The Last Days of My Mother (12 page)

The elite six were all retired and agreed to meet me, one after the other, on a rain-splashed Tuesday in the beginning of July. I
found a quiet table in the corner half an hour before the first meeting, completely unaware of the torture awaiting me. I had never seen such pathetic specimens of the human race as the miserable lot who found their way into Café Cutty Sark that dreary afternoon. I thought I'd found my man in John Devanugh, a handsome type with great bone structure and an interest in dramaturgy until I realized that his “recently deceased” wife had actually been dead for twenty years. We didn't have time for this shit. I knew that Mother would have no patience or tolerance for some long-dead female who was apparently superior to any living human. I said good-bye to John Devanugh and hello to Stefan Sauerbritzl, a German and compulsive eater who was either freakishly photogenic or a master at Photoshop. The meetings deteriorated from then on. Ben Henderson, real estate agent, a malodorous bearded ape with skin problems. Valmer Flint was a pervert. Then there was the incorrigible alcoholic from Rotterdam, and a lethargic Finn with transgender fantasies. In short, these meetings all proved the point that Mother had been making for years about single men over fifty.

“No luck?” the waitress smiled as she wiped my table clean. I wanted to take off with her to Casablanca and disappear into the intoxicating infinity of her youth. “No one fit the part? I mean, aren't you making a movie?”

“Yes. No. I'm just looking for a man who's ready for a romantic relationship. It's hard to find the right kind at this age.”

“Don't you have to try for guys a bit younger?” the girl asked, slightly surprised.

“Younger men are all busy with other things. And Mother . . . no, it wouldn't work.”

“Is she really difficult?”

“No, she's fine. I wouldn't go through all this trouble otherwise.”

“Then you're lucky. My friend doesn't dare come out because his mom is such a bitch.”

“I have the exact opposite problem, she's always trying to drag me out. And then it always ends with the tarot cards.”

“She sounds really supportive. And what do the cards say? A loverman in the cards at all?”

“I was hoping to seal the deal today,” I sighed. “You saw how it went. It's true what they say—love is more complicated after fifty.”

“You should check out the service just up the street,” she suggested and poured me another coffee. “It's called Hemingway something . . . Dating Service.”

“Hemingway Dating Service? Is it for Hemingways or with Hemingways?”

“With Hemingways. I'm sure you'll find Mr. Right before you know it.”

I thanked her, left the café and walked farther up the street. The Hemingway Dating Service was at number 224, in a very narrow building that opened up once you got inside, like the first floor had spread into the neighboring houses. There were ladies in heavy coats whose potent smell conjured up the fear of dead animals. I was reminded of my youth. Surrounded by a fantastic horniness that simmered underneath the polished surface, I walked over to the front desk and fished out a form from a plastic box.

“You're seeking a man in his sixties?” the receptionist asked when I handed her the paper.

“With an interest in literature, theater and such. Handsome.”

She picked up the phone and then pointed me to the bar next door, where I was about to rock Mother's gay-scale. There, I had a passionate conversation with an intelligent man named Radberth
Comstock, an engineer at the Academy of Science, classy in a shirt and blue jeans with tartan-laced pockets. Here was the Highland knight himself in a gilded sunset, and I had become my mother.

“There's been a misunderstanding,” I said as it finally dawned on me.

The rain soaked parking lot steamed under my feet as I stormed back into Hemingway Dating Service, ready to prove to the world that Hermann Willyson was a ladies' man. Would the receptionist like a drink? I was great company, a true he-male who'd simply come to fill out a form for his mother.

“I suppose I owe you one. I'll go over the listings with you if you can wait a couple.”

We ran down Spuistraat in the rain and found shelter under a blue canvas. Me and Gloria Birkenstock, matchmaker and the focus of my sex drive. Fortunately, the beer had the intended numbing effect on my nervous system and I told her stories and bad jokes about racecar games and salmon fishing, digging up all the pitiful machismo I could muster to breathe in the estrogen in Gloria. I drank like my life depended on it.

“I suppose I should've known,” she laughed.

“All that matters is that I'm here with you, Gloria. This is the life, Gloria. This is the
life
.”

“Cheers to that!”

“And cheers to Radberth Comstock. He'll make some lucky guy very happy.”

