Mona in Three Acts

by Griet Op de Beeck

  I wonder whether people really do things for their children, or whether they only tell themselves that. He didn’t marry my mother for my sake, but to save them and their families from a scandal, and because, in those days, abortion was not only emotionally charged but also difficult to acquire. Did he get involved with Marie because Alexander and I needed taking care of or because he himself was afraid of being alone? Because he didn’t dare believe that waiting might bring him greater happiness?

  At ten past four, the nurse comes in, fiddles with his drip, smiles, and leaves again. I mustn’t fall asleep, he mustn’t be alone. I walk around the bed and touch his hand, just briefly. It feels cold. I pull the sheets up a little higher and sit down again.

  Perhaps getting fired is the best thing that could happen to me, I suddenly think, then I wonder whether I’m just telling myself this to be able to process it better. “Dad, Marcus fired me, just last week. Let go, dismissed, given the heave-ho, handed my walking papers. I’m really upset; it’s totally awful, to be honest.” I say it out loud, then burst out into a liberating fit of giggles that I only half understand myself. Confessing and the relief of getting it off your chest perhaps. I stretch, crack my neck by moving my head from left to right, then I get up and pace up and down the room. God, I need to pee. I don’t want to pee in his toilet, so close by, the sound of a stream hitting the toilet bowl while a person lies there fighting death, it feels sacrilegious. The restrooms out in the hall, then? But what if something happens? I can hold it. I find a position to try to ease the urge. “Yes, that’s it.”

  I intertwine my hands and crack my knuckles, which I was never allowed to do when I was little. I’d get rheumatism, Dad said. I take a sip of champagne, wonder whether I should moisten his lips again, and as my gaze goes from the bottle of champagne to his lips, it suddenly stops. The death rattle stops. I shoot to my feet, rush to the edge of his bed, grab his arm, my whole body is tense. Is this it? This stupid sudden stop? Or is he still breathing, only not in stereo. “Dad?” I can hear my own panic. I look and wait. I should check his pulse, I think, but I don’t dare. I don’t know what to do. “I’m here,” I say. “I’m with you, let go, Dad.” And then: a rattle, an exhalation of breath, a short one, and then it’s quiet again, ridiculously quiet. Is he dead now? Or not yet? Tears run down my face, a lot of them. A nurse, I think, she has to come now, someone who knows what to do. I press the buzzer above his bed. I feel his chest, no heartbeat, I think, but I’m not sure. I stand there waiting. I count, all the way to thirty. I think he’s gone. I suspect he is, but I don’t know anything. Where’s the nurse? Do I have to go and look for her? Then he’ll be alone and I don’t want that under any circumstances. Who knows, perhaps he’s still in the middle of dying, perhaps this is just a strange false alarm, the average was three to four days, wasn’t it? I press the buzzer again, minutes pass, minutes that crawl past, torturous minutes. I’m still holding his arm, but I don’t dare to look at him.

  Then the door opens. “Is it time?” She flips the switch and light smashes into the room. These people don’t think.

  “Off, turn that light off!” I sound hysterical, but I don’t care. I stare at her, at the nurse and the lines around her mouth, the furrow in her brow that I can see clearly now in the sea of white light. “Please, light off.” Only then does she take a step back toward the switch and turn it off again.

  She comes closer, feels his wrist, and then, without looking at me, says, “The gentleman has indeed passed away.”

  My whole body jerks as though, in all the hours I’ve been sitting here, I hadn’t seen it coming, as though everything in me wants to fight against this acute loss. My cheeks are wet, my body lost, my head spins.

  “Do you have a suit here so that we can dress him?”

  I don’t have a clue. I don’t want to think about this now. I say nothing.

  “Would you like us to close his mouth, arrange him nicely?”

  Stay away from him, I think. I want to get out of here, I think. I leave the room. I have to call the others. I melt, blow away, settle, and wash away. I have to call the others. I go to the bathroom, run cold water over my wrists, rub my face with my wet hands, and run my fingers through my hair. I look in the mirror and see my face. It looks eighty years old.

