by Nora Sarel
Dafne can’t wait to meet our baby, she dreams of how she will hold it, feed it, and of course, take it back home. I feel the same but can’t tell her as to not burden her. Luckily, I work in a family owned business, so even though I’m needed back at work, they had allowed me to take a long leave. I wonder what people who don’t have time or money do. Dafne took a non-paid leave, and her office helped her a lot, but I know their help is limited, too.
Our hotel, Rachel hotel, is small but renovated and very comfortable. We took two rooms thinking we would have to stay here for a while with the baby, until it completes its medical examinations and we get the official permits to take it out of the country. Meanwhile, we’re using only one of the rooms.
Monday, March 1st 1982
After pressuring Sebastião took us again to Dona Arlete’s agency. She briefly explained that she had changed her strategy and from now on we could visit orphanages, where we would choose a baby and not an unborn one. She understood from Sebastião that we were unhappy with the service so far and apologized. She told us some things were out of her hands and promised us that from now on she would do her best to move things forward. Also, she told us she would introduce us to other parents who came here to adopt a child, so we could support one another during this difficult process.
We didn’t say a word throughout the entire conversation, only nodded in approval. Immediately after we went to an orphanage located in a favela outside of the city named Pantanal. The houses in the favela were actually tin houses and shacks, closely knit together, tin roofs touching the shacks beside them. The wires connecting the homes were so tangled, it was impossible to know which belonged to which, it seemed the electricity was simply stolen. The neighborhood was very dirty, there weren’t any streets, only unpaved roads. And when we drove, Sebastião’s car wheels gathered dust. Dozens of children wandered the streets barefoot, some played with deflated balls, and some just sat in front of the houses. We looked at them and thought that despite their condition they seemed happy. Some even waved at us cheerfully.
The orphanage was located at the end of the favela, somewhat isolated, yet prominent. Perhaps because it was built of stone. A tall fence surrounded it, and only after we were asked on the intercom who we were, the iron gate opened and we were let in. Dozens of orphans welcomed us happily, some jumped at us, as if wanting our touch. Dafne willingly touched them, hugged and caressed. Some turned their cheek at her, waiting for a kiss and Dafne bent over and obliged them. I thought it was strange she kissed children you’ve never met, and generally, I couldn’t understand the Brazilian custom of kissing on every encounter; it was enough you met someone once, and the next time they would kiss you. Everywhere we went, a trail of children followed us, as if we were the Pied Piper of Hamelin. On the one hand it was very amusing, but on the other, if you think about it, it was a rather sad sight. The orphanage caregivers were pleasant and welcoming nuns, all dressed in blue-grayish clothes. I was convinced they had no idea why we came. Here, too, Sebastião asked us not to speak of adoption, but simply look if we liked any of the children. Only if we did we could ask questions about the child that weren’t related to its potential adoption. Obviously, I started suspecting that both in the orphanage as well as the shelter, they simply thought we were wealthy benefactors.
The children’s clothes were clean and they wore “chinelos” – which are rubber flip-flops. There were children of all ages, colors and races, Caucasians, mulattos, black, Indians, Asians, all wanting to be loved. They tried touching us, feeling us, and we grabbed their reached-out hands. Dafne whispered to Sebastiãothat we were interested in seeing babies and had no intention of adopting a child above the age of 2-3 months. She also told him, that even though we would have wanted to, we couldn’t help the children in the yard, wonderful as they were.
Sebastião approached one of the nuns and whispered something in her ear. She smiled and took us to one of the inner rooms, not before she explained something to the children in Portuguese, who immediately left us and went to play. Silence fell and the nun led us through the long corridors. On the walls hung images of Jesus and Mary, glued on cardboard and framed with childish handwriting. “What does it say?” I asked Sebastião. He replied that the children wrote under every image how much they loved Jesus Christ and Holy Mary.
