On the Bright Side

by Hendrik Groen

  ‘We’ll do our best.’

  In cases like this, I don’t think it’s a good sign when people use the word ‘we’. As if they’re willing to share the responsibility for the blow that’s coming with unnamed others.

  It must be said that an hour after receiving the shot, Mo, with a great deal of groaning, did hoist himself back on his feet and drank some water. After a walk from the front door to the kerb and back again, he collapsed into his basket again with a grunt.

  Thursday, 23 July

  Two pythons were found in a skip just a few hundred metres from here. Their owner apparently wanted to get rid of them. Mr Dickhout breathlessly reported that he had walked past that skip just yesterday, as if he’d narrowly escaped death by strangulation.

  ‘Oh, Indiana Jones, stop exaggerating,’ Evert sneered, ‘those baby snakes were only half a metre long. They wouldn’t even stretch round your fat neck.’

  I have never really understood people who love snakes, and even less so since seeing a documentary about a pet shop in North Amsterdam. There was a bloke who came every week to buy a live bunny to feed to his snake. It may have been a hamster, I don’t recall. Snap, gulp; bye-bye, sweet little bunny. I can picture the owner gazing contentedly at the bulge in his pet’s body, maybe still squirming a bit? Wouldn’t you think the fellow should sit in the crocodile pit in the zoo for a while, to make him see the error of his ways?

  Mo seems to be doing a little better.

  The Alps stages of the Tour de France are providing me with a most necessary diversion. Whiling away a few hours watching men toiling up mountains on their bikes, in an unashamedly chauvinistic frame of mind, does me good. Go Holland Go! ‘We’ aren’t doing too badly, with two Dutchmen in the top ten. OK, we haven’t yet won a stage, but I’m sure it will happen.

  Friday, 24 July

  At elevenses a difference of opinion arose on an important question: should you be disqualified from the Nijmegen Four-Day March if you’re doing those 40 kilometres on crutches? The debate was set off by a photo in the paper showing an official mercilessly cutting through the wristband of a lady on crutches. Ha! Now she could kiss that medal goodbye.

  Everyone could agree, however, about another marcher who was caught covering part of the distance by taxi: he should be debarred for life. This year there are mobile brigades whose job it is to sniff out cheaters. Do you really think the other marchers could give a hoot if a handful of participants win one of those silly medals without actually deserving it? The answer, probably, is a thousand times yes. People who enjoy marching with the herd are people with a highly developed sense of discipline and honour.

  There are people who watch the televised coverage of the march every day.

  ‘My, my, five thousand blisters yesterday!’ I heard someone mutter, aghast.

  There are over 40,000 marchers this year, and the organization is expecting a million spectators, I read. That’s twenty-five spectators per marcher, which does seem a bit much. I used to love walking, but I think I’d have taken a cab from start to finish so as not to drown in such a sea of humanity.

  Mr Verlaat came down for coffee this morning with his own Four-Day medals pinned to his lapel. Eight of them, collected between 1973 and 1984. He was eager to tell us all sorts of stories, such as the fact he’d have two pieces of gingerbread toast for breakfast before setting out each morning.

  ‘To prevent blisters.’

  There were some sceptical frowns, because it’s not often you hear such rot, even in here.

  ‘I never had any blisters myself, so it had to have been the gingerbread.’

  ‘A watertight argument, I must say, Verlaat,’ said Graeme.

  Saturday, 25 July

  Did you know there’s an old-age hip-hop troupe? Evert’s granddaughter showed us a clip of this club on YouTube last week; they call themselves Hip Op Eration (or something like it). I am a great proponent of old people staying active and keeping up with the times, but there are limits. Hip-hoppers of over seventy overstep those bounds. It hurt my eyes to see this sad demonstration of ‘look how with it we are’. I’m willing to listen to all sorts of music, but hip-hop isn’t one of them. My rather old-fashioned verdict: amateurish doggerel with a lot of ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ chanted to a computer-racket beat. When you get twenty oldies dressed all in black doing a wooden little dance to it, quite out of step with one another, I think they are a disgrace to our generation. I can get all hot under the collar about it. If I’d been there and had access to a water cannon, then that YouTube video would have had quite a different outcome.

