A Lotus Grows in the Mud (36 page)

But then something even more extraordinary happens. At the end of the evening, I have to stand on a stage and speak to the invited guests about my special relationship with Juan. I am then supposed to introduce a slide show of the charity’s good work.

“Okay, everyone,” I say when the film is over, “now’s the time to dig deep. Someone will be coming round to your tables with special envelopes, and Juan and I and all the other little children would be very grateful if you could find it in your hearts to make a donation.”

There is a general hubbub, and people nod at me and smile.

“Can someone bring in the envelopes, please?” I call into the microphone.

Suddenly, in the doorway to the house, I see a face. It is Juan, carrying a tray full of envelopes, working his way toward me down the aisle.

“Oh my God!” I cry, my hands to my face. “I can’t believe this!”

Juan abandons his tray, runs forward, jumps up on the stage and hugs me as tightly as he did the first time we met. I hug him back just as fiercely. Trying to get the words out, I say, “This is Juan, everybody! This is my little Juan!”

He rests his head on my shoulder and looks up at me. I can’t stop kissing his face, his beautiful new face.

The Brazilian band begins to play, and everyone jumps up to dance, including Juan and I. Kurt comes up onto the stage and lifts Juan onto his shoulders. The Mardi Gras troupe escorts our happy little procession into our home, drumming, dancing and jumping gaily all around us. When we reach the open doors of our house, the drummers circle around Juan with fire in their eyes and start drumming just for him. Juan, in his little pair of corduroy pants and a little dress shirt, loves all the attention. Jumping down from Kurt’s shoulders, he twirls and spins, jumps and twists for them; he beats his hands on their drums and he laughs and laughs and laughs.

Dr. Magee, one of the mainstays of the charity, comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder.

“You tricked me!” I tell him, laughing.

“He’s been in your son Wyatt’s room playing on the computer for the last four hours.”

“He has? Oh my God! Well, anyway, this is the best trick that’s ever been played on me.” Kissing him, I add, “Thank you.”

J
uan’s journey after that night is a bit of a bumpy one. Dr. Magee, the head of Operation Smile, decides to take him to his home in Virginia and operate on him himself, starting the complicated repair of the hole in the roof of his mouth.

Juan flourishes there at first. He is under the foster care of a wonderful
couple, and he learns to fish and skate. With the help of speech therapists, he learns English and attends a regular school. His adoptive parents are deeply religious, and he learns to read Bible books. They have their own little girl, but they are happy to keep Juan in their home—for a while. We e-mail back and forth, and I keep abreast of his progress. They send me photographs of him as he turns into the all-American boy. It is a good time, and all of us are filled with hope.

I go to another Operation Smile fund-raiser in Washington, D.C., and the family arranges for Juan to come up and meet me. I can’t wait to see him. It is a very grand affair, with ball gowns and tuxedos, terribly formal, and held in a beautiful gallery. I see this little boy dressed in his first tuxedo walking toward me, looking more handsome than I could possibly imagine, and I smile as big as he used to. The little frog has turned into a prince—my prince. So self-possessed, he takes my hand and escorts me to my table as my date. He is articulate, speaking English, and looking fabulous. Staring at him, almost unable to believe it, I am so proud. I know I have done something good here.

A comedian comes on the stage and does an opening act. He is very funny, but Juan and I seem to be the only people laughing. Juan gets every joke, laughing in all the right places. He becomes so overjoyed, so delighted that this man is making us laugh, that he jumps up, runs onto the stage and gives him the biggest hug, right in the middle of his routine. Sitting watching him, like a proud mother, I am overjoyed. This child has so much potential for love, and, at last, he is able to express it.

But, sadly, Juan’s problems are more than skin-deep. His years of rejection, abuse and fear have taken a heavy toll on his young psyche. He soon begins to test his new foster parents with an uncontrollable temper and violent tantrums. Their e-mails become increasingly desperate.

I am in our summer cottage in Canada when I hear the news that Juan has been flown back to Peru. He has been returned to the orphanage in Trujillo. His American belongings—his clothes and his toys—have been packed away so that the other children can’t steal them.

The news devastates me.

“Juan was brought here because of us,” I tell Kurt inconsolably. “He
was the center of all our hoopla. He became the poster boy for Operation Smile. I feel responsible. I won’t give up on him. I have to go see him.”

In Lima I am met by Paola, a twenty-five-year-old volunteer who has helped organize Juan’s return. Accompanied by two psychologists, we journey by plane to Trujillo to find our troubled boy. We arrive at the orphanage, a former convent, which sits slumped in the middle of the small town, dilapidated and sad. Hundreds of children run wild in the cloisters and corridors, with no one apparently in charge.

“We have come to speak with Juan,” Paola tells a woman we finally find in a kitchen.

“He’s not here,” she replies. “He’s in the mountains on a field trip. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

Shattered by the news, I take myself off to a bar in the town’s square. Sitting there, sipping strong coffee, I laugh at myself. What are you doing, Goldie? You’ve come all this way, and you may not even find him.

Paola draws up in a car and rolls down the window. “We’ve found him, we’ve found him! Come on.”

Armed with illegible directions, we wind our way up through the hills, toward a mountain pasture. Seeing scores of children playing in the pasture, we bring the car to a halt. Getting out, I can see kids playing soccer, running wild. Others are swinging on an old tire, attached to a tree. My eyes scan right and left, looking for Juan. Finally, frustrated, I yell out his name: “Juan! Juan!”

I suddenly spot him, surrounded by his friends. He looks up, stops what he’s doing and runs toward me. He slams into my body and throws his arms around me the way he always did. Hugging him back, I can’t speak.

