Searching for Sylvie Lee

by Jean Kwok

  He scoots his chair a bit closer and leans in. “If you want more help finding your sister, they are the people you should call. The director is named Karin. If you decide to approach her, tell her I sent you. Here, let me give you my mobile number too.” He takes the card and scribbles his cell on the back. “Since I dive for them, it would give me the chance to see you again as well.” He gives me a devastating half smile that makes my heart flutter again. “We could go out in the boat together.”

  Thirteen Years Ago

  THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

  Monday, November 18

  In the early morning of Sunday, November 17, the Department of Public Safety (DPS) responded to a report of assault on the University campus. The alleged assault was reported at 2:16 a.m. and is claimed to have occurred sometime between 2:00 a.m. and 2:16 a.m. Director of media relations Nicole Thompson explained, “Regarding the assault reported in the November 17 log, DPS received a report from the Campus Security Authority that an act of violence occurred on campus perpetrated by a male student against a female and a male student. It is not known at present if any of the students was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time. We will not disclose the names of the parties involved or the details of the alleged incident.”

  An unnamed source reported that the alleged conflict arose over the victim’s flirtation with the attacker’s girlfriend and that the girlfriend suffered a minor injury as well in the confusion. The alleged male victim was treated by University Health Services for multiple lacerations, bruises, a fractured rib, and a loose tooth.

  Chapter 18

  Ma

  Sunday, May 8

  I was a mother alone on Mother’s Day. Pa brought me a soy sauce chicken from Chinatown, which was his way of showing affection. I was glad Amy remembered to call me, but such strange reports she brought of her sister, saying Sylvie had gone to Venice with someone. Who? Jim? Another man? My Snow Jasmine, what has happened to you?

  Women. Love. How can something so beautiful turn wicked? They say that once you see the ocean, no other water can compare. My love story started so many years ago. Pa and I began our marriage with the strength of a tiger’s head but it slowly transformed into the weak tail of the snake. How could it be that I placed the green hat upon his head?

  I had known him for so long. We were friends until something else grew in between us, something strong and binding. He made me gasp when I caught sight of him unexpectedly, standing with his friends—the blazing sun, the dust on the empty roads, the bustle of farmers going to market. I carried my basket and saw him looking, from underneath the shade. I had never seen a man so tall and broad, strong yet fine. I had never had a man look at me the way he did, with longing and desire, though I did not know then what that was.

  One day, I was passing by him when I stepped on a stone and lost my balance. He reached out and grabbed me by the arm, stabilized me with a hand on my back, his focus on my lips. I met his eyes and felt like I had been kissed. Now I look back and wonder if these were the dreams of a young girl.

  It was as if I had been empty and did not know it. Suddenly, here was the food I had always craved and I turned into a hungry ghost, devouring all but unable to be satisfied. Our first time, I never wanted to let him go—the discovery of small intimacies, like the birthmark behind his ear, the soft skin of his neck. Despite the pain and the sweat and the strangeness of it all, I wanted to keep him with me forever.

  But then the burden of years weighed upon us. Love can change. It can grow and twist until the most beautiful sapling in the wild turns into a prison of stunted wood.

  Telephone Call

  Monday, April 18

  Estelle: Hey, Sylvie, it is me. I am so happy you are back. Lukas told me it will be next weekend your birthday. I just looked and I can book us a few free tickets to Venice!

  Sylvie: But I do not know. Grandma is so sick now. The palliative nurse is with her twenty-four hours a day. That is not a good sign.

  Estelle: I must be honest. You looked terrible the last time I saw you. The skin under your eyes is like that of an elephant. We need to get you out more. Come up, it is your birthday and it will only be for a few days. My father died a couple years ago of cancer. It just ate at me inside day and night. I can take care of all the reservations. You would just have to pay a basic fee.

  Sylvie: Are you sure? I have never been to Venice.

  Estelle: Absolutely. Lukas flies with me all the time. We would technically be standby, but as a captain, I almost always get on the flight. Oh, and shall we invite your delicious thing too? Four is a better number than three.

  Sylvie: I do not know who you mean?

