To Sing Frogs Chapter 40a

Chapter 40

 

“What” Matters More Than “How”

 

  “Are you going to Tokyo this year?” David asked me in September. He was referring to the annual Semicon tradeshow in the land of the rising sun. My brother had spent time as a missionary in Japan. He was fluent in the language and he almost always attended that event. In prior years I had attended more often than not. Now I had ulterior motives.

“Yeah, I think I’ll go. Wanna go to Russia with me first?”

“Heck, yeah!” (David doesn’t swear.)

I still loved to visit our friends in Russia even though I no longer saw my favorites. Julia was long gone and Marina was un-findable. My favorite part about those trips had evolved into sharing the place with others. Dyehdushka Bill had correctly described time spent in Russia’s Far East as “unexceptionally life-changing.”

The first part of our time in Russia was spent in the Partizansk area. Directors, orphanage workers, and children warmly welcomed David. We were equally well received in Ussuriysk as we shared photos and updates of Denney with Tatiana and the others.

Tatiana even surprised us with another missing piece to our puzzle. She opened an old hardback ledger with handwriting on the inside. “One of the siblings of the girls you adopted came here,” she told me. “They divorced the siblings, you know.”

“Yes. That’s what we heard.”

“The little girl came here. Her name was Maria. Yes, here it is,” she said, pointing under a hand written line. Maria Anatolievna Koshkina, May 10, 1997—May 06, 1999.”

“Was she adopted from here?”

“Yes. She went to America.”

“Do you have any more information about Maria or her family?”

“Sorry, I don’t.” Of course she couldn’t have given it to me even if she had it. Other than the name, we now had two more pieces of information. When Maria was adopted she was at Ussuriysk Baby Home #3. She left in May of 1999. We had so little information. It was difficult. If only Maria’s and Vitale’s new parents knew there was more to the story. If only they were searching for us, too. If only all of the pieces that existed in various locations could come together, perhaps those former siblings could assemble their earlier history.

“There was a little boy who was just younger than Maria. He was named Vitale. Do you know anything about him?”

“No. I’m sorry. I only know about Maria.”

 

 

Stass and Anya were driving us back to the hotel from Ussuriysk, talking about Sarah and her two best friends. “It breaks my heart that Sarah and Julia still stay in touch but they don’t know anything about Marina.”

Well, it’s about time! “Yeah, what can we do? Russia has laawwas.” I spoke the second sentence tauntingly, as if I was a jeering snotty second grader.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” she continued. “Marina-Grigorievna loves you to death. She’d do anything she could to help you.”

“Yeah, the key word being ‘could’.”

“I know. She can’t tell you where Marina is but she obviously has contact with Marina’s family. I think we can call Marina-Grigorievna and ask her to call Marina’s mother. Maybe if we ask Marina’s mother to call you on my cell phone she will do it.”

David and I slid quickly forward on the bench seat in the back of the car. “Call her then!”

I was going out of my mind while listening to the faint sound of Anya’s cell phone ringing in her ear. My hands shook and heart pounded as I listened to Russian words with no indication at all from Stass or Anya on how the request was going.

Worse yet, Anya spoke to Stass in Russian without so much as an acknowledgement to me after hanging up her phone.

I waited.

 

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