“Making a lovely mess again, I see.”
“You try moving around with all these tubes sticking out of you!”
I am given two bags of blood to get my blood count back up and to replace sluggish me with active me. It’s a strange concept to be using someone else’s blood as a sort of drug to make me feel better. Maybe that’s the reason I feel so different these days—why I no longer like sweet pastries or licorice. And why I suddenly love writing. It’s all part of the changes brought by the cancer—Before, I didn’t like writing at all. I even paid Sis to write my school reports. This week I checked into the hospital with a laptop under my arm. Not for surfing the Web, but for surfing my thoughts. But now at night, lying wide-awake in bed, I get out of bed to grab a pen and a piece of paper with the urge to write some thoughts down. When morning comes, I have pages full of thoughts. Ever since, I can’t stop. I write down everything that happens to me, clinging on to the words that come as if I’m clinging on to life.
Around ten thirty in the morning I take my shower. I take extra long to lather myself up with body wash, body lotion, and all my other tonics, just to kill time. Then I get dressed. Everything I put on goes up from my feet and then my hips, or else my IV gets in the way. I’m still as vain as ever; I brought all my prettiest camisoles with me in case Dr. K or another sexy doctor comes to visit. (Hey, I’m not likely to meet anyone else in this prison.) Every other day I have to leave the ward for tests elsewhere in the hospital. When that happens, I feel the attention I’m drawing: the cancer patient I don’t want to be, shuffling along clumsily with my IV pushed out in front of me, the bags of chemo swaying back and forth. As soon as the tests are over, I retreat to my hospital bed and try to forget where I am. Try to forget I will wake up in morning to discover all over again that there is not one hair growing on my head.
“Hi, sweetie, how are you feeling?”
I turn toward the familiar sound and see a big purple orchid enter my room, followed by Annabel.
“Honeybun!” I call out happily. “Is my wig on straight?”
Annabel looks me up and down and smiles. She pulls my beehive that I have come to name Stella because of her elderly looks into place.
“Do you ever think about what it would be like if I were gone?” I ask.
“Well, aren’t you a little ray of sunshine today?” She sits down on the chair next to my bed and takes out her manicure set.
“I want to know what that thought means to you.” Annabel is an expert at keeping her pain covered up, even for me.
“Yes. I think about it.” She looks at me. “I might look tough, but I lie crying in Bart’s arms every single night. (Bart is her boyfriend). But as long as there is hope I refuse to think the worst.”
“Oh.” That’s Annabel. She just takes on and refuses life the way it suits her. A feeling of sympathy creeps up on me, but frankly I love hearing her say those words. The more she cries, the more she loves me. “We’ve always been together,” I say.
“And we always will be.”
Without Annabel I wouldn’t know what it feels like to have a true friend, the kind who lies in her bed in Amsterdam and knows I’m feeling lonely in India. The kind of friend who is only a glance away from knowing what is really going on in my head. The kind who knew before my diagnosis that something was really wrong. The kind who braves a rush-hour tram with huge purple orchids to make my depressing white room feel a little bit more like home.
“Two more weeks. Scary, huh?”
“Until the scan?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then there’s no reason to ask ourselves silly questions today, is there?” She bends over and continues her manicure.
THURSDAY, MARCH 24
THE BARTENDERS AT MY LOCAL hangout Café Finch gave me a box set of Sex and the City as a present. In the latest episodes, Samantha has been wearing a different wig every night, each one more fabulous than the last. My theory is simple: If she can look fabulous and have cancer, I can too. Mostly, I just want to look and feel like a girl again rather than someone I don’t want to be.
I head with Annabel to a theater-supply store on the other side of town. The place is literally filled with wigs from the floor to the ceiling. Annabel inspects them all intently, while a salesperson stands behind me tugging at Stella. It reminds me of when we were little girls at the grocery store and would stare wide-eyed at the raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries before mixing them up.