We entered a room with about twenty white metal beds, on which babies lay on pristine white sheets. None cried, which I thought was very strange. We passed from one bed to another, and surprisingly all babies looked very much alike. Dafne immediately explained to Sebastião that she wanted a dark boy. “Like chocolate,” she added, hoping he’d understand since chocolate was an international word. To be on the safe side, she pointed at me. I hoped Sebastião understood we were looking for a child who would look like me. Some babies were awake and others slept. We smiled, whistled and made silly voices at those who were awake. Dafne took out of her big bag different rattles and placed them in their tiny hands. Those who slept didn’t wake up from the sounds we made and would find their rattle when they wakeup.
Dafne stopped for several moments in front of each and every bed, and I followed her. All the children were beautiful and so many had fair hair. Dafne couldn’t contain herself and asked why they were all fair. The nun explained that their hair darkened when they grew up, both those who had fair skin and those with dark skin.
The babies lay in frightening silence, as if waiting for their sentence. Dafne couldn’t decide which of them she would choose. Suddenly we heard a faint cry and we all ran towards it. Dafne said the wonderful baby called us to redeem him from this place, to adopt him.
Sebastião asked the nun if it was a boy or a girl. “Menino ou menina?”
“Menino.” She replied and picked up the baby. She then immediately laid it down to change its diaper. As she changed it with apparent experience, the baby waved his bare legs and kept crying in his low heartbreaking voice. The nun then added, that the dark color of his testicles indicated he would be dark when he grew older. Dafne asked for his age, to which the nun replied, “Fernando is two and half months old.” Dafne approached him and asked to hold him. She pressed him with great love to her breast, caressed and kissed him. He fell silent, looked around and smiled. Dafne then said firmly she would have only him.
I was very happy, also because I didn’t have to make the choice myself. It was the hand of God that singled Fernando out. We no loner wanted to see other children. We wanted only him. We came back to the hotel and couldn’t stop talking about him with excitement.
“This is fascinating,” Tamara said to herself when she decided to take a break from reading. “It was love at first sight, why did they change his name? I’m curious to see what happens next…”
She ignored the fact that the diary was about Gadi, someone she knew so well.
It was only yesterday when she took the travel diary in exchange for her love and commitment to their future relationship.
Perhaps I was wrong to take it? She wondered, “Isn’t penetrating Gadi’s most intimate experiences some form of commitment? Did Gadi in fact chain me to him with his secrets and didn’t really know I was unsure of our relationship?”
Reading the diary overwhelmed her. She poured herself some coffee and threw a quick look at the weekly newspaper headlines.
“I can’t believe it!” she called after a moment, but no one was there to hear her, so she kept on talking to herself, “Who would have thought that I would take this issue of all others, particularly the one with bold red letters,Bruna-Caroline, the kidnapped baby from Brazil, visits Israel. As if someone decided the subject would haunt me.”
The newspaper article was exciting, and she read each word enthusiastically. For a moment she thought Bruna and Gadi were one.
“Baby Caroline, the adopted daughter of Jacob and Simone Turgeman, visits Israel, already a mother of two different fathers,” the headline read.
&
nbsp; The article was three pages long and featured photographs and many sub-headlines. It seemed the editors thought this story was important and meaningful. The journalist went on and wrote with great passion, “Bruna’s tears remind me of her mother’s, Simone, when Caroline was torn from her arms and returned to her biological mother, in a dramatically tragic scene.”
Tamara remembered the Bruna-Caroline story. She had heard about it a few times from her mom, and even read about it in the newspaper.
“The two-year-old, named Caroline in Israel, was one of the most famous babies in Israel and Brazil, and touched many hearts worldwide, in what people deemed ‘the twentiethcentury Judgment of Solomon.’ She became a pawn in a power struggle, and no one asked her where she wanted to be – Israel or Brazil. It was hard not to sympathize with both mothers’ tragedy. One Brazilian who had a daughter but couldn’t raise it, and the other Israeli who couldn’t conceive but wanted a child and had the means to raise it. One claimed she did not put her daughter up for adoption; she was kidnapped, while the other insisted the adoption was legal.”
