The Last Days of My Mother

by Sölvi Björn Sigurdsson

  “Össi?”

  “Össi, yes. I think it suits him better,” she said, explaining how it wasn’t nice to speak so ill of someone who had decided to kill himself. Therefore the Ostrich would henceforth be Össi.

  “Well, I did try to tell you that you were being pretty harsh.”

  “It’s over and done with, Trooper. We separated in good spirits.”

  Tim returned with the foie gras and wine just as Helga was about to take the stage. She gave a moving speech, the party was set, and everyone clapped for the future of Lowland. Mother and I made a toast to her birthday and Icelandic independence, while her fellow patients cheered a triple hurrah for Iceland’s Lady of the Mountain, Eva Briem Thórarinsdóttir. The doctor joined us and led the singing.

  “Come with me, Willyson,” he whispered and pulled me away before the cheering died out. He was in good humor and walked briskly across the lawn, claiming to have something to show me. “You won’t be disappointed, I tell you. This is a glorious day, a glorious day indeed. Oh, did I mention that Helga has found an excellent Icelandic bank for our donation?”

  “No!” I couldn’t help myself. It was depressing to imagine the center’s newfound fortune being spent on funding Danni Klambra’s latest fiasco.

  “You don’t approve? I understand they offer the best interest rates in the country.”

  “Right,” I said, nodding my head, unsure whether I should interfere. Inside the building the summer light crept between rooms, lighting up the colorful walls. I’d always liked the old house; there was very little reminiscent of the atmosphere I was used to finding in clinics and hospitals. The first floor was like a country home, with painted wooden furniture, bookshelves, and all sorts of upholstered sofas. This changed when we went down into the basement. We walked through a white, narrow stairwell into a fluorescent lab with steel cabinets and tables. This was where Frederik did his research, away from the outside world, growing fungi and keeping records.

  “Look!” He held a test tube filled with clear liquid. “It’s changed since this morning. Spore from Mr. Wallace. It’s just wonderful to monitor his inner organs. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a great opportunity to keep a record of the effects of Sativa and phenethylamines on cancer cells.”

  “Aren’t the drugs bad for him?”

  “I’m always surprised by how much the human body tolerates. Wallace has been generous with the Sativa and hasn’t spared the phenethylamine. I’ve told him it might reduce his time on earth but he doesn’t care. His main concern is getting through the day.”

  “So this is some sort of research into the side-effects of happiness?”

  “You could say that. Wallace has given me permission to publish my findings. Timothy truly is a treasure!”

  He put the test tube away and walked to a large room leading off the lab. Glass cabinets stood along the back and the shelves sprouted an assortment of old tools, instruments, and jars.

  “So, here we have what I wanted you to see.” He produced a little glass flask with something that looked like slimy seaweed; I thought it might be a bit of infected liver. “Your Black Beauty,” he said, handing the flask to me. “It has grown and prospered like the flowers of summer. I’m sure it’s the most magnificent Afrandarius erpexoplexis in the Northern hemisphere—it has surpassed both the Ferflexus antarticus and the Norgonakis felenferosis. I’m not sure anyone would like to have it on their face at the rate it’s growing.”

  “I’m overcome with grief.”

  “You’re joking, my good man, jolly good! I thought it would be nice for you to see it before you returned to the city. We humans are never alone, you know.” He went on to explain how we are in fact not a single organism as most people like to think, but many, millions of coexisting organisms; the human body was more like a planet than an individual being. The heart was the sun and the brain the weather system, and the stuff in between was held together by diversity, the great cohabitation of the life units that made up every person. That’s where the support from our miniscule friends, such as bacteria and fungi, really counted. “But then there are foes too, as you well know. These little terrorists are a real plague. I’ve seen many of them in my work, I’ve conquered some, surrendered to others. And so it is truly wonderful to have this new hope for Mrs. Briem.”

  We walked outside again, onto the lawn where Helena sat reading the same paperback she had been reading in Pleasure Fountain in the spring.

  “Hi there,” she said. “I was waiting for you so I could introduce your mother to Duncan. You just missed him.”

  “Really, Mr. Milan Kundera himself?”

  “He does look a bit like him. But he’s gone back to Highland for a nap. He needs a lot of sleep these days, poor Duncan.”

