Dissolved in Ohio:
Chapter Eight
Return to Moscow
Finally it came time to leave Tatyana and Blagoveshchensk. On Mar 16, Margaret, Peter, Tucker, Natasha and the other BBAS family with their son were driven to the airport for their flight to Krasnoyarsk and then catch another flight back to Moscow.
This flight from Krasnoyarsk to Moscow was a mere preview of what the Ponishes would experience on their flight back to JFK over the Atlantic Ocean.
From the moment Tatyana left them at the airport, Natasha began to run, scream and be disruptive. The Ponishes didn’t know how to control her. They didn’t know what words in Russian to say to comfort her. They could not even hold her and let her know things would be okay. She was literally inconsolable.
God was smiling down on them, for a Russian schoolteacher, seeing the Ponishes struggle with Natasha, came in like an angel and offered to help them on the flight. During the time they were in the airport, she did not leave their side and kept near to them, as if guarding them against their own fears and apprehensions about their new daughter.
It was only the first of three literal airplane rides from hell. Natasha could not be restrained as they were ready to take off. She attempted to run up and down inside the plane, yelling, screaming, reaching out to strangers — totally and utterly out of control. No other child on the airplane was acting like Natasha. Not one.
The kind Russian teacher had to take her leave of them in Krasnoyarsk and she motioned them well as she left the airport.
After an hour or so, the plane touched down in Krasnoyarsk. It was time to deplane on to the snow-covered tarmac and catch a flight to Moscow. Inside the airport, Natasha was done with being confined. As Margaret attempted to carry her, Natasha swung around, took her thin hand and slapped Margaret full on the face. Margaret said it wasn’t a playful slap that a child may give you if she is playing around. It was a slap full of fury.
On the plane to Moscow, Natasha’s behavior grew more compulsive. She sat screaming and crying her no tears cry in her seat. Her hands sought paper – magazines, sheets – and once she had a hold if it, she would rip it into tiny shreds over and over and over. Afterwards, she demanded her hands be washed after the paper had been turned into pulp. Obsessive-compulsive actions.
Once back in Moscow they entered the terminal to grab their baggage. Natasha, with no restraints placed upon her, broke away from them and began to run from stranger to stranger, approaching them as if she hadn’t seen them in ages, greeting them like old friends. The people whom she approached gave the Ponishes glances of disapprobation. Why was this little girl running up to them? Why wasn’t she staying with her parents and brother? Her actions were not appreciated by the Russians she was running into.
Right then and there, Margaret was ready to disrupt the adoption. What were they bringing home to the United States? The girl was sick – it was so plain to see in the light of her public actions, but what could they do? Leave her in Russia to a cruel fate in its orphanage system?
Natasha continued to ignore her new family and continued to try to scurry away from them.
Val, Amrex’s Moscow representative and a translator named (coincidentally enough) Tatyana, caught site of them chasing after Natasha with baggage in tow. Val led them to his car and they stepped in.
Their next destination was the Ukraine Hotel. No sooner did they pull away than Margaret and Peter told Val something was very, very wrong with Natasha. They emphasized they had grave concerns over her behavior and mental stability.