So much has changed in my life, and so much in me. A strange face in the mirror’s reflection. I hardly recognize my old self, with or without a wig. Too much distance between us. It does help, dressing up as all these different personalities, to learn how to see myself. Like, that’s me, and that’s me, and that’s also me. I feel almost lucky that I can wear different wigs and try out different personalities. That I can somehow figure out who I am underneath.
FRIDAY, APRIL 15
“SOPHIE!”
I’m standing in front of Hildus’s front door. Just as I go to ring the bell I hear someone shout my name.
With a bag full of groceries, Hildus approaches me, looking at me searchingly. “Yes, it is you. Did you get a haircut?”
Assuming he hasn’t heard, I play along. “Yeah,” I say, and conjure up a doubtful smile. A poor effort. Hildus doesn’t look convinced. His eyes are fixed on my wig, Blondie, which moves about as naturally as Dolly Parton’s.
I’m on a date. Dating with cancer is quite scary. The last time I flirted with the opposite sex was in New York at the New Year’s Eve party with Annabel. But since my diagnosis, I haven’t bothered with guys and they haven’t bothered with me. Hildus and I last saw each other at a party in December, before I left for New York. When we run into each other we always flirt, update each other’s numbers, and promise to get in touch. That promise has never been fulfilled, until recently when he sent me a text out of the blue.
I bumped in to The Ex at that same party. We were together for a year and spent most of that year in each other’s company. Being ten years apart, we had different lives but we shared as much as we could. Jogging in the morning, eating breakfast, checking our e-mails before running off to work or class. He started work at ten thirty in his gallery, and I had my first class at eleven. That half hour gave me just enough time to make it to the university from his house. It’s odd how close we started and how far apart we ended up.
Since then, it’s been radio silence. I had secretly hoped that my cancer might elicit some sign of life from him—a call, a card, hell, even a text message would have been nice. But nothing. The strange thing is that he already lost an ex-girlfriend to cancer. This comforts me in a way, makes me think I’ve got good chances. I mean, how likely is it that he will lose another one to cancer? I want to tell him I’m okay, that I still eat, laugh, and bike through town when the weather allows it. That I’m living like a normal person, more or less. And maybe that I’m dating again. Sort of.
“Actually, your hair looks kind of … wiggish,” Hildus says as we climb the stairs to his flat. Coming from someone who doesn’t know anything about my illness, this is quite a downer. Wiggish. So, Hildus thinks my new do looks “wiggish.” Ouch. I’d opted for Blondie because she looks the most like the old me. Blondie instantly deflates from “ready to hit the town” to a sad little pile of peroxide strands. I’ve spent at least three days styling the wig in preparation for this date. I guess I overdid it.
I feel naked—worse, transparent. There’s no more sign of Blondie, it’s just me with a wig on my head. I look at the stairs. I consider running back down them as fast as possible. But I swallow the lump in my throat and keep on climbing.
Hildus’s living room looks like a jungle. There are plants all over the place. Every time I turn my head there are leaves dangling in my face. I’m terrified Blondie will get stuck on a branch in the apartment, and I fidget nervously. I try to hide my discomfort with an awkward giggle. I came prepared to swoon—I even attached a special tape to the inside of Blondie just to be sure.
I guess that was a bit too much to ask for.
Hildus tells me what it is that he’s actually “doing”: part-time surfer, television entertainer, and writer. Pretty much everything that sounds interesting While he’s going on about his grand life, I’m trying to hide my lack of one.
“Want some wine?” Wine? Hmmm. Except for two glasses I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since the news. I better stick to juice.
“No, thanks. Do you have tomato juice?” Wow, that must sound awkward.
“Oh, uh, sure. I think I do.”
I follow him into the kitchen, where Hildus comes up close behind me. He puts his hands around my waist.
“Let’s eat first,” I hear myself mumble. Nice one, Blondie. Is that all you’ve got?
