Mona in Three Acts

by Griet Op de Beeck

  I lower my eyes. I think: I want someone to come and help me at last, or I want to find the words that would knock him so low he’d need antidepressants again. I gulp, look at him, continue to remain silent, then I turn around and wring my way through the people. I want to leave and now I am leaving. I storm down the stairs and, once I’m outside, I accelerate my pace. Birds fall from the sky, mirrors burst behind house walls, a scooter narrowly misses me. And soon, soon night will fall.

  33

  The pulmonary edema is back. Already. Dad looks more and more like an outstretched snow-covered landscape, the way he’s lying there, sinking away palely into the white sheets and pillows, as though he’s slowly erasing himself from the world. He talks less and less because talking takes effort, breathing is an effort. Life tires him out. Marie has hung up cards on the wall behind his head, brightly colored cards featuring bears and balloons and flowers, as though they might make him better. I’m sure he doesn’t mind the fact that only visitors can see them.

  I sit on the concrete window seat, my back to the pane. The sun is hot through the glass, and the heat does me good, but part of me thinks the weather should play along so that I can at least look back on these times against a suitable backdrop of falling leaves and gusty showers of rain and a crisp kind of cold.

  My father is very ill. And now I don’t have my work anymore, work that was more than a job, and soon everyone in the theater world will know it. In our circles, gossip like this travels faster than a homing pigeon. What will they think of me? What will they tell each other? I remember one time, I was about seven or even eight and I’d wet my bed. Waking up after a scary nightmare to the sickly smell. I gathered up the sheets, went downstairs in the middle of the night, put them in the washing machine, and pressed the wrong buttons. When my mother discovered this the next day, she asked me, in the presence of my little brother and my dad, why in God’s name I’d been washing my sheets in the middle of the night when I clearly didn’t know what I was doing. I could have broken the washing machine. I saw even Alexander, as small as he was, understand what had happened, even though it wasn’t actually said. The same crushing feeling of humiliation, it comes over me each time now when I think about being fired. I made Louis swear not to say anything to my family, for now at least. He thought it was a bit ridiculous, but he did promise.

  Dad is sleeping, his mouth slightly open, a patch of drool on his pillow. I’m glad people don’t sit around watching me sleep. The newspapers lie next to me, I barely dare look at the culture section, but curiosity gets the best of me. The headline reads: Great Master Completely Misses the Mark, and the last line of the critical review says, “After an hour and fifty minutes of poorly worded and miserably constructed babble about nothing, it’s a delight to finally be able to go home.” I also find “the boundaries of boredom skillfully extended” and “hopeless blundering on a pompous set.” I try to picture Marcus reading these reviews. Might he think about me for a moment? Would he dare admit to himself that he got things wrong this time? I wish I could have a good cry, I think, but there’s just weight in the middle of my chest.

  Dad suddenly opens his eyes. He rubs them, sees me sitting there, and stares in confusion, as though he has to check twice who it is. Then he waves, just with his hand, he leaves his arm lying next to his body. I move closer. He has an oxygen tube up his nose, a drip-feed and an infusion with various medications, and every so often he has to wear an oxygen mask for twenty minutes, which he detests.

  “Has Anne-Sophie come today?”

  He nods.

  “Does it help you, seeing her?”

  He nods again.

  “Is Marie reasonably OK?”

  He makes a cautious gesture. I suppose.

  “Alexander said he’d pop in with Marvin later. He’s missing his grandpa.”

  Then Dad smiles with just one corner of his mouth, as though raising the other would require too much effort. “What time are they coming to get me for the treatment?” His voice sounds rusty.

  “Soon, the nurse said.”

  We say nothing together. The silence is different than it used to be: richer, more proof of nothing being necessary than fear of saying the wrong thing.

  “And you, are you happy?” His gaze is penetrating. After Anne-Sophie, it’s apparently my turn, or did he notice something? Did someone get wind of it and tell him about me getting fired?

