by John Brooks
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I wanted to know how Joanna was feeling and Danuta said she had a bit of a runny nose. Then I told her I carry all sorts of remedies in my pocketbook wherever I go. So Joanna will be in good hands.”
“You mean Casey.”
“To them she’s still Joanna.”
Renata and Danuta huddled over the desk, talking in low voices. Danuta nodded at something Renata said, looking tense.
I leaned in toward Erika. “What are they talking about?”
She strained to hear them. “I’m not sure. Something about getting the documents ready for tomorrow.” Thank God for Renata.
Erika pulled a small pink squeaky doll with a white bonnet out of her denim diaper bag. She sat next to me staring silently at it while playing with its arms and legs. Her hair was still big and puffy from the heat, and she fanned herself with the doll. If she was anxious, she didn’t show it. The choral music on the radio stopped and I heard an announcer speak, maybe the news.
I put aside my uneasiness over the handicapped kids we’d seen earlier. The ambience of the room was comforting. The warmth and hospitality of the staff felt genuine. This was how I’d hoped it would be.
I set up my video camera on a cabinet and hit the RECORD button. Danuta went to check on Joanna while Erika looked for the bathroom. I was alone with Renata, trying to make small talk, but my mind was elsewhere. Without a cigarette, she was fidgety and looked ill when she spoke to me. “They say all of documents will be ready for us tomorrow morning.”
“Oh. Dobrze.” I tried out the Polish word for “good,” which I’d memorized.
She smiled and nodded. “Bardzo dobrze.” Seeing the puzzled look on my face, she added, “Very good.”
“Oh, right.” I felt so stupid trying to make small talk in Polish. We stood awkwardly for a few minutes, Renata looking anxious. The door opened. It was Danuta followed by Erika. I felt more at ease with Erika back, not quite so helpless. Nonetheless my knee bounced uncontrollably. Erika put her arm around me and gave me another reassuring smile and laugh.
“How can you be so calm?” I asked.
“I look calm? I feel like I’m jumping out of my skin. You know I laugh when I’m nervous.”
“Right.” I clasped her hand. It was cold and damp.
The door opened and we both turned around, expecting someone to come in with Joanna. Instead it was the young woman from the photograph we’d gotten in the FedEx package. I recognized her immediately as the staffer holding Joanna. She was very pretty and every bit as friendly as I imagined her from the photograph.
Erika chatted with her, pointing at herself and then me. The woman smiled, nodding at both of us knowingly. Erika turned to me. “Her name is Karina. She said Joanna will be here in a second. She’s getting her diaper changed.”
My nerves on edge, I jangled a handful of coins in my pocket, double-checking the video camera to make sure it was recording, imagining the disaster if I’d missed this precious moment. Somewhere a child let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“Maybe that’s her,” I said to Erika, a nervous joke.
Our tea had been set down on the table but we never touched it.
Another woman in a lab coat appeared. She was older, perhaps in her sixties, with a thick build, pale skin, crooked teeth, and white hair. She carried a quiet infant girl.
It was Joanna.
The white-haired woman held her up to us, smiling proudly as if she were presenting a champion show dog.
I was mesmerized.
Joanna looked just the way she did in the picture, but this time dressed in a pink T-shirt and shorts with dirty white socks on her feet, a size too big. Danuta and Karina perked up and smiled when they saw her, winking and blowing kisses. Everyone seemed especially attached to her.
Erika, Renata, and I crowded around the white-haired woman holding her. She gently passed her silent charge over to Erika, who cradled her in her arms while Joanna remained passive, as if trying to understand the significance of the handoff from her familiar caregiver to some stranger.
Erika cooed kohana, “sweetie pie” in Polish, and gave her the pink squeaky doll, which Joanna took and clutched in her chubby little fist. Renata stood back, hands on hips, nodding at Joanna as if to say, See, isn’t she magnificent? She looked like a proud godmother. I just gazed at Joanna.
She’d changed a bit from the picture we’d received in March. Her head was rounder, with the same turned-up nose, a high prominent forehead, full pink cheeks, and thin red lips. Her eyes were a bluish gray and her sparse blond hair was very fine. If her T-shirt had been blue instead of pink, she could’ve been mistaken for a beautiful boy. She appeared to have all of her fingers and toes. Nothing looked misshapen or out of place.
