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.

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.”

1. Sirota – The Orphan

It was a fine afternoon in late spring and warm sunlight brightened the streets of B—, nestled deep in the hills of northern Romania. Women clattered by on four-inch heels, minds on their purchases, never pausing to glance at the elegant buildings around them. Vasilisa sipped her juice and admired the stately 19th century bank across the plaza. One had to travel to truly appreciate the beauty around one, she thought. Familiarity bred...blindness. A tug at her sleeve broke the reverie. Vasilisa looked around to find a scruffy girl perhaps seven years old gazing mutely at her, hand outstretched. She was dirty and too thin, one of the unfortunately common beggar-brats that littered Romanian streets. With a sigh, Vasilisa reached for the half a sandwich she hadn’t yet started eating and pressed it into the girl’s hand. The one good thing about the kids was that they were a little more willing to accept food instead of money. It wasn’t that she wasn’t charitable, Vasilisa told herself, it was just that it galled her to think of her money going to feed some deadbeat parent’s drug habit. The girl had retreated to the stone steps of a nearby building and was tearing into the sandwich like a hungry dog, with the same wary look in her eye. Vasilisa sighed again and motioned for the waiter. She added a second sandwich to her bill, and asked that it be wrapped up. It had been so good, she tried to explain, that she simply had to enjoy another for dinner. Whether or not the waiter understood her rather limited Romanian she wasn’t sure, but the sandwich arrived in due course, along with the cheque. The early afternoon’s relaxed, sociable shoppers were giving way to a more harried crowd, bustling anxiously along, hoping to finish their errands before the shops closed. Vasilisa rose and smoothed her skirt down over her knees, brushing a stray crumb off her jacket. She left a generous tip, more than she usually would, because, well, she was feeling very charitable today.

Vasilisa strolled out into the plaza, smiling a little at the way the sun, just beginning to dip below the rooftops, outlined their orange-red tiles with a fiery glow. Looking around, she quickly found the girl, tugging at the sleeve of some backpacker in jeans and a t-shirt that said “View Towers.” The backpacker was shaking his head, empty palms outstretched, and the girl, after standing for a moment in mute supplication, turned and ran in another direction. Vasilisa hurried after her. “Hey,” she called as the girl, walking now, turned down a narrow cobbled alley, “girl!” The girl stopped and turned around. Vasilisa, still walking towards her, beckoned the girl closer. When they met, she knelt down and looked into the girl’s soulful eyes. In passing, she evaluated the probability that this gesture was putting a run in the knee of her stockings and mentally traced a path to the nearest restroom where she could remove them if necessary. In the meantime, the girl was staring at her. “Here,” she said, offering the wrapped sandwich, “this is for you.” The girl took it, tilting her head down to look up at Vasilisa through thick brown bangs. Vasilisa gently took the girl’s unoccupied hand and pressed a few Romanian leu into it. “This is for your family,” she said. The girl gave her a blank stare, so Vasilisa repeated the word for “family,” throwing in “mama and papa” as well, for good measure. The girl clutched the sandwich and the crumpled bills to her bony chest and continued to stare. “For heaven’s sake,” Vasilisa exclaimed, lapsing into her native Russian, “don’t tell me you’re an orphan!” She searched the girl’s eyes as she tried unsuccessfully to dredge up a word in Romanian that would convey the concept. In the end, she settled for “no mother and father?” The girl paused a moment, her expression serious, then nodded slowly. Vasilisa pulled a few more leu from her wallet and slipped them into the pocket of the girl’s too-large pants. She reached out to touch the girl’s grubby face, tilting her chin up. “Don’t spend it in one place,” she admonished. “Farewell.” Vasilisa stood and walked out of the alley without looking back. As she rounded the corner, riding high on her own benevolence, she pulled out her cellphone and dialed her financial advisor to make an appointment for the day she got home—perhaps her major charity this year should be one supporting disadvantaged children. She would have to do a little research tonight to find a reliable organization, but she felt good already.

