The Last Days of My Mother (20 page)

To stop the memories from evaporating into thin air I made one last big investment in a small electronic store on Kolverstraat. I bought a digital camcorder and gave it to Mother over our morning coffee one day in September, unaware that the world's data memory was in a more perilous state than it had ever been before the dawn of the digital age. Each and every hour was the predecessor of a memory that nuzzled in the bosom of eternity under the strong artistic direction of Mother. And so were our last days in Amsterdam: substantiation that we'd lived and enjoyed ourselves, downed specials and seen the Museum of Torture, because the ruthlessness of the past was such that everything was doomed to fade and vanish unless every moment was caught on film.

When I got a call from my credit card company complaining that the transaction for the camera should really not have gone through because of unpaid bills, there was nothing left to do but check out of Hotel Europa and cash in the insurance deposit. We decided to move to Lowland, stay at the guesthouse to begin with, and take it from there. I spent the last days roaming the streets, drinking coffee, buying books and music for smoother sailings into the future, whatever it was and however long it would last. We stood newly awake in the lobby with our luggage. A car horn honked out in the street. Amsterdam was behind us in the blink of an eye.

After a couple of days in Lowland it was as if we'd never lived anywhere else. Mother had a room on the ground floor and took her breakfast in the garden. Ramji would come pick her up at noon and drive her to get her shots from the doctor. Mastering her film, she made him walk seventeen times across the parking lot before his theatrical talent reached enough maturity to perfectly interpret the required casual spontaneity. Mother, on the other hand, only needed one take to deliver her most vital role. She insisted that I barbeque with Duncan to ensure that the memory of the wonderful festivities in Lowland would never be forgotten. The ritual involved drinking half a can of beer, stabbing a few holes into it and shoving it up the rear end of a dead chicken. Never before in the history of film-making had one bird been as thoroughly jammed. In this way Mother delivered the day-to-day life on Lowland complete and intact onto the pages of history—she being the only person I know of who managed to convince a cancer patient in a kilt to get down into a ditch and wave about a copy of
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
.

I was freer than I'd been for months and took over a room up in the attic on the south side of the guesthouse. I'd wake up to the morning sun, drifting in and out of sleep until noon, enjoying strange dreams about Ljudmila, the matron's daughter. Becoming closer to Duncan and his adventurous cooking resulted in my body expanding back to its old form, which made it possible for me, from a certain angle in the mirror, to imagine that my own ass was in fact Ljudmila's. That she'd snuck under my covers in the night and run amok.

Before the month was over Mother had moved into Highland, having secured a four-poster-bed and freestanding bath, like she'd dreamt of having on Spítala Street. Duncan offered to let her stay
free of charge in one of the rental rooms; she had gone for a look, taken in the adventurously decorated lounges, the portraits, antiques, sewing machines, and chests. “And the garden, Trooper, what a paradise!” September passed with afternoon teas and blini parties. I couldn't help but think that the Fates had decided to be merciful. That she'd picked up the phone and consulted Joy. But it was too early to rejoice. At the end of the month one of Mother's bones snapped in two; she'd been directing Ramji while filming him changing a tire. After all these months, Mother had fallen ill.

*

W
hen a parent loses a child the sorrow submerges the world; this was my first philosophical notion: if I died before Mother, the silence on Spítala Street would become an infinite abyss. Cousin Matti's record playing would never be able to fill it. The apartment would be flooded with tears, and no compensation for water damages could take away the pain.

Years later, in Dublin, when my self-pity reached full maturity, and the meaning of life poured out of my eyes and down my face, I tried to push on by reminding myself that despite everything there was a deeper sorrow, a sorrow that wipes out the significance of everything and reduces all the world's recordings to a chilling silence. I had friends who had suffered such a tragedy—people who'd buried their will to live along with their child, torn apart the frame of their existence, and said good-bye to each other; their life together meaningless without the child. Sorrow was a gravitational force dragging everything down into that grave. It could not be shared with others. It was reserved for them alone, beyond other people's understanding.

Soon after I split up with Zola I bumped into these unfortunate friends of mine in a restaurant in Dublin. They were back together again, had a new child and looked happy, sharing a meal. I, however, looked like an assembly of variously developed primates, unwashed and unshaved, in a blue suede jacket of Zola's, a very ugly and badly-cut piece of clothing that I'd grabbed on my way out after our last fight. My friends offered me a seat and delved into anecdotes from their lives, this great labyrinth of happiness that forced me, in my suede jacket, into the vast expanses of myself, overcome by the abyss. After my friends had sat under my non-stop, bearded ape's end-of-days rant for over half an hour, they'd had enough; it wasn't as if there were any children involved.

On my way over the mire separating Highland from the village, my mind was for some reason awash with a jumble of memories: dumped and dead-drunk in a Dublin hotel elevator; four years old hiding in a cupboard on Spítala Street, determined to stay there until my point had been made clear to Mother: that without me her life was worthless, that no matter how fun life was with grownups, without me it would never be more than an apparition. The longer I stayed in the cupboard the greater her happiness would be in finding me. She would not take off, she would not get sick, she would not die. The Spítala Street attic became a venue for adventures eliminating the danger of her ever going away. I appointed dusty household appliances as guardians from external attacks. I forbade her to go on summer vacation abroad with cousin Matti, on the grounds that I'd read in
World Wonders
that the Mediterranean was full of sharks. The years went by. One spring day brought on mutations of my organs. My voice broke. I had sexual relations with a badly upholstered Ottoman that smelled of dog biscuits. At the same time, Mother's presence in my life became unbearable.
She could never understand the catastrophes sweeping over my soul. My delicate body became a scene of spastic movements while my limbs grew and declared independence. I lost weight and put it back on. Each transformation was followed by new and unknown dimensions resonating through my psyche. The small corner shop became a palace of new feelings that embraced the summer nights and stretched out in the face of Pála, the shop assistant, who sold me gum and hot dogs. Night after night I went to meet her, sporting new additions to my face: blackheads and random stubble that resembled sparse pubic hair more than a beard. When I got back home I would dash up to the attic so
she
wouldn't be in my way. Cocoa Puffs became my
haute cuisine
. Meals were a thing of the past. Mother and I were no longer walking in line. Finally, I moved out. I began a new life were everything seemed possible, knowing little of what experiments the world had in mind for me.

