smiled and cheek dimples enlightened her face. When she departed she said goodbye to Mustapha’s friend and forgot to say anything to him. Then, she remembered and turned her head toward him. Again, when she wanted to leave the building, she turned her head and smiled. One would give a fortune to see her smile strike again. His second mistake was to trust academia in matters of love and courtship. His letter sent to move the heart of his Dulcinea bounced back to him with an added value of the postal service reading the following: “moved without leaving an address.” His economic wit allowed him to spot a superior rate of return. After all, he whispered, didn’t his letter move her completely from her house when it was supposed to move her heart only? A second encounter would dissipate this illusion of success because at the moment he stole from his shyness a smile that he considered charming, he was smashed by a grimace that he categorized of discontent reminding him that his teeth were not to brag about. His ego was hurt so much that he looked for surreal explanations. Maybe she feared involvement. Perhaps it was the premenstrual syndrome. Since misfortunes never come alone, the grimace had to be paired with a rational cold statement pertaining to refined economics: “I don’t take anything. I don’t want to be involved.” He still until today gets sad whenever he remembers those words that rebutted his request to her to accept another letter. It was clear that the verdict of rejection has been uttered. Yet, the injured ego of Mustapha needed to dig deeper in any hidden meaning of Lesia’s words to leave some room for flattery. He read in her confession a proof of his potential success by correlating her refusal to take any letter from him and her fear of getting involved. His logic meant: Lesia thinks then that if she takes my letters, she would fall in love with me. Being an American, calling his letter a “thing” honored it by granting it the highest position in the order of commodities. He had to find an explanation that would satisfy him. He found it in the confused world of the Ukrainian lady between two cultures. From an American perspective, her rejection as a utility maximizing person meant that she thought the losses of her relationship outweighed the benefits. He was happy with the idea that there were at least some benefits to this relationship from her perspective. From a Ukrainian point of view, bureaucracy intervened to make him rule out the certainty of rejection seeing it rather as a natural delayed acceptance. Knowing that Mustapha will never sound like Igor for her parents, and noticing that her sister chose as a husband a man whose profession matches that of her father (a physician), Mustapha lost hope day after day that the match from heaven will be on this earth. The few dreams he had seen made him always wander if the lady with the golden hair and the amazing smile would ever meet his way one day. Nine years passed by, and Mustapha is still hoping that one day his wish would come true.
Copyright © 2004 Abdelilah Bouasria |