The Girl With Nine Wigs (11 page)

“Good morning, Dr. van der Stap,” Dr. L answers. “Can you stop by my office on your way to radiology?” Behind his uniform, the man actually has quite a good sense of humor.

When I arrive in Dr. L's office, he has a new surprise waiting for me.

“It's a port-a-cath. It's connected by a tube to your heart via your right subclavian vein, underneath your collarbone.”

“Aha. In normal-speak, please?”

“It's a small device under your skin that makes it easier to give you IVs.”

Unfortunately, the device goes right above my boob.
So much for my summer cleavage
. Still pondering what Dr. L's silicon surprise means for my wardrobe, I leave for the radiology department.

There I'm given a jug of water mixed with radioactive fluid. I have to chug down the whole thing in one hour. There's no doctor or nurse in sight to ask for explanation. An old man—one of those retirees who have found meaning in their life since volunteering at the hospital—tries to do the job.

“You have to finish the whole thing.”

“But why?”

“Yes, the whole thing,” he repeats.

Sigh. I try one more time. “Are you sure it's for me? Last time they gave me an IV with a different fluid.” After all hospitals are just like any other enterprises: things can and do go wrong.

Finally, one of the technicians comes out and explains to me the reasoning behind this change. “Today we'll be scanning the abdomen as well, and in order to see everything properly we have to use a different fluid.”

I take a seat. Nothing to do for a whole hour before my scan except wait, imagine terrible things, and chug radioactive fluid. Before I close my eyes I see the same volunteer walking, step by step, to another patient carrying the same jug of water.

 

THURSDAY, JUNE 2

“
C
AN YOU IMAGINE?
A boob above my boob.” Back at Café Finch, I'm trying to explain to Annabel that the trinket to be inserted above my left breast will probably stick out farther than my own modest A-cup. We both burst out laughing. Hers were once compared to watermelons and mine to chickpeas.

“Will there be a cute little tube sticking out of it?” Annabel and I are both finding the whole situation totally hilarious.

“No, thank God, that would be even worse!”

“What do you care anyway, as long as it's going to make you better?”

The giggling fit subsides.

“I guess you're right. I'ts kind of scary though. It makes it all so much more visible and real.” I say.

“It is scary. But look at you, you look great. And I'm not talking your latest haircut here.”

I smile. It's a sweet thing to say but she can't be right. Since the chemo I have dark circles under my eyes and the lack of any facial hair doesn't help. On the other hand I'm less pale and boney.

“I'm still scared, though. I know my tumors are getting smaller, but what if they can't get rid of them completely?”

“There's no reason to think that.”

“No, but it's all I can think about.”

Annabel gets up and grabs me tight. “When do you get the results of the scan?”

“Monday.”

“Hmm … And when is your last week in the hospital?”

“If everything goes according to plan … late July.”

“Meaning you can come with us to the South of France then?”

France?! Sun, lavender, fresh markets, smelly cheeses, the sea, and pretty terraces with pretty people reading about even prettier people? “Are you serious?”

“Of course. You always come with us, why wouldn't you this year?”

Yes, why wouldn't I?

 

FRIDAY, JUNE 3

I
'M AT THE OUTPATIENT CLINIC
for some blood tests. Eight patients before me.
Good, a quiet day.
From the recently refurbished coffee shop a little further in the hallway, where everything has been modernized except the old bags behind the counter, I can just keep an eye on the queue. One coffee and two glasses of water later it's my turn. The nurse takes three tubes of blood, stickers them, and stores them away. I only pay attention to three of the numbers: thrombocytes, leukocytes, and red blood cells. Those are the ones that determine whether I need a transfusion.

With my arm taped up, I head to the surgery department, probably the only part of the hospital I haven't been to. Today sucks because it's a long day at the hospital. But it means there will be other days
outside
the hospital, and long days outside the hospital have slowly become my recipe for happiness. I've never been this short on demands. Frankly, it's a great feeling. So I'd rather get it all done in one go. I follow the nurse to meet my newest doctor.

