Two agents finally came in. With their brushcuts and sunken, mean expressions, they looked very much alike in their stiff uniforms, even if one appeared slightly younger. The older one rested his hand on the brown folder before him. He spoke first, in a rough French. “Are there not,” he asked, “children to adopt in your own country?”
His eyes creased and he seemed to vomit the words. Gregory fixed him with a confident eye. It wasn’t a real question; they weren’t expecting a real response.
“You can’t make them yourselves,” the other said to him sarcastically.
They were trying to provoke him, but Gregory wouldn’t take the bait. The younger one undressed me with his eyes. It was disgusting. I started scratching the polish off my nails. The other one finally opened the folder, licking his finger to turn the pages.
“We’re not familiar with your agency. Who have you been dealing with in Russia?”
“Here,” said Gregory, pulling out the papers. The older one took the document and slid it under his pile without breaking eye contact with Gregory. I focused on the pointed letters of his nametag, unable to read his name. The older one was shuffling the pages of our folder. He wasn’t really reading, but his movements implied there was a problem. With a tilt of his chin, he signalled to his companion to join him in the corner of the room. They knew we didn’t understand Russian. I held my breath. Did they have the power to ruin this?
Then I guessed what awaited us. They returned and sat down, their chairs screeching against the dirty floor. The young one lowered his chin, in order to look up at us. “You haven’t paid the adoption tax,” he said.
Obviously.
He rolled the customs stamp in his hand. His fingers were short and square. He might as well have put his dick on the table.
Gregory shifted to sit at the very edge of his seat and leaned forward as if preparing for an attack. He looked directly at the young customs agent. They sized each other up for a moment, blinking. Then Gregory suddenly placed his wallet on the table and slid it toward the man, keeping his hand on top. He then firmly sat back and crossed his arms, a defiant smile on his lips.
The two Russians eyed each other. The younger one opened the wallet and quickly counted the wad of cash inside. Gregory must have had two or three hundred euros, maybe five. The young customs agent pocketed all of it, and the other stamped the document that released us.
We walked out, heads held high, without saying a word.
We took a taxi to our hotel. Tired but too restless to sleep, we stretched out on the bed’s rough sheets. I was still for a moment, studying the cramped room. Every inch was in use, down to the tiny sink in the corner that would clearly overflow. The double bed faced the door and two small cut-outs in the headboard served as night tables. To the right was a closet that smelled of raw wood, and facing us was a desk with a straight-backed chair.
When Gregory went to wash up, he discovered that the shower head only came to his shoulders and the toilet was too close to the door to comfortably sit. “Great,” he said. “I’m going to have to poop with the door open.”
We laughed together for a moment, which roused me.
He plugged in his laptop. His clients, unlike mine, hadn’t even been notified of his absence. He was sure he could easily make them overlook the delay. He was working on a kitchen design. I stretched, yawning. I wanted to look at the orphanage’s website, even though we knew the site by heart after visiting it dozens of times. The garden, the cafeteria, the dormitories, the games room, the inside courtyard and the swing set: it had all become familiar. When Gregory opened the page, the connection was too slow and no pictures would load.
“Do you want to get something to eat?”
We were exhausted, but it was too early to go to bed. We had to resist and get ourselves on Russian time. We had chosen the hotel for its proximity to the orphanage, even if it was far from the tourist area. In any case, we weren’t there as tourists. We decided to take the streetcar to the city centre. The hotel clerk directed us to a stop nearby and we set off on foot. It was cool out, but I was still too hot in my winter coat. I had only packed warm clothes, expecting Saint Petersburg to be much colder than Toronto. Every time I pictured Russia, it was covered in snow and ice. It turned out, strangely, to be fairly warm.
The streetcar stop looked like a train station: there were multiple tracks, two in either direction, separating a central platform. A number of people were waiting, smoking. I watched their faces, looking for distinctive features, ones I might recognize tomorrow in my sons. I decided that close-set, deep eyes and short foreheads seemed typically Russian. Otherwise, the station occupants were not dressed very differently from Torontonians, and nothing on the platform made me feel out of place. When our streetcar arrived, I was surprised to discover that the red and white vehicles looked a lot like the ones we have in Toronto. I can’t say why, but I felt suddenly disappointed.
The route was a straight line and we struggled to stay awake, rocked by the movement of the car. My thoughts became fuzzy. Pressed up against Gregory, I rested my head on his shoulder. When he moved, I could feel his muscles sharpen powerfully. The nape of his neck was downy with salt and pepper hair that blended into
