The Odyssey and Dr. Novak by Ann C. Colley

Author:Ann C. Colley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2018-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Seeking respite from this disorder and in quest of a quiet, spacious setting, I periodically cross the street to the university library, a grand nineteenth-century yellow building that promises silence and space. Oak catalog cabinets stuffed with fading index cards either tilt exhausted in muted corridors or congregate aimlessly in silent side rooms. A curtained space in the gaping, drafty lobby conceals a single Xerox machine (difficult to find elsewhere, particularly functioning ones that do not muddle the paper or print blank pages). A young woman works the machine. I become friendly with her. Wanting an escape from her dead-end life, she conscientiously studies English and practices on me. One day in tears, she tells me that her mother (probably trying to do her best) is pressuring her to break up with her boyfriend and sign up for a marriage bureau that links girls with American men (hopefully rich ones). These men come over for a few days, pick up a bride, and take her home—to who knows what.

Leaning toward her, I urge her to continue to resist her mother’s wishes and offer to put her in touch with an organization that might give support. I wonder where she is now. Later, alone with a couple in a funicular on its long way down from Mount Ai-Petri (4,500 feet) in Crimea, I listen to a conversation between a plaid-shirted, potbellied, middle-aged Midwesterner and a thin, blond, desperate Ukrainian woman who replies in broken English. An agency has obviously just linked them up, for there is no real intimacy. Invisible, for they think I am Ukrainian and know no English, I eavesdrop as the man speaks of their future life in suburban America. His words reverberate through the descending compartment and sound out with a controlling timbre that will manage her life if she stays with him—a power probably no longer available to him at home. Her only response is “I vant a little doggie”—a request he promptly stomps on and kills by saying “No, I wouldn’t allow that!” She pleads again. Unhappily, he mutters that he would have to think about it and then quickly shoots back, “When we have children, you won’t need a dog.” (It is obvious to me that this woman is past childbearing age.)

I feel sick and fantasize that I should interrupt and tell her to get out before it is too late. But dangling in midair and feeling vulnerable myself, I fail. She will find her way to America, but what then?

Upstairs in the university library, I open the door to a large reading area and discover a moderately well-lit place where the daylight peers through a row of tightly shut windows and where flickering fluorescent bulbs articulate their imminent demise with rhythmic popping sounds. Conscientious students wearing coats, gloves, and scarves bend wordlessly over their work at rows of desks. The feeble warmth from the radiators is useless in this vacuous space. As if darkly impersonating a pompous Mr. Bumble in charge

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