I was opening the Betacam bag when the first woman, the one holding and lightly bouncing her little boy, absently put her hand under his quilt, then spoke to the other in deeply accented English.
"He's wet again."
It was the first words either of them had uttered. Then she turned to me in exasperation, assuming, I suppose, that I was one of Alex Goddard's flock. "And I just changed him." Again the accent, but I still couldn't identify it. She made a face, then carried him over to a plywood changing table in the center of the room.
I felt a great baby-yearning as I moved over beside her, but she was behaving like a typical hourly wage-earner, glumly going about her job, and I just stood there a moment, vainly wanting to hold him, then turned back to Tara.
"Where do all these children come from?"
"Ramala says they're orphans or abandoned or something. From overseas or wherever." She sighed. "They're so perfect."
She was completely zombied-out. It felt like talking to a marshmallow on downers.
"But how, exactly, do—?"
"People bring them here." She seemed uninterested in the question, just plunging on as she wandered on down the line of bassinets.
I'd finally come to my senses enough to take out the Betacam, though the light wasn't actually enough to really work with, certainly not broadcast quality.