  In the same old-people-trying-far-too-hard category: British housewife Mrs Doris Long, 102, has broken her own rappelling record. Daredevil Doris, the oldest abseiler in the world, sailed down a building 94 metres high.

  Sunday, 26 July

  Mo is dead. The vet gave him an injection yesterday afternoon. Mo was stretched out on the table, Evert held his head and I held Evert. The dog groaned softly, gave his owner one last sad, glassy gaze, shuddered and died. There were tears in my friend’s eyes. And in my own.

  ‘Will you take care of the burial arrangements yourself, or should I have someone come for him?’ the doctor asked. ‘It would incur certain costs.’

  ‘You can go now. We’ll take care of the rest ourselves,’ Evert snapped.

  First there was the little matter of settling the €130 bill, in cash. I took care of it with the vet out in the hall.

  Evert immediately rang Jan. He’s driving the car up from Uden today. We have wrapped Mo carefully in his own old blanket, and this afternoon we’ll drive to the woods to bury him. I don’t think it’s allowed, but we’ll just risk the fine. Evert wants it done this way.

  ‘On the one hand, I’m glad he died before me. I don’t know what would have become of him. They don’t accept dogs this old at the shelter, do they? I’d have had to give him an injection myself.’

  He gave a deep sigh.

  ‘It’s best this way.’

  Monday, 27 July

  In order to avoid the Sunday strollers, we had waited until the late afternoon to load Mo into the car. Then we hoisted in Evert, then the wheelchair, and finally yours truly. Jan had brought a shovel from home. It was raining, which was lucky, because that meant very few walkers in the woods, with or without dogs. It took us quite a while to find a suitably secluded spot. There Jan dug a big hole, not an easy feat because of the tree roots. He was drenched in rain and sweat. Evert looked on in silence from his wheelchair with the dead dog wrapped in the old blanket on his lap. At one point a jogger disturbed us. We pretended we were very interested in trees, which didn’t seem so farfetched, since we were in the woods. The young man stared at our strange little group in surprise, nodded, and ran on.

  When the hole was deep enough, Jan and I picked Mo’s blanket up by the edges and carefully lowered him in. Evert muttered ‘Goodbye, Mo,’ and then Jan filled the hole, covering the grave with twigs and leaves. Back in the car, Evert gave a deep sigh.

  ‘There, that’s done. Now a drink, before anything else.’

  A little later we were sipping brandy, waiting for the pizza delivery.

  ‘You know, an old dog barely stirs all day long. Some grunts and groans, a few farts, and a waddle three times a day to and from the patch of turf where he does his business. And yet – it’s company. You talk to him, at least I do, and he’ll cock his head as if he’s listening. You won’t see a goldfish doing that.’

  Jan and I nodded. It was true.

  Tuesday, 28 July

  It’s something you might not expect to hear, but even here a juicy sex scandal is greatly appreciated. Especially if an elderly English lord is implicated. And, better yet, not one, but two prostitutes, a line of cocaine snorted through a rolled-up banknote off a naked female breast. A film with that many tired clichés would get terrible reviews. But truth is always better than fiction: this Lord Sewel also happens to be the chairman of a committee in the House of Lords that�
�s supposed to make sure the gents behave themselves. He was paid £119,000 per year for that post. Sewel had written a few weeks ago: ‘The actions of a few damage our reputation.’ And: ‘Scandals make good headlines.’ Not one word was a lie. And the cherry on top: a picture in the paper of this lord modelling an orange bra.

  Old people and sex are not a happy combination. Sex is only discussed here in extremely couched terms. Mr Dickhout is the only one who likes to boast of his former prowess.

  ‘Women used to call me Tyrannosaurus Sex,’ he bragged.

