Wally came to the two stapled pages that looked like a photocopied newspaper article. “There’s stuff still legible here.”
“That name …” said Tevin, reading over Wally’s shoulder. A partial line was still clear and un-smeared on the page, revealing what looked like most of a name:
-amin Hatch
. “I bet that first name is Benjamin. Benjamin Hatch.”
“Hold on a second …” said Jake, and he disappeared out the emergency exit, returning a few seconds later with a stack of newspapers tied together with string, probably bound for the recycling Dumpster. Jake ripped through the twine—his athlete’s muscles kicking in—and went through the pile, pulling out one example of each local paper. “We don’t know if the article is from a New York paper, but we can find out.”
“Right,” said Wally. “Smart, Jake.”
“See how much I have to offer, Wally?” he said with a wry look. “I’m not just pretty and powerful. I have a brain, too.”
“You’ve really opened my eyes here, Jake,” she answered. “Keep it up.”
Wally and Jake were often tied up in some sort of power struggle, but when it was time for him to step up for the group—or her—she had always been able to count on him. It made Wally feel grateful that he was pitching in to help now, however skeptical he was.
She held the fragment of the newspaper article up to each of the local papers in turn—the
Times
, the
Post
, the
Voice
, the
Daily
News
, the
Journal
—and the type and format clearly matched one.
“Wa
ll Street Journal
, definitely,” Ella declared.
“We can check their archives at the library,” Tevin said.
They reached the Bloomingdale Library
by ten o’clock and were first in line for an Internet terminal. Jake and Ella went to kill time in the periodical section, while Tevin went with Wally to her assigned computer, where she logged on to the
Wall Street Journal
archives. She searched for Benjamin Hatch and soon there it was, an article in the Small Business section of the
Journal
, May of 1992. It was a human-interest story mostly, relaying the experiences of entrepreneur Benjamin Hatch, who had tried to start an import-and-export firm in the new (back then) post-Soviet Russia. Hatch had encountered many problems, citing outdated business practices and corruption.
Hatch was described as a native New Yorker and former teacher. According to the article, Hatch’s business idea was to buy and relabel an inexpensive brand of vodka, popular in Russia but unknown outside the country. The packaging would be upmarket and sexy, and the advertising campaign would play on the idea that the vodka was a fresh, undiscovered treasure from behind the Iron Curtain. By the time of the article’s appearance, Hatch’s scheme had already fallen apart, though he gave very few details on the causes for his failure.
It was still unclear what connection there was between Hatch and Wally’s Russian mother, Yalena, or if he would know anything about how to find her. But there had to be a reason, Wally figured, why the
Journal
article on Hatch had been included in the Brighton Beach file. The only way forward was to find Benjamin Hatch and ask him. A Google search for Hatch yielded no results, other than the same
Journal
article, so Wally made the decision to spend $79.95 at one of the Internet’s Friend Search sites, which basically amounted to online stalking. The results came up within seconds, but unfortunately the search located 183 Benjamin Hatches of appropriate age (thirty-five and older) living in the U.S., many in far-flung destinations, including Hawaii and Alaska.
“Too many Benjamins,” Tevin said. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
Wally and Tevin
met up with Ella and Jake outside the library and gave them a look at the long list of Benjamin Hatches.
“Damn,” Ella said, perusing the long list. “So many.”
Wally pulled out her new cell phone. “Panama says I’ve got over a thousand minutes on here.”
Mentioning Panama’s name reminded Wally that he had been her initial connection to the Brighton Beach shop. Panama was wired in with most every black-market operation in the city, so Wally made a mental note to question him about the place later on.
The crew headed back to the bank and began calling all the numbers, the phone’s charger plugged into an outlet on the bank floor the entire time. They took turns at it, relay style, reading off a script like telemarketers. “Hello, may I speak to Benjamin Hatch? Hello, Mr. Hatch, I’m calling on behalf of a friend, Yalena Mayakova. No? Sir, by any chance did you ever live or do business in Russia or the Soviet Union?
Hello?