She was perfect.
Erika held Joanna in her arms, speaking to her in a Polish baby voice, bouncing her up and down. She seemed to know intuitively what to do as I stood by, feeling a bit shy and self-conscious. This wasn’t how I’d imagined it—no beam of light, no blubbering; in fact, nobody shed a tear. I should have felt something but, strangely, I had no emotional sensation at all. It was surreal, like a dream or a movie scene.
Joanna looked to be in as much of a daze as I was. That was understandable, considering that she’d just woken from a nap. She was suffering from a cold and had just been thrust into the arms of two foreigners. Silent and lethargic, she showed no emotion, no smiles or giggles as I’d imagined. She appeared physically fine but her silence worried me. Was that normal?
Joanna stared at me as if I were an alien, her wide eyes following me everywhere as I circled around her like someone inspecting a new car. Wherever I stood, her head turned to follow my every move, still emotionless. Maybe she’d never seen a man before. The orphanage staff seemed composed entirely of women. As we watched each other I let out a nervous laugh. What was she thinking as she kept her eyes locked on me?
Everybody around me talked excitedly, laughing. What were they saying? I felt as if I should have come prepared with questions. What did they know about her mother? Who was the mystery father? How did Joanna spend her day? Was she always this quiet? But my mind froze. I couldn’t risk upsetting the mood when things seemed to be going so well. Maybe I was being overly paranoid.
The staffers called her Asia or Joasia—Polish pet names for Joanna. For the first time, Joanna’s face lit up with a faint smile when Karina cooed out “Asia” to her as if she were a puppy. Renata patted me on the arm and motioned me closer to Joanna. This whole time, I hadn’t even touched her.
“Here, honey, you hold her.” Erika handed her to me. “C’mon, she won’t break.”
I’d had almost no experience holding babies, except for my nephew, whom I’d held gingerly for a moment before handing him back to his mother, relieved that I hadn’t dropped him or made him cry. Grabbing Joanna awkwardly from Erika’s arms, I held her head up with one hand while sticking the other one awkwardly under her crotch so she wouldn’t slip out from under my arms.
She was heavier than I’d imagined. I prayed she wouldn’t start crying, but she remained quiet, still clutching the pink squeaky doll, her head back, gazing at me. No instant, intense feeling of parental love, no epiphanies. We were two strangers meeting for the first time, one deathly afraid of dropping the other. I tentatively pressed my nose into her wispy blond hair and smelled a hint of baby powder and lotion.
After a couple of minutes that felt like an hour, Erika took Joanna back from me and sat her on the floor to test her motor skills, but she toppled right over. She propped Joanna up on all fours, but the moment she let go, Joanna collapsed onto her belly and cried. Erika picked her up, held her close and kissed her, reassuring her quietly like a natural mother.
Joanna was very weak, just as we’d heard from the Polish neurologist months earlier. But other than her motor skills she looked better than I’d expected. She couldn’t possibly be disabled. It had to be the lack of stimulation in the or
phanage, as the doctor had told us on our conference call. She just needed two devoted, loving parents to take care of her.
Joanna began to wriggle in Erika’s arms, a sour expression on her face. She needed another diaper change. Erika said something to the white-haired woman, who nodded in response.
“Honey, I’m going to change her diaper. I’ll be right back.” She followed the white-haired woman as Joanna glanced over her shoulder at me. I smiled and waved to her as she disappeared out the door.
I wouldn’t see her again until tomorrow, when our journey together would begin, and wished I could tell her that this would be her last night alone; we weren’t leaving her behind.
Just wait till morning and we’ll be back. I promise.
Standing in the middle of the room, I glanced around at Renata, Danuta, and Karina. They looked at me, smiling, as I tried to take in everything I’d seen, heard, and felt over the last hour. We couldn’t communicate but I sensed by their reassuring looks that these women were trying to tell me that everything would be okay. We were making the right choice. Joanna would be fine.
