2. La Poupeé – The Doll

Early the next morning, Vasilisa woke to slanting sunbeams and the sound of humming. The girl was sitting on the floor by the window, her curly hair in tousled ringlets, swinging a washcloth back and forth and humming a little tune. Looking closer, Vasilisa saw that she had folded the cloth into a little hammock with two rolled up bundles. Seeing that Vasilisa was awake, the girl hugged the cloth tightly, the hunted look coming back to her dark eyes. “Well and what’s with you,” Vasilisa asked, forgetting to use Romanian. “Is that your baby?” The girl nodded and relaxed. The cloth had come unfolded, so she carefully laid it down, folded it along the diagonal, and started rolling the corners in. Once the two rolls met in the centre, she pulled the other corners apart, re-creating the little hammock with its two babies.

“Don’t you ever talk?” Vasilisa asked suddenly. The girl paused, her hair hiding her face, then went back to swinging her little hammock. “Can you talk?” she repeated, this time in Romanian. The girl seemed to ignore her. “Well, put your clothes on,” she attempted brusquely in Romanian. “It’s time for breakfast.”

After enjoying a continental breakfast in the hotel restaurant, Vasilisa approached one of the staff. He didn’t speak Russian, but he did speak French, the language of Vasilisa’s later childhood. She inquired about child services, asking how she could ensure that the child was well taken care of. He gave her the address and explained the process for admission, but insinuated that, what with overcrowded orphanages and the economy only just starting to improve since acceding to the EU and the age of the child and all, finding her a good home was a somewhat unreliable prospect. “Well,” Vasilisa responded, “it’s the best I can do. I’m only here for a few more days, after all.” The man nodded resignedly.

Before she took the kid in, Vasilisa thought, she really ought to have some better clothes. It was early yet, no sense knocking at the door at precisely 9:07 on a Tuesday morning. Besides, if the girl was going to be consigned to life in an orphanage, she ought at least to have some things to call her own. She needed something to wear and maybe a nice doll or stuffed animal to keep her company. And shoes, the girl definitely needed some new shoes. Hand in hand, they walked back to the plaza where they had met the previous day. Stores were just beginning to open, the salespeople toting baskets of scarves, racks of brightly coloured dresses, and other teasers out onto the sidewalk. Vasilisa and the girl walked up and down for a few minutes before finding a store that appeared to have some children’s clothing. As she browsed the racks looking for some serviceable pants, the girl tugged at her sleeve. The girl had hold of a frilly white dress with wide pink ribbons at the bodice and the look in her eyes was impossible to say no to. Vasilisa packed her off to the changing room with the dress and a cute pair of pants that looked like the right size. “I’ll bring a shirt in a minute,” she said. “Try the dress on first.”

The girl, standing barefoot on the store carpet, the ghost of a smile on her lips as she tugged at the skirt of the dress, looked like quite a different creature from the ratty urchin of yesterday afternoon. Her hair fell in untamed curls that definitely looked like a good stylist and some conditioner could make them advertising-beautiful. She still looked too thin, but the dress fit her much better than her own clothes, making her less comical. “Smile,” Vasilisa said, pulling out her cellphone to snap a picture. The girl was very cute...it was almost enough to make a woman want children somewhere down the road. “We’ll take the dress,” Vasilisa said to the saleswoman attending them, and shooed the girl back into the changeroom to try on the pants and shirts she had picked out.

Nearly two hours later, they emerged from the store. Vasilisa carried bags full of shirts, pants, socks, and underwear, and the girl was wearing the dress and a new pair of pink stockings. Glancing down, Vasilisa grimaced at the filthy shoes that were the only relic of the girl’s original outfit. She sighed, and turned up a side street where she had seen a shoe store in her previous explorations. As she perused the rack of children’s dress shoes, debating whether to get the girl the black patent leather Mary Janes—which would ultimately be the more flexible and therefore practical choice—or the white sandals—which would go with her current outfit—Vasilisa thought that she hadn’t enjoyed shopping like this since high school. She had used to love shopping with her friends at lunch or after school, picking out pieces that not only would flatter each other, but fit each individual’s style. Somehow with university that had become only an occasional thing, and then as she entered the workforce her social engagements changed to dinner dates and late-night cocktails. Eventually, she settled on the white sandals, reasoning that with summer coming on they would be sensible enough. She bought the girl some running shoes as well, of course, since the main point of this expedition was the acquisition of practical clothes. And then she saw the boots, with their pink soles and butterfly printed uppers. Spring rains were something all children should enjoy with stylishly protected feet, Vasilisa thought, and added them to the pile.