This is the first time Annabel will see my bald head. I’m worried that it will scare her. I swallow nervously, not daring to take off my wig. She must have noticed, as she gives me a smile and nods. I take it as an encouragement. If I can’t be naked around her, with whom can I? When the wig comes off she looks at me intensely and then strokes my pink scalp a few times. “Nice and soft,” she says. I choke back my tears.
The salesperson plunks a number of different wigs on my head, and then suddenly there she is: Daisy. All three of us see it straightaway; Daisy is a keeper. With long blond curls falling over my shoulders, I look at the strange girl in the mirror. It feels amazing to run my fingers through the kind of thick long curls I’ve only ever dreamed of. My face is completely different; suddenly I’m mischievous and playful instead of old and stiff. I feel like a whole other person wearing Daisy. Someone concerned with summer dresses and Glastonbury rather than chemo and other life and death matters.
Annabel ties a pink scarf around my new do and then continues studying the rest of the wigs on display. She returns with a short and spicy red number. She looks even better on me. The red locks bring my pale cheeks to life. And the edgy cut brings out my boldness. On the spot, we decide to call her “Sue.” I don’t know why I find the name fitting; it just comes to me. Maybe because it’s so short: Sue. Strong and decisive.
I leave the store with two new wigs, two new characters. Which suits Annabel’s theory about Geminis all the better: Apparently my type can’t seem to decide.
Before long, I come home with Blondie, a short and sexy blond bob. She’s my only wig so far made out of real hair. That doesn’t only make her my most favorite but also my most expensive: 800 euros. Ridiculous. But when I wear her and stroke my hands through my hair, it’s as if I’m touching my own hair after using loads of conditioner. Again, she makes me feel different. Daisy is very much a Barbie, and Sue is headstrong, but Blondie makes me feel like an independent woman, even if the opposite is true.
I call each of my wigs by a different name because each brings out a different character, a different personality. A different woman. Looking different makes me act different and attract different responses. I am no longer Sophie but Stella, Daisy, Sue, or Blondie. Blond is the main theme of my collection. I guess that means blondes do have more fun. The test was easily done. Few men look up to Sue, many look up to Daisy and Blondie. They get more attention and more free drinks.
SUNDAY, MARCH 27
OUTSIDE IT’S STILL WINTER. The clock shows six thirty P.M.; when I look out of the window it is already dark. After a long week spent attached to the IV at the hospital, I’m snuggled up on the couch at home, knees jammed between my arms in an “I don’t feel like taking a shower because I’ll be going back to bed soon anyway” mind-set.
Computer on my lap, wearing my robe, and with freshly polished bright red toenails, I’m half watching Bridget Jones’s Diary on TV and half typing. Pretty typical for any twenty-one-year-old girl. This kind of entertainment is the best distraction from what is continuously playing through my mind: the scan, only four days away. I get up and pull Daisy off my head. I look around for Sue and my right hand strokes my scalp. It may look awful, but it feels strangely nice and soft. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. Luckily, my cheeks have returned to their regular proportions, the puffer fish temporarily deflated. I try to see the pretty girl I once was, but I can’t. I try to see myself as myself, but I can’t do that either. I quickly put on Sue and snuggle back on the couch.
; A wig turns out to be so much more than a bunch of hair. Each one does something to me. It goes further, much further than the way I look: They affect my sense of self.
It’s a complete transformation when I put Daisy on my head. Long curls cascade down my back. My Italian sandals become sexy stilettos, my jeans a hip-hugging skirt, and my humble cleavage becomes a real showstopper. That’s why I love her. Daisy makes her best entrance when she’s fashionably late and her curls are running wild. Everyone wants to know who’s hiding behind those fairy-blond ringlets.
As Daisy I like to attract all the attention: tossing my curls from side to side, laughing giddily at every joke, drinking milk shakes instead of tomato juice, and glossing my lips to the max. I prefer watching Sex and the City to reading Virgil, and my toenails absolutely must be red. I dream of romantic getaways with Dr. K—although that fantasy exists no matter which wig I’m wearing.
As Sue I have something most women don’t: wild red locks. Making an impression is easy; I don’t have to laugh at silly jokes or toss around my mane.
