Our Final Day at the Orphanage
The matron explained to me that the next morning, the two white people from the photo album were going to pick me up from the orphanage. They would take me home with them. My brother would come, too. A little later in the day, I got to meet them. It was both exciting and strange. They had weird names and expensive clothes. The matron had told me to be on my best behavior, to smile, to look happy. And I did as she asked. She had said that things would be so much better for me from now on and that I should be very grateful. Many children would have loved to trade places with me, she explained. She was right. Many of the children at the orphanage who didn’t have parents had openly expressed their jealousy. They didn’t understand that I didn’t want to go anywhere, that I already had a mother. I hadn’t understood that I was going to go away and become someone’s new daughter. I didn’t want a new home! I might have said yes to the adoption, but I had never asked for it. I didn’t even know what the word adoption meant, not really.
One time I asked Mamãe if I could become rich, because then I could take care of her and my brother. She said that nothing was impossible, that the world is special, God is special, and that miracles can happen if you really wish for something. If you fight for it, anything can happen. So, I wished to become rich, as rich as white people.
The matron had asked me to smile and I smiled, but inside I was screaming and crying. I wasn’t brave enough to contradict her. I was too much of a coward. We, all the children in the orphanage, respected her and were a little scared of her. She was nice to me, but at the same time she was stern. I never knew where I stood with her and, thank goodness, I rarely saw her. I would never say that she was cruel; I didn’t believe that. I understood that she wanted to be kind, give me an opportunity, and give me a life. She had selected my brother and me, when she could have picked someone else. But she had done it without listening to me, without considering my emotions, and without really explaining. But I was eight years old, a child, and as an adult, it’s easy to believe that you know more than a child even when it comes to their own feelings.
How could I have said no? What choice did I have? The matron could certainly never imagine the price I would pay, that over the course of my life, I would lose bits of my soul and not feel whole. I would become Christiana and Christina, without really knowing who I was. Is that a price worth paying for escaping extreme poverty? Yes, it is! But that doesn’t make anything easier or better. There is a part of me that didn’t want to say no to everything a child could desire. I didn’t want to be poor anymore.
Within this long span of minutes in her office, which amounted to maybe a half hour, merely a few moments out of a single day, I had said yes to being adopted, to getting a new mother and father, to my brother getting to join me, and to traveling to the fairy-tale land of Sweden. There, the two white people would care for us and be nice. What I forgot to ask in all my eagerness was, Will Mamãe be going to Sweden, too? Who knows, maybe there was some significance to my forgetting to ask that question right then, and there was definitely a reason the matron didn’t bring it up. Without my understanding what had really happened, my world had just started to turn upside down in a way that I could never have suspected.
That night, my last night in the orphanage, I didn’t sleep at all. So many nights I had lain in my bed in the orphanage, the first bed I’d ever had, and stared at the ceiling, missing my mother. Now, bigger changes were afoot. I still didn’t understand what they would entail. But I realized that I’d made a mistake, that I’d let my mother, my brother, and myself down. Everything that was going to happen the next day was my fault. My brother was asleep with the other babies in another part of the orphanage. He didn’t know what I’d done. He didn’t know the decision I’d made for us. I didn’t know what the consequences of my decision would be, but I already had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. And I was afraid, so afraid. Everything felt surreal, and I had a hard time distinguishing between nightmares, daydreams, and reality. That night, I thought about a lot of things, and I cried. I knew that crying wouldn’t help, because no one saw my tears, and even if someone did, there wasn’t anyone to care, anyway. No one besides my friend Patricia and Mamãe. Mamãe was out there somewhere, wondering why she wasn’t allowed to see me, wondering how I was doing, missing me. She loved me, and there she was, somewhere out there, surely close to the orphanage, with no idea that I would soon disappear to a place she couldn’t follow me to. I cried the way my mother used to cry, silently and alone. One single string of words kept running through my head: Mamãe, are you there? I’ve ruined everything. Can you hear me? Please answer. I’m sorry!
