Open Doors

by Gloria Goldreich

  “He knows that I can’t have children, which doesn’t impact on him. He never asked why. He’s not the kind of man who would ask such a question. He has his own children. He’s supportive of the adoption and he’s never intimated that it would cause any problems for us. He’s happy with our relationship as it is and so am I. We fit into each other’s lives. And yes, I think that we love each other. At least I love him and I think he loves me. All of which is good.”

  “Yes. It is good. He’s a remarkable man,” Elaine said.

  “Then why do you sound so sad, Mom?” Lisa asked. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”

  Elaine sighed. “Are you?” she asked.

  “I think so,” Lisa said but a hint of uncertainty had crept into her voice. “Mom, things have worked out for me. Please don’t be upset.”

  “I just wish I had known the truth about your life sooner. I wish you had called me from Rome or at least shared what had happened to you when you came home. I could sense the change in you, the distance you put between us but your father and I didn’t want to invade your privacy. We were wrong. I was wrong. We should have asked more questions, insisted on your trust, your confidence. We could have helped you.”

  “No. You were right, you were both right to keep your distance, to give me space. I wasn’t ready to tell you. Not then. Not for a long time afterward. Actually, not until now, not until this time we’ve had together, just the two of us. From the very beginning of this trip I felt that we were getting closer and closer, that we could talk to each other in a new way. Maybe it was because I had you all to myself for the very first time and we had the time to understand each other, to be a team. The Gordon gals, mother and daughter, doing battle in Moscow. I saw you here as I’d never seen you before. When you dashed in to corner Irina Petrovna I felt so proud to be your daughter, so lucky that you were there to protect me. My Wonder Woman mom. I understood then that there was nothing you wouldn’t do for me and nothing that I wouldn’t do for you.” Lisa spoke very slowly, each word chosen with care.

  “But that is what it is to be a mother, to be a father,” Elaine replied. “That is what it will be like for you and your Genia. There will be nothing that you would not do for her and nothing that she would refuse you.”

  “Ah, Genia.” Lisa whispered the name and she closed her eyes, imagining the child of her dream sheltered within her body, safe in her heart, her own wondrous secret to be treasured and protected.

  Arm in arm then, they walked back to the hotel.

  Their days in Moscow assumed a routine that was at once gratifying and grindingly monotonous. Because Misha estimated that it would be at least six weeks until a court date could be arranged they moved out of their room at the Radisson into a small suite. Elaine wandered through the Izmailovsky flea market and returned with brightly colored cushions of a Georgian weave which she tossed across the beds. She arranged the wooden bowls decorated in the khokhloma style, bright oils painted on gold and black backgrounds which she discovered in the State Historical Museum gift shop, across the surface of an improvised worktable. She studied the colors and the designs, sketched the patterns and thought of how she might translate them into shapes and glazes when she returned to her studio. She spent hours during the long evenings, drawing and discarding ideas for additional tiles for the mural, a theme that would reflect Neil’s earliest life, the brief years of his Russian childhood. She realized, regretfully, that she knew too little about them to grasp a meaningful visual image. Perhaps a visit to Yaroslavl would ignite an idea.

  Lisa also spent the evenings answering the faxes she received from her labs, placing calls to colleagues to clarify readings. David’s itinerary was taped to her rented fax machine. It exhausted Elaine to simply glance at his hectic schedule. Two days in Paris, an afternoon meeting in London, a weekend back in Washington and then a long stay in Helsinki to address an international finance conference. As competent and organized as Lisa, he had included phone numbers and addresses for each location. He called every night and Elaine smiled to hear her daughter’s voice, so cool and businesslike when she conferred with her office, soften as she told him about her day, as she enthused over her sessions with Genia. Each conversation ended with Lisa’s lilting reminder to her lover, “See me in your dreams.”

  And then one evening the phone rang and it was Moshe calling from Jerusalem. He and Sarah were the happy parents of a new son. A healthy baby boy who would be named for Sarah’s father.

