“She was my grandmother and Sylvie’s too, but not Lukas’s. In Chinese, we often call a close older woman ‘Grandma.’ It’s a sign of respect and love.”
“Well, Lukas was crazy about Grandma too.”
“Fine.” Lukas stands. “I will go use the toilet so you can discuss me. When I come back, you will stop.” He gives Estelle an affectionate tug on her hair before he leaves, so I know he is not truly angry. This is my chance to get some information out of her.
He passes the waitress, who is walking to our table with the drinks. She sets down a very small cup of coffee for Lukas. My koffie verkeerd is served with a little cookie. Estelle tells me it is a mini stroopwafel. Estelle’s Coca-Cola Light comes with a wedge of lemon and a long plastic stirrer.
I ask, “Are Lukas and Sylvie close?”
She pulls the stirrer out of her drink. A flat circular base with spikes is set perpendicular to the stem. “From the time we were little. They were always together.”
I take a sip of my koffie verkeerd. It is creamy and delicious. “Why did you think they might have argued, then?”
Her green eyes are startled. “I did not say that.”
I set my jaw. “You asked him about it. At the airport.” I am not backing down anymore.
Now she uses the base of the stirrer to mash the lemon into her cola, avoiding my gaze. “It is normal for two friends to fight sometimes, is it not?”
I place my hand gently over her long, elegant fingers. They are cold and slightly clammy. “Estelle, please help me.” I stare at our hands so my tears won’t overflow.
“Oh, Amy.” She is beside me then, hugging me tightly, her blazer rough against my cheek. I am pathetic. Even people who are practically strangers pity me. But still, I close my eyes and squeeze her back. She gives me a quick kiss on my temple and then sits back in her chair. “I truly believe Sylvie is all right.”
Is that really true—oh please, Kuan Yin, goddess of mercy, let that be true—or has Lukas convinced her of this? I fan my eyes with my hand and put the stroopwafel in my mouth. It turns out to be a waffle made from two thin crispy layers of dough filled with sticky caramel syrup. I chew slowly as I compose myself.
“We are a close friendship group,” Estelle is saying. “And sometimes things can get complicated. There can be misunderstandings. But believe me, none of us would ever hurt Sylvie in any way, and especially not Lukas.”
I hear some sort of ching chong sound behind her and catch sight of two young guys and a pretty blond girl walking past us. One of the guys gives me a sly smile. It was him, I’m sure of it. Estelle whips her head around and gives him the finger. Good to know that some gestures work here too. He stops, angry, and takes a half step toward us, but the girl with him grabs his arm and pulls him away.
“I am sorry. We have our problems here in the Netherlands too. There is stupidity everywhere and we are not used to having many foreigners here,” Estelle says. “This is Mother’s Day weekend and every idiot has returned to our village to see his mom.”
My heart is pounding in my throat. I am used to this aggression back home, and had noticed some Dutch people staring at me curiously, but still hadn’t expected it here. “You’re so close to Amsterdam.”
“The big cities are another story, but this is still a small village in many ways and it is very old and white. Some of these houses were built in the Middle Ages and it sometimes seems like the thinking is from then too. It was not easy for Sylvie and Lukas, being the only Asians in the area.”
Poor Sylvie. She’d had to fight her entire life, just for being born as she was. “What do you mean?”
Estelle takes a long sip of her cola, leaving a faint lipstick ring on the glass. “I remember some boys stole Lukas’s bike key and were throwing it back and forth as they insulted him.”
A slow anger begins to burn in me. I am grinding my teeth. What morons. Had they done that to Sylvie too? “How?”
“That he could not see out of those slits for eyes, his parents lived in a garbage heap . . . that kind of thing. But then Sylvie jumped one of them and took him down, and that unleashed Lukas. By then, I had gotten there as well so it turned into one big kicking, scratching, and punching fight.” Estelle’s smile is fond at the memory. I watch her with unfolding awe and gratitude. She had fought for Sylvie, by Sylvie’s side. What would it be like to be as fearless as the three of them? “It was great. We told the principal and they got into so much trouble.”
I startle as Lukas speaks and slides into his seat. “But my mother also punished Sylvie because she said that Sylvie started it. She has always drawn Sylvie with black coal.”
Perfect Sylvie, punished? And Ma, Pa, and I had had no idea what her life had been like. I want to march back to the house and smack Helena. I don’t know this sister being revealed to me, but I love her more fiercely than ever before. I finally ask the question that has bothered me since I landed. “Why does Helena dislike her so much?”
Lukas rubs his hand over his forehead. When he faces me, he looks defeated. “I honestly do not know. Sylvie was such a good girl.”
The waitress appears, arms laden with plates of food that smell heavenly. Despite my doubts, I feel brighter from Estelle’s reassurance and find my appetite has returned. My uitsmijter is an open-faced sandwich composed of three slices of thick white bread, sunny-side-up eggs, and a thin layer of ham and tomatoes, all smothered in melted Gouda cheese. Lukas has two krokets, breaded, deep-fried cylindrical rolls with a creamy meat ragout filling, served with mustard and white buns. I am a bit dubious about Estelle’s filet americain sandwich, which she tells me is a crunchy fresh-baked whole wheat baguette spread with raw minced beef and spices.
As I tuck into my food, I say, “When I was little, she saved me from being kidnapped once.”
“No,” breathes Estelle.
Lukas pauses with his kroket halfway to his mouth. “What happened?”
“I was four years old. Pa was home but he was busy fixing the lock on our front door, and I guess I must have decided I missed Ma and wanted to go find her by myself. When he went to grab some tools from another room, I left our apartment and toddled downstairs and out onto the sidewalk. Sylvie must have been only about eleven then, but she was the one who figured out I was missing. She flew off to find me before Pa even had his shoes on. When he finally caught up to us at the corner down the street from our place, Sylvie had put herself between me and a strange man. I was wearing this gold necklace with a carp pendant. He’d grabbed it when Sylvie pushed me away from him. He pulled it off my neck and ran. We never found out if he was only after the jewelry or if he’d wanted me too.” I shivered. I had nightmares for years about the sharp angles of that man’s face, how Sylvie pushed me behind her, how I’d clung to her, hiding my face in her familiar soft strands of hair. I’d wake crying and Sylvie would pull gently on my ears and nose, and recite the rhyme Ma had taught us, one of the few Chinese phrases I had managed to learn: “Pinch the ears, pinch the nose, wake up, wake up. Let Beautiful Jasmine be as brave as a grown woman.”
“Was Sylvie hurt?” Lukas asks. He appears riveted by my story. I warm to him again. Maybe he truly does care for my sister.