Searching for Sylvie Lee (13 page)

“You are out of touch, Sylvie. It is hip for guys to be on grandma bikes nowadays. I am just being a modern man, although Estelle tells me I need to work on becoming more metrosexual.”

I burst into a laugh as he climbed onto his bicycle and waited for me to hop onto the baggage rack behind him. It was just like old times. The metal was bumpier than I remembered but I held on, and as we swung off, Lukas pedaling hard, I leaned my shoulder against his strong back and breathed in the clear Dutch air.

Chapter 11

Amy

Friday, May 6

W
hen my alarm clock rings the next morning, I am completely disoriented. Last night, sleep fell upon me like a concrete blanket. My body knows it is actually the middle of the night back home and fights my attempts to wake up; the weight of my limbs binds me to the coma-like darkness. I struggle and crack open my eyes. It takes a moment to realize I’m not in my own bed, or even my own country. This isn’t a nightmare. Sylvie’s missing. I grab my phone. Still no word. I close my eyes and clutch my cell to my chest. How can this be real?

I haven’t seen Helena and Willem since they left for work yesterday. I understand they are generally home in the mornings and gone until late in the night, returning after their restaurant has closed. They work through the weekends and their free days are Monday and Tuesday. For dinners, I was told to help myself to the restaurant food they bring home every day. Their enormous fridge is packed with spicy beef in black bean sauce, grilled shrimp, and pork skewers in hot peanut sauce. Normally, I would have been beside myself. I love to cook and to eat.

Yesterday, we all sat around the table for lunch. They served an Indonesian
rijsttafel,
composed of fried rice and Indonesian yellow rice and forty smaller dishes: hard-boiled eggs in chili sauce, chicken coconut curry, duck roasted in banana leaves, aromatic caramelized beef in spicy coconut milk, and more. Although I didn’t have much of an appetite, it was one of the best meals I’d ever tasted. Maybe later, after Sylvie was safely home, I would ask them for the recipes. When I told Helena I’d never had Indonesian food before, she said, “We need to serve every type of Asian cuisine here. The Dutch cannot tell us apart, so when they come to a Chinese restaurant, they expect Indonesian and Japanese food too.” I spent the afternoon unpacking and then attempted to make up for my restless night on the airplane by going to bed early.

I check the time. It’s almost nine in the morning and the police family liaison officers are supposed to arrive at ten. There’s a bathroom attached to my room, so small I can barely squeeze between the toilet and the sink to brush my teeth. A radiator in the shape of a towel rack hangs beside the tiny shower, draped neatly with two white towels. Before I step into the shower, I realize I’ve forgotten to pack shower gel. There’s a huge green bottle labeled
DOUCHE GEL
but I’m afraid of it for obvious reasons. I grab the antibiotic hand soap from the sink instead. I close my eyes and wash off the stink of the airplane, which has somehow clung to me all these hours. The disorienting feeling of jet lag remains, as if my brain has been packed in wool.

I dry off with a warm towel and pull on jeans, a plain long-sleeved black shirt, and my glasses and head downstairs. I hang on to the railing to ensure my feet don’t slip off the shallow steps.

Couscous, the stripy cat I met last night, is rubbing herself against Helena’s legs. Helena is dressed for work in a fluffy black outfit but she isn’t wearing any shoes. As she fries some fresh fish in the wok (for breakfast?), she scolds Couscous in Chinese for being too greedy. Lukas is sitting at the dining room table, drinking what smells like coffee from a traditional Mun Shou Chinese mug, the type where the ceramic looks like it’s been embroidered with blue lotus flowers. Behind him, the morning light, clear and merciless, streams in through the windows of the large double doors, illuminating his unshaven face and shadowed eyes. I can see the back garden, the lawn pierced by sharp white stones.

Helena blows on the fish fillet to cool it, then cuts it into little pieces. She arranges them on a plate, first feeling them to make sure there aren’t any bones, and sets the dish on the floor. So the fish is for Couscous.

