by Ciji Ware
“You’re American, too,” she said as five children gathered around them, one more adorable than the next. All their little faces gazed up at her with curious, assessing eyes. The boy who’d thrown the snowball said something to the man, who replied in what sounded like fluent Russian. He then switched to English for Veronica’s benefit.
“My friend Sergei here would like to know your name. I would as well.” He smiled, which was a fairly devastating thing to witness.
“Veronica.” She cleared her throat. “Veronica Ballard.”
“Nicholas Laver.” He extended his gloved hand. “And this is Sergei, Tatyana, Yulia, Aleksandr, and Marina.”
“Very pleased to meet all of you,” Veronica said. “Oichen prijatno,” she managed, one of the few phrases she remembered from her childhood Russian lessons, which produced a round of claps and giggles. “Oichen prijatno,” the children echoed, after which the little girl named Yulia sidled closer and took bashful possession of Veronica’s hand.
Veronica smiled down at her sweet heart-shaped face then raised her gaze to Nicholas. “Do you work here?”
He shook his head. “I’m with the embassy. In the economic section.”
It was true that Veronica could more easily believe the dashing Nicholas Laver to be a diplomat rather than an orphanage employee. But she was supposed to buy that he toiled away in the economic section? That seemed far too dry and dusty a specialty for a male specimen like this one. Then again, maybe he was actually a spy and the whole “economic section” thing was just a cover. She wanted to believe that even though she knew the diva in her dramatized everything.
Yulia tugged at Veronica’s hand to pull her toward the rear of the orphanage. Nicholas halted the forward progress. “Are they expecting you inside?”
“They should be. And my friend Viktor is supposed to meet me here.”
“All right, then,” and he waved his hand to redirect Yulia to the orphanage’s front entrance. She began pulling Veronica more forcefully.
There was no stopping it now. Veronica hoped the courage the ring seemed to give her wasn’t imaginary, for ready or not, she was about to enter the orphanage she’d wondered about her entire life, pushed and pulled by a mini posse of four-year-olds.
It was here in this redbrick building in a workaday corner of Moscow that her whole life had changed. It was here that her birth mother made the final decision to give her up, here that her parents made the final decision to claim her, here that the film of her life had gone from black and white to crayon-bright Technicolor.
In the orphanage’s front room, she had to catch her breath. It was overwhelming to be inside this mythical location after so many years of imagining it. Fortunately, she had a moment to gather herself as Yulia let go of her hand and led the other children screeching down a corridor, presumably in search of an adult to deal with the new arrival.
Veronica shed her coat, trying to take in everything around her. It all looked remarkably the same as the photos fixed in her memory, as if time had stopped the day she’d escaped this place in her new parents’ arms. There was the lumpy sofa with the striped green fabric and too-white antimacassars, evidence this room was mostly off-limits to the wee inmates. There was the pine table with the arrangement of seven brightly painted nesting dolls, the smallest the size of a thimble: the Matryoshka, perhaps the friendliest symbol of Russian culture. Hanging on the wall was the same bland landscape that had hung there decades before. Only the calendar was different, but it occupied the exact same spot it had in 1980.
She felt Nicholas’s eyes on her face.
“Have you been here before?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. She couldn’t speak.
He filled the silence. “I know the feeling.”
Before she could ask what he meant, a short, plump woman with thinning gray hair and old-lady eyeglasses bustled into the room, wearing what Veronica’s mother would call a housedress. The same five children, now unburdened by their coats and hats, followed in her wake. The woman’s hands flew to her face before they reached out to grasp Veronica’s arms. “It is Miss Veronica?” Her English was heavily accented.
“Yes.” Veronica felt tears prick her eyes. Already. That was the problem with being a diva, even a pale version of one; your emotions were always so close to the surface. You could never tamp them down.
“The last time I see you, you are a little baby. And now—” The woman’s voice broke off. She shook her head as if amazed by what time had wrought.
“You were here when I was here?” Veronica managed.
“I hand you to your mother. I read your name and then I remember. Mrs. Georgette.” Now the woman also had tears in her eyes.
Veronica choked on a sob. The woman grabbed her in a hug. The children were mute throughout this display, Veronica noted through her tears; they could do no more than watch in apparent wonderment. Out of the corner of her eye Veronica saw the girl named Marina silently take Nicholas’s hand.
Eventually the liquid moment ended, and she and the woman pulled apart. Nicholas handed Veronica a handkerchief while the woman—whose name was Masha, she now knew—mopped her own face with a tissue she pulled from a pocket. Another older woman scurried into the room bearing a teapot, cups, and a plate of cookies. This got the children quite interested, but they were shooed away.
Nicholas was about to join them for tea when his cell phone rang. He disappeared down a corridor, to Veronica’s disappointment. She was curious what could possibly tie an American diplomat, who was probably a spy, to this obscure orphanage, officially Baby Home Number 36.
And now she’d never know.
“I’m afraid duty calls,” he returned to say. He bent to shake Veronica’s hand. “It was very good to meet you. I hope your visit goes well.” He and Masha exchanged a few words in Russian before he exited the orphanage.
Masha looked after Nicholas with adulation written on her face. “I hand Nicholas to his mother, too.”
