To Sing Frogs Chapter 25a

Chapter 25

Sweating Bullets

 

Clothes were slung over backs of chairs. Toys littered the floor and beds remained unmade. I sat by the phone in the cluttered hotel room. Amy was blowing bubbles with the girls while I stared out the window—at Russia—fuming. To my knowledge all Maypoles had been sufficiently serviced the day before. It was time to get something done. Still, nothing was happening.

Stass called us just after nine and said he had been trying to contact the Department of Education in Ussuriysk. Unfortunately the phones were down. The department was over the orphanage system, so that organization’s approval would be required in order to remove Kirrill. He told us to sit tight and he would try to get in touch with Tatiana on her cell phone. We’d be hearing from him again as soon as he knew more.

Amy and I weren’t talking much. She wanted to tell me to settle down, that everything would be okay. I wanted to say that prayers weren’t working so what were we going to do now? The conversation played itself out with impatient glances, almost undetectable eye rolls and using activity with the girls to cover uncomfortable silence. The words of frustration were never actually spoken. Instead they were played out on a stage to equal effectiveness.

Stass arrived without notice just after lunch. Not that Amy or I had eaten.

We met him at the counter immediately following his call to our room. “Let’s go,” he said while jerking his head at the door. Fortunately we had a built in babysitter. We could drop the girls with Dyehdushka Bill without delay.

“They decided to let us take him?” I asked excitedly.

“Thank goodness,” Amy said after a long exhale. Of course that would be her response.

“Not exactly. The phones are still down and I haven’t been able to contact Tatiana. I decided we should just go there and see what they tell us.”

“So it’s a craps shoot.”

“A what?”

“It’s entirely up in the air. We know nothing. Right?”

Stass smiled. He did have a grain of good news. “I was able to talk to someone in Vladivostok from the Department of Education. She told me if Kirrill isn’t showing any signs of Hepatitis she didn’t have a problem with us taking him.”

“Does she have authority over Ussuriysk?”

“Technically, yes. She says she won’t tell them what to do though.”

“So it’s a craps shoot.”

“Shoot crap? I don’t know. I guess so. Let’s go.”

 

 

Tatiana slowly shook her head while responding in Russian. Stass tried to protest but it was no use. The director simply folded her arms and sat back in her rigid wooden chair.

“Come on. Let’s go,” he said anxiously while trying to get us to move out of the office quickly.

“Wait. What’s going on?”

“We need to go. Fast. Come with me.”

 

 

“What was that all about?” I asked. Amy sat quietly in the back seat. No doubt she was praying. Stass sped through the streets of Ussuriysk like he was flying down an interstate.

“I was hoping we could bluff our way through this. I told Tatiana the Department of Education in Vladivostok said we could take Kirrill. She told me we needed permission from the office in Ussuriysk, not Vladivostok. I said that since the phones were down I hoped she could just talk to the office in Vlad. I even offered my cell phone because her phones are useless, just like the rest of the city. She made it clear she would not release Kirrill until the Department of Education in Ussuriysk formally approved it. She finally said maybe we would just have to wait for a day when the phones are working.”

“We have to wait for another day?” Amy gasped.

“I hope not. We’re going to the Ussuriysk Department of Education now. If we’re lucky they’ll talk to me in person.”

“What do you think they’ll say?” I was hoping Stass was more confident in an affirmative response than I was. He remained silent. Apparently he wasn’t. “Is Kirrill legally my son?”

“Yes.”

“They can’t hold him.”

More silence.

Go to other sections of To Sing Frogs

Go to John M. Simmons’ blog