Searching for Sylvie Lee (15 page)

I pulled the familiar large green bottle of shower gel from the basket, flipped open the lid, and sniffed it. Mmm, green tea and cucumbers. “I used to love this. You remembered.”

“Of course, I took care of you for all those years,” she said briskly. She held her head high and cleared her throat. “I apologize for the confusion yesterday. There is plenty of food for you in the refrigerator when Willem and I are working. Please help yourself, Sylvie.”

Since then, we had all coexisted in peace, but as was always the case with Helena and me, our tranquility was short-lived. I spent much of my time helping Isa with Grandma, her labored breathing acting as a constant backdrop. I escorted her to the toilet and bath, exposing pale skin untouched by the sun, arms and legs grown so spindly and frail, an intimacy she had never shared with me before. Grandma’s chin had trembled the first time, but I said, “When you love someone, there is no shame. When I see you, I only know that you are my grandma and you are beautiful. You did this for me when I was young. Now it is my turn. You always said, the old become children once again.”

The first time I tried to make rice congee, I set off the smoke alarm (Grandma: “Lukas! Can you get to the batteries? Quick! What will the neighbors think?” Lukas, balancing on a stool to reset the shrill alarm. Grandma, muttering, “How can a person burn congee? It is all water.”)—and so I was no longer allowed near the stove. Instead, I cut her steamed chicken and vegetables with rice and fed her bites on the bad days, the ones when she barely moved, her thin hands picking listlessly at the coverlet.

Mostly, Lukas, Isa, and I took Grandma outside for walks. After carrying her wheelchair downstairs, Lukas would guide her down, walking backward, one slow step at a time, a sturdy buttress should she fall (Grandma, giving Lukas’s biceps a good squeeze: “So strong and handsome like his father. A tiger father does not beget a dog son.”), Grandma gripping the banister with her left hand as I held tight to her upper arm, Isa behind us with the oxygen tank and other equipment. We would pause often so Grandma could take a few shallow breaths, trading alarmed looks if she seemed to overexert herself. Once outside, her faded eyes would brighten as she smelled the wind, delighting in the green blades of grass that had survived the winter and the ever-changing swirl of clouds across the sky.

“The water wind is good here. Better than people mountain, people sea,” Grandma had said one morning—she had always hated crowds—and suddenly her eyes were awash with unshed tears. “But it is still not the Central Kingdom.”

My heart ached, understanding how she must long for the land of her youth as she neared the end of her life.

Lukas stepped closer to her and laid his arm across her frail shoulders. He dipped his dark head to rest his cheek gently on top of her dandelion hair. His Chinese had never been as good as mine, but it was far better than Amy’s. He said, “But your granddaughter with her limpid eyes of autumn water is not in the Central Kingdom.”

I flushed as Grandma smiled through her tears. “This is true. You both accompany me with the grace of floating clouds and flowing water, and open the heart of this old woman with joy.”

T
his morning, I had a special treat for her. I could not wait to show her the photos and videos of Ma, Pa, and Amy that I had brought on my phone. But after a few minutes, Lukas placed his broad hand on my shoulder and gestured with his chin toward Grandma. I had been so absorbed in my presentation that I had not noticed she was weeping silently, her mouth gaping in mute anguish.

“Oh, Grandma,” I said, folding her in my arms. “I did not mean to throw stones down a well at you.”

“I will never see my daughter again,” she wailed, gasping for air. “I shall never meet your sister, Beautiful Jasmine.”

Lukas patted her back as I said, “You shall gaze upon us all after you pass the red dust of the mortal world. You will shed your body and exchange your bones.”

Slowly, Grandma quieted. “I should like to rise to our ancestors.” She raised her small face and blinked at us with her swollen eyes. “You will burn offerings for me after I am gone? So I have gold to spend and silk to wear in the afterlife.”

“Of course,” I said, my heart full to overflowing. “They now make Mercedes and flat-screen televisions in paper for people to incinerate for their loved ones.”

She cocked her head to one side. “No Mercedes. I want a Jaguar.”

Lukas emitted a choked sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

I said, “Why don’t I sing to you now? I still remember some of the old songs you crooned to us:

Little sparrow

So young and new

Your mother sought for worms

So that you might grow strong.”

And with Lukas listening intently, I sang to her until she fell asleep again.

That afternoon, I asked nurse Isa for permission to buy some makeup and tinted hair gloss from the pharmacy. I wanted light, natural shades for Grandma. When I was younger, I had practiced my makeup in front of that mottled bathroom mirror in our New York apartment for hours, trying to adjust for its yellow cast as I applied my colors for a professional look. I loved doing Amy’s makeup too, but she never cared about the end result, nor could she ever remember how to replicate it. Then she would insist on reciprocating and paint me up like a clown. But Amy did not need cosmetics. Her beauty glowed from within, whereas I was all about the surface.

The shop woman watched me with suspicion, an immigrant and stranger in this small town. She thought I was a pocket-roller and subtly followed me as I brushed past another customer. Did she really think I would pick that elderly man’s pocket right in front of her? She stared at me as I selected some hair clips for Amy, probably because they were small and she was afraid I would slip them into my bag. I held up a set studded in rhinestones. Amy would look pretty in these. They would add some sparkle to her thick, unruly hair when she pinned it back from her heart-shaped face.

The saleswoman was starting to annoy me now. This close to Amsterdam, and she acted like she had never seen a person of color before. I knew we Chinese only made up one-third of one percent in the Netherlands as a whole, but this was ridiculous. I turned to her and said in perfect Dutch, “Do you think you could help me choose a hair color for my grandma?”

