On the Bright Side

by Hendrik Groen

  ‘That way they’ll never find out where my money went,’ he said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘And Jan knows about it.’

  I don’t think it’s against the law to give your money away and if this is how Evert chooses to go about it, that’s certainly up to him. Next week I’ll open an Old-But-Not-Dead account at the bank, into which I’ll deposit our advance-inheritance from Evert.

  Tuesday, 9 June

  Mrs Smit was convinced someone had stolen her false teeth.

  ‘But what would someone want with your teeth?’ Sister Herwegen asked for the third time.

  ‘Well – to put them in,’ Mr Bakker said, although it was none of his business.

  ‘Put them in?’

  ‘Into their mouth, of course. Where else would you put a set of teeth – up your arse?’

  ‘I can see that Mr Bakker is in fine fettle again,’ said the nurse.

  The teeth were found shortly thereafter in the cutlery drawer.

  Sister Herwegen is a very nice woman. She is nearing retirement age and doesn’t let herself be pushed into making the ‘targets’ imposed on the staff of late. So many minutes to help someone shower, so many for the tea rounds and however many to hoist an old biddy into her support hose. No room in the schedule for a nice little chat. Herwegen doesn’t take any notice of all the directives from above. If she wants to stop for a little chat, then she’ll stop for a little chat. She’s the last of the old guard; she knows Stelwagen can’t be bothered to tell her off.

  Herwegen told us a great story, a classic. Forty years ago she worked in a mental institution, on a ward for the aged. They still had dormitories back then. At night the false teeth were kept in glasses lined up on a shelf. One of the old women wore someone else’s teeth for the entire day once. When the victim had looked a bit alarmed when they were being put in, the nurse simply jammed them in more firmly.

  ‘They did think her speech sounded a bit funny that day,’ said Herwegen.

  The shrewd reader may remark that someone else should then have had the wrong set of teeth in too, but no. One of the women happened to be ill, and not wearing her teeth that day.

  It wasn’t until the evening that the nurses found that the teeth wouldn’t come out. The victim made high-pitched squealing noises as one of them tried pulling them out with a pair of pliers. After that they’d had the teeth engraved with the owners’ names.

  ‘Yes, those were the days, Mr Groen,’ said Sister Herwegen with a smile.

  ‘You are a treasure,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you, so are you.’

  Wednesday, 10 June

  The day after tomorrow is slated to be very hot, so that will be a good time for Ria, Antoine and me to apply ourselves seriously to our great Italian ice cream test. Evert asked if he could join us, and of course he can.

  Yesterday was a lovely day too, as a matter of fact. Geert and I went for a long scooter ride. Geert was lucky I had come along, because his battery died towards the end. Sputter, sputter, stop. We had to ask a shopkeeper for a length of rope and then I towed him the last few kilometres. People laughed to see us go, and the children waved at us. Waving children warm the cockles of my heart.

  Eugenie Lacroix, the fifth Residents’ Committee member, is French by birth. She is affronted by the fact that the Netherlands has issued a coin commemorating the battle of Waterloo.

  ‘That’s a sensitive subject, for us.’

  ‘But there’s a hat on one side of the coin, and the other side shows our King,’ I protested. ‘Who gets angry about a hat?’

  ‘It’s the hat of Prince William of Orange, who defeated our Napoleon.’

  ‘That was two hundred years ago, my love,’ Evert interrupted. ‘High time you swallow that turd once and for all.’

  France’s President Hollande, reacting to a Belgian Waterloo coin, said: ‘Circulating a coin that has negative connotations for a segment of the European population is offensive. Especially in the context of the Eurozone governments’ push to strengthen unity and cooperation in the fiscal union.’ Waterloo was 200 years ago! How petty can you get?

  It turns out that Napoleon can claim a small posthumous victory after all: in order not to hurt France’s feelings, the Belgians have melted down all 180,000 coins depicting the Waterloo monument. The greatest problem facing European unity is chronic narrow-minded chauvinism. So says H. Groen, your old-age home correspondent.

