On the Bright Side

by Hendrik Groen

  Then Edward bought us another round because it was raining, and Ria yet another one while we waited for the next squall to blow over. It was warm and convivial, and Evert was beaming.

  Since the Serrano ham debacle, I have been paying greater attention to product labels, including the ‘richly filled lasagne’ I bought at the supermarket, for instance. Well! It certainly deserves its name: almost fifty different ingredients! Can’t you just see the chef juggling fifty jars, shakers and test tubes?

  ‘Let’s see … I think it needs another pinch of E339 and a teaspoon of maltodextrin. A few more drops of emulsifier perhaps? Overdid it just a smidgen on the bamboo fibre, pity.’

  Thursday, 24 September

  Yesterday morning Ria and Antoine had a stern word with my stalker, Mrs Smit, and it looks as if they’ve succeeded. She now avoids me like the plague. Which is, actually, what they advised her to do.

  ‘We have noticed that you often seek out Mr Groen’s company, and we feel we must warn you not to get too close to him, for your own good.’

  They told her that I am a walking magnet for infectious bacteria, and showed her an article in yesterday’s paper with the headline: ‘EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN UNIQUE BACTERIAL CLOUD’. The human body has billions of bacteria living in and around it. A healthy body harbours as many as 10,000 different kinds of bacteria. Ria and Antoine persuaded Smit that my bacterial cloud is very contagious. It was actually meant as a joke, but Smit is a bit gaga and extremely gullible.

  ‘Well, in that case I’d better stay out of his way,’ she said nervously. I saw her sitting next to Mr Verlaat last night and this morning too. Sorry, Verlaat. Thanks, Ria and Antoine.

  ‘I’d never have thought it of the Germans,’ said Mrs Schaap flatly.

  She was referring to the Volkswagen company, which has apparently been rigging the exhaust levels in its diesel cars. Thanks to a specially designed computer program built into the car, the engine ran far cleaner during emissions tests than it did on the open road. The share price has plunged €25 billion and the company may have to fork out €15 billion in penalties. I wonder how they arrived at the decision to cook the numbers.

  Boss 1: ‘Oh, nobody will notice.’

  Boss 2: ‘Yeah, but what if it does get out, and we’re in for €15 billion in fines, and the share price suddenly tanks by €25 billion?’

  Boss 3: ‘That’s a risk we’ll just have to take.’

  Or don’t they have anybody who’ll calculate how many billions it might cost, and do they all just stick their tycoon-heads in the sand? Do they simply choose to ignore the laws of probability? Dozens of people must have been aware of this scam, and the fraud is easy to prove. Wouldn’t you think to yourself that it’s bound to be discovered, sooner or later?

  I don’t think we can overestimate the honesty, intelligence or foresight of the men at the top enough. Allow me to point to the bankers as an example of this.

  The upshot is that every car will now probably be put through a proper ‘honest’ test. I’ll be curious to see if there are other makes that turn out to be much dirtier than the official allowance as well. I bet there will be folk who won’t sleep well in the coming days.

  The general consensus in our home is: such a shame, they were just starting to behave decently again, those Germans.

  Friday, 25 September

  Not only have the refugees dominated the news in the papers, on the radio and on the telly for weeks, but even in here they are frequently the topic of conversation at tea- or coffee-time. There are many Dutch who believe that Europe is getting too crowded. To put things into perspective, Graeme went over the numbers with those who were interested:

  The number of refugees who have arrived in Europe this year is about 1 million.

  The EU has approximately 750 million inhabitants.

  We therefore have to accommodate one refugee for every 750 citizens. Provided that their numbers are spread out evenly across Europe.

  ‘Well, if you look at it that way, it’s not that terrible,’ his tablemates had to admit.

  Mrs Duits continued to insist that 1 million is too many.

  Graeme went on doing the maths: ‘In Lebanon, a small country bordering Syria, there are four and a half million inhabitants, with a million refugees right now. That’s too many. If you projected those numbers on to Europe, it would come to about 150 million.’

  ‘OK, OK, enough of politics,’ said Mrs Duits. ‘Who’d like more tea?’

