The Old King in his Exile

by Stefan Tobler

  It started early in the morning. You just couldn’t please him. The first thing my father would say would be something like, ‘If you knew how they mistreat me here…’

  That was the tone he maintained all day. The music they played was something he had to endure. Lunch wasn’t right for him. ‘I don’t think I’ll eat it.’

  Once, he went out into the garden after the meal and peed into the pot containing Werner’s biggest cactus. I heard a splashing and rushed out, shouting, ‘You can’t do that!’ His reply? ‘Of course I can. That’s the punishment for what they’re doing to me. They deserve much worse.’

  Worst of all were the nights when he woke and began to look for his children. This happened with surprising and inexplicable regularity. On these nights our father was inconsolable, miserable, despairing. It was as if it were wartime and he were wandering around between bombed houses, looking for a sign of life. Sometimes you could calm him down by saying that his children were coming in the morning. Sometimes he would search half the night, until he fell asleep in exhaustion. The next day he’d start searching again for his four little children who weren’t lying in their beds, who weren’t hiding under them either, nor were they giggling in the wardrobes behind the shirts. Our father was distraught that he couldn’t find any of them.

  ‘They’ve been taken away,’ he would say. ‘No one has seen them. I’ve looked for them for ages and have contacted all kinds of offices to get help finding them. Now I’ve lost all hope of seeing them again.’

  When I said I believed they were safe, that they would marry and have their own children, he replied, ‘Everything you say could be true. But I don’t believe it.’

  He knitted his brows as if trying to recall something, then pointed to the cupboard and suggested that must be the direction the children had been taken. ‘And where to? They’re gone – not here – they’re gone – not here.’

  It would have worked out well with Vlasta, but then Vlasta’s mother fell ill and told her on the phone that it wasn’t right that Vlasta was looking after strangers in Austria while her own mother lay in bed at home.

  Although Anna was very clever and did her best, she didn’t click with our father. It was like we were jinxed. When they went out walking and people asked my father who was with him, he’d say she was a silly cow who always got on his nerves.

  One time – the worst case of all – he made a gesture as if to slit her throat. She was afraid he might go to a drawer and get out a knife. I hid my worry and said that she shouldn’t take it seriously. But could I be sure? So I added, ‘He’s ill, so there’s no harm in taking care. In the worst case scenario, he’s neither particularly strong nor quick.’

  Very reassuring.

  The crazy thing was that as soon as one of the carers who didn’t get along with him had left, and Daniela or my mother was on duty again, after two or three days my father was as peaceful as a lamb – cheerful, calm, outgoing, and as friendly as could be. Then we’d start to hear his oddball comments again.

  ‘Are you content, August?’

  ‘I’m always content. Even as a baby, I was content.’

  ‌

  I don’t know how to go on.

  I’ll take care of everything.

  You mustn’t forget me. That would be unfair.

  We won’t do that.

  But, you know, it’s not all that easy!

  There’s no way we would forget you. Definitely not.

  ‌

  My father had been struggling with Alzheimer’s for over a decade now. MRI cross-sections of his brain showed the extent of the destruction. And yet he stepped out of the illness for short periods almost every day, asking in different ways what was wrong with his head. He smacked his forehead. ‘Something’s not right there. Can you tell me how to fix it?’

  Then he looked beseechingly at me and was disappointed when I answered, without conviction, ‘Help is coming from Bregenz.’

  That was what Kafka wrote in his diary on 6 July 1916, almost ten years to the day before my father’s birth. Kafka continued in his entry, ‘And when the sick man’s eyes narrowed in doubt, the doctor added: “Bregenz in Vorarlberg.” “That’s far away,” said the sick man.’

  For my father, too, Bregenz was far away – at least, in the sense that he had little hope. In his lucid moments he yearned for a functioning brain, but his brain didn’t get better. Banging his fist against his head didn’t have the same effect as when, in my childhood, he stood up and banged on the television because the image had started to drift.

  One cold spring day in 2009 Daniela was getting him ready for a walk. He already had his shoes and coat on. Daniela put his hat on his head and said, ‘There’s your hat.’

  ‘That’s all well and fine, but where’s my brain?’

  ‘Your brain is under your hat,’ I said from the kitchen.

  My father took off his hat, looked inside and replied, ‘Now, that would be something.’ He hesitated, thought about it and, putting his hat back on his head, asked shyly, ‘Is it really under the hat?’

  ‘Yes, it’s where it should be,’ I said.

  He raised his eyebrows and, confused, followed Daniela to the door.

  Such surreal moments became more frequent. They make for good stories – comic and a little bizarre. But if you listen carefully, besides the comedy, which is liberating, you hear anxiety and despair. And more and more often, it wasn’t funny at all.

  Many things were difficult because our father didn’t understand the point of them. He would get angry because he had to take medicine that tasted bad. He didn’t know that he would be worse off without the medicine. So he snapped, ‘You can’t do this to me!’

  ‘It’s for your own good.’

  ‘Anyone can say that!’ he replied curtly. ‘Don’t think I’ll fall for an impostor like you. I know what dirty tricks you get up to.’

