That comment had sealed her decision.
No one, however, had warned her about the mode of transportation they would take to the city of Yfa, in a republic of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the new Russian Federation that few people outside of the region had ever heard of before—Bashkortostan. The orphanage was located thirty miles farther in a village called Blagoveshensk. As her ears began to pop, the suggestion of traveling by rail for two days didn’t ring horror in her like it had when Alice Renquist had mentioned it four hours earlier. The train stayed safely on the ground. On a train, food didn’t rise off the plate when the transportation hit an air pocket. And, on a train, she didn’t feel like curling in a ball and hiding under the seat.
“There it is,” she breathed to herself. They cleared the whitewash of a cloud, and the city sprawled beneath them like litter. Gray houses ringed the outside of the city, set on a circular grid that spiraled toward pale high-rises in the center. On the other side of the Belaya River, a muddy snake that slithered north and south, Kat made out the airport. Her confidence took a final nose-dive. It appeared little more than a weed-jutted runway with a two-story windowed garrison at the end. Kat instinctively dug her feet into the floorboards of the plane.
Her lunch nearly emptied on the seat as the AN-2 landed, bounced, and finally slammed to a halt.
“Wasn’t that fun?”
John Watson’s attempt at a joke. Kat gave him a wry smile.
An hour later, after a bone-jarring drive to Orphanage Number Eighty-Seven, she was still trying to find her usual good humor as she employed her sweet-talking wiles on the sentry barring them from the orphanage entrance.
Kat had tried to recover her composure in the backseat of an ancient Lada, an exact replica of a 1972 Volkswagen Rabbit her grandfather once owned. The attempt to smooth out her attire and frayed coiffeur in a car without shock absorbers and crammed with suitcases and gifts had shredded her already ravaged nerves. Now, the orphanage guard dressed in a worn white medical jacket and doing a linebacker move in front of the orphanage door had about three seconds before Kat completely unraveled. “But I believe the director is expecting us,” Kat explained to the elderly woman who had wore an expression the color of stone.
“I was under the impression the paperwork was completed…” Kat wrestled out another smile, and fought her rising tone. Maybe she should rethink her desire to do field work when she returned to New York. Then again, she’d never before heard of a field worker being barred entrance to an orphanage. Maybe it was her disheveled and slightly unsettled demeanor?
Or maybe there were details to this assignment that had been carefully omitted. She tried to muster her fading confidence. “Please, we would appreciate just five minutes to speak with the director?”
The woman eyed them as if all three had serious cases of smallpox and harbored intentions to infect her precious community. She wasn’t a big woman, but her flashing brown eyes, sharp jaw, and work-worn hands clamped on her hips had Kat at an emotional disadvantage.
Lord? Kat thought, and looked heavenward.
“Ludmilla Petrovna, what’s the problem?”
Kat’s glance settled on an elegant, middle-aged woman with sandy brown hair and intelligent hazel eyes. She came down the stairs, curled an arm around the sentry at the door, and gave Kat a smile that seemed reasonable, even welcoming. “Can I help you?”
Kat nearly collapsed with relief. “My name is Ekaterina Moore, and this couple here,” she gestured to the two stricken foreigners beside her, “is John and Sveta Watson. They’re here to adopt a child.”
The smile warmed. “Thank you, Ludmilla. I think I can handle this.”
The older woman scraped a warning look over the foreigners as she turned.
“You’ll have to forgive her. She loves these children like her own. My name is Olga Shasliva.” She extended a hand. Her grip was firm, but gentle in Kat’s. “I’m the director here. I’ve been expecting you.” She cast a look at the Watsons, and it reflected a gentleness appropriate for their frazzled state. “So nice to see you again Mr. and Mrs. Watson,” she said in Russian. “Gleb has grown, and I am hopeful the adoption will proceed as expected.”
Kat interpreted, and relief emanated from the Watsons. John pumped Director Shasliva’s hand a moment too long, but the woman seemed to understand. “We all know how difficult it must have been for you to leave without Gleb on your last trip.”
Tears pricked Kat’s eyes. She couldn’t imagine the agony of leaving a child behind after looking into his needy eyes and feeling him wrap around your heart. No wonder Sveta appeared to teeter on an emotional tightrope.
Director Shasliva led the way into the building. “We’ll stop by Gleb’s room on the way to the office.”
Kat followed Olga and the Watsons down a long hall decorated with the cheerful drawings of butterflies, rainbows, flowers. The place was surprisingly clean. Perhaps a bit lackluster, with dull blue paint on the walls and orange and brown linoleum that looked like it had been laid in Stalin’s era, complete with peeling edges, but generally clean. Kat could smell bleach and, farther down the hall, the enticing aroma of soup, perhaps the famous Russian borscht, beckoned from a noisy room. “How many children do you have?”
“Right now, ninety-seven.”
“Ninety-seven children? In this small building?” It looked no bigger than the middle school she attended in upstate New York.
“We are divided by ages. This section is for the preschool children.” She stopped at a door with a giant paper daisy tacked the length of it. “Please don’t go in yet,” she said quietly, her face suddenly solemn. “The other children will see you and it will be difficult for them.”
Kat winced. Of course. They were taking one. Ninety-six would be left behind. “Which one is he?”
Olga pointed to a small tot, all blond spiky hair and pudgy legs, chasing a ball. He fell, giggled, and climbed back to his feet, wobbling like a top. “That’s Gleb.”
Kat watched Sveta as she spied her son again after months of separation. Surely, she was calculating his growth, grieving over lost moments and small achievements. Still, a glow washed over her face, wonder, then a smile. Tears filled her eyes. Kat couldn’t breathe for the magic of the moment.
Yes, this is what she’d always dreamed about, what she longed to be a part of. Uniting families. Perhaps that’s why her own search had consumed her thoughts for so many years.
“I’ll ask the teacher to bring Gleb to my office. You may meet him there, and we’ll get the paperwork started.”
John had to pull Sveta from the door. Kat lingered also, counting heads. She estimated over twenty toddlers playing, laughing, waddling around the room under the watchful care of three thin women in medical jackets. She noticed the lines on the faces of the older women, and the worry in the younger woman’s eyes as she watched the visitors retreat.
Tears pricked Kat’s eyes. This wasn’t easy for anyone. She could imagine the bittersweet joy of seeing a child you’ve loved and cared for since birth, even if it wasn’t your own flesh, carried off to another land. Heart-wrenching happiness.