B007P4V3G4 EBOK (5 page)

But now it's a quarter past nine already. It really is high time
that Mr Koopman woke up. 'I'll lay his table. I'll fetch his breakfast
from the kitchen. I'll wake him up. Then he's sure to know it's
party time and that it's his birthday. He's not as potty as all that,'
gabbles the fat, kindly orderly. She has the habit of talking to herself.

'Then he'll wake up alright. There's an egg with it, too, after all.'

She comes out of the kitchen carrying a large tray with everything on it. Four slices of bread. A slice of ham (not at all thin-cut).
Two slices of cheese. A little glass dish of red jam. Oh, yes. Real
cherry jam. And REAL butter. Sugar, coffee, milk. An orange on
top of all that as well. And the egg, of course.

Solicitously, she sets everything down on the little table, already
laid. She walks over to Mr Koopman's bed. He has woken up at
last. But he doesn't seem to be quite as good as usual today. He is
sitting half-upright in bed and his eyes do look odd. A bit wild. He
might be ill. Then he must stay in bed and the entire breakfast
thing is off. Then she has laid the table for nothing. And all that
work. You often get disappointments with these old folks, you do.
Yet, the good old orderly decides to encourage him to leave his
bed. There's always something doing with the gentlemen, after all.
Of a temporary nature, in the main.

'Come on, out of bed, Dirk. Then I'll get you dressed.'

Mr Koopman's Christian name is Dirk.

The orderly is standing at his bedside now and in a motherly
way she pinches the calf of the leg sticking out from underneath
the blankets.

She can't have hurt him with that!

But Mr Koopman is making some of those funny noises that
aren't human at all, and ones you wouldn't expect from senile
gentlemen either. Not squeaking. Not groaning. Not growling.
They're creepy.

'I think he's having me on,' the orderly says.

'There's no gratitude in the man. Never been any either.'

And she starts to get angry.

She walks back to the little table.

'If you don't get out of bed now and come and eat, I'll take the
lot away again. Then you won't be having a thing. Then I'll tie
you down to your bed. Then I'll teach you to stay in bed. Then
you won't be getting out all week. Then you won't be allowed to
chew your baccy either.'

With senile gents you never can tell what arguments they're
susceptible to. And Mr Koopman is highly addicted to his baccy.
Now indeed he does get out of bed. There's something not quite
right, all the same. Mr Koopman is still quite nimble on his pins.
Yet never bouncy. And now he's suddenly making all those little
hops. Like a pierrot loosening up his muscles with jumps, and
exercising. It doesn't suit his age, and it isn't human at all, for that
matter. With a few of those hops he has reached the sunlounge.
Now he looks outside with an expression on his face as if
everything to be seen in that garden is perfectly new to him.

'Come over here, Dirk,' the orderly calls out. Her voice is tender
now. She is truly worried. There's also something the matter with
Mr Koopman's pyjamas. They're blue, aren't they? But all of a
sudden they seem a bit brownish. A bit hairy, for that matter. The
coat of a monkey. The orderly doesn't even want to look at Mr
Koopman's feet. Those aren't feet any more. They're paws.

Now the orderly is sure that it's ingratitude, that Mr Koopman's
not satisfied with his breakfast. And she is very hurt. It's pure
devilment of the old bugger. He has turned round in the sunlounge
now. And he looks at the breakfast. But what a mug he's got: enough
to give you the willies. Those small, vicious, beady little eyes. That's
not the gaze of an old gentleman whose birthday it is. And certainly
not when a festive breakfast is standing ready for him. Those old gents
are not accustomed to that much, though the home isn't bad either.

That's it. She has taken her decision. She assumes a dignified
attitude and wags her index finger. This she only will do when she
means it very seriously indeed.

'But I won't have the mickey taken. To bed with you. You'll
never get out of it again.' (Her voice has turned shrill and it cracks
occasionally.) 'You'll be leaving this place. To an asylum, that's
where you'll go. Then you'll be singing a different tune.' And
meanwhile, she has walked over to the sunlounge to grab Mr
Koopman by the scruff of his neck and put him back in his bed. As
a punishment. But it's already too late for this. Mr Koopman has
already turned into a monkey. He has already acquired a tail.

