Mother Dear

by Nova Lee Maier

  “I’m a dairy farmer.”

  “That’s hard, physical work,” she said.

  “It’s not as bad as it used to be.”

  “Do you have anyone to help you?”

  The man explained that his son was going to take over the business, but that he was still very active himself. His expression hovered somewhere between anger and suspicion.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m worried they’re going to cut off my good leg. You hear about things like that happening from time to time.”

  She smiled. “Not in this hospital.”

  “People make mistakes, though, don’t they? Left for the audience is right for the actors, if you know what I mean?”

  She knew what he meant all too well.

  “Nurse, it’d set my mind at ease if you could write something on my bad leg with a marker.”

  “Didn’t they do that on the ward already?”

  “No—look.” The man yanked back the blanket as if he’d had an argument with it and displayed his leg. Dark patches, the toes black and blue. She lifted the blanket farther to examine the other leg. It was pale and lined with thick veins, but she could see no discoloration. This was a clear-cut case even without labeling—maybe that was why they hadn’t bothered. “I assume your left leg is the bad one?” She touched it with her hand.

  The man nodded.

  “Good.” She took a pen from the drawer and drew a large arrow on the affected leg, pointing toward the man’s foot. “There we are—nothing can go wrong now. The doctor will be here in a minute to talk you through what he’s going to do, so there’s no need to worry.” She put the blanket back and checked the drip.

  When she looked at the clock, she realized a whole hour had gone by in which she had been entirely preoccupied with her work. Werner had gone to oversee the morning shift at the Horn of Plenty, as usual. He’d dropped the pig idea, for now. Until they came up with something better, anyway. Something we can both get behind—those were the exact words he had used.

  Madness.

  Petra, one of her colleagues, sought her eyes. “Hey, Helen? You look so pale all of a sudden. Are you OK?”

  “Yes—yes, I’m fine. I think I just haven’t eaten enough today,” she said quickly, and turned back to her screen.

  2

  Ralf descended the stairs as quietly as possible. The fourth tread from the bottom was creaky, so he stepped over it. Almost there.

  “Where are you going?”

  Shit.

  That woman had unbelievably acute senses. It was as if she’d woven an invisible spider’s web over the entire house and could detect the slightest vibrations.

  “I’m going out,” he said.

  His mother blocked his way. She was wearing a black T-shirt with some positive slogan or other on it; she wore that kind of shirt a lot and had a wardrobe full of them upstairs. “Happy Life!” “Kiss Me, I’m Famous.” “Follow Your Dreams!” It was a shame the words contrasted so jarringly with the sour expression above them.

  “No, Ralf. You’re staying at home. We need to talk.”

  “Do we really?” He looked at his cell phone. Naomi was waiting for him to take her for her first driving lesson.

  “You’re in big trouble,” she said.

  He looked at her in alarm. Was this about Brian? Had the police paid a visit? Nervously, he followed his mother into the kitchen.

  She sat down at the table and pushed aside a stack of pamphlets and magazines.

  Once he had sat down opposite her, she announced, “I got a letter from the truancy officer.”

  Ralf relaxed. Exhaled.

  “He wants us to go in for a meeting,” she continued.

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m eighteen—I don’t even have to go to school anymore.”

  “This is about last year. They say you were absent for three months without permission. They take that very seriously. The man was even talking about a fine.”

  “He can do what he wants. I’m not going. I’ve got better things to do.”

  “Oh really?” she asked warily. “Like what?”

  “All kinds of things. Class. Work.”

  “That’s interesting. Because I didn’t just get a letter from the truancy officer—I also got a phone call from the administration at your new course. It seems you’ve only been in twice. And then I rang up Dennis Faro—you know, the man at the market you told me you do some work for.” She paused for a moment. “He hasn’t seen you since the start of the summer.”

  Ralf shrugged. “That fat fuck can kiss my ass. He always gave me the crappiest jobs.”

  His mother continued to look him directly in the eye. She scarcely moved. Normally, this was the point where she would leap to her feet and point at him, yelling and calling him a liar. This time, she remained calm, composed. He didn’t know which was worse.

  “You aren’t going to school, you aren’t working, yet you have a car, and I always see you wearing new clothes. It doesn’t add up, Ralf. Anyone can see that.”

  His phone buzzed. It was Naomi.

  You weren’t joking about the driving lesson, were you?

  He stuffed it away again. “Well, Mom, thanks for the chat. Sorry for ruining your lives and everything, but I really have to go.”

  “No, you’re staying here. I want to know what’s going on.”

  He stood up abruptly. The chair wobbled. “That course is shit; they don’t teach you anything there. Half the students don’t show up, so I really don’t know why I should have to.” He walked toward the door, fishing his car keys out of his pocket on the way.

  “Yet you still let me buy you hundreds of euros’ worth of goddamn textbooks for the new year!” she hollered after him.

  3

  The dairy farmer hadn’t come out of surgery yet. There were two other patients in the recovery room. One was a Surinamese woman with short gray hair who was complaining of double vision.