  Estelle: Right. Filip, of course!

  Chapter 19

  Sylvie

  Thursday, April 21

  Estelle and Lukas had decided to educate me on all I had missed by not growing up here and were holding a cursing contest. We sat inside the packed local pub, so unlike the elegant cocktail lounges I used to visit back in the city with my acquaintances and colleagues, where we sipped twenty-dollar dry martinis and mojitos while posing on sleek leather couches. Here, everything was wood-paneled. The bar was littered with paper Heineken coasters and there was not a single cocktail in sight. Only Belgian beer, Filou, witbier, Straffe Hendrik, and red and white wine, all for less than five euros a glass.

  I perched on a wooden bar stool between Estelle and Lukas as they tried to outcurse each other. They began with the typical sicknesses: cancer dick, plague head, epilepsy bringer, get the syphilis, biliary cancer idiot. Then they moved on to anus curses like anus potato, anus pilot (Estelle had rolled her eyes at that one), and anus tourist. Now they were free-associating while I tried to stop laughing long enough to breathe.

  “Coconut tree screwer.” Estelle’s cross-body Yves Saint Laurent Soho bag was slung over her shoulders, long jean-clad legs crossed, ending in cute black ankle boots.

  “Slipper lover.” Lukas leaned back against the counter as he took a sip of his beer. A pretty brunette with curly hair down to her butt deliberately squeezed in beside him to grab some coasters. Who needs extra coasters? They were everywhere. She gave him a sideways glance, clearly noticing the way his black T-shirt stretched across his chest and lingering on his strong neck and lips. He remained completely oblivious. Good boy.

  “Intestine frog,” Estelle said.

  Lukas shot back, “Sewing box.”

  I held up my hands. “Wait, violation. How is that a curse?”

  Lukas waggled his eyebrows at me. “Sewing does not just mean with a needle and thread.”

  Estelle made a graphic gesture with her fingers. “Sex. And a box also refers to a woman’s—”

  “Ah,” I said.

  It was Estelle’s turn. Her white-blond hair had not changed since we were kids. If only I could have had her with me for all the intervening years. Her turquoise silk tank top shone like her eyes as she drawled, “Horse dick.”

  “Horse penis polisher.”

  With a triumphant smile, Estelle said, “Easter bunny pubic hair collector.”

  Now I almost fell off my stool from laughter. “You are just making these up.”

  In unison, they both protested, “No!”

  A man with a ruddy face and straw-like stubble who had been hovering behind us said, “I called my boss that yesterday.”

  Estelle winked at the guy as Lukas deliberately turned his back on him. This was not the first man who had tried to join our game tonight, much to Lukas’s annoyance.

  “Oooh!” Estelle cried. “Dancing!” It was late and the crowd was drunk enough that a few people had started swaying and jumping in the middle of the room—and another small group tromped around doing the polonaise in a line with their hands on each other’s shoulders, singing loudly out of tune. In most countries, this could not really be called dancing. “Come up.” Before I could protest, she dragged me off to join them.

  “No, no, I cannot. I really cannot,” I protested, b
ut it was too late. The polonaise line had tromped off to the other side of the room. We stood among the tiny dancing group as Estelle sashayed around me. I groaned and tried to claw my way back to the bar, but Lukas now stood before me, moving to the music. He looked good. Estelle turned so that her butt was pressed against his front and started to undulate, her hands gathering a cascade of pale hair above her slender neck. A bolt of jealousy struck me in the chest. They probably did this all the time, all the years I had been gone.

  Above her head, his eyes met mine and he smiled, teeth white in the dimly lit bar. “Do not go. Dance with us.”

  Dutifully, I tried. My hips did not sway. I marched up and down in place like a robot. Although I had learned to find the beat, I did not understand what people meant when they said I had to “feel the music.” What was there to feel?

  Lukas’s mouth slackened.

  Estelle paused her sexy swinging. “Sylvie!” she screeched. “What. Is. That.”

  “Dancing,” I retorted. I was a terrible dancer in a land of terrible dancers. Even here, I was unusual. But this was what they wanted. I marched harder.