“She is getting fat, Ma,” Lukas says. “You should stop spoiling her.”

“How can you say that about a lady?” says Helena, indignant. She bends to stroke the cat, now gobbling the fish. “She just has big fur.”

I jump as Willem comes up behind me, passing me on his way to the kitchen counter. Does he need to come so close?

“Good morning, Amy. Would you like some tea or coffee?” he asks.

“T-tea, please.” I sit at the table across from Lukas. There’s a loaf of bread, boxes of what appear to be cupcake sprinkles, butter not in sticks but shaped into a block, a large wedge of uncut cheese, and various jams and other condiments. No cereal. No toast. No oatmeal.

Willem sets my mug of tea before me. “Sugar?”

“Yes, with milk, please.” I notice Willem raises his eyebrows when I say this, though he gets the carton out of the refrigerator for me. “Don’t p-people drink tea with milk here?”

“Umm, no. Only very small children.” Willem gestures at the sprinkles. “As you can see from the things on the table, we practice being Dutch in the mornings. Would you like to try some
hagelslag
? Sylvie used to love it. You butter your bread and shake it on. We have fresh
tijgerbrood
from the bakery—that is the bread over there.”

I relax a bit. Finally, a comment about Sylvie that isn’t laced with aggression.

Willem passes the loaf to me. It’s light brown, with a crisp puffy top, and smells delicious. He asks, “How is your mother doing?”

“She’s fine, working hard as always.” I try the
hagelslag
and butter like he suggested on a corner of my untoasted slice. The sprinkles are bright orange and yellow and taste exactly as they look—like sugar on bread. I recognize a jar of peanut butter with relief. After I’ve spread it over the rest, I spoon some strawberry jelly on top, then realize they’re all staring at me.

“You eat peanut butter and jelly together?” Lukas asks.

With my mouth full, I nod.

He scrunches up his face and taps the middle of his forehead a few times with his index finger. “Crazy.”

I try not to be freaked out by the Dutch hand gestures. “How do you eat peanut butter?”

“Plain. Sometimes with butter and cheese.”

Right. I turn to my meal. Willem places the basket filled with bits of folded paper I saw earlier on the dining room table beside the half-finished paper-formed beast. He sips his coffee as he inserts new pieces into the creature with careful and precise hands.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Modular origami,” he answers with a smile. “I began with regular origami and moved on to the 3-D version.”

“Is that a snake?”

He shakes his head. “A Chinese dragon.”

Willem’s hobby, the flavorful bread, the cheerful domesticity of Helena cooing over the cat in the kitchen: it makes me miss my own family. If only Ma and Pa were here. If only Sylvie were here. It all rushes up into my throat and I worry I’ll choke on my fear. “I’m so scared about Sylvie.”

Helena pauses, her hand suspended over Couscous’s fur. The warmth drains from her face. “You do not need to worry about that one. She always lands on her feet.”

I bristle at the bitterness of her tone. “I-I know Sylvie’s good at everything, but no one’s heard from her in a week. There must be an explanation.” I can hear the desperation grate my voice raw. “I hope she has enough money to survive.”

Lukas’s hand clenches so tightly around his coffee mug that his knuckles turn white. “She is fine.”

I stare at him. “What do you mean?”

He stares into the back garden, avoiding my eyes. “She is just taking some time for herself.” His voice cracks and he looks furious at himself for it.

“She has enough means, I am certain.” Helena’s tone contains more accusation than reassurance. She doesn’t add anything else.

In the silence that follows, the doorbell rings. The police are here.

A
n enormous man enters the house, stooping to avoid the low-hanging lamp in the hallway. He must be at least six foot five, with protruding red ears and a squashed, intelligent face like a French bulldog’s. His head is shaved bald but judging from the gray hairs in his scraggly eyebrows and the lines around his eyes, he’s in his early fifties. He’s accompanied by a younger woman, perhaps late twenties. Her dark blond hair is pulled back into a ponytail and she has a firm, determined mouth. They are both dressed in regular clothing rather than police uniforms.

