When I last visited Grietje in the locked wing, I thought for a second the apparition I saw sitting there was a very old clown. Looking more closely, I realized it was one of the residents, in the process of putting on make-up. Various tubes and compacts were spread out in front of her on the table. Admiring herself in a little mirror, she decided to pile on a little more lipstick. When I next saw her, she had started painting her nails, or rather her fingers, with an unsteady hand. A nurse walked in and saw her doing it.
‘Mrs De Beer, where did you get that make-up!?’ she asked in alarm. Mrs De Beer had no idea, but she did grow stroppy when the nurse took away her toys. A surprisingly distinct series of four-letter words fell from her painted red lips. The sister went for reinforcements to help her wash the stuff off, since De Beer was putting up quite a struggle. In the end they hustled her off to her room.
All this time Grietje had been looking on with interest, every so often giving the victim an encouraging smile. In the corridor, as I was leaving, I heard Mrs De Beer bawling her eyes out.
Thursday, 3 September
Two ladies who live on my corridor have invited me to go rollator-dancing at the local community centre. They saw an announcement in the local free paper and they thought it would be nice to have a man accompany them. I broke into a sweat. I had no time to think of an adequate excuse. I could hardly say that next Tuesday I’d be coming down with a migraine. Playing for time was the only thing I could think of.
‘Yes, that sounds fun,’ I said gutlessly, ‘but when is it exactly?’
When they informed me of the date and time, I said I would first have to consult my diary. Now I have until tomorrow to think of a proper excuse. I’m worried they’ll just invite me again the next time. I shouldn’t have said it sounded like fun. It sounds hor-ri-fic to me. I don’t like to dance and I don’t like rollators. To be perfectly honest, rollator-dancing strikes me as worse than waterboarding.
Geert, Evert and I are taking advantage of the last nice sunny days to take the old mobile scooter out for a spin. Ever since his scooter debut for the Big Sail, we’ve been able to persuade Evert to come along on his leased motorized steed. He does have qualms beforehand every time, but once we’re on our way, he is happy as a clam. We try to avoid the traffic as best we can; motorbikes in particular make us nervous.
In Het Twiske, the large nature park on the outskirts of Amsterdam, it is quiet and beautiful during the week. Our little caravan glides almost soundlessly over splendidly asphalted bicycle paths (off-limits to motorcycles) through lovely and even somewhat untamed nature. The sole danger is a potential collision with an oblivious rabbit, because the park is teeming with them. We once tried counting them, but stopped when we got to 100. We drive around for an hour and a half, stopping halfway for a nice cup of coffee at an outdoor café overlooking the water. Once home again, we treat ourselves to a nip of cognac. Happy days.
Friday, 4 September
The picture of the dead Syrian toddler washed up on a Turkish beach has shocked me, and many of the other residents, deeply. The horrifying outside world has come hurtling with singular force into our safe little world. Some had tears in their eyes at the sight of the lonely little fellow lying there almost as if he was peacefully sleeping. Drowned innocence.
By nightfall we’ve forgotten the refugees’ tragic plight and are tearing our hair out about the staggeringly weak Dutch team that’s lost to Iceland! But in bed I saw the dead toddler again. His little shoes. His little face in the sand.
Tomorrow, on the occasion of my eighty-sixth birthday, I am taking the Old-But-Not-Dead Club to a new pancake restaurant not far from here. I know that most of them will be pleased with my choice. I have ascertained that wine and beer are served along with the pancakes.
The ladies of the rollator-dance accosted me at coffee time: was I going to join them?
‘I’m so sorry, but my doctor forbids it. I asked her about it, and she doesn’t think it’s advisable for my knees. Both meniscuses are in shreds, practically.’
That ‘in shreds’ made a deep impression. My rejected dancing partners didn’t want to have my creaky knees on their conscience, in case these succumbed while I was dancing, sending me crashing to the floor.
Saturday, 5 September
‘Here you are, my dear chum, a little something for you.’