  Of course I was aware that it was his illness talking. And yet finding oneself shouted at with no reason left a bitter feeling – and it was all the more bitter for people who had little experience of the illness and neither knew our father well nor had any familial obligation to him.

  ‘Go away! If you don’t let me be, I’ll get a gun and blast your arse off!’

  He said that to me. It made me laugh. It reminded me of how, as a child, I had threatened people with my big brother. But some of the carers found it hard not to read more into his exclamations than a simple message: in a world of unknown faces, he wanted to be left alone.

  Daniela was with us for almost three years. Right to the end, she swore that she wouldn’t easily find a job that she loved as much. To her, our father was ill, but also an intelligent man who was always ready to have fun. Yes, his brain sometimes played tricks on him, but she had known him long enough to know that he was really a harmless poor devil.

  Every three weeks she went back home to Slovakia and someone else stood in for her. Unfortunately, for over two years, none of her colleagues managed to get along with our father nearly as well. As these carers only stayed for short periods, the difficulties they faced were understandable.

  All too often our father was negative and challenging for them, from morning to night. He tended to reject people whom he didn’t know and who confused him. Most of his carers talked too much to him and in the wrong tone, as if talking to a child. And because he was still an imposing person, with a broad forehead and expressive face, he intimidated them. Sometimes, when he felt cornered, he would push them away.

  It did no good to assure them our father was actually a nice man, nor to advise them to stay out of his way when he was in a bad mood. That’s easy to say. The carers weren’t trained nurses, and not every person has, by nature, the skills needed to deal with people who have dementia. Eva, our father’s youngest granddaughter, did. She had only known her grandfather with Alzheimer’s, and the affection she had for him was so genuine that of course he responded. Because she was free in her attitude, her grandfather could be free
in her presence too.

  The same was true for Daniela. Right from the start she had got along well with him. She was perfectly relaxed around him and he seemed to be almost a little in love with her. In any case, he often shooed me away when Daniela was around. She knew how to make him feel important. She let him carry the shopping basket, push her bike and teach her German, giving her hours of lessons in pronunciation and grammar at a time when he couldn’t even name his four children. Asked why he went to such efforts, he said that he was doing it to make sure she wouldn’t go.

  So at least for one big blonde woman from Nitra in Slovakia, it was a tearful occasion when we decided, in March 2009, that it was time for our father to go, as we say, into a home. Anna had thrown in the towel after her very first three-week stay in his house and, after the past year, any hope that things would improve had disappeared. The days when he refused to cooperate were only increasing. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  Convention decrees that when you decide it’s time for a close member of your family to go into a home, you do so with a bad conscience. And of course such a decision is unsettling. However, there’s no harm in questioning conventions. The village’s home for the elderly is staffed by trained professionals, working in good conditions. Any problems that arise can be discussed in the team. And they had known our father before he became ill. In the home, they see him as a whole person, someone with a long life, including a childhood and youth, someone who has been August Geiger for more than eighty years and not just since his illness.

  In his own home, care at that level was no longer possible, not even with his family’s concerted support. Admitting defeat can be a kind of success. Caring for our father was no good if it meant that other family members were neglected. For years everything had revolved around our sick father. Anyone else who had a problem had to deal with it alone. It was stressful enough for us to have our father to worry about day and night. Always the same question: what comes next? We were burdened beyond what we could bear.

  On top of all of that, our father no longer felt comfortable in his own house.

  His last day in his house began like the other days since his medicine had been changed – without any trace of his former unwillingness to cooperate. Nevertheless, we thought it best to try the home. He got up, dried himself on his own after his shower, and then ate his breakfast slowly and contentedly. It was a warm, sunny morning, so my mother – who had arrived after Anna had quit – took him out to his chair in the garden, where he exchanged a few words with passing neighbours. Meanwhile my mother sewed nametags onto his clothes, even onto his handkerchiefs.

  At lunch he ate Käsknöpfle, egg noodles in a cheese sauce, then lay down in the living room and nodded off within minutes. He woke up around three, had a cup of tea, and then helped to carry his travel bag to the car. Then he got in and let my mother drive him to the home.

  A former councillor sitting by the front door got up and opened it. He seemed to know that the automatic mechanism was broken. My father didn’t recognise him and simply greeted him politely.

  There was a small woman sitting on a sofa in the lobby. My father waved and exclaimed, ‘Hallelujah!’ He went over to the woman and took her by the hand. Both of them followed my mother to the door of the common area. The manager greeted my father and showed him the way to his room, where the pictures of his grandparents had already been hung. He said he’d seen those people before but that he didn’t know them. The manager had a few more questions about his habits and his medicine, and then she took him out into the garden, where he sat down in the shade with the other residents. It looked like he was happy. After a while, my mother said goodbye. My father lifted his hand and waved.

  *

  When I walked in a few days later, I found him sitting on his own at his table. I waited a little, then sat down next to him. We talked and arm-wrestled. He pushed for all he was worth, and the wrinkled skin on his face stretched taut in a happy grin. He was obviously really enjoying it. He was not a man forced to live out his life. Though his condition might not have justified his cheerful attitude, it didn’t matter. I said, ‘You’ve always been strong.’