  41

  Alexander is walking up front with his characteristic springy step. Marie is trotting along about three or four feet behind him. He’s carrying a gray suit wrapped in plastic over his left arm. She’s holding a fabric bag in her left hand that must be the shoes and socks; it swings back and forth, hitting her legs. I see them approaching but don’t get up from my chair in the hall. I’m just going to stay sitting here, I think. Inside my head, the night is dark, the fog thick, the ground damp. I’m alone, no one to guide my way.

  “Well?” my brother asks. He balls his left hand into a fist, relaxes it, and repeats.

  I shrug.

  “I don’t want to see him anymore, not like this, dead. I’ll stay with you.” He sits down on the chair next to me, elbows resting on his knees, hands supporting his forehead.

  “What?” says Marie. “You’re not going to say goodbye to your father?”

  “I did that already when he was still alive. I’ll wait for you here, if you don’t mind. Or . . .” He gets up and sits back down again immediately. “I’ll wait here, yes.”

  “Ah.” No one can instill that word with as much meaning as Marie. “Are we expecting Anne-Sophie too?”

  “Yes, but she has to come from farther away.”

  Marie disappears.

  Alexander arches his neck and breathes in deeply. We don’t look at each other. “Was it scary?”

  “It was disconcerting in its apparent nothingness. Death is staggering in its triviality, the most shocking thing I’ve ever seen.”

  He lays his hand on my arm, lets go instantly, and I start to cry again. “Have you called Louis yet?”

  “Yes, he didn’t pick up. He must be asleep. I could hear from the way it rang that he was still abroad, so it doesn’t really matter anyway.”

  “You deserve better, sis.” He bangs his fist gently on the arm of his chair twice, to add a show of might to his position.

  Then Marie comes back out of the room. Her voice hoarse, she says, “His mouth is still open.” She waits for a response, but neither of us speaks. “I can’t look at it. It’s so unpleasant.” Her breath catches, and she swallows loudly. “Why is that?”

  “Um. I don’t know.”

  “They normally close it, don’t they? That’s the standard procedure, right? Precisely to spare the bereaved from such a sight. At least, that’s what I thought.”

  I just stare. I don’t know to say.

  “Where are the nurses?”

  “I just saw one go into the kitchen.” Alexander points.

  Marie rushes along the hallway as though there’s haste after death. She returns a few minutes later. “Apparently, you told the nurse his mouth had to stay open.” She gives me a furious look. “What is the meaning of this? Haven’t you seen how dreadful—” She’s unable to finish her sentence.

  My self-composure is in danger of shattering. I can feel it, I purse my lips. “The nurse asked some questions, but I didn’t know what to say. I left the room. I said nothing as far as I remember.”

  “I hope it’s not too late now.” Her voice trembles. “What time exactly did he die?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you wait a long time before calling us?”

  “No. I don’t think so, no.”

  “Do you know what happens if you wait too long?” She raises her eyebrows. “Do you know what they do? Then they have to glue the mouth shut with a special kind of adhesive. Oh yes, having to do a thing like that to a person after their death. And I find that a strange thought, no, a horrific thought, that he’d have to be buried with his mouth glued shut.”

  To be honest, I don’t want to hear the words buried and death, not now, let al
one stories about glue and mouths. Alexander breathes in like he’s going to speak but she vanishes again.

  My brother looks at me; he suddenly feels close in all his restlessness.

  “Why do we talk so little, Alexander? I mean really talk.”

  He rubs his hands over his face, then turns to me. “Don’t we talk much?”

  I shake my head. He squeezes my neck, and I wonder whether he knows that Dad used to do that sometimes to me, a long time ago. I squeeze his hand by way of a reply. He breathes heavily and opens a button of his shirt.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I—” He shoots up from his chair. “Air,” he says. He hurries off. I try to keep up with him. He stops at the first window he comes to, pulls on the handle repeatedly, but it doesn’t open. He wheezes even harder.

  “Are you all right? Should I call a nurse?”

  He shakes his head and goes to the elevator. “Outside,” he says. I press the button three times. It arrives fast, it’s still very quiet here.

