The Girl With Nine Wigs

by Sophie van der Stap

  We stand next to each other somewhat awkwardly. It’s he who finally breaks the silence by asking after the state of my body, in particular my lung. “You gave us quite a fright, you know.”

  I smile shyly. Although Daisy falls dramatically around my shoulders, I feel the opposite of sexy with all the fresh chemo pumping through my body. “My oncologist is not the most charming of men,” I say.

  Dr. K laughs kindly and assures me I am in good hands with Dr. L. “And I’ve kept my eye on you.”

  “Will you come and visit me sometime?” I ask. The elevator is slowing down. He nods. Being this close to him, I feel like I’m flying through all sorts of strange worlds.

  Ding.

  The doors open and I awaken from my fantasy to the eternal boredom of my ward. SIXTH FLOOR—ONCOLOGY stares at me through the open elevator doors. I’m back in my reality: the emaciated-bodies-and-baldies department. I leave Dr. K behind, with a warm glow and a spring in my step.

  SATURDAY, MAY 21

  MY HOSPITAL WEEK IS OVER and the sun is shining. I don’t have to open my eyes to see that; the heat is burning right through my eyelids. I open my eyes and look at the time on my cell phone, which I fell asleep with last night: half past twelve! The colors through my window are calling out for me to get up.

  It’s so nice being woken up by the bright sunshine, or by a soft rain that drips me out of my sleep instead of alarm clocks. There’s a funny game going on with time today. The same day that she’s started walking away from me, leaving me behind with Damocles’s sword, she has become very generous with me, giving me for each minute two. No more to-do lists, appointments, even meetings for drinks, but long minutes of warming my face in the first strokes of daylight. Peace has set in. There’s a surprisingly close connection between cancer and life.

  I get in the shower and lather my whole body in soap. No rush. With curiosity, I study my shower curtain. It’s covered in old-school bathing beauties, all with different boobs and butts. I examine my own breasts. Small and round, with tucked-in nipples. Thinking I had a problem, I always played with them to get them to pop out, until I learned there are more women than just me walking around with ice cubes. I find a match with the long, curly-haired girl; she’s holding her arms up in the air and pointing her chin down. I turn the water to cold and wait a few moments, for circulation and nipples.

  After doing my makeup, I stick my arms up high and jut out my right hip in the mirror. I see the girl from the shower curtain. Today I decide that I’m Daisy: light and full of life.

  I fry an egg and stand in front of the stove to watch it bubble. I see how the egg slowly turns bright yellow and white. Multitasking is a thing of the past. After I polish off the last of my egg, I call Rob. No one answers. He must be filming. Annabel does answer and we agree to meet for tea at Café Finch. Finch is that kind of café where you can hang around on your own with a laptop, meet up with friends on a rainy afternoon, or go out on a Thursday night and meet someone cute.

  That gives me plenty of time to e-mail Dr. L about the status of my stabbing pains and tingling—I can’t distinguish the stabs that are getting rid of the tumors from the stabs that are caused by them—and go in search of a solution for my pasty white arms, legs, and cheeks. I have to protect myself from the sun these days, which is not great for someone with a naturally pale complexion. Of course it’s better to be pasty than have dark spots all over from the chemo, but there must be some product out there to make me look less sickly. The wigs only do so much.

  Out on the street, there are people everywhere—strolling, shopping—all taking their sweet time. After a week of chemo, my tolerance level is below zero. The thing that wears me out most is people trying to grab my attention or swarming around me like ants. Unfortunately I’m not the only one who’s on leave. Sighing heavily, I slowly work my way through the masses. At moments like these my wigs turn into a necessity I can’t live without. But from some people I can’t hide. Every woman who has been in the same place I am now immediately recognizes the texture of my fake hair. In the tanning salon, the saleswoman carefully addresses the topic, assuming I’m wearing a wig. Once I confirm, she starts talking to me about her own cancer. She’s just been operated on for breast cancer so she knows what she’s talking about. She’s exactly what you would expect when you think of a woman working in a tanning shop: too blond, too tanned, her lips too pink. It’s a good thing I’m wearing Daisy—she makes the interaction so much easier. I give Miss Fake Tan a kiss on the cheek and take my bottle of bronzer.