He takes two vegetarian sausages out of their packaging while he explains the importance of nature and eating organically. “Are you aware of all the crap you put in your body? Or how we treat animals for slaughter?” I pretend to be reading the interminable list of ingredients on the package so as not to roll my eyes. He doesn’t know half of what I’m aware of. Mr. Dilletante, dabbling in veggie sausages, and bad ones at that.
I escape to the living room and sit down on the couch. Hildus walks in with two plates and sits down next to me. The food looks awful and impossible to swallow without some help. I’m all about health, I have to, but this is just a no-go. “Do you have any ketchup?”
After dinner, Hildus slides in closer to me on the couch, his hands moving toward my face. He’s making the move. I freeze. Do I want this? I guess this means I’m still desirable, so that’s good news. And apparently my wig has passed the test. Slowly I feel Blondie coming back to me. Thank you, Maybelline. Completely tense, I move a few inches away on the dusty old couch, just out of his reach. Hildus, like most men, doesn’t get the message. He curls up beside me and starts running his hands through my hair, something Blondie is not at all prepared for nor would ever accept. Just before it all goes awry, I duck away.
Hildus looks at me with an expression of surprise and confusion.
“I think I have to tell you something,” I say.
Hildus is silent.
“I’m sick. I have cancer. You’re right about the wig. I’m totally bald.”
Hildus is still silent. But he doesn’t look shocked.
I wait a few seconds for him to speak. Nothing.
“That’s why I’ve been acting so awkward.” Nothing. “You’re so quiet. Are you shocked?”
“No, not really. I mean, yes, of course, this is a big deal, but I don’t care. I still want to kiss you.”
“Oh? What about the wig? And my bald head? And that I might die?”
“You’re still Sophie.”
Silence, this time on my part. And then a smile. I suddenly realize it’s what I really came for. I lean over and kiss Hildus, grateful and passionate all at once.
Then I get up, ready to go.
“Don’t you want to stay over?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m bald. It just doesn’t feel right anymore, to cuddle up with all this baggage, visible or not. I would rather lie in bed with my cat.”
“Just stay for a little bit.”
“No.” I look at him. “I can’t and I don’t want to, but thank you for this evening.” I give him a last kiss, get up, and walk to the door. Outside I take a deep breath. My face is all smile. I’m still attractive. I’m still in the game. For a moment I’m back to being a normal girl.
THURSDAY, MAY 19
THE SHOCK I WENT THROUGH in January made me forget so many things. I can’t remember much of the months before I was told I had cancer. There are people I’ve met I don’t recall, dinners that are a complete blur. It all seems so far away. On the other hand, I remember every detail of the last four months. Maybe this explains why Jur has become such an important figure in my thoughts in such a short period of time.
It’s like he’s guiding me without even being by my side. I wish we’d see more of each other. I seize every opportunity to meet, but the rules of love are unfortunately not very different now than they were before. After every attempt from my side to be in touch, I patiently wait for him to reach out to me. And unfortunately that can take weeks.
Jur is convinced that meditating helped him survive. I guess when doctors give up on you and you drift off to the land of Buddha with
only one mantra—I will not die—and you come back more alive than ever, that makes sense. But it makes me restless; I can’t sit still on that cushion for more than ten minutes. Jur says I shouldn’t worry. That my writing is my meditation. I tried to look as smart as I could, only to hide that I had no idea what to think of that. My writing my meditation? All I can say is that I’ve come to do only the things that make me happy.
It’s week sixteen and my fourth hospital stay has begun. Things are moving quickly, especially when I remember that in two months’ time I won’t have to spend any more weeks rotting away here. I hardly dare think that this nightmare will soon be a memory. In two months, the first twenty-seven weeks will be over, and I’ll only have to come for outpatient treatments once a week. Coming and going on the same day—what bliss.
The sun is shining. Even on C6. I’m cheerful. Besides a cancer diet book, I’ve also brought along Primo Levi. Such fun. When I open the book, a card falls out with a poem written on it. It’s “Ithaka” by C. P. Cavafy. On the back is a letter from Jaap, my loyal and only friend from university, who was never too busy to explain to me—again and again—the most recent statistics.