  The ruddy man from before came shimmying up beside me. “Looking good to me, little treasure.”

  “You are too drunk to see anything,” Lukas snapped. He took my hand and pulled me to him, swinging us around so the man was hidden behind his broad back. Then, slowly, he lifted my palm to his lips and kissed it. My skin throbbed. I stared up at him with my lips parted. Then I remembered: Estelle.

  I peeked around him, but she was dancing with two other women with her back to us. Thank goodness. She had not seen. Lukas’s head swiveled to follow my gaze, his expression pained.

  “I need to get some sleep, especially if we are flying to Venice tomorrow.” Was that my voice? So breathless.

  He leaned down and said, “Do not go yet. Or let me come home with you.” I shivered at his breath against my ear. He had wrapped my hand in both of his and imprisoned it against his heart.

  Heat rushed through my body. Now Estelle was turning toward us. I pulled my hand out of his grasp before she could notice. She was heading our way.

  I made myself sound assured and breezy when she arrived. “No, of course not. I am not made of doll poopie. I am heading to bed and I can manage the little bicycle ride home. You two enjoy yourselves and I will see you tomorrow.”

  I kissed Estelle and then Lukas three times on their cheeks, breathing in Lukas’s scent of sweat and ginseng, then made my way past the red-faced man, who blew me a kiss as I left.

  I had only drunk one glass of white wine, yet still swayed a bit on my bicycle. I sobered quickly, though. Lukas and Estelle were probably dancing, entwined around each other, back at the bar. The weather had turned bitter and cold these past days and the night wind wrapped her empty arms around me. I passed living room windows. Something else I had not held on to: open curtains everywhere, bare of obfuscation and gray areas. There, a middle-aged couple watching a game show on television, a man ironing a pile of baby clothes while his wife worked on a laptop at the table behind him, an old woman sitting alone in her armchair, staring into the darkness. It was hard to watch Grandma worsen by the day, gasping for air, her skin turning gray, fading while still clutching at life. Was that how it ended for all of us? Everything was slipping away from me, walking out of my hands.

  Rest continued to elude me most nights. I simply could not bear too much happiness, even when I was with Lukas and Estelle and Filip. Even small amounts of light peeking through my curtains in the morning had started to irritate me. I was not used to companionship, and like a dog that had been abused as a puppy, I shied away from it. Joy was no longer something I could trust.

  I locked my bike by Lukas’s apartment and walked up the path to the main house. The moon hung low and full, caught within the tangled branches of the birch tree. The tree’s white bark gleamed in the light. As I approached, I saw that it was pitted and scarred, peeling to reveal the wounded wood underneath. The sharp wind whipped my hair against my cheeks, merciless and blinding, and the lights inside the house had been put out like eyes.

  I fumbled for my keys beneath the outside wall lamp and then stifled a scream as a low voice said, “Sylvie.”

  A bulky form emerged from the shadows, then a light mop of hair and I realized it was Jim. It took me a moment to switch into English. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.” He reached out and trailed his hand along my cheekbone. He looked tired and disheveled, but his touch was familiar, dear to me. For a moment I leaned into his warm fingertips, until I remembered to draw back.

  I still loved him and gods, it still hurt. “Why didn’t you wait until I came back to New York?”

  “I wasn’t sure you would be coming back. A part of you always wanted to return here, didn’t it?”

  Despite everything, Jim did know me. What could I do with him now? I could not just send him away. I might wake up Helena and Willem if I brought him inside. Then all sorts of awkward questions would follow. Lukas was not home yet and who knew? Maybe he would not come home at all tonight. I pressed my lips together. “Come this way. My cousin lives here and we won’t be disturbed.”

  I led him to Lukas’s place, opened the door, and took him upstairs to the small living room and kitchenette.

  “I like it,” Jim said. “Efficiency infused with a careless insouciance.”

  As he wanted me to, I laughed. He seemed to me two different people: the man who had cheated on me, and my Jim, whom I still loved. Despite everything, it was good to see him again. If only we could erase the past year. I leaned back against the kitchen counter, weary all of a sudden. He took a seat on the sofa. “Where are you staying?”