  “We will call him Noam,” he said, ignoring the interdiction against revealing an infant boy’s name until the day of his circumcision.

  Denis called from New Mexico. He was concerned about Lisa, concerned about the length of their stay in Russia.

  “It’s routine,” Elaine assured him.

  “I’ve spoken to colleagues. The Russian courts can be pretty unpredictable,” he warned.

  “Lisa’s had very good advice. I don’t think we’ll have any difficulty.”

  “I hope not. And Mom, when you get back, I hope you’ll come out to Santa Fe. You know we’ve built this new guesthouse cum studio. You’ll have a place to work and absolute privacy.”

  Elaine understood that he was staking his claim to her time and she heard in his voice the petulant complaint of the small boy he had been, the last-born child who somehow always felt cheated. She did not have world enough or time for him. She had visited his brother, his sisters. He would have his turn. She wondered again if he stressed the new privacy that would be hers because he had sensed the unease she and Neil had felt during their visit to New Mexico, when they stayed in the guest room that adjoined the room he and Andrew shared. It was an unease they had not acknowledged, not even to each other. It would have obviated their claim of unconditional acceptance.

  “Of course I’m planning a trip to Santa Fe,” she said. “I saw that wonderful montage of Andrew’s photos in Art News.” She would have her son know that she was proud of him, proud of the achievements of his partner.

  “His work is great, isn’t it? And he’s great. In fact, Mom, we’re great together.” She wondered if she imagined the slight defiance in his tone. “Well, enjoy Moscow,” he added more gently.

  “We’re trying.”

  And they were trying. She and Lisa spent the afternoons wandering through the city, occasionally with Sonia, but more often on their own. They explored different neighborhoods, rummaged through the stands of the sidewalk vendors. Elaine found lengths of fabric embellished with folkloric imprints which she sent to Sarah and Lauren and, on impulse, she bought two pairs of amber cuff links and sent them to Denis and Andrew, pausing to wonder, after the package had been mailed, if they ever wore shirts with French cuffs. It occurred to her that she knew very little about her youngest son and the life that he had built for himself.

  They walked down the cobbled streets of the Arbat and watched street artists dash off charcoal portraits as violinists hopefully played sentimental Moldavian love songs. At a corner kiosk Lisa bought her first set of nesting dolls. She found hand-carved Georgian toys and brightly colored nesting dolls at Detsky Mir, the huge children’s store. Back at the hotel, she displayed her purchases in a colorful parade across the bureau.

  “I want Genia to have a sense of the country where she was born,” she said. “Russian toys. Russian crafts. I’m going to take a course in Russian cooking.”

  “That’s important,” Elaine agreed. “My parents only passed on their sad memories. They had nothing else.”

  She paused, recalling the pall of sadness that had en-shrouded the small apartment of her childhood. She had worked hard to be the good girl, the quiescent daughter who spared them further pain. She and Neil, who had also felt himself held hostage to his parents’ sadness, had determined that they would live differently, that they would give their own children the latitude to live their lives free of parental expectations. A determination that had backfired, she thought bitterly as she toyed with a set of nesting dolls, running her fing
ers across their brightly lacquered surfaces.

  “Your father always regretted that his parents had brought so few things with them when they emigrated to America,” she continued, regretful now to have begun this conversation. “Some photos, your grandmother’s brass candlesticks, a silver cup. That was all they had to remind them of their life in Yaroslavl. That and your grandmother’s wonderful blini and perogen. She taught me how to make them and I’ll give you the recipes.”

  “We should go to Yaroslavl,” Lisa said.

  “As soon as we have a court date, we’ll try to arrange something,” Elaine promised.