In the picture Tamara could see the face of a sweet girl, almost her age, with large sparkling hazel eyes.
“Bruna leads a very complex and difficult life,” she kept reading, “she lives on the outskirts of Rio Granade favela, fortykilometers south of the big city Curitiba, in a poor house with her two children, without running water or a supportivepartner.”
“I can’t believe it. What a coincidence!” Tamara yelled out to the empty dining room, however, this time someone heard her. Maggie , her sister, came home and was surprised to hear Tamara speaking to herself, “Who are you talking to?” she wondered.
“How could it be that both Bruna and Gadi are from the same place? Maybe she’s his sister? Maybe Gadi was also kidnapped?”
“Hey, what’s with you? You’re not all there. Have you been drinking? Are you on something? What are you talking about?” Maggie, who was not in the know, asked.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me, I keep asking myself questions and get answers from unexpected sources. As if things are decided by a greater force. As if someone is sending me signals. I’ve had enough. I couldn’t be further from believing in supernatural forces.”
“You’re scaring me,” Maggie said.
“This coincidence is scary,” Tamara replied, “I wonder, Gadi’s dad pronounces the city’s name as ‘Curitiba’ with a ‘t’ and the newspaper with ‘ch.’.’”
“Don’t you know?” Maggie was surprised, “You backpacked through Brazil. A lot of Brazilians pronounce ‘t’ as ‘ch.’ They claim it’s the accent of ‘Cariocas’ – people from Rio de Janeiro.
Of course I know, Tamara was angry at herself for being preoccupied with unimportant details instead of addressing the real reason she stayed at home today – reading the diary.
“But what does that have to do with Gadi’s father?” Maggie kept asking.
“Nothing, I just suddenly noticed it. Listen, there’s something I have to read to you from the paper, ‘Bruna grew up with a mother who struggled to support her, with four brothers and sisters, each of a different father, and without a father of her own. However, as Bruna is strong and unique, the dramatic events in which she was ripped away from her Israeli family, has left no emotional scars. She doesn’t remember any of those troubling days; not the trial, neither the psychologist who took her to her biological parents, nor Simone, her Israeli mother, who cried, ‘goodbye my beautiful princess’, and sent the daughter she had always wished throughout her unsuccessful conceiving attempts, on an unknown path. Of course, she cannot recall the panic spread among dozens of adoptive parents who jumped at any knock at their door, scared someone might take their child back.”
“I’m sure Gadi’s parents and grandparents were hysterical when they heard about the Bruna-Caroline incident. Maybe they hid him during that time or took him abroad?” Tamara created imaginary scenarios, which she clearly could not prove.
“Tamara, let it go, it’s all speculations. You’re building castles in the sky,” Maggie claimed.
But Tamara wouldn’t let it go. “You know, Maggie,” she said, “Gadi is going now on a trip to Brazil and I’m really concerned for him.”
“Suddenly you’re concerned for him?”
“Yes, you’d be surprised. He wants to find his biological mother and I’m afraid he won’t find what he’s looking for. Read this article, see how they live there. Look, it says Bruna can’t even say the word ‘Shalom’ in Hebrew, she can’t talk to her adoptive mother. If Gadi finds the woman who gave birth to him, how would he talk to her? He needs to learn Portuguese. Should I show him the article?”
Maggie didn’t answer.
Tamara kept asking her questions, “So many things are driving me crazy, did Simon, Caroline’s adoptive mother, adopt another child instead? The article doesn’t say what happened between Bruna-Caroline and her adoptive mother when they met yesterday. What would have happened to Caroline if she had stayed in Israel? What will happen to Gadi?”
“Yesterday you told me you were going to break up with him and suddenly you’re concerned for him as if he was your husband. What’s going on?” Magi went back on her decision to stay out of her sister’s business.
“I’m sorry I shared it with you.” Tamara declared loudly and went to her room to keep reading the adoption travel diary.
