On the Bright Side Read online

  ‘Did you know that in the seventeenth century herons were considered a delicacy?’ Evert once remarked. Bregman had put her hands to her mouth in dismay.

  I’m not that fond of herons myself, with their beady little eyes and razor-sharp beaks for spearing frogs and ducklings. So I wouldn’t be averse to trying roast heron some day.

  There was good news for animal lovers as well: the panda is making a comeback. According to the newspaper, there are now 1,864 living specimens. What kind of journalist decides to take such a precise head count, it didn’t say. The panda scores high on the list of old people’s favourite animals. It’s one of the many issues on which young children and the elderly agree.

  Wednesday, 4 March

  Joep Peeters, the singing half of the Two Pints duo, is no more. The other Pint died a while ago. I don’t know, actually, if Joep was still performing, or if he was now calling himself One Pint. Or The Last Pint. In tribute to Joep, Mrs Lacroix, in a high soprano, performed (she is a performance artist, after all) the Pints’ greatest hits: ‘On Our Kitchen Door’ and ‘I’ll Take the Love and the Wine’. Bakker stuffed his fingers demonstratively in his ears. As Lacroix warbled the line ‘You take the money and the slime,’ she pointed spitefully at Bakker. Well, that led to a little dust-up, as you can imagine, with Bakker calling her a ‘shit-artist’. The staff had to step in, and Bakker, who refused to apologize, was made to move to a table at the far side of the room.

  It has been two years since the staff first determined that Bakker’s ranting and raving was out of control, but they have yet to find a good place to park him, apparently.

  Bakker often makes me laugh. I try to suppress it, naturally, to avoid getting the entire morality posse on my back.

  There is also reason to rejoice: Exota is back. Exota was once as popular as Coca-Cola is today. Until the little mishap of some bottles spontaneously exploding. The oldies can’t wait to see Exota sparkling juices on the supermarket shelves again. Hopefully the bottles will be sturdier this time. In its absence, people remembered Exota as some sort of heavenly nectar. The brown ‘champagne-pils’ in the tubby little bottle in particular was, according to Mr Dickhout, ‘the appellation contrôlée of fizzy drinks’. I’m afraid it could turn out to be a disappointment.

  Thursday, 5 March

  Very bad news. I received a death announcement: our old lawyer Victor has passed away. He’d been ill for a while. A kind, warm, intelligent man. Until a few months ago he’d been hard at work attempting to have all the rules, protocols and regulations of this home released under the Governance Transparency Act – with a great deal of enthusiasm, but little success. Portions were unsealed every so often, but with all the interesting passages blacked out, supposedly on account of sensitive privacy issues. Victor was determined; if it were not for him, I’d have given up long ago. He wasn’t in it for the money; all he asked for in return was a weekly bottle of wine from a different corner of the world. I soon ran out of countries, although I did my best. Be that as it may, we finished many a bottle between us. This evening, in memory of Victor, I will open a nice bottle of wine. Perhaps the board and Stelwagen will do the same, but for a different reason.

  ‘I think this is the pin you pull …’ Mr Verlaat said, studying the instructions of his newly purchased fire extinguisher and proceeding to spray foam all over his room. It took hours to clean up the mess. Verlaat kept getting in the cleaners’ way, whimpering, ‘I couldn’t help it, could I?’

  ‘Oh yes you could,’ said the head of housekeeping. At teatime she informed the residents that, by way of setting an example, Mr Verlaat is required to pay for the damage out of his own pocket. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there isn’t a bit of revenge there on the part of management, because of Verlaat’s threat to bring a lawsuit over the prohibition against pets. The inmates’ fear of fire is now up against their fear of having to pay for damages. And there are already so many things we are afraid of here. Which points to one striking difference between the very young and the elderly: children aren’t afraid of anything; old people are afraid of everything.

  Friday, 6 March

  Tonight the Old-But-Not-Dead are eating out, in furtherance of our exploratory tour of the kitchens of the world. So I shall have an abstemious lunch.