”
The process went on for three full days, not because the actual calls added up to that but because of the inevitable hang-ups, multiple re-calls that bordered on harassment, and extended games of phone tag played back and forth across various time zones. At one point, Wally had to run out to a local cell phone kiosk to buy two thousand more minutes. She found herself fighting a sense of futility—in both herself and the crew—as the process wore on.
In the end, not one of the numbers or addresses had yielded a connection to the Benjamin Hatch they were looking for.
“Shit,” Wally had said when they finally reached the last name on the list, a Ben Hatch Jr. in Flagstaff, Arizona. He did not know Yalena Mayakova and had never traveled outside Arizona, though he had plans to do so when he was old enough to drive.
“I’m gonna go to the Sommers-Bausch Observatory in Colorado,” said Ben Jr., age nine. “They have a twenty-four-inch telescope and they let people look through it.”
“Wow,” Ella said, impressed. “Do you watch the sky in Flagstaff?”
“Sure,” said Ben. “I have my own telescope, which is smaller than the Sommers-Bausch, but I can see a lot from my backyard.”
“Cool,” said Ella.
At that time, Ben’s father—Benjamin Hatch Sr.—took the phone from his son and confirmed that he had never heard of Yalena Mayakova, either, and had also never been to Russia. Ben Jr. bugged his father to let him back on the phone with Ella but Ben Sr. said “no” and hung up. That call marked the end of the three-day labor with not a single valuable lead to show for their effort.
The crew put on their coats and headed out of the bank, bound for a Japanese ramen shop on 86th Street, where they were eager to spend more of the money from the gem sale. They ate their noodles at the counter, mostly in silence as they contemplated other ways to track down Hatch.
Wally considered a short list of people who might be able to help with her search, but it was frustrating because each was unacceptable for their own reasons. First there was Claire, who was smart and resourceful but would have a meltdown if she found out Wally was looking for her birth mother. The second person who came to mind was Claire’s lawyer, Natalie Stehn, who was the most calm, together person in Claire’s life and seemed to be pretty hooked up, resource wise. But Claire brought Natalie tons of real estate business, giving her the kind of income that bought loyalty; Wally figured Natalie would most likely rat her out to Claire.
The last idea Wally had was the best, by far, coming to her as a slap-on-the-forehead obvious solution. Wally wolfed down the last of her noodles and threw her bag over her shoulder.
“I think I have something,” she said to the crew, and they were happy enough to let her go alone. Three days of wasted time on the phone had burned them out.
EIGHT
The address was a third floor walk-up
, just across Lexington Avenue from the 92nd Street YMCA. There were several shops on the ground floor, including a mom-and-pop doughnut shop, so the air carried the delectable aroma of sweet dough being deep-fried.
Wally felt hopeful as she climbed the stairs to the third floor and walked to the last door in the hallway. On the wooden door there was a small logo—the silhouette of a bear—and printed underneath it, T
HE
U
RSULA
S
OCIETY
. Everything about the location was low-key, nothing that would attract undue attention in this dark corner of the Upper East Side. Wally knocked gently before opening the door and stepping inside the small office, where an elderly man, in his mid-eighties at least, wearing a gray suit and tie, looked up from behind the computer monitor on one of the office’s two desks. The second desk was empty.
“Hello,” said the man behind the desk, with a slight Australian accent. “May I help you?”
“Uh … I spoke to a woman the last time I was here,” Wally said, not looking forward to explaining her story to someone new. “An Asian woman. Her name was Carrie?”
“Yes,” said the man, and gave a slight nod toward the empty desk at the other side of the small room. “Carrie is in graduate school these days, so her hours here are very irregular.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sure I can take up where Carrie left off. I’m Lewis Jordan.”
“I’m Wally.” Wally sat down in the guest chair opposite Lewis. “Wallis Stoneman.”
Lewis typed Wally’s name into his computer. “We’re just beginning the process of digitizing our files, but we’ve begun with the most recent and are working our way backward, so yours might be on … yes. Here it is. Wallis Stoneman.”
Lewis was quiet as his eyes scanned the file on his monitor. Wally noted that unlike most folks over the age of sixty, Lewis seemed completely natural using the computer.