Veronica was stupefied. “He was here?”
“Then he go to Chicago.” Masha beamed. “From baby I know he is special. But he surprise me how special.”
Veronica accepted a teacup and a cookie. “What was he doing here today?”
“He come to play with the children. In winter he play in snow with them. In summer he play with ball.”
“That’s”—Veronica was so astonished that a man like that would spend his free time in this way that she suffered a momentary loss for words—“extraordinary,” she finally finished.
“You are special, too,” Masha assured her. “Famous opera singer. Viktor tell me.”
“I wouldn’t say famous,” Veronica began.
Masha clapped her hands. “You sing for the children!”
Veronica hesitated. “If you don’t mind I’d rather not today.” It wasn’t that she lacked a go-to aria for these occasions, but she was getting impatient. And a trifle worried. She set down her cup. “Do you know if Viktor has arrived yet?”
That question produced dead silence. For quite a while the older woman did nothing but stir her tea and bite her lip. Finally: “Viktor cannot come today.”
“What?”
“He call me. His car have trouble.” Masha raised pleading eyes to Veronica as if she didn’t want to be blamed for this snafu.
Though it registered as far more serious than that to Veronica. “But we had this all arranged!”
“Do not blame Viktor,” Masha said. “Please. His car is old.”
Veronica wasn’t surprised to hear Masha make excuses for Viktor. He had ties to the orphanage. In fact, that’s how Veronica had hooked up with him in the first place, when she began her search for her birth mother. “Well, can he do it tomorrow? Can he get his car fixed this afternoon?”
Masha twisted her hands in her lap. “To get car fix is not so easy—”
“So you’re telling me Viktor can’t do it tomorrow either.”
Masha was silent.
�
�Okay.” Clearly it was time to regroup. Veronica realized she should have expected some kind of hiccup. She was in Russia pretty much on a wing and a prayer. “Well, there must be somebody who could take me. How about somebody from here at the orphanage? Of course I would be happy to pay.”
Masha screwed up her face. “Only a few ladies here.”
“I would be happy to pay,” Veronica repeated, trying hard not to dwell on how little time she had to spare. Her flight out of Moscow left the following night. She had to be on that plane or her role as Leonora would be gone, and most likely her career along with it.
“No lady can go,” Masha said. “We here for children. Nobody have car.”
“Well, is there somebody else like Viktor?”
Masha shook her head. “Nobody like Viktor. Can you wait till end of week?”
Veronica couldn’t even wait until the day after tomorrow. “Not really, no.”
Masha lay her hand on Veronica’s knee, her expression regretful. “I’m sorry, Miss Veronica.”
It hit Veronica then. Here she was all alone in Russia, where she knew no one and spoke only a few words of the language, and she’d been foolish enough to rely on an oh-so-fragile plan that she should have known would fall apart. “Oh my God,” she murmured, and rose to her feet.
She turned away from Masha to stare out the nearest window. All this might have been for nothing. She might have made this entire trip for nothing, jeopardized her career for nothing. And it seemed so much worse to come so far and not meet her birth mother than never to have come at all.
She began to pace, her mind whirling. Yes, she’d been able to get to the orphanage, but she had no clue how to find her birth mother’s house, which was outside Moscow. Of course she’d searched for the town on a map, and she could probably get Masha to help her figure out how to take a train there, but then what? Was it even possible to hire a taxi in a Russian town as small as that one? And even if it were, she didn’t know her birth mother’s address. She hadn’t bothered to get it from Viktor because she’d expected him to be by her side the entire time.
She glanced at the ring, whose gemstone had lost its opalescence. Apparently it wasn’t pleased with this turn of events, either. Maybe this was another one of those tests of bravery.
If so, it was a big one. Because even if Veronica did succeed in getting to her birth mother’s house, she couldn’t talk to her without a translator. The two of them could stare at each other and hug and hold hands, but Veronica wanted to communicate more profoundly than that.
Damn that Viktor! Why hadn’t he taken the metro to the orphanage as she had? Even if his car wasn’t working he could still accompany her by train. He could still be her guide and translator. And Viktor knew it was now or never. He knew Veronica’s birth mother was dying. He’d translated the letter she’d written to Veronica, and he understood that was why Veronica was making this hell-bent trip.
“Oh my God.” Veronica’s knees gave out when a new idea swam into her mind. She sank back onto the lumpy couch with the green stripes.
It had been hours since she’d had the dream of the graveyard, and she’d allowed herself to discount its message, but now she had to wonder if maybe, after all, the dream had been right. Maybe this morning when Viktor had called her birth mother to make the final arrangements, he’d found out she was dead. And so he had made himself unavailable. He didn’t want to face Veronica’s heartbreak and so concocted the lame “my car broke down” excuse. He might as well have said his dog ate his homework.
Masha appeared in her field of vision, holding up her cell phone. “I have idea, Miss Veronica. Call Nicholas. Maybe he take you to your mother.”
Chapter Five
Veronica didn’t wait for a second invitation to place that call. And to her immense relief, Nicholas immediately agreed to drive her to her birth mother’s home—which was a full hour out of town—to translate for her, and then to return her to the Kudrinskaya Building afterward.
