To Sing Frogs Chapter 24d

One of the stormy days along Golden Horn Bay in Vladivostok

Some “rules” in Russia are more important than others, like keeping a kid in an orphanage if he has been exposed to Hepatitis A. The disease is almost always passed from fecal matter to mouth (i.e. wash your hands after changing diapers, Einstein). Of course no one outside the orphanage could have been smart enough to know that. We were all so inferior to the nurse/worker at the orphanage who started the epidemic in the first place. Yeah, I guess the quarantine was legitimate and they were doing what they could. Leave it to the professionals like Mrs. Boston Medical here, feeding and petting a derelict cat while passing in between patients.

Though the setting was strange, Dr. Valentina was nice. At some point she had studied in the States.She said that was a long time ago and she no longer remembered English. She took the temperature of each of the girls. Then the doctor looked down their throats and into their ears. She touched the pre-chilled stethoscope to several spots on each of their chests and backs while they gasped. No need to tell them to take deep breaths. Then the doctor quickly peered down their underwear.

“Everything appears to be in order. The girls seem to be healthy,” she said. Then she transferred information back and forth between her papers and the girls’ government issued adoption files.

“Thank you Dr. Valentina. How much do we owe you?”

“One hundred dollars each,” Anya informed me.

“Visa okay?”

“Cash.”

“Okay. Can she get me a receipt?”

“I’ll get you something later,” Anya responded. She flipped the back of her hand at me like nothing could be less of a concern. She didn’t even bother to translate the remuneration discussion for the doctor.

“Uh huh.” I pulled two new hundreds from my front pocket without removing the dwindling wad. I’d need to find another cash machine before long. Of course Amy and I were fairly well off. It wouldn’t have mattered. All parents who adopt in foreign countries walk around with bundles of Benjamins hidden all over their bodies. (If only the virile old founding father had known how much skin he would see long after his life was over.) Adoption coordinators are happy to type up papers looking more like bills of sale for twenty-year-old off-brand jalopies—in place of official receipts—to help these adopting parents account for their expenses.

I was glad to have the brief physicals completed with no issues. What’s a couple of C-notes between friends? The doctor was just as happy to have us on our way with the coordinators feeling like she had made the physicals as easy as possible. The two hundred bucks she earned in fifteen minutes was probably about equal to what her compensation would be for an entire week. It didn’t pay to annoy adoption coordinators because the competition surely wouldn’t. A doctor in Russia would probably let an adopted kid with Leprosy out of the country.

We dropped off the photos and documents at a plain brown government building with drooping bushes surrounding it. Stass asked if the passports could be processed while we waited. He hoped we wouldn’t need to return the next week when we would have our hands full with whatever would be transpiring with Kirrill. Or not.

“Nyet.” No.

            “Monday, first thing?”

“Sometime Tuesday afternoon.”

            Right. Don’t forget about dance around the winkie day, Stass.

“Thank you. We’ll be back, then."

 

The weekend was spent doing things you do when you don’t know if you will be forced to abandon your child—who you are forbidden to visit—within a few short days.

We went for long happy springtime walks with stops to smell the ever-broadening array of blooms. Flowers were our family’s new symbol of promises kept. There were trips to the beach where we always cut through the haunted amusement park. We played on swings and slides while staring up at thunderheads that gathered in the heavens. We rushed back to our rooms before the skies poured down.

Amy’s bedtime prayers for Kirrill became as urgent as Sarah’s own pleadings for Divine Intervention. The Mysterious Way Believers held on to hope. Hope feebly clung to attempts to understand. Understanding demanded faith. Complete faith. Unadulterated faith. The Mysterious Way Believers knew God was the only possible power that could provide for the release of those whom they held dear. They also knewthat He-who-cannot-be-completely-understood, would never betray their worthy selfless desires.

I’m not a Mysterious Way Believer. I became more cynical.

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