On the Bright Side

by Hendrik Groen

  Friday, 17 April

  When, yesterday afternoon, I popped in to Evert’s for a glass of something or other, I caught him fiddling laboriously with a pair of red braces. I asked him why he needed braces when he was in a wheelchair.

  ‘Even sitting in that chair, my trousers fall down,’ he grunted, and, quickly changing the subject, asked me what I’d have.

  ‘How come you’re losing so much weight?’

  ‘No idea.’

  I suggested that he see the doctor, but according to my friend there was no need. Evert and doctors are not a good combo. During the consultation they’ll sooner or later ask him about his eating and drinking habits, and that’s always a bit painful.

  ‘I’m still drinking quite a bit and I’m still eating what isn’t good for me,’ he informed the GP as soon as he’d sat down for his last session.

  ‘That doesn’t seem very sensible, in light of your diabetes. How much is quite a bit?’ Then Evert had confessed to several bottles per week, to get it over with.

  To the doctor’s follow-up question as to what he meant by ‘what’s not good for me’, Evert had, he told me, ‘prettied it up with some fruit and veg’.

  I commented that it was a remarkably sensible and adult way to handle it, in light of the fact that he was losing so much weight.

  ‘Are you starting on me now too, dear old nag? I won’t hear another word about it. And now I’m going to crush you at chess.’

  I kindly allowed the game to end in a draw. Evert is terrible at chess. He plays the way he lives: instinctively. He just gives it a wild guess. But chess is a thinking game, not an instinctive game.

  Life is also a thinking game, some of it, anyway. A good helping of instinct is vital too. And a little happiness can’t hurt either.

  Yes, there’s the headmaster again. The headmaster is getting rather worried about his best mate.

  Saturday, 18 April

  The shishamo, ebi yaki and yasaka agreed with me, the maguro sushi too. Next time I’ll pass on the sake and the plum wine. They gave me a spot of trouble in the night. Now, after two aspirins, I’m functioning again.

  Easy on the drink next time, Groen! Drunks aren’t much fun to start with, but old drunks are beyond the pale.

  I have to give it to Evert: he drinks like a fish, but it’s never annoying.

  Our Club had dinner at the Japanese restaurant Otaru somewhere near the Heineken brewery. With the exception of Ria and Antoine, it was our first introduction to Japanese cuisine. ‘Quite edible,’ was the average rating. After eighty years of Dutch fare, our palates have grown a bit dull, and no longer as open to new tastes. But it was a great evening nevertheless. Our initial attempts at mastering those fiddly chopsticks sent a few pieces of sushi flying through the air, but once we were done laughing, we politely asked for some ordinary forks, and then we didn’t have any more trouble. It isn’t really necessary to teach eighty-plus-year-olds too many new tricks.

  ‘And anyway, forks, knives and spoons are just easier to handle than those little sticks. The Japanese know it too, of course, but they’re too stubborn to admit it. So let them keep their chopsticks. They lost the War, after all,’ Graeme summarized, as he ordered a bottle of white to rinse away the taste of the sake.

  The night ended on a bit of a downer, because Leonie missed a step getting out of the bus and twisted her ankle. She’s been sitting with her leg up. At nine this morning Evert brought her breakfast in bed. He put it down next to the bed, red as a beetroot, then made a hasty retreat.

  ‘Oh, Evert, how very sweet of you!’ Leonie was simply beaming.

  ‘Yeah, no trouble,’ and he was out the door.

  So cute.

  Sunday, 19 April

  A titbit I never knew: there is a National Elder Trust, and there is an Ombudsman for the Aged. They don’t exactly shout their existence from the rooftops; no one else had ever heard of either of them.

  Perhaps they’re only meant to serve the 200,000 old Dutch people living in extreme solitude. According to the newspaper, you’re an extreme solitary if you don’t see visitors more than a couple of times a month. (Yet you always have coffee and a biscuit on hand just in case you-never-know-who turns up.)