  Alexander gets in, paces around the tiny space, and undoes another button. Downstairs, the doors open again, he rushes out, through an emergency exit, the only one that’s open at night. I run after my brother. I see him stop in the parking lot and sink to the ground. A dark shape in the wary light of a single streetlamp, a shuddering heap of Homo sapiens. When I reach him, he’s sitting there crying violently and struggling for breath. I kneel next to him. I can barely look: my giant of a brother, always the brave big guy, the way his body shakes. I don’t know what to do now. I rest a hand on his shoulder and stay with him. Sometimes it’s better not to try to make things better. He wasn’t ready, he was even less ready than me. He keeps trying to get his breathing under control.

  Then a car pulls in nearby, a door slams, footsteps on the asphalt, heavy heels, not clogs or sandals or sneakers, more the way cowboy boots might sound. I glance up, someone’s coming, it must be Anne-Sophie. Then Alexander sees his little sister approaching and he quickly scrambles to his feet. He breathes in and out deeply and calms down, slowly but surely. He feels around in his pockets for a handkerchief he doesn’t find. I give him my packet of tissues, he smiles, jerks violently one more time, then wipes his nose and dries his face.

  “All right here?” Anne-Sophie asks. Her face is red and puffy from tears, or maybe exhaustion. She looks infinitely alone. I wonder whether that’s something that will ever change.

  “Yes, yes,” Alexander says as though he urgently has to act like the big brother again. He coughs and puts away the tissue. “We should go back up again. Mom will be wondering where we are.”

  We stand waiting for the elevator, the three of us in a row. Alexander is breathing normally again. I look at Anne-Sophie, who looks at the floor. When we reach Dad’s ward, Marie comes up to us. “Oh, there you are! I was wondering, Now where have they got to? And the nurse didn’t know either.” She stands close to us. She smells of stale sheets and an excess of floral perfume.

  “Alexander needed some air,” I say.

  Marie nods as though this is entirely normal, then she turns to Anne-Sophie. “Go and say goodbye, but I’ll warn you because I wish I’d known: he looks dreadful.”

  Anne-Sophie looks embarrassed. Suddenly, Marie takes a big step toward her and hugs her, unabashedly. Anne-Sophie stiffens. It lasts about thirty seconds and then she breaks free with strong, fierce movements.

  “Don’t do that,” she roars, a shout that sounds twice as loud in this kind of silence.

  A nurse pokes her head around a door and disappears again when she sees that things have calmed back down. Anne-Sophie goes to one of the chairs and sits down, trembling. She pulls her shoulders back, which looks strange. Alexander gives me a questioning look, then goes over to her. I sit down beside her. Anne-Sophie holds one hand in front of her mouth.

  Marie stands there, demonstratively at a loss. “The nurses are putting his gray suit on him now. The striped one, you know, from Gilda’s party. I hope everyone can live with that?” Nods of agreement. “Do you want to go first, Anne-Sophie, or can I go in again, so I can see him dressed?”

  “Go.” Anne-Sophie sounds weary. Marie disappears again.

  “We all deserve better.” I say it, thinking back to Dad’s final words: Just go along with whatever Marie wants.

  Anne-Sophie sighs, stretches out her legs, and sinks down against the wall as though she wants to release all the tension for a moment. The hallway is silent, I’ve never heard it so quiet here before. I look at my brother and my sister, three children with the same dad and yet all so different.

  “What happened back there?” Alexander asks after a while. He leans forward so that he can see Anne-Sophie’s face.

  “She’s not allowed to—” Anne-Sophie shakes her head, she doesn’t finish her sentence. Then there’s another pause. “It didn’t have to last much longer for Dad, I’m happy about that,” she says finally, as though that’s an answer.

  “You’re happy?” Marie is holding the bag again, folded up and empty now.

  “No. She—”

  “Everything’s arranged,” she interrupts, folding the bag smaller and smaller. “And his mouth was all right in the end, thank God.” She continues to look at us like we ought to be saying something we keep refusing to say, maybe because she doesn’t know what to say herself. “Are you going to have a look or not, then, Anne-Sophie?” My sister nods, but doesn’t get up. “If so, we’ll wait here for you, because getting into the car alone after a thing like that, that’s not nice.” Marie emphasizes the words.

  “No, don’t wait,” my sister says. “Really. Don’t.”