Dear Sophie,
This is C. P. Cavafy’s poem “Ithaka.” Read it when you feel sad or afraid. I don’t know if it will cheer you up, but it doesn’t have to. It teaches you to appreciate life; how it was, how it is, and what to do with it. When you read it, think of ancient Greece, the land of Homer and Socrates, the land where reflecting on destiny and wisdom went hand in hand. Above all, think of the origin of your name: the Sophists were the first ones who weren’t satisfied with accepting their destiny—they tried to understand what to do with it.
That is what you must do as well. It is up to you to get better!
Love,
Jaap
Encouraging thought while lying chained to an IV. I watch the comings and goings of white coats: nurses, interns, resident doctors, and, at the top of the food chain, Dr. L, my own medicine man. Some days life in the hospital closely resembles a slapstick comedy. As a patient, I can clearly see the difference between the experienced lifesavers and the rookies. I eavesdrop on the conversations among the nurses, which keep me up to date on all the gossip and intrigues, most of which I exaggerate in my mind to keep me entertained.
“How was your weekend? Were you on duty?”
“Yeah, but not here. I was deejaying at Paradiso.” Nurse Esther spins records at local clubs when she’s not busy pampering us.
“Oh, meet any cute guys?” the other nurse asks.
“Well, do you remember Gerard? He was here with a seminoma.” A tumor in his balls. “He was dancing right in front of my booth. Very cute.”
Nice. I tell her that will be me next week, swinging my blond curls around.
It kind of sucks when you have nothing to add to the conversation. I remember that from the visits to my aunt, who had spent too many years of her life in the hospital. There I was en famille, keeping up a poor conversation in a failed attempt to overcome the distance between the patient’s bed and the visitor’s chair. Uncomfortable, embarrassed. What to say? Where to look? Once people enter this building for unlucky reasons, you lose conversation: they live in a different reality, where other things matter.
Now that person is me. I have come to know that the patients feel the least uncomfortable. I feel bad for my visitors, spending their spare hours at my bedside, robbed of their well-deserved lunch break in the sun. “Is it nice out?” Or when it’s raining: “Pouring down, is it?” in my most cheerful and sociable voice.
That’s why I ask only a few people to visit me in the hospital, rather than asking everyone to stop by to help kill the time. Nervousness and awkwardness around me only gives me a headache. I’d rather be alone and let my mind wander, like Jur, who lay in a similar bed and had similar thoughts. He vomited bucketfuls. I pass the time in a more productive way: I write, read, polish my nails and, if I’m lucky, receive visits from a doctor with a name starting with K and a stethoscope.
I don’t need a lot of fellow victims to commiserate with. No roomful of baldies, or a weekend of reflection and meditation in a spiritual castle out in the country with all those scalps and wigs. I prefer the peace and the silence of my own thoughts, where I have apple pie with Jur every day. I have visited a number of Web sites, though. Web sites about cancer—mostly about young people with cancer. It can be lonely having cancer all by yourself. Everyone carries on doing those things that, until recently, were important and significant to you as well. And now here I am, shifting my suddenly secondary cares and concerns aside while trying to survive.
One little bubbling tube.
FRIDAY, MAY 20
“HERE SHE IS. What do you want now? Come to bother Dr. L with more of your questions? And who’s this you’ve brought along? Is this your new man?” Nurse Esther stands up from behind her desk, smiling.
I turn around and see a gray and wrinkled C6 patient behind me, who by the looks of things doesn’t have much time left. A bundle of laughs, Esther. I once asked Dr. L whether it helped my case that I wasn’t as wretched-looking as most of the other C6 prisoners, despite my uncertain prognosis. He told me it did.
Going through chemo is a strange process. It wears me out, but so does the cancer. At least knowing the chemo is killing the tumors manages to energize me at the same time. On my strong days, wearing a wig to match my mood, nobody on the street notices anything out of the ordinary. Besides the massive fatigue I feel after a week of chemo and my hair-free existence, I appear quite healthy. On my low days, my sickness shows on my face, but those are the days that I hide in my bed.