My first wig, Stella, makes me understand what I’m not. Or maybe I should say what I don’t want to be. I don’t really know the difference anymore at this point. Her hair is always the same, it never moves. It makes her come across quite rigid, there’s not one hair that sticks out. I prefer them messy.
And Blondie makes me feel invisible—in a good way. It’s not a haircut that stands out. She’s perfect for the days when I don’t want to be the center of attention. If I want to flirt or be noticed in a different way, I wear Daisy or Sue.
All four ladies have something in common. In all four there is a little bit of me. A Sophie who grows by stealing a little inspiration from them all. And a Sophie who can see the changes in herself by observing how these ladies tackle life. Together Daisy, Blondie, Sue, and Stella are forming a new me.
THURSDAY, MARCH 31
BREATHE IN AND OUT DEEPLY, but most important, lie very still. I have to take off all my jewelry, just like the first time, as well as my bra, but I get to keep my wig and sweater on because it’s cold. I put on Sue this morning. She makes me feel undefeatable. I thought it might help (to change the course of things). I’m lying on a narrow examination table that is slowly sliding into a tunnel as long as my upper body. The machine overlooks my thorax and abdomen, chest and stomach.
I think about the past two months. They feel like a lifetime. Today marks such an enormous distance from my life before the cancer. I don’t even remember how it feels to be a student chasing internship opportunities during the day and guys in the cafés at night. I don’t even remember how my dreams looked like. So much has changed. My future is now a big blank. It’s weird living with no tomorrow, when I’ve spent the past twenty years thinking that’s all there is. Maybe that’s why the past two months have felt so long. Now, today is all I have.
I swallow, quietly, so as not to interfere with the CT scan. It doesn’t take long, maybe ten minutes. But I’m in there for more than half an hour because the radiologists can’t get the IV into me to administer the contrast fluid that has to be pumped through my body first. They tell me I have tricky veins, that they are too thin, too deep, too hidden. I roll my eyes. That’s what I hear them saying to everybody on the ward. Let them puncture holes in one another before they send me home with five new bruises.
Dr. L says he’ll try to call me before the weekend to give me the news so I don’t have to spend days waiting. I’m not sure whether I’m happy about it. I would rather have a weekend of hope than find out I have one weekend less to live.
When Sue and I get home my mother is as tense as an electric wire. All her muscles seem to have contracted, making her look like a statue. I think it’s her way of keeping out the demons. It’s strange how fear can make people look ice cold on the outside while they are actually boiling hot with love on the inside.
Suddenly the phone rings. I stopped answering it a few months ago—all the well-meaning chitchat is just too much for me—but I’m standing right next to it, and my arm instinctively picks it up. It’s Dr. L. My entire body breaks out in a cold sweat and sends my heart racing. The world shrinks to the corner of the kitchen where I’m standing. Everything around me goes silent, only to silence: the conversation between my mother and the neighbor who came by a few minutes ago with fresh flowers, but also the sounds from the street outside. Only my breathing and the sound of Dr. L’s voice remain.
“Well, Sophie, I’ve taken a look at the photos straightaway. The official report will follow, but…” Then there is a long and complicated story that I can’t follow. He seems to have forgotten that I’m the unwilling patient and don’t share his scientific passion. He pauses.
“Is it good?” I ask tensely.
“Yes, Sophie, it’s good.”
A long, deep sigh. “Are you satisfied?”
“Yes, Sophie, I’m satisfied, but we’re not out of the woods yet. There’s a long road ahead of us.”
Screaming erupts in our kitchen. I put my hand on my head, stroking Sue, thanking her in silence.
SATURDAY, APRIL 2
TODAY WAS ACTUALLY A REALLY nice day. It passed by without scary thoughts, and I just enjoyed being home. I don’t recall being home ever being such a treat.
It was just Mom and me at the house. My dad was unwinding in a rowing tournament for veterans, and my sis had left for a romantic weekend with her still perfect boyfriend.