  “With you here in the hospital, how could I be—”

  “Apart from that. You, your life, in general?”

  He hasn’t heard anything, that’s already something. I reflect on his question. “I don’t know,” I say, not knowing if this is true.

  Dad looks at me; the whites of his eyes are pinkish. “I’ve always said you should learn to be happy with what you’ve got, but maybe that’s not entirely true.” He closes his eyes, as though he’s exhausted all his strength pushing out these complete sentences.

  Then the door opens. Cleavage comes in, along with Marie. He nods at my father. “Well, how are things?”

  Dad doesn’t go to the trouble of answering his superfluous question, he just smiles weakly. “What time are they going to come get me for that edema treatment?”

  “Hard to say, but it won’t be much longer.”

  “I’m really dreading it.”

  “Yeah, you’ll just have to grit your teeth for a while, no other option.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Dad replies in a rare moment of cautious assertiveness.

  Cleavage takes hold of my father’s foot, sheets and all, moves it back and forth—a strange, pointless gesture—and then says, “Well, sir, you waited too long to come to us, didn’t you? The human body can only take what it can take, and we can only do what we do. The second operation has placed a lot of stress on his heart, it seems.” He lays two fingers on his chin—to underline his authority, I suspect.

  I take a step forward. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but sir is present in the room. Sir is not a toddler, nor senile, and the last time they did this, they left him lying in some hallway for two hours, as though it wasn’t horrible enough, and that’s just one of the reasons sir is dreading it, which seems totally understandable to me.”

  Cleavage avoids my gaze. “Right, any questions? I’ve got dozens of patients waiting.”

  “Yes, of course,” Marie says hurriedly. “I’ll just accompany you a moment.” She tries to catch my eye, but I look away.

  When the door has closed, I say, “Want to bet she’s apologizing on my behalf?” I give my father a giggly look, but he remains serious.

  “Yes, sorry, I found that man trying right from the first time I saw him. I couldn’t keep it in.”

  I don’t regret it either, I think, but I don’t say this.

  “Tell me what’s really happening. With me, I mean.”

  Any satisfaction about my minor flash of civil disobedience drains away at once. What’s he asking now? I can’t, I won’t reply.

  “Medically,” he adds, as though there could be any doubt about it.

  I continue to hold my tongue, searching for words that are meaningless enough.

  “Come on, Mona. Marie will be back in a moment.” He grips my arm. “I won’t be running any marathons, will I?”

  He’s not really asking, he knows, I think. Who else could know it better than the man who has been living in this body, the vehicle that is coming ever closer to breaking down? He swallows and then coughs, awkwardly slowly.

  “I’ve never fought this hard before,” he whispers, making it sound as though he’s done it only for us.

  “Just one more go at that horrible treatment and, if it works, that will probably be all.”

  “Probably.”

  “Probably is a better word than many others.”

  He closes his eyes again.

  “Yes, have a rest,” I say as though he needs permission.

  Outside, demolition work has begun, they’re building a new wing: sick people are a booming bus
iness. Trucks reverse, beeping, chunks of rubble are pushed this way and that, workmen shout at each other above the clamor. The sun continues to shine mockingly in the sky.

  34

  “You mustn’t give up hope.” He adds six apples, a bunch of grapes, and a box of strawberries to the shopping cart, even though we hardly eat any fruit. Louis rarely goes to the supermarket, if at all. Today he grabbed my keys when I said I was going to leave. “These things are unpredictable sometimes. Your dad could sputter his way through this and then steadily improve.”

  “You haven’t visited my dad in weeks, though. You should see the way he just lies there.”

  Silence.

  “This one or this one?” He holds up a box of pasta in each hand, different shapes, but the brand is the same. I point to the left one; he casually dumps it on top of the grapes.

  “You mustn’t give up or else he will too.” Louis stares at the legs of the girl who passes us in the candy aisle. I take some white chocolate from the shelf.

  “Oh no, not white.”

  I put it back reflexively.