It wasn’t until she had walked halfway back to her hotel that Vasilisa noticed the girl was following her. Pausing at a crosswalk, she had been glancing around, enjoying the architecture and the deepening twilight, thinking about going for a moonlight stroll a little later, and perhaps out to a club after that. The girl was hanging back a few metres from the corner, and when she saw Vasilisa turn she ducked into the doorway of a shop. Just then, the light changed, and Vasilisa proceeded across the street, only to hear the patter of someone running behind her. Arriving at the corner, she turned to find the girl directly behind her. Kneeling again so she could make direct eye contact, she said firmly, “Go home.” The girl looked at her disintegrating shoes and scuffed a toe on the pavement. “Go home,” Vasilisa repeated. Without waiting for any answer, she stood and continued walking. Two blocks later, when she looked again, the girl was still there. By now, Vasilisa had figured out what she wanted, so she beckoned the girl closer and pulled out her wallet. “You want more, is that it?” she said as she pulled still more leu out of her wallet. She didn’t like having to pay for peace of mind, but it wasn’t as though she was hurting for money. She offered the girl a sheaf of bills. “Here, now go home.” The girl just looked at her. Vasilisa started to wonder if the girl was brain damaged or something, the way she just stared. She took the girl’s hand, thinking to close it around the money. The poor thing, it wasn’t her fault. Probably malnutrition, or maybe shaken baby syndrome. She might not be able to hang on to the money for long—a more “with it” kid would probably end up with it pretty soon—but it was all Vasilisa had to offer. But instead of the passivity her face registered, the girl’s little hand closed tightly around Vasilisa’s, and animation returned to her features. She stepped closer, her eyebrows raised, nervousness showing in her eyes. Vasilisa broke away, stood, and turned, but before she took a step, the girl’s hand was in hers, the little face looking up at her, pleading. Vasilisa stood frozen for a moment. A heartbeat later, she had decided: the girl could come with her for the night. She’d give her a bath, and the next day she’d make inquiries about the local child services, maybe take the girl shopping for some clean, well-fitting clothes. The girl must have seen something in Vasilisa’s face to indicate her change of heart, because she smiled, a radiant expression that briefly eclipsed the sadness in her wide brown eyes. “Well, come on,” Vasilisa said, again slipping into Russian. They walked the last few blocks to the hotel together, slim Vasilisa, stylishly dressed, short blonde hair ruffling in the breeze, hand in hand with the grubby brunette street urchin. Almost like some kind of hilarious family, Vasilisa thought to herself. Wouldn’t her friends laugh to see her now!

Unsure how to explain the sudden arrival of a filthy kid to the doorman, Vasilisa took the girl down into the car park before stepping into the elevator. “We’ll explain tomorrow when you’re cleaned up,” she said in Romanian. The girl was silent as the elevator rose.

In her hotel room, Vasilisa turned on the hot water and started filling the bathtub. She threw a handful of her own bath salts in, thought about it for a moment, then dumped the entire complementary hotel shampoo bottle under the tap, starting a mountain of sweet-smelling bubbles. Meanwhile, she ran some warm water into the bathroom sink as well, for the girl’s clothes. She suddenly realized she didn’t know how to say “get undressed” in Romanian. But in a few minutes when the bath was full, she sent the girl in, figuring she knew what to do. Vasilisa gave her a few minutes to get undressed and in the tub before she filled the sink to tackle the girl’s clothes. The shirt alone turned the water grey almost immediately, but she persisted, and several sinksfull of water later, she had rinsed away much of the grime. Hanging the clothes over the edge of the sink until the bathtub should be free, she turned her attention back to the girl, who was playing with the empty hotel shampoo bottle as though it were a little boat, sailing it from one bubble-island to another. “Did you...ah, blin, how can I say ‘wash yourself’?” she trailed off, and pattered off to the other room to search out her phrasebook. When she came back, armed with an appropriate phrase, the girl was soaping her arms. She gave Vasilisa a look as if to say “is this what you wanted?” “Smart girl,” Vasilisa opined, and retired to the bedroom to read.
After a half hour or so, Vasilisa unpacked her spare pyjamas and brought them into the bathroom. “Is the water cold?” she asked. “Here’s a towel, and here are some clothes.” As she left the room, she heard the water start to flow as the girl pulled the plug and got out of the bath. A few minutes later, the kid padded out of the bathroom, swamped in Vasilisa’s pyjamas.
“Come here, I’ll brush your hair,” Vasilisa offered offhandedly in Russian. “Uh...to est’...come here...” Vasilisa gestured, and the girl shuffled over. Vasilisa began teasing the knots out of her fine hair, which was starting to curl as it dried. The girl stood stock-still for a long time while Vasilisa brushed her hair out, trying not to hurt the girl as she worked at the matted mess. The girl's occasional stiffening told her she wasn't entirely successful, but she never cried out or complained. By the time she had finished, the girl’s hair was mostly dry. Vasilisa set her at the sink with her toothbrush and turned back the bedclothes. It’s still a little early, she thought, so by the time the girl emerged minty-fresh from the bathroom she had the TV on and had ordered what seemed like a kid-friendly pay-per-view movie. It was dubbed in Romanian, and she couldn’t follow it very well, so she pulled out her book and continued reading. As the credits rolled, she realized that the girl, leaning on her shoulder, had dozed off, smiling sweetly in her sleep. Vasilisa tucked her gently under the covers and turned out the light.