I let out a long puff of air, collecting my thoughts. Even if I’d spoken the language, I didn’t think I could’ve put words to what I was feeling. Maybe it’d take a while to sink in. I was hot and my limbs felt like Jell-O as Erika rejoined us. Renata broke the silence, motioning us toward the door. “We need to go back to hotel. Marian is outside with car. We come back tomorrow.”
At eight o’clock the next morning we were back at the orphanage to pick up Joanna for the long trip back to Warsaw, which we would embark on after spending the night at the local tourist hotel, the Hotel Orbis. Renata sorted out the paperwork that granted us temporary custody as Joanna’s legal guardians with the orphanage director
We would officially become her parents after we went to court in a few days, assuming, of course, that the court approved of us as parents. Then we could get Joanna’s medical exam and apply to the American embassy for her visa to enter the United States. Renata assured us that there would be no problems. I prayed she was right.
Erika dressed Joanna in clothes we’d brought—a pink jumper, lacy ankle socks, and a blue-striped sunbonnet. It was a complete transformation. She became a dazzling little girl. Danuta, Karina, and the white-haired woman walked us back through the foyer to the front door. Renata and Marian walked ahead to the car. The women had tears in their eyes.
There was no doubt that Joanna was special to them. They’d miss her deeply. Each of them smothered her with hugs and kisses. One of them said, “Kocham cię,” Polish for “I love you.” Erika, tearing up, said something I couldn’t understand and hugged both women.
I swallowed hard. “Honey, please tell them for me she’ll be okay. She’ll have a great life and be safe with us.”
“That’s what I just told them.” She wiped her eyes.
I bowed to them with my hands together in a gesture of thanks. Dziękuję. They nodded and waved. This was the Hallmark moment I’d been waiting for.
We called out “Do widzenia”—“Goodbye”—before squeezing back into the little Nissan. Without an infant seat, I held Joanna tightly on my lap behind Renata. She was still quiet and emotionless. Erika slid in next to me behind Marian.
“Do you want me to hold her?”
“No, I want to hold her. Then you can hold her for a while. We’ll take turns.” Erika laughed and punched my arm. We were like two kids fighting over a new puppy.
As Marian pulled away, Erika and I watched the beige stucco building with the red tile roof recede behind us. The tall, skinny boy stood alone on the terrace watching us. This time he wasn’t smiling. Across the street from the orphanage, the green waters of Lake Juno peeked through the trees, a man and woman barely visible paddling by in a canoe. A little blue Russian GAZ mail truck sputtered by, belching diesel smoke. It was another hot but beautiful summer day in Mrągowo.
I pulled off Joanna’s sunbonnet and kissed her head. “Hi, sweetie. It’s Daddy and that’s Mommy. You’re gonna be okay now. You’re coming home with us. You’ll never be alone again.”
She looked up at me with the same blank expression, then craned her neck so that she could peer out the rear window at the orphanage and caretakers receding into the distance.
FIVE
We’d reserved a double room at the Hotel Forum Warszawa, which catered to European tourists. As far as I could tell, we were the only Americans there.
We parted with Renata and Marian at the hotel entrance, then walked through the lobby with Joanna, who was slumped over asleep in our collapsible stroller. A well-dressed, officious young man and woman with the charm of the Motor Vehicles Department stood behind the front desk watching as we crossed to the elevator banks.
When we left the hotel the day before we were childless; now we had a baby in a stroller. Did they suspect we were American baby snatchers on a poaching trip to Poland? Would they report us to the authorities?
As we stood waiting for the elevator, I made sidelong glances to see if they were still watching us, but they’d turned back to their computer screens. Perhaps I was just paranoid. Erika stood next to me, one hand on the stroller, her hair frizzed and her skin glowing from the heat.
Looking down at Joanna slumped in the stroller, I couldn’t get over how impossibly adorable she looked with a simple change into girly clothes. I crouched down next to her and put my nose up to her mouth. Erika watched me, puzzled.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I smiled up at her. “Making sure she’s still breathing. She’s so quiet.”
Erika rolled her eyes. I hoisted myself back up. “She was really easy in the car ride on the way back, wasn’t she? Hardly made a peep.”