I’m now so familiar here that I always have a good time with the nurses, who know how to make me laugh. I dropped by to kill some of the boredom of my fourth hospital week, immediately forgetting my surroundings when Esther starts telling me about her latest embarrassing escapade, falling backward, camera and all, into the fountain of the Alhambra in Granada.
Pulling my IV pole back to my ward, I pass the door to the hospital chapel and decide to pay a call to Jesus, just to say hi. At least he’s always home. These days I regularly stop in for a church visit. Not for some hypocritical idea of finally putting effort into my relationship with God, but honestly, just to pass time. I see Jesus looking down on us from the high beams of the white chapel. Quietly, so as not to disturb the peace, I walk up to him to light a candle for the general good of the world. As well as one for my trusty IV pole: Jesus’s heavy eyes seem to tell me lighting a candle for myself is not done. Needing a quick rest, I take a seat on one of the white benches inside. As an atheist or agnostic, I’m still contemplating, praying isn’t really my thing. I stare ahead and sink into beautiful thoughts about Dokter K, until my IV rudely bleeps me back to reality. Obediently, I get up and go in search of the nearest electrical socket in the corridor. I maneuver my pole into the right position and come to a halt again.
When I’m sufficiently charged for another walk, I wander toward the Muslim prayer room. It’s a free country, and Friday is the first day of the Muslim weekend anyway. I clumsily tie my cardigan over my head and I get down on my knees. Who knows, maybe this will bring me amazing new insights. So far the only insight it’s ever brought me is it’s not a good time to lose your headscarf, which happened to me once in Iran, while traveling there with a friend. Less common a destination than India or Tibet I guess, but for me it wasn’t. Both my parents had visited the country, my mother had even lived in Tehran for two years as a young girl, when the shah was still in power. It turned out a beautiful trip and a very surprising experience: most people we met were not that different of us. Just their regime was.
The day I left, my father gave me a poem about a gardener in Isfahan and told me he’d searched for him close to the famous bridge but never found him. When I set off, I decided I would look for him and bring back the picture he had never been able to shoot. I must have gone on the right day, because when we went to Isfaha
n I came across a gardener and took his picture to send to my dad.
My IV battery gives up yet again, and as the mosque doesn’t appear to be vanquishing my boredom, I leave the quiet room behind and slowly make my way back to C6, like a disciple back to her master.
The elevator comes to a halt on the second floor and the doors open. To my delight, my favorite white coat appears: Dr. K. Now, that’s what I call a sign from God. He looks at me with a friendly and somewhat cheeky look in his eyes. He comes and stands close behind me, even though we only have to share the cavernous space with two cackling nurses. I hear the nurses chatting about the upcoming staff party this weekend and wonder if Dr. K will be attending and what he wears outside of office hours. I probably like him better in uniform.
On the way up I can feel his breath on my neck. I break out in a light sweat: on my back, under my arms, between my fingers. Three months ago my tumors were causing my sweats; now it’s my unceasing crush on Dr. K. The elevator comes to a standstill again, this time on the third floor, and the door opens to let out the cackling nurses. I’m starting to recognize them from the many times I’ve traveled these halls. My typical route takes me first past radiology, then to cardiology via the newborns, then past the operation rooms, then comes my ward: oncology. Before, when I was still in the caring hands of Dr. K I would pass further up through neurology, to the pulmonary and orthopedic wings on the eighth floor—Dr. K’s domain.
The nurses disappear around the corner and the knot in my stomach tightens. I have three floors to go, Dr. K another five. With a little luck the elevator will maintain its usual glacial pace, which means another two minutes. Two minutes alone with Dr. K, behind closed doors. I can still feel his breath. Goose bumps on my neck. Everything inside of me is aglow. Here I am in the middle of my ultimate doctor fantasy and I’m paralyzed.
The Girl With Nine Wigs Page 7