The Russian Word for Snow Read online

  "I didn't say—"

  He slammed his glass down, spraying the window with yellow droplets. "I wasn't the one who couldn't remember the damn newspaper."

  I threw my backpack at him. The guidebook was still inside, and it hit the wall next to Ken's head with a heavy thud.

  Ken pounded on the refrigerator, startling the motor into life. "Don't you ever throw anything at me again!"

  I slammed the door. "What are you going to do?" I shouted. "Hit me?"

  "Stop screaming—you'll lose your voice."

  I forced out a ragged scream that went silent in the upper registers, like someone switching off a radio in the middle of a song.

  "You're going to permanently damage your vocal cords."

  I screamed at him again, liking the idea of permanent damage. "I hate this place!"

  "It was your idea to leave the Radisson, I didn't—"

  "No. I hate this country! I hate this country, and I hate these people!"

  Ken looked at me as if saying I hated these people was the same as saying I hated Alex.

  I knew I should stop, but it was like the burst of breath you can't hold back after staying underwater too long. "All we want to do is take one of their children out of an orphanage that's only going to dump him on the street at sixteen, and instead of helping us, they ignore us in restaurants and charge us too much for things and refuse to sign our papers so we can get the hell out of here!"

  My voice had begun to give out, removing the volume from every other word and making the rest sound hoarse and layered.

  Ken stood at the window, using his finger to connect the drops of yellow vodka. I could hear the hum of the refrigerator and the pounding of the underground machines.

  "I hate it here, too," he said, flattening his palm on the glass and smearing the vodka into a yellowish curve. "I hate the disgusting food and this filthy city and the people who despise us."

  He bent down and picked up my backpack, set it on the dresser. "I especially hated that restaurant today."

  "The green chocolate."

  "The gray soup."

  "The waiters who kept pretending we weren't there."

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  He sat on the little refrigerator.

  "How about the woman on the Metro? With the hairy hand?"

  He shut his eyes and waved the image away, as if the woman had suddenly raised the hand in front of him.

  "How is that?" I pointed to his glass which was now tinted yellow around the rim.

  "A little like Gatorade."

  He got another glass from the bathroom, filled it with ice and limonaya, and brought it to me. The drink left a taste in my mouth like something artificially sweetened.

  We sat together on the scratchy sofa, drinking yellow vodka until it got dark. When the bottle was empty, Ken made up unflattering songs about the Russians and sang them to me. I laughed soundlessly, and videotaped him dancing in front of the windows, the golden domes of the Assumption Cathedral behind him, the Turks laboring beneath the cobblestones of Red Square below.

  The Finnish Kidnapping Plan

  "Have you heard anything about our papers?" Ken asked.

  Yuri was leaning against the little refrigerator, folding and refolding his arms. "I will tell you when papers are signed," he said.

  "Do you have any idea when that'll be?"

  "I do not know."

  Volodya paced in the corner, turning to glare out the window every minute or so, as though expecting an attack to come from behind. Anna perched primly on the edge of the dresser, studying her fingers. Ken and I sat on the couch, unwilling to share the brown cushions with any of the Russians.

  "What's the name of the person who's supposed to sign our papers?" Ken asked.

  "He is in office of mayor."

  "What's his name?"

  Yuri unfolded his arms.

  "Is it Olga Tokareva?" Ken asked. "A woman?"

  Yuri thrust himself off the refrigerator. "Where did you hear that name?"

  "From an American journalist at Business Week."

  After the hairy hand on the Metro and the yellow vodka, Ken and I had begun making phone calls. I started with Maggie, telephoning at all hours until I reached her.

  "I want to call the U.S. Embassy," I told her. "Do you know anybody there?"

  "You can't call them. It might cause an international incident."

  "I'm just going to see if they can help us get our papers signed."

  "Promise me you won't call them."

  "All right." I hung up and called the embassy.

  "We can't really make the Russians do anything," said the man from the embassy, surprising me since I'd always believed the American embassy could make anybody do anything. "All we can do is ask when they're likely to sign, but the answer won't really mean anything."