He's definitely a keeper: handsome, youthful face, strong arms, slim waist, no old-fashioned shoes. Let Daisy keep Dr. K, a married family man on brogues.

This doctor starts yet another file. Then he tells me about the operation I'll be having: a cut above my breast, insertion of the “box,” and then sewing it all back up. Although it will help spruce up my arms—who now show a trace of death veins and arteries—I don't like the idea of a box sticking out of my skin. It will definitely not make for a nice summer. I can just see myself on the beach with that weird bulge in my chest. Another cancermark. I hope it's the last.

 

SATURDAY, JUNE 4

I
T'S CLOTHING SWAP DAY
at my mothers friend Maud's house. Maud never left the seventies. It shows in her clothes, her naughty eyes, and especially in her preference for bangles.

Of all the women, I'm by far the youngest. There are married women with children, divorced women, women with deceased parents, women wearing Spandex, women with Botox, women with sagging tummies and breasts, women with nannies and maids, women with dyed hair. In short: women with a life story.

We drink coffee, eat bonbons, and laugh. I take pleasure in watching all these middle-aged women trying on clothes while enjoying one another's company—and seeing that at fifty-five, they still have the same young girl inside like me.

This thought makes me stop to realize that time is still ticking—ticking on toward a world where it stands still and I could be going much sooner than all these sagging breasts around me. The more I think about it, the further removed I feel from them. It makes me so sad to know time will bring all these stories to an end. Sad that time could take away my weddings and divorces, my children and corrective underwear.

Any interest in the purple skirt and gold lamé top I fished out of a pile five minutes earlier is lost. I drop them onto a different pile and am frightened as soon as I see the purple skirt in the hands of a sagging tummy. Without wanting it, I want to want it. I want to care whether I get it for many years to come. But I don't care about the bloody skirt at all.

What I care about is
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
, because even with treatment going well, I'm so scared my illness will always be a part of me. I hate my doctor for having said that the biggest challenge of all is to get rid of it for good. That sentence never leaves my thoughts. Still, its not something to discuss over drinks in a city café or in a house full of hysterical women, while sipping on a glass of vegetable juice. It's quite lonely making.

I get up to go look for the gold lamé top and find it on my mom's fifty-five-year-old torso.

“What do you think of this top? And this skirt?” she asks.

My mom and Maud are clearly in another state of mind.

“The skirt looks great, but the top isn't working. It's too small for you, more my thing maybe,” I lie. My mom gives me a look. A problem with mothers: they always see when you lie. Fathers are much less observant. She hands me over the top. I slip it on.

I want to dance and flirt again. Kiss. Make out. Just like the old days, but now with wig. Off into the unknown of the city night, with an unknown ending. June has arrived, the sun shines longer, and the wind is becoming softer and warmer. Spring fever invades me, from my stomach to my toes. I send a photo in a text message from my phone to the boys with the caption “Emergency” and go in search of a skirt to match the top my mom so kindly handed back to me.

*   *   *

That night I head to Rain, a new night club in the old casino somewhere in the city center. Inside I'm all butterflies, but on the outside I'm doing my best to look like I own the place. I'm wearing my hottest dress and carry Sue's wild red hair on my head. My eyelashes are all gone now, but my fake lashes for tonight (they only hold three hours) are longer and fuller anyway. My tan from a bottle gives my skin a healthy sheen, which is a good thing because I'm baring a lot of it. As I step into the haze of the club, the light makes the glitter on my dress sparkle. Only the goose bumps on my arms hint at my underlying nerves, but my arm hair has disappeared as well, so no one can tell. It's been only four months that I haven't seen the night, but it feels like new.

The dimness of the nightclub gives me the anonymity I crave. I want to step into the night, to forget everything, to let loose like a girl without a story.