  Helen tried to reassure her. “It’s because of the anesthetic, ma’am. Your eyesight will go back to normal, but it sometimes takes a little while.”

  “How long?”

  “Maybe fifteen minutes. Just try to relax a little.”

  She scribbled down a note.

  “Hey, could you come and help me, please?” The question came from Jurgen Heemstra, one of the younger specialists at the hospital. He caught her eye briefly before walking over to the other side of the room, where the patients were prepared for surgery.

  The specialist didn’t look back. He blithely assumed that she would drop everything she was working on to run after him.

  Helen turned back to her patient and continued checking her vital signs. She couldn’t see anything unusual, but that didn’t necessarily mean everything was OK.

  “I think it’s getting better already,” said the woman after a short while. She covered one eye with her palm. “It seems like it’s only on one side . . .”

  “That’s very possible, you know. It’s nothing to worry about; everything looks normal. Some people just need a little more time.” She tucked the woman in. “Are you comfortable? Warm enough?”

  “Yes, thank you,” whispered the woman.

  Somebody quietly cleared their throat behind Helen. She turned around: Heemstra.

  “So . . . do you think you’d have time to help me now?” His head was slightly cocked.

  She smiled inwardly, but took care not to show it on her face.

  “Of course.”

  She followed him through the glass swing doors that led to the operating rooms. From the corner of her eye, she saw a surgical assistant coming out of one of them. Her arms were wrapped around a rectangular container, the kind that was used throughout the hospital. Made of blue plastic, they had yellow lids and distinctive white stickers on the sides displaying a code and a warning sign. They came in different sizes. Some were specially designed for needles, some for blood and bandages. And some were for human remains.

  This one probably
held the dairy farmer’s leg. Helen stopped in her tracks. Watched the assistant walk past.

  Somebody stopped and spoke to her, but she didn’t hear what they said.

  She hurried over to a side door and peered down the hall, where the assistant was walking at the same brisk pace through the sliding doors and into another area. Helen focused on the container. It was as if everything around it blurred. Those things had a unique feature: once they were closed, it was impossible to remove the lid. That was for hygienic reasons. The containers were collected by a waste-processing company that put them straight into an incinerator, where they were destroyed. Unopened.

  “Hello, are you in there?”

  A whistling sound filled her ears.

  “Earth to Helen?” Anouk moved into her field of view and placed a hand on her.

  Helen blinked. “Sorry, Anouk, I didn’t see you there.”

  “What’s up with you? Are you sick or something?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said quietly. Her voice wavered, and her stomach contracted, as though somebody were squeezing it.

  “Go and sit down for a little while.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’ll be OK. Could you give Jurgen a hand for me?” She evaded Anouk’s inquiring eyes, hurried down the corridor, and retreated into a restroom. It was empty. She turned on the faucet and held her hands and wrists under the cold water. Splashed water on her face and neck. Stood there for several minutes, her chin on her chest.

  4

  Naomi moistened her lips by quickly running her tongue over them. Ralf found it an endlessly captivating spectacle. The sun played on her sleek hair as it hung over her shoulders. Brown, but glittering in the light. He had to restrain himself from running his fingers through it.

  The car drifted too close to a bush. Branches scraped audibly over the paintwork. Ralf reached out and gave the steering wheel a nudge to send the car rolling back toward the center of the parking lot.

  Naomi let go of the wheel.

  “Keep your hands on it,” he instructed her.

  She obeyed, with flushed cheeks, but took her foot off the accelerator and made a show of lifting her knees. “I can’t go any farther. Seriously.”

  “You’re doing well. Now, push down the clutch.”

  She didn’t react.

  “The pedal on the left.”

  She lowered her left leg and pushed down. Ralf put the car into neutral and pulled up the hand brake. “That’s enough for today.”

  “I did everything wrong.”

  “No, you didn’t. You did really well for somebody who’s never driven before.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded.

  They swapped places. Ralf felt relieved to be back behind the wheel. Nobody had been run over, the police hadn’t shown up, and his car was still in one piece—aside from a few scratches, but they’d be easy enough to repair.

  “How was your exam?” he asked.

  Her face brightened. “That’s sweet of you to remember. It went really well. I think I passed.” She told him enthusiastically about various answers that she had managed to correct at the last minute. “By the way, I still haven’t heard from Brian. Have you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Don’t you think we should go and see his mother? I mean, three days is a long time.”

  “Nah. It’s just Brian being Brian, right?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “But you’re worried about him, aren’t you? You were yesterday, anyway. Or did you call all of his friends for nothing?”

  Ralf nodded. Thought carefully.

  “Well then.”

  He broke eye contact and stared at a point in the distance. Tapped the steering wheel with his thumb. It was ridiculously unlikely, but nonetheless, suppose . . . suppose that Brian had been shot and yet still managed to get out of the house—bleeding, seriously injured. Where would he have gone? Not to his place, and not to a friend’s either.

  “OK,” he heard himself say. “Let’s head over there now.”

