Sölvi Sigurdsson - The Last Days of My Mother

“I think you should leave the stuff alone, Hermann, you don’t have the stomach for it.”

“You’re not the only one who needs to relax.”

“Have it your way, son. If your idea of relaxing is to hang out with your head in the toilet, then I’ll have to leave you to it.”

We went to bed early that evening. I turned on my side and fell asleep with my face squashed between the two mattresses of my king-size bed.

Weekly visits to the doctor revealed that the treatment was working. Frederik didn’t want to say too much about the prognosis, but did say the disease was not progressing. We had taken his advice about enjoying life and followed his instructions to the letter regarding the injections, never missing a shot. In fact, we were so settled into our routine that I was slightly concerned when the doctor called me one morning in the middle of June to tell me that Ramji was on his way to pick us up. There had been developments with Eva’s cancer and some news about the center. I got the sense it was good news, but I wasn’t at ease until we walked up the stairs to the doctor’s office. Dr. Fred smiled from ear to ear and gave us a hearty welcome.

“Ukrain, you see, seems to either work quickly in people, or not at all. We can usually tell in the second week or so. I like to give it a bit more time before I discuss the effects with the patient, and it pleases me to tell you, Mrs. Briem, that we are on the right track.”

“It’s all thanks to Trooper,” Mother said, “and yourself, of course, my dear Frederik. If I’d had my way, I would’ve let the jenever do and left the Ukrain to the seriously ill. I’ve never felt really sick and thought the injections were a bit frivolous. But I suppose I wouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t listened to the two of you. Do you really believe this will make me better?”

“We’ll have to wait and see, Mrs. Briem. You’re in much better shape now than when we first met in April. There’s a lot to celebrate. Did you see the crowd out on the lawn? This is a big day for you, Mrs. Briem, and a big day for Lowland. We have received a generous gift, a very generous gift indeed.”

It was obvious that the doctor was touched. For a moment we stood as if nailed to the spot.

“One million euros is a lot of money for a hospice. I’m not very financially savvy but I do realize the significance of this. The donation will be put into a safe account, the interest from which should provide for Lowland longer than I’ll be around.”

“Congratulations,” Mother said, squeezing the doctor’s hand. “What wonderful news. Who is this great benefactor, if I may ask?”

“You may not, because it’s a secret,” answered the doctor. “Humble are the great at heart, as they say.”

“And ill at heart are the mean and miserly,” Mother replied. “I think we should walk out into the sun, my dear Frederik, and see what’s going on out on the lawn.”

A happy reunion took place soon as we were outside. Timothy Wallace from Missouri, Mother’s friend from the Hash-Jazz, sat on a bench next to the fountain in his tank top with a cowboy hat and pipe. They had met a few times since spring and steadily became close friends. Each moment with Tim was like getting the world on an interest-free loan. He was sincere in his sarcasm, steadfast in his weaknesses, preferred the spiritual to the physical, and often spoke ill of the States, which Mother found to be a magnificent quality in an American. Mother thoroughly enjoyed sharing a joint with Tim and engaging in conversation that brought you momentarily closer to life. She wondered if they ever felt like this, these self-jetters who went to Italy to shop. She didn’t need a self-jet for soul searching. She had Tim. He might not be a he-male in the sense of romantic love, but that didn’t matter. She even let his bisexuality pass.

“Mamma!” he called to her in Icelandic and walked over to us smiling. I was blown away that he got away with calling her Mom. It was some sort of miracle. A dying woman in her sixties had had a second child.

“Happy birthday, Mountain Mama.”

“It’s Mountain Lady,” Mother corrected him, referring to the poetic female incarnation of Iceland. “Mountain Lady— Fjallkona .”

“All grown up now, fjallkona ?”

“Yes I am,” she answered. “Sixty-four today, like the republic. The 17 thof June means rain in Reykjavik, but in Lowland we’ll have life, Timothy. We have the sun. I’m told I am to live longer than the oldest of ancients, so if there ever was an occasion to have a smoke it has to be now.”

He threw an arm over each of our shoulders and led us to a hollow out on the lawn. Garden furniture had been set up here and there for the occasion so visitors could have a seat and read about the center. A television crew from one of the stations was setting up to do a piece on the place, thanks to Helga’s diligent work in the past days to promote the center’s cause in the media. A donation of one million euros was good bait for publicity. She was going to formally open the event by holding a short speech in the restaurant pavilion, which was to open any minute.

“For the love of God, Trooper, go steal some beer for us. And a lemonade for Tim.”

This was the only thing about Tim that Mother had needed some time to adjust to: he didn’t drink. The explanation was that he used to drink incessantly, long ago when he was still married to his high school sweetheart, Gwinny. She turned out to prefer liquor undigested and, tired of cleaning up the vomit he left around the house, sent him to rehab. There he discovered the multiplicity of his sexual preferences, got divorced, founded a record company, made it big on Wall Street, and became a millionaire. Now he was dying and tried to make the most of his remaining time. “The very incarnation of the history of the United States,” he would say. “That’s why I’m trying to get this autobiography done before I kick the bucket.”

“That’s what I think you should do, Trooper. Since you’re already keeping a journal. You can easily turn it into a biography. Eva Briem Thórarinsdóttir and Life . It would be a bestseller.”

I decided to let them be and walked farther out on the lawn where a group of people had gathered around a small, gray-haired man in a white suit. My heart fluttered slightly, a common effect of celebrity on most people. The small man was none other than the palliative philosopher, Arthur van Österich, Helena’s nemesis whom I’d seen at the Pleasure Fountain that spring. He was there to offer his thoughts on the center on this happy day.

Van Österich’s imminent suicide was one of the hottest topics in the country at the time. The media speculated the method of choice: arsenic, the Atlantic, hypothermia on Mont Blanc? Would he allow a live broadcast on the European Broadcasting Union stations? The morning paper De Telegraaf reported his every move and published articles on developments in the Van Österich case. Van Österich bought socks in a sports store on Kalverstraat — did he intend to choke on a Speedo sock? Would he slit his wrists, as he had been seen buying a set of kitchen knives in Baden-Baden?

An article about Van Österich in the magazine Gezondheid jaarlijks caused much controversy by publishing a checklist for those set on taking their own lives. The magazine was accused of anti-life propaganda, but others praised the article for offering vital information on this moral issue. For it was not as easy as it might seem to put an end to your own life. There was the story of the man who was so intent on killing himself that he was a living testament to the tenacity of the human body and its inherent hatred of death. Freddy Borparter had tried every sure-fire method to halt the beating of his heart: he had swallowed pills, stuck his head in the oven, thrown himself off a cliff. But all his efforts got him was a mid-level position in a real estate agency.