Lausanne Foundation

On the day ME's first products went on sale, Su Jin was in her study in Boston, revising a paper on the reducing atmosphere for copper-red glaze.

When Shen Nian called, she had just finished working through a derivation concerning the kiln's temperature curve and had yet to cap her pen.

Shen Nian's voice was flat over the phone, as flat as if she were reading an experimental report, but Su Jin could tell she was holding something back. "The Paris store sold out of all twelve reading chairs in two hours. The New York store sold out too. At the Beijing store-your courtyard house-more than forty people were lined up outside before the doors opened, and Store Manager Chen stepped on the threshold and cracked it. I'm not exaggerating, it really cracked. A Ming dynasty bluestone slab, cracked under the feet of the people in line."

Su Jin put down her pen. "What did you say?" "I said the threshold cracked. That's not the point. The point is Amazon. We didn't list anything on Amazon. Someone posted the exact same pictures there and priced the chairs at three times what we charge. Twelve chairs, snapped up in two minutes."

Su Jin leaned back in her chair and looked out at the Charles River. It was April, and all the ice on the river had melted. The water was gray-blue and flowed very slowly.

"Shen Nian, our chairs sold out in two minutes at three times the price." Shen Nian was silent on the other end of the line for a while. "Yes. So?" "So we need to raise our prices."

Shen Nian laughed. It was the first time Su Jin had heard her laugh out loud. It wasn't a quiet laugh, the kind that merely curved the corners of her mouth, but a short, breathy laugh that rose from her chest.

She said, "When other people's products take off, they increase production. Yours take off, and you raise the price."

Su Jin said they wouldn't increase production.

Three stores in three years, twelve chairs. They wouldn't make a single chair more. Wood could grow tired; if too many people sat in the chairs, the grain would be worn smooth and the curves would soften.

They had to let it rest so it could live longer.

Shen Nian was quiet on the other end of the line for a long time. Then she said, "All right," and hung up.

Su Jin put her phone on the desk and looked out the window. A sailboat was moving swiftly across the river, its white sail full of wind and a long white wake trailing behind its stern.

Little Golden Egg peeked out from behind her shoulder and hovered over the phone, fluttering its wings twice.

ME's Paris store was on Rue Saint-Honoré, across from Hermès' flagship store.

Su Jin hadn't attended the opening, but a photo appeared on her Instagram. It showed the purple-pink lamp, the slight curl at the edge of its shade like a petal beginning to curl as the flower neared the end of its bloom.

There was only one in the Paris store, one in the New York store, and one in the Beijing store. Three in the whole world.

ME's outdoor ads went up on the third day after the Paris store opened. Su Jin hadn't placed them; Shen Nian had.

She rented a billboard each in Paris, New York, and Beijing. The one in Paris was on a corner of Rue Saint-Honoré, the one in New York was on Madison Avenue, and the one in Beijing was on East Third Ring Road, across from the China World Trade Center.

There was only one image on each billboard: Shen Nian's sideboard, Hill. The mountains on its doors surged in the light. There was no logo, no brand name, no text of any kind. Yet people passing by stopped and looked at it for a long time.

Someone posted a photo of the billboard on Instagram, with the caption, "Saw a mountain on a Paris street."

Chanel's official account liked the post.

The Cannes gown selection was scheduled for the afternoon.

Geneviève was waiting for her at Chanel's haute couture atelier. Madame Lefèvre was there too.

When Su Jin arrived, three rows of gowns were already hanging in the atelier-not one row, but three.

Geneviève stood in front of the first row with her arms folded, looking like a general reviewing troops about to march into battle.

She said this time was different. The gown couldn't merely be beautiful; it had to have killing intent.

Su Jin stood in front of the first row, looking at the silent gowns beneath their black velvet garment bags, waiting to be awakened.

Geneviève took one from the first row and unzipped its bag. It was a long white Dior silk-satin gown, with a deep V neckline that plunged below the bust. Its back was bare from the shoulder blades to the waist.

The skirt was a fishtail shape, narrowing from the knees down to an extremely slender curve at the ankles, like a fish's tail. The silk satin was thick and draped heavily. When the light fell on it, it didn't reflect it, only absorbed it, like a layer of white, unmoving water frozen against the body. Geneviève said the gown was called Iceberg.

"On the red carpet, you won't smile, you won't wave, and you won't look at the cameras. You only need to walk past and make everyone feel cold."

Su Jin glanced at it and shook her head. "Too cold. Lin isn't cold. Lin is the sea in Maine. It's cold in winter too, but the sea doesn't make people feel cold. The sea makes people feel how vast it is. Vaster than cold."

Geneviève glanced at her, hung Iceberg back up, and took another gown from the second row.