  5

  Helen’s shift was over. She was walking to the changing room, following her colleagues at a distance. Her surgical mask dangled around her neck. She took off her cap and crumpled it up. Shook her hair loose. Near the operating rooms, she passed a small corridor with a wheeled metal cabinet. It wasn’t parked against the wall but stood in the middle of the hall, as though the person pushing it had been called away in a hurry. One of the doors was still open, and there were medical devices and instruments on the shelves. Some still with blood on them. Instruments were put in cabinets like this after use and then taken to the sterile-processing department, where they would be washed, sterilized, and packaged under two layers of paper—spotlessly clean and ready for the next operation.

  Helen stood still. Among the items in the cabinet was an electrical device that resembled a cordless drill—except that where you would expect to see a drill bit, there was a small saw blade instead. Helen had seen the device in action many times, back when she used to work in the OR. It sliced through bone and tissue like a knife through butter. Hesitantly, she approached the cabinet. She reached out her hand, gripped the device by its handle, and lifted it up. Examined the cutting blade. It was covered with tissue and minuscule splinters of bone. Bits of Mr. Van Drunen, she realized.

  6

  “Hello?” Naomi bent forward and pushed the mail slot open, peering through into the hallway.

  Ralf watched her, observing how her buttocks moved inside her jeans and her blouse rode up over her lower back. The bare skin it exposed was smooth and tanned. He turned his head to one side and concentrated on a car down the street.

  “I can’t see anybody,” she said.

  Ralf pulled his phone out of his pocket. It was half past five. “Maybe we should come back this evening. Or tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow morning I’ll be at school.” Naomi stood upright. She was touching his chest slightly. “Hey. What if he’s just in his room?”

  “I went there on Saturday. His bed hadn’t been slept in.”

  “Maybe he’s there now, though?”

  Ralf didn’t like the idea of going back. There was nobody there apart from Mikey, whom Brian still owed money to, and Ralf would prefer not to run into him.

  “Aw, come on!” She grabbed his forearm and rubbed it. “Pretty please?”

  His skin tingled where Naomi touched his jacket, and he felt mild shocks run through his body. He stared at her lips. If Brian was somehow still alive, then he needed to let them know about it pretty damn fast.

  “OK,” he murmured. “We’ll go and take a look.” Some part of him that he couldn’t quite control took her by the hand and led her back to his car.

  7

  Werner and Helen were walking arm in arm through the neighborhood. They couldn’t talk in peace at home. The entire house was full of kids: some friends of Thom’s had come over after dinner to play video games, Sara and Jackie had locked themselves in the bathroom with a makeup bag, and Emma was working on a school presentation in the kitchen along with two classmates.

  “I regret not paying more attention to all those cop shows,” said Werner.

  “They’re probably just as full of nonsense as the hospital dramas.”

  “But it would help me come up with ideas.”

  Ideas like those pigs of yours, no doubt. “This isn’t a movie, Werner. In real life, you don’t have any control. You can’t rule out the possibility that somebody might notice you and call the police.”

  “It must be doable somehow.” Werner’s hair blew across his temple. “There are still plenty of murders the police don’t manage to solve. Corpses with traces of DNA on them, but nobody to link them to. Or sometimes they can’t even identify the body in the first place. And then all those missing persons.” He looked at her. “I really think it would be better if I tried to get rid of him somewhere abroad. In a river, or a lake.”

  “I might have an idea,” she said hesi
tantly. Her voice was quiet. “But it’s—really, it’s too gruesome for words. Complete madness.”

  He looked at her. “Tell me.”

  She told Werner about the protocols around clinical waste. “Nobody checks what’s inside the containers once they’ve been closed. The lids are permanently sealed.”

  “But surely the contents are taken out again at some point?”

  She shook her head. “No, the containers are destroyed as they are. They go straight into the incinerator.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. It just means that we—” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  “I understand what it means.”

  Nausea welled up in her again. “Never mind,” she whispered. “Forget it. I never said anything. I—I must be going mad.”

  Werner grabbed her by the shoulders. His inquiring eyes ran over her face. They were bigger than usual—they even seemed to protrude slightly, and they looked at her with a sudden fervor that made her recoil. “On the contrary, Helen. I think it’s a brilliant idea. Truly brilliant.”

  8

  “I’ve never understood why Brian was so into living here,” remarked Naomi softly.

  They were walking through the huge kitchen. Ralf could see extractor fans, ovens, and cutlery trays, but also a lot of gaps; the best goods had been ripped out and sold.

  “It’s cheap,” said Ralf. “Nobody complains if you make too much noise, and you can always park right in front of the door.”

  “But it stinks.” She wrinkled her nose. “And you can be evicted at any moment. I couldn’t live here.”

  “Me neither.”

  They went up the stairs. The hall was empty, to Ralf’s relief. Mikey had to be at home, as they had just seen his dark-purple BMW parked next to the entrance. Ralf opened the door with Brian’s key and stepped inside. Locked it again behind them.

  Nothing had changed. The sheets still lay rumpled in the same way at the foot of the bed, as if Brian had kicked them off when he woke up. His iPhone was connected to the charger, exactly where Ralf had left it.