But it doesn’t last long. Juan pulls away quickly and runs back to play with his friends. He doesn’t want to abandon them; he doesn’t want to be different. So we wait for him to finish playing. When he eventually comes back, more shyly this time, I bend down and ask him, “It was your birthday last week?”

He smiles.

“Did you have a party?”

He shakes his head.

“Come on,” I say, holding out my hand. “Let’s go and buy you a birthday cake.”

We drive back to Trujillo and take him to a bakery. Juan won’t speak to me; he won’t speak English and Paola translates.

“But you can speak English, Juan,” I remind him.

He just smiles and stares out the window, saying nothing. We tell him to pick out a birthday cake, and he has such fun choosing the one he wants. Then, speaking only in Spanish, he tells Paola he wants to take it back to the orphanage later and share it with his friends. Sitting at a table, we laugh and play and draw pictures with crayons. Juan draws a picture of himself with a big smile on his face and only one arm. He draws a picture of me with all my arms and legs and a smile on my face. He then connects the two of us with a little red squiggly thing that emerges from the top of his head and links to the top of mine.

“What’s that, Juan?” I ask.

“Love,” he replies in English, without looking up. It is the only word he’s spoken to me all day.

Taking the picture from his hand, I press it close to my heart and smile. “I love you too, Juan.”

We return to the orphanage with his birthday cake in its box untouched. We all gather around and sing happy birthday, and Juan shows off the wooden top that I bought him. When there are only crumbs left on the plate, he grabs me by the hand and takes me to the dormitory where he sleeps. Furtively, just like a little Russian girl did once before, he reaches under his bed in his special corner of the room to show me his hidden treasure. They are books, Bible books, brought all the way back from Virginia.

All too soon, it is time for us to go. I turn to him, a lump in my throat. “Juan, I have to go now.”

He doesn’t say anything, so Paola translates.

“Juan, look at me.” I bend down and stare into his face, locking eyes. “I want you to understand something, Juan. Even though I don’t live near you, I will always be here for you. Do you understand me?”

He looks away.

“No. Look at me. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Juan? You can trust me. Do you believe me?”

He nods.

“All right, then.” I kiss him. God, it is so hard to leave. “Good-bye, sweetheart.” I walk away, and turn around to see him one last time, but he is gone.

I leave Juan, and I leave Paola, and I leave the psychologists who have promised to work with him to help him control his anger and his fear.

Back home, I keep in constant touch with Paola, who is trying to find new adoptive parents for Juan. I send Juan a computer, and money for computer lessons. I pay for him to have more speech therapy to improve his communication skills. Paola works tirelessly to get Juan adopted. She fights endless bureaucracy, filling in multiple forms, and she parades him before countless parents who are looking for a child. But nobody wants him. Nobody wants a nine-year-old boy who can’t speak properly and who has serious emotional problems.

Finally, Paola calls me up one day. “I don’t know,” she tells me, half laughing, “maybe I’m crazy, but I’m so in love with Juan, I’m going to adopt him myself. I know I can help him.”

“Are you sure about this, Paola? This is a lot for a young girl like you to take on. I mean, this is a huge commitment.”

When Paola tells me she is sure, I promise that I will give her all the help I can, that my love and bond with Juan extends to her now too. I pay for her apartment. I pay for his schooling. We speak constantly, and I offer every encouragement and incentive I can. This has to work. It must.

Juan moves in with Paola and her mother as she carries on with her regular job at the bank. Her volunteer work for Operation Smile continues, and Juan participates eagerly. He sees a child psychologist and a speech therapist every week, and he thrives under Paola’s love and attention. Things are not easy for her, but both of us refuse to let go of the optimistic belief that this child has so much potential that we will overcome any obstacles to his success.

The following summer, I invite Juan to our lake cottage in Canada. We have so much fun together, I can hardly wait to get up and play with him each morning. We fish for hours and take paddleboat rides. We fly
across the lake on our Ski-Doos and wave runners and watch movies together at night. He makes a plaster likeness of his face, so that I can keep him with me always. His little face that he is now so proud of.

One day, we take a wild Ski-Doo ride in the middle of the lake, him sitting behind me, his arms around me holding on tight. Jumping the waves, the wind takes my hat. I switch off the motor to see where it went, and, without a moment’s hesitation, Juan jumps into the deep, cold lake and swims for it. Holding it triumphantly up in the air, my little street urchin swims back with hat in hand. He climbs back up onto the Ski-Doo like an athlete and squashes it, dripping, back on my head. My little Juan, my helpless little boy whom I thought I was protecting, is suddenly my hero.

That night, our last, I get into bed with him and stroke his back, just as Mom did for me. I want to give him some of the love he never had, some of the independence and the security. His English is getting better and better, and we begin to talk more and more.

“What happened to you when you lived on the streets, Juan?” I ask him gently.

A cloud passes over his face.

“Did people treat you badly?”

He looks up at me with the eyes of an old man, and I know the answer.

“When was the best time?”

“Night.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because no one could see my face.”

Our time together over, I take him back to New York to be reunited with Paola, where he undergoes a frightening transformation. Gone is the happy little boy on the lake. In his place is a child who completely flips out. Going on a walk in Central Park with Paola, he throws a tantrum in the street, kicks her, runs away from her and threatens to leave her forever. They return to my apartment hardly talking, Paola in floods of tears, Juan pale and silent.

“I can’t take much more of this,” she sobs.

I see the look of anxiety on her face, and it just kills me. I understand,
I understand completely. His fear and anger are so deeply embedded into his fiber. I wonder if she’s going to make it. This isn’t going to be easy.

Kurt sees what’s happening and takes Juan’s hand. He asks Paola to translate. “You can either control your emotions and stop ruining everything or you can go back to the way your life was on the streets,” Kurt tells Juan firmly. “It’s up to you.” Juan listens to him quietly. “Now I want you to apologize to Paola.”