  On my way to meet Annabel, I hear someone call out “Daisy!” I don’t react. They couldn’t possibly mean me. But the voice persists. “Daisy! Daisy!” Finally I turn around and see Jan walking out of the crowd. “Busted! I knew your Caribbean tan was fake. Maybe I should go there myself one of these days.”

  “Very funny. Where are you off to?”

  “You mean which café? You tell me.… you know that old men like me don’t lead but follow.”

  I take him by the arm and together we head to Finch.

  It took Annabel some time to get used to my taste in friends. Although Rob’s daily wear is jeans and hoodies, Annabel still makes fun of me for hanging out with the elderly. And truthfully, my friend Jan is not far from retiring. She calls me an omni-friend because apparently I’m comfortable around anyone. I can go from arguing philosophy with my classmates in the afternoon to talking fashion with Jan over cocktails. I guess she’s right: I never really disliked someone. But now that I have cancer, I’m suddenly allowed to do so. To dislike others, to dislike life. Hate the world. Moan about everything, call everyone names, shoot everything down. Cancer at twenty-one. Life is no longer my friend but my enemy. Pessimism could be my personality and nobody would criticize me. But it’s not: even cancer has become my friend.

  It has given me my wigs, which grow more and more a part of me. It has given me time and the ability to not waste it, but use it. It has given me Jurriaan; a grocer who carefully inspects each beet, kiwi, and fennel for blemishes before packing them for me; a florist who slips an extra purple orchid into my bag when I’m not looking. Cancer has given me not only ultimate solitude but also ultimate happiness and togetherness. Like my wigs, it’s a part of me now.

  And now I love everyone even more: nerdy students, trendy urban types, smooth-talking jet-setters, philosophers, and jocks. And goddamn it, because of it, I can’t hate my cancer, no matter how hard I try.

  Annabel must be right, I really am an omni-friend.

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1

  “SORRY, MADAM, I’M AFRAID I can’t help you. I really need to see your patient pass.”

  I repeat my patient number and carefully explain that I have misplaced my pass. Considering the number of times this pass has been put in and taken out of bags, purses, and jeans pockets, it’s not surprising that this is already the third time I’m queuing up to have a new one made.

  “Miss, starting this Monday we’re working with a new system where everything is digitally scanned. Without your pass, I won’t be able to do anything for you.”

  “But that’s what I’m here for! A new pass!” The hospital is busy modernizing, but that clearly doesn’t mean it’s getting more efficient.

  “By the way, I can’t seem to find you in the system. I mean, you don’t look at all like the picture I have here.”

  “It’s a wig.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” The girl suddenly changes faces. As if she has said something she shouldn’t have.

  “Don’t worry about it. I quite like her.” I tilt Sue a few centimeters from my scalp and bend her back and forth. The girl starts laughing. The laughter does me good but I still feel tense when I call the receptionist.

  “Good morning, this is Dr. van der Stap, could you please put me through to Dr. L?”

  I’m hiding behind one of the many cement pillars dotting the hospital entrance hall. As doctors are more important than patients, they don’t get put on hold for half an hour.
I don’t have half an hour. I have to be at the radiology department in fifteen minutes. Luckily—and against all expectations—Dr. L can see the fun in this. He of all people is in a position to know that modern hospitals are threatened by bureaucratic inertia.

  “Good morning, Dr. van der Stap,” Dr. L answers. “Can you stop by my office on your way to radiology?” Behind his uniform, the man actually has quite a good sense of humor.

  When I arrive in Dr. L’s office, he has a new surprise waiting for me.

  “It’s a port-a-cath. It’s connected by a tube to your heart via your right subclavian vein, underneath your collarbone.”

  “Aha. In normal-speak, please?”

  “It’s a small device under your skin that makes it easier to give you IVs.”