Mom walks up and down the stairs, cleaning, rearranging, cooking. She is always on the move. Someone must have told her when she was little that sitting still and leaning back is something that we do at night in bed, and if we are lucky at the very end of the day when everything that could be done is done.
But my being ill affected the household. She seems much more relaxed now. Although I assume she runs even faster up and down the stairs the weeks I’m at the hospital.
I’m sitting on one sofa watching a movie while the rain is attacking the high windows that overlook the canal. Mom sits on the other sofa, not fighting the stairs anymore, and sorting out her collection of little soldiers. Mom has all sorts of collections of antiques. When Sis and I were still small she had her own antique shop two streets up. Almost everything in our house has been found in antique shops or markets. Before Mom professionalized her hobby, she flew around the whole world as an air hostess for KLM in a smart blue suit. She left home quite early, eager to see the world and eager to close a certain door behind her, the one of her parents arguing too often. In those years, being an air hostess came with many advantages: luxury hotels, enough days to visit and enjoy the destinations, and serving her favorite actor, Robert Redford, another glass of champagne.
It’s where she met Maud, one of her friends I like most. Maud once told me that she was intrigued by my mother, who wore red lipstick and permed her hair even though KLM rules restricted it. It’s only when I see them together and they start laughing or digging up memories that I realize my mom has been a girl too.
SUNDAY, APRIL 3
IT’S BUSY TODAY ON the Noordermarkt. Shoppers, vendors, bread, mushrooms, flowers, crowded terraces, apple pie. Sun and blue skies galore. I arrive outside Café Winkel just before one o’clock. Today I’m Daisy, light and careless. I feel as energetic as a squeezed lemon, but Daisy is full of laughter and life. That’s what I call an easy pick. Wearing a pair of large black sunglasses, a black hairband, and a mane of long blond curls, I scan the terrace for a boy I’m meeting named Jurriaan. Like me, he was diagnosed with cancer when he was twenty-one. Today he’s twenty-six and full of energy.
Beneath one of the umbrellas on the terrace, a young man sits reading the newspaper. I take off my sunglasses.
“Are you Jurriaan?”
The young man looks up. “No.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I walk on and take a seat farther up the terrace.
“Sophie?” I look up into a set of dark eyes. “Hi, I’m Jurriaan. Have we met before? You look familiar.” That’s
nice to hear after the big transformation.
He takes a seat next to me. Three kisses on two cheeks. Jurriaan is wearing a blue T-shirt, not too baggy. The perfect cut to show off a great body. A pair of Nikes on his feet, a satchel full of records on his shoulder. Messy hair framing a beautiful face. It’s difficult to imagine he once walked the streets with a bald head and eyes without eyebrows. Mine are almost all gone by now. I take another good look at his full eyebrows and long curly lashes. Looks promising. I had no idea that eyebrows have such a significant task in a face. With them nearly gone my face looks like an unfinished painting.
We order mineral water and decide to share an apple pie with whipped cream. The hospital will be happy to see me eating. Anything really; as long as I eat. They don’t put much stock in the old saying “You are what you eat.” I’m in a constant debate with my nurses because every cancer diet—no matter how much they vary—predicts that cancer feeds on sugar, meaning I avoid sweets as much as possible. But today is an exception. Today is the day I meet Jurriaan.
“Jurriaan—”
“Please, call me Jur.”
Must be a fellow-cancer-patient privilege.
“Was it bad?”
“Yeah, you could say that. The chemo wasn’t working and neither was the radiation. In the end they managed to contain it.”
“Contain it?”
“Yeah. The doctors can’t quite explain it.… It just stopped spreading.”
“Oh. But is it gone?”
“No, it’s still in my body. Like I said, they can’t really explain it.”
I tell him my diagnosis and what the doctors think my chances are. “I try to take it day by day, but…”
“Sophie, it’s rough, and it’s going to be a long process before you get better. You know as well as I do that one good scan doesn’t mean you’re healed. The best thing you can do is try to find some peace.”
The Girl With Nine Wigs Page 4