To Sing Frogs Chapter 8c

Katya playing on the playground

I was shocked. What was this beautiful Asian girl doing in a Russian orphanage? She’d never get out. Russians almost never adopted anything but newborn babies. American Caucasians were in Russia to adopt kids who looked like them. No one knew that better than I did. At that time, parents who decided to adopt Asian kids did so for much less money in China, Korea, Vietnam, and other countries. None of them were coming for Marina. Regardless of her innocence, adopting parents like me—who considered race when adopting—were the bars on the front of her cell.

Fortunately this beautiful little girl was years away from understanding that fact. I was able to allow her to think I was her friend rather than a prominent member of a society keeping her caged. What bothered me most wasn’t feeling like a bigot; it was that for the first time in my life I wondered if I really was one. Why couldn’t I be more like Amy? I shook my head in a shiver trying to clear my thoughts. Then I brought myself back to the playroom.

By now Marina was covered with a gray and white knitted cap without a ball on top. Her coat had panels of turquoise, pink, and purple with sleeves that were much too long. They would make good gloves.

While we were getting to know Marina one of the workers hurried over and gave Katya a pair of red socks while providing a quick explanation in Russian. The little girl quickly pulled them onto her hands. Of course it wouldn’t do to have the Americans watching their own daughter-to-be leaving the building without some sort of gloves, especially when the father seemed so apprehensive about sending her out in such temperatures.

Walking out of the playroom, I might have been more pensive about the lack of resources for the orphans. Perhaps—knowing my own personality—I may have felt anger with politicians and bureaucrats who had not adequately provided for these children. At that moment I was too involved with looking at myself in the mirror. My eyebrows bent downward in disapproval as I stared. If only in my mind I slowly shook my head in disgust while turning away with disdain. A betrayer, a guiltier man could not have been found. There was no choice though. I owed it to Katya to go out and play with her friends.

Marina and Katya took their places on both sides of Amy each holding a hand as we walked down the hallway. Then the four of us followed the workers and other orphans out into the bone-chilling breeze. Just beyond the brown metal barrier we stood shivering and trying to acclimatize. I watched the noses and cheeks of Amy and the two little girls grow red while I felt the dry-icy burn on my own. The climate was frigid. Russia was harsh.

Then there was a loud commotion. Several of the little boys were swarmed by the other orphans as they returned from a storage shed.

“Meen Yá!” “Meen Yá!” “Dai!” “Meen Yá!” “Dai!” “Dai!” The orphans screamed over the top of each other as they clamored to get at several strange thin half-meter squares the boys had retrieved from the shed.

Eventually five or six children emerged as the victors and they rushed by with what I soon saw were pieces of worn, soft-vinyl flooring. I was confused by the excitement over scraps of trash until I saw the first little boy throw his square—slick-side down—at the crest of the hill. It was placed at the beginning of one of the icy round bottom paths that had puzzled me the day before. He sat on the sheet angularly, pulled the front corner up between his legs, leaned back, and shot down one of the miniature luge runs. The other orphans with squares were quick to fly down the paths. Then they rushed to the top of the hill where their peers mauled them. Everyone wanted a turn.

The brilliant and perfect formation of a line here was identical to the one in the staging area of immigration at the airport. Nonexistent.

It was survival of the fittest. Darwin would have danced a jig to be able to observe such conclusive evidence of his theory. Surprisingly, without intervention from the workers and lacking anything resembling a line, within several runs each child had received at least one turn.

After witnessing the first race Katya was right in there with the others. She elbowed and shouldered for position while grasping and tearing at squares. After a couple of attempts she finally came up victorious.

 

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