What Could Be Saved

by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

  A beige high-rise tower thrust up from the pavement, to one side of it a dark oblong, the entrance to an underground garage. No high wall, no gates. Not a blade of grass anywhere. The shining brass number 9 was the only clue that it was the same location.

  “They tore it down years ago,” said Philip.

  Of course that simple two-story house at 9 Soi Nine would be gone now, swallowed up into the Blade Runner metropolis that central Bangkok had become. It had been irrational to hope for anything else. Still, Laura felt confounded, as though she’d reached down to scratch an ankle and found nothing but empty air. She hadn’t realized until this moment how at the back of her mind she’d cherished the belief that there was a clear, physical path back to the last place her family had been whole. As if they could all go back and start over.

  “Where are the khlongs?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. “Wasn’t there one right behind the house?”

  “Most were paved over. They’re roads now.”

  The tuk-tuk driver revved his motor. Laura leaned forward and told him the embassy address again. He nodded without annoyance and drove back the way they’d come.

  The U.S. Embassy was massive. Nothing like the vague memories Laura had of a humble box of a building in whose garden she’d burned her fingertip on a sparkler one Fourth of July. The new embassy looked like a cross between an airport tower and a gun turret. It rose above the tall trees lining Wireless Road—the most green she’d seen in Bangkok thus far—as a sheer cliff of white fenestrated with checkbox windows, presenting such a militaristic and aggressive message that Laura had the thought, No wonder everyone hates us.

  The passport section was across the street, in a far less ostentatious building; Laura’s heart sank when she saw the long line of people standing beneath a sign: CONSULAR SECTION AMERICAN CITIZEN SERVICES AND VISA SERVICES. When they got closer, she realized that there were two queues: a long one in front of the visa window, and a much shorter one in front of the U.S. Citizen window. They joined the latter.

  When they reached the front of the line, Laura showed her passport and airline itinerary and told a simple version of Philip’s story—this was her brother, he’d lost his passport and needed an emergency replacement—no, he’d lost all of his ID, he could provide no ID.

  “Photo ID,” said the man, and Laura put her hands wide in an Italianate gesture. Mai mee jumped into her head, but she squashed it.

  “He lost everything,” she said. “All gone.” The man called another guard over; they conferred in Thai while examining Laura’s passport and ID. After some walkie-talkie consultation with someone on the inside of the building, they were given passes to enter.

  They went through security, where Laura’s cell phone was taken from her; she expected to get it back on the other side of the metal detector, but after a short confused exchange with the personnel she understood that it had been confiscated for the duration of the visit. She and Philip followed the signs down the hall to the passport section and entered a waiting room, where they checked in at a concierge-like stand, giving the same lost-passport story, again flourishing the airline itinerary, and then took seats to wait. A television on the wall played CNN; they watched desultorily for half an hour before their names were called.

  “Have you made a police report?” asked the clerk when they took chairs in front of her desk.

  Laura didn’t know what to say. Yes, there should be one on file from 1972? “Not today,” she said.

  “You need a police report,” the clerk said. She asked Philip, her hands poised over the keyboard of her computer, “Was your passport stolen as part of a serious crime?”

  “No,” said Philip.

  “Do you have a photocopy of the lost passport?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a picture for the new passport?” She intuited the answer from their expressions. “You must have a passport picture. You may acquire one here.” She flicked a small map from a stack to her right, spun it around on the desk, and circled the location in pen with a practiced hand. “It is the next building to this one. You will need to fill out this application,” she said, sliding a form beneath the map. “Bring the photograph with photo ID and a photocopy of the lost passport.” At the end of this speech, her smile took on a fixed quality: she was finished with them for now.

  “We don’t have any of those things,” said Laura. She leaned forward, lowered her voice. “It’s a bit complicated.”

  The clerk listened with knitted brow as Laura spoke; then she called her supervisor over. Laura told the story again, and the clerks conferred in Thai, shooting glances toward Laura and Philip. Then the supervisor walked away.

  “What did they say?” Laura whispered to Philip.

  “They think you don’t look crazy,” he replied. “But the jury’s out on me.”

  There was a metallic click from the wall to their left. A door had opened and the supervisor stood there.

  “Please come,” she said. They followed her through the door and down a short corridor to another door, which she opened to a room that contained five chairs, a desk, a photograph of the U.S. president, an American flag. “Please wait here,” she said with a smile.

  They sat for five minutes, fifteen, an hour. No one passed the glass panel beside the door. Laura felt the lack of her phone acutely. The small room, the locks, the photograph on the wall made her increasingly nervous. We’re Americans, she reminded herself. We’re actually in America right now. Finally, the door opened and a tall man came in. He had wavy blond hair silvering at the temples and an agreeable face. He introduced himself as the vice consul.

  A diplomat to his core, he listened with exquisite attention and no evidence of skepticism as Laura told the story for the third time. She noticed that a small group of clerical staff was gathered outside the door, a half dozen Thai men and women who watched intently as Laura opened the clear plastic bag she was carrying and slid the contents of Genevieve’s manila envelope out onto the desk.