It had no garment bag and hung directly on its hanger. It was a long Chanel gown in nude pink with beaded embroidery. The pink wasn't dazzlingly bright; it was the faded pink of something washed many times, with only the faintest hint of color left.

The beading didn't cover the whole gown. It began at the neckline and grew denser until it was thickest at the waist, then thinned out again, until there was almost none at the hem.

It was like someone walking through a field of flowers in spring. Petals fell on her shoulders as she entered, more and more of them as she walked, until she was covered in flowers at the center of the field. When she walked out, the petals fell away one by one, until only a few remained on her hem, reluctant to fall.

Geneviève said the gown had no name. The people at the atelier called it Don't Know What to Call It.

They had spent three months making it and altered it many times, and each time they hadn't known what to call it.

Virginie Viard had said to let the person who wore it give it a name. Su Jin looked at the gown for a long time. Geneviève didn't hurry her, and Madame Lefèvre, standing beside them with a roll of measuring tape in her hand, didn't hurry her either.

Su Jin said softly,

"Spring in Maine."

Geneviève was taken aback.

Su Jin said, "Winter in Maine is long, so long you think spring will never come. But it does.

"When it comes, it isn't with a great fanfare. You're arranging shelves in a bookstore, and you look up and see a spot of green on the bare tree outside the window.

"A tiny spot of green you wouldn't notice unless you looked closely.

"That's spring in Maine.

"This gown is that spot of green."

Geneviève looked at her and was silent for a long time. "All right. Spring in Maine." She hung the gown in the row for those they were keeping, then scribbled a line on its tag. Her handwriting was messy, but Su Jin saw it: "Maine, printemps." Maine, spring.

After they had finished choosing the gown, Geneviève saw Su Jin to the door.

She suddenly mentioned something, her tone mild, as though she were saying the weather was nice today.

"Cannes has a new main sponsor this year. It's not one of those luxury brands or jewelers, but a family foundation. It's called the Lausanne Foundation. It's Swiss.

"I'd never heard of it before, but they're spending big. They're covering half the budget for the entire film festival.

"I hear the family keeps a very low profile and never appears in public. No one knows why they suddenly decided to sponsor Cannes this time. Some say it's because someone in the family wants to get into the film industry. Others say it's because they're looking for someone. Who they're looking for, nobody knows."

Su Jin stood in the doorway, the April sunlight in Paris falling warmly on her face, carrying a trace of the scent of the Seine.

"Lausanne Foundation." She repeated the name. She didn't know why, but something stirred in her heart as she said it. It wasn't fear or nervousness, but something deeper and quieter. She nodded and walked out of the atelier.

Little Golden Egg peeked out from behind her shoulder and hovered beside her ear, fluttering its wings twice.

Su Jin got into the car. Fang Ying was at the wheel and asked her where she wanted to go. She said, "Just drive anywhere." Fang Ying didn't ask why and drove out of Rue Cambon.

In Paris in April, it got dark very late. At eight o'clock, the sky was still blue-not deep blue, but a pale blue faded by a whole day in the sun.

Su Jin leaned back in her seat and watched the river through the window.

A sightseeing boat was on the river, its lights on. Someone on deck was taking pictures, and a flash went off, then went off again, like someone greeting her from far away.

She suddenly remembered something. Lausanne. Lausanne, Switzerland.

She didn't know why she knew the place.

She hadn't been there; she had heard of it.

A long time ago, when she was very little, someone had told her about the place. Who had it been? She couldn't remember.

That person had said the lake in Lausanne was the quietest lake in Europe. In winter, its surface froze, and the ice was transparent, so you could see the water still flowing beneath it. That person had said, "I'll take you there someday."

That person never came afterward. She didn't know who they were.

Was it Mom? She didn't know. She had only seen her mother in a photograph: a yellowing photograph with curled edges, showing a young woman with her hair in a braid over her chest, wearing a white cotton dress and standing barefoot in a field of grass, a baby in her arms.

The baby wasn't her. It was her older brother.

She had an older brother. She knew. She had always known.

Her mother had told her before she left. She had been too young then; she couldn't remember her mother's face or her voice, only the word "brother."

Later, in the orphanage, she had no older brother. There was no one for her to call "brother." She forgot the word. She forgot it for a long time.

She forgot it so thoroughly that she thought she had never had one.

She leaned against the car window and watched the lights on the Seine, broken into fragments on the water's surface, like a mirror someone had shattered.

[Host, what are you thinking about?]

Su Jin didn't open her eyes. "A lake. The quietest lake in Europe. It freezes in winter. The ice is transparent. You can see the water still flowing beneath it."

Little Golden Egg said nothing. It simply hovered there quietly, its golden light looking warm in the Paris twilight, like a lamp that had been dimmed but not extinguished.