  “With family in the Hague.”

  Oh, right. Jim had an uncle who worked for the International Court of Justice there. “You shouldn’t have come. I’m not ready to talk to you yet.”

  He looked up at me, his face filled with regret. He stood slowly, as if afraid to spook me, and came closer. Reaching out, he touched me on the elbow. Although my mind revolted, my body remembered only that this was my husband. I closed my eyes and took his hand in mine. He threaded our fingers together, as he always did. “You’ve been avoiding me for months. I am so sorry, Sylvie. Please give me another chance.”

  “It’s not that simple.” I stared at the tiled floor. “I wish none of it had happened.”

  He bent his head until we stood forehead to forehead. “I would give anything to undo what I did. I love you.” He lifted my chin to kiss me.

  His lips were soft and firm. I tasted salt and realized I was crying. As we drew apart, he wiped my tears with his thumbs. A wet shimmer clouded his eyes as well. “Sylvie. I was so, so wrong. It’s your birthday this weekend. Let me take you away. Let’s start afresh and we can have our lives back, both of us.” His voice was so earnest, convincing.

  Why not? To undo everything that had happened these past few months, like reverse animation in a movie. I saw all the pieces of my life fly backward and fit together to form the perfect picture it had seemed before. Back to the way it had been before I returned to the Netherlands—before Grandma, Lukas, Filip, and Estelle. I drew a shaky breath and pulled away. “I can’t. I’ve changed. It’s like there’s been a shell around me and it’s finally starting to crack.”

  He clenched his jaw and his eyes narrowed. “You’ve met someone.”

  I clutched the counter behind me, still silent.

  He stepped closer, looming over me, feet planted wide. He stuck his face in front of mine. “I’m too late, aren’t I? Who the hell is he?”

  I lifted my chin, though my stomach clenched. “I’m going to Venice for my birthday. But not with you.”

  “With whom? Alone?” His voice grew deceptively soft. His eyes blazed with hurt and anger. “Tell me his name.” He had looked this way that night at Princeton, when he had thought I was flirting with that guy at the party. The same animal fury, the dizzying flas
h of white behind my eyelids when he hit me, the reddened face and curled lip as he pushed the other guy through a window. We broke up for a few months after that, but he was so sorry, repentant, swearing over and over he would never do it again. He even went to therapy. Afterward he decided to study psychology.

  Beads of sweat formed on my lip. My knees were locked and my hands trembling so hard I could barely grip the counter. This. This was why I was separated from this man. My fear washed over the tenderness he had rekindled, leaving only cold ashes behind. I set my palms on his shoulders and shoved him hard; he stumbled backward a step. “Fuck you, Jim. You have no rights to me anymore.”

  Half-crouched, he looked like a predator ready to pounce. His voice was hoarse with fury. “You’re still my wife. If that bastard touches you, I’ll—”

  “What?” I said coldly. “Hit him the way you did me?” I had been stunned when he struck me the second time, during our initial screaming match about his affair, worrying about the neighbors hearing, not smart enough to be afraid of him, on the floor, sobbing, as he stormed out. By the time he returned, I had already changed the locks and thrown all his stuff out on the curb. That was the last time we had spoken to each other, though he had sent a steady stream of apologetic emails and flowers.

  As if in slow motion, Jim’s face crumpled. He straightened and reached his arms out to me, imploring. “I’m so sorry, Sylvie. I was afraid and I lost my temper. I don’t deserve you. I’ve done everything wrong.” He tore at his hair with his hands, his voice frantic. “I’m always pretending to be a nice guy, but in the end, I’m a selfish asshole. You’re the best thing that’s ever come into my life. Please don’t throw it away.”

  “Like you did when you had an affair with a sixteen-year-old student?” I had been trying to forget, but there, I had said it. It was true. There were not two Jims. How I wished there were. My voice was crisp, crackling with unshed tears. “I wonder if you truly regret the things you did, or if you’re sorry our marriage is over, or if you’re just scared shitless about what will happen if this gets out and the holy Bates name is tainted.”