  After that we called Kate and asked her to get in touch with anybody who might know someone in Moscow. The number of the journalist from Business Week had come from her.

  "Let me see what I can find out," said the journalist. And the next day he called back with the name of Olga Tokareva. "That's who signs the papers, but I'm afraid we don't have any contacts in that office."

  "Olga Tokareva carries the papers," Yuri insisted. He mimed her duties, holding his hands flat and transporting imaginary papers between Volodya and Anna. "She does not sign." He slapped his flattened hands together. "Korobchenko signs."

  "Korobchenko?" asked Ken.

  "Tokareva carries. Korobchenko signs."

  "I want you to call over there." Ken held out a piece of paper with the phone number the journalist had given us.

  "Anybody cannot call there," Yuri told him.

  "The journalist from Business Week did."

  Volodya had stopped pacing. He placed his body between Yuri and the phone number.

  "I tell you, Korobchenko signs."

  "Let's make sure."

  Yuri grabbed the paper out of Ken's hand with a snap and punched the numbers on the hotel telephone.

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  "Alio" Yuri said, and began to speak very fast in Russian. I thought Anna might translate this for us, but she was occupied with pushing back her cuticles.

  "It is as I say." Yuri slammed the receiver. "Korobchenko signs."

  He brushed his hands together and marched to the door. Vol-odya followed close behind him.

  "There's something else," Ken said.

  Yuri turned around before he had a chance to compose his face, to soften the brutal planes that must always lie beneath the surface.

  "The driver and the translator, do we pay for them separately?" Ken asked.

  "No. Is part of fee."

  "The driver and the translator are included in the $10,000?"

  "Yes. Included."

  "So they don't cost anything extra?"

  "No extra."

  Yuri turned away, reached a hand toward the door.

  "Then we want to go to the orphanage twice a day," Ken told him.

  "Twice?" Yuri's outstretched hand slapped down on his thigh.

  "Two times." Ken held up two fingers.

  Yuri glared at Anna.

  "But Grisha must take his nap," she murmured, clutching her small square purse.

  "We'll go in the morning before he naps, and come back after he wakes up."

  It had occurred to us that the more we used the driver and the translator, the more we would cost Yuri. And the more we cost Yuri, the sooner he would want us to leave.

  "I do not think orphanage will allow it."

  "We'll ask them tomorrow."

  "Perhaps I cannot come every day." Anna rubbed a smudge from the shiny surface of her purse.

  "I'm sure you have other translators," Ken said to Yuri.

  Air exploded out of Yuri's mouth. Volodya stood in the middle of the room, making fists.

  "OK, two times," Yuri told him.

  "Starting tomorrow."

  Yuri clawed at the brownish
stubble that grew in patches on his face. "Fine. Yes. Tomorrow."

  He charged out the door, letting it close on Volodya.

  Anna hooked her square purse in the crook of her elbow. "Good-bye," she said, nodding politely. Then she let herself out.

  Since I'd come to Moscow, Anna had spent most of her time telling me the things I couldn't do for Alex. "The orphanage decides what Grisha will eat," she said, when I told her I didn't want Irina cracking a raw egg into his soup. "Only the orphanage can give him medicine," she informed me, when I wanted to give Alex a children's vitamin shaped like a jungle animal. "Grisha is allowed to wear only the orphanage clothes," she insisted, the day I wanted to take Alex out of the stained pajamas he'd been wearing for a week and dress him in the overalls I'd brought with me. After a while, I began to feel less like Alex's mother, and more like a troublesome bystander, afraid even to take down the stacking blocks and teach him about big, bigger, biggest.

  But after the day we made Yuri call the office of Olga To-kareva, I was no longer willing to go on being Alex's observer. And the next morning, when I lifted him over the pink and white railings, I decided that the orphanage didn't get to determine whether I was Alex's mother.