  I was asked if I’d like to join the Crafts Club, and make my own Christmas cards. No, actually, I’d rather not. ‘But it’s only €2, and if you applied yourself you could have ten cards done in an afternoon, so that’s just twenty cents per card.’

  I’d have liked to tell her that I’d only consider doing it for €10 a card, but I restrained myself.

  ‘The Christmas cards seem to arrive earlier every year – just like the ginger nuts for Sinterklaas (St Nicholas’ birthday, 5 December) appearing on the supermarket shelves in September. It’s simply not time for it yet, was Mr Helder’s attempt to back me up. But whether I appreciate it is another story … For I can tell you I will never be ready for Christmas card decorating or Easter egg painting.

  Saturday, 26 September

  Ria and Antoine don’t complain, but sometimes they can’t help sighing when confronted with the weekly menu. The starters for the next seven days: vermicelli soup, mushroom soup, chicken soup, cauliflower soup, tomato soup, oxtail soup and vegetable soup. Or a salad of comparable originality. Not a day goes by when the main course does not include a lovely boiled potato. Flan and pudding dominate the dessert menu. Ria and Antoine, on the other hand, devoted their entire lives to fine dining. It’s not as if they turn up their noses at bangers and mash, but still, it’s just Dutch fare every single day … Our most exotic choice is spaghetti, or, very rarely, Indonesian fried rice.

  The residents of our home belong to a generation that was not raised on going out to eat or paying much attention to the food. ‘Just act normal, because that’s crazy enough’: the same applies to meals.

  Our current cook has certainly tried. At the start of his tenure the menu offered choices such as paella, coq au vin or roti, but very few people circled those. The meatball and red cabbage won out decisively over the Indian curry. The tiramisu was snubbed for the custard pudding. Mr Dickhout was the only one prepared to try everything. But he did drown every dish, even the paella, in a thick layer of apple sauce from his 64-cent family-size jar from Aldi.

  After some months of trying, Cook finally gave up. One thing I must say I did agree with: when he took it into his head to promote forgotten Dutch heirloom vegetables, they wouldn’t go for that, either.

  ‘Those vegetables weren’t forgotten for no reason,’ Mrs Schaap decided. ‘If they’d tasted good, we’d still be eating them.’

  My favourite vegetable that deserves to be sent into oblivion is salsify. Never think of it again! There’s also a forgotten vegetable called Good Hendrik. Never tried it.

  Luckily we still have our Old-But-Not-Dead ‘restaurants-of-the-world’ project. It’s time we gave it another shot. I plan to make a reservation somewhere posh with Evert’s money.

  Sunday, 27 September

  Early this morning Mr Schoute hit a golf ball right into Leonie’s bedroom window. It gave her quite a turn, but once she’d recovered from the shock, she complimented Schoute on his drive: her room is on the third floor. Schoute used to head out to the golf course here in North Amsterdam on a daily basis, but over the past few years he hasn’t had the stamina for all that walking. The distances became too great and he was growing too muddled. Sometimes he would accidentally hit a ball in the wrong direction. You don’t make friends at golf that way.

  This year he had occasionally been practising, slowly and intently, in the garden downstairs. He does have a very fine stance. Legs apart, leaning forward just a bit, hollow back.

  ‘Nice arse,’ Mrs Ligtermoet once blurted out, then tu
rned red as a beetroot.

  After a few small accidents and near-accidents, Mr Schoute was no longer allowed to practise his golf in the garden. He couldn’t judge his strength any more, and his technique was failing him.

  This morning he couldn’t help himself. He’d woken up early, grabbed his clubs and tiptoed out to the garden for a little practice.

  ‘Perhaps I should have used a number 9 iron: chip, putt, par,’ he sighed later, after the porter had taken away his clubs. ‘But there was a magpie in my line of sight, so I forgot to finish my swing.’ No one had any idea what he was on about. I felt sorry for the deflated little man sitting all hunched over at the coffee table. The head nurse arrived to return his clubs and said, ‘This is the last time, right, Mr Schoute?’