  She turned back to the letter she was writing, a reply to Herb Glasser who had written to ask about her journey, adding that he had met Renee Evers at a party and she had told him that she was eager to commission additional ceramic pieces. Lamp bases appear to have replaced bookends as the crying need of Southern California decorators, he wrote wryly. He added that Peter and Lauren were taking the children to Hawaii but he had declined to join them. I will be alone, he wrote, pointedly underlining the word. I hope you feel sorry for me. She, in turn, ignored the underlined word and his playful plea and wrote back in reply that she was grateful for Renee’s interest but she had had no time to think of new ceramics. Events in Moscow were too interesting, too absorbing.

  Each day they visited the Children’s Home and each day Genia grew more responsive. Lisa played with her, read books to her and Elaine brought her a sketch pad and markers and drew pictures for her. Animals, flowers, a smiling sun, a crescent moon. The child watched with great concentration and after a few days she took the marker from Elaine and made a few tentative scrawls of her own. From her seat in the corner, Irina Petrovna clucked disapprovingly and barked a harsh command which Sonia translated.

  “She does not want Genia to touch the marker because she will get her clothing dirty,” Sonia said regretfully.

  Elaine looked at Genia’s faded blue pajama, the fabric frayed and worn, the sleeves ragged.

  “Tell her that if that beautiful garment gets dirty I’ll replace it,” she said.

  “Please,” Sonia said quietly. “Do not anger her.”

  Gently then, she herself took the marker out of Genia’s hand.

  “Why should we be afraid of that woman?” Lisa grumbled as they drove back to the hotel. “Our documents are in order. She can’t have anything negative to report from her so-called observations.”

  “It is best not to anger her,” Sonia repeated enigmatically.

  And then, as though to appease them, she suggested that they spend the following morning at Red Square.

  “Tomorrow is a Saturday and you know that Irina Petrovna schedules visits only in the afternoons on weekends. I will take you to Red Square, to the Kremlin.”

  “That’s all right, Sonia,” Elaine said. “You take the morning off. Lisa and I will manage on our own.”

  She had a sudden urge to simply be a tourist in Moscow, exploring the city as a visitor, forgetting for a few hours the stress of the adoption and Sonia’s kind but ubiquitous monitoring.

  They did feel a new sense of freedom as they climbed the slight incline that led to Red Square and the multicolored onion-shaped domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral came slowly into view. They entered the huge building and Elaine, who had delighted in the exotic exterior, was disappointed by the dark antechambers, the brick walls decorated with faded flower frescoes, the chapels stark and forbidding. She was relieved when they emerged into the bright sunlight of an unseasonably warm morning. They strolled on with the luxurious aimlessness of visitors to an unfamiliar city, unbound by a set schedule, lingering now in one square, now in another.

  They turned onto a narrow cobblestoned street and noticed a white stone Byzantine-style building, its frontage supported by a series of Greek columns. Small groups of people made their way up the high steps, now and again glancing furtively over their shoulders. The men, most of them middle-aged or elderly, wore dark suits and hats and their wives, huddled in oversize coats, had covered their hair with faded felt berets.

  Elaine and Lisa drew closer and read the plaque that marked the entry. They were standing in front of the Choral Synagogue. They looked at each other in surprise and wordlessly, in tacit agreement, they entered. They followed a young mother, who held the hands of her two small daughters, up to the women’s gallery, which overhung the huge dimly lit sanctuary on three sides. Looking down they saw that only a few rows in the cavernous room were occupied. The chanted prayers drifted toward them in a sad and wistful chorus.

  The other women looked at them curiously and smiled in tentative welcome. The young mother offered them a prayer book to share, the pages yellowed with age, the leather binding frayed and discolored.

  Elaine looked down at the altar, illuminated by electric light and flanked by two tablets representing the ten commandments inscribed in Hebrew and in Cyrillic. There was also a large plaque containing the words of the Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, in Hebrew.

  She wondered if Neil’s parents had ever come to this synagogue, if Neil himself, as a toddler had climbed up to the women’s gallery with his mother. She and Lisa stood as the rabbi intoned the Kaddish and repeated the prayer in hushed tones. It was fitting, she thought, that they invoke Neil’s memory in this city, not far from the village of his birth.