Tonight is dinner with the boys. They are treating me to a night out on the town. We start with dinner; I order codfish in a creamy yellow sauce. The days Jochem does work, he's a trend watcher by profession, one of those guys who is always running and rushing, and who can't sit down for more than five seconds because he'll miss out on the next big thing. I guess being here with him makes me a trendsetter by association. When the second wine bottle is empty, we decide to switch over to mojitos. According to Jan, the rum will certainly kill anything that the chemo missed. I tell him I'll suggest this alternative therapy to my doctor next week.

“Healthy living, Sophie,” Dr. L told me. “Eat well, get plenty of sleep, and allow your body lots of rest. It's one big battle in there.”

I knock back another gulp of rum.
Ha.
After four months of obedience, the mint and cane sugar taste better than good. The alcohol slides down my throat without a hint of guilt. Tonight it's food for the soul.

We quickly lose one another when we hit the dance floor. I scan the room and my eyes settle on a swinging tie. I throw my scarlet locks into battle. Sophie would hesitate, but Sue doesn't care. And tonight I'm Sue. I dance along to the rhythm of the music as Sue tickles the nape of my neck.

A few hours later I'm half asleep in a taxi and Tie Boy lies purring with his head on my lap. I'm pleasantly drunk from the mojitos, but also from my night of anonymity. The boy next to me thinks he's met Sue, a trendy girl with a cool haircut. Our conversation hasn't gone beyond house music and sneakers.

“So, what is it you do, actually?” he asks.

“I'm on a gap year.”

“Oh. Cool.”

He sees nothing of the loneliness I feel because I've turned my story into a secret. He doesn't know how happy he makes me by running his hands through my hair when we are kissing, not realizing the significance of that movement. How can he know that not only has he won Sue's heart, but also that of Daisy, Stella, Uma, Platina, and Blondie, too?

I watch the city pass by the taxi window. My thoughts are still on the dance floor. Sue who tickled my neck. Tie Boy who was dancing away to the music and told me he liked my style. Jan and Jochem who gave me a wink and told me to go for it.

The taxi pulls up to my house. With a long, passionate kiss I say good-bye to Tie Boy. I get out of the taxi and step back into my own world. The day after tomorrow I'm expected back at the hospital. I tell Tie Boy that I'm going on holiday for a week—heading off to the airport with just a backpack and booking a last-minute flight to Marrakech.

He'll never know that I will visit Marrakech only in my dreams and that I'll be stuck in bed only three streets away. Three streets and a whole world, which, dancing with him, I was able to forget.

At home I take a long look in the mirror. I take off my wig. Put it on again. Off. On. Off. On. I fall asleep, clutching my wig close to me with a smile on my face. Just before I fall asleep I receive a text. It's Jan: “Wigs … A necessity or an opportunity? You naughty girl! Tell me everything tomorrow. Sweet dreams. XJ.”

 

SUNDAY, JUNE 5

I
BETTER SAY IT OUT
loud. I've been dreaming of Jur ever since we met. How great a boyfriend he must be! I wish for someone like him in my life, or even someone who is still fighting, like me. Someone who will shuffle in and out of hospitals with me, hold my hand while we do our chemo together, annoy doctors with endless questions, and put his arm around me at night when I wake up crying.

Jur asked me when we first met whether I had a boyfriend.

“No, but lots of great friends,” I told him. Now I understand his question. Those friends are there to drink coffee with me, and they loyally visit me in hospital, but then they go back home. To their own beds.

Thanks to Jur, I'm beginning to see my fear of dying from another perspective. Like it's an opportunity, rather than a punishment. He's talking to me about how I can manage my fear. He helps me recognize and name it, cut it up in pieces, and then confront it. He takes my loneliness away, makes me believe I can take on all the cancer in the world. Well … as long as he sits next to me. The moment he gets up, my newborn spirituality takes off with him. I can't explain what happens inside me when he's with me. I guess I better just call the magic by its name: Jurriaan.

Today, when I arrive at Café Winkel, he's already waiting on the terrace with apple pie and whipped cream. He's wearing a bright green T-shirt that complements his strong tanned arms.
Nice
. His dark hair flops over his forehead carelessly.
Even nicer.