“I see you first came in almost three years ago,” said Lewis as he continued reading the screen, “and last checked in two years ago?”
“Yeah, two years is about right,” Wally replied, suddenly feeling negligent. “Should I have been—?”
“Not at all,” Lewis said.
Three years earlier, Wally had read an article about adopted people—of all ages—who were actively searching for their birth parents. One resource mentioned by the article was the Ursula Society, described as a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping adoptees with particularly difficult searches. Wally had come in on her own—without Claire’s knowledge, of course—at the age of thirteen. She had met with a young Korean American woman named Carrie, who had taken down Wally’s particulars and started a file for her. Carrie’s search had come up empty. For several months after that, Wally had called in on a regular basis to check on any progress, but the answer had always been negative and eventually Wally had stopped calling.
“I’m afraid there’s been no change to your case,” Lewis said. “But I promise we will continue looking. Was there some new information you wanted us to add to your file?”
“I have a name,” Wally answered. “Someone who may have known my mother in Russia. The thing is, I’ve tried every way I can think of but I can’t find him.”
“I see.” Lewis considered this development, a guarded look on his face. “I could use a cup of tea. Black or green?”
“Uh, sure,” Wally said. “Black.” She had seen a mood change in Lewis and guessed this did not bode well for her.
Lewis boiled some water in a plug-in teapot, then poured it into cups with the earthy-smelling tea bags. Wally watched him. There was a forlorn quality that seemed to hover around him. Maybe it was the work. No doubt the Ursula Society experienced far more failure than success.
“Hot,” he said as he handed Wally her tea, then he sat back down.
“Thanks.”
“There’s a line, Wallis,” Lewis began after a moment. “What we have access to … the information, the various kinds of resources … it’s a very sensitive situation.”
Wally nodded. Carrie had explained this to her in very vague terms, several years earlier, but the thrust of it was that the Ursula Society achieved its successes through unconventional resources that were outside the boundaries of what was generally available, or even the boundaries of the law.
“Over the years we’ve arrived at some important guidelines that govern what we are willing to do and what we are not.”
“Okay …” Wally said, remaining hopeful.
“Here’s what I can do in this situation. You supply me with the name of the source; I’ll track it down and see if your source is interested in cooperating. If so, then good. If not, we walk away.”
Wally considered this, fighting a sense of disappointment.
“I think I get it,” she said. “People come in here and make up stories, sometimes? To find someone they’re looking for, but for different reasons?”
“It’s happened.” Lewis nodded. “With terrible consequences. Imagine a violent criminal using us to locate an enemy. Or an abusive husband lying about his situation so that we’ll help track down his wife, who is in hiding. These are extreme examples, but—”
“I’m not doing anything like that. …”
“I believe you,” said Lewis, “but as I say, the rules are strict for good reason.”
Lewis read the impatience in Wally’s face when he gave her this final word. “This process can be frustrating.”
“Yes,” Wally said. “It’s just, your rules seem pretty unimportant to me right now.”
Lewis looked understanding. “I fought with the Anzac Corps in World War II. My fiancée back home, she …
we
were pregnant, though she never told me. I heard about the child—my son—from others once I returned home from the war, but by that time my girl had given him up for adoption. It had all been handled through a lawyer who refused to reveal any of the particulars, other than that the family had immigrated to America. Everyone said I should give up on it and go on with my life. Instead, I came here looking for my son. That was sixty-two years ago, and I’m still looking for him.”
“Sixty-two years,”
Wally repeated. It sounded to her like forever.
“There are some government records I have never been able to access, despite the connections I’ve made over the years. I just know his name is in there somewhere, but …”
“I’m sorry.”
Lewis nodded. “Losing him has been the sorrow of my life, Wallis. So I appreciate your sadness and frustration. But I’ve handled thousands of cases for the society and there is something I have learned. There are worse things than not knowing, my dear. Answering your question might seem like the most important thing in the world, but it is not. If you place your quest ahead of everything else in your life, you will come to regret it.”