“Yup.”
As if trying to reassure myself that everything was under control now that we were together, I continued. “I think the hard part is behind us now that we’ve got her. I’ll be a mighty happy dad if she keeps snoozing away like this.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Erika said. “Babies are a lot of work.” The elevator door opened and we maneuvered the stroller with our precious charge into the car.
I shrugged off Erika’s warning. “Now you’re the worrywart.”
Once we’d stepped into our room and let the door shut, we sighed with relief; we were finally alone together. Joanna opened her eyes and straightened up in her stroller. I crouched down to eye level with her.
“Hi there. Have a good nap?”
She glowered at me and writhed around in the stroller. Thankfully, Erika’s motherly instincts kicked in. She unbuckled Joanna, lifted her out of the stroller, and set her down on one of the twin beds we’d pushed together, but she toppled over.
We propped her up with pillows and emptied our cache of toys onto the beds, hoping she’d occupy herself with her new playthings—plastic blocks, books made of cloth, a sterling silver rattle, stuffed animals, a rubber ball—but she started to cry. Looking at Erika, I froze. “Oh God. Baby crying. What do we do?” I’d fantasized for months about being the perfect dad, but now I felt completely useless.
Erika picked her up from the bed and whispered to her while gently bouncing her up and down. The bouncing seemed to distract her and she stopped crying.
There wasn’t a lot of space to walk around our room, but after a week in Poland we were used to everything being cramped. Because there was only a tiny closet and dresser, our suitcases were spread all over the floor. Joanna’s hotel crib was crammed between our beds and the wall, leaving a little pathway to the bathroom.
I was relieved that at least one of us had some natural parenting instincts. It certainly wasn’t me. “How did you know what to do?”
“I took care of my brother Richard when he was a baby and I was ten. I loved it until he threw up all over me.”
Erika grew weary from the bouncing. Joanna coughed up phlegm from her cold. She looked miserable and I didn’t dare touch her. Maybe we needed a doctor, but how would we fi
nd one late at night in Warsaw? Erika put Joanna back down.
“Let me check her diaper.” I felt like an idiot, like when my car wouldn’t start and all I could think of was to check the oil, as if that would help.
Erika put a fresh diaper on her, replacing the old-fashioned pinned cloth diaper with something convenient and disposable—a Pamper. Joanna quieted down for a minute but then started back up again. I watched helplessly, feeling my headache coming back from her squealing. I prayed that the people in the room next door couldn’t hear us through the thick cinder-block walls. Standing in the pathway carved out in front of our beds, I felt powerless. “What do we do now?”
Erika remained calm. “She’s probably hungry.”
“Right. Good idea.” I felt like we were in a Three Stooges movie where they suddenly found themselves in charge of a baby.
The orphanage staff had given us several old-fashioned glass bottles full of soup, formula, and other liquefied food. Joanna was fed from a bottle even though a fourteen-month-old should have been eating solid foods from a spoon. Erika lifted her from our beds, shushing her while grabbing the bottle of lukewarm carrot soup, sticking the rubber nipple into Joanna’s mouth. It worked. She quieted down and sucked away. Thank God for women when it came to caring for a baby in a foreign hotel room. I made a mental note: When the baby cries, hold her and bounce her around. If she’s still crying, check diaper. If she just won’t shut up, feed her. I could remember that.
Once Joanna quieted down I could think again. My attention turned to the two bottles of liquid food left on the dresser. “Uh, honey, what do we do when those two bottles are empty?” Erika looked at me, impatient. “We find a supermarket and get her baby food that she can take from a bottle.”
Shooting me a look of feigned superiority, she smiled mischievously. “Here, Mr. Mom. You can feed her now.” She handed Joanna to me with the bottle sticking out of her mouth. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
I’d never fed a baby before and felt like I’d been given a ticking hand grenade. I cradled her awkwardly in the crook of my arm, trying not to drop the bottle. She had a blissful look on her face, eyes half shut as she finished. I took the bottle from her and looked for something to wipe her mouth with, finally using my shirttail. She gazed at me, just as she had in the orphanage the day before. Now what do I do? Erika was still in the bathroom.