I lay there, thinking about God. I thought about my fledgling bird from the cave and wondered whether it had found any friends. I wondered whether the angels saw me and whether God was there by my side. I thought about all the children who would be staying at the orphanage. What would happen to them? What would happen to Patricia? Would we see each other again, or would she, too, be one of the people who only existed in my heart? I looked over at her. She was asleep. Tomorrow, something was going to happen, and I had no way of knowing that what was waiting around the corner would shock me.
Out of nowhere, a new day dawned, and I wasn’t even tired. I should have been completely exhausted after so much fear and so little sleep, after my brain had worked on overdrive all night. But I was alert. And since today was special, I didn’t need to stand in the shower line. One of the employees had been assigned to look after me and make me look nice, so I got to bypass the whole line. I saw Patricia standing toward the very back. There was a pang in my heart. I didn’t know if anyone would look after her once I was no longer around. I worried about her, but I didn’t dare ask any of the other girls to take care of Patricia. I was scared that Patricia would be punished after I left the orphanage. I walked past the line, and everyone stared at me. I averted my gaze and walked right into the shower. The other children had to wait until I was done. Today I thoroughly washed. They gave me soap and some kind of sponge to really scrub myself clean. They’d already gone through my hair a few days earlier to remove the lice. They gave me a shampoo that smelled like fruit, and I massaged it into my hair.
When I was done, I dried myself thoroughly and was given a pair of underpants to put on. I could see that they weren’t the usual underpants we kids normally wore. These were a little nicer, a little newer. I put them on and passed the kids again on my way out. I noted that one of the girls had helped Patricia move farther up in the line. I was suddenly so grateful that I had shared some of my Bon O Bon chocolates specifically with her. Our eyes met. She gave me a little smile, and I smiled back in gratitude. This was a wonderful gift she gave me, and I was certain that she knew it. I stopped, and the woman who had been helping me put her hand on my back and started pushing me forward. I looked up at her and asked her to wait. She did; maybe she’d seen something in my eyes that she understood, because usually they didn’t care what we kids thought. I turned and looked at Patricia. This was the last time we would see each other. I wanted to go over to her and hug her, but I didn’t want to make her vulnerable. Most of all, I probably couldn’t have handled it. So, I smiled at her, and she smiled back and raised her hand to give me the Brazilian figa gesture, which is to say that she made a fist but with her thumb up between her index finger and her middle finger to wish me good luck. I returned the gesture. I thought I would see Patricia one more time and get to say goodbye, but I never saw her again. I hadn’t even given her a hug, which I still regret to this day.
The woman helped me get dressed. I put on my chicken-yellow sweatpants and a matching long-sleeved sweatshirt. I was given white socks and white shoes; they were a little too small for my feet and unbelievably uncomfortable. A hair-pick comb was produced, and the woman used it to fluff up my hair. I didn’t like it. I brushed my teeth with real toothpaste, and then the woman and I started walking down the hallway, down the stairs, and through the next hall
way that went by the gate that was the entrance to the orphanage. I peeked out, hoping for a glimpse of my mother. I didn’t see her. We kept moving down the hallway and stepped into the matron’s office. She thanked the orphanage employee who’d been with me all morning and asked her to leave us.
I could feel my heart beating so hard inside my rib cage that I was forced to look down and check whether it was visible from the outside. As I stood there, the matron chatted away. I knew I ought to listen, but I couldn’t focus. Then the door opened, and a woman walked in, holding Patrique in her arms. He didn’t look very happy, either. He wasn’t crying, but he did not look pleased. The matron asked me to have a seat, and I sat on a brown chair against the wall. She explained how great everything was going to be for me, how important it was that I be nice, and she told me to smile when the people came to pick me up. I nodded but couldn’t get a single word out. For the first time, I saw something in the matron’s eyes that gave me hope. She looked a little worried, a little anxious, and maybe even a little scared. I hoped she was going to change her mind, that she was going to realize this was all a big mistake, but I knew better. What had I learned on the streets? You could dream and you could fantasize, but you always had to separate those dreams and fantasies from reality. Reality was anything but a dream.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. In stepped two people I had met for the first time the day before. They smiled and looked happy, but also a little tense. There was some talking among the adults, and someone asked me to say hello, which I did. The woman who had been holding Patrique handed him over to the lady, who was clearly going to be our new mother. She smiled and carefully took him into her arms. The instant she took him, Patrique started to cry. Big tears rolled down his cheeks. He reached out his hands to the woman who’d handed him over. Everything inside me ached. I wanted to run over, take him into my arms, and reassure him that everything was OK, that I was there. But I stood silently in my place like a good little girl. The matron asked me to walk over and hug my new mother and father. I walked over and hugged them.