  He grinned again and replied, ‘I’m not strong enough to throw someone into the snow these days, but I’m not peanuts either. I wanted to show you, that’s all.’

  After a short pause, he added, ‘We don’t have a choice, in any case, we have to defend ourselves. If we don’t, we’re no-hopers.’

  *

  Alzheimer’s certainly has not benefited my father, but it has taught his children and grandchildren a thing or two. And the duty of parents is to teach things to their children, after all.

  Age, seen as the last stage of life, is a cultural expression that is constantly changing and needs to be learnt and relearnt. And if our father can no longer teach his children anything else, he can teach them what it means to be old and ill. Even this, given the right conditions, is part of a father-child relationship, because you can only take revenge on death in your own lifetime.

  ‌

  Alexandra says her grandfather is adamant he’s being mistreated. When Alexandra’s mother visits him, she tries to persuade him otherwise. Soon a nurse enters the room and wants to change the nasal cannula connected to his oxygen supply. The nurse says, ‘Mr Berlinger, I’m going to push the tube into your nose. It will tickle a little.’

  At this, grandfather looks at daughter-in-law, nods vigorously and says, with a mixture of indignation and resignation, ‘You see – they tickle me!’

  *

  Aunt Marianne’s grandmother also has dementia. She often says, ‘My head is like a churn. I stir and stir, but can’t get any butter out of it.’

  Aunt Marianne, the eldest of seven children, had to sleep next to her grandmother, until Nana started to say strange things at night. She developed a religious mania. One time, when her priest visited, as soon as he stepped into the room Nana called out, ‘I won’t have this vile priest in here! Be gone, Satan!’

  *

  Katharina tells of her grandfather, who also had dementia. When his eldest son biked over for a visit, the grandfather waited for a moment when no one was watching, crept out to the bike, jumped on, and rode away triumphantly.

  *

  Liliane tells of her mother, who had Alzheimer’s. Now and then her mother would look at her and ask, ‘Have I died yet?’

  Once, her mother pleaded, ‘Please, when I’m dead, tell me.’

  Liliane promised she would. ‘Of course, Mum – when you’ve died, I’ll tell you.’

  *

  Wolfgang tells of his grandmother, who, alive at a ripe old age, had been advised to take health supplements. In the fridge she had a bottle of lecithin. She regularly went to the fridge and, without hesitation, took the bottle of Doornkaat schnapps that stood next to the lecithin. She unscrewed the lid and took a long swig of it, saying, ‘Tastes funny today.’ Then, just to be sure, she chased it down with a second swig.

  *

  Norbert tells of a friend whose mother has Alzheimer’s. She hasn’t recognised her son for a long time. But when the son shows his mother a picture of himself, she says, ‘That’s my son!’ And yet she doesn’t know the person standing next to her.

  *

  Wilhelm tells of a friend whose condition had been deteriorating for years, and yet right until the end he would crawl to his desk at three in the morning, and, once there, not know what to do. During the day he would sit there, rolling up playing cards and trying to light them like cigars.

  *

  Ursula tells of her great-uncle, August Fischer, who was born in the same year as my father’s mother. In the last years of his life, Ursula would sometimes pick him up from the home and take him up the hill to where he used to live. Once, when it was time to return after a few hours, he asked, ‘Do I have to go back to the camp?’

  This great uncle had been a source of fascination in my childhood. At the end of the lane that passes our up
per field, just before the lane drops steeply to the church square, there used to be a fountain with an old, half-rotten wooden trough into which spring water ran constantly. The great uncle, who remained a bachelor all his life, would bathe in the trough each morning, summer or winter, firm in his conviction that doing so would keep him healthy. And indeed, after my grandmother’s death he became the last surviving Wolfurter born in 1898 and received the remaining monies from the kitty paid into over the years by and for his year group. As children on the way to nursery and school, we used to watch, fascinated, as he puffed and panted in the water that came, always cold, straight from the woods at Ippach.

  *

  Christian tells of an old neighbour. She couldn’t find the switch for the outside light, so she went out and smashed the light with her walking stick.

  ‌

  And then the illness retracted its claws once again. Our father showed no trace of the tension we had seen over the last few months. He seemed fine to me. He was happy to joke around, play the fool and beam at whomever he was talking to. He was attentive and accommodating.

  His impulses were spontaneous. He didn’t seem to be in any way ‘dimmed’ because of his medicine. He had a positive attitude, enjoyed his jokes and gave anyone who would listen good advice. To Werner, he said, ‘You can learn from me.’

  He had some difficulties with perception, and he did hallucinate, but it was all much tamer than before.

  ‘Did you see the little men, too?’ he asked Katharina.

  ‘Yes, they just went around the corner over there.’

  And with that the hallucination would pass.

  If, exceptionally, the hallucinations proved to be particularly persistent, Eva was called in. She went up to her grandfather, hugged him, and all was right in the world once more. Everyone laughed in astonishment.