  He nodded, defeated.

  Yesterday we took part in a nationwide event: National Good Neighbour Day. We were promised refreshments, information and music. It was all there, except for the neighbours: only two stopped by, plus a Homeless Journal vendor. The other visitors were all family members or friends.

  Monday, 28 September

  Last night the Residents’ Committee met to prepare for our last meeting with Stelwagen. Leonie had visited an old friend of hers last week who lives in a rival old-age home not far from here. Leonie went there on an exploratory mission. It seems that over there they have finished ‘recalibrating’ and ‘transitioning’. According to Leonie, the result is not encouraging. Part of the building has been sold to a property management company, and the rooms are now called ‘apartments’ and rent for €870 per month to people over fifty-five. Another part has become a nursing home reserved for people with serious care needs. The third remains a traditional old-age home like ours. It’s to remain open until the last resident is moved into a nursing home or the cemetery. The porter has been sacked in order to save money. The independent kitchen is about to close. The clubs are moribund for want of participants.

  ‘We are warned,’ said Leonie.

  Stelwagen’s departure is a convenient opportunity for some good housekeeping. I’m sure they’ve got an interim-busybody chomping at the bit somewhere. Our departing director isn’t sticking her neck out for anything any more. It won’t be easy, but we’ll try to save what we can. We, seasoned old warriors, are sharpening the daggers.

  Another important thing: the Residents’ Committee has received a letter demanding nicer bingo prizes.

  ‘It’s time to replace the liverwurst. And the drip-candle,’ it said in the letter signed by a dozen concerned residents. The committee has a simple solution: we’ll propose raising the cost of the bingo cards from 50 cents to €1. If our proposal receives enough support, we can buy prizes costing twice as much. If it doesn’t, then the only thing we can do is replace the liverwurst with a salami.

  Tuesday, 29 September

  Mrs Schansleh came downstairs with a red face and a head full of curlers. She’d fallen asleep under the hairdryer, and must have stayed under it for an hour and a half. Her hair was nice and dry, anyway. Schansleh is too cheap to go to the hair salon downstairs, and therefore prefers to use her own 1960s-era hairdryer.

  We men have to go out for our haircut. The hairdresser, Gaily Grey, on the ground floor next to the physiotherapist’s, only coiffs the ladies. I asked the bleached-blonde hairdresser, who is well on her way to the old-age home herself, why she won’t do men.

  ‘Men? Never! What next!’

  ‘That does seem an excellent reason,’ I ventured to answer. She gave me a dirty look and then turned her back on me.

  We have been enjoying a lovely Indian summer these past few days. Geert, Evert and I have taken our mobility steeds out for some nice spins. Evert is a complete convert: ‘I should have bought one of these things ten years ago.’

  Our three somewhat souped-up motors never fail to attract attention as we drive behind one another through the town or the countryside. Our steeds are red, white and blue, like the national flag. It took someone else to point it out to us. We’ve been trying to ride in order of the colours of our Dutch Glory ever since. Sometimes people wave at us, especially the children. Then we wave back proudly, breaking into broad, wrinkly smiles.

  Wednesday, 30 September

  Yesterday we had our last meeting with Mrs Stelwagen. She has begun her farewell tour and brought us an apple tart. She announced, almost as an afterthought, that her successor has been named: Mr Van de Kerkhof, Master of Public Administration, will be appointed as of 15 October for a two-year stint ‘to steer our home into a new future’, as Stelwagen rather solemnly put it.

  ‘It sounds great, but what does that future look like?’ I asked.

  ‘And do those two years mean that there won’t be any need for a director after that because the care home will have ceased to exist?’ Antoine wanted to know.

  The director had to admit that these were not the sunniest of times. Then Leonie described conditions in the care home where she had gone to do some comparative research, and asked Stelwagen what directive her successor was being given.

  ‘It is up to the new director to disclose those matters, not me,’ she said, remaining noncommittal, as was to be expected. Could she offer us anything more to drink? She brushed a crumb of apple tart from her impeccable business suit.

