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, but 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.