Almost eighteen years had passed, but the fear of her death never quite left me. Deep down the child is still hiding in a closet, fixing up appliances in an attempt to prevent her death. We believe that experience works in our favor, that all the horrible moments and fuckups of our lives will give us perspective, but they don't. Adult life stumbles on-screen like a haze of meaningless jumble while the focus remains on the backdrop, distorting everything mounting up ahead. Sometimes the anxiety goes into hibernation and the set is ablaze with fantastic extravagance: drinking games, investments, and experimental intercourse with strangers. The havoc we wreak upon our own body makes sure no one ever suspects you to carry such primeval grief; that behind the calloused skin, guilt the size of a small child still survives. People tend to assume that a man who looks like that has experience enough to bury his childhood. But the closer I came to Highland, the heavier my steps were with the
anxiety of seeing her so sick. It was a relief to see Ramji's Ambassador in the driveway with Frederik and Duncan huddling over the trunk.

“Willyson, my dear friend,” the doctor called out and walked briskly toward me. “How splendid to have you here to see our patient. There are a few things we need to discuss now, the rest can wait. The Ukrain has failed. There is nothing we can do about that now. This is a tragedy for us all and especially for you, my dear friend. For you and your mother. There is no cure that can stop this train. All we have now is the morphine.”

“How has she been today?”

“She's a fighter. If we're lucky she'll have many good days. A few weeks, even months. You never know with this disease. My gut tells me that we'll see sooner than later what to expect. This is the situation. We still have time to plan but we shouldn't leave it until it's too late.”

“We came here to have this choice if it would come to this.”

“Good, good.” The doctor tapped a finger to his chin. “Well, there is something . . . do you know Dita van der Lingling? No? Dita was the first one to marry one of our patients. This was a long time ago. We don't really talk about it even though we sometimes find it handy. Tim Wallace died a married man. He died a Dutch citizen.”

“Of course,” I said, understanding where he was going with this. “And that's how you get around the euthanasia law?”

“Yes. I don't think we can send you to Switzerland. Duncan would never agree. I've given this a lot of thought and found a solution that suits everyone. Don't you agree, Hermann?”

I nodded my head and felt the strangeness of this all crawl over me, the grief that still was a distant shadow rather than a concrete feeling with consequence and meaning. We walked up the drive
and talked in more detail about the next steps, but then I said good-bye and entered the building. The aroma of cooking and wine was coming from the kitchen. The faint smell of autumn leaves seeped through the open window in the lounge. Helena was nowhere to be seen so I walked straight into the corridor leading to Mother's bedroom. I didn't want to be there, not tonight. I wanted to run back down to the gate, get into the car with the other men, drive around Holland and return when Mother had been healed by a miracle in the night. She would sit out on the lawn telling journalists and reporters all about the wonder that erased the evil cells, like the healing hand of Jesus, like the soothing touch of Buddha, and the living cosmos blessing the steadfast. Walking into that room was an act of duty that would only take a moment. I would pat her on the back, disappear into the corridor and find Helena. Mother would be better in the morning. Didn't Frederik say that you could never tell with this disease?

I opened the door and took a seat next to the bed where she lay sleeping. The Sphinx who had sat smoking on the balcony of Hotel Europa with a glass of red wine and the stupendous beauty of the night sky was gone. In its place was a drowned cat, the mane wet with sweat and the body emaciated, beaten by the crashing waves of the deep. I was seized by a vulnerability that seemed to run through an invisible umbilical cord from her to me. The sedative effects of the morphine were ruthless to her face, making it droop on the side she lay on, emphasizing the proximity of death. I sat there trying to get used to it, trying on her illness, feeling the weight of its smell and snoring, and didn't get up until my tremors had subsided and my body had tuned into the confined stillness of these circumstances that I knew would persist until the end. When I stopped weeping I held her to me, absorbing her mumblings, tried
to swallow them like food and keep them down, scared of my gut, as if the party had been a hoax from the start, all the pork legs, the special drinks, all the joy that dozed off into dreams that were more beautiful than waking life. Because this was life, wasn't it? Life that didn't manifest in all its magnitude until the party was over?

“Hi, Trooper,” Helena said when I walked into the lounge. She sat playing guitar, but put away the instrument and gave me a hug. “Did you go see her? Frederik says she needs rest. He's going to stay over tonight. He went with Duncan to Lowland to get his stuff.”

“I know, I met them outside.”

She got me a glass and poured me some white wine. I sat down, stood up again, took a deep breath by the window, and returned.

“I know how you feel,” she said after a while. “I was just a kid when mom died but I totally understood what was going on. I know what it's like to watch your parent get sick.”

“It's awful. To see her like that. Like she's been robbed of everything that makes her
her
.”

“I don't know what it is about the illness that makes us so scared. You just don't want to face it. You want to run.”

“But that's not an option. And then it's over, and you never quite get over it, do you?”

I told Helena that deep inside I had never believed Mother would get better. That everything would go back to normal and that we'd return home. But I didn't expect her to get so sick so soon.

“Maybe she knew for a while. Don't blame yourself. It's quite common for patients to cover up how bad it really is while they still can. But I'm really sorry, Trooper. Really. Even Frederik thought your mom had a chance.”