  Thursday, 11 June

  More French politics: French Prime Minister Valls was at the Champions League final in Berlin to cheer on Barcelona. Yes, that is indeed a Spanish team. He flew there on a government jet and his little escapade cost the French some €14,000. Many French citizens are up in arms about it. The statesmen of this world let no opportunity go by, it seems, to bring down the wrath of the common people upon themselves. One of those Furious Frogs was MEP Rachida Dati, who not so long ago charged €6,000 worth of scarves and perfume to her government expense account.

  That’s one good thing about our home: everyone is the same, everyone is equally rich (or equally poor, depending on how you look at it) and everyone is equally powerless. The one exception is the director. This place is her modest little empire, even if she, in her demure business suits, does not yet possess the dazzling allure of a sun-queen.

  The yo-yo weather is still with us: 15 degrees the day before yesterday, tomorrow it will be 30 degrees and Monday it’s back to 15 degrees. Early tomorrow morning the awnings will be lowered and most of the curtains closed in order to keep out the heat. There are still signs of life as people come down for a cup of coffee, but after lunch the corridors and lounge are deserted. All the inmates are nodding off in their favourite armchair in their own rooms. One rests her weary head on a jigsaw puzzle; the other drops off in front of the telly, a third conks out staring into space. There’s no sign of the staff. The home is drained of every last drop of energy. I always make a concerted attempt to resist it. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

  Friday, 12 June

  ‘James Last is dead,’ Leonie said.

  ‘About time, too,’ Evert replied.

  Leonie patted him gently on the head. ‘Didn’t you like his music, you old curmudgeon?’

  Evert gets flustered by loving gestures, and when he tried to answer, all that came out was a kind of croak. Then he launched into a lengthy coughing fit.

  ‘Frog in my throat,’ he excused himself.

  ‘I’ll kiss it,’ Leonie offered, and promptly planted a kiss smack on his lips. ‘Oooh, the frog has turned into a handsome, one-legged old prince!’ she cried.

  I almost died laughing, Evert, turning red, chuckled along sheepishly, and Leonie stood there beaming. For one split second we were in touch with perfect happiness.

  Saturday, 13 June

  It’s all over the newspapers and the telly: the economic crisis is over. The final proof is the fact that sales of caravans are back up. I’ve heard the first politician say, ‘After the bitter times, here come the sweet.’ We may in all good conscience partake of an extra biscuit with our tea. It’s just a shame that the staff who were laid off are never coming back, at least not in my lifetime. Somehow I suspect that they’ll first boost the salaries of the management and board, to keep them in line with market-level compensation.

  The ice cream salon ‘Ice Cold Best’ boasts twenty-eight different flavours. And I’m already so bad at decision-making! After our first visit, we had decided on the following game plan: we’ll work down the list of flavours from top left to bottom right. Since there were four of us yesterday (Ria, Antoine, Evert and I), we sampled the first four flavours on the top row. Feeling the pressure of fifteen customers behind us, we made a silly mistake: we ordered four times four scoops instead of two. The ice cream chef, poker-faced, doled out four scoops into each cup. The top scoop rolled off the top each time. Settling up, I pretended not to be aghast at the cost. Then we ate ice cream until we thought we’d burst. Scrumptious. Since it was 30 degrees out, we slur
ped, rather than ate, the last spoonfuls. But we discovered an error in our game plan of sampling every flavour in seven visits. For the trays were set out in a different order than on our first visit.

  This time we did write down the flavours we tried – melon, pistachio, cookie and wild berry – but it means that on our next visits we’ll have to pore over an ever-growing list of eliminated flavours. I don’t know if the other patrons will be amenable to the delay. We took a taxi there and back, and attracted a certain amount of attention: four doddering oldsters going for ice cream by taxicab. There was plenty of time to gape at us, since loading and unloading so many creaky limbs can take a good ten minutes. We told the cabdriver to run the meter until we were all out. Evert insisted on paying both ways. I know why, but Ria and Antoine objected.

  ‘I’ve won the jackpot in the State Lottery, and that money has to be spent. You can pay me back by pushing me to my room when we get home, Antoine, then we’ll be quits,’ Evert said with a big grin. Antoine, frowning, gave a reluctant nod.