Evert arrived at 9 a.m., bearing a cake and an envelope containing €2,000.
‘The last two thousand, Henk,’ he said. ‘For you and the rest of the Club. Use it to do something fun.’
He did ask that we hold off spending it all at once, because if he should live longer than expected, he might need to ask for a couple of hundred back. I immediately pressed him to take back half.
‘Just joking, I’ve kept some for myself.’
Evert has everything arranged now with his son Jan: money, coffin, funeral, cemetery. His room has been tidied, the junk disposed of, and some of the items have a sticker underneath with the name of the future owner.
‘I am ready for the Grim Reaper. Nothing to worry about any more.’
I am about to go downstairs for coffee. Armed with Evert’s cake, and two other cakes I bought yesterday. Happy Birthday to me!
Sunday, 6 September
Yesterday at 5 p.m. the Old-But-Not-Dead Club boarded the minibus with our two chauffeurs, Stef and Edwin, for my birthday dinner at Restaurant Stroop. Stroop is a hip pancake joint housed in a former football canteen. And environmentally correct besides: the bacon in the bacon pancakes was still a pig rolling in the mud in the field next door until the very last moment. They also offer salads or fish for the man or woman who doesn’t like pancakes. Delicious home-brewed beer, a nice little wine, a tasty dessert. In short: excellent. There was one problem, however: a steep uphill climb to the front door. Edwin and Stef had to work hard for their pancakes: there was no lift, so they had to push us all up to the first floor. And on the way out, they had to prevent the rollators and wheelchairs from hurtling downhill and landing in the pigsty.
I was showered with gifts, and Graeme and Ria made speeches. I don’t usually like being the centre of attention, but I have to be honest: it was a very nice birthday. And I tried the first Japanese pancake I’ve ever had in my life. An experience I wouldn’t have wanted to miss.
And the bill was reasonable: €300 for the ten of us.
To put that cost into some perspective: according to the newspaper, when last week China’s stock exchange crashed, along with other world markets, $5,000,000,000,000 evaporated into thin air in the space of two to three days. Gone. Down the tubes. In euros that’s 4.4 trillion. Newspapers tend to give the amounts in dollars first, and then convert it into euros for us. Show some consideration for old people, please, and convert those euros into guilders as well. In this case, rounded up, that would be 10 trillion guilders. Now there’s a number we can sink our teeth into, to give us a clearer sense of those stock market losses.
Monday, 7 September
Mrs Langeveld has been caught stealing a spoon. As she made her way back to the lift after dinner, a nurse asked if she could just have a peek into her basket. Well, no, Langeveld would rather she didn’t. The head of housekeeping was called in, and hey presto, she unearthed a spoon from the rollator basket. Mrs Langeveld was asked if she would be so kind as to accompany her to the office. Mr Dickhout later reported that a home inspection turned up sixty-five dining-room spoons and forks in Langeveld’s room. Dickhout, eavesdropping outside her door, heard the attendants exclaiming loudly in surprise upon finding a drawer bursting with cutlery.
I suspect the disappearance of so many spoons and forks had been noticed, and the staff was ordered to do some detective work.
‘Men are hunters. Women are gatherers,’ Mr Dickhout said after making Mrs Langeveld’s shameful heist public.
The pressing unresolved question was: what would anyone want with sixty-five spoons and forks? I feel sorry for Langeveld.
Others think the polic
e should be called in.
We thought it couldn’t get any worse, but no: the Dutch team has lost 3–0 to Turkey! A small but hardened core of football fans skipped dinner last night to watch the Netherlands vs. Turkey match. When it was over we were not only hungry but also down in the dumps. Evert swore he’d have managed it better in his wheelchair than those spoilt, tattooed football millionaires. He was furious.
‘The Turkish people have been having a hard time recently. They could use something to smile about. Don’t you agree, Evert?’ I said. Evert suggested that I shut my trap.
It’s nice for our Turkish cleaner, and of course for Mr Okcegulcik, who out of sympathy for the rest of us kept themselves from outwardly rejoicing at the Turkish victory.
