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Mail-Order Bride

Bill Tope

She was disaffected, disconnected and
about to forfeit any rights she may have
had to her own destiny. At 20, Irina
was undeniably beautiful, with naturally
blond hair and a face and lissome
figure which could stop traffic.

Her father, a reproachable xam, had sold
Irina to an industrialist in the United
States. He shared with her no part of the
purchase price of two hundred thousand
rubles; he was not the kind of man to
share.

He had put her on the market only weeks
before and had received many handsome
offers, particularly in the United States.
What was the matter with the American
men, she wondered, that they couldn’t get
wives on their own?

Were they ancient, ugly and cadaverous?
She had fleeting, nightmarish visions of
hunchbacks, grotesque and rapacious.
Or was the problem with the American
women? There must be something wrong,
she decided, that they would solicit a mail-
order bride. She blew out a breath,
reluctant to even consider what lay before
her.

She would find out soon enough.
Belarus to Chicago was only a ten hour
flight. She would soon step into a world
that was light years from her own, in
terms of culture and propriety and
sensibility. She sighed forlornly. Irina
had never felt so alone.

She checked the time on her Micky Mouse
watch, a token from her husband-to-be. A
funny kind of gift to the woman he would be
sleeping with in, what, a few hours time.
Did he consider her only a child? It raised
more questions than it answered.

She would have liked to have
expected better from her father
than for him to monetize his
youngest daughter, but she wasn’t
really surprised. Yuri had likewise
bartered away her two older sisters
when they were her age. Since
their departures, three and six years
before, Irina had received no word
from either or them. This seemed
not to bother Yuri; he had his rubles.

A surly little man was trying to sell her
a genuine Rolex. Ignoring him, she
searched for her gate: LOT-Polish
Airlines was at the end of the concourse.
She stepped away from the little man
and walked in that direction. He began
cursing fluently in Belarusian at her
departing figure. She paid him no mind;
at least he was not trying to solicit her
for sexual favors. That would begin
soon enough.

She stood at the departure gate, running
over in her mind for the hundreth time
what lay before her. She didn’t speak
English. She had no idea if her betrothed
spoke her language at all. She would be
identified at O’Hare by an employee of
this man. His driver, perhaps. Or maybe
a policeman.

Her father had provided copious photos
of Irina, both clothed and otherwise, to
the prospective buyers. She had felt
acutely embarassed and humiliated by
this intrusion into her privacy. She had
never even seen a picture of the man she
was to marry. She might have tried to
use the internet, but she hadn’t access
to it.

As she settled into the cushioned seat of
the plane, waiting for takeoff, her mind
spun wildly again. What sort of
“industrialist” was this man? All she had
was a name and a vague description. He
also held some sort of a political position,
her father had told her. Wasn’t that always
the case? she thought. She knew virtually
nothing about him or her future life. All she
knew for sure was that she’d be living at
least part time at the Carlyle Hotel. Just
what sort of person was this Richard M.
Daley?

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