With a few big leaps, Mr Koopman disappears through the
sunlounge door into the garden. It's surprising to see the way old
gentlemen are able to climb trees when they change into monkeys.

In no time, Mr Koopman is sitting on the lowest branch of the
chestnut tree. It's still the first of September. A most splendid day
indeed. A day for miracles to happen. A day to make people jolly.
And Mr Koopman seems to be happy as well. Though it is an odd
way of celebrating your birthday. He sits on his branch of the tree
and has his tail in his little monkey-fist. He's got a pondering
expression in his eyes as if he's very struck and moved by
something happening far away and outside of the world. And now
his reflectiveness has changed to jollity. He points his finger at the
other gentlemen in the sunlounge and roars with laughter. And yet
there's nothing extraordinary to be seen about the gentlemen of
the home. Certainly not something that's odd or ridiculous.

The good old orderly has burst into tears. There is no one to
comfort her. The gentlemen of the home haven't noticed anything
of what's going on yet. That is why she has gone and sat down on
a chair and she laments into her own lap.

'There's nothing wrong with that damned breakfast is there?
There's an egg with it, no less. The other gentlemen don't even
get that when it's their birthday. Just jam. But he does. Because
you want to make him look happy. Because he always looks so
disgruntled. Alright. Perhaps the ham is a little bit discoloured. But
what do you expect with so many people in just one house. For
that's what it is, all said. Just a house. Even if they do call it a
home for the elderly. And then that business of our gentlemen's
poo, too. It all wafts over the food. It does make for smells, that
does. And so the stuff discolours. There's no keeping the ham fresh
then.'

Her sorrow acquires an ever more loquacious character.

"Cause it stinks here, after all. Standing here out on the doorstep,
the smell coming from the letter box already makes me retch. It's a
little warehouse. And just one set of facilities and not a scrap of
ventilation. But I eat here too, you know, myself. What the
gentlemen eat, I eat as well. Alright, the ham's a bit discoloured.
But no way has it gone off.'

Meanwhile, the doctor has entered the home. He is a quiet, placid
man who is no trouble to others. He is most outstandingly a
doctor. He hangs his raincoat (for his wife didn't trust the look of the sky) on the hallstand. A perfectly ordinary raincoat. And yet so
decidedly a doctor's coat that now it almost seems as if the doctor
himself is hanging on the hallstand with his coat.

He tears off a leaf from the calendar which is still showing
August 31. He smiles, a touch nostalgically.

'Ah, yes. Tearing them off. Amputating days from a man's life.'
So the doctor has a reflective nature. Good intuition, too. He
knows already that there's something not quite right in the home,
though, of course, he doesn't know yet that Mr Koopman is sitting
in the chestnut tree.

Before he goes on to the ward, he must just wash his hands first,
at the basin in the toilet. There's always a clean towel hanging
there. For the doctor, specially, to dry his hands once he has
washed them. But there's no towel hanging there now.

'That's really annoying,' the doctor says. 'That's negligence.
Such small things as these are the ones that prevent a doctor from
doing his work properly and which then begin to play a part in
decisions about life and death.'

He isn't in such a good mood at all. He had wanted to do a spot
of gardening in his little garden, but he had to go to the home
because one of the gentlemen had mild symptoms yesterday. So
it's not at all such a festive morning for the doctor.

He goes on to the ward. He's almost sure by now that there are
things going on there and that nothing will come any more of
raking his garden today.

And the orderly is still sitting there lamenting about the breakfast
that Dirk hasn't wished to partake of and about the grotty life she
really has.

The gentlemen of the home have taken advantage of her
slackened attention by making a bit of a party of things, in their
own way.

One of the gentlemen has undressed himself completely and is
walking naked across the ward in macabre sexual display. Other
gents have done naughties on the floor. The stench is such that it
gives the doctor a pain in the nose. He quickly walks over to the
sunlounge to open the garden door. There! Now some fresh air
can come in, at least.

That's how it comes to pass that the doctor sees Mr Koopman
sitting in the chestnut tree.

He's unnerved.

'Heavens,' he says. 'That's Mr Koopman up in the tree.'