Tuesday, 8 September
Three ladies were seated at a table behind me, their rollators neatly lined up in a row. One of the ladies asked me what day it was. I said, ‘Monday. Monday 7 September.’
‘It’s Monday 7 September,’ she told the lady sitting next to her in a loud voice.
‘It’s Monday 7 September,’ that lady told her neighbour in an even louder voice.
‘It’s Monday 7 September,’ this third lady said to me. I confirmed that it was indeed Monday 7 September.
Fifteen minutes later another lady sat down at their table.
‘I thought you went to visit your husband on Tuesdays,’ said lady number 1.
‘Yes, I always visit my husband on Tuesdays. But today’s Monday.’
‘Is today Monday? Let me ask.’
‘Is today Monday? Or did I already ask you?’ lady number 1 asked me.
‘Not to worry,’ I said. ‘And it is indeed Monday. Monday 7 September.’
You just have to have a little patience sometimes.
Writing in my diary seems to take more effort these days. I fear that I may be about to get writer’s block. (Personally, books about writers who have writer’s block tend to give me acute reader’s block.) I must make myself soldier on, because I have promised myself to carry on until 31 December. In the back of my mind the wonderful (but unattainable) directive from Kafka: ‘A book must be the axe for the frozen sea.’
What worries me more than the writing getting harder is the fact that reading is no longer as easy for me either. I keep having to go back to the beginning of the page because I don’t remember what I’ve just read, either because I was distracted by something, or, worse, nodded off for a second. And it isn’t usually the book’s fault.
Wednesday, 9 September
In the middle of a game of chess, or rather a round of blundering, Evert suddenly said, ‘the whole concept of heaven seems unlikely to me.’
‘Huh?’
‘I just hope to God that heaven doesn’t exist. Every heaven turns into a hell in the long run. You could very well end up sitting next to Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas” into your ear for all eternity.’
I asked him who he would like to sit next to then. Evert took his time thinking it over.
‘I have no idea. I’d rather have a heaven all to myself, somewhere where I could have friends over. I’d frequently invite you over for a game of chess, a brandy and good chatter. About heaven, for instance.’
I said I was quite convinced that there is no hereafter, and that I, too, could foresee big problems if heaven did actually exist.
‘How do you keep everybody happy if, for example, Ajax is playing Feyenoord?’
‘And whose job is it to take the rubbish out?’ Evert wondered; yet another dilemma. But the ones we’re most worried for are the terrorists in their explosive vests, who are bound to realize soon enough that in eternity, seventy virgins won’t last for ever.
Evert and I pop in to see each other every day unannounced. Sometimes we’ll bump into each other in the corridor, on our way to the other one’s flat.
‘Hey, fancy meeting you here!’
Mrs De Grave has cleaned out her closet to find clothes for the refugees.
‘I like the idea of a poor Syrian woman walking round in my woollen suit,’ she said with satisfaction.
‘It does have a little hole in it,’ Mr De Grave had to admit.
‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth,’ his wife said.
‘They’ve stopped collecting second-hand goods from Holland, you know,’ said Graeme, ‘you might as well give it to the ragman.’
‘Do they still exist?’ asked Mrs Duits.
Mrs De Grave seemed disappointed that she would never see a refugee walking round in her woollen suit.
Thursday, 10 September
Several Old-But-Not-Dead members have discreetly asked me about Evert’s health. They’ve tried to get that information from the horse’s mouth, but he is refusing to give them a serious answer.
‘I’m going to Weight Watchers,’ was all his friends were told upon remarking that he’d lost quite a bit of weight, ‘and if I keep going the way I’m going, they’ll make me an honorary member.’
When the Club members ask me about Evert, I’m forced to stay non-committal, since I’ve had to promise not to tell anyone he has cancer.
‘Oh, so-so,’ I’ll say. If they insist, I tell them to go and ask Evert.
Yesterday I told him it was becoming untenable. He has lost at least fifteen of his sixty-five kilos starting weight. No one believes that nothing’s wrong. There’s probably already a great deal of speculation going on.