  ‘Well, isn’t that a coincidence,’ said Leonie, ‘I just read in the paper that Ted Kennedy used to say the same thing.’

  ‘Well, then he must have got the idea from me,’ said Dickhout, his face red as a beetroot.

  What I can never understand is that even men of the highest rank can’t seem to keep their salacious details out of the papers, with Clinton’s horny cigar in Monica’s humidor the high (or low) point. The exception was our assassinated would-be Prime Minister, Pim Fortuyn, who didn’t think it necessary to hide the fact he had frequent sex in the ‘darkroom’ with Moroccan boys. That wasn’t offensive, apparently, because he wasn’t trying to hide it.

  Wednesday, 29 July

  People are mourning two deaths that are by no means run-of-the-mill: Cecil the lion, and Hitchbot the robot hitchhiker. The lion was shot dead by an American dentist who’d paid $20,000 for the privilege. The first attempt was with bow and arrow. Perhaps the hunter had some Native American blood in him. When that failed, he used a rifle. The dentist has gone into hiding, and his practice is suffering. Before Twitter and Facebook nobody would have given a hoot about a dead lion. Besides, it hasn’t even been that long since American cowboys and Indians cheerfully bumped off forty million buffalo. I’m sure there was at least one dentist among the buffalo hunters.

  The other dear departed also received much commiseration here: Hitchbot. It was an experiment – a little robot that held up a sign by the side of the road saying where he wished to go. His creators wanted to know what would happen. He’d already thumbed rides all over the place, and was treated with great kindness, until the day he was found lying in a ditch somewhere. Someone had decapitated Hitchbot.

  Speaking of robots, there are some that should count on far less sympathy: the killerbots. The paper reported that it may not be long before death and destruction will be sown on the battlefield by mechanical combatants. I bet it won’t take long for a robot to decide to join a terrorist organization, either, or start one by itself. Scientists and technicians will fail to take responsibility for it, as usual.

  ‘Let’s hope we won’t be around to see it’, was the fervent wish.

  Robots in the care industry aren’t jubilantly welcomed by us either.

  ‘If a robot ever comes to help me get dressed, I’ll yank the batteries out,’ someone said. A ghastly prospect, to be cared for by a machine. Yet there’s a lot of research being done on robots in the care industry. The rationale is that if those tasks can be done by a robot, the human staff will have more time to pay some real attention to the inmates – in the form of a chat, for example. I predict, however, that management would decide that little chats weren’t one of life’s important necessities, and would cut costs by sacking the superfluous employees.

  Thursday, 30 July

  Has Mrs Slothouwer overplayed her hand? She has been spreading the story that she’s been abused by her son on several occasions. Slothouwer is by far the least sympathetic resident of our home. Opinions about the abuse are threefold. There are those who believe what Slothouwer is saying, but think her son is completely justified in treating her harshly. A second group of the residents think she’s made it up to make her son look bad. A third camp thinks that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and that the son could well have caused the bruises Slothouwer showed one of the nurses. For many residents, proof, or at the very least some evidence, are not necessary for them to reach a verdict. I myself am keeping an open mind for now.

  According to police statistics, elder abuse is probably very common, but it is rarely reported. Old people are often completely dependent on their children or caretakers, which makes them extremely vulnerable. They’re afraid that filing a complaint will only make matters worse for them. A classic tip of the iceberg.

  I would guess that here in the home it isn’t too prevalent, but I wouldn’t bet my life that even here there’s no hitting, pinching, or stealthy emptying of bank accounts going on.

  Friday, 31 July

  The director first had a long talk with Mrs Slothouwer, and then announced there will be an investigation, in consultation with the GP. In case it’s necessary to press charges. Since that talk Slothouwer has kept her mouth shut about the whole affair. We don’t know what tactics Stelwagen used to make her shut up, but that too may well verge on elder abuse. I am not suggesting anything like waterboarding, but I wouldn’t rule out a veiled threat about a transfer to the locked ward.