  A friend of Mrs Schaap’s, who had been on this home’s waiting list for two years, had just moved up to second place when she unexpectedly passed away last week. Schaap was in tears, because she had so looked forward to her best friend’s arrival. The world is often not kind to the elderly.

  In Norway they also have a waiting list. That wait is never long enough for the parties concerned. ‘No, please, you go first.’ It’s like a waiting list for convicted felons, who must wait for a prison cell to become vacant.

  I am taking note of Mrs Schansleh’s quite extraordinary idioms and proverbs. ‘They make a mountain out of every elephant in the china shop’ was the first one to catch my attention. It concerned a bomb attack in Iraq, if I remember right.

  Today she uttered these words of wisdom: ‘The path to the graveyard is paved with tumours.’ It was meant as solace for Mrs De Gans, who at teatime yesterday told anyone who would listen about the benign growth in her stomach. ‘As big as a pigeon egg. From a small pigeon, though.’

  Someone wanted to know the exact size of that pigeon.

  The entire conversation was deadly serious.

  Saturday, 7 March

  The best part was that you were allowed to eat with your hands. Evert made a bit of a pig of himself with the sauces, and he wasn’t even doing it on purpose. After some practice, eating without fork or spoon became the most normal thing in the world. The Ethiopian world, that is. Because last night we dined in a charming Ethiopian restaurant in Marnix Street. Since none of us knew anything of that country’s cuisine, we asked the chef to surprise us. The result was a huge round platter for four, with an equally huge pancake on it which was garnished with all sorts of titbits. You were supposed to tear off a piece of pancake and use it to mop up morsels of meat, fish or vegetable. Graeme took a rather big bite of something mysterious, and promptly commandeered Evert’s banana-beer to quench the fire. He is to be commended for sparing the white wine. Evert used the pretence to switch over to coconut-beer.

  ‘You like to drink dangerously, don’t you, dear,’ said Leonie, lovingly tousling Evert’s last remaining locks. It was rather dark in there, but I thought I saw him blush.

  The food was delicious, and it was great fun. After doing an initial double take when they saw the geriatric parade file into their restaurant, the African host and hostess seemed very taken with us. Normally our group can expect to be met with surprise at first, and then warm sympathy.

  ‘How nice, that you’re still trying new things. At your age! We may sometimes get a grandpa or grandma in here, but eight at once … well I never.’ If you can think of this pronounced in some sort of African accent, it becomes a charming statement.

  It took a little longer than planned, and Leonie had to bribe the Conexxion minibus driver to wait for fifteen minutes. She wouldn’t tell us how she’d managed it.

  Today is a day of rest.

  Sunday, 8 March

  Mrs Smit had forgotten to put on a nappy. When she got up from the table after dinner last night, there was rather a large wet spot on the back of her skirt. It didn’t even show that much because the pattern served as camouflage. Had someone whispered in Mrs Smit’s ear that she should go to her room and change into a clean frock, no one would have been any the wiser. But she had the misfortune of drawing the attention of Mrs Slothouwer’s evil eye.

  ‘Oh, I was just thinking: what’s that smell?’ Slothouwer exclaimed, much louder than necessary. She pointed at Mrs Smit’s skirt. Mrs Smit slowly looked down. When she looked up again, she encountered ten pairs of eyes staring at her. She tried covering her backside with her hands to hide the wet spot.

  ‘Forgot your nappy, didn’t you? And now we have to deal with
the stench. And that chair will have to be recovered; the smell will never come out.’

  Mrs Smit began to cry quietly, shielding her skirt with one hand and her eyes with the other.

  ‘Crying doesn’t help,’ said Slothouwer.

  ‘If you don’t shut your trap now, I’ll punch you in the nose,’ Evert hissed, looking round for something with which to carry out that threat. Geert posted himself between them and, addressing Slothouwer slowly and quietly, said, ‘Get out. Now.’

  I took Mrs Smit’s arm and walked her to her room. ‘Don’t worry, it can happen to anyone,’ I comforted her. Halfway down the corridor, Nurse Morales took her over from me. I heard her say, ‘We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again, won’t we?’ She kept nattering away, but I could no longer hear what she was saying.

