To Sing Frogs Chapter 15a

Marina, John and Sarah the day we played on the ice of Golden Horn Bay

Chapter 15

 

Awareness

 

The children waited on ice. Friday morning it was cold. Again. Even though it was well below zero, Fahrenheit, Katya and her friends were not in the building when we got there. We followed Stass around the grounds and couldn’t find them.

“I don’t think they’d be past the tracks,” he said referring to the main train line that ran next to Golden Horn bay, “but they’re not in the building and I don’t know where else to look. Do you want to keep looking? Or do you want to wait inside until they come back?”

I deferred to Amy with a glance. “Let’s keep looking,” she said.

We followed Stass for several hundred meters, back past the winter-camp grounds. Then we trudged through a twenty-meter section of hibernating woods until we came out next to the tracks. We walked parallel to the rails for a ways, long enough for the blast of wind from an oncoming passenger to chill us even further. As soon as the clacking ceased, we spied the workers and a couple of dozen children out on the frozen bay. They saw us at almost the same time. Katya broke loose from the group and ran through the snow screaming louder with every step in her approach.

Soon we had climbed down the steep decline to the bay. Katya met us and held hands with Amy while we hurried to join her friends. The other children, remembering the Americans from playtime several days before, rushed us. Specifically, they rushed me. In Russia, adoption and orphanages are women’s work. Men were almost never present with the children. It seemed only natural for them to crave male attention. I patted heads, returned hugs, and chased down a giggling boy to retrieve my glove that he stole during a handshake. I attempted to communicate with as many as possible while poor Stass hopelessly tried to translate as fast as twenty children could talk.

I envied Amy. She had been able to continue on with Katya over to where Marina stood with the two workers. I watched my wife drop to her knees for a hug with Marina and I began to wonder what it might be like to add such a child to our family. Of course it wouldn’t be possible without going home and starting over. Our applications allowed us to adopt up to three children. Kirrill made three and I needed him as much as I needed the others. Besides, though we had not yet met her, there was a third best friend in the group. I wondered about Yula and what kind of child she was.

Finally I was able to work my way to the outside of the crowd. The orphans followed me—like a pied piper—over to Katya and Marina. The orphanage workers were using sticks (I’m oblivious as to where they found them) and Amy had dug a pen out of her purse to implement as a scratching device for drawing things in the snow. The children were all trying to be the first to guess each of the designs that appeared on the pure white canvas.

“Tsvetok!” one of them screamed halfway through Amy’s creation. She finished the stems and a leaf of her flower as the orphans turned to concentrate on what one of the workers was drawing.

“Masheena!” Sure enough. It was a car. Someone drew an airplane. A stick figure’s face looked out the window foreshadowing Katya’s imminent departure.

“Báh-bawch-kah!” I turned to see what Amy had drawn next. A butterfly. A butterfly in the snow.

            What’s with the butterflies?! STOP with the butterflies! I wanted to scream. I didn’t. I walked over and tenderly picked up Marina. She gave me a soft hug while I turned and looked away from everyone else. The snow and ice were interminable. I held the child tightly in my arms and hoped nobody would notice me crying. That could only have been wishful thinking. No one could have ignored the tremors that shook my black cashmere overcoat like an aspen leaf in the wind.

 

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