  Elder Trust volunteers are there to pick up the lonely and take them shopping, or out for a coffee. It breaks up the month a bit. It’s a pity, however, that they can’t think of anything more interesting to do than take them shopping. The Trust’s volunteers operate about eighty ‘Plus-Busses.’ A quick calculation tells me that each Plus-Bus driver has to take some 2,500 OAPs shopping every month, if they’re to serve all 200,000 solitary oldsters. Which means they’re probably always in a rush, so you’d better not bring a long shopping list.

  The increasingly restrictive criteria for admission to a care home are bound to make the number of lonely OAPs grow. The policymakers make it sound so positive and benevolent, ‘to allow the elderly to remain independent for as long as possible’, but what it really means is abandoning the aged to their lot as long as possible.

  In our care home there’s a lot of carping and complaining, but all things considered, there’s more to it here than sitting at home all month long, just waiting for the Plus-Bus to take you out. If you take some initiative and are lucky enough to find a few agreeable fellow inmates, then life in an old people’s home beats living independently, in lonely isolation, any day.

  In a little while Geert and I will set out for our Sunday mobility scooter spin. The sun is very bright, and spring is deliriously chipper.

  Monday, 20 April

  Yesterday I was on the point of going for a ride with Geert when my door burst open and little Frida walked in.

  ‘Hello, Mr Grandpa, do you remember me?’

  ‘Yes, you are Frida. You paid me a lovely visit two weeks ago.’

  ‘You were going to think about what you liked best about yourself,’ Frida said gravely.

  I told her I had thought it over at length, and that the best thing about me was that I liked having lots of friends, and finding out how they are.

  She nodded. ‘That fits you.’

  Frida had told me the last time that the best thing about her was that she had a little brother. I asked her what the worst thing about her was.

  ‘That I don’t have a little sister.’

  That made sense to me. I said that the worst thing about me was that I can be a bit of a bore.

  ‘Oh, you’re not that boring,’ she consoled me. That was kind of her.

  She decided she had earned a biscuit. Fortunately I always have biscuits and chocolates on hand.

  We were just contentedly nibbling on a biscuit with pink icing when her mother walked in. She nodded at me and grabbed Frida’s hand.

  ‘Come on, Granny was starting to get worried.’

  Out in the corridor I heard her grumble, ‘I told you not to go into other people’s rooms for no reason.’

  ‘It wasn’t for no reason. We had to finish talking.’

  ‘Still, I won’t have it.’

  ‘But that grandpa liked me being there.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  That little girl’s visit gutted me. She brought back my grief over my own little daughter.

  Apparently they are working on coming up with a forgetting pill. You can’t change what happened, but you can manipulate the memory of it. I wish I had a forgetting pill, so that I wouldn’t have to think about my little girl’s death quite as often.

  Tuesday, 21 April

  ‘Imagine what would have happened if the men who escaped across the Channel to fight in the War had been sent back by the English. If the English had said: “Take care of your own”.’ Mrs Van Diemen looked about triumphantly. It was a novel take on the boat people in the discussion about the Mediterranean migrant crisis.

  Bakker, as usual, was heartless: ‘If they’re so keen on jumping aboard a leaky old boat that’s much too heavily laden, then I say: it’s their own fault, tough luck if they drown
.’

  Most of the other residents have a milder view, fortunately.

  Besides, the argument that the boat refugees are being foolhardy doesn’t really hold water. If the numbers in the newspaper are to be trusted, it’s only about one or two per cent of all the people who make the crossing who end up drowning. I expect that if they’d stayed in the terrible war zones they left behind, they’d be far more likely to die.

  Besides, I don’t imagine that when they’re scrambling on board, the smugglers give them an honest account of their chances, or that they admit that if it becomes necessary they’ll just let the boat sink.

  I’ve noticed that two of the rooms here have been vacant for some time now. That’s since Mrs Van Dalen passed away, and her neighbour was moved into the nursing wing. The rooms were always expected to be cleared out and turned over within days of a death or departure, so that a new resident could move in promptly, usually within a week. In this case, however, it has been a few weeks and the rooms are still empty. Perhaps I’m being unduly leery, but the vacancies could signal that this home will be shutting its doors in the not-so-distant future.

  I’m keeping my mouth zipped about it at coffee time. I don’t want to be responsible for setting off a panic amongst the inmates.