  “Eva is getting stoned anyway with Tim somewhere out there. She’s in high spirits. Frederik thinks she might recover.”

  “That’s great news.”

  “I’m not sure how this’ll all end—the way she’s going she’ll end up in a reggae band with Tim before fall.”

  She laughed and said that this really was some trip, and how lovely it was of me to do this for my mother.

  “Don’t we have to try and avoid messing it up for those closest to us?”

  “Perhaps. I’ll get back to you on it next time.”

  We said good-bye and I went to fetch Mother while Ramji got ready to drive us back to the city.

  “Why would you want to leave so early, Trooper? I just don’t get it. Tim and I have decided to go clubbing together soon.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “You’re welcome to come with us, Trooper, if you think you have the stamina and stomach for it.”

  “Which I’m not sure I do, Eva.”

  Chapter 12

  It was just past noon when we sailed into town. Mother’s veins were great rivers of happiness and it was only a matter of deciding what course they should take. Finally, she announced that the great time had come: Shopping Day. She had decided that the two of us should celebrate the miracle of Ukrain by finding a mall.

  The decision didn’t come as a surprise—we’d wandered into shops almost every day since we arrived in Amsterdam, buying earrings, scarves, handbags, gold-plated teaspoons with insignia, and little, carved wooden cups. I had been expecting this, but the determination in her voice and the intensity of emotion rattled me. Until now our casual shopping had been nothing more than an easy warm-up exercise, a local tournament in small sales compared to the Olympic credit card swiping we had in store. Each day had its special meaning—we’d already had Museum Day, Pub Day, Canal Day, and other similar days that differed from the days with visits to museums, pubs, and canals by being solely and solemnly devoted to museums, pubs, and canals—but Shopping Day, according to Mother’s detailed journal, had not yet come to pass. It was time.

  I knew how futile it was to point to all the merchandise building up in her hotel suite. Little, random bargains were ineffective in appeasing the landslide of emotions coursing through Mother’s blood. If we were to have a Shopping Day we had to devote at least five hours in a mall to it, then head for Rembrandtplein to get good and drunk before taking on the charming little boutiques in the old town.

  “I would expect that it’s a great experience to go to a mall here. The Dutch really know their business,” she said, as if the highest goal of every object was to get into a shopping bag. She had been a shopaholic ever since I could remember, especially when it came to sales. Her principles of prudence were connected to her deeply contemplative insight into Western consumerism, the river of impoverishment in which modern marketing wanted to drown people by convincing them that designer goods were superior to others. In Mother’s mind, people who frequented specialty shops were devoid of any instinct of self-preservation. Or maybe it was en vogue these days to throw your wallet straight on the bonfire? Was that the smartest fuel these days? Was that what they wanted, these affected, thin men on all those ridiculous lifestyle shows?r />
  Mother felt that one of the best virtues was to have a good eye for a bargain. She didn’t mind if others, especially he-males, wanted to be a bit extravagant, pull out a Kruger ’85 for instance and call for a taxi to bring them caviar. But there was a completely different approach in the domestic bookkeeping on Spítala Street. There, everything was about sorting credit card receipts from liquidations, bargain weekends at the flea market, and 2-for-1 trips to Tiger. Due to the incredible range of products available in these places, Mother could easily convince herself that she needed the most arbitrary things, like an electric can opener (Tiger: 600 krónur), a freestanding partition wall with erotic carvings (flea market: 24,000 krónur), and woolen upholstery for a car (neither place, nor price of purchase disclosed). All she needed was the car. She said I would probably thank her later: it would be nice to have extra upholstery when it got colder, it was something anyone who’d ever had a car knew, and she really thought it was quite extraordinary to have a grown man in the house and still have to go everywhere in taxcabs. I had adamantly refused to drive her around on her bargain hunts, telling her that it was the toxoplasmosis talking.

  Toxoplasmosis was a disease that had frightened Mother when she first heard about it. I read her an article from a magazine shortly after I got back from Ireland. The article recounted the story of Alda Gudnadóttir, a respectable housewife who had taken diligent care of hearth and home for decades, when she suddenly became obsessed with buying consumer goods. She wanted new furniture, a new car, new clothes, even a new man, and mingled with this craving for new stuff was the pleasure she found in playing on the strings of economy. Then one day, Alda had to live with her decision of firing the help after investing in industrial cleaning products for one and a half million krónur. She had to admit to having a problem. She went to the doctor and guess what: she was suffering from toxoplasma infection!