‘Your Old-But-Not-Dead friends have the right to be told the truth. I definitely think you should tell them now.’
Evert looked doubtful, but said he’d consider it.
‘Besides, I don’t think it would do any harm to inform the staff either,’ I added. Out of the question, said a steely Evert. ‘When I die it will still be too early to tell the nurses. So: Old-But-Not-Dead, OK. Staff, no way.’ He smiled. That’s a good haiku, isn’t it, Henkie?’
I had to admit it was short and strong. I do understand Evert: he doesn’t want a whole slew of nurses and doctors fussing over his sick body. He’s scared they’ll make him go into the nursing ward against his will.
‘I’ll die the way I want to.’
I swallowed, and nodded.
Friday, 11 September
This may be a good day for it, 11 September. So that people will ask, later: ‘When was that attack on the Twin Towers again? Oh yes, it was the day Evert told us he had cancer, 11 September.’ Evert thought he’d come up with a rather good idea.
Tonight the Old-But-Not-Dead Club are meeting at his place. ‘Meeting’ makes it sound weightier than it is, it’s just an excuse to get together, chat, nibble and drink wine or stronger liquor. Sometimes we have just one item on the agenda, and that is to choose a date for the next meeting. This evening’s merrymaking will therefore be brutally interrupted by Evert’s announcement that his membership will soon be terminated.
I am finding distraction in cycling’s Grand Tour of Spain. ‘We’ suddenly have a new Dutch hero with a somewhat French surname: Tom Dumoulin. He has won two stages, and has been wearing the race leader’s red jersey. I have been spending my afternoons for over a week watching it on Eurosport. Now that it seems there’s a chance that Tom will win the Spanish Vuelta, it’s suddenly all over Dutch TV. I don’t like that – jumping in only when the going is good.
The Jumbo supermarket in Nijmegen was evacuated because of a suspicious container of potato salad that had been left unattended. It seemed strange to me at first, but then I read it was a 3 kilo tub. I’ve never even seen such a daunting quantity of potato salad. I’m sure you could hide quite a lot of explosives in there, and if that Jumbo market blew up, it would make a horrible mess.
Have we become so paranoid that we’ll evacuate a supermarket just because someone has second thoughts about needing quite that much potato salad, and can’t be bothered to cart the heavy tub all the way back to the potato salad department?
Saturday, 12 September
The die is cast.
Last night Evert cleared his th
roat and then announced he had something to say. As if everyone could tell he was being serious, you could suddenly have heard a pin drop. Evert stared into space, opened his mouth and closed it again. He cleared his throat again, then looked at me helplessly.
‘Groen, my boy, can’t you help me out here? You’re my friend, aren’t you?’ he asked in a small voice. So then I told the others that Evert was ill, very ill. With just a few months left to live, if that. The room was silent; everyone was looking at Evert.
‘Yes, it could happen to the best of us,’ he said with a crooked grimace.
Leonie went up to him and threw both arms around him.
‘That’s what I was afraid of, my dear old chump,’ she said softly, giving him a kiss. ‘Well, we had better make the best of it.’
‘That’s what I like to hear, pet. Start frying up those bitterballen, Antoine. And open the best bottles we have.’
And so it came to pass. It turned into a hell of a night. There was gallows humour and there were tears. There were hugs and pats on the back. There was a good deal of drinking.
Now it’s 9 a.m. the next morning. I expect that we’re all trying to work off our respective hangovers over our breakfasts of bread and chocolate sprinkles. As the horrid new reality becomes part of our everyday life.
Sunday, 13 September
Eefje is in my mind a lot again of late. She had quietly taken a back seat in my life, but now, with Evert’s approaching death, she is back in my thoughts every day. I hadn’t taken out her iPod for a while, but these past weeks I have started listening to her favourite music again. It makes me recall the times I used to let her listen to music in her sickbed, and she could only show me with her eyes that she loved it. Eyes that kept growing dimmer.