  Once we have taken over the Residents’ Committee, we’ll ask the director for clarification. The application window for a seat on the committee closes in three days.

  Graeme, Geert, Leonie, Ria and I will throw our names into the hat on 24 April.

  Wednesday, 22 April

  There are some residents who visit the Albert Heijn supermarket on a regular basis. Not to do any shopping, mind, but to partake in the free coffee they have there. The coffee at home in the lounge is also free, but drinking the supermarket’s free coffee makes it doubly so. There they’ll take a seat next to one or two Moroccan housewives, the odd vagrant, or some neighbourhood bag lady. You really have to want it badly, that free cuppa. No matter how much I may be in the mood for a coffee, I don’t see myself ever sitting with that lot.

  The trip to Bruges is taking shape. I’ve taken a book out of the library about the city, and we should have no trouble at all filling up two whole days. An important stop on the tour will be the world’s only frites museum, where I have no doubt we will be served the mother of all chips, or frites, in the traditional paper cone.

  We will also attempt to fold our creaky old bodies into a small sightseeing boat. I saw photos of those boats in the book, and couldn’t help thinking of the boat refugees, with such a crush of tourists on board. I shall keep that thought to myself when it’s our turn. I can’t guarantee, however, that the same thought won’t occur to Evert, or that he won’t discuss it at length with his Japanese fellow passengers.

  Mrs Lacroix, our self-described performance artist, has announced her candidacy for the Residents’ Committee. That’s a bit of a spanner in the works. If she ends up being chosen, the Old-But-Not-Dead Club will no longer have a monopoly. But that may be all for the best, ‘for appearances’ sake’, said Graeme with a grin.

  He is right, it’s better for there to be one board member who isn’t in our club. Just one; no more, please.

  Thursday, 23 April

  At coffee yesterday, Mr Verlaat let slip in passing that he has decided not to sue the home about its refusal to let him keep his little dog. It was his elder sister who’d put him up to it, but in the end it would have cost too much in lawyers’ fees. It isn’t clear if the sister was simply motivated by wishing to see justice done, or if she saw it as the only way to be rid of her brother’s dog, which now has to live with her.

  ‘There must surely be a cheaper and easier way to get rid of a dog,’ I said to Evert later, grinning. That touched a nerve.

  ‘Shut up, Groen, or I’ll set Mo on you.’

  From the corner where Mo was lolling came a deep, almost human sigh. As if the dog was keen to underscore the hopeless futility of that threat.

  ‘An ape, if I’m not mistaken, was recently deemed by some judge to have the same rights as a person, so why can’t a dog have human rights?’ Evert went on.

  I asked him how he felt about human rights for mosquitoes.

  ‘You are right, it isn’t clear where we should draw the line,’ he admitted.

  It’s fine by me if old people want to bring their dog or cat to the care home, as long as they don’t bother the other residents, but I am sure there are some people here who would insist on a place at the table for their pet. Next thing you know, you’ll find yourself seated opposite several dogs and cats and their proud owners, who can talk about nothing else but their four-legged friend. It’s ludicrous, the human traits dog and cat lovers ascribe to their animals.

  ‘No, Rover’s a bit sad right now because the ginger biscuits are all gone.’

  I keep hearing dog owners in the park tell joggers they meet, ‘Don’t be scared, they can smell it on you if you’re scared.’

  And then the runner will of course think, ‘Oh fine, in that case I just won’t be scared!’

  Friday, 24 April

  I try to avoid the rush hour as much as possible. The one thing people here have too much of (leaving aside physical ailments for now) is time, yet they are constantly checking their watches: time is time, after all. Time for coffee, time for lunch, time for tea or dinner. In order to be on time for a meal, they have to give themselves at least twenty extra minutes, to allow for having to queue for the lift. Until recently I, too, tended to live by the clock, but with some application, I have managed to let go of it. Now I stick my head out the door to see if there’s a queue for the lift. If not, I’m on my way, otherwise I just pick up my book or newspaper and wait it out.

  Evert comes and goes when he feels like it.

  ‘I don’t have a watch, I have the time,’ he likes to say – a bit too often.