There was only one hitch: Work would tie him up for three hours at least. So her birth mother would have to make herself available for a nighttime visit.
“I’ll call Viktor,” Nicholas said, “get the particulars from him, and then call your birth mother.”
Veronica hadn’t known that men like Nicholas existed anymore. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I understand how important this is,” he told her.
Yes, he would understand that. He’d been an orphan, too. Veronica resisted sharing her concern that her birth mother had died. For one thing, there was no rational way to frame it. I dreamed I was searching for her grave. And when I had the dream I was wearing a ring that speaks the truth. So when Viktor pulled his disappearing act, what else could I conclude?
It was an agony waiting for Nicholas to call back. When finally he did, he delivered the news Veronica longed to hear. “Your birth mother very much wants to see you, regardless of the hour.”
Veronica clutched Masha’s phone. She’s still alive.
“You understand,” Nicholas went on, “that she’s quite ill?”
“She wrote me that she’s dying.”
“I’ll get to the orphanage as soon as I can.”
Veronica shivered. The way he said it, she worried they might not make it in time.
She glanced at the ring. Now the emerald gemstone was nearly as white as the snowflakes drifting lazily toward earth outside the window, like sighs from the heavens. The ring had come through for her yet again. Nonsensical as it seemed, it was as if the ring had contrived to put Nicholas at the orphanage to make up for Viktor’s lapse and take her to her birth mother.
Still, she had to suffer through another agony of waiting. But the clock ticked faster than it might have when Masha allowed her to help care for the children. She learned that this baby home housed ninety children up to age five, with only four caregivers present at any given time. It broke her heart to see infants who were nearly a year old barely able to sit up in their cribs. Had they enjoyed the devoted care of loving parents, they would be crawling or taking their first steps or even walking by that age.
At last Nicholas arrived. He hurried inside the orphanage’s front room accompanied by a blast of frigid night air. Little Marina, now in her nightgown, somehow managed to escape her bed and grab him around the knees. Finally he had to pry her little body off his own and leave her, red-faced and wailing, inside.
The door closed on the orphanage. It was past seven now, dark save for a line of streetlights that stretched far into the night. The sidewalks were nearly empty, but cars still lined both sides of the road. They set off, walking past a row of buildings as institutional in style as the orphanage. Almost immediately Veronica slipped on a patch of ice.
“Careful.” Nicholas offered her his arm. “My car is just up the street.”
They fell into step. “Those children hate seeing you go,” she said after a time.
“It’s the same for me. Every time.”
“Your attention must mean so much to them.”
“They get so little of it. I mean, the staff are great, but they’re woefully shorthanded.”
“I learned just how much today. It boggles the mind.”
“Every time I visit I think there but for the grace of God go I.”
Veronica knew the feeling. If it hadn’t been for her parents, who nearly bankrupted themselves to adopt her, she would have been one of the thousands of abandoned children for whom a knock on the door never came. She squeezed Nicholas’s arm. “Masha told me.”
He glanced down at her and returned the squeeze. He said nothing, but nothing needed to be said. Both of them understood how fortunate they were.
A few minutes later he was settling her in his small black Renault. “I can’t thank you enough for doing this,” she told him.
“Honestly, I’m happy to help.” He turned the ignition and the engine responded. No car problems here. That meant it would be only one hour more until she arrived a
t her birth mother’s house, after she’d been waiting a lifetime. It was hard to fathom.
Veronica fell silent. In short order they encountered a fair amount of traffic, not surprising in a city of ten million people. Moscow drivers seemed as aggressive as their California counterparts, but she soon discovered that Nicholas could hustle with the best of them.
When they were tooling along a four-lane highway, she spoke again. “Did you try to get posted to Moscow so you could be close to the orphanage?”
“I wouldn’t say that, but I had a focus on Russia from early on. I knew someday I’d land here.”
“Where else have you been posted?”
“Angola, to start. Then Egypt, Uzbekistan, and now here.”
A little different from the overseas travel she’d done thanks to her opera career, which was all Western Europe with one expedition to Singapore. With U.S. opera companies in such poor straits, American singers often found more opportunities abroad—for paid work, at least. “So you must speak several languages,” she said to Nicholas.
“Three well and a smattering of others. English and Russian, of course, French, and enough Arabic to get by, though I can’t read or write.” He glanced at her. “What do you do?”
“I’m an opera singer. A soprano.”
“Really?” Nicholas didn’t mask the astonishment in his voice. “That is very impressive.”
“Not so much. It’s not like I’m famous or anything.”
“Maybe not yet. You must speak several languages, too, in that line of work.”
“I wish. All opera singers have to know some Italian, French, and German, but for most of us, our vocabulary is truly bizarre. I know how to tell you that my lover ran off with my sister or that I stabbed my father’s courtesan in the heart, but I couldn’t have a normal conversation if my life depended on it.”
Nicholas threw back his head and laughed. In that moment Veronica could imagine him as an imp of a boy.
She’d known him only a few hours, but already she liked him a lot. He was so good-looking, and so considerate. He just had a wonderful way about him. He seemed almost too good to be true.