  Sunday, 14 June

  Sometimes I am overcome with sadness when I look at my friend Evert and think that within a few months he’ll no longer be here. Of course anyone who is over eighty could kick the bucket at any time, but there’s a big difference between the chance of dying and the certainty of dying. A chance isn’t something to worry much about, but certain death is impossible to ignore. It gives you an entirely new perspective.

  A steely stoicism has taken hold of Evert. He seems to be enjoying life more intensely than ever before. But who knows what it’s like for him when he lies awake in bed at night? I went over there for a game of chess and spotted a newspaper cutting on the dresser. It was about the most straightforward euthanasia method that exists: simply to stop eating or drinking. Evert saw me reading it.

  ‘Hendrik, do me a favour and set out the chess pieces instead of delving into my secret time-out tactics, won’t you?’

  I muttered, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I am at peace with it, Henk, so don’t bugger it up, will you? Be a man.’

  ‘Yes, easy for you to say once you’re gone,’ I said.

  ‘See, that’s the kind of retort I like to hear from my old chum.’

  I couldn’t resist looking up the article in question later. It seems that more and more old people who are done with life are deciding to just stop eating and drinking. It spares them the trouble of trying to arrange a proper euthanasia through the offices of uncooperative physicians. If you’re healthy, starving isn’t the most pleasant kind of death, but if you’re old and sick, stopping your intake of food and drink is just a little nudge off the edge of the cliff.

  Monday, 15 June

  Sunday afternoon; no shopping to be done, and not very nice weather.

  ‘It’s been a while since we’ve been to visit my dad …’

  ‘We went to see him three weeks ago, didn’t we?’

  ‘We’re not around next week, on Father’s Day, so I think I should go and see him today. Coming?’

  ‘Must I?’

  ‘Oh, come on, we won’t stay long.’

  That’s the conversation I imagine people having before visiting their old parents in a home for the aged. I don’t even blame them. Old dads and mums gratefully exploit the visit to discuss a litany of physical and mental ailments with their kids. After a whole week of being surrounded by fellow inmates focused on their own aches and pains, it’s nice to have a willing ear all to yourself for once. Although if it’s sympathy you want, you may have to look elsewhere.

  ‘Just try it for a week, why can’t you? If it’s not for you, I’ll go back to talking to you on the phone. But I can’t ring you every day, I simply haven’t got the time.’ It was Mr Helder’s son who said this. I couldn’t help overhearing their conversation; they had sat down at my table because there was nowhere else to sit on a crowded Sunday.

  ‘Yes, but what am I supposed to say to a complete stranger?’

  ‘Well, the same things you would tell me.’

  ‘But you’re my son, that’s different.’

  The discussion was about the Hello! Service. For the price of €65 a month, an organization based in the Achterhoek region will provide a care worker to talk on the telephone to an aged parent for five minutes a day, or half an hour per week, if the son or daughter is unavailable. Children outsourcing filial love by arranging for a phone call from a stranger, how sad!

  ‘You can decide for yourself what to talk about,’ Mr Helder’s son explained.

  I couldn’t stand having to hear any more of this. ‘I’d cut him out of my will immediately if I were you,’ I advised Helder. The son glared at me. I refused to avert my gaze.

  Tuesday, 16 June

  ‘It’s time for another restaurant visit,’ Evert said this morning, ‘seeing that I’m a bit pressed for time, as surely you must understand.’

  I did understand, and I promised to arrange something soon. I then asked Evert when he was planning to inform the rest of the Old-But-Not-Dead about his illness. He told me that after giving it some more thought, he had decided to put it off a bit longer.

  ‘So as not to spoil the mood. Not everyone will be able to handle it as well as you, Henk.’

  I took it as quite the compliment.

  Wednesday, 17 June

  Dr P, the stage name of Heinz Herman Polder, the singing poet, viewed old age as a punishment. He wouldn’t have minded if he’d kicked the bucket by the age of eighty. He would have been spared not only the physical discomforts, but the world’s sorry decline as well. When on the occasion of Dr P’s death a few days ago I mentioned this at the coffee table, almost everyone there disagreed with him completely. The only one I saw nodding almost imperceptibly was Edward. Dr P immediately plummeted in the popularity stakes.