  Over the past weeks, I'd watched as Irina measured shoes against Olya's feet, then showed her how to walk across the room, calling her Olysbka and jiggling her arms for encouragement. Olya was the only child Irina did this for, so she was the only child who was even close to walking. The other children, including Alex, stayed in the big playpen, clinging to the railings or each other when they wanted to stand upright.

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  Now, I carried Alex over to a communal pile of fabric-covered shoes and chose a pair, measuring them against the bottom of his feet before slipping them on over his footed pajamas.

  Then, I held both of Alex's hands and pulled him to his feet. Together, we walked across the room, his arms in the air like someone being robbed.

  "Videotape us," I said to Ken. He'd been bringing the camera to the orphanage every day, but had stopped recording anything. "I'm showing Alex how to walk."

  Ken lay on the floor and pointed the camera up at Alex, who was walking without bending his knees, putting his full weight into every step. "He looks a little like Frankenstein from down here."

  Alex could not keep his eyes off the shoes, which had purple and blue circles on the toes. The plastic radio that was always left on was playing a program of parade music—rousing anthems of heroism and victory to accompany a small boy in terry-cloth pajamas walking across the floor of an orphanage.

  When Alex's weight began to feel lighter in my hands, I led him to one of the cribs along the wall and let him wrap his fingers around the bars. Stepping back, I knelt against the pink and white railings of the playpen. Behind me, I could feel the soft touch of Olya grabbing onto one of my belt loops.

  "Come," I said to Alex, clapping my hands and holding them out in the space between us. "Walk to me."

  Alex looked at my hands, then down at the purple and blue shoes. He let go of the bars and stood swaying, like someone in a shaky boat.

  "C'mon," I coaxed, "you can do it."

  He leaned his upper body out over the carpet and released the bars, hurling himself in staccato steps that propelled him past my hands to the railings of the playpen. He wound up face to face with Olya, who seemed surprised to see him.

  "You did it, Alex! You did it!" shouted Ken. The forgotten video camera around his neck taped his own feet dancing.

  "Horoshy malchick, Grishka," Irina said. She'd been watching us from the table where she was changing diapers, an activity she performed according to a schedule instead of when the children needed it. "Horoshy malchick." It was an expression that had been on the list we'd gotten from Maggie. It meant "good boy."

  Irina knelt on the carpet across from Alex. Go away, I wanted to tell her. This is mine.

  "Preytee, Grishka, preytee," she urged. And she held out her hands to him.

  Alex let go of the railings and took three forward-tilting steps into Irina's grasp.

  "Good boy," I said. "Good boy, Alex."

  Alex turned to look at me, and there was something different about his face. I thought it might be the walking, that perhaps each new skill he learned would change his appearance in some way. But then I realized he was smiling, and that I'd never seen it before.

  Ken crouched beside me, and Olya grabbed onto his belt loop with her other hand.

  "Come here, Alex," he said. "Walk to Daddy." It was the first time Ken had referred to himself this way, and it was as strange as if he'd suddenly decided to call himself Bob.

  Alex looked at Ken and wrinkled his forehead.

  "Come on," Ken coaxed. He fluttered his fingers in the air.

  Irina gave Alex a small shove, and he took a couple of heavy-footed steps toward Ken. The moment he was within reach, Ken scooped him up and spun him around, the video camera squashed between them.

  Irina rose, pulling up on her ankle socks.

  "Preytee," she told me, repeating the word she'd used to call Alex to her. "Preytee," she said to Anna, who'd been sitting at the Formica table holding the girl with the misshapen mouth.

  We followed Irina to a metal closet. She spoke in rapid Russian.

  "Irina say she think you come to orphanage for so many days

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  because you cannot decide if you should take Grisha," Anna translated. "She think you do not know if you want him."

  The idea that I might not want Alex was so incomprehensible, Anna might have still been speaking Russian.

  "No, no." I shook my head. "You have to tell her that's not true."

  "I explain you are waiting for papers to be signed."

  "Yes, yes." I nodded at Irina. "Papers."