We sat at the pub for a couple of hours without so much as a glance at the listings. I told her about Mother's illness and our trip to Lowland. We found that we had the same birthday, nine years apart. She possessed a joyful sex appeal that conjured up youthful tension. As I lay naked next to her shortly after leaving the café, I
was haunted by an onslaught of thoughts: why am I not sleeping with a woman I love instead of lying here with a stranger? Why am I hiding my paunch belly and genitals with a stuffed animal? Why do I choose to have sex with a woman who has the same last name as my sandals? I hadn't had sex with a woman since the beast with the bearded tits had her way with me in Dublin. After that I developed a sexual inferiority complex, which grew in proportion to my bloated self. In the heat of the moment the feeling had disappeared, but now it returned with a vengeance. Gloria Birkenstock was a beautiful woman, long-legged and slight, with full, round breasts that reminded me of two halves of an Olympic size handball. She was a woman any man would be proud to share his bed with. Nevertheless, I found it impossible to relax beside her and soon stood up to call Ramji.

“Do you mind if I ride along?” she asked when I told the driver to take me back to the hotel. “I feel like going for a stroll and the walk back would be perfect.”

I told her I needed to stop by Pijlsteeg and that the driver had strict orders to take me to get some cannabis. Gloria was unconcerned and told me she didn't care where we were headed. When we got to the museum I felt obliged to invite her in with me to where the doctor's son sat smoking in his underwear. Only a couple hours had passed since my premature ejaculation had ended its journey in Gloria's latex-filled cervix, but what happened next was beyond past events. Steven looked at Gloria and Gloria looked at Steven. She was twelve years his senior; he wanted a lover who would give him a motherly sense of security. Most normal people would perhaps have taken offence to this turn of events, but I had trouble containing my joy. After telling them a few jokes about Gaddafi, president
of Libya, I bid a warm farewell to the couple with numerous handshakes and expressions of hope to meet again soon.

Once out in the street I was gripped by a pure desire to fulfill my ideas from that morning: find a sleazy dive and start a marathon session of special drinks. Ramji seemed to sense the self-destructive impulse in me and refused to leave me alone. We sat for a good half hour at Blue Blue Jay Jay, a soft-core topless joint where I downed margaritas and Ramji sipped on his mineral water until he insisted on leaving, appalled by his client's taste in watering holes. I tried to explain to him that we were equals and that I was very fond of him, and if something offended him he should say so.

“Yes, sir,” he said and drove me to Nieuwenmarkt, the very heart of prostitution and drug dealing in the city. “I don't think you should go there, Mr. Trooper.”

I had hardly gotten out of the car when I was back in trouble, entranced by Steven's super-joint. A stout man on a motorbike with the words “Rent your own Taxi from Rotandari Taxi” plastered on the side rolled menacingly toward me. I automatically grabbed a piece of patio furniture leaning against a nearby wall and hit him with it. The big man hardly flinched, got off his bike, took off his helmet, and sunk his powerful fist into my left jaw.

“Racist!” he yelled, pulling back his arm, ready to strike again. “I saw you at that racist gathering! Colonial cunt!”

He put me in a headlock, twisted my arms behind my back and ground my face into the sidewalk. I saw broken glass and gobs of gum, and the lowest parts of passersby: tights and shoes that whisked past without stopping, without any interference, because people were used to violence and fighting, endless hate and abuse. I screamed that it hurt.

“And for the Indians who live in little rooms far away from the city to wake up and drive Dutch Daisies to restaurants, and then just get spit on, you think it doesn't hurt?”

“I'm not Dutch!” I almost cried. The pain was starting to cut through the numbness of the weed and I was beaten up and humiliated by Bubi Rotandari the taxi driver. “I'm from Iceland!”

Of all the things I could have said, but didn't get to say to Bubi Rotandari at that moment, about my political correctness, my love for the multicultural and orgies with whites, Indians, and Masai—with all due respect for the cultural uniqueness of peoples such as the Sikhs—this declaration of my nationality seemed to be my get-out-of-jail card this time.

“Iceland? So you know Binu Singh Fagandi, my uncle. Hmm. Come with me.”