  Tuesday, 10 March

  I generally manage to make it through the day, but yesterday I had a bad day. Dog-tired, short of breath, and queasy.

  ‘Growing old is a shipwreck,’ President de Gaulle once said, and he only made it to eighty.

  ‘We’re on the ropes sometimes, aren’t we? The ropes of life,’ Graeme said recently with a big grin. I pictured two geriatric boxers wearing boxing gloves far too big for them in their corners, too spent to come out.

  I could, of course, turn to a Mr Banfa for help. I recently found his pamphlet in my letterbox.

  ‘World-renowned clairvoyant medium with great experience. Very well known for his excellent work and effectiveness. Will solve many of your problems, even the most hopeless: return of affection, tenderness, restoration of security, exams, clients, faithfulness, all physical and moral problems healed, reversal of evil spells, etc. Speedy outcome guaranteed.’

  There was a phone number underneath. Maybe we could start with the evil spell reversal.

  Wednesday, 11 March

  Yesterday Ria, Antoine and I went to Victor’s funeral. It was very impressive. It turned out, unsurprisingly, that he had hundreds of friends and acquaintances. Everyone was very sad. Nobody said or thought, ‘It’s best this way.’

  A German wolf has been spotted roaming the streets of Hoogezand.

  Mrs Bregman: ‘How can they be so sure it’s a German wolf? Maybe it came from Czechoslovakia.’

  ‘In that case it left home quite a while ago, because that country no longer exists,’ Evert snickered. ‘Maybe they can tell because it howls in German?’

  ‘Anyway, why Hoogezand, of all places?’ Bregman wondered.

  Topics of animal interest tend to do well in the conversation lounge.

  Another important topic of the day is the mini herb and vegetable seed garden you get if you spend €15 at Albert Heijn. They’re a big hit with the elderly. Grandparents will usually save their supermarket freebies as gifts for the grandkids, but they’re keeping these for themselves. The plot (5x5cm) is easily managed, the heavy work can be done sitting down, and isn’t all that taxing. People compete as to who can grow the tallest leek, celery or spring onion seedling. Measured in millimetres for now. For want of other pastimes, some residents spend their time watching for the seedlings to sprout. All right, I confess: eleven of those little pots have pride of place on my own windowsill.

  A judge in Utrecht has decided that people who are old and sick need no more than an hour and a half of cleaning help per week. Another judge, in Friesland, found that it takes at least three hours to clean a house properly.

  Most of the ladies agreed that ninety minutes per week isn’t even enough to keep the lavatory clean.

  ‘Really clean, I mean.’

  The ladies nodded, unanimous, but I must say I have visited some less than spotless toilets …

  Thursday, 12 March

  Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten and his Under-Secretary Fred Teeven have tendered their resignations. They were very popular here, these two heroes of the war against both organized and disorganized crime. Our residents are worried that starting tomorrow the number of muggings of the elderly will go through the roof. OK, I’m exaggerating, but not terribly.

  Minister Opstelten had sworn that there was no evidence of any bribery, and then some proof turned up that there was, in the form of a receipt. Government ministers don’t often get caught telling little white lies. Teeven resigned too, out of solidarity; that was nice of him. Although the receipt that was found did happen to be his; a receipt for a pay-off to the underworld figure Cees H., in exchange for information that would put some other crooks behind bars. Cees is allowed to keep his €4.7 million criminal compensation, thanks to Teeven.

  Crime ought not to pay, we think, and you must admit that €4.7 million is a rather generous stipend.

  I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window yesterday, and it wasn’t an encouraging sight. I was shuffling. There is no other word for it. I was shuffling slowly and rather uncertainly in the direction of HEMA, where I was headed to buy new socks because my old ones have holes in them. They get holes because I am no longer able to cut my own toenails, and so they get too long. There’s nothing else for it but to have the pedicurist come. I always thought it rather over the top, and a bit embarrassing, a stranger coming to fiddle with my old, rather grotesque toes and hacking at my rock-hard, fungus-infected nails. He or she had better bring some heavy equipment.

