Winter Swan

Honk honk.

Silje saw her adoptive father Frank’s BMW arrive but she didn’t leave the small empty area located in front of her house. She remained squatted on the ground. Despite the sharp coldness, Silje didn’t want to return home.

The car door opened and she saw her adoptive father’s chubby red cheeks. She watched him enter the house worriedly. Frank was going to hear about what happened at school today from Olga and he was going to be disappointed.

Silje imagined what had happened seventeen years ago to this conservative couple. What if Olga wasn’t diagnosed with infertility at the time? What if Frank’s co-worker didn’t have an adoptive daughter from China? What if that co-worker didn’t brag about how her adoptive daughter was so smart and got such good grades?

If all these things didn’t happen, would Frank still have thought of adoption as a solution for his unhappy wife?

The result was that Silje was adopted by this couple from Korea. Her Korean name was Shinae Kim.

Silje Kim Pettersen. This was the name her adoptive parents gave her. They came up with a Norwegian name that was as close to her Korean name as possible. Silje didn’t know who her birth mother was, and she didn’t dare to try to find her.

Korea, her birthplace, seemed so far away to Silje that it might as well have been on another planet.

Korea was a small country in Asia.

Silje always thought about her homeland and finally when she turned twelve, she was able to find a Korean lesson book. During her winter break, she tried to learn the language, but it was too difficult. The letters were completely different from Norwegian and the pronunciation was too finicky. After trying for a little while, she had to give up. A few sentences she tried to write were quickly forgotten.

“Hello?”

“Nice to meet you.”

“How do I get to Gimpo International Airport?”

When she was still very young, Silje had a good relationship with her adoptive father Frank. His chubby cheeks would become red whenever he drank. Frank used to treat Silje kindly and with affection at first, but as she became older and started to experience bullying at school, he became distant and annoyed. When Silje refused to attend school, he became angry. It was a very tense period of her life both at school and at home.

In truth, Silje was an excellent student. She was at the top of her class. Other than geometry, her English and second language grades were outstanding. She was especially talented in the languages, but even her brilliant grades couldn’t satisfy Frank.

Whenever she mentioned she was being bullied, Frank took it personally and angrily as if Silje was embarrassing him on purpose.

At the time, Silje tried to understand Frank’s fury and disappointment. For a conservative and quiet couple to adopt a foreign baby, it must’ve been a huge life changing event. But to find out that their adopted Asian daughter was a troublemaker at school? It must’ve been very hard for them to accept.

For a while, Silje refused to attend school because of the intense racism and bullying, but she couldn’t ask or expect her adoptive parents to be understanding. Even if she begged them, Silje knew they would’ve never been on her side anyway.

It was very difficult for her to watch her adoptive father become more and more distant, but she knew Frank had high expectations of her and she had let him down.

Silje continued to stand outside the house in the cold.

In the end, her adoptive father Frank found out about what had happened at school that day. It was gloomy and tense at home.

Frank sighed and drank while Olga remained unhappy.

The next morning, Silje quietly went to school with a heavy heart.

She usually went to the roof of the school building to spend her time alone there until class started. When she walked into the classroom, the kids were chatting amongst themselves.

The classroom was arranged with practical yet elegant desks and chairs. The kids glanced at her but Silje ignored them and opened her textbook. She didn’t have any friends. She never hung around with anyone.

Silje always ignored the other students. In fact, she didn’t want any friends, because anyone who became her friends her would be bullied as well. She didn’t want that either.

After a while of attending the school as the only Asian student, her classmates started to see her with fear at some point. Silje didn’t care. All she wanted was to graduate safely and escape this hellhole to be free.

After Silje returned home from school every day, she crossed off the days on her calendar with her pen. This was her only hope and joy. Every day she survived meant she was getting closer to leaving school.

And most of all, Silje was becoming stronger. Slowly but surely, she was gaining strength and someday, she was going to escape this place.

Her home, her school, and Norway.

Soon.

The first bell rang, and class was about to start. Silje took out her notebook and listened to her teacher calmly.

The first class was physics. An elderly teacher was talking about the internal structure of the sun. Silje was still recovering from the shock of yesterday so she couldn’t concentrate. It was a very strange situation where she fell off the building yesterday, yet she was sitting in the classroom as if nothing had happened.

“Can anyone explain the theory by the Norwegian physician, Birkeland?”

Until the end of the class, Silje stared at her textbook and her teacher didn’t say anything to her. The truth was, everyone at school knew Silje was being bullied very badly. This was a controversial issue among the teachers. Many considered it as racism, but the school was unable to do anything about it.

Only her adoptive parents believed Silje was delusional about being bullied. Or perhaps, they knew it but wanted to pretend nothing was happening. Silje had to fight for herself on a daily basis and it was a lonely life. Every day was like war for her.

During class, only one thing was on her mind.

‘I hope nothing happens to me today. I hope the day passes by quickly.’

Because it was very quiet until the afternoon classes, Silje was starting to feel relieved.

Just then, someone from behind placed a razor blade against her neck. Silje felt her body become tense and she started getting goosebumps. It was Kail’s gang member, Gunhild.

The sharpness of the blade was biting against her skin.

“Come to the storage room after school. Kail will be waiting for you.”

Gunhild snickered and added, “He said he has something to say to you.”