3. Hotărâra – the decision

In the morning, they rose early. Vasilisa gave the girl a running commentary, mostly in Russian with as much Romanian thrown in as possible, on what she was doing as she gently brushed and smoothed her curls into place. They discussed clothing options, the girl responding to Vasilisa’s words with gestures and an animated face. She had a strange tilt to her head when she shook it to say “no,” as though it were describing a figure eight instead of moving in a line. Vasilisa nixed the girl’s first choice— the same dress as the day before. “That’s for important days,” she explained. “A party or a holiday. If you wear it every day, it’s not...blin...it’s no longer special,” she concluded in Russian. And her second—too many bright colours. The girl didn’t like Vasilisa’s counter-offer, a white t-shirt and pink capris. Eventually they settled on blue jeans and a bright lemon yellow shirt with a white checked daisy on the front. Vasilisa insisted on running shoes, but allowed the girl to drag the bunny toy along with her. When they were both dressed, Vasilisa in cream capris and a light blue sleeveless top, she looked the girl over with great satisfaction. The girl looked nice in yellow; she was glad they’d bought that shirt. “We even look good together,” she thought, noting the matched palette. Children: the ultimate accessory, she thought, and laughed aloud. She patted the girl’s head (careful not to tousle her hair—it wouldn’t do to muss those lovely curls) and they headed down to breakfast.
After breakfast, they walked back to the child services building. The outlook was bleak. The girl made no appearance in the database of missing children. They were still going down the list of foster care placements, looking for someone who had the space to take her. The same counselor from yesterday, Ileana, explained that they were currently attempting to run a computer aging simulation in reverse to get a guess at what she might have looked like up to two or three years ago, in case she had been missing for more than a few weeks. They wanted to keep her for further assessment—they had managed to bring in a psychiatric nurse who would evaluate the girl’s mental state. They had located an institution in the next city over that had room for one more, although her acceptance there was conditional on minimally normal results in the psych evaluation, since they really were not equipped for a severe special needs case.
“How long will this all take?” asked Vasilisa.
“Anywhere from a few hours to overnight,” explained Ileana. “Much depends on the evaluation, and it can take a short or a long time depending on how the child is responding. If you’ll come with me now, the nurse is waiting.”
They trooped into another consultation room where a sharp-looking woman was waiting with a briefcase and a brightly coloured plastic toybox. The nurse introduced herself to Vasilisa, then knelt down and said hello to the girl, explaining that she was going to have a look in her throat, like at the doctor’s, and then they would play some games together. The girl just stared. She was utterly passive as the nurse examined her closely, looking for damage to the throat or larynx, pulling out a penlight to test the girl’s pupils’ reaction to light. The nurse turned to Vasilisa. “Has she shown any signs of a recent injury to the head—headaches, dizziness, or sensitivity to touch in a particular area?” Vasilisa shook her head. “Well, she should be brought to the hospital for a CAT scan in any case, but first let’s see what we can find out right here.” She opened the toybox and brought out the first game.
By lunchtime, the nurse was satisfied that the girl had more or less normal intelligence. She had no trouble with spatial games, and although the nurse had had to be a little creative with some of the linguistic tests to account for a lack of answer, the girl’s understanding seemed very good. “My guess,” the nurse explained, “is that it’s just a pervasive selective aphasia. She may start talking once she’s in a stable living situation, but if not, anti-anxiety medication might be a good first start.” The receptionist brought in tea and some sandwiches. The girl sidled up to the table and grabbed one sandwich in each hand, settling into a tense crouch in the corner. Her eyes dared the adults to take them away. The nurse and case worker observed her solemnly. Vasilisa laughed out loud. “It’s okay,” she said. “We won’t try to take your food.” The girl stayed where she was, but her stance relaxed a little.
After lunch, the nurse set out a few dolls, toy cars, and other more traditional toys for the girl to engage in some free play. “Often children who are going to display violent or inappropriate behaviour in a group context will show the same tendencies in solo play as well, so it’s a good first gauge of emotional or behavioural issues.” The girl had picked up one of the dolls and was rocking her.
“So far so good?” suggested Vasilisa. “She likes dolls. Yesterday morning she made something out of a washcloth that looked like two sausage rolls in a hammock, even. She’s a very good little girl.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said the nurse. The girl, without letting go of the doll, skooched over to the toybox and rummaged around. She pulled out some doll clothes, set them and the doll down carefully, then reached back in and pulled out a Mr. Potato Head doll. She looked over the blank-faced thing, all its parts except arms and legs stowed away, and shook it. She found the door at the back and dumped the parts on the floor, then carefully laid the potato body aside and started organizing the parts according to some internal logic. After she had laid everything out in a neat grid, she mixed the pieces up and started again. This time she seemed more satisfied with the end result, although she examined several pieces closely, switching them around as if trying to categorize them. Finally, the girl stood the body up, looking over the array of features. She held up an eye in front of the potato head for a moment, discarded it, and picked up a pair of big red lips. She placed them in the first hole, where one would expect a hat to sit, and, evidently pleased with the effect, continued by picking up each subsequent piece in that row and inserting it into the next hole. She finished out the face with the first two pieces from the next row, and set the finished product down next to the pieces again. She reached for the doll she had been playing with earlier. It was a plastic baby doll with posable arms and legs, and she sat it down facing the potato head across the field of features. She picked up the potato head and moved him around in the air over the pieces, bowing him forward and moving him side-to-side, but keeping his “face” more or less towards the baby doll. Then it was the baby doll’s turn, as though they were silently conversing. The girl continued playing with them for several minutes, sitting the baby doll down and standing it up, and adjusting the potato head’s arms.