  Friday, 13 March

  There was a story in the paper about a physiotherapists’ racket in the athletics club world. Claims for treatments that were neither necessary nor ever performed. May I give the ladies and gentlemen of the papers a little tip? You should investigate physical therapy fraud amongst the elderly!

  There are residents who have been going to their physical therapists twice a week for years, for an ailment that is in fact incurable: old age. One time it’s for an achy old arm, the next it’s got to do with a dodgy old leg, but the upshot is: there’s not much that can be done about any of it. Most people just have physiotherapy for the length of time it will take for their complaint to go away on its own. Not in the case of old people. They have very few ailments that will resolve themselves eventually. Talk about a complete waste of time! Most of us have supplementary insurance that covers an unrestricted number of PT treatments. Which means that it’s free; therefore nothing stands in the way of countless more useless visits. The therapist doesn’t care, he’s quite happy to send over his bill. Sometimes he gets paid just for walking the patient from one corner of the room to the other.

  ‘Yes, but it must be doing something,’ someone said recently.

  ‘Yes, such as keeping the therapist in business,’ Graeme scoffed.

  Saturday, 14 March

  Royal Dutch Shell is patching the hole in CEO Ben van Beurden’s pension package to the tune of €16.8 million. That must have been quite a hole, requiring such a pricey repair. When he retires, that Van Beurden could use his pension to buy himself three entire old-age homes.

  I wonder if Ben feels any embarrassment at all?

  Forgive me for riding my hobbyhorse a little longer. The following gentlemen were not so long ago voted Executive of the Year:

  Sjoerd van Keulen – let SNS Bank go bankrupt.

  Ad van Wijk – drove green energy concern ECO into bankruptcy.

  Cees van der Hoeven – Chairman of Albert Heijn. Convicted of fraud.

  Dirk Scheringa – drove DSB Bank into bankruptcy and was convicted of fraud.

  I don’t think, frankly, that these gentlemen will ever have to depend on welfare benefits to survive.

  ‘My mouth and my brain don’t seem to understand each other these days,’ Mr Bakker, always the bellyacher, announced. He is an annoying, negative fellow, but as he said it, he looked deeply troubled. I felt pity for him for the first time since I’ve known him.

  The people round the table stared at him, but nobody said anything.

  ‘I also don’t know why I’m always cussing and swearing,’ said Bakker, after a short silence.

  ‘I don’t either,’ Mrs Van Diemen concurred.

  It was the first
time in ages that anyone had agreed with him.

  Sunday, 15 March

  Last night I dreamed I was driving one of those nifty little Canta Cabrios, one arm hanging nonchalantly out of the window, the other hand loosely on the wheel, puffing on a nice cigar. The sun was shining. Eefje was sitting next to me. She wore a lovely red hat, which she had to hold tightly so it wouldn’t blow away. She smiled at me.

  On Sundays we are usually served an egg at lunch. It’s really a delayed breakfast egg, to deter residents from cooking eggs in their rooms on Sunday morning.

  Last week a new resident, I think her name is Mrs Hoensbroek, peered at her egg dubiously for a long time.

  ‘What a small egg, I must say,’ she said.

  Yes, indeed, on closer inspection a number of other residents thought so too.

  ‘Should we ask Cook to give us larger eggs?’ someone suggested.

  That prompted Mrs Bregman, who likes to remind everyone that she’s a member of the Party for Animals, to protest.

  ‘When they buy those extra-large eggs, nobody ever thinks of the chicken’s poor little pooper.’

  ‘Those battery hens are bred to have a big bum-hole, they don’t feel a thing,’ Mr Pot proclaimed.

  The room split into two camps: one for the chicken, and one for the extra-large eggs. We haven’t yet heard the last word on this one. Where there are no major concerns, minor ones can create great division.

  Monday, 16 March

  Mr Verlaat has dropped his iPhone for the umpteenth time, this time into the toilet. It fell out of his pocket when he was having a piss. Splash. There’s no protective case that will stand up to that. Verlaat should have been prepared, however, since the excuse he offered was that until now the phone had always landed next to the pot. That wasn’t enough reason to take it out of his pocket when going to the loo, it seems.