Tuesday, March 9th, 1982
Tomorrow it will be a month since we arrived at Brazil, today was the strongest blow we suffered. Since Monday, over a week ago, we haven’t heard from Sebastiãoand Dona Arlete. They won’t answer our phone calls, as if they had disappeared into thin air. We went to the office on 35 Andre de Barros street, only to find it locked. Dafne was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The hotel staff were very kind to us and our regular chambermaid instinctively knew something was going on. She tries comforting us with chocolates and soaps, keeps smiling and says ‘Tudo bom’ – all is well.
We haven’t left our room for over a week, hoping we might hear something of our baby. And today, after we felt we couldn’t take it any longer, Sebastião arrived with the worst news of all, you could not receive Fernando. His mother wanted him back which is why the baby didn’t have all its legal documents. We would have to find another baby.
I asked Sebastião how and why they had disappeared, why they kept us in the dark for over a week. He tried evading my questions, and suddenly said he ‘can’t understand my English.’ I knew he didn’t have any answers and was in fact covering for Dona Arlete, so I stopped investigating him. I felt our trust was completely compromised. Dafne cried a lot and could not bring herself to calm down. I was helpless, my heart broke, what do you say in such a situation? Our desperation was immense. After two hours of sobbing she went to bed and fell asleep. When she woke up it was already nighttime, which soon turned into a sleepless night. Eventually we decided to come back home, to Israel, without a child and with a big hole both in our hearts and pockets. Tomorrow we’ll start arrangements to return home.
Wednesday, March 10th 1982
At 8 AM Dona Arlete, in the flesh, stood at our door. She felt she had gone too far, or as Micky would say (my favorite expression, one of her many pearls), she felt she overplayed her hand. Dona Arlete decided to make it up to us. Apparently Sebastião had passed on detailed account of yesterday’s event.
Our room was a mess and not very hospitable. So we went to the other room, the one that was meant for the baby. We could at least sit there on chairs instead of clothes.
Dona Arlete explained to us what we had already been told yesterday. Fernando was a baby who had yet to receive adoption documents, so he could not go through medical examinations. There might be documents in a week or two, but it is also likely that there never will be. That is why it isn’t worth waiting for him and we should start looking for another child. “Paciência, tranquil
idade,” Dona Arlete declared. But we no longer had any patience or tranquillity.
“Dafne is falling apart before my eyes,” I told Dona Arlete, and announced we wanted to go back to Israel. I explained to her that we understood, through our many phone calls and correspondence before coming to Brazil, that we would immediately receive the child, pass through the necessary medical examinations, receive all the documents and the entire process would take 4 weeks tops. Today, after staying here for a month, we still haven’t found our baby, and even if we would find it tomorrow, we would have to stay here at least another month. Dona Arlete tried calming me down, telling me she wasn’t to blame, she repeated her mantra that some things were simply out of her hands. She explained again that Fernando’s mother was making things harder. “Maybe she’s trying to get money, or perhaps she really wants him. In a few days we’ll go to another shelter for pregnant women shelter in a different part of the city, where there is a fifteen-year-old girl – bonita de mais – very beautiful,” she said, “maybe she’ll be a better fit.” She mentioned they knew for sure that father of the baby was a ‘successful’ man, married with a family, which is why he couldn’t help her raise the baby, “it will be worth your while,” she tried to convince us. Dafne agreed immediately, and I, who only wanted the best for her, agreed too.
Monday, March 15th 1982
Today we went to the ‘Campo Comprido’ slum, where the shelter Dona Arlete told us about was located. The shelter was run by a nun, Dona Anna, with a staff including a psychologist, a social worker and volunteers from abroad. Most girls staying in this shelter came from violent homes, falling into prostitution and homelessness. Usually they would come to the shelter in a malnutritional desperate state, unable to maintain their health and hygiene. Many of them were sick and needed not only mental but physical treatment. Almost all of them would declare they wanted to raise their unborn children, however, most of the babies were given away to adoption since the families couldn’t take care of them.