  “By being strong, that’s how you can help him, make him believe that anything’s still possible.”

  “Wouldn’t being honest with him help more?”

  “But what’s honest? You don’t know any more than the doctors do, and they keep saying to wait and see, right?” I don’t reply. He hurries along the aisles. “You’d be amazed by how strong those tough old dogs can be sometimes.” My dad’s not an old dog, I think. “Hopefully things will return to normal soon and then you’ll have time to look for a new job. Then you’ll feel better. Since I started the novella, I’ve regained my faith in myself. That’s the way it is, we’re that kind of people, what we do determines who we are.” We walk past the fish. “Oh, do you want to cook your cod tonight? With lemon and thyme sauce and fennel? I really like that.” I don’t, I think. I don’t want to eat colorless food and I’m not hungry and I feel even less like cooking. I pick up two pieces of packaged cod, look at them, and then ram the cart against his shins. He grabs his leg and hops around on one foot. “Fuck, that hurt.”

  “Good,” I say, throwing the fish at his head.

  Louis ducks. “What?” He looks somewhere between confused and indignant.

  “Make your own fucking cod. And don’t lecture me on when to look for a job or how to speak to my dad. That urge of yours to compensate for your endless absence with pedantic little speeches, I can’t cope with it anymore.”

  He puts his foot back down again, stands staring in amazement for a moment, and then moves closer to me and says, “But, sweetie, are you angry? It’s all been too much, hasn’t it? I understand. I’m not angry with you.” He hugs me, smiles encouragingly, takes the cart from me, and rolls it on. “Come on, they’re closing soon and we still don’t have everything yet.”

  I bend down to pick up the cod. A woman stops nearby, she has a little boy in the seat of the cart. As his mother studies the meats, he sits there with his wiggly legs, looking around. Suddenly he notices me, standing there next to the dead fish. He looks at me inquiringly, takes his thumb from him mouth, and smiles. I smile back and wave at him, even though I’m thinking: Don’t do it, don’t be so endearingly sweet. There are some things I really can’t handle.

  35

  The nurse simply wakes him up. Not because he needs to be awake, but because it’s quicker for her this way. “And I’ll be back shortly for the oxygen mask, my friend. That’ll do you some good.” She checks the drip, turns around, and clacks out of the room in her mules.

  “‘Some good,’” my father repeats, and if he had the energy, he would have smiled pityingly. “As if anything could still do me any good.”

  I kiss him by way of a greeting. He smells different from normal. There’s something hurried in the way he immediately starts talking when he sees me.

  “Will you call Joanna for me? You’ve got her number, don’t you?” His voice sounds like it has to come crawling from somewhere deep under the ground.

  “Yes. Now you mean?”

  He nods. I type in the number, pass him the phone, and gesture that I’ll wait outside. What might they say to each other? I resist the temptation to try to eavesdrop. When there’s silence again, I go back into the room.

  “Was that nice?”

  He nods again. My father has become so small, so defenseless lying there. He lays his hand on my arm.

  “Mona, I need to tell you a few things.” I shake my head. I don’t want to hear them, I suspect. But he doesn’t seem to have time for hesitancy today. “There’s something else you have to get rid of at the house. I suddenly remembered it.” He closes his eyes momentarily, then opens them again, with effort. “In the wardrobe, in the sock drawer, somewhere in a gray pair, painkillers. Acetaminophen, ibuprofen, aspirin. Marie mustn’t find them. Will you take them away?” It clearly makes him nervous.

  “Of course,” I reply. I can hardly believe that he’s worrying about this now. How long has he been slowly giving up hope? “If that’s ever necessary, I’ll—” I feel his hand again.

  “You won’t forget?” He opens his eyes wide.

  “No, of course I won’t.”

  He clears his throat, blinks, for a moment there’s a fathomless silence, then, “I’m never going to get better, am I?”

  I say nothing. I feel my tears running down my cheeks, almost imperceptibly, as though the liquid just belongs to my face.