The bags were starting to get a little heavy as Vasilisa herded the girl into a toy store. “One dolly,” she said firmly. “Which one do you like best?” The girl wandered up and down the aisles, pausing to fiddle with the skirt of this doll, the hair of that one, looking back from time to time as though she didn’t quite believe that this was happening. Eventually after walking around the whole store twice, she gravitated to a stuffed rabbit. Gingerly, she pulled it off the shelf and turned to Vasilisa. “That one?” The girl nodded seriously. “Let’s pay quickly. It’s almost lunchtime, and then we have to go to child services.”

As they enjoyed soup and sandwiches at a little café, Vasilisa watched the girl closely. She was still wary, glancing sidelong at other patrons and protectively encircling the plate with her thin arms, but she was slowing down a little, no longer gulping everything down without pause. It was a heady feeling, this sense that she was really changing someone’s life for the better. She smiled contentedly, and admired her handiwork. Surely the girl would not remain in foster care or orphanage long, looking as cute as this. If only she didn’t have that lingering sadness to her. Well, Vasilisa thought, people who took in orphans must be prepared for that look. Probably a few months with a happy family would make her indistinguishable from any other primary schooler.

After lunch, they started walking to child services. They bought ice cream from a street vendor. It was still a little cool for a frozen treat, but it was sunny and Vasilisa wanted to round out the girl’s day. She still wouldn’t talk, so Vasilisa had lifted her up to see the different flavours and the girl had pointed at the lemon sherbet. “Don’t get sticky,” Vasilisa admonished, then mused in Russian, “I don’t want them complaining that I dropped off a sticky child. I’m sure they’d take their frustrations out on the kid, send her to the bad orphanage or something.”

They had just finished their ice cream when they arrived at the building. Vasilisa dabbed at the girl’s face and hands with a napkin. “Well, it’s not too bad,” she muttered. They went in.
As soon as she spoke to the receptionist, Vasilisa realized she had made a major error of omission. It had all seemed so simple when the hotel employee explained it to her: fill out a form with the girl’s name, any information about next-of-kin or last known address, and let the staff take it from there. But she didn’t know the girl’s name. The girl didn’t even speak. Vasilisa wasn’t even entirely sure that she was all there mentally. She explained the situation as best she could to the receptionist, who frowned and said she would call someone to deal with the girl. A few minutes later, a woman beckoned them into a private consultation room with a little low table on which were scattered several coloured crayons and a few sheets of paper. In a mixture of Romanian and French, the woman explained to Vasilisa that they were going to try and get the girl to write her name, at least, and that they would take a photo to compare to their missing persons database. She sat the girl down at the table and started speaking quietly to her in Romanian. Vasilisa caught a few words: family, picture, write your name. The girl didn’t move. With a sigh, the counselor retreated. “Sometimes it takes some time,” she explained. “Why don’t you tell me again what you know about her?” They talked for several minutes, and as the conversation drifted from what the girl was wearing to begin with to a description of the neighbourhood and the girl’s movements therein, Vasilisa noticed the girl pick up the purple crayon and start marking something on one sheet of paper. The counselor deftly turned the conversation to Vasilisa herself: who was she, by profession, what was she doing in the country and how long did she plan to stay. After a while, she worked around to the question, not entirely unexpected by then, of whether or not she had ever considered becoming a foster parent. “I don’t mean to dismay you,” she pressed, “but to be perfectly honest, we may not be able to find this girl’s family. Most kids this age have only the vaguest sense of their family name, and if she’s been orphaned and out of care for some time she is probably far behind her peers in academic development. It’s hard to say, too, if she’s not speaking because she won’t—which is hardly going to win her friends in any placement we can find—or because she can’t—which may signal other disabilities—and either way it means trying to find a home where they know or are willing to learn sign language. A child can’t be left with no ability to communicate; it’s inhumane. So if I had a say in her future, I would rather she went with someone she already knows, with whom she has found a way to communicate, however basic. But I understand that you have your own life, and in any case it would be a complicated process since you are from away. Just think about it, would you?”

