Sölvi Sigurdsson - The Last Days of My Mother

*

We were all pretty drunk when Helga turned up to the party. She smiled wistfully and asked the doctor to have a word. Then she gave us a little wave and left.

“I suspected as much,” the doctor said. “Timothy Wallace has completed his book. Helga stood the last watch by him.”

*

Sorrow manifests in various ways. Some people order a Hummer with strippers, like the Klambra boys did when the don passed, but at the round table in the garden people seemed to be on the same page. We stood up, held hands, and paid our respects to the deceased. Then we started to clear the table and carry the glasses and plates inside. Mother said that if Timothy wasn’t a miracle worker by finishing his autobiography so soon, and in his state of health, there were no miracle workers in this world. When I told her the truth, that Tim’s last breath was in the final page of the script, she laughed in surprise. It had to be a joke. Timothy couldn’t be dead. Was I joking? “Trooper, are you joking?”

She was inconsolable for a while and I handed her tissues, my shoulder, anything she could cry into, until I led her to the Ambassador where Ramji stood waiting with the doctor and Duncan. We decided that the chauffeur would drive the old folks back to Highland. Mother could have a nap while the rest of us could have an early wake for Timothy in the Scotsman’s home. We would stay the night so Ramji wouldn’t have to drive us into the city.

“It’s always sad when people die,” Gloria said as we watched the car disappear. “I only met Tim once but I know he wanted it this way. This is how life goes around here, people come to this place to die. I’ve learned from my father-in-law not to be upset when people get what they want.”

“But did you see Eva’s reaction?”

“Well, your Mother is sad because her friend died.”

“And how do you think she’ll react if she has to go the same way? The doctor might be optimistic, but you never know. I dread the day when she has to make this choice.”

We stood up from the bench and met Helena, who was going to clear out Tim’s room and then catch a lift with Helga into town. Steven and Gloria decided to walk with me to Highland. I was once again gripped by that strange numbness that had haunted me now and then these past weeks in Amsterdam: blinding optimism that illuminated the moment and froze it before it disappeared.

“I feel sick.” Steven had turned deadly pale and stopped in the middle of the road. “I think I need to throw up.”

“If you can just keep it down. .” Gloria began but didn’t finish the sentence because Steven ran to the side of the road, leaned forward, and puked.

“I’ll call Ramji and ask him to bring the doctor,” I said.

“I don’t want dad,” Steven whimpered between hurls. “I’m trying to expand my stomach. Sometimes I eat too much.”

“I’ll wait until he feels better. You go on, Trooper, it’s just a short walk. See you soon.”

When I came to the house Mother was already asleep in one of the guestrooms, but Duncan and the doctor sat chatting in the lounge. The Scotsman was preparing drinks.

“We were just talking about when Helena first came to live here all those years ago,” the doctor said, handing over his empty glass. “I don’t think any man has been as strangely entangled into a single line of females as you have, Duncan. It’s quite an endeavor.”

“And that’s why I don’t do it to myself or others to broach that topic.”

“Well,” said the doctor, “I must say that I think that your amorous adventures should be part of the curriculum in every school. Such astonishing fiascos should be a lesson to all men.”

“What happened?” I asked. I had been intrigued by the relationships in Highland for a long time. “Helena told me you’re not her grandfather.”

“Not exactly, but almost. I’m kind of her grandfather, kind of her dad. No wonder the poor lass has chosen the road less travelled. Even though my Helena is the only thing I can truly be proud of, I have to admit that the story behind our relationship is not to my credit.”

“That’s true,” the doctor agreed. “Sadly enough.”

“Has she told you something about those early days?” the Scotsman asked. “People running wild around here, naked and sky high, in some sort of community I chose to call a commune. This went on into the eighties, long after most such enterprises had fallen flat. People’s hair stood on end, straight out from the body, because that’s what the so-called sexual revolution meant, people were cold. But then one day love came a-knocking, in a smile belonging to a woman called Hanna. I was instantly convinced that my idiocy was a thing of the past. The commune was disbanded and we shacked up. Six months later she was diagnosed with breast cancer and she was gone within the year. I was crushed, didn’t care about anything. I disgraced all forms of life with my apathy toward it. Of course I should never have come near my stepdaughter, but I did.”

“Oof,” Frederik said.

“Aye,” Duncan agreed. “A week after Hanna died, her daughter Gabriela showed up for the funeral. She had been living with her dad in England and we’d never met before. I was in shock. There out in the courtyard stood the spitting image of my Hanna, just twenty years younger. Disaster ensued.”

“He got into her panties,” Frederik said, cutting to the chase.

“Gabriela and I hit it off, her presence brought me some consolation. Before I knew it she was in my arms, I gave her a peck on the cheek, tasted her tears. I was so full of self-pity and delusions that I let myself believe that I was happy. This went on for a couple months, but then I sent her back to England. It’s human to err, but to continue that messed up relationship was utterly insane. And it’s no excuse, though my good friend Fred kept telling me so, that I was not myself after Hanna died.”

“And so I stopped,” Frederik said. “It’s becoming more and more clear as time goes by that this was quite the mess you created. Well, it would be, if not for Helena.”

“Yes. In the end Gabriela shared her mother’s fate. The cancer had taken its toll when she reappeared on my doorstep with little Helena in tow, twelve years after I sent her packing. They stayed with me for the two months it took Gabriela to die. Helena remained. She’s my daughter, even though she always just calls me Duncan.”

“And that’s enough for now,” the doctor said. “I think that’s Steven walking up the path, and correct me if I’m wrong, Trooper, but isn’t that your mother standing there in the doorway? Before I head back to Lowland I would like to raise my glass to Eva Briem who is awake, and to Timothy Wallace from Missouri who doesn’t have to suffer another second. Rest in peace, my friend. Grüss gott .”

Over the next few days, after the party, the city seemed to show a different face; it seemed botoxed and softer, but also without any expression. The evenings were a still life of a recently passed time, a paused promotional video, a piano sonata to highlight an image of a sunrise-red canal at the end of the day’s broadcast. The world was in slow motion, waiting to become new, as if this version had been played too many times over.

Initially we’d only planned to stay a few weeks in this place. I’d always meant to find us an apartment, a more affordable hotel, or even a boat on one of the canals, but I’d let it slide for longer than my bank account could allow, drenched in weirdness and a gift for procrastination and postponement that echoed through the escapades of my hangover. Our spending at Hotel Europa was starting to create pressure on the exchange rate of the Icelandic Króna, which was plummeting daily. There was something going on up in Iceland that I didn’t grasp and didn’t care to explore, but it was starting to hurt. The bare necessities, such as soap and ham, suddenly started to feel like risk capital investments. I haunted the ATMs and filled my hotel room with euros that became more valuable by the hour. Space in nightstands and shelves became treasure troves of alcohol and food full of preservatives. This was by far the most expensive trip I’d ever taken, including the Irish fiasco. If we didn’t find other accommodations soon we would run out of cash before Mother was cured or received palliative care. Neither scenario appealed to me: to become an orphaned street beggar or a benefit bum with his elderly, albeit unyielding, mother in tow. We both realized that this period had run its course. The very air we breathed was charged with a certainty that we had something new and unforeseen in store for us.