According to information related by Binu Singh Fagandi, Icelanders were a remarkable exception in the world of the White West, which had royally fucked up with Mr. Bush at the helm. President Bush had made money for his war by selling luxury apartments in Hollywood, but now there were no buyers so Mr. President Bush was poor. Icelanders, however, were not poor because they owned a bank in the Netherlands. Bubi had seen the bankers himself at a party next to a racist gathering. Icelanders were world champions in money making.

How all this tied in with his plans for me, I had no idea, but I was by no means a free man yet. My half-hearted attempt to get up reawakened his fist.

“Mr. Bubi, sir,” Ramji called out, having parked the car to try and talk sense into his old boss. “I saw what happened, sir. I think that even though Mr. Willyson was careless, sir, I don't think he hit you on purpose. It was an accident, Mr. Bubi, that's all.”

“You swear it, Ramji? Can you swear it on our Punjabi ancestors?”

“I swear it, Mr. Bubi, this is the truth. Mr. Hermann Willyson made an accident.”

“Ok. I do this for my father, Ramji, I do this because you are family and because my father is a good man who takes care of his people. As do I. You can go. But when I want to collect my debt from Mr. Willyson—it is dishonorable to hit someone with garden furniture—I will call you, Ramji. This will do for now. Mr. Willyson is free to go.” He was about to stand up when he suddenly turned around, stared at me intently and said: “One more thing, Mr. Hermann Willyson. Does your name mean ‘brother,' like in Spanish?”

“No, it doesn't mean brother. I suppose it means soldier. I think so: soldier.”

“Mr. Soldier? Mr. Soldier, very good. Mr. Soldier is dismissed.”

We walked back to the Ambassador and got in. I stared vacantly out of the window at the endless, red-eyed traffic slithering by. I felt a steady beat at my temples and a growing sense of nausea punctuated by bursts of needing to drown it in liquor and junk food. When I finally made it back to the hotel I was in no mood to face what had happened sober, so I ambushed the minibar with inspired grandeur, took two painkillers and barreled down to the restaurant to order a Bloody Mary and a large helping of French fries with mayo. My friend Dmitri watched bemused as I wolfed down my food and drink, and topped up my glass on the house. The relief over not feeling horrible swept away what little remained of any common sense in my being. I walked out of the lobby, light as a feather, knowing the only way I'd go to sleep was if I passed out. It's hard to accurately assess the time, but I vaguely recall the growing gray light when I crawled out at dawn from some doomed hash dive in the Red Light District, a good twenty hours after I'd
walked with great expectations down Spuistraat in search of the perfect he-male.

“Trooper, my lovely boy!” Mother sat at the hotel bar with the latest issue of
Bild
. “Now, you go lie down and get a good, long rest, like a babe in a cradle.
Mutti
will take care of her little super trooper, and everything will be just the way it used to be.”

I dozed off with childhood lullabies ringing in my ears, drifting off into fits of dreamless sleep.

Chapter 10

A
fter my run-in with Bubi I mostly kept to myself. I slept until noon, had a latté on the balcony, read, called Helena, and checked in on Mother every now and again. In the evenings we took the elevator down to the restaurant or found a small pub nearby where we could have a bite and something to drink. I spiked her gin with calamus—a wonder drug from the Smart-Shop in Warmoesstrat that obviously did what it said on the label. Two glasses of Gordon's with calamus set Mother on fire. She laughed and sang sappy songs about the student life and drinking wine, like a slushed recording of her thirty-years-younger self. Her face lit up with exaggerated delight and she threw her head back in laughter, whipped her high-heeled feet up on the table and shouted for more jenever—let's drink! I kept them coming like a factory worker, either helplessly inebriated, or shattered by a hangover. If I suggested that we'd leave early she accused me of being Hrafn Gunnlaugsson, an Icelandic filmmaker she abhorred. “It's only one o'clock, Trooper! More jenever!” Then she'd launch into a repertoire of socialist songs from days of yore. The music poured into my soul like a melancholy porridge of stress and happiness. The rhythm reminded me of the heavy rains in the Reykjavik of my youth, a deep drumming of
incoming low pressure from the Atlantic. I didn't sing along, but let my mind drift into the din and song, until Mother realized I was dozing off and sent me to the bar for more.