The matron took a picture of all of us together, and I stood there and smiled as I had been ordered to do. After what could have been five minutes or five hours, it was time to go. We all walked to the gate: my new mother and father, me, Patrique, the matron, and two other orphanage women, two that I liked. Our new mother held Patrique, who had now stopped crying and had started pulling on her hair and glasses instead, but not in the way I would have liked, more out of curiosity. The gate opened, and my new father took my hand. It felt incredibly weird. I could fend for myself, had always done so, and I didn’t need someone—definitely not a stranger—to hold my hand. We stepped out the gate and started walking down the sidewalk, away from the orphanage. I turned around and saw the three orphanage women wave and smile at me. I felt something that was worse than just about anything I’d felt before. I felt a dreadful panic. I felt terror. Reality had caught up with me. I could no longer pretend that everything would miraculously work out and that everything would feel better. I tried to pull free from the man’s—my new father’s—grasp. I screamed and cried. Struggling to get free, I screamed to the matron that I didn’t want to go, that I would be nicer, that I would help out more. I could see that she was uneasy, but not enough to do anything about it. The man pulled on my arm. The matron called out that everything would be fine, gave me one final wave, walked back onto the orphanage grounds, and closed the gate behind her. There was no use screaming anymore or resisting. I turned around and went with them, my new parents. I felt all my security draining away. I was lost and grief-stricken. I felt all alone in the world, which felt overwhelmingly big. What could little me do? My new father held my hand. As I walked, every now and then, my new mother would peek down at me worriedly. But I just walked, numbed and exhausted. We got into a taxi that was waiting by the orphanage. I cried and cried, I wasn’t strong enough for this . . . I didn’t think there was any way to hurt me more. Physically, there was no longer any pain I couldn’t bear. Anyone who needs to survive on the streets must learn how to withstand unbearable pain, if only to maintain their pride in situations where they know they don’t stand a chance and have no hope. I was scared, but I brought a part of me, behind my wall of pride, into the unknown and to a new world.
No one was going to see how scared I was, and I was scared out of my wits!
Visit to the Orphanage
2015
I have no concept of how long Rivia and I have been waiting outside the orphanage for them to come out and let us in. I realize I’m still clutching the gate when a boy of about seven comes out and looks at us curiously. I greet him, and he greets me back. We’re let in through the gate and instructed to wait just inside it. I look around, and everything is surreal. On the verge of tears, I step back over to the gate. I glance at Rivia, who smiles lovingly and warily asks me how I’m feeling. I tell her about the gate and my mother. I’m not sad as I’m telling her about it. I realize that time has done what I had never believed possible: it has healed this wound, at least a bit.
Now, as I stand here once again, instead of feeling anger, I feel love. Those painful memories of being ripped away from my mother will never go away. I don’t want them to. They’re a part of me, they shaped me, but I’m capable of seeing a completely different bigger picture now, to really see it. Over the years, I’ve had people tell me that I should feel grateful for getting a chance at a better life, and it has really irritated me. We humans have a strong tendency to universalize our own opinions, thoughts, and feelings and assume they apply to other people. No one but me knows what I feel and what I’ve been through. And it’s really not up to anyone else to say what I should and shouldn’t feel. Of course, I’m grateful that I escaped from the squalor of the slums and got a chance to get an education, to work, and to live in a social democracy. But there are so many other things in life that have meaning besides the job title on my business card, the car I drive, or how many pairs of designer jeans I own. As I stand here at this gate, which feels so much smaller than when I was eight, I’m grateful, unbelievably grateful, not because I have a car, a nice apartment, and a bunch of stuff. I’m grateful for something completely different. I realize that I already pulled the biggest winning ticket long ago: I got to live. Neither Camile nor the boy by the trash cans got that chance. I received a new life with a chance to fulfill myself, something so many children dream of but never receive. Yes, it’s been tough, and there have been times I thought I would go insane, or when I just wanted to disappear, but there have been love, friendship, family, and fantastic, amazing people in my life. How could I stand here today and feel anything but an overwhelming love and joy?
