Edelston also played an extremely closed hand. Elena couldn’t get any indication which way it might swing from Edelston’s opening ten minutes in which she confirmed basic points of Nadine’s report: reasons for first alert, times of their two visits, parties present at each. The only hopeful spark was Edelston commenting that ‘Ms Moore’s report indeed pushes a strong and convincing case for psychiatric assessment for Lorena.’
Only a couple of questions so far had involved Elena. Now Edelston turned to her more fully. ‘When did you first meet Lorena?’
‘Just over four years ago — February, ninety-five. She was at the orphanage at Cimpeni’ A sea of children and distressed, pleading faces, but Elena still vividly recalled Lorena’s large, grey-green eyes cutting through the mass. A strangely serene gaze given the surrounding mayhem.
‘And did she in any way show signs of being mentally disturbed then?’
‘You mean, was she having bad dreams?’ Elena felt it important to confine the definition. When they’d first arrived at Cimpeni, some children had reached such depths of depravation, chained to beds or kept in basement rooms without light for months, that all they could do was rock back and forth and groan. Lorena had been one of the more hopeful cases. Elena shook her head. ‘No, she was quite alert when I first met her. Given the appalling conditions, she’d coped well — and there were no bad dreams then that I knew of.’
Edelston had Nadine’s report open on the desk before her, with her own notepad at the side. She looked at them briefly, as if for a prompt. ‘So, when did the dreams first occur?’
‘Not long after the Cimpeni orphanage closed and her eleven months rough on the streets of Bucharest. You see, in the winter they slept mainly in the sewers to keep warm.’ Elena looked down for a second, one hand clutched tight in anger at the memory. ‘We blamed ourselves a lot for that…’ Elena covered the details quickly: their not reading the signs earlier that a local developer was after the building, the hasty shipping out of the children to ‘temporary shelter’, a run down hospital on the outskirts of Bucharest. ‘But it was a clearing house for so many other orphanages and fresh children off the street that overcrowding was intense, and food and care was non-existent. A single nurse used to act as daytime warden only, and would just lock the children in and leave them to their own devices at night. It took us ten days to mobilise to get out there; but on one of those nights, two days before we arrived, almost forty of the children broke out, believing — and probably rightly so — that their chances of fending for themselves on the street were better.’ Elena looked at Edelston steadily, taking the opportunity to drive home the silent plea: look what she’s already been through, don’t let her suffer any more now. ‘Lorena was one of those children, and I didn’t see her again until she showed up at Bucharest’s Cerneit orphanage — where we’re also heavily involved with aid provision. It was shortly after then that her bad dreams started.’
Edelston made a one line note before looking up again. ‘Did she have any psychiatric counselling at that time, or indeed at any time before the Ryalls made their adoption approach?’
‘No, she didn’t. It was hardly Frazier country, we…’ Elena stopped herself short. The question struck her as somewhat ridiculous given the problems even keeping the children alive, let alone delving into their psyches. But she might come across as condescending, which would then harm their chances. She tempered her tone. ‘Well… there were nearly always more pressing medical emergencies, and resources were tight.’
‘I see.’ Edelston looked uncertain for a second where to head next. ‘So, the implication is that given the resources, Lorena probably would have received psychiatric counselling at that stage.’ Edelston barely waited out the mute nod from Elena. ‘…And so when the Ryalls first met her in Bucharest to start the adoption process — who without doubt would have had such resources and also had a strong vested interest in Lorena’s mental stability from the outset — was psychiatric assessment recommended then?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’ Elena’s voice faded off submissively and she fired a brief sideways glance at Nadine. It was a valid point: why request assessment only now, when apparently the problems with Lorena’s dreams were even worse when she first met the Ryalls. Just before walking in the meeting, she’d been hit with the first positive rush that surely there was strong hope: why else would Edelston ask her along? If it was Edelston’s intention to dismiss the request out of hand, then surely she’d have just had the meeting with Nadine alone and let her pass on the bad tidings. Less confrontation. Now as she felt the first serious assault on that hope, Edelston’s every gesture began to grate. But she reminded herself that this could be Lorena’s last chance, and she was damned if she was going to let it be washed away with a few ingratiating smiles, curt, efficient pen strokes, and now an annoying raised single eyebrow that looked more smugly challenging than questioning. She could almost still feel Lorena quaking in her grasp as they ran… the light at the end of the chine remaining distant, out of reach.
Elena drew fresh breath. ‘I think with many an adopted child of Lorena’s age, there’s an acceptance that there will be some psychological scars from their past, given what often leads to them being orphaned: abuse by their real parents, death of their parents, or abandonment at birth with all those years to dwell on the fact that unlike other children they don’t have parents, aren’t part of a family. With Romanian children, the terrible hardship and depravation of the orphanages has been so widely publicised — that that acceptance becomes even stronger. Parents know and accept that they might be taking on emotionally damaged goods: as long as the children are physically healthy and have easy, big smiles — they tend to look no further than that.’
The eyebrow deflated and Elena forced a slightly tired sigh. ‘I think the hope is always that with the child given a better life, all of the emotional problems attached to their past will happily fade into the background. And with Lorena, that indeed was the case for the first year or more. It’s the fact that the dreams and memories of her troubled background have resurged after so long, and the circumstances under which they’ve come back — Mr Ryall visiting her room — that’s now given cause for concern.’
‘I know, I know. I understand that.’ Edelston nodded eagerly and turned her right palm towards them. ‘Miss Moore’s report has made a very clear and strong case for that, as I mentioned. But I think the background you’ve given me is also useful. What I wanted to make sure of is that real opportunities for psychiatric assessment hadn’t been ignored out of hand before, and weren’t being brought up now merely as a ruse to dig deeper into this problem of Mr Ryall visiting Lorena’s room — when on the surface it appears nothing is really happening there: just a developing teenager’s awkwardness with a an adult man visiting what she sees as her increasingly private space, her bedroom, with the rest manufactured purely in her dreams.’
‘I think the main reason for the assessment is that we really need to separate the two,’ Nadine offered. ‘See where Lorena’s dreams end and reality begins. Probably nothing is happening, but analysis would allow Lorena to also see that. She could lay her fears to rest and sleep easy.’
‘I see. Is that what you feel?’ Edelston smiled primly. ‘Remind me to dig out your psychiatric diploma — it must have slipped out of your file.’ As Nadine look down submissively, blushing, Edelston saw Elena’s rising outrage, and held one hand up. ‘I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. But I think it’s important to steer clear of amateur analysis. Now I’m quite prepared to approve assessment if I think it’s warranted and, as I said before, there’s no ulterior motive. The question is — are you both firmly of a mind, without reservation, that that is the case?’