They shake hands with everyone, including me. Thank goodness, no three kisses for them. Helena slips on her pumps as we move into the living room. Willem pours everyone a coffee or tea. Lukas pulls up a chair from the dining room table and sits. I find myself wedged on the couch between Willem and Helena.

The policeman’s knees seem to come up to his ears when he sits in the stern-looking armchair. A torrent of Dutch pours from his mouth.

Willem responds in kind, gesturing at me.

“Oh, I am sorry,” the man says with a thick accent. “You speak English only?” At my nod, he says, “My name is Pim de Jong. This is my colleague, Danique Smits. You are Amy Lee, the sister of the . . .”

As he searches for a word, Danique leans forward in her armchair. She smiles and manages to look both competent and warm, and her English is much better than his. “The missing person. You are from the United States? And Sylvie Lee, she is also American?”

I say, “Yes,” at the same time Lukas says, “No, she is Dutch.”

Then Helena smiles and says, “She is Chinese,” as if that settles the matter.

Willem says, “Sylvie has dual Dutch American nationality.”

Pim writes this down in his notepad. He jerks his head slightly at his colleague and I see they have decided that she will do the talking as he takes notes.

Danique says, “We already have the basic information you gave us over the telephone and now we can officially begin.”

I say, “Wh-what? You are o-only starting now? Why?”

“She is an adult, with a good mental and physical state. There is nothing to show she may be in danger or dangerous to other people. There is no signal of a crime.”

“Sylvie would never just disappear like this.”

“Most missing persons return by themselves and the police have limited resources. For a child or an older person, we take immediate action. For a healthy adult, we wait. But we will do our best to find your sister, I promise you this. Do you have a recent picture of her?”

I want to smack myself. Why hadn’t I thought to bring one with me? My eyes flit over the many images of Lukas in the living room. Obviously no one here ever cared enough to photograph her. But Lukas pulls a large envelope from a folder he’s stashed beneath his chair. He passes it to Danique.

“Where did you get that?” I ask.

“I took it myself.”

Of course, I’d forgotten he’s a professional photographer. Danique opens the envelope, slides out an eight-by-ten, and holds it up so we all can see. She raises her eyebrows. “Is this a good likeness of her?”

It is a stunning portrait of Sylvie. She’s slightly turned away from the camera, the angles of her high cheekbones and straight nose highlighted by the golden sunlight that glides over her skin and gathers in her glossy hair, her eyes so sad beneath the winged eyebrows. Helena’s lips are pressed firmly together, simmering, and Willem stares at the photo with so much open longing I am embarrassed.

Danique takes our silence for acquiescence. “How would you describe her character?”

“Secretive,” Helena says.

I want to kick her. But then I think about all the things I didn’t know, and still don’t, about my sister. “P-private. Loyal. Brilliant.”

Danique’s sharp eyes are trained on Helena. “Why do you say ‘secretive’?”

Helena shrugs, an abrupt, aggressive movement. “She keeps her thoughts to herself.”

“Would you say she is introverted or a loner?”

“She never fits in,” Helena answers.

“We do not either,” says Lukas, glaring at his mother. I’m happy I’m not the only one who doesn’t like hearing these negative things about Sylvie. This warms me to him.

“What do you mean?” Danique asks.

Lukas shifts on his chair. “It is not always easy being one of the few Chinese families here.”

Pim’s mouth falls open, and if he still had hair, I’m sure his eyebrows would have disappeared. “But there is no racism in this village.”

Lukas cocks his head, his eyes burning. “Really? Well, you are a white man and a police agent, so people are not likely to treat you in a different way, are they?”

“This is all beside the point,” says Willem. “The most important thing now is to find Sylvie.”

Danique turns to me. “Would you agree that she is an outsider, Amy?”

“Well,” I say slowly, “Sylvie has always been special, so by definition, she is different from normal people.”