  Irina opened the closet door and pointed inside. Neatly folded on the bottom shelf were the clothes we'd brought to Moscow four months earlier—the navy sweatshirt with the word GAP on it, the ski parka that had blue fur around the hood.

  "Irina save these for you," Anna explained. "In case you will come back."

  I bent down and placed my hand on the knitted hat that had made Alex's head look like a blueberry.

  "Spasebah," I said into the closet, not wanting Irina to see me cry over a pile of folded clothes. I felt her hand on my shoulder, a touch as light and unannounced as Olya grabbing my belt loops.

  "Oh yes, I know Anna," Elena said, wrinkling her lips. "I do not think her English is so good."

  Elena had big thighs that overflowed the child-sized bench we were siting on, and orangey hair that sprang out from her large head. She was Yuri's other translator.

  "Anna keeps telling us she doesn't know what's going to happen to adoptions after the election," Ken told her.

  Elena shook her head.

  "She makes us nervous."

  I shifted Alex to my other knee. He was wearing a baseball cap decorated with an inaccurate copy of Donald Duck.

  Elena made a clicking noise, echoing the locusts in the trees above her.

  Ken and I were taking Alex outside almost every day now.

  At first, Anna hadn't wanted to ask Irina for this privilege.

  "Is not allowed," she told us. "Irina will say no."

  "Just ask her," Ken demanded.

  And when she saw that we would not stop insisting, she made the request.

  "Irina say you must keep Grisha clean," Anna told us. "You cannot let him get dirt on clothes. And you must wipe bottom of yout shoes when you come in after."

  It was the middle of June and the temperature was in the low eighties. Yet Irina always buttoned a sweater over Alex's terry-cloth pajamas and tied one of the orphanage hats under his chin before she would let him outside. At the bottom of the stairs, Ken and I would take off the sweater and the hat and drape them over the handlebars of the tricycles that were never taken out.

  Now, Elena followed us around the orphanage grounds, trailing
us from a beached boat covered with splinters, to a little swimming pool filled with colored balls. Ken and I sat with Alex on a dusty log. Elena squeezed her hips between us. We watched two girls and a boy playing on a rusted slide.

  "There are only three children in this group?" I asked Elena.

  "They are the oldest ones," she said, and I guessed the children to be seven or eight years old.

  The girls wore cotton dresses that blew up around their skinny legs as they came down the slide. Each time they got to the bottom, the boy would reach out his hand and help them make the little jump to the ground. Then he'd turn, laughing, and race them to the ladder. His face seemed to have the sun shining out of it, and his smile was startling in this shabby yard where even the trees in full leaf seemed sick at the root.

  "These children will never be adopted," Elena told us. "They are too old." And she waved a dismissive hand at the boy and the two girls.

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  I thought about taking the boy with the luminous smile just to spite her. Considered bringing him home and letting him help teach Alex to jump off a slide. But I wanted to be done with Russia and Yuri. And I knew that Yuri would demand another $10,000 for this boy Elena thought too old to adopt.

  Yuri and Volodya came out of the orphanage building carrying kitchen knives. They laughed as they slashed at big cardboard boxes that had been left in the gravel driveway.

  We'd been surprised to see Volodya's shiny car pull up in front of the Intourist this morning, surprised to find Yuri smoking in the front seat. Most days now, we were driven by Alexander in his battered Fiat.

  "You must take Metro back from orphanage," Yuri had said, when we climbed into the back seat. "Today I go to see about your papers."

  Now he stood with Volodya on the orphanage grounds, opening boxes of brand-new lawn furniture; chairs and loungers in bright summer colors, with backs that reclined.

  The director of the orphanage stood beside them, leaning her white-coated body toward Yuri and pulling on the pieces of short brown hair that lay against her cheeks. She was surrounded by other white-coated women, the ones I thought of as the orphanage's elite. I'd never seen any of these women pick up a child, or carry a tray of the mashed-together food. The only one who ever seemed to come upstairs was the doctor, a woman with a sharp V creased into her forehead. Whenever she'd pass through the room with the big playpen, Alex would hide behind my legs.