  The vice consul went through it all: Philip’s childhood passport and birth records, the police report, the clippings. One was a front-page headline, AMERICAN BOY MISSING, the other a column from an interior page. While the consul held up the photographs to study them, the heads outside the door jerked back and forth, looking from the downy-headed boy to the bald middle-aged man. When the vice consul had finished examining the documents, he looked up. If he was moved by what he had read, he did not show it. He didn’t ask any of the obvious questions of Philip—what happened to you, where have you been all of this time—but focused on the matter at hand.

  “The problem as I see it,” he said, “is to link this boy”—he held up the child Philip’s navy passport—“to this man.” He indicated Philip, who was seated and silent, his eyes closed. Meditating now, really? thought Laura.

  “Yes, that’s it exactly,” said Laura, her voice bright. She dug a discreet elbow into Philip’s side: Wake up. This was hardly the time or place for eccentric behavior.

  “Time was, we could have accepted your word,” said the vice consul. “But things have—tightened up.”

  “Could we do DNA testing?” said Laura. How stupid she’d been, thinking this would be a simple errand.

  “We don’t do that here,” he said. He looked thoughtful. “But there is a service—” he broke off, asked one of the clerks in the doorway a question in Thai, listened while she answered. “You’re in luck,” he said, turning back to Laura and Philip with a smile. “There’s a company offering something that will suit this situation perfectly. Sibling DNA testing. It’s mainly used for immigration.” He spoke again to the crowd of clerks, who dispersed. “They’re going to hunt up the information for you.”

  “Thank you,” said Laura. The feeble phrase didn’t accurately reflect the intensity of the relief spreading through her.

  “We’ve just recently begun to accept the results of sibling testing,” said the vice consul, conversationally. “Siblings are
harder to match than child and parent, of course.” Laura nodded, although her knowledge of genetics dated to one high-school biology class, a foggy smear of pea plants and Chi-square tables. “This particular test is accurate only for siblings of opposite sexes, so—more luck.” He seemed sincerely glad. “With a definitive match and your affidavit, plus these,” he said, tapping the pile of documents, “we should be able to issue an emergency passport.”

  “How long will the test take to come back?” said Laura.

  “About a week,” said the vice consul, and misinterpreted her expression. “I know—it’s amazing what modern technology can do.”

  * * *

  Outside the embassy, Laura and Philip looked at each other: What do we do now?

  “A week in Bangkok,” said Laura. “It’s not the worst problem in the world.” She wasn’t looking forward to explaining it to Edward or Bea, though. She looked at her phone: two p.m. meant three a.m. back home; so a few hours more of reprieve.

  They changed money and ate; they visited a department store to buy Philip some things, then walked back across a smooth concrete plaza, passing tourists taking selfies with the B A N G K O K letters and walking with phones at chest level, filming.

  “I don’t remember it being like this,” Laura said.

  “It wasn’t like this,” said Philip.

  “Is there anything else you need?” said Laura. They’d bought some pants and shirts, a pair of sandals, a few toiletries. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t enough. She felt an impulse to shower him with luxuries, to buy him something that would not fit into that little blue bag Claudette had packed.

  She was surprised by Philip’s response to the simple question. His face animated, as though a licking fire had caught behind it. “I’d like to ride the Skytrain,” he said. They both looked up at the elevated rail.

  “To visit anyplace in particular?” asked Laura. He shook his head. “Skytrain it is,” she said.

  * * *

  The fare card system was no more complicated than the Metro. The Skytrain stations and cars were beautifully clean, ungraffitied, gloriously air-conditioned. Philip and Laura rode the line from one end to the other, Philip’s face avid at the window.

  “Look, a Ferris wheel,” Laura said. “We would have loved that when we were kids. We had nothing like that. What was that place we used to go, with the trained elephants?” He shook his head, staring out at the city. “You remember,” she said. “Lots of snakes in cages. Did Mum take us there? It seems like a place she would have expressly avoided.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember.”

  “Of course you do,” she insisted. “You loved that place. The elephants stacking logs with their trunks. What was it called?”

  “I don’t remember,” he said again, and there was a deadened quality to his voice, like a hand put over the mouth of a ringing bell. She was astonished into silence.

  They watched out the window together without speaking, while the awkwardness ebbed. When they reached the end of the line, the logistics of figuring out the return dissipated the last of it, and back at the hotel they rode the elevator up to the room in a wearied, companionable silence. Philip went to take a shower, and Laura reluctantly got out her phone. Time to face the music.

  * * *

  “I don’t even know what to say to you,” said Edward. “I’m furious. I’m so relieved you’re safe. Do you know how worried I’ve been?”

  “I’m sorry I forgot about the partner dinner,” she said. “That was terrible of me.”

  “Not a word,” he said. “Not one word in two days.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “I almost called the FBI.”

  “I get that you were upset,” she said, “but let’s take a step back. I took a trip without telling you. It’s not a reason to panic.”

  “That’s how you see it?”

  “That’s the situation. Objectively.”

  A frustrated exhalation. “It’s like trying to describe a color to someone who was born blind,” he said. “Do you want me to come there?”