  Stelwagen then thanked us for our enjoyable and constructive collaboration. Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah.

  ‘I think it’s a pity that we have seen so few concrete results from that enjoyable and constructive collaboration,’ said Graeme.

  Well, the director was sorry, but she had to disagree: the high tea for the residents, the art exhibition and the no-ailments table, surely those were great steps forward? We looked at each other, and left it at that. We must save our energy for Mr Van de Kerkhof, Master of Public Administration, and presumably a ‘transitioning’ expert.

  Thursday, 1 October

  Evert is failing fast. Brother Hendrik and Sister Leonie keep him company and care for the patient for as much as he’ll let us. I help him get out of bed and into his clothes in the morning, and then prepare his breakfast: a cup of tea and a breakfast smoothie. It takes Evert half an hour to get it down. After that he wants to be left alone. Leonie comes at about 1 p.m., tries to entice him to eat half a sandwich, and does some light housekeeping. Then Evert naps for a few hours. At the end of the afternoon I return for a chat and a tipple, and sometimes we’ll play a board game. In the evening we watch television together, with Leonie sometimes joining us, until Evert falls asleep in his wheelchair. Then we’ll wake him up and help him into bed. The GP stops in from time to time to diagnose his steady decline. Evert is a model patient; he always manages to cheer his visitors up. He is growing more passive, however, largely thanks to the enormous quantities of pills he gulps down to keep the pain bearable.

  He has made a reservation for the Old-But-Not-Dead Club at a chic restaurant next Saturday. He’s already given me his cash card and PIN number to pay for it.

  ‘And don’t you dare to argue with a dying old man, Hendrik Groen!’

  There’s a great kerfuffle about two paintings by Rembrandt, a pair of portraits of Maerten and Oopjen Nogwat. Ninety-nine per cent of the Dutch populace had never heard of this painted couple until a week ago, but now our country suddenly can’t possibly do without them. ‘We’ must have them, no matter what it costs. It seems we’re now on the hook for 80 million for just one of the paintings. I hope it’s Oopjen, because I like saying her name. Such a bargain! The other one is to remain in French hands, for another 80 million. Together they’ll be shuttled from the Rijksmuseum to the Louvre and back again. What a funny business.

  I’ve wondered for ages: why don’t we ever see a new Rembrandt? Or an undiscovered Vermeer? Master forger Han van Meegeren once painted several nice little works in Vermeer’s name, and almost all the experts waxed lyrical about them for years, until the day they discovered they were fakes. Then they were suddenly, literally and figuratively, not worth the linen they were paint
ed on. In my opinion, beautiful is beautiful and ugly is ugly, no matter who puts his name to it.

  There is a museum of fake art in the village of Vledder. I should like to visit it, but am afraid that it’s unlikely now that I will.

  I am a great proponent of the blind test, although in the case of art that may sound a bit odd. What you do is hang a few well-done forgeries among the ‘authentic’ works, cover the signatures, and let a random sample of the public rate them or guess the name of the artist. I’d like to see if the real master painter comes out on top. You could also hang the modern paintings upside down, just for fun. See if anyone notices. I think most Japanese and Chinese tourists would fail this blind test. They only see most of the paintings much later on anyway, in the ‘selfies’ they take standing in front of them.

  Friday, 2 October

  We had two intruders yesterday. The porter was out sick, and according to the person in charge no replacement was available. Maybe the director wanted to see if we could do without a porter. In that case the porter should thank the intruders, because now there’s a great outcry about how indispensable he is. As his main occupation consists of looking weary and doling out bored nods, he isn’t exactly the epitome of helpfulness. On the rare occasion when he has to hoist himself off his stool to give someone a hand with something, he sighs and groans as if he’s been asked to carry some bags of sand up twelve flights of stairs.

  During the absence of the porter’s vigilant eye, the thieves had simply waltzed in and out again fifteen minutes later with their loot: one housekeeping purse, a piggy bank, some jewellery and one set of teeth. At least, Mrs Van Diemen was adamant that both her bracelets and her teeth had been stolen. Even the most gullible residents were a bit sceptical about that one.