  Meanwhile the son has signed an affidavit saying that he never hurt a hair on his mother’s head. Which isn’t saying much. I don’t call that news – unless he’d confessed straight out to dragging his mother across the room on a regular basis and beating her black and blue.

  With that, the peace is restored, at least for the time being, and, knowing Stelwagen, that was her primary and most important goal.

  Saturday, 1 August

  ‘We should think about procuring ourselves a ring, from Perry Sport.’

  ‘Ring?’

  ‘A rubber ring, you know, for swimming. The climate scientists have updated their calculations, and they’re predicting the sea level is going to rise by 3 metres.’

  ‘Well, I’m on the fifth floor, so by the time that sea level reaches me … I won’t be around to see it.’

  Mrs Smit was growing visibly irritated at our flippant remarks. She thought we should be thinking of her grandchildren, who in that event would have to move to South Limburg.

  Having weathered four heat waves, we are all finally agreed that the climate is out of whack. It’s quite possible that the consequences of global warming will turn out to be a much greater disaster, and also happen much sooner than we think. Homo sapiens is an animal that is not too concerned about the species as a whole. And it’s the only animal capable of annihilating the entire planet, whether by accident or on purpose. Thinking about it doesn’t make me happy. The fact that I am standing with one foot in the grave, with no children or grandchildren to worry about, doesn’t make it any better.

  There have been lots of articles in the papers again lately about preventing dementia. As of now it still comes down to healthy eating and keeping the body and mind fit. You don’t have to be senile to know that those things are good for you.

  Sunday, 2 August

  We, the members of the Residents’ Committee, have sent the director a letter demanding that something be done about the lift congestion. Yesterday Graeme broke another record: it took him all of twenty-four minutes to get from his room on the fifth floor down to the dining room.

  One of the lifts was being used for a move. The room of a lady who passed away on Wednesday had to be cleared out by yesterday at the latest. The lady in question hasn’t even been laid to rest yet, but rules are rules. The equipment provided for a move of this sort is one laundry cart, and a trolley from the kitchen. If you insist loudly enough, you’re allowed to borrow these if they’re not in use. Emptying a room with such inadequate means takes at least half a day. Which means that one of the two lifts will be full of boxes and other rubbish. At the rush hour before lunch, some sixty residents have to make their way downstairs. There are only two residents who take the stairs; all the others depend on the lift, which can hold four fat bodies at a pinch, or five thin people equipped with rollators or other equipment. Taking into account the aggravating amount of time it takes to load and unload, and the fact that the lift moves at about the same pace as its passengers, it isn’t hard t
o work out that there will be long queues.

  Graeme had to let three full lifts go by before managing to squeeze into the fourth one. Then the lift stopped at every floor, and at the second and third floor, the passengers at the back had to get off. So everyone had to step out. Someone dropped a handkerchief as he was getting in again; by the time he’d picked it up, the doors had closed and the now almost empty lift continued on its way. Then Graeme had to let two crammed lifts go by again before he was able to continue on his way to his lunchtime sandwich.

  We had timed our last ten trips, and informed Stelwagen of the outcome. At rush hour, the average time it takes to travel by lift is more than fifteen minutes.

  ‘The time we have left is scarce, and therefore too precious to spend an average of fifteen minutes doing something as simple as riding up or down a few storeys. Moreover, we worry what would happen in an emergency. The sign DON’T USE IN CASE OF FIRE isn’t very reassuring. We ask ourselves, who’s going to carry us downstairs one by one?’ That was our letter.

  The question, in a nutshell, was: what she was going to do about it ASAP? It is curious that when they built this old-age home, they did not think of installing a third and fourth lift at the far end of the corridor, where there’s only a stairwell, which is also the emergency exit.

  Ah well, it’s just for old people, and they have all the time in the world, the architect must have reasoned.

  Monday, 3 August

  ‘What a vain little man you are, Hendrik,’ Edward said to me yesterday as we sat under the sun umbrella in the garden.