  “Ah, yes,” Marie replies. The rainy-day weariness of those two words.

  Anne-Sophie takes a deep breath, gets up, and goes into the room with a weariness that doesn’t match her years.

  “Which of you is coming with me?” Marie comes and stands very close and looks alternately at Alexander and me. “I can’t be alone now.”

  I feel us faltering and saying nothing. We let it go on, both of us, as if we’d agreed on it beforehand.

  “Not me,” I say, calmly and decisively.

  “Oh no? Why not? Why can’t you?” Marie widens her eyes.

  “I could, but I stayed here all night and I want to be alone. I don’t want to go with you, not now.”

  Marie doesn’t reply instantly. She looks angry and surprised at the same time, injured by the daughter who pulls out at such a crucial moment. It’s the anger I’ve unsuccessfully been trying to avoid all my life. The feared anger that was more important than my own anger. I look at her without even the slightest bit of apology, without the slightest compulsion to explain further. For too long, I lived like the crows that fly up into the air, forgetting themselves. Enough.

  After a few seconds of speechlessness, she begins to talk again anyway. I don’t feel like listening. “I’m desperate for a restroom,” I say. I turn around and walk down the hallway. I look out the window, night is still happening outside. Streetlamps shine their yellowish light over the roads, the houses, the people sleeping, at the same time in the far-off distance, a glimmer of morning light. Dikes have burst, avalanches have been caused, tidal waves have risen up. My father is gone, gone forever, and nothing has changed, dawn is breaking, there will be another night. Nothing has changed and everything is different.

  When I return, Alexander and Marie are getting ready to leave. I’m not going to ask what they agreed on, and I’m not going to invent some kind of excuse even though I know Marie is expecting one, or at least hoping for one.

  “We’ll be going, then.”

  “Fine,” I say. I smile and give them both a kiss.

  Marie continues to look at me. I sit down again. Then they’re gone and I don’t watch them go. I put my bag on my lap and look for my phone. Maybe Louis got in touch after all. Ah, two messages. One is from Anne-Sophie, just confirming she was on her way, and the other is from Nathan letting me know that, as an insomniac, he�
�s a good person to call for a nighttime conversation if I could use one. I type: I know where to find you. Who knows? Maybe. I hesitate, type Ha! after it, then delete those two letters and press send because I’ve run out of energy to think. Then Anne-Sophie comes out of the room. She walks like she’s been carrying a heavy weight for days.

  “What about you?” I ask.

  “I’m going to take the first flight I can get. I have to go back.”

  “Even before the funeral, you mean?”

  She nods. “As soon as possible. I can’t be here. It’s too much. And Dad’s gone now, so.”

  I look at this young woman, wishing I knew her. “I hope you’ll feel better there than you do here.”

  She nods again.

  “I hate seeing you like this. If you ever . . . you’ll know where to find me, right?”

  She nods again. “What about you?” she asks.

  “Me? I’m going to write a play, I think.” She looks at me uncomprehendingly. “Or open a theater myself, or something even more daring.” I make a dismissive gesture, then I smile at her.

  She comes to sit next to me. I look down the ugly hallway I never want to see again. And then, suddenly, Anne-Sophie lays her head on my shoulder. I smell her hair, something with honey or other sugary things. She breathes quietly, barely moving. I am reminded of the time when she climbed onto my lap, crying. She must have been about three or four, four maybe. She’d hurt herself by falling hard onto the kitchen floor. I said to her, “I’ll give you a kiss and that will make it better.” I kissed both of her knees. She looked at those two knees in embarrassment at first and then at me, and then she said, indignantly, in that high voice of hers, “No, it’s not better. Your kisses don’t work,” and carried on crying. I remember that feeling of powerlessness like it was yesterday. I lay my hand on her head. I wish I could help, I think, though I don’t say it.

  42

  I’m woken by the sound of a key fumbling in the lock of the front door. I realize I must have dozed off in the armchair; it’s ten to one in the afternoon. I hear the door close, the quiet swish of a zipper, the sound of a handle being pushed back down into a suitcase, footsteps coming my way, familiar sounds. He comes in, stretches as he always does after a long journey, and then sees me.