Sölvi Sigurdsson - The Last Days of My Mother

Almost eighteen years had passed, but the fear of her death never quite left me. Deep down the child is still hiding in a closet, fixing up appliances in an attempt to prevent her death. We believe that experience works in our favor, that all the horrible moments and fuckups of our lives will give us perspective, but they don’t. Adult life stumbles on-screen like a haze of meaningless jumble while the focus remains on the backdrop, distorting everything mounting up ahead. Sometimes the anxiety goes into hibernation and the set is ablaze with fantastic extravagance: drinking games, investments, and experimental intercourse with strangers. The havoc we wreak upon our own body makes sure no one ever suspects you to carry such primeval grief; that behind the calloused skin, guilt the size of a small child still survives. People tend to assume that a man who looks like that has experience enough to bury his childhood. But the closer I came to Highland, the heavier my steps were with the anxiety of seeing her so sick. It was a relief to see Ramji’s Ambassador in the driveway with Frederik and Duncan huddling over the trunk.

“Willyson, my dear friend,” the doctor called out and walked briskly toward me. “How splendid to have you here to see our patient. There are a few things we need to discuss now, the rest can wait. The Ukrain has failed. There is nothing we can do about that now. This is a tragedy for us all and especially for you, my dear friend. For you and your mother. There is no cure that can stop this train. All we have now is the morphine.”

“How has she been today?”

“She’s a fighter. If we’re lucky she’ll have many good days. A few weeks, even months. You never know with this disease. My gut tells me that we’ll see sooner than later what to expect. This is the situation. We still have time to plan but we shouldn’t leave it until it’s too late.”

“We came here to have this choice if it would come to this.”

“Good, good.” The doctor tapped a finger to his chin. “Well, there is something. . do you know Dita van der Lingling? No? Dita was the first one to marry one of our patients. This was a long time ago. We don’t really talk about it even though we sometimes find it handy. Tim Wallace died a married man. He died a Dutch citizen.”

“Of course,” I said, understanding where he was going with this. “And that’s how you get around the euthanasia law?”

“Yes. I don’t think we can send you to Switzerland. Duncan would never agree. I’ve given this a lot of thought and found a solution that suits everyone. Don’t you agree, Hermann?”

I nodded my head and felt the strangeness of this all crawl over me, the grief that still was a distant shadow rather than a concrete feeling with consequence and meaning. We walked up the drive and talked in more detail about the next steps, but then I said good-bye and entered the building. The aroma of cooking and wine was coming from the kitchen. The faint smell of autumn leaves seeped through the open window in the lounge. Helena was nowhere to be seen so I walked straight into the corridor leading to Mother’s bedroom. I didn’t want to be there, not tonight. I wanted to run back down to the gate, get into the car with the other men, drive around Holland and return when Mother had been healed by a miracle in the night. She would sit out on the lawn telling journalists and reporters all about the wonder that erased the evil cells, like the healing hand of Jesus, like the soothing touch of Buddha, and the living cosmos blessing the steadfast. Walking into that room was an act of duty that would only take a moment. I would pat her on the back, disappear into the corridor and find Helena. Mother would be better in the morning. Didn’t Frederik say that you could never tell with this disease?

I opened the door and took a seat next to the bed where she lay sleeping. The Sphinx who had sat smoking on the balcony of Hotel Europa with a glass of red wine and the stupendous beauty of the night sky was gone. In its place was a drowned cat, the mane wet with sweat and the body emaciated, beaten by the crashing waves of the deep. I was seized by a vulnerability that seemed to run through an invisible umbilical cord from her to me. The sedative effects of the morphine were ruthless to her face, making it droop on the side she lay on, emphasizing the proximity of death. I sat there trying to get used to it, trying on her illness, feeling the weight of its smell and snoring, and didn’t get up until my tremors had subsided and my body had tuned into the confined stillness of these circumstances that I knew would persist until the end. When I stopped weeping I held her to me, absorbing her mumblings, tried to swallow them like food and keep them down, scared of my gut, as if the party had been a hoax from the start, all the pork legs, the special drinks, all the joy that dozed off into dreams that were more beautiful than waking life. Because this was life, wasn’t it? Life that didn’t manifest in all its magnitude until the party was over?

“Hi, Trooper,” Helena said when I walked into the lounge. She sat playing guitar, but put away the instrument and gave me a hug. “Did you go see her? Frederik says she needs rest. He’s going to stay over tonight. He went with Duncan to Lowland to get his stuff.”

“I know, I met them outside.”

She got me a glass and poured me some white wine. I sat down, stood up again, took a deep breath by the window, and returned.

“I know how you feel,” she said after a while. “I was just a kid when mom died but I totally understood what was going on. I know what it’s like to watch your parent get sick.”

“It’s awful. To see her like that. Like she’s been robbed of everything that makes her her .”

“I don’t know what it is about the illness that makes us so scared. You just don’t want to face it. You want to run.”

“But that’s not an option. And then it’s over, and you never quite get over it, do you?”

I told Helena that deep inside I had never believed Mother would get better. That everything would go back to normal and that we’d return home. But I didn’t expect her to get so sick so soon.

“Maybe she knew for a while. Don’t blame yourself. It’s quite common for patients to cover up how bad it really is while they still can. But I’m really sorry, Trooper. Really. Even Frederik thought your mom had a chance.”

We sat for a while and chatted until Helena said she had to return an amplifier she had borrowed from a neighboring farm. I was desperate to get out of the house and told her I’d join her and talk to Frederik in the morning.

“What about your mom?”

“They’ll call me if anything changes. I’ll be quick.”

As we set out we saw Ramji coming up the driveway. It was getting dark. A cold breeze came across the meadow of the farm where we turned off the road onto a path cutting through the woods. A few pines grew in random formations among the deciduous trees that had succumbed to the fall. They were like chaperones at the orgy, life that clung to its existence in a world where everything was expiring. The earth was covered by a red and gold blanket, and aside from a lone bird answering the rustle of our footsteps, the woods were still. The setting sun cast little pools of light between the tree trunks, but it was cool and crisp in there, the sun rays cut the shadows with soft shards of light until it retreated and finally disappeared in the outskirts. It was the first time on the trip there I saw no buildings or traffic. For a moment it was as if a distant echo of the past had been blown our way, a reminder of how things had once been. Everything was exaggerated and illuminated in the dying light. I hadn’t been out in nature for months and being suddenly surrounded by it sent an electric current surging through me.