So he's no doctor who'll begin to suffer from delusions because
of minor semblances. He's sure not to take Mr Koopman for a
monkey even if he does think the old gentleman looks peculiar.
And so thin. Eerily thin, in fact.

He will check him over thoroughly tomorrow.

That's as may be. So there's the rub: Mr Koopman is sitting in
the tree and that's why the entire home is all of a doodah. Ah,
well; the situation is an unusual one. But from a qualified orderly
you may demand that she can keep control of uncommon situations, too.

He takes a few steps forward so he can get a good view of Mr
Koopman sitting on his branch.

Malevolently, he looks with his fierce, beady little eyes at the
doctor.

However, the doctor is used to much in the field of care for the
elderly.

In a friendly tone, and very calmly, especially, he says: Why
not come out of that tree, Mr Koopman. It's your birthday today,
after all, isn't itT (For the doctor knows all those little, everyday
things about the gentlemen.) 'I've got a packet of chewing tobacco
for you here.'

Quite true, too. He takes out a packet of chewing tobacco from
his pocket which he holds up so Mr Koopman can take a good
look at it.

Quite a festive little lure, really, for a gentleman who's addicted
to chewing tobacco.

But Mr Koopman sticks his little head down, which looks
unusually small, and you would say that he was gathering saliva to
spit on to the pack.

'Don't do that, Mr Koopman,' says the doctor. 'Don't do that.
This tobacco is far too precious for that.'

And he stretches his arm out a little further still to bring the
packet somewhat closer to Mr Koopman's attention so the latter
can see that it really is good tobacco. Of the brand he likes to
chew so much. But Mr Koopman has returned to his previous
position. Quite at ease there among the leaves, and by the look of
things, not in friendly mood. 'Oh, do come down, Mr Koopman.
There's a lovely smell of coffee in the sunlounge. A man of your
age doesn't belong in a tree, surely. You ought to know better.'

By and by, the doctor's voice has become a little more severe. One's approach towards the elderly is a delicate affair. It's of great
importance to find the right tone. This prevents sudden bouts of
aggression and the suffering that in turn is the consequence of
those bouts of aggression.

Meanwhile, the orderly has appeared in the garden with an old
broom stick. Her tears have dried. Her face is now set hard with
angry decisiveness.

Might as well go,' she says to the doctor and she tries to push
him in the direction of the sunlounge. 'I'll see to this. My patience
has run out. D'you hear, Dirk,' she shouts upwards. 'My patience
has run out. Finished!' Her anger seems to amuse Mr Koopman
highly. He dances up and down on his branch as if possessed, like
monkeys can do when they're having fun they would put into
words if only they were human beings.

'You rotten, sodding little monkey. You're taking the mickey
out of me as well.' And she begins to poke about in the leaves of
the tree. But it doesn't touch Dirk. He only goes and sits one
branch higher up and his amusement becomes even more mobile.

'Sodding monkey. Get out of that tree.'

The doctor takes the stick away from her.

'That's not the way, Mrs Wolf. Our gentlemen aren't monkeys.
Though they ought not to climb in trees, of course. But what
d'you expect? Mr Koopman just happens to be slightly senile. Less
usual behaviour is to be expected then. But 'slightly senile' doesn't
mean to say no longer human. So 'monkey' is quite uncalled for.
On the contrary, we must reinforce his still plentifully present
humanity yet further. We must bring that to the fore. This really
does not include calling him a monkey.'

'Slightly senile,' sneers the good orderly. 'That bloke's as senile
as makes no difference. He lets his shit and piss run free like no
tomorrow. The biggest crapmonger in the house. Slightly senile.
No, that's a good one, that is. And then climb the tree too.
Because the ham is a little bit off. Sodding monkey.' All the
hullabaloo surrounding Dirk is now beginning to awaken the
interest of the other gentlemen as well. In the main, the elderly
don't live within the realm of every day. They are too preoccupied
with matters of yesterday about which they tell the most incomprehensible things without ever thinking of stopping. But what's
happening now is most exceptional. Even the gentlemen of the
home notice this. And so the little lawn, hardly blessed with square
metres as it is, slowly runs full of old codgers who really shouldn't be outside at all any more on this no longer radiant September
Sunday morning. It has gone chillier and there's black ink in the
sky, boding rain.