To Sing Frogs Chapter 25b

Sarah and Celeste meet Kirrill (Denney)

“We’ll try it your way. If it doesn’t work I need you to find me an attorney tomorrow morning.”

Stass raised his voice at me for the first time ever. “Look, John. This is Russia. You don’t sue the government.”

          “I’ll bet for a couple of hundred bucks a Russian attorney will tell me otherwise.”

“You won’t win.”

“I’ll draw blood. Regardless.”

Stass was shaking his head almost violently while he spoke in Russian. Judging from the one word I recognized, he might have been praying again. Seconds later he slid to a stop in a tattered parking area. “Wait here,” he said firmly while jumping out of the car. Then he slammed the door and bolted toward the building.

Amy and I stared out the windows while continuing our silent argument.

Stinking, ugly hot water pipes. There they were just like in Partizansk. The rusty eyesores snaked along the ground and up over the entrance where we had driven into the parking lot. Why didn’t anybody in the whole godforsaken country care about practicality, or reasonability, or efficiency, or appearance, or even simple good-old-fashioned common sense?

Twenty minutes is a long time to spend in a wordless argument processing thoughts about things that shouldn’t be. It paused when Stass came running out of the building, jumped in the car, started it and slammed it in drive. A flying superhero couldn’t have accomplished more in one fluid motion than Stass did.

“So will they let us take him?”

“That depends.”

“Huh?”

“If we get him out before the inspectors from the Department of Epidemic Control get there we can take him. If they get there first and start working on the information for their reports there’s no possible way.”

“When are the inspectors supposed to be there?”

“Sometime between fifteen minutes ago and forty-five minutes from now,” Stass replied. The tires chirped as he left the parking lot and pulled out into the street.

I heard a gasp from the back seat. It appeared my wife had just realized I was winning the argument. What I would give to lose it.

 

 

Stass quickly handed the letter to Tatiana. She read it carefully and double-checked the signature.

“You have everything now. Can we please hurry?” Stass asked.

I thought the director would go into stall mode. Instead she shifted into high gear and rushed from the room.

“Quick, Amy. Get his clothes out and be ready!” Stass instructed.

Within seconds one of the workers ran in holding the little boy. Tatiana was right behind her. The three women hurried to dress Kirrill and his twenty-pound head as quickly as possible.

While Amy and the worker frantically worked to snap the little cowboy coat and put feet in his tiny boots, Tatiana turned to me and spoke in Russian.

“Please forgive me,” Stass translated. “I don’t want to stop the adoption or even slow it down. It’s just that Russia is so strict. We have so many rules. I have to follow the rules.”

I nodded and held out my hand. Tatiana shook it quickly and pulled me in for a quick embrace. “Good luck. Be healthy and happy. Be patient and love him. I know you will.”

Then Tatiana began speaking rapidly and directed us out of her office.

“She says we have to hurry,” Stass said. “Come this way. We’ll go out the other door.”

 

 

“Geygey!” Celeste squealed while sliding off Dyehdushka Bill’s lap. She ran across the hotel room with outstretched arms while Sarah stood back and watched.

“No Celeste. This isn’t Sergei. It’s Denney. “Eta Denney.” Celeste immediately rushed the brother who would replace the one we left behind.

“You made it!” Bill erupted while exploding from the high-back chair. “I have to admit it. I was beginning to wonder.”

“It was a miracle,” Amy gushed. She removed Denney’s coat and tried to introduce him to the girls without them mauling him.

I watched for a second and then I was lost. My mind drifted from Russia to Europe as I thought about William of Ockham. The English-born Friar was attributed with saying that entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity. Some say the fourteenth-century logician/theologian indicated a razor should be used to shave away anything unnecessary when trying to come to a conclusion. The resulting theory has come to be known as Occam’s Razor. The controversial paraphrasing of the razor is often heard quoted as: “The simplest solution is probably the correct one.”

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