Sölvi Sigurdsson - The Last Days of My Mother

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.

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.

Otherwise the days floated quietly by in Hotel Europa. I melted into the couch with my eyes on the TV remote. Although the partying was considerably subdued these days, I still suspected that my body’s water percentage was no more than 40 %, the rest being saturated fats and sherry. I was so bloated from drink that I could see my own face without the help of a mirror. I watched the news to convince myself that woe and misery were not mine alone. It seemed as if people were more or less hopeless: killing themselves, raping, bombing, and babbling about the ever-changing skin color of superstars in order to divert their minds from doomsday.