  The disease was due to a little parasite that infected the brain, causing middle-aged women to develop Crazy Cat Lady Syndrome and turn into turbulent shopaholics. Other symptoms were increased risk-taking, impulsiveness, and other effects reminiscent of having had a drink or two. Alda was treated with antibiotics and a mild sedative that brought her back to the planes of tranquility and reason. Mother, however, who, of course, suffered from this very illness as I suspected, was depressed over the news for three days until the wonderful and obvious dawned on her: She wasn’t the one making unreasonable decisions. It was the parasite.

  In a flash, Mother saw her financial fiascos in new light. She admitted that an overdraft of three million was quite steep, and she was grateful to me for getting her out of that pit, but when all was said and done I was in fact the one to blame for her supermarket weakness. Wasn’t it I who brought Ignatius into the home all those years ago? Left him there with her when I took off and had fun with spray cans abroad? Her doctor was sure the infection came from the cat.

  I plead guilty as charged, of course. The fact of the matter was that Mother was not at all displeased with her toxoplasmosis; she just wanted it to be crystal clear who was to blame when she returned from a trip into town with a seventy-thousand krónur, 100% silk pashmina. The infection was a bonus. In addition to being slightly tipsy, just at heart—was there anything as good? She’d never heard anything as absurd as getting treatment and laughed at Alda Gudnadóttir. Instead, Mother kept on purchasing: corporate staplers, necklaces, wine racks, little voodoo dolls, a tea table. To throw something away was as bad a missing out on a good bargain.

  No sooner had we said good-bye to Ramji and walked into the mall, an overwhelming perfumery a few miles out of the city center, than I was saddled with a golden handbag adorned with fake pearls. Mother refused to take a bag, finding the suggestion ludicrous—putting a bag into a bag—and since she was already carrying her trusted, old purse, I was doomed to carry the new one. It didn’t take long to fill it with all sorts of purchases, such as a sixteen-pound lead mobile she intended to hang from the ceiling above her bed. I tried to argue, suggesting it would upend the Feng Shui of the room. But she was no greenhorn. She knew her stuff when it came to interior design and organization. I handed over my credit card and stuffed the damn mobile into the bag.

  After a rough hour of rambling aimlessly from one shop to another, I finally had the brains to withdraw 500 euros from an ATM and set Mother loose. I found an arcade, where I joined a snooker tournament with three young Vietnamese guys drinking Brazilian beer with cockroaches in the bottle. I was quite inebriated when a text came from Mother: “Am in Bar Grill Beer.” I called her back but the conversation drowned in the noise of Bar Grill Beer, so I left my new friends to look for an information desk to point me in the direction of the bar. At the information desk I was told that there was no place in the complex with that name. There was, however, a place that might fit the description and sold both beer and grilled food—Crocodile Punch, which was on the first floor of the main building. When I finally found it all the effects of the Brazilian beer had worn off and a nasty hangover was starting to choke me. Mother, on the other hand, was well into her third margarita and sat smiling from ear to ear with a three-and-a-half-foot orange stuffed elephant next to her.

  “What is that?” I asked pointing to the monstrosity.

  “This? Don’t you know? This just happens to be the Dutch mascot, Trooper. When I saw it I immediately thought: My super Trooper should not leave the Netherlands without one of these. And now you have one—I’m giving you this elephant.”

  “And what am I supposed to do with it?”

  “You don’t have to do anything with it—god, no, that’s not what I mean. No, it’s just for you to keep. A remembrance of our trip.”

  I had no qualms about getting lit out of my mind at Crocodile Punch. It was almost five when we finally got up and escaped outside to find Ramji.

  “I say screw Rembrandtplein and head straight for the hotel,” I said. “Hit the bong before we go out tonight.”

  “Trooper, darling, just because we got that stick from Tim this morning doesn’t mean that today is Smoking Day. Anyway, we still have the shops downtown to visit. It’s simply remarkable how quickly you become completely legless.”

  “I’m not legless, just a bit drrrrunk.”

  “Mhm. I should have known, you being a Willyson.”

  “I just think we should skip those stores downtown.”

