In his 58 years, Charles Wycoff-a grandfather and self-described Old World romantic-has been a Hollywood movie actor, a deep-sea diver, a sculptor, a poet, a paramedic and a crewman on a three-masted square rigger.
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But no adventure, he said, has enchanted him more than the one that culminated Aug. 27 on the grounds of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. There, amid a small gathering of friends, family and Henry Moore sculptures, Wycoff wed 39-year-old Tamara Sergeeva, of Moscow, a demur, private woman Wycoff met nearly four years ago through a personal ad, whom he courted long-distance by letter, phone and fax and who arrived in the United States only that month.
“It finally is happening,” Wycoff said, beaming on the day Sergeeva was scheduled to fly into Kansas City. “It finally is happening.”
Sergeeva speaks minimal and halting English. Wycoff speaks even less Russian. But their interest in one another blossomed through love letters and occasional phone calls translated by friends and relatives.
Wycoff, who has been divorced 20 years and works as a unit secretary at Menorah Medical Center, was looking for a wife. He corresponded with women in Peru, Australia and several women from the Philippines who only wanted his money. He searched personal ads in the Kansas City area but found himself fatigued by what he called “the strident militancy of the American female.”
When Wycoff went to Moscow last year, his sincere hope, his expectation, was that he and Sergeeva, a nurse at a prestigious eye institute with a 21-year-old daughter, would marry at the U.S. Embassy. He planned to pay her way to Kansas City.
But Sergeeva had other plans. She was not, as more cynical souls might suspect, simply trying to escape Russia’s economic depression. She loved her city. She loved her family. And she was reluctant to leave any of them if she did not care deeply for Wycoff. The trip to Moscow was, in many respects, a test.
So when Wycoff presented Sergeeva with a wedding ring the moment he arrived in Russia, she shied away. It took the rest of his 10-day trip for Wycoff to persuade Sergeeva to say “yes.”
“I asked her if she loved me,” Wycoff said when he returned from Moscow last year. “She said in her broken sentence, `Not true big love.’
“The translation would be: `I’d be lying if I said I have this passionate love for you. But I have this love that is growing. I’m happy to be with you. I think I can take the risk.’ “
A year and a half later, the two have grown even closer. The paperwork for Sergeeva’s emigration was completed. Wycoff raised the money for her airfare, while Sergeeva’s adult daughter went to work in the Far East.
On Aug. 16, moments before Sergeeva’s 10:35 p.m. Delta Airlines flight was about to arrive in Kansas City, Wycoff paced the airport’s hallways nervously. He was freshly shaved and carried flowers. A small paper sign that read “Tamara Sergeeva” was taped to the front of his shirt, directly over his heart.
But as the plane landed and the passengers filed off, something was wrong. He craned his neck, trying to look down the gangway. His family was there-his sister, his two daughters, his brother-in-law, his niece-all expectant, all waiting, holding roses and dahlias and zinnias and calla lilies. But one after another, passengers walked off the plane and past Wycoff until, finally, no one was left.
“That’s it,” said the pilot.
“Are you teasing me?” asked Wycoff, letting the flowers drop to his side.
His eyes seemed watery as he stood near a Delta agent who tapped on a computer keyboard and asked for the passenger’s name. The minute that passed seemed like 10 until finally the agent looked up. He smiled.
“She’s in Atlanta,” he said. Her flight from Moscow landed late in the United States. “She’ll arrive in the morning.”
When she did, Wycoff was there with flowers and a hug and a small kiss.
Sergeeva seemed to accept it hesitantly, clearly taken aback by the presence of a photographer and reporter.
“Little Pravda,” Wycoff said, smiling. Sergeeva smiled too, but dubiously.
Later, in Wycoff’s one-bedroom apartment, Sergeeva spoke through a translator, Yelena Pinzur, a recent Russian emigre and a friend of Wycoff’s from Menorah Medical Center.
It seemed odd to her, she said, that a newspaper would be at all interested in a simple romantic story, although perhaps she, more than anyone, recognized that it is not simple at all. In fact, it may now be more complicated than ever.
In some ways, her position is not unlike that of many women nearly a century ago who traveled to America to start new lives in a place where they were naive of the language and culture and sometimes even the men they were to marry.
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Whereas before, Sergeeva and Wycoff had others to help them communicate, now they will mostly be on their own. Wycoff is never far from his Russian-English dictionary. Sergeeva soon will sign up for English classes. She will have to find a job.
Wycoff realizes there will be hard times, perhaps even depression as Sergeeva, whose father died last year, deals with the separation and distance from her family.
But he is prepared to try, to work, to be patient and struggle. And so, it appears, is she.
“Of course it was a difficult decision,” Sergeeva said through the translator. “But for me, the goal was not to get married but to find the right kind of person. I was influenced by Charles’ personality. He can communicate a lot without a lot of additional words, without explanation. I felt Charles was a man I would trust, that he is a very good man. He is a very positive man.”
So what, Wycoff said, if they make mistakes, if everything takes time and goes slowly at first. They have all the time in the world together.
They are man and wife.