I have Rivia here with me, and soon I will get answers to my questions. What actually happened when I was adopted? Why did it happen so fast, and why weren’t my mother and I allowed to see each other? I’ve wondered about this my whole life. I’ve struggled, I’ve carried these painful experiences with me, and I have lived with this absence. None of this has disappeared or changed as I stand here now at the very gate that separated me from my mother and my security. I’m still carrying this. But the same thing that happened to my memory of seeing the devil dancing in the streets of Diamantina—I later came to understand that it was Carnival and people were wearing costumes—happens to these memories now. They’re the same, and it still hurts to remember them, but I have a different understanding and another way of relating to them now. Instead of seeing what I’ve lost, what was taken away from me, and all the injustices that were done to me, I can see the power of what I’ve received. And I’ve created it myself. Throughout my life, I have made the choice to never see myself as a victim. As I stand here at this yellow gate, which I have associated with pain for years, I realize that my life really hasn’t been about finding myself, but about creating myself.
I’m standing here thinking all this when a skinny, energetic woman who looks about forty-five or fifty approaches us with a b
ig smile. She looks at me and says my name, Christiana, and then she hugs me. There’s something very familiar about her, but I can’t place her. She smells like a mixture of perfume and cigarettes. She introduces herself as Igelausia and explains that she’s the matron of the orphanage. We stand out by the gate for a bit chatting, with Rivia translating. Igelausia says that she worked in the orphanage when I lived there. Suddenly, I picture a beautiful young woman in front of me, and I realize now why she seemed so familiar. She invites us in, and we enter the building.
The first thing I encounter is an enormous mosaic of Jesus. I’m fascinated at how something that was completely absent from my memory for twenty-four years can suddenly be there again. I even remember the details of the Jesus picture when I see it. I have a memory of standing in front of it as a little girl and puzzling over why Jesus was so white.
Igelausia leads us to her office, where she sits down at her desk and I sit across from her. I look around and realize the chairs are the same ones from my era and that the metal filing cabinet is still there. Igelausia takes out a little present, which she hands to me. I accept it, thanking her, and I feel guilty that I didn’t think to buy anything for her. When I unwrap it, I’m holding a little red jewelry box in my hand. I open it and see a beautiful piece of jewelry. It’s the Virgin Mary, and I say to myself that I’ll buy a pretty chain for the charm when I get home to Sweden. I thank her and say that it’s so beautiful and that she didn’t need to get me anything.
Then she takes out a photograph and hands it to me. She keeps talking, very rapidly, her words coming out while she breathes in and out. I recognize the rhythm and the speed, just like how I speak when I’m excited about something or happy or irritated. The picture was taken in 1991, and I see myself, my little brother, and Igelausia out behind the orphanage. From somewhere, I hear Rivia explain that Igelausia says she saved this picture for all these years because she knew that one day I would come back. I turn the picture over and see that something is written on the back: Patrick’s and my Brazilian names and the date when it was taken. I turn the picture over again and realize that I’m looking at the youngest Christina I’ve ever seen or, well, Christiana. I have no pictures of myself from before the age of eight. I’ve always been a little sad not knowing what I looked like when I was little. Whenever I’ve looked through my friends’ photo albums, I’ve always felt a little jealous that they do know. I’ve thought that when I have children, I won’t know whether they look like me when I was little.
Never Stop Walking_A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World Page 15