  When the service ended, they followed the other worshippers to a small anteroom where a single bottle of wine and two small braided Sabbath loaves had been placed on a table covered with a snow-white, much-mended cloth. The rabbi welcomed them and they were surrounded by eager questioners. Where were they from? Ah—New York. Ah—Philadelphia. Everyone had relatives in New York. One elderly woman had a daughter and grandchildren in Philadelphia. She held out a scrap of paper with her daughter’s address and beamed when Lisa told her that it was a good neighborhood.

  “Why did you come to Moscow?” the young mother asked. Her own family, she told them in stilted English, was awaiting visas for Israel.

  “I came to adopt a baby,” Lisa explained. “A wonderful little girl.”

  “From which Children’s Home?” she asked.

  “Number Thirty-One.”

  There was a sudden silence, an exchange of glances and then the rabbi spoke.

  “We came to know of that home,” he said. “There was a flu epidemic, perhaps two years ago. Several children from Jewish families were orphaned in that epidemic and the youngest of them were placed in Children’s Home Thirty-One. We made an effort to remove them to a Jewish home but we had no success. The directress could not be persuaded to release them. They were lost to us.”

  Lisa and Elaine looked at each other, a single thought in both their minds. It was possible that Genia was one of those children, an infant abandoned by the death of her parents rather than a foundling as she had been described in the database, which, after all, had not been specific. That she might be Jewish was an odd coincidence but not an improbable one.

  “My baby’s name is Genia,” Lisa said.

  They shook their heads. The name was unfamiliar to them.

  When Sonia picked them up that afternoon, they told her of their morning adventure.

  The translator looked at them gravely.

  “Do not speak of your visit to the synagogue when Irina Petrovna is in the room,” she said warningly.

  They asked no questions. The implication of her words was clear.

  nineteen

  At the beginning of their fourth week in Moscow, Lisa commented worriedly that Misha seemed to have forgotten them. They had come to rely on Sonia who was apologetic on his behalf. Her excuses for his behavior did not surprise them. Misha, after all, was her employer whose steady assignments brought her closer to the sum of money necessary for her journey back to America. Sonia explained that he was a sought-after facilitator, that he made arrangements for many clients and that much of his work involved dealing with officials, checking documents, obtaining signatures on one or another of
the myriad forms required for the completion of an adoption.

  “Misha understands how to work with these officials,” Sonia had said suggestively and Elaine had flashed Lisa a conspiratorial look.

  What Misha understood, they assumed, was who could be bribed and how much of a bribe was necessary to expedite the adoption process. Bribery, Lisa supposed, was the “miscellaneous” category on the expense statement Claire had shown her. She had not questioned it when she wrote the check to the agency in Philadelphia although the size of the amount had surprised her.

  They were relieved then, when Misha arrived with Sonia one morning, his face flushed with pleasure. Triumphantly he waved an oversize official-looking envelope.

  “A court date has been arranged. It is sooner than we anticipated. We have been very fortunate. Here I have the confirmation. You are to appear before Judge Timashkov in one week. In this also we are fortunate. He is a good man. Is that not true, Sonia?”

  “He is a very fair man,” Sonia agreed. “I have often worked in his courtroom. He is guided by the law and only by the law.”

  “That is very good news, Misha,” Lisa said. “We were wondering when we would next hear from you.”

  “I have been busy,” he said. “Very busy. Many couples have arrived. Some from America, some from South Africa, some from Australia. Not all of them are so well organized as you, Dawkta Gordon. They do not have such complete dossiers. I must help them as I helped you.”

  Lisa nodded. Misha had indeed carefully examined her dossier, checking each form, each letter, ticking them off against his own tattered list. He had taken the report from the American Medical Center and made several photocopies of it, inserting them into the bulky blue file. He had insisted that Lisa obtain a letter from a relative who would act as Genia’s guardian in the event of Lisa’s death, frowning when Lisa suggested Sarah.

  “No. It must be someone in the United States. The judge will say that Israel is not a safe country.”