She jumped in surprise. Her shoulders relaxed and a slow smile spread across her face. If I spoke Dutch that well, I could not possibly be a criminal. “Of course, ma’am. This way.”

When I brought the supplies to Grandma’s room, I could smell the disease eating at her heart and lungs underneath the sharp cool scent of the tiger balm we’d rubbed across her chest earlier. She had mostly recovered from the emotion of the morning but pain still filmed her eyes, clouding their original golden brown. It went straight through my soul to see her like this. I pulled my hair into a sloppy ponytail so it would not get in my way as I worked. As Isa and I shampooed Grandma’s hair, her breathing grew so shallow I was afraid I had made a terrible mistake, overexerting her like this.

Isa exchanged a glance with me. “No worries, it is going good.”

I had picked a simple odorless hair glaze with a honey-brown tint. After I applied it onto Grandma’s white locks, her hair held a light coating of color. I then gently penciled in subtle eyebrows over her prominent skull bones, dabbed her dry lips with a natural peach gloss, and brushed a bit of blush over her fading cheeks. I had her close her eyes and finished her off with a pale pink powder that offset the pallor of her skin.

When I held the mirror in front of her, she smiled, as if recognizing an old friend. “Take this oxygen thing off my face and get that good-looking boy in here so he can see me. Tell him to bring his camera too.”

After Lukas had admired and photographed her to her satisfaction, we tiptoed from her room so she could rest. Outside her closed door, Lukas looked at me, then raised his hand and pulled my ponytail loose. My hair tumbled down around my face. He brushed a strand back, then bent down and whispered, “Thank you.”

T
hat evening, as I often did, I went to bed before Helena and Willem returned from the restaurant for their late dinner.

There was a knock on my attic door. When I opened it, I could see Helena had shot out of her slipper with fury. Her nostrils flared and her legs were planted wide. She raised a finger, visibly shaking, and the thick gold-and-jade dragon bracelet on her wrist trembled in the hallway light.

Where I once used to cower, I decided to confront instead. “Is there something, Cousin Helena?”

She gritted out her words through a tight jaw. “What have you done to the hair and face of Grandma?”

Was that it? I should have known. I kept my voice calm. “It made her happy.”

She pointed her finger at me, two centimeters from my nose. “It exhausted her. You could have hurt her. She is in the last stage of her life. From a beautiful plate, you cannot eat. No need for her to be made up like pussycat. For whom?”

I knocked her stupid hand away from my face. “For herself.”

Helena reared and for a moment, I thought she would slap me. I almost wanted her to do it. I would hit her back so hard her head would spin for a week. She finally hissed, “Do not think you are so clever. I know why you came back, even though no one invited you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“You want her favor again. Now that she is old and ready to pass on her inheritance, after you left for so many years. While I was the one who was always here for her. Me and my family.” She emphasized every phrase with a bob of her head.

My anger rose up in me. I had to voice my words before they exploded into the humiliating tears I refused to shed. I clenched my hands into tight fists. “And why did I not return to this house for so long? Where I had been treated so well? Was it because of Grandma that I stayed away?”

Helena puffed up like an envious dog tied to a short rope. She was not used to this version of me, the one that spoke. She sputtered, strangled by rage and shame, “Grandma always loved you best, like everyone else. You and your mother.”

I could not keep my voice from breaking. “Why did you stop caring about me?” I half lifted my hand toward her: this woman who should have been everything to me, who had instead taught me to beware of love.

Caught up in her hatred, Helena went on, ignoring my words. “That gold of hers belongs to us. We housed and clothed her all these years. I am more her daughter than your mother ever was.”

My arm dropped back to my side. “You never paid her for all those years she worked here for you as babysitter, cook, and maid. You only gave her pocket money to spend. The least you could do was to provide her with food and a place to live. Now you want the rest of her jewelry too?”

“We are family. Who pays family? Should I get money for all the diapers of yours I changed? Anything she asked for, we gave her. I deserve her legacy.” Helena’s eyes glittered with naked intensity. I could not tell if they were filled with greed or a desperate need to be loved. I was not even sure if it made a difference: it came down to hunger. Perhaps those desires all stemmed from the same place in our broken, burdened hearts.

“Grandma has but one child and that is my mother.” I saw I had hit a sensitive string in Helena. She paled and I was ashamed. I tried to gentle myself. “Grandma loves you and I know she has already given you some valuable pieces, like that dragon bracelet you are wearing now. She wants to pass something on to Ma too, that’s all. Is that so wrong?”

Helena covered the jewelry with her other hand, as if she believed I would wrench it from her wrist. “Did Grandma call and ask you to come?”

“Yes.”

The flash of hurt in her eyes was quickly swallowed by fury. Beneath the hallway light, her face was a patchwork of white and red blotches. “That treasure belongs to me and my family. I will do anything to stop you from leaving with it. Do not cross me in this, Sylvie.”

Without another word, she turned and left.

W
hen I still lived in the Netherlands, Grandma used to let me play with her jewelry if we were alone in her room. It was the one thing she never shared with Lukas, the only way she let it be marked that I was her direct blood relative. Our family had been rich before the Communist Revolution took over China and much of our wealth had been hidden in the form of jewelry. Some pieces had been in our family for generations. When I was little, I especially loved the articulated carp pendant set with imperial jade. The emerald-green stones were so translucent and vibrant that the fish seemed alive, and I would make it swim across Grandma’s bed.

“You were made to wear jade, Snow Jasmine. See how it comes to life against your skin,” Grandma said.

But I never dared. I was a coward, a hero with only socks on, because of the one time I had skipped down the stairs while admiring a marquise-cut gold ring set with diamonds that was much too big for my finger, and Helena had caught me.