  ‘Well, he lived to ninety-five, so he had fifteen years of tough luck,’ was Mrs Bregman’s conclusion.

  To burnish his dented image somewhat, I quoted another thing I’d read in the newspaper about him. Dr P considered the time he’d lived as a ‘man of means’ in colonial Indonesia his ‘Golden Age’. ‘I didn’t have to do any number of annoying tasks because there were people who were paid to perform those services for me with a cheerful demeanour.’

  ‘Which is not unlike living in our care home,’ I added.

  I’m afraid that confused my fellow inmates a bit. Were they now to view their own lives in here as their Golden Age? And what was the Golden Age again, was it the one they’d learned about in school?

  Mrs Hoensbroek saved face by changing the subject to that poor crooner Albert West. The second famous Dutchman to die this week. And how he died!

  ‘He was calmly riding along on his tricycle, because there was something wrong with him, I don’t know exactly what; and then another cyclist fell on top of him. Racing bike and all. And then Albert landed on his head. Dead. Stone cold.’

  Everyone was shocked. The pressing question was: what had caused that cyclist to crash into him? Some people are better at digesting disaster if the blame can be pinned on someone.

  ‘Now there’s no closure,’ Mrs Hoensbroek complained.

  Then the conversation took a sharp turn: to a flood in Tbilisi, that had led to all the zoo animals escaping. Photos of a hippopotamus waddling through the streets and a bear snuffling about on a balcony had made a deep impression.

  ‘There’s also a couple of lions still missing,’ Mr Verlaat said.

  ‘How far is Tbilisi from here anyway? Can you get there on foot?’ Mrs Schaap asked somewhat anxiously.

  Thursday, 18 June

  The Residents’ Committee has received a letter from Mrs Stelwagen.

  Our director is granting us permission for an art exhibition in August to show the work of one or more of the residents. Just as an experiment, and subject to further consideration.

  Our Eugenie was beaming. She is the ‘one or more of the residents,’ and the committee member who put this proposal on the agenda. It seems she had already
worked out a detailed plan for the exhibition, and has submitted it by return post, that is to say by her own hand, to the director’s office. It lists exactly where she wants to hang or place each piece of art.

  ‘For I am a multimedia artist, I should tell you,’ Eugenie told us over coffee.

  ‘Puts on airs, that one, in that ridiculous garish dress,’ I heard Mrs Slothouwer say to the lady seated next to her. Slothouwer has harboured a seething grudge against Eugenie Lacroix since the moment she first walked in. Slothouwer despises everyone, but she despises eccentric people even more. The one she despises most is Evert, but she doesn’t dare say anything to him, because he’ll only accidentally spill his vanilla pudding and strawberry sauce all over her trouser suit again. Last year that exploit caused Evert to make several friends for life.

  As for the request for a monthly high tea, the director was able to inform us that the board was, in principle, sympathetic but that it necessitated further investigation, just to make sure it did not contravene any statutory labour laws. There she goes again, forever hedging her bets! If it turns out that there are indeed grave dangers lurking in the concept of a high tea, she has an elegant way to wriggle out of it. The greatest risk, actually, would reside in residents with Parkinson’s pouring their own tea. You’d have to have plenty of burn ointment on hand. But pouring the tea and coffee is already a job reserved for the staff, and will remain so even if there is a ‘high’ in front of the ‘tea’.

  It could, of course, turn into a bit of a shambles, all those shaky oldies juggling scones, pastries and strawberries and cream, but crumbs or clods of whipped cream strewn about everywhere should only add to the fun. A previous request by the Old-But-Not-Dead for permission to use the kitchen was thwarted by the labour laws. Residents are not permitted in areas with hazardous machinery, kitchens and the like. So we are proposing that preparations for the high tea will take place in a corner of the conversation lounge. Let’s just hope that the whipped cream dispenser doesn’t fall under the ‘hazardous machinery’ category.