Meanwhile, the girl had pushed away one piece of paper and started on another one. The counselor picked up the finished page. “Well...” she started, and trailed off. “She’s certainly creative,” suggested Vasilisa. The drawing was of a house. A girl with curly hair and a yellow dress stood outside it. The windows and door were blacked out messily. A purple tornado was descending from the sky, with orange, long-limbed people flying from it. Most of the faces had just a pair of black dots for eyes, but one of the orange people had a big round mouth like a ghost, filled in with black crayon.

“What’s this girl’s name?” the counselor asked the girl, pointing at the picture. The girl looked up from where she was drawing another purple tornado, then back down at the page where she redoubled her efforts, expanding the tornado right to the edge of the page. The counselor put the first drawing down in front of her. “What’s her name? Can you write her name?” The girl paused. Gently, the counselor took the purple crayon and replaced it in the girl’s hand with the yellow one. “Write her name for me, so I can say hello to her.” The girl gripped the crayon in a tight fist and touched the tip to the paper beside the figure of the girl. “That’s right, write her name,” the counselor encouraged her. But the markings the girl made were illegible, looking more like a very young child’s representation of “writing” than the actual struggling characters of a first or second grade child who knew her letters. The counselor, nonplussed, pulled out her camera. “Okay, I need to take your picture.” She tilted the girl’s chin to look directly at the camera and motioned Vasilisa out of the background. “Good girl. One, two, three.” The flash went off. She turned the girl’s head to get a profile shot and repeated the process.

“We’ll start comparing these to missing persons reports now. We’ll call you as soon as we find anything; otherwise, please bring her back tomorrow morning.” Vasilisa tried to protest—wasn’t it their job to take care of the girl? But the counselor rushed them out, explaining that unfortunately it would be at least a day before they could arrange a placement for the girl.
“Well, what shall we do now?” mused Vasilisa as they left the building. She looked at the girl. Her hair was frizzy and a little tangled already, and one curl stuck to itself damply as though she’d been sucking on it. “Let’s see if we can get an appointment anywhere at such short notice,” said Vasilisa and started walking back to where she had seen a hair salon earlier.

“You’re in luck,” explained the receptionist in English. “We just had a cancellation. If you don’t mind waiting about fifteen minutes...?”

“Of course not,” Vasilisa responded and, sitting down, began to leaf through the magazines. The girl curled up on the chair next to her, resting her head on Vasilisa’s shoulder and looking at the pictures. With native fluency in Russian and French and a smattering of Spanish and Italian, she was almost able to follow text in Romanian, so she stumbled through most of an article about couples who keep separate bedrooms even when living together before giving up and turning to a fashion spread from last season (that one model did have a fantastic handbag). A few pages later, the receptionist called them up. Vasilisa did her best to convey to the stylist her own vision for the girl’s hair, then retired to a nearby chair with her magazine.

About an hour later, they emerged from the salon. The girl’s face-framing ringlets bounced appealingly as she skipped along. “It’s too bad I can’t send you off to foster care with a diffuser and some rollers,” Vasilisa explained to the girl, “but I just don’t have time to teach you how to use them.” She wondered if it was possible to specify that she wanted the girl adopted into a family where somebody knew how to deal with curly hair, then caught herself and laughed aloud. “Next thing you know, I’ll be taking you home with me, just because I can’t bear the thought of you going around with unattractive hair,” she exclaimed at the girl in Russian. As if in answer, the girl suddenly clung to Vasilisa’s slender waist, pressing her face against her as though to indicate that that was exactly what she wanted. “Oh come on,” she muttered. “The paperwork would be crazy, kid. There’s no way...” But the girl turned her big brown eyes up to Vasilisa, channeling all the cute power of every puppy and kitten that anyone ever accidentally fell in love with. “No. Absolutely not,” she said firmly, hardening her heart. Besides, kids weren’t like puppies. You couldn’t just find one at the side of the road, make sure it had its shots, and take it home with you. They needed a lot more care, even if they were fun to dress up. And the paperwork...

“I don’t want you spending another night on the street,” said Vasilisa. “I guess it’s back to the hotel with us. Let’s see if there’s another movie.”