  Unfortunately, the device goes right above my boob. So much for my summer cleavage. Still pondering what Dr. L’s silicon surprise means for my wardrobe, I leave for the radiology department.

  There I’m given a jug of water mixed with radioactive fluid. I have to chug down the whole thing in one hour. There’s no doctor or nurse in sight to ask for explanation. An old man—one of those retirees who have found meaning in their life since volunteering at the hospital—tries to do the job.

  “You have to finish the whole thing.”

  “But why?”

  “Yes, the whole thing,” he repeats.

  Sigh. I try one more time. “Are you sure it’s for me? Last time they gave me an IV with a different fluid.” After all hospitals are just like any other enterprises: things can and do go wrong.

  Finally, one of the technicians comes out and explains to me the reasoning behind this change. “Today we’ll be scanning the abdomen as well, and in order to see everything properly we have to use a different fluid.”

  I take a seat. Nothing to do for a whole hour before my scan except wait, imagine terrible things, and chug radioactive fluid. Before I close my eyes I see the same volunteer walking, step by step, to another patient carrying the same jug of water.

  THURSDAY, JUNE 2

  “CAN YOU IMAGINE? A boob above my boob.” Back at Café Finch, I’m trying to explain to Annabel that the trinket to be inserted above my left breast will probably stick out farther than my own modest A-cup. We both burst out laughing. Hers were once compared to watermelons and mine to chickpeas.

  “Will there be a cute little tube sticking out of it?” Annabel and I are both finding the whole situation totally hilarious.

  “No, thank God, that would be even worse!”

  “What do you care anyway, as long as it’s going to make you better?”

  The giggling fit subsides.

  “I guess you’re right. I’ts kind of scary though. It makes it all so much more visible and real.” I say.

  “It is scary. But look at you, you look great. And I’m not talking your latest haircut here.”

  I smile. It’s a sweet thing to say but she can’t be right. Since the chemo I have dark circles under my eyes and the lack of any facial hair doesn’t help. On the other hand I’m less pale and boney.

  “I’m still scared, though. I know my tumors are getting smaller, but what if they can’t get rid of them completely?”

  “There’s no reason to think that.”

  “No, but it’s all I can think about.”

  Annabel gets up and grabs me tight. “When do you get the results of the scan?”

  “Monday.”

  “Hmm … And when is your last week in the hospital?”

  “If everything goes according to plan … late July.”

  “Meaning you can come with us to the South of France then?”

  France?! Sun, lavender, fresh markets, smelly cheeses, the sea, and pretty terraces with pretty people reading about even prettier people? “Are you serious?”

  “Of course. You always come with us, why wouldn’t you this year?”

  Yes, why wouldn’t I?

  FRIDAY, JUNE 3

  I’M AT THE OUTPATIENT CLINIC for some blood tests. Eight patients before me. Good, a quiet day. From the recently refurbished coffee shop a little further in the hallway, where everything has been modernized except the old bags behind the counter, I can just keep an eye on the queue. One coffee and two glasses of water later it’s my turn. The nurse takes three tubes of blood, stickers them, and stores them away. I only pay attention to three of the numbers: thrombocytes, leukocytes, and red blood cells. Those are the ones that determine whether I need a transfusion.

  With my arm taped up, I head to the surgery department, probably the only part of the hospital I haven’t been to. Today sucks because it’s a long day at the hospital. But it means there will be other days outside the hospital, and long days outside the hospital have slowly become my recipe for happiness. I’ve never been this short on demands. Frankly, it’s a great feeling. So I’d rather get it all done in one go. I follow the nurse to meet my newest doctor.

  He’s definitely a keeper: handsome, youthful face, strong arms, slim waist, no old-fashioned shoes. Let Daisy keep Dr. K, a married family man on brogues.

  This doctor starts yet another file. Then he tells me about the operation I’ll be having: a cut above my breast, insertion of the “box,” and then sewing it all back up. Although it will help spruce up my arms—who now show a trace of death veins and arteries—I don’t like the idea of a box sticking out of my skin. It will definitely not make for a nice summer. I can just see myself on the beach with that weird bulge in my chest. Another cancermark. I hope it’s the last.

  SATURDAY, JUNE 4

  IT’S CLOTHING SWAP DAY at my mothers friend Maud’s house. Maud never left the seventies. It shows in her clothes, her naughty eyes, and especially in her preference for bangles.

  Of all the women, I’m by far the youngest. There are married women with children, divorced women, women with deceased parents, women wearing Spandex, women with Botox, women with sagging tummies and breasts, women with nannies and maids, women with dyed hair. In short: women with a life story.

  We drink coffee, eat bonbons, and laugh. I take pleasure in watching all these middle-aged women trying on clothes while enjoying one another’s company—and seeing that at fifty-five, they still have the same young girl inside like me.

  This thought makes me stop to realize that time is still ticking—ticking on toward a world where it stands still and I could be going much sooner than all these sagging breasts around me. The more I think about it, the further removed I feel from them. It makes me so sad to know time will bring all these stories to an end. Sad that time could take away my weddings and divorces, my children and corrective underwear.

  Any interest in the purple skirt and gold lamé top I fished out of a pile five minutes earlier is lost. I drop them onto a different pile and am frightened as soon as I see the purple skirt in the hands of a sagging tummy. Without wanting it, I want to want it. I want to care whether I get it for many years to come. But I don’t care about the bloody skirt at all.

  What I care about is The Tibetan Book of the Dead, because even with treatment going well, I’m so scared my illness will always be a part of me. I hate my doctor for having said that the biggest challenge of all is to get rid of it for good. That sentence never leaves my thoughts. Still, its not something to discuss over drinks in a city café or in a house full of hysterical women, while sipping on a glass of vegetable juice. It’s quite lonely making.

  I get up to go look for the gold lamé top and find it on my mom’s fifty-five-year-old torso.

  “What do you think of this top? And this skirt?” she asks.

  My mom and Maud are clearly in another state of mind.

  “The skirt looks great, but the top isn’t working. It’s too small for you, more my thing maybe,” I lie. My mom gives me a look. A problem with mothers: they always see when you lie. Fathers are much less observant. She hands me over the top. I slip it on.

  I want to dance and flirt again. Kiss. Make out. Just like the old days, but now with wi
g. Off into the unknown of the city night, with an unknown ending. June has arrived, the sun shines longer, and the wind is becoming softer and warmer. Spring fever invades me, from my stomach to my toes. I send a photo in a text message from my phone to the boys with the caption “Emergency” and go in search of a skirt to match the top my mom so kindly handed back to me.

  * * *

  That night I head to Rain, a new night club in the old casino somewhere in the city center. Inside I’m all butterflies, but on the outside I’m doing my best to look like I own the place. I’m wearing my hottest dress and carry Sue’s wild red hair on my head. My eyelashes are all gone now, but my fake lashes for tonight (they only hold three hours) are longer and fuller anyway. My tan from a bottle gives my skin a healthy sheen, which is a good thing because I’m baring a lot of it. As I step into the haze of the club, the light makes the glitter on my dress sparkle. Only the goose bumps on my arms hint at my underlying nerves, but my arm hair has disappeared as well, so no one can tell. It’s been only four months that I haven’t seen the night, but it feels like new.

  The dimness of the nightclub gives me the anonymity I crave. I want to step into the night, to forget everything, to let loose like a girl without a story.

  Tonight is dinner with the boys. They are treating me to a night out on the town. We start with dinner; I order codfish in a creamy yellow sauce. The days Jochem does work, he’s a trend watcher by profession, one of those guys who is always running and rushing, and who can’t sit down for more than five seconds because he’ll miss out on the next big thing. I guess being here with him makes me a trendsetter by association. When the second wine bottle is empty, we decide to switch over to mojitos. According to Jan, the rum will certainly kill anything that the chemo missed. I tell him I’ll suggest this alternative therapy to my doctor next week.