  “No, not before I get my Buddha, it’s vital that I find him today. I’m really starting to miss having my Buddha with me. That was your mistake, Hermann, leaving him behind in Iceland.”

  “Where would I have put it?”

  “You could have made room. Just like you made room for your laptop.”

  “Eva, I need my laptop. How do you think I . . .”

  “And I need my Buddha. You have your friends I have my Buddha. Ramji, Rembrandtplein, bitte!”

  Mother’s polytheism had increased in the past few years. She believed in Christ, Buddha, Muhammad Ali, Zinedine Zidane, a German gym teacher whose name she had forgotten, Berthold Brecht, and Liza Minelli. Aside from Liza, women did not easily join the ranks of the holy men, even though it was in other ways designed to honor equality and political correctness with regard to race, ethnicity, and geography. Mother loved the tangible, and so iconography seemed the most direct path to the heart of faith. She didn’t seek ultimate answers, but solace, and when it came to consolation no one kicked in as well as Buddha. And she preferred a big Buddha, with a beautiful, round belly.

  “Don’t you think they’re too big?” I asked when we had stopped in a little Eastern shop with icons and figurines, among which were Buddha statues that dwarfed my orange elephant.

  “Oh, I’m not going to offend the great Buddha by asking if they have smaller ones.”

  I stood for a while comparing two statues. The golden one had a warm smile and radiated heroic cosmic energy, while the green Buddha had a sympathetic air that seemed to saturate the room with all-encompassing wisdom and tranquility.
The former was a guide for the Red District, while the other would bring Mother numerous nights of sound sleep.

  “I just don’t know,” I said. “It’s party or peace.”

  “I’ll take both,” she replied and named the golden one Ying and the green one Yang. Ying was play and party; Yang was peace and serenity. Life was a pendulum. “What fortune, Trooper, to have such beautiful Buddhas.”

  The three of us took Mother by the arm and led her out of the store. I was sober again.

  “Drinks on me!” she shouted and skipped into the next bar. “You have to spot me a fifty. We’re doing this properly now—a pint and a chaser! Jenever is a great drink, but only if it’s a double.”

  We sat for a couple of hours drinking. Life is a pendulum, I was either drunk or hung over, depending on whether I was inhaling or exhaling. Mother laughed at me, but took care not to overstep the line as we had yet to make it back to the hotel. Ramji had headed off to Lowland, dropping off my elephant and the other goods from the mall at our hotel. We still had the task of getting the two Buddhas back.

  In the end I decided enough was enough and called a taxi. The driver was taken aback when he saw us waiting at the corner outside the bar. He added something to the meter and then we drove off with Party Buddha strapped into the passenger seat at the front, and Peace Buddha nestled between Mother and I in the back. He charged us for four passengers.

  Chapter 13

  And so the summer passed. June disappeared and then July, each week flying by without any disturbance in the balance of joy and sorrow. The mundane seemed to rule both my body and soul, not unlike a cold, all-consuming and immune to all cures except coffee and a pint once in a while. There was a certain calmness to everything that was very far removed from our first days in the city, a gentle rhythm that gave the waking world a routine-like hue. Every now and then a bottle of jenever would venture out of its cabinet and ask us to unite with the wonders of the world, but these moments were few and far between. Our conscious states dealt ever better with the undistorted perception of things, where everything has its place and water makes a pit stop in a glass before it travels through the body. Death was a distant neighbor who might not be meeting us down the garden path for some time. Mother left her lifesaver untouched for days on end and turned to tea drinking—green tea, rooibos tea, and chai, which she found very inspiring for yoga sessions. In this way she always had the inner strength needed for surprise outings with Timothy, who came into town every so often and took her on cannabis trips to the city’s coffee shops. She made sure to tell me that even though Tim was lovely, and in some ways closer to her in character than I was, the coffee shop trips could not hold a candle to the fun we had together. She worried that I was hurt by her friendship with Tim. I took long, relieved walks and sank deep into the abyss of my own mind, my lungs steeped with more oxygen than they had enjoyed in months. On the occasions Mother appeared in my room, bored out of her mind, I would happily partake in turning life on its head at the spur of the moment, hop on a train down south to admire a royal tulip field, or order an excursion to a diamond factory. I adopted selflessness beyond all needs and inclinations.