“Does this tell you anything?” asked Vasilisa.
“She seems fairly normal for a child her age,” the nurse answered. “Perhaps a little...eccentric, since at this age they are often very interested in putting things in the correct place, rather than the creative one, but I’m not seeing any worrisome behaviour here.”
The girl had set both dolls down and was re-organizing the features. She swapped out a long-lashed eye for a pink tongue, then picked up the baby doll and attempted to insert the eye into its mouth. The stem wouldn’t fit into the small hole intended for a toy bottle, but the doll’s lips were far enough apart to grip its last few millimetres. All three women smothered giggles at the strange effect.
“I think we may as well send her along tonight,” said Ileana. “I just have to make a phone call, if you’ll excuse me.”
“So this is it,” the nurse said, looking at Vasilisa. “Your weekend of motherhood is at an end. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, all right,” Vasilisa answered. “I hope she does well and finds a good home before long. I would love to hear how she is doing, and if the institution accepts donations, well...” The nurse nodded.
“I’m sure Ileana can forward that information to you. She was hoping you would take the girl home, though.”
“I assumed she wasn’t serious, since I thought Romania had outlawed foreign adoptions!”
“It’s true that they are illegal except in the case of a close family member who lives outside Romania. It still happens a little—usually for much less pure motives than Ileana’s. The country is improving, but there is still corruption here.”
“What are Ileana’s motives, anyway? From the moment I arrived, she has been trying to convince me to go home with the girl.”
“Romania has been working very hard to make life better for orphans and children who temporarily need state care, and one of the important ideas behind the reform is that adoption is not about finding a child for the family, it’s about finding a family for the child. I think Ileana sees something in the girl’s attitude towards you that makes her think you’re the “family” she wants. It’s a difficult decision. Which is better for the child: to remain in Romania and lose her preferred caregiver, or to go with her preferred caregiver and leave her home culture behind?”
“It is a difficult balance to maintain,” Vasilisa said, nodding, “especially considering that children do not make very well informed decisions about such things.”
“It is a very complex situation. And this case is further complicated by the way she seems to carry her aphasia into all normal aspects of life—usually children will, for example, be silent at school or in the presence of certain other stressors but normally talkative at home or somewhere else that they feel safe and comfortable. So far it seems this girl doesn’t have that home base where she can speak, which will make it much more difficult to help her through usual anxiety therapies.” The nurse sighed. “I suppose I am painting a very bleak picture. I am sure the girl will do well enough, one way or another, so don’t worry about her.”
Vasilisa opened her mouth to protest that she hadn’t been worried, had always trusted that she was doing the right thing in turning the kid over to the authorities. But as she drew breath to speak, she became aware of a prick of conscience she had nearly ignored this whole time. She had meant it, dammit, when she said she wished she could spend some time teaching the girl how to properly care for her hair. She did feel anxious at the thought of that sweet, sad face looking out the window of a crowded orphanage, no matter how modernized the facilities. A heartbeat later, she settled on, “I’m happy to know she is in capable hands.” Noncommittal. It is always important, she thought, to keep a proper social distance. Some comments were not meant to elicit truthfully detailed responses. And conscience or no, she didn’t want to get involved in the raising of an obviously damaged child. That was what professionals were for, for heaven’s sake.
Just at the edge of earshot, Vasilisa could hear Ileana wrapping up her phone conversation. A moment later, the clack of her heels coming down the hallway seemed to alert the girl, who looked up from her dolls to transfix Vasilisa with an intense look that seemed to say “I know what is about to happen.” Yes, you do, Vasilisa thought. But there’s nothing I can do about it.
Ileana breezed into the room and approached Vasilisa. “Everything has been arranged,” she explained. “I will drive her there this evening and see her settled in, so your part in this is finished. Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to look after this little girl.” Try as she might, Vasilisa could uncover no accusation in the woman’s thanks, nothing to bear out the sense she had had earlier that the woman expected her to defy all rationality (not to mention the law!) and adopt this strange little girl. She felt...relieved? Disappointed? She wasn’t sure. She stood awkwardly, paused a moment, then went to the girl. Kneeling, she looked into the liquid brown eyes, and somehow molded her mouth into a smile. “It was very nice to meet you,” she said, “but now you’re going to go and live with some other children. I’d like it if you wrote me letters sometimes. I hope your real family will find you soon!” Was it her imagination, or did the girl shudder at the mention of her “real” family? No matter, surely there would be a fitness assessment before she was sent home with parents who might be neglectful or abusive. The girl’s life was about to take a turn for the better, Vasilisa was sure of it. She offered her hand. The girl looked at it for a moment, then turned a last, brief pleading glance on Vasilisa’s face, before solemnly accepting the handshake.
“Goodbye,” Vasilisa whispered. The girl wouldn’t look at her. She stood, glanced at the other women, and walked out of the room. And that’s the end of that.