  “No need,” she said.

  “I didn’t say need,” he said. A pause. “When are you coming home?”

  “We have to wait for the DNA results so Philip can get his passport. Maybe a week.” The rush option she’d chosen had promised a turnaround of five to seven business days.

  “He hasn’t asked you for money or had access to your banking information or passport?” Then, “Why are you laughing?”

  “It’s almost word for word what Sullivan said.” As soon as the words were out, she wished she could bite them back.

  “You talked to Sullivan.”

  “I texted him,” said Laura. Technically true: she had texted him before he’d called and they’d spoken. “Just to let someone know where I was.”

  “You texted him,” he said.

  “Please don’t make that into a thing.”

  “Laura, I am very glad you are all right, but I can’t talk to you anymore right now.” He sounded far away. “Stay safe. If you need me, call me.”

  “Edw—” But the phone was dead.

  Philip came out of the bathroom, a cloud of steam wisping out behind him. He was wearing the pajamas they’d bought that day, dark blue with small polka dots.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  “Ugh,” said Laura. “My boyfriend is super pissed. And now I have to call Bea.”

  “Does she know you’re here?” She shook her head. He smiled. “Fun.” He sat on his bed, used the towel hung around his neck to pat the moisture from his face and head. Sitting had pulled the pajama cuffs up his legs, and she could see for the first time the source of his limp: a knobbed deformity of his left ankle. When had he been injured there? She forced herself to look away from it as she dialed the phone, hoping he hadn’t noticed her staring.

  Bea picked up on the first ring.

  “I’m in Bangkok,” said Laura.

  “Of course you are.”

  “Bea, it’s him. It’s Philip.”

  “Has he proved that? Has he said something only Philip would know?”

  “We sent DNA.”

  “You could have had that done without going there,” said Bea. Laura said nothing; it was true. “Did he give you any resistance about it?”

  “No.” Philip had dutifully spat into the plastic vial from the test box. “We should have the results in a week.”

  “I do not have time right now to come there.”

  “I didn’t ask you to,” said Laura. Although she realized that she had hoped, until that moment, that Beatrice would come. “Do you want to talk to him?”

  “No,” said Bea.

  Laura looked over at Philip: Could he hear Bea’s side of the conversation? She got up from the bed, walked into the humid bathroom.

  “He looks just like Daddy,” said Laura.

  “You tend to see what you want to see.” Sounds flared in the background of the call. “One minute,” said Bea, apparently to the person seeking her attention, then her voice became clearer again, directed into the phone. “I’m really not happy that you’ve done this, but it’s done now. Just please be careful. Remember that con artists can be ruthless. And very clever. Don’t give him anything. Don’t tell him anything. And make sure he understands that the family trust is under my control.”

  “She’s a tough customer,” said Philip, when Laura came out of the bathroom.

  “She’s not convinced it’s actually you.” She sat on the bed, then lay back and spoke to the ceiling. “To be fair, there were a lot of false leads down the years. But yeah, Queen Bea still reigns.” She turned on her side to face him across the gap between the beds. “Remember the awful games she used to invent?”

  He laughed. “And somehow it was never her turn.”

  If Bea could see this, Laura thought, she wouldn’t ask for more proof.

  “Philip,” she said. Her voice almost a whisper. “Tell me what
happened.”

  A wince flitted across his features, the smile dissolving, his face shuttering. The change was unbearable.

  “It’s all right,” she said. Soft, as though comforting a child. “Mai pen rai.”

  Bea would want to hear it for herself anyway. Why drag him through it twice? I’ll bring him home to Bea, Laura thought. She’ll interrogate him without mercy. He can tell both of us together.

  She lifted her phone to wake it again, touched its surface to bring up a browser window. “Listen,” she said. “We have a week here. No point in moping around. Let’s be tourists.”

  * * *

  They cobbled together a list from the combined resources of the internet and the hotel concierge. A longtail boat down the river in a languid haze of mosquitoes, a slow hike up to the top of Golden Mount, half a dozen temple visits, the butterfly garden, a morning riding the Skytrain again, both lines end to end. Philip was roaring with eagerness, wanting to do it all, as if he actually were a tourist. Although Laura noticed scattered flecks of familiarity—the monkey warrior outside Wat Phra Kaew, the golden spires of the Grand Palace, the Victory Monument in the center of a traffic island, the smell of Yaowarat Road in Chinatown—she didn’t call Philip’s attention to them. She avoided the word remember. It was easy to do: on the whole, the city didn’t feel nostalgic. Particularly downtown, which reminded her of other large, modern cities. The solid crowds at the temples like the packed pedestrian traffic on Dublin’s Grafton Street, the sidewalks like the East Village when she’d lived there, the walkways hemmed in on both sides by displays of purses and watches and sunglasses and scarves. And food vendors, who were everywhere. Laura had never eaten street food in any city, but Philip was intrepid. After the first street meal, she waited for the onslaught of dysentery. Nothing happened, and after that they got most of their meals from carts, pronouncing each dish the best so far.