  “I’m glad you’re still able to cry for your old dad.” He takes my hand in his. “But listen to me, I want this to progress now. Morphine, or whatever they use.”

  “Dad, you mean—”

  “Yes.” He’s never been more emphatic about something not explicitly voiced. “They often do that: passive—” He doesn’t formulate the next word. “Would you organize that for me?”

  There we are, closer than we’ve ever been, and further away too. I take hold of his other hand too. I’m a girl holding hands with her father; I never want to let them go again.

  “But there’s still so much. We can still . . . You can still . . . Maybe you could . . .” I’m sobbing too hard to finish my sentences.

  “Mona, I can’t anymore.” He emphasizes each word. He looks at me. Don’t look at me like that, I think. He continues to look at me like that.

  “It’s too soon,” I say.

  “Yes,” he replies factually, “but also not.”

  “But I can’t.” I lay my head against his. I can feel his clammy sweat, the stubble of his beard, his baking-hot cheeks.

  “Will you ask the others to come too?”

  I nod and I keep on nodding, just nodding away, as though I’m broken and this is the only movement I can still make.

  36

  “Well?”

  Marie closes the door to Dad’s room behind her, comes over to us, and rubs the shoulder of her coat a few times with the flat of her hand, and then, with the other hand, the other shoulder. “What do you mean?” She looks at her shoulder, not at Alexander and me.

  “Shall we start the process, then?” Since Marie doesn’t respond, Alexander adds, “That friendly nurse, the blond one with the tattoo on her wrist, she told us that a duty doctor is coming to relieve Doctor Cleavage for the weekend. A young woman, apparently, and the nurse said she might be open to Dad’s request.”

  “What do you mean?” Marie repeats.

  “Dad’s request for passive euthanasia.”

  “What? Did he say that? To who? To the nurse? Why is she sticking her nose in? I’ll give her—”

  “No, Mom. He said it to Mona. Didn’t he just tell you himself?”

  “No. I don’t believe it.” She turns around and goes back into Dad’s room, clearly irritated. We try to keep up with her. She bursts through the door, shouting, “What’s this I hear? You want to abandon me and you don’t think it’s necessary to tell me to my face? Me, the person who has been at your side for weeks on end? Your wife.” She makes that last word soun
d like a cannon shot. Dad lies there breathing squeakily, trying to breathe, even though the oxygen is turned up to the max. She goes over to his bed, holds her face about two inches away from his, and repeats, at almost the same volume, “Why, why you didn’t say anything to me?” Dad can’t get a single word out. And she stands there as though a physical protest might change anything.

  I move a little closer. “He can’t go on, he said so.”

  “Well, I can’t go on either,” Marie roars. Then she storms out of the room. The heavy door slowly swings shut. Alexander glances at me and then goes after her.

  “Afterward, just go along with whatever Marie wants,” Dad squeaks to me. “You two have each other anyway.” He slides his tongue along his lips. “Did you manage it?”

  “We found someone who will probably be able to help. We’re going to talk to her now, all right?”

  “Yes, hurry,” he says, closing his eyes.

  37

  Louis has to be in Amsterdam today of all days. I did let him know, but he said the earliest he could get away was this evening after his reading. He’d been planning to stay the night there, but given the circumstances he’d do his best to drive home and of course I could call him any time I needed to.

  I find Alexander sitting in the cafeteria with Marie, they’re at the table in the far corner nursing empty glasses. I join them. I’m suddenly reminded of times long past, how often the three of us had sat together like this when Dad was still at work and Anne-Sophie had gone to bed or something, and the way we’d talk because we didn’t trust silence. Now there’s a very lengthy silence.

  “Don’t you want a drink?” Marie asks, probably just to say something.

  I shake my head.

  “Mom has agreed to it.”

  I smile at her. “Will you come with us? The nurse told us where we might find the doctor.”

  “Don’t ask me to do that,” she whispers, staring at the table.