  He doesn’t mind if the coffee hour is over by the time he trundles in. He’s just as happy to come upstairs to my room for a cup of instant. He has also stopped asking for ‘something extra’ during the day, and that doesn’t mean a ginger biscuit. He knows I don’t drink before 4 p.m. He does sometimes steal a glance at my watch. If I catch him doing it, I turn my wrist away.

  ‘You have time, don’t you, Evert?’

  ‘I have all the time in the world, only, sometimes more thirst than time.’

  ‘Just half an hour to go, mate, then I’ll pour you a shot of lemon jenever.’

  That’s the only drink he doesn’t like.

  During the discussion about rejected asylum seekers being entitled to ‘bed-bath-and-bread’ assistance, many residents objected to the ‘bath’ part.

  ‘I have never in all my life had a bath, and now they’re saying all those refugees are entitled to one.’

  Graeme explained it could be a shower instead.

  ‘What about a washbasin, wouldn’t that do?’ Mrs Van Diemen wanted to know.

  Someone else was of the opinion that before any bath, bed or bread, they should be given life vests, for when they’re sent packing in those dodgy boats.

  Saturday, 25 April

  Our plan has for the most part succeeded!

  Yesterday at the last minute five Old-But-Not-Dead members threw their hats in the ring for the Residents’ Committee. Mrs Lacroix was the only other person who had applied. I don’t think we’ll have too much trouble getting her to go along with our plans. We had a celebratory meeting last night at which Geert volunteered to withdraw his own candidacy.

  ‘That way there doesn’t have to be an election. And it’s not my thing, really, sitting on a committee.’

  Geert is right about that. He is a man of few words. So few that he’d just be sitting there like the sphinx. Geert is more of a doer.

  Now there are exactly five candidates for five seats on the committee; therefore everyone is elected. Evert brought the bubbly, Ria and Antoine supplied the refreshments, and I contributed a speech that consisted of snippets of famous orators’ speeche
s, including Obama’s, which I had plucked from the Internet and pieced together. My fellow club members were at first very impressed by my eloquence, until I tossed in ‘I have a dream …’ That’s when they began growing suspicious. By the time I’d started on ‘Ich bin ein Berliner,’ Evert threw a cushion at me.

  I can’t wait to see Stelwagen’s face when she meets the new Residents’ Committee for the first time. There is already a buzz of conspiratorial excitement in the air. We’re ready for our first sting operation or, rather, a pinprick operation. But still.

  The first action items, in no particular order, are:

  A monthly high tea, provided for and by the residents. Evert wanted to call it ‘Death to the Ginger Biscuit!’ but his suggestion was voted down as being too provocative. We’re going to ease into it calmly.

  A special table in the conversation lounge where the weather and physical ailments are off limits.

  Investigation into the room vacancies. Are there plans afoot to close this institution?

  Streamlining of rollator traffic to prevent bottlenecks.

  More garden benches.

  Discussion with Cook about the possibility of more adventurous fare once a week.

  The pet policy.

  The rules and regulations. For instance, we believe it is a fundamental human right to be allowed to decide how many hooks are needed to hang stuff up on the walls in your room.

  The list of action items is bound to grow longer. I hope we aren’t biting off more than we can chew.

  Sunday, 26 April

  Some orange napoleons have been spotted in shopping bags. As well as some orange cream cakes. The home used to distribute orange pastries on Queen’s Day until the Queen abdicated two years ago. Now we have King’s Day, and a King who happens to be a descendant of the House of Orange as well. The director’s decision to end the orange pastry tradition has given rise to some bad blood. It was a rare dumb move on the part of the normally strategic Stelwagen. Stocking up on those napoleons from the HEMA will only set you back a few euros; you can’t buy goodwill cheaper than that. Tomorrow, many a resident will come shuffling downstairs with one orange napoleon on a plate in their rollator’s basket. There are also some who, fortunately, aren’t as stingy, and are charitable enough to share their orange cakes with some of the others. Afterwards everyone gathers in front of the telly